Aristotle believed that human life was purposive and has a final cause, or telos, i.e. an end reason behind it. He felt that every human action or pursuit is to aim towards the good. This could be achieved by “being good, or being good at it”. For instance, either taking the higher purpose approach by being good (virtuous or just) in itself and for the sake of itself (the ultimate goal), or merely being good at one’s functions (i.e. performing your task within society well and fulfilling your role – Artistotle provides the examples of shipbuilding or making money). In Aristotle’s Ethics, he also goes onto explain that the highest aim or purpose of life is distinguished as eudaimonia (attaining fulfilment, happiness or human flourishing).
The derivation of happiness from leading a just life, arises easily if we consider the opposite. What is anger? Anger arises from feeling wronged, as though we have been dealt an injustice. Contrary to this then, we could assume that by being just or being treated justly would lead to us feeling happy. But is it as clear cut as this? For Artistotle, happiness arises from striving towards good and living a good life but he admits that “when it comes to saying in what happiness consist, opinions differ” (1095a) and view of happiness are supported by popular beliefs. He states that the “generality of mankind”, “the masses” and the “most vulgar” (whom he describes as distinct from “the wise”) take happiness to be something obvious and familiar e.g. “pleasure or money or eminence”:
“The utter servility of the masses comes out in their preference for a bovine existence” (1095b).
Aristotle eludes that animals and children cannot be happy because they do not or have not yet developed the rational side to their soul or mind. I would argue that perhaps the contrary is true, but it depends upon our definition of happiness. Perhaps animals and children (and in fact the “bovine” masses) are not happy, they are just stupid (or too ignorant to know otherwise) – as they say, ignorance is bliss.
So, what is happiness? In my opinion there is no such thing as long term happiness, it is a merely ephemeral state – a distraction from the real world and other feelings. For the “bovine” population perhaps these distractions come more easily to them as general “quick win” pleasures suffice to distract them sufficiently. However, I would argue that for the wise, distractions from the other aspects of life become harder to come by. In the end people create their own distractions, these come in the form of religion, money, family, children, volunteering, or activities such as watching television, reading, or talking with friends – in fact anything to escape from the suffering of life (something Freud described as our primal death (or thanatos) drives which are part of our id. We are all just trying to escape from our lives. Artistotle believed that we all have a function to play, but perhaps he is just one of the many who found his form of distraction through a function where his function was philosophising, learning, and even teaching. Performing this activity brought him a sense of purpose. We create purpose for ourselves through our activities, for without a feeling of purpose and value we would not perform these activities. Our purpose is merely to live, but with no aim and without distraction of some sort we would not continue for we would realise there is no point, end reason or telos. Telos is a state of mind.
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