If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us. Whether it be reason or something else that is this element which is thought to be our natural ruler and guide and to take thought of things noble and divine, whether it be itself also divine or only the most divine element in us, the activity of this in accordance with its proper virtue will be perfect happiness. That this activity is contemplative we have already said.
It's still somewhat surprising that perfect happiness is contemplative. That has already been said, but it isn't obvious even so: most of the virtues are actualized through action, rather than by thinking alone. The courageous man doesn't just think the brave things, but acts on them; it is only in the vita activa that the virtues get to be lived-out.
Now this would seem to be in agreement both with what we said before and with the truth. For, firstly, this activity is the best (since not only is reason the best thing in us, but the objects of reason are the best of knowable objects); and secondly, it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything. And we think happiness has pleasure mingled with it, but the activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities; at all events the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness, and it is to be expected that those who know will pass their time more pleasantly than those who inquire.
It is easy to see how this model pleased later monotheistic thinkers; the ability to contemplate God's perfection and glory is a ready substitute for this model of contemplating what is best in practical life. For Aquinas, the greatest and highest purpose of men is this contemplation of God.
Aristotle is not thinking of religion at all here, however. He is speaking of reason as 'that which is most divine in men,' but the exercise is not a ritual: it's carrying out activity in accord with reason, rather than prayer or imaginations. It's only contemplative in the sense that it is a pleasure to contemplate what is best, highest, most honorable. It's even more of a pleasure to contemplate that you did such things with your time and skill.
And the self-sufficiency that is spoken of must belong most to the contemplative activity. For while a philosopher, as well as a just man or one possessing any other virtue, needs the necessaries of life, when they are sufficiently equipped with things of that sort the just man needs people towards whom and with whom he shall act justly, and the temperate man, the brave man, and each of the others is in the same case, but the philosopher, even when by himself, can contemplate truth, and the better the wiser he is; he can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers, but still he is the most self-sufficient. And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action.
Aristotle first raised the issue that the end of ethics should be self-sufficient in I.4, there as a possibility that should be sought if it could be found. It turns out that philosophical contemplation is a good you can have even by yourself, whereas most of the virtues require someone to act upon -- to treat justly, or to be brave against, or the like. Thus, since this is the most self-sufficient of the possible goods, it has the standing that we have been looking for from the beginning of the inquiry.
And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.
Is that why we make war? We seem to be staging up for a war in Venezuela right now, which it would be possible to live in peace without fighting. Wars of choice were well known in the Athenian era, too: the best story from those days is Thermopylae, where the war was unchosen and forced and where a few stood against many. Yet Xenophon's story, which we spent last winter with, was all about Greek mercenaries going to fight in someone else's war for profit and because they were good at it.
Now the activity of the practical virtues is exhibited in political or military affairs, but the actions concerned with these seem to be unleisurely.
Indeed. Von Clausewitz: "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult."
Warlike actions are completely [unleisurely] (for no one chooses to be at war, or provokes war, for the sake of being at war; any one would seem absolutely murderous if he were to make enemies of his friends in order to bring about battle and slaughter); but the action of the statesman is also unleisurely, and-apart from the political action itself-aims at despotic power and honours, or at all events happiness, for him and his fellow citizens-a happiness different from political action, and evidently sought as being different. So if among virtuous actions political and military actions are distinguished by nobility and greatness, and these are unleisurely and aim at an end and are not desirable for their own sake, but the activity of reason, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in serious worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself (and this augments the activity), and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as this is possible for man), and all the other attributes ascribed to the supremely happy man are evidently those connected with this activity, it follows that this will be the complete happiness of man, if it be allowed a complete term of life (for none of the attributes of happiness is incomplete).
It is true that being a philosopher is more self-sufficient than war; war needs an army or two. It is much more leisurely; and it doesn't tend to make one weary. All the same, speaking practically, I enjoyed war a lot more than I usually enjoy peace. For that matter, I enjoyed the rescue operations in the hurricane better than I enjoy peace.
In a way this should be unsurprising: in those situations in which 'everything is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult,' it's easy to know what reason directs you to do next. The necessity of the problem drives you and those you are working with to align your efforts in accord with reason, and to pursue the next virtuous thing: the brave thing, sometimes the just thing, the self-disciplined thing.
That seems to be eudaimonia as Aristotle has described it: it is the life of the warrior. Yet here, at the end, we get an endorsement of a much less active and more leisurely life. Philosophers tend to love this part of the book, as it seems to endorse their mode of life as the highest of all possible ones for human beings. I admit that I've always found this section's conclusions implausible.
But such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue. If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything. This would seem, too, to be each man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It would be strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but that of something else. And what we said before' will apply now; that which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man, therefore, the life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the happiest.
So there you go. If Aristotle's analysis is right, you now know how to be happy. Go and do it, if it seems right to you that you should.
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