Aristotle And Kant: The Definition Of Happiness

Register to read the introduction… Once they have asserted that fact, once they have made happiness the most fundamental of all ethical terms, writers like Aristotle or Locke, Aquinas or J. S. Mill, cannot escape the question whether all who seek happiness look for it or find it in the same things.
Holding that a definite conception of happiness cannot be formulated, Kant thinks that happiness fails even as a pragmatic principle of conduct. "The notion of happiness is so indefinite," he writes, "that although every man wishes to attain it, yet he never can say definitely and consistently what it is that he really wishes." He cannot "determine with certainty what would make him truly happy; because to do so he would need to be omniscient." If this is true of the individual, how various must be the notions of happiness which prevail among men in …show more content…
When a man says "l feel happy" he is saying that he feels pleased or satisfied-that he has what he wants. When men contrast tragedy and happiness, they have in mind the quality a life takes from its end. A tragedy on the stage, in fiction, or in life is popularly characterized as "a story without a happy ending." This expresses the general sense that happiness is the quality of a life which comes out well on the whole despite difficulties and vicissitudes along the way. Only ultimate defeat or frustration is tragic.
There appears to be some conflict here between being happy at a given moment and being happy for a life-time, that is, living happily. It may be necessary to choose between having a good time and leading a good life. Nevertheless, in both uses of the word "happy" there is the connotation of satisfaction. When men say that what they want is happiness, they imply that, having it, they would ask for nothing more. If they are asked why they want to be happy, they find it difficult to give any reason except "for its own sake." They can think of nothing beyond happiness for which happiness serves as a means or a preparation. This aspect of ultimacy or finality appears without qualification in the sense of happiness as belonging to a whole life. There is quiescence, too, in the momentary feeling of happiness, but precisely because it does not last, it leaves another and another such moment to be