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Comparing Aristotle, John Stuart Mill And Friedrich Nietzsche

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Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche have all published works on what constitutes a flourishing and vibrant human life. After reading and discussing these authors’ views, I found that Aristotle’s view of a flourishing life challenges the one that I currently hold. By comparing my views with those of Aristotle, I am able to discover the elements of a flourishing life that currently hold the most importance in my existence.
Aristotle believes that a vibrant, flourishing life requires the fulfillment of a broad range of conditions, including physical and mental well-being. The main belief that Aristotle has presented is that a life that is well lived contains moral virtue. He emphasizes that virtues are done through habit, and that they manifest themselves in actions. Aristotle considers one to …show more content…

In Greek, the word eudaimonia is often translated to happiness, and it means that happiness should be the final end or goal that each person aims for in their life. He also believes that it cannot be determined whether someone lived a happy, fulfilled life until it is over, because it is measured by how well one has lived up to their full potential as a human being, and is not based off of pleasurable sensations that only last temporarily. In order to have a vibrant life, we must make choices that focus on the future and deliver long term pleasure, instead of choosing tempting, immediate pleasure. Similarly, Aristotle believes that what makes human beings different from the rest of the animal kingdom is that we can practice reason. Humans are capable of acting based on principles, and can take responsibility of their decisions. Due to using reason to solve problems and exercising rational potential, human beings cannot be fulfilled by mere pleasure because of their higher capacities than pure pleasure-seeking

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Rosalind Hursthouse has a very different opinion on abortion and does not relate it to the murder of children or the rights of women. Instead, she justifies it through what a virtuous person would do. In the case study with the Thompson’s, Hursthouse would relate it to the relevance of the familiar biological facts and how pregnancy is a known result of sexual intercourse. The fact that Linda’s fetus is four months old would not be of relevance in Hursthouse’s opinion as clear lines are not visible as to when the fetus is attached and developed. The main focus of Hursthouse would be to question whether the abortion would be a result of a person acting “virtuously or viciously or neither” (Hursthouse 474).

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Genuine happiness lies in action that leads to virtue according to Aristotle and this is seen

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This principle lies at the heart of the great-souled man, the first of Aristotle’s peaks of humanly excellence. The great-souled man is chiefly concerned with—and strikes the mean with—external goods. The greatest of these goods is “the one that we assign to the gods, and at which people of high standing aim most of all, and which is the prize given for the most beautiful deeds; and of this kind is honor” (67:1123b19-21). A man who has achieved greatness of soul is deserving of great honors, but more importantly, he understands his own desert and acts appropriately.

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1867 Words | 8 Pages

Pleasure is not coincidental to the great life; it is the sentiment fulfillment we have when living well. Living well is more similar to a definitive estimation of your life as lived up to this minute, measuring how well you have satisfied your maximum capacity as an

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1594 Words | 7 Pages

However, philosophers of the past strived not for happiness, but rather, simply a ‘good life’. While Augustine, Epicurus, Epictetus, and Plato all have different definitions of a good life and different portrayals of how to live in order to have a good life, Plato’s view is ultimately the best because his concept of a harmonized soul allows people to overcome any difficulty. One method of determining whether a philosopher’s

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1210 Words | 5 Pages

Our rationality and reason give us the ability to distinguish between good and bad, just and unjust, and to assess whether or not we are good people. It also gives us the capability to understand and perform higher intellectual activities. The three alternatives can also be said to be split into 2 categories, the rational part of the soul and the non-rational part of the soul. The life of growth and perception falls

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1991 Words | 8 Pages

To be able to achieve happiness, you must be alive. To be alive, you must need food , and you must have a certain level of health. Without these two things, you would die, and therefore not able to achieve eudaimonia, which is again a main goal in human life. Aristotle seems to have a similar view that I do on this particular situation. Aristotle says that what the Stoics call indifferences are needed to be able to achieve eudaimonia.

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1046 Words | 5 Pages

The Goal of Life In order to judge the importance of these values in enriching our lives, we must first define what makes a life enriched. Mustapha Mond, a Controller in Brave New World, would argue that happiness is the most important aspect of life and that the best life has the greatest amount of happiness. This is similar to the philosopher Epicurus’ belief that man should maximize pleasure and minimize pain in order to live a ‘blessed life’; happiness being used interchangeably with pleasure in this text (360).

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1642 Words | 7 Pages

Here, Aristotle means that to engage in the relevant actions and activities, the presence of external goods is indispensable. We need people around us to act in a just manner; to engage in courageous activity, one needs to face some dangerous situations; to exercise magnificence, one needs to be in possession of some material goods; and so on and so forth. Thus, the performance of activities and actions in accordance with the virtues requires some external

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827 Words | 4 Pages

According to Aristotle, an individual can achieve happiness only by realizing all the works and activities in accordance with reason throughout his lifetime. He claimed that happiness consists in cultivating and exercising virtue and it is the ultimate purpose of human existence, as stated in his work Nicomachean Ethics “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”. However, such Aristotelian concept of happiness inevitably contradicts the understanding of history as development which maintains that fulfilling the work of human exceeds the limits of an individual and thus can only be achieved in the course of history. Three

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1087 Words | 5 Pages

In his more specific discourse on the nature of happiness, Aristotle comes to the conclusion that happiness lies in the contemplative life because “contemplation is the highest form of activity” (Aristotle 268). Aristotle views the activities of the mind to be the most sophisticated element of human life, and thus he believes the greatest good must come from the greatest aspect of life. In this view of happiness, Aristotle assumes that “happiness is an activity in accordance with virtue,” and that in order to live the contemplative life, one must also live a morally virtuous life (Aristotle 270). This connection between morality and contemplation coincides with Aristotle’s view of the superiority of contemplation over all other human activities.

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1413 Words | 6 Pages

It is critical to recognize Mill’s argument that a degree of contentment can exist in periods of less happiness. However, Aristotle’s view of perceiving wellbeing or goodness as ultimate is more pronounced. Worth emphasizing, Aristotle deeply explores his arguments basing them on functions of a rational man and virtues out of habits. Today, a virtuous citizen is one whose actions are inward, in response to conscience and moral obligations as a member of society. Such a person, not waivered with intensities of pleasures, honor, and wealth but seeks to have a satisfactory level of happiness with friends, co-workers, and family among other

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459 Words | 2 Pages

Many philosophers, notably Aristotle (384-322 BC), produced a list of things that comprise quality of life writing specifically about “the good life” and “living well” and how public policy can help to foster it. In his work, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explained that eudaimonia means “doing and living well” and he used this term in the context of the highest human good. His treatise also examined the character traits that human beings need in order to live their lives in the best way. Another philosopher Epicurus created ethical theory of hedonism. He identified the eudaemonic life as the life of pleasure where eudaimonia is a more or less continuous experience of pleasure, just as freedom from pain and

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the history, there have been heated discussions on what constitutes a good life. Philosophers have given different annotations on the meaning of good life based on their beliefs, perspectives or even scientific-based evidences. Some view a good life as an accumulation of material goods that brings “large amount” of pleasure to oneself. On the other hand, Mencius and Aristotle advocate good life as possessing of pleasure that incorporates ethical values and they believe that by doing so one will experience enduring happiness. There is no ultimate right or wrong for these interpretations since this is not a factual question.

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908 Words | 4 Pages

At the end of everyone’s lives, the goal appears to be about attaining happiness. Describing how to obtain happiness has been an issue that was debated in the past but is still talked about now . In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle expands on his view of happiness and he focuses particularly on how reason helps recognize and pursue what will lead to happiness and the good life. I feel that Aristotle’s philosophies on happiness are important works within the field of philosophy and he considered one of the………of it . In this paper, I will explore Aristotle’s beliefs regarding happiness then compare and contrast them to those of Martin Seligman.

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