The Role of Human Function in Defining Happiness

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the Aristotelian concept of “human function” is at the heart of understanding the moral concept of “happiness” (εὐδαιμονία). There are many controversies related to Aristotle’s account on happiness. My statement is that we can gain a better insight on happiness by reference to “human function” (τὸἔργοντοῦἀνθρώπου), provided that we understand what the philosopher meant by this latter concept. According to Aristotle, happiness is the highest good for humans and the human good is a proper exercise of the human function. Thus, the understanding of happiness relies on the understanding of human function, because human good and perfection depend, in Aristotle’s account, on the proper exercise of this function. Aristotle gives a complex account on reason, but in the tenth book of Nicomachean Ethics he seems to support an intellectualist view on happiness, i.e. a view which only makes reference to the activity in accordance with the virtue appropriate to the most elevated part of our soul. In other words, contemplation would equal happiness. However, such a narrow view would contradict Aristotle’s comprehensivist approach in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics. An intellectualist account would be in contradiction with Aristotle’s definition of eudaimonia from the first book of Nicomachean Ethics. Contemplation alone is not happiness, but it is a special type of happy life. However, happiness comprises other “goods” as well, since the human function refers to the complex part of the soul which is reason.