Happiness and Intelligence—Book 10

     In Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle seeks to explain what it means to live a good life. He uses the term eudaimonia, which is understood as being happy in a sense of living well or flourishing. He says that “happiness is activity in conformity with virtue, [so] it is to be expected that it should conform with the highest virtue, and that is the virtue of the best part of us” (Eth. Nic., 1177a10). Happiness is self-sufficient and is an activity desirable for its own sake, which is what makes it in conformity with virtue. The activities that matter, namely, those that contribute to eudaimonia, will be those that are grounded in what Aristotle calls the highest virtue. He describes the highest virtue as something in which “its very nature rules and guides us and which gives us our notions of what is noble and divine; whether it is itself divine or the most divine thing in us; it is the activity of this part when operating in conformity with the excellence or virtue proper to it that will complete happiness” (Eth. Nic., 1177a15). He goes on to define intelligence as the highest possession we have in us, the highest attribute man can obtain, and the best part of him. From this, it can be understood that for man to be able to live well and possess a life of eudaimonia, he must cultivate his intelligence. It can be taken a step further to say that the completeness of one’s happiness, or eudaimonia, depends on how well one uses his intelligence in a manner that aligns with Aristotle’s description—it must rule and guide us towards appropriate things and work towards excellence and virtue.