Aristotle's View Of The Function Of Happiness

This article mainly discusses the happiness in the sense of ethics from the perspective of Aristotle's view of functional happiness.Aristotle built a bridge between virtue and happiness through the functional definition of virtue.He believes that happiness lies in the outstanding performance of the essential functions of people and things,virtue,on the other hand,is a good function for people and things to be in good condition and to act as if they were in good condition.This brings us a very valuable spiritual wealth to understand and study happiness,which has a important theoretical and practical significance.This article will discuss Aristotle's concept of functional happiness from the following four parts.The first part is the study of Aristotle's discussion of several kinds of happy life.From the three kinds of happy lives,the hedonistic life and the political life are incomplete happy lives,the contemplative life is the most complete happy life,and the intellectual virtue required for the contemplative life is pointed out.Then from the life of contemplation is the life that a very few philosophers can lead,it leads to the second best life--the moral life,which is the happy life that most people can live,and points out the ethical virtue that this life requires.The second part is the study of Aristotle's relationship between function and happiness.From the three typical views of the relationship between virtue and happiness,Aristotle's view that "virtue is an important condition for happiness" is due to the fact that virtue is functional.Happiness is the realization of function,thus interpreting Aristotle's relationship between function,virtue,and happiness from the perspective of functional realization.The third part is to study Aristotle's understanding of the realization of a happy life.The author makes the relevant interpretation from two aspects:the basic elements of realizing a happy life and the main factors of measuring a happy life.The fourth part is the study of the effect and evaluation of Aristotle's concept of functional happiness.This paper discusses the influence of his concept of functional happiness from two aspects:his thoughts of virtue and his thoughts of function and his development of later generations,and his evaluation of his concept of functional happiness from two aspects:meaning and revelation.