Happiness

Aristotle turned classical thought in a new direction by arguing that happiness, or eudaimonia, is the ultimate goal (telos) of human life and that it 'depends on ourselves'; he was the first to make human flourishing the central focus of ethics. Aristotle's contemporary in China, Mencius, independently arrived at a similar idea: that flourishing requires the cultivation of virtue.

Aristotle and Mencius diverge, however, on the nature of virtue. For Mencius, virtue is inseparable from social and political roles. For Aristotle, virtues, though expressed within a community, are fundamentally about perfecting the individual's character.

Aristotle does not see happiness as a purely internal state: a flourishing life, he insists, also depends on external conditions such as good health, friends and adequate resources. By joining a person's inner state to their outward circumstances, Aristotle creates a framework for a 'science of happiness'. The 'science of happiness' is not a modern, empirical science but a classical epistēmē: a systematic body of knowledge about the purpose of a human life.