The Best Kind of Human Life according to Aristotle

Name Professor Course 16 February 2019 The Best Kind of Human Life according to Aristotle “What is the best good (or “highest good”)?” is the question Aristotle answers in his Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle the highest good is self-sufficient and complete: it is an end that is always choice worthy of itself and lacks nothing (Ostwald,1). Aristotle considers ethics both theoretical and pragmatic “this knowledge is of great importance for the conduct of our lives” and that the duty of ethics is to find what is the best good for humans (Cohen et al., NE,I.2,1094a22-4). Happiness amounts to well-being which itself is to exercise well the function of a human being: rational activity. Therefore happiness amounts to a rational activity of the souls expressing virtue. Aristotle considers two kinds of a happy life: the life of study and the life of ethically virtuous action. A life of study (contemplation) is the activity expressing theoretical wisdom devoted to theoretical thinking and the life of ethically virtuous action or praxis is the practical rational activity devoted to expressing the various e...