Tentative Response: The Purpose of Life

3.  What is the highest good that people can achieve? (The Greek word he uses is eudaimonia.)

               Throughout our in-class discussions about Plato and Aristotle we have constantly used vague terminology like "reach the top" or "highest good" to characterize an end goal--the purpose of a human life. Since both philosophers are very society-oriented: describing the function of politics in maintaining order, preventing conflict, and focusing on the arête of the social hierarchy in order to emphasize a just system, we rarely discuss the individual mentalities and personal goals of the people. Aristotle's use of eudaemonia as the supreme good presents a segue concerning the happiness of every individual. Although contemplation, acting on one's beliefs (possibly) to benefit the rest of humanity, is correlated with eudaemonia in "The Nicomachean Ethics," Aristotle suggests a paradox on how to determine if one truly has reached their goal of happiness. He deliberates that happiness cannot be a feeling but a state that one achieves at the end of their life, but then would we only be able to consider a person happy after their death? If contemplation goes hand-in-hand with eudaemonia, would one only be happy after the public has experienced the positive effect of one's beliefs in action? 

                 The concept of an eternal, constant, harmless and independent happiness seems to be the only logical answer. The highest good must be so sufficient that there is nothing more one could want or need that is greater than it. A happiness that is eternal is irrelevant of time span and whether the individual is nearing the end of his/her lifespan. At any one moment, the derivative of one's life shows a linear happiness; thus its constancy proves that happiness is not a fleeting feeling. Furthermore, a happiness not dependent on the harm it may cause others coincides with Plato's utopia which eradicates conflict or any unbalance of power. In fact, contrasting with contemplation, a happiness independent of its impact on anyone (positive or negative), qualifies it as not only the highest good, but also the purest good. Since wants and needs are simply attempts to fulfill this appetite for happiness, the highest good could only be abolishing any craving for happiness by realizing a single, constant, unifying happiness.