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Unit 3: Aristotle’s Life and His Conception of Human Nature and State

undertaken for their own sake. Happiness, for Aristotle, was not a state of mind or feeling, but Notes
referred to the quality of life in the organized and active expression of one’s powers and capacities.
In other words, it was defined in terms of a function in accordance with a person’s virtue or excellence.
Happiness was identified with Good, identified as the object of human endeavour. Good varied
according to different categories: in quality, it referred to justice; in quantity, to moderation; and in
time, to opportunity. He therefore rejected the notion of unified Good in its transcendental sense.
In the Rhetoric, Aristotle regarded a life of sufficiency and self-reliance as being a happy one. A
pleasant life would be one with abundant possessions, security of property, good family and
social status. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he clarified it as ethical virtue and pursuit of reason. In the
Eudemian Ethics, he contended that to live meant to know, to think collectively, implying that
individual and social consciousness were intertwined.

For Aristotle, rational and irrational were two qualities of a soul. The irrational aspect was further
subdivided into vegetative and appetitive. The vegetative part was common to plants, animals
and humans, for it contributed to the growth of the organism by controlling nutrition, excretion
and other bodily functions. It related to the unconscious aspect, for it functioned best when the
body was asleep. The appetitive aspect was the emotional side of a human person.
The rational aspect, on the contrary, was limited to the human person only. It referred to the
deliberate and conscious aspects, and could be developed to its full potential through discipline
and purposeful direction. It was natural for an individual to contemplate and act rationally, for
that led to happiness. Aristotle then concerned himself with the means and conditions under
which an individual could be happy. Happiness was attained by the exercise of two types of
virtues, the ethical and the intellectual.
Intellectual virtue was the knowledge of final causes, and that included “practical wisdom”
(phronesis) or a virtuous ethical behaviour, and “wisdom” (sophia) or the knowledge of eternal and
unchanging objects. Aristotle personally favoured a life devoted to contemplation, viewing it as
the best and highest form of human activity, and stating in the Ethics the reasons for his preference.
Reason (nous) was the best guide, and contemplation meant a continuous and a pleasant activity
which could be exercised for its own sake. It was a divine activity. But Aristotle realized that a life
devoted to pure contemplation was ennobling for the individual who was partly and not wholly
divine. Only a philosopher could realize a life of contemplation, for he alone was the one who
needed the least of external goods. However, a philosopher should live among people and act in
a manner that exemplified ethical virtues.
Ethical virtues involved bravery in battle (courage), honesty in business dealings (justice) and
generosity towards one’s city and friends, magnificence and liberality. An ethically virtuous
individual had self-esteem, enabling one to assess one’s worth to the community (magnanimity,
proper ambition) in a proper perspective. It implied that such a person would be temperamentally
balanced, reliable, amiable and moderate. It was possible to acquire these qualities within the polis
through active participation in its institutions. Moral virtue, according to Aristotle, could not be
taught, for it was a product of right actions instilled through habit, training and discipline. The
emphasis was to acquire excellence by doing rather than knowing the right thing. In the context of
defining ethical virtues, Aristotle formulated his notion of the “Golden Mean” or “Nothing in
excess”, which in simple words meant moderation. It is interesting to note that the idea of
moderation was so deeply entrenched in the Greek psyche, that by the end of the classical era it
had become one of the grand dicta of the Hellenic world.
In the Ethics, Aristotle explained in great detail the working logic of the mean. For instance,
courage was a mean between cowardice and recklessness. Similarly, temperance was a mean
between abstinence and self-indulgence, generosity between meanness and extravaganza, modesty

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