Similarities Between Brooks And Aristotle

Happiness is not merely a simple emotion that a person can experience; it is a way of life that many try to attain through both material and non-physical ways. Arthur C. Brooks concludes that a person should “Love people, use things” and Aristotle counters this mindset by believing that “happiness is an activity of the soul” and while both persons consider that happiness is achieved, each individual has a different conclusion as to how to attain happiness. Although both Brooks and Aristotle agree that life is not about pleasure and physical monetary objects, they differ in the way to achieve happiness and how to apply it to life as Brooks advocates for the individual to be happy by denouncing worldly pleasures while Aristotle wants the greater mass to achieve happiness together through politics.
Arthur C. Brooks tries to create the argument that a person cannot live a happy life if they have a life that is ruled by unhappiness. One explanation Brooks provides for this is that people face the paradox throughout life where a person becomes addicted to an extrinsic …show more content…
Aristotle believes that everyone strives to have a virtuous life trying to get the Greater Good. Aristotle also believes that since happiness is a process and it goes towards a common good, a person can never truly be happy in life and instead a person’s life can be deemed happy only after death 1099. In actuality, Brooks idea rejects Aristotle’s fundamental ideas of people being virtuous for the greater mass because he focuses on the individual. The intrinsic difference between Brooks and Aristotle is that Aristotle wants to build a philosophy on how people are fundamentally united in the common good and that together people can raise the overall potential within a person through politics while Brooks believes people are individually very unhappy because they hold on to material things. Need external