Nicomachean Ethics: What Is the Highest Good?

Aristotle was a student of Plato and the teacher of Alexander the Great, and he wrote about almost everything: science, politics, poetry and how to live.His lectures on how to live a good life were collected in a book named after his son, Nicomachus.

“Every art and every science, and every action and choice, seems to aim at some good.The end of medicine is health, the end of shipbuilding is a ship, and the end of the art of war is victory.But we want most of these things for the sake of something else.If there is one end that we want for its own sake, and want everything else for the sake of it, this must be the highest good.Like archers who can see their target, we are more likely to hit what is right if we know what it is.

Almost everyone agrees on its name: they call it happiness.But they argue about what happiness is.Some say it is pleasure, some say wealth, some say honour; and the same man, when he is ill, calls it health, and when he is poor, calls it wealth.

A flute player’s good lies in playing the flute well, and a carpenter’s good lies in doing his work well.What, then, is the work of a human being?Not simply living, for plants live too, nor feeling, for horses and oxen feel too, but living by reason.So the good of a human being is the activity of the soul in line with excellence, over a whole life.For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day; and in the same way, one day or a short time does not make a person blessed and happy.”