Good and Happiness.
This idea is usually a concern of Ethics, Aesthetics, and Axiology.
“Most commonly used in a broad, Platonic context to refer to goodness in general or the form or property by which good things are good. Platonists have traditionally held that the goodness of particular things and acts are good in virtue of the property the Good.”1
However, the notion of the good is extremely complex. “Plato, in the Republic, claimed that the good, while being the source of being and knowledge, is beyond conceptual analysis. This position was developed by Plotinus and Aquinas.”2
Aristotle suggested that the “good is that to which everything aspires, but argued that the word is used in many ways and belongs to each category.”3
Happiness
“All ethical theories accord some importance to human happiness. The simplest doctrine is that happiness is itself quite straightforward, consisting for example in
occasion of pleasure; that agents only do seek their own happiness; and that there is no other possible or desirable end of action.”4
We are no done with the definition of the two terms. But at this point it must be clear to us that our topic is about good and happiness, so we will follow the line of thinking of Aristotle.
The Highest Good: Happiness
For Aristotle, “Every craft and every investigation, and likewise every action and decision, seems to aim at some good; hence the good has been well described as that at which everything aims. However, there is an apparent difference among the ends aimed at. For the end is sometimes an activity, sometimes a product beyond activity; and when there is an end beyond action, the product is by nature better than the activity. Since there are many actions, crafts and sciences, the ends turn out to be many as well; for health is the end of medicine, a boat of boatbuilding, victory of general ship, and wealth of household management.But whatever any of these sciences are subordinate to someone capacity…..in each end of these the end of the ruling science is more choice worthy than all the ends subordinate to it, since it is the end for which those ends are also pursued. And here it does not matter whether the ends of the actions are the activities themselves, or some product beyond them, as in the sciences we have mentioned.”5
For many, it is something obvious and evident, e.g. pleasure, wealth, and honor. Some likewise thinks other things apart from those mentioned earlier on.
But now, let us begin again from the common beliefs from which we digress. For, it would seem, people quite reasonably reach their conception of the good; i.e. of happiness, from the lives they lead; for there are roughly three most favoured lives – the lives of gratification, of political activity, and third, of study.
The many, the most vulgar, seemingly conceive the good and happiness as pleasure, and hence they also like the life of gratification. Here they appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life grazing animals; and yet they have some argument in their defense, since many in positions of power feel the same way as Sardanapalus.
The cultivated people, those active in politics, conceived the good as honor, since this is the end normally pursued in the political life. This, however, appears to be too superficial to be what we are seeking, since it seems to depend more on those who honor than on the one honored, whereas we intuitively believe that the good is something of our own and hard to take from us.
Perhaps, indeed, one might conceive virtue more than honor to be the end of the political life. However, this also is apparently too incomplete to be the good. For, it seems, someone might possess virtue but be asleep or inactive throughout his life; or, further, he might suffer the worst evils and misfortunes; and if this is the sort of life he
leads, no one would count him happy, except to defend a philosopher’s paradox.
The third life is the life of study. The money- maker’s life is in way forced on him not chosen for itself; and clearly wealth is not the good we are seeking, since it is merely useful, choice worthy only for some other end. Hence one would be more inclined to suppose that any of the good mentioned earlier is the end, since they are liked for themselves. But apparently, they are not the end either; and many arguments have been presented against them.
Our own view of Good6
Though apparently, there are many ends, we choose some of them, e.g. wealth, flutes and, in general, instruments, because of something else; hence it is clear that not all ends are complete. But the best good is apparently something complete. Hence, if only one end is complete, this will be what we are looking for; and if more than one are complete, the most complete of these will be what we are looking for.
An end pursued in itself, we say, is more complete than an end pursued because of something else; and an end that is never choice worthy because of something else is more complete than ends that are choice worthy both in themselves and because of this end; and hence an end that is always choice worthy, and also choice worthy in itself, never because of something else, is complete without reservation.
Now happiness more than anything else seems complete without reservation, since we always choose it, and also choose it because of itself, never because of something else.
The same conclusion that happiness is complete also appears to follow from self-sufficient, since the complete good seems to be self-sufficient.
Anyhow, we regard something as self-sufficient when all by itself it makes a life choice worthy and lacking nothing; and that is why we think happiness does.
Moreover, the complete good is most choice worthy, and we think happiness is most choice worthy of all goods, since it is not counted as one good among many. If it were counted as one among many, then, clearly, we think that the addition of the smallest goods would make it more choice worthy; for the smallest good that is added becomes an extra quantity of goods so creating a good larger than the original good, and the larger of two goods is always more choice worthy. But we do not think any addition can make happiness more choice worthy; hence it is most choice worthy.
Happiness, then, is apparently something complete and self-sufficient, since it is the end of the things pursued in action.
Everything has an end: there is no action without an end. Yet this end does not only apply to man alone. But rather, irrational nature also tends to an end but led by another. On the other hand, what is peculiar to the spiritual creature is not just to act for an end but to direct himself to an end.
Meaning to say, there is a deliberation of the will. All actions that gears towards its end is human acts because they flow from the free will of man. But every human acts are not done for nothing but rather it is done with a view to an end or object. Meaning to say, all human acts are for the sake of their end.
“Therefore, those actions are properly called human which proceed from a deliberate will. And if any other actions are found in man, they can be called actions of a man, but not properly human actions, since they are not proper to man as man. Now it is clear that whatever actions proceed from a power, are caused by that power in accordance with the nature of its object. But the object of the will is the end and the good. Therefore all human actions must be for an end.”7
There should be an end as St. Thomas asserted because it is impossible to go on ad infinitum, since if there is no first end in the intention nothing would be desired and nothing will move. Having no end is tantamount to denying also the real motivation for human activity.
“Consequently, on neither side is it possible to go to infinity since if there were no last end, nothing would be desired, nor would any action have its term, nor would the intention of the agent be at rest; while if there is no first thing among those that are ordained to the end, none would begin to work at anything, and counsel would have no term, but would continue indefinitely.”8
Furthermore, the will desires the fullness of goodness, the real of goodness. What we look for is a complete good which means a perfect one. This complete goodness is found only in God. He is the Supreme Goodness who is the final cause and final end
Now, in this life, as human being acts towards his end which is the complete one, he also achieves happiness but it is not as such the last end, but only consequence of loving God, who is the real end. Now, the question is, can we achieve perfect happiness in this life? We can only achieve happiness in this life only imperfectly.
“Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence. To make this clear, two points must be observed. First, that man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek: secondly, that the perfection of any power is determined by the nature of its object. Now the object of the intellect is “what a thing is,” i.e. the essence of a thing, according to De Anima iii, 6. Wherefore the intellect attains perfection, in so far as it knows the essence of a thing. If therefore an intellect knows the essence of some effect, whereby it is not possible to know the essence of the cause, i.e. to know of the cause “what it is”; that intellect cannot be said to reach that cause simply, although it may be able to gather from the effect the knowledge of that the cause is. Consequently, when man knows an effect, and knows that it has a cause, there naturally remains in the man the desire to know about the cause, “what it is.” And this desire is one of wonder, and causes inquiry, as is stated in the beginning of the Metaphysics (i, 2). For instance, if a man, knowing the eclipse of the sun, consider that it must be due to some cause, and know not what that cause is, he wonders about it, and from wondering proceeds to inquire. Nor does this inquiry cease until he arrives at a knowledge of the essence of the cause.
“If therefore the human intellect, knowing the essence of some created effect, knows no more of God than “that He is”; the perfection of that intellect does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there remains in it the natural desire to seek the cause. Wherefore it is not yet perfectly happy. Consequently, for perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God as with that object, in which alone man’s happiness consists, as stated above (AA[1],7; Q[2], A[8]).”9
Eastern and Western Concept of Happiness
On one hand, for the Westerners, happiness is the perfect good which satisfies the desire of man that the world cannot give. If man wants to achieve perfect happiness, he must seek the ultimate Good that will complete his own desire. Furthermore, he can only seek this perfect happiness if he is in union with God.
On the other hand, the Easterners have also their view of happiness, especially on a famous school of thought – Buddhism. In the Buddhism, they have this concept of suffering as “an essential facts of life on earth.”10 Thus, in order for man to liberate from suffering, he must learn the Eightfold Path for it is the means to end suffering. Once suffering is ended, man will attain Nirvana, the “summum bonum of Buddhism.”11 If man is able to reach this Nirvana, then he will be called Arhat. Thus, “happiness for Buddhism is achieved through the control of all hankering for the world (of sense pleasure) and a dejection of all craving for its false values, by a realization of the impermanence of things in the world. Complete elimination of this hankering is achieved only with the attainment of Nirvana.”12
Comparison:
The two sides concerning happiness aims for good. This good is also seen on pleasures and desires. But then, they both aim for a perfect happiness that is beyond seeking pleasure and desire. Hence, they go for an end – telos – that is, to attain happiness. Furthermore, they both show that man must accept the fact that the world is imperfect and the only happiness that they can attain are not enough to attain the perfect happiness. Hence, happiness is achieved to something that is the end – a blissful state.
Common Good and Private Good.
“A coherent concept of common good also excludes an extreme version of holism, as represented, for instance, by the idealism of Plato or Hegel, considering the state as the ultimate end of the individual, who exists for the sake of the whole. In reality, good citizens are supposed to like the community they belong to because the goal at which it aims – virtuous activity is the ultimate good at which human beings should aim.”13
“Nevertheless, in the ancient and medieval Aristotelian way of thinking the common and the individual good were seen as typically existing in harmony with one another rather than in a state of conflict.”14
For while the good of an individual is a desirable thing, what is good for a people or for cities is a nobler and more godlike thing. This argument combines what might otherwise be seen as mutually exclusive alternatives: the statement that the common good is the same as the individual good, and the principle that the common good is superior to the individual good.
Aquinas begins by arguing for the primacy of the contemplative over the active life. The contemplative life has more value for reasons that come very close to the list in Aristotle: the contemplative life involves reason, is divine and the most self-sufficient, and can be continuous. Contemplation provides delight and leisure Aquinas connects charity to love of God and friendship with God.
Within this question on the relationship of the virtues, Aquinas addresses whether or not charity can exist without faith and hope. He uses the image of human friendships applied to our friendship with God to answer the question. Charity indicates mutual friendship as a communion of love with God.
In summary, Aristotle considers friendships of equals to be mutually benevolent and to involve spending time together in shared contemplation and study. Virtue friendship includes the forming of the self through virtuous activities carried out in light of the friendship. The contemplative life is the highest form of life and requires friends, partly because people contemplate themselves through their friends. Augustine adds a Christian element to the question and explicitly states that all friends come from God and that friendship should be rooted in pursuit of God. God builds and transforms our friendship though grace.
FOOTNOTES
1A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion, s.v. “Good.”
2The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy, s.v. “Good.”
3Ibid.
4Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, s.v. “Happiness.”
5Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 274.
6Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 277-279.
7ST I-II, q.1. a.2.
8ST I-II, q.1. a.4.
9ST I-II, q.3. a.8.
10Magdalena Villaba, Philosophy of the East, (Manila: UST Publishing House, 2005), 86.
11Ibid., 95.
12Ibid.
13Richard Kraut, Aristotle: Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 353.
14Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law and Church Law, 1150–1625 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1997), 313.
Read Further:
Aquinas and Happiness (pursuit-of-happiness.org) | Aristotle And His Definition Of Happiness – Overview (pursuit-of-happiness.org)