Essay On Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle’s virtues and happiness are intertwines in the fullness of one’s life. Aristotle advocates a life that oscillates from the mean i.e. not too excessive or have an extreme deficiency. The essence of acquiring morals and virtues comes from one’s habits. Since one’s happiness comes from the actions and, therefore, the habits (what one does determine if one is happy or not), is what Aristotle envisioned as happiness if done in moderation.
It is clear that Aristotle approach to happiness differs slightly from a onetime feeling or experience. He asserts that moral excellence concerns pleasures and pains since both influences one’s actions or inactions in one’s life. He, however, introduces the concept of how one is brought up. Here, Aristotle tends to associate happiness with how one responds to pain or delight. In this respect, therefore, happiness may vary from one person to another since pain and pleasure may mean different things to different people.
Aristotle further describes happiness as doing things excellently. Although, he attaches the actions as a means to an end, he makes it clear that for one to be happy, he ought to do what he does on daily basis perfectly. For example, he uses a flutist who ought to play the flutes well. Today, those who do their work well tend to be happy since their work produces good results. Considers a businessman who works hard and makes huge profits; such a person reaps the benefits of satisfactions that may translate to happiness. However, the same person at some point may make losses that would strike a balance between excess and deficiency. One can describe such a man as begin stable. Happiness would, therefore, mean being stable emotionally, financially, socially, and religiously, among other aspects of life i.e. not deviating too much from the mean.