In Chapter 7 Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle provides his general account of eudaimonia or his general account of what it means to live a good human life. The answer he gives is that the good human life consists of “activity of the soul in accordance with reason” that is “accomplished in accordance with virtue” taking place “over a complete life.”

Now that we have this answer from Aristotle, we should ask: does this conception of eudaimonia fit Aristotle’s own criteria for eudaimonia? From his discussion of the nature of happiness in Chapters 1-7 we were able to glean five different criteria that Aristotle believes something must meet in order to qualify as eudaimonia: it must be the end of all human activity, it must be more worthy of choice than any other end, it must be unique to the human species, it must be something that is (at least to a large extent) within our control to achieve, and it must be both complete and self-sufficient.

So, does activity in accordance with reason, accomplished in accordance with virtue, and practiced over a complete life, meet all these criteria? The purpose of this video will be to answer that question with particular emphasis on the question of whether eudaimonia, as Aristotle conceives of it, is both complete without qualification and self-sufficient.

This video is a supplemental lecture that is meant to expand upon some material that is covered in the lecture entitled “The Function Argument.” You can find a link to that video in the description section below.

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For the pdf document used in this video see: [ Ссылка ]

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Below are previous lectures on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics:

(1) The Nature and Science of “the Good”: [ Ссылка ]

(2) Happiness, Eudaimonia, and Flourishing: [ Ссылка ]

(3) The Function Argument: [ Ссылка ]

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