It has always been man’s life goal to achieve happiness. Through money, power, and pleasure, man has attempted to define the exact item that will help them reach their goal; however, they were looking in all the wrong places. Happiness is not gained through material items or ones social standing. Happiness was achieved by being a virtuous person: one who willed good. Aristotle and Aquinas both shared similar views on the morals of the human race, yet also had dissimilar views. The major difference in their views on virtue was that Aristotle believed that being a virtuous person was a good enough means to be moral, while Aquinas believed that one should be moral because God was willing them to me moral. Although Aristotle and Aquinas had differing views on why to be moral, they both believed that one had to live a moral life to be happy. …show more content…
“He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.” (Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics) Aristotle believed that there are three parts to the human soul: the vegetative virtue, the appetite virtue, and calculative virtue. The vegetative virtue is completely irrational and has nothing to do with virtue. The appetitive virtue is basically irrational, yet subject to the control of reason, and contributes to moral virtue. The appetitive virtue is awed to teaching and good habits. The third part however, the calculative virtue, is strictly rational, and an intellectual virtue. The calculative virtue is owed to teaching. The calculative virtue allows humans to have reason. Due to man’s ability to reason, he is responsible for his own actions. Therefore, man, and man alone, must strive to live a life of virtue and