Aristotle's Ethics and Political Philosophy: Happiness, Virtue, and the Ideal State

Aristotle's Ethical Theory: Happiness as the End of Actions

For Aristotle, happiness for man is the ultimate goal. He conceives of happiness in three ways: external goods, goods of the body, and activities of the soul. Aristotle asserts that the unique good is theoretical or contemplative activity.

The Theory of Virtue

Virtue is the strategy for achieving this happiness. Aristotle identifies two types of virtues: dianoetic (intellectual) and ethical (moral).

Happiness as Autarky

Autarky is considered self-reliance and the capacity to be self-sufficient. The happy individual will not need anything or anyone, not even a god.

Aristotle's Political Theory

The City and Citizens

Only in the city, in the sense of the Greek city-state, can man develop fully. The state is also a natural community. What determines the natural institution is that it is converted into a complete member of the city, that is, a citizen.

Political Regimes

The ideal form of government for Aristotle is a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, as it avoids extremes. He calls this ideal political organization politeia.

Being in Act and Being in Potency

Aristotle distinguishes between being in act and being in potency:

• Being in act: What a being is, here and now.
• Being in potency: The ability to become something that one is not yet, but can be.

Aristotle says there is an intermediate way of being, which is the potential to be.

Theory of Hylomorphism

Aristotle elaborates his fundamental theory of being, or hylomorphism. According to this theory, all living things are composed of matter and form. Matter and form are the causes or principles of natural substances. The reason for this superiority is that matter is pure passivity, a mere capacity to receive forms. Form shows how the thing is at a given moment. This composition of hylomorphism allows Aristotle to explain and reconcile change and permanence, unity and multiplicity, and the inability of beings. He maintains that the first philosophers failed to explain birth and appearance in nature because they resorted to only one type of cause. For Aristotle, every embodiment is directed to its own end.

Analysis of Motion

The Concept of Change and its Principles

Change or movement is understood as any modification that beings suffer in their own way of being, or in the aspects in which they are presented, or in their local relations. When change occurs, something is lost, something remains, or something is acquired. There are requirements for change:

• The subject: That which remains in the change.
• The privation: That which is not yet.
• The form: That which is acquired.

There are two types of change: substantial change and accidental change.

Characteristics of the Sophists

• Humanistic concern
• Critical attitude towards institutions
• Skepticism regarding the capacity of human knowledge
• Relativism regarding moral values
• Demand for payment for their services