PHIL 120 · Ethics and Political Philosophy — Eudaimonia and the Human Good

Led by Aristotle

The opening module of the Cambridge Part IA Ethics and Political Philosophy paper, led by Aristotle. What is a human life for? Aristotle argues that the highest good is eudaimonia — flourishing, an activity rather than a feeling — and reaches it by asking what a human being is for: the function argument. The module clears away pleasure, honour, wealth, and Plato's Form of the Good, and shows flourishing to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, over a whole life.

1. Module 1 ○ Open

   Eudaimonia and the Human Good

   Led by Aristotle

   The question

   What is the highest good for a human being — the thing we ultimately want for its own sake, and for the sake of which we want everything else? Aristotle argues it is *eudaimonia*, flourishing, but that almost everyone mistakes what this is: it is not pleasure, honour, wealth, or a Platonic Form, because the human good must be an activity we perform well, our own and final, and achievable in real life. By asking what a human being is characteristically *for* — the function argument — he concludes that flourishing is the excellent activity of the rational soul, the exercise of virtue across a whole life. The module asks the student to weigh this answer and prepares the question it forces next: what, then, is virtue?

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