The activity of happiness in Aristotle's Ethics.

by Gary M. Gurtler
THERE HAS BEEN A LONGSTANDING DEBATE about the relation of virtue and
happiness in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle seems to have two contradictory
positions. One position is found in book 1, chapter 7, where happiness is the highest good,
an activity of soul in conformity with virtue. In context, this seems to indicate human virtue
as a whole, involving both moral and intellectual virtues. The other position occurs much
later in book 10, chapters 6-8, where happiness is identified with wisdom alone. This later
context seems to posit an opposition between a supreme happiness related to wisdom and
contemplation and a secondary happiness associated with justice and the moral virtues. The
debate centers on how to reconcile these two positions.
One group of commentators takes book 10 as determinative and thus tortures the text in
book i to say the same thing. This position is described as intellectualist or exclusivist and
produces certain puzzles in reading Aristotle's ethical theory. These puzzles are not benign
since the privileged position given wisdom in book 10 seems at odds with the discussion of
virtue in book I and its development in the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole. Indeed,
Aristotle appears inconsistent or even contradictory, recommending in these two brief
chapters of book 10 a life devoted to contemplation that only grudgingly allows for the
necessity of the practical life discussed in such detail in the rest of his ethical works. If this
is the case, under what conditions are we expected to forgo contemplation to engage in the
various activities of the moral virtues? Since no conditions are spelled out in the text, the
range of speculation is confused and ways around the apparent inconsistencies complex.
The other group takes 1.7 as determinative for the definition of human virtue, and its task is
to explain whether 10.7-8 fits into Aristotle's general ethical position. In this view, virtue is
understood inclusively, with both ethical and intellectual components. So far no satisfactory
account of 10.6-8 has been able to integrate it into Aristotle's account of virtue and
happiness, with the result that it is either ignored as an aberration or left as an anomaly. The
goal of this paper is to provide a reading of 10.1-8 that can show how Aristotle's account of
contemplation and the moral virtues is part of a single vision of happiness. (1)
I will endeavor to argue that the discussion of pleasure in 10.1-5 is continuous with that of
happiness in 10.6-8. One aspect of this continuity is that pleasure and happiness are both
defined as the same kind of activity, one that accompanies certain other activities under
specific conditions. Another aspect of this continuity is that Aristotle distinguishes different
kinds of pleasure, those related to bodily conditions and those related to activities desirable
in themselves. He ends this account of pleasure by mentioning that each animal has its own
specific pleasure. This last topic leads directly into the discussion of happiness, where
Aristotle distinguishes different kinds of activities associated with happiness and seeks to
determine which activity is the happiness specific to the human soul. The continuity of the
discussion as a whole also provides the context in which Aristotle distinguishes between
pleasure and happiness. Their structure as activities makes them similar, which leads some
to hold the opinion that pleasure is in fact happiness.
Aristotle, however, holds that they are different. First, pleasure has its origin in the basic
need of an organism to preserve itself. No matter how much pleasure can be associated with

activities done for their own sake, this root meaning keeps Aristotle from identifying
pleasure with happiness. Second, the definition of happiness becomes increasingly refined
until it is identified with contemplation of the divine. The first element of this discussion of
contemplation has long been recognized, evaluating the opinions that a life of pleasure, a
practical life, or a contemplative life constitutes happiness. Aristotle indicates that only
children or the vicious take a life of pleasure for happiness since they do not know the
proper human end. In the case of the virtuous, although pleasure cannot be the end, it still
serves as a means for resting the body so that one can engage in virtuous activities.
Aristotle then distinguishes between the activities of the practical and intellectual virtues,
with the activities of political virtue having a secondary happiness but with contemplation
as the activity constituting happiness in the strictest sense. This brings us to the second
element of his discussion of contemplation, indicating the precise intellectual virtue and
activity associated with happiness. He begins by associating happiness with the activity of
[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and singles out wisdom as its specific
intellectual virtue and contemplation as the activity of this virtue. In this discussion,
contemplation itself is shown to have a range of meanings that is gradually brought to
precision, with its strictest sense found in the case of the divine where other activities,
doing or making, are excluded. This clarification of the nature of contemplation indicates
that happiness has its root in the divine, in contrast to pleasure with its roots in organic
well-being. Such a clarification is not meant to restrict happiness exclusively to one human
activity but to show that all activities, contemplative, political, and pleasurable, relate in
different ways and to different degrees to the central case defining human happiness in
terms of the divine. (2)
II
We begin with an investigation of the nature of pleasure in Nicomachean Ethics 10.1-5. In
chapters 1-3, Aristotle provides a brief survey of the conflict in common opinions, basically
the contrasting views that pleasure is either the good or essentially base. In chapter 3, he
rules out the second view because it goes against the fact that all living things seek pleasure
in order to survive, and someone who said pleasure should be avoided would inevitably be
contradicted by his actions. The first view, by contrast, simply identifies pleasure with
happiness, but this will need careful examination before Aristotle can determine to what
extent it is true. First, in chapter 2, he notes the Platonic distinction that pleasure is a good
but not the good, which is singled out as not being more desirable by the addition of
something to it. Second, in chapter 3, he distinguishes different kinds of pleasure. The
clearest and simplest kind of pleasure concerns desires and emotions and applies to all
living things; pain is the correlative state. These pleasures accompany activities that a living
thing possesses by nature and are related to the desires and appetites it needs for a particular
good, its physical survival. Aristotle next describes a kind of pleasure related to activities
desirable in themselves and not because they relieve some need or restore some physical
balance. This second kind includes the pleasure of learning and the pleasures associated
with certain sense activities, as well as with memory and the possession of the virtues. In
distinction to the first group, this type of plea sure is neither opposed to pain nor essential to
any of these activities since they can be pursued even when pleasure does not accompany
them: neither all things seen nor all learning need be pleasant. So far, Aristotle has
summarized a number of assumptions that underlie various parts of the Ethics and in fact of
Greek ethical thinking in general. Pleasure and pain, as particular bodily states, are the raw

matter, as it were, upon which the moral life is built, either positively in terms of virtue or
negatively in terms of vice. Far from being identified with human happiness, pleasure and
pain provide instead the first arena for moral development, the goal of which is to feel
pleasure or pain for the proper things and not to be dominated by bodily appetites and
desires. (3) The divergence of opinions derives from not distinguishing between pleasure
and pain as related to particular organic states and certain activities that can be pleasurable
in themselves; further distinctions will be needed to specify the nature of happiness and its
relation to pleasure.
In his scientific discussion in 10.4-5, Aristotle explores the implications of taking pleasure
as an activity, [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (4) In describing
perfect activities, Aristotle begins with these words: "for seeing seems to be complete at
whatever moment, since it lacks nothing which at a later moment will complete the
becoming of its form" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (5) Seeing is
an activity that is identical in form, whole and complete at every instant, with no reference
to duration. Each part of a motion, on the contrary, is incomplete and is different in form
both from the other parts and from the whole. Typing a word, for example, takes the
separate motions of hitting different keys, and hitting one key is not the same as hitting
another, and it is only when the keys are hit in proper order that a word emerges at the end.
While Aristotle uses examples of making or doing to illustrate the incomplete nature of
motions, he turns to the senses, especially when functioning properly in relation to their
objects, to illustrate what he means by a complete or perfect activity. There are no parts into
which such activities can be divided and, significantly, they are complete for as long or
short as they last. Aristotle begins with the senses because they are easily known to us and
thus illustrate the difference between perfect activities and motions more easily.
These activities, moreover, have pleasure attached to them. "For there is a pleasure
belonging to each sense, the same as for reasoning and contemplation, and the most
complete is most pleasant, and [each sense] is most complete that has a well-functioning
organ toward the best objects of those under it; thus pleasure would perfect the activity"
([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (6) Pleasure relates to the activity of
sensing in two ways, by accompanying and by perfecting it. Like the activity it
accompanies, pleasure is whole and complete at any moment and is, therefore, unlike a
motion, which is complete either in the whole time it takes or only at its end. Aristotle
continues with an initial description of how pleasure completes the activity.
But pleasure would perfect the activity not as a habit inhering
within it, but as some end coming to be upon it, just as the bloom
of youth for those in their prime. Thus, so long as the intelligible
or sensible object as well as the judging or contemplating subject
are as fit as need be, there will be pleasure in the activity; for
whenever the passive and active parts remain the same and have the
same relation to one another, the same result naturally happens
([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (7)

Pleasure cannot be engaged in as an activity on its own, apart from sensing, but accompanies
such activities as an end. This means, on the one hand, that pleasure is hot like a power or
state that moves an agent internally from possession to exercise of some kind of activity and,
on the other hand, that pleasure functions as a final cause, an end or good that moves an agent
externally. At this point, Aristotle is a bit laconic in describing how it is an end, providing
only the contrast with the formal perfection an agent acquires in a habit or disposition. This

series of comments, moreover, suggests that pleasure adds to the perfection of an activity
under certain optimal conditions, when the organ and object are at their best. Pleasure thus
does not accompany any chance activity of a sense but one in which the agent is acting well
in relation to the best of objects, whether the agent is sensing, judging, or contemplating and
whether the object is sensible or intelligible. Together with the previous mention of reasoning
and contemplation, these comments are the first indication that this discussion of pleasure is
related to that of contemplation and happiness that will shortly follow. Even if one argues that
contemplation in the present context has a meaning more akin to mere sensible observation,
there are aspects of this observing that show a continuous sense of taking in an object as a
whole as opposed to discerning its several parts.
Aristotle next explains why pleasure is not continuous, in a restricted sense of the term. It is
not because it is imperfect like a motion, which is essentially noncontinuous as having a
series of parts. Pleasure is not continuous because the agent can get tired or bored even of the
most pleasant activity. The conditions, thus, pertain to the nature of the agent, and pleasure
perdures only for as long as the agent remains in a certain state. This is significant for it
indicates that pleasure is continuous without at the same time implying that the agent is
always engaged in it. Aristotle is defining the structure and nature of the activity and not the
amount of time the agent spends doing it, a point also crucial for understanding the nature of
happiness and the activities associated with it. (8) Since happiness is an activity like pleasure,
one cannot engage in it isolated from those specific activities that it accompanies under
certain conditions.
Each activity, moreover, has a corresponding pleasure. This correspondence leads to the great
diversity of pleasures and thus Aristotle's own explanation why pleasure cannot be the good
or identified simply with happiness. More important, however, Aristotle provides crucial
information about how pleasure completes the particular activity it accompanies. "For its own
pleasure increases an activity: since those who do an activity with pleasure are more
discerning and sharper about its particulars, as those who enjoy doing geometry become
geometricians and understand its particulars better, and similarly those interested in music,
architecture, and the other [arts] each give themselves freely to their own function since they
enjoy it" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (9) Pleasure, as mentioned in
10.4.1174b20-3, comes upon an activity that is already complete or perfect. For a sense like
sight, seeing a particularly pleasant object constitutes such perfection. For crafts and virtues,
however, it is not merely doing an action but doing it from a fully formed disposition that
makes it perfect and thus in a position where pleasure may accompany its exercise (compare
1.8.1099a11-21 in relation to moral virtue). Further, pleasure increases such an activity. This
implies two complementary aspects in the present passage, that an activity is done more
intensely at the moment of its exercise and that the corresponding disposition is developed
more fully for the future. Aristotle uses various skills to illustrate what he means. Someone
who has become adept at geometry, for example, finds pleasure in it, which makes it easier to
do since such an individual judges better, is more accurate about, and has a greater grasp of
the relevant particulars. Pleasure thus frees the agent to be more sharply focused on the
activity, and this in turn leads to developing the skill more proficiently and with greater
interest. Both aspects indicate how closely akin an activity and its pleasure really are.
This discussion of pleasure in 10.4 already includes ideas relevant to Aristotle's analysis of
happiness, which some scholars have taken to be incoherent or confused, (10) but the
subsequent examination of the closeness of pleasure and activity in chapter 5 provides the

actual context in which the discussion of happiness finally emerges. The kinship between a
pleasure and its activity is so close that pleasures differ from one another based on their
respective activities. Aristotle supports this with the observation that an activity one finds
more pleasurable is able to drive out competing activities and their pleasures. "Since their
own pleasure sharpens activities and makes them more enduring and better, but alien
pleasures spoil them, it is clear how much they differ, for alien pleasures almost produce the
same effect [on activities] as proper pains" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
ASCII]). (11) In the earlier discussion of 10.1-3, pleasure and pain were looked at as opposite
organic states, but here in his scientific account Aristotle changes the frame of reference by
defining pains and pleasures in terms of activities. If one does not enjoy an activity, then one
finds it painful on its own and ceases doing it. If one is engaged in one activity, but the
opportunity comes for another activity in which one finds much greater pleasure, the new
pleasure is strong enough to drive out the pleasure of the former activity. The new pleasure is
alien to the old activity and thus functions like its pain, making it unenjoyable.
In this context, pleasure and pain are defined in relation to acquired habits or dispositions, not
organic states, and are thus related to the agent's interests and character. Pleasure is in this
sense neutral, and Aristotle indicates that the differentiation between decent and base
pleasures cannot be based on the pleasures themselves. Nor can it be based on the agent's
character or interest alone since the agent can be virtuous or vicious. He thus concludes that
good and evil attach primarily to activities, and if pleasure increases the wrong activities, the
effect is even more deleterious morally than following one's desires and appetites. "The
pleasures in activities are more their own than the desires [that lead to them]; for the desires
are separated in rime and nature, but the pleasures are linked to the activities, and so
inseparable that it is disputable whether the activity is the same as the pleasure" ([GREEK
TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (12)
Aristotle's comments so far in this chapter have emphasized the closeness of pleasure and
activity, a closeness that might look like identity. This closeness is used to indicate that the
goodness of the activity determines the goodness of the pleasure, giving reason why the good
cannot simply be identified with pleasure and yet how pleasure still remains relevant to the
moral life. Pleasure is not naively identified with desire and appetite as organic states but
more dangerously ratifies and strengthens any activity as an end perfecting it. Desires and
appetites may prompt activities, but pleasure is the driving force in pursuing them. Further,
desires and appetites may not be susceptible to moral training, but such training is absolutely
crucial for taking pleasure in the proper activities at the proper time. Morality is peculiarly
concerned with human activities from Aristotle's point of view, and the present discussion
indicates the role of pleasure in reinforcing the moral activities that human beings pursue.
In the last section of 10.5, Aristotle finally attempts to determine how one can tell which
activities are good, as he shifts from the nature of activity and its relation to pleasure to a
determination of what activities bring true pleasure. He begins by noting that different kinds
of animals seem to have a characteristic pleasure, perhaps seeking a particular food. When it
comes to specifying the typically human pleasure, however, the issue becomes clouded with
confusion since different individuals find contrary activities pleasant and the same individual
may find contrary activities pleasant at different rimes. Aristotle seeks to cut through this
confusion with an appeal to the standard used from the very outset of the Ethics: the real good
is what appears so to the good man ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]).
(13) This narrows the scope of relevant activities to those that are decent or good, but

Aristotle then seeks among different kinds of human activities which of their pleasures is
most distinctively human. "Or, is it clear from the activities? For pleasures accompany these
activities. Whether it is one or many, then, the activities are those of the perfect and blessed
man; the pleasures that perfect these activities would be said to be human pleasures strictly,
but the rest are [pleasures] secondarily or to an even lesser degree, as are their activities"
([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (14) The search for the properly
human pleasure joins up with the definition of happiness in terms of the human function
already given in 1.7 and thus sets the agenda for the discussion of happiness in 10.6-8. The
context of 10.5, moreover, indicates that Aristotle is not comparing competing kinds of lives
but looking at those activities that belong to someone supremely perfect and happy.
III
Aristotle begins the analysis of happiness by placing it in the context of the rest of the Ethics,
specifically listing three areas: virtues, friendships, and pleasures (loosely, books 1-7, 8-9, and
10.1-5, respectively). This statement indicates that all three areas are important for
determining the nature of happiness, although this paper will focus primarily on references to
pleasure. Aristotle refers back to comments in 7.11-14, where happiness, or the highest good,
is an activity and the nature of such an activity is some kind of pleasure ([GREEK TEXT
NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (15) More importantly, however, he uses the discussion
just concluded in 10.1-5, with its careful analysis of pleasure as an activity that accompanies
and perfects the exercise of other activities. This includes two interrelated issues, the
closeness between pleasures and their activities and the determination of the goodness of a
pleasure on the basis of the goodness of the activity it accompanies (10.5). It is precisely this
last question that leads to the case of the sage as perfect and blessed and whose virtuous
activities relate in different ways to happiness, the topic of 10.6-8.
Aristotle reiterates that happiness is not a habit but properly an activity ([GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), (16) points made both in 1.7-8 and 10.5. He adds that if
activities are divided into two kinds, those chosen as means as opposed to those chosen for
themselves, then happiness will be among those chosen for themselves. The sage, moreover,
appears to choose a variety of activities for themselves. If the last section of 10.5 has indeed
set the context for the consideration of happiness, then these activities have some claim to
association with happiness, whether in the fullest sense, secondarily, or in some lesser degree,
as Aristotle put it there. (17) Further, this comment indicates that the problem is neither
choosing among them, depending on the circumstances, nor avoiding one of them entirely but
rather how all three activities are related to someone perfectly blessed as a human being. (18)
First, he examines how amusements contribute to happiness. "It seems then these things
pertain to happiness, since those in power spend their leisure in them" ([GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (19) In response, Aristotle associates happiness with morally
good activities, where the pleasure is pure and free ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE
IN ASCII]), (20) and not with activities associated with power or the bodily. His point is that
the activities geared to human happiness are related to human reason as the defining part of
human nature and thus have their source in virtue and intelligence, echoing 1.7. Those who
are morally virtuous value what is necessarily the best, while the wicked or children identify
the best with what they desire.
Amusement, then, cannot be identified with the authentic happiness of the virtuous.
Nonetheless, it continues to play a role as a means. "For amusement is like rest; those who are
not able to work continuously have need of rest; but rest is certainly not the end, since it is for

the sake of activity" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (21) Aristotle
reiterates a condition of the agent that makes the rest provided by amusement necessary.
Activity involves effort and thus cannot be sustained for long, and amusement restores our
organic well-being so the activity can be resumed. Amusement is thus distinct both from
pleasures of the senses and from happiness. It falls between the two: amusement is not simply
the exercise of one sense or another but is linked to leisure as a form of rest; it is thus actually
only a means and so does not count as happiness, though some may mistakenly choose it as if
it were. As a means, it is not concerned with the structure of happiness as a perfect activity
but rather with the condition of the agent as subject to fatigue and needing rest in order to
return to those activities which happiness can accompany. This point about the agent has its
first articulation in his analysis of pleasure at 10.4.1175a4-10. Thus, Aristotle's account of
amusement is not of a theory or a life totally rejected but of an activity that plays a limited
role in relation to happiness. The limitation is twofold since amusement is not an end and
does not directly relate to virtue but concerns only the bodily well-being of the agent. Of the
three options Aristotle gives at the end of 10.5, amusement is only to a lesser degree related to
happiness. (22)
10.7-8 brings us, finally, to the crux of scholarly dispute. These two chapters can be divided
into three sections. Each section begins with a straightforward identification of happiness with
contemplation, which is then supported by analysis of relevant issues. The first section
identifies happiness with contemplation, listing characteristics derived from 1.7-8 and 10.4-5
and introducing the notion of leisure. (23) The second revolves around the issue of life, with
possible allusion to 1.5, but developed in terms of whether the contemplative life is actually
possible and concluding once more that happiness consists in contemplation despite the fact
that it seems to go beyond the human. (24) The third identifies happiness as properly
contemplation since it is the one activity the gods can have. All these arguments are then
confirmed by appeal to the opinions of the wise and lived experience. (25)
For context, let us recall that in 1.7.1098a16-18 he sets the task of looking for the human
good in terms of an activity in conformity with virtue and if there are several virtues with the
one that is best and most complete. In 10.5.1176a3-5 and 10-16, he states that each animal has
its own proper pleasure, but this is complicated for human nature since no pleasure is as such
proper to a human being. Instead, the proper human pleasure is found by examining the
activity or activities of someone completely perfect and blessed. Thus in both of these
passages, Aristotle leaves open whether one or more activities is at issue, but in 10.7 he
begins with the assertion that happiness is an activity in conformity with the highest virtue,
the virtue of the best part in us. "The activity of this [part] according to its proper virtue
would be perfect happiness; but this is contemplative activity, it is said" ([GREEK TEXT
NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (26) He identifies the best part of us as intelligence
([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), either divine or the most divine part in
us, with its objects as the highest objects of knowledge, again the noble and divine. Prom the
discussion of pleasure, it is clear that Aristotle sees intelligence at its best and engaged with
the best of its objects as the most obvious candidate for the highest kind of happiness. In rapid
succession, he then lists the attributes of such an activity.
For this activity is itself the highest--for intelligence is [the
highest] of the things in us and [the highest] of knowable objects
[are those] about which intelligence [thinks]; and it is the most
continuous, for we are able to contemplate more continuously than
to do anything else whatever. We also think it necessary that

pleasure be mixed with happiness, and the most pleasant of

activities in conformity with virtue is confessedly the one in
conformity with wisdom; indeed philosophy seems to have pleasures
amazing in purity and certainty, and it is reasonable that enjoyment
of ideas is more pleasant than investigating them
([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (27)

These first three attributes, that contemplation is the activity that is highest, most continuous,
and most pleasant, are presented as uncontroversial. The first attribute is based on Aristotle's
constant position that intellect is the highest part, indicated implicitly in 1.7 and explicitly in
6.6. That this activity is most continuous is related to the continuous nature of perfect
activities, discussed in relation to pleasure at 10.4.1175a4-10 and to amusement at
10.6.1176b34--1177a1. In 10.4, pleasures are perfect activities that accompany the activities
of the senses and, although they are continuous in the sense of being whole and complete all
at once, we do hot engage in them continuously because they are relative to the condition of
the agent, especially as having sense organs. Contemplation as hot related to a corporeal
organ is intrinsically more continuous as a perfect activity, but engaging in contemplation also
depends on our physical condition as composite beings, as the rest provided by amusement
attests in 10.6. To be continuous thus does not imply that we are engaged in contemplation all
the time or that we should be engaged in it as long as possible to the exclusion of other
activities. (28) Finally, that happiness is most pleasant indicates that Aristotle distinguishes it
from pleasure but nevertheless sees them as closely related. He adds further that pleasure is
associated with contemplation precisely because it is in conformity with wisdom. These
comments are presented positively and without any comparison to other virtues or activities.
They define what Aristotle means by happiness in terms of intellect as the highest part in us
and thus peculiar to human beings. The happiness of intellect is more precisely defined in
terms of wisdom, its virtue, and contemplation, the most pleasant activity in conformity with
wisdom. The other intellectual virtues, whether crafts or sciences ([GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), are not associated with happiness, nor are their activities,
although they were featured in the analysis of pleasure in 10.4. The further description of the
pleasures of philosophy indicates something about the character of contemplation. It is not
about investigating or studying ideas but about those things known with purity and certainty.
Contemplation is thus not associated with any kind of philosophical activity but with that
enjoyment that comes at the end of study or investigation and constitutes a free and
continuous resting in the truth.
This argues against identifying the activity of contemplation with various forms of reasoning,
inductive or deductive, or the work of study or investigation. These activities are not
contemplative in the sense intended here because they are motions and thus not complete. So,
not everything a philosopher does is automatically contemplative, with its accompanying
pleasure. Writing a philosophical paper, preparing a class, or doing research in philosophy
remain motions or becomings, with beginnings, middles, and ends. They involve steps and
their goals may or may not be attained and are, therefore, imperfect, however philosophical
they may be. (29) Contemplation, however, comes at the end of these motions, like
amusement, but while amusement provides rest, contemplation perfects and increases them,
like pleasure.
Contemplation is also most self-sufficient, leisured, and an end in itself. With these next three
attributes, Aristotle distinguishes how they apply to contemplation more completely than they
do to the best and noblest activities of other virtues. He contrasts the wise, the just, and those

with other virtues. (30) All three groups need the necessities of life. In the case of the just, the
self-controlled, the brave, and so forth, they need other people as part of the very structure of
their respective activities, whether as objects of the activity or as helps to carry them out. In
the case of the wise, however, contemplation has its objects within it and can be carried out
by one's self, especially as the individual increases in wisdom. These comments refer to the
nature of the activity itself and not how wisdom, as a virtue, is acquired and maintained or
how contemplation, as its activity, may normally occur. Self-sufficiency, further, presumes the
comments from 1.7.109766-15, that define it as what makes life desirable and deficient in
nothing, but within the context of our social nature. So the structure of contemplation as an
activity does not need others, but other people are essential for the wise, as Aristotle
maintains in the discussion of complete friendship. (31) The very structure of contemplation
does not include other people, however, because they are not inherently needed for its
exercise. The attribute of self-sufficiency thus pertains in the highest degree to the wise. It is
important to note that Aristotle is not comparing lives or choosing among them but indicating
differences intrinsic to the activities of contemplation and the virtues. The same individual
could be wise, just, self-controlled, or brave at different times.
Aristotle next discusses contemplation as an end and as involving leisure. These two attributes
are crucial for his claim that this particular intellectual activity constitutes complete happiness
and not the activities of the moral virtues. "It seems that this [activity] alone is loved for itself;
for nothing comes from it beyond contemplating, but from practical pursuits we acquire
something more or less beyond the action. Happiness seems to be in leisure, for we are busy
so that we may have leisure as we go to war so that we may gain peace" ([GREEK TEXT
NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (32) In 1.7.1097a30-4, when Aristotle examines ends in
themselves, he distinguishes those that are only ends and never means from those that are
both ends and means together, and he concludes that happiness is final in the unqualified
sense. In 10.6-7, he applies this distinction to the three kinds of activities chosen by one
supremely blessed and happy. Amusement, as we saw, is only seen as an end by children or
the vicious and is not really an end at all but only a means, given the need of the agent for
rest. Practical pursuits and contemplation, however, qualify both as activities in conformity
with virtue and as ends chosen for themselves, but Aristotle argues that practical pursuits,
even the best and noblest, have an end beyond themselves. Aristotle takes the best, most
noble activities of the moral virtues to be politics and war. The rest of this section argues that
they are engaged in not for themselves but for some further end: war is waged for the sake of
peace and politics for the sake of the advantage, prestige, or happiness of the statesman or his
fellow citizens. They are unleisurely but oriented toward leisure.
Leisure thus functions as a subtle link among the three activities considered in 10.6-8 and as
key for understanding their differences and the nature of happiness as an activity. Thus
amusements give a spurious kind of leisure, though it is still necessary for bodily well-being,
while politics and war have leisure as their end but not as component parts of the activities
themselves. (33) Contemplation, therefore, is the only candidate for happiness that is an end
in itself in the strictest sense. Leisure is associated with such an end since it denotes an
activity that is essentially pure and free, as having nothing beyond itself. Leisure is discussed
here in 10.6-8 and at 8.9.1160a20-7, where it also occurs in a context where politics has an
aim beyond itself. Leisure is the mark of contemplation and key for identifying it with
happiness.
This discussion also emphasizes that happiness is not associated with virtues as dispositions

of the agent but with the exercise of these virtues in their proper activities. The structure is
exactly like that of pleasure, where pleasure comes from the exercise of powers such as the
senses or developed habits such as the crafts or sciences. So too, the exercise of wisdom in
contemplation or of the moral virtues in politics and warfare is the locus for determining
which activity has claim to be the proper happiness of a human being. Aristotle thus notes that
politics and warfare, although they surpass all other actions related to virtue in nobility and
grandeur, are still unleisurely since they are for the sake of some end other than themselves
and thus cannot be identified with perfect happiness. He then concludes that contemplation
alone contains all the elements of perfect happiness.
But the activity of intelligence, being contemplative, seems to
surpass in esteem [these other activities] and to aim at no end
besides itself, and to have its proper pleasure (which itself
increases the activity), and further [this activity is] as
self-sufficient, inclined to leisure, and untiring as [is possible]
for a man and assigns many other things to one blessed: these things
appear to be owing to this activity itself; indeed this would itself
be the perfect happiness of man ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN
ASCII]). (34)

Happiness is as closely associated with contemplation as pleasure is with its proper activity
and with the same results. Happiness increases contemplation in the twofold way that pleasure
increases its activity: contemplation is intensified while it is going on, and wisdom, its proper
virtue, is strengthened for the future. The agent becomes formally wiser, more identified with
wisdom. Contemplation, moreover, also functions as a proper end that draws the agent into
exercising this virtue more frequently and being more adept at doing it. In this way, more
opportunities for contemplation arise, showing how Aristotle can hold that happiness is an
activity, not a habit or characteristic, and yet can describe a life as happy since happiness can
be increasingly exercised as the virtue it accompanies and perfects becomes more dominant in
the individual's life. The activity of contemplation, in sum, brings into play those things that
are most human because they are most free, pleasant, and self-sufficient, all characteristics of
leisure. The second section explores an issue brought up at 1.7.1098a18, and echoed here at
10.7.1177625, that happiness demands a complete span of life. (35) This section has been
taken as being about the choice between the contemplative life and a life of virtue. The
background for this is in the three lives listed in 1.5, so that Aristotle seems here to contrast
the two lives left (10.6 having excluded amusements or a life of pleasure), exhorting us to
choose the contemplative life over the life of moral virtue. A closer look at the text, however,
reveals that Aristotle is actually referring back to 1.7.1098a18 about a "complete span of life'
and thus has other issues in mind. First, the happiness associated with the activity of
contemplation cannot be an isolated or chance event but must somehow characterize the life of
the sage as a whole. Since it cannot be a habit and is a divine activity, it could occur only
accidentally or haphazardly in the case of a human being and thus a contemplative [GREEK
TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] would be impossible. Aristotle is assuring us that
this is not the case but that contemplation concerns a "complete life," even if it is defined in
terms of one part of the soul, intelligence. Despite going beyond the needs and activities of the
composite, the activity of this small part remains nonetheless the defining element,
distinguishing us from other creatures, with the conclusion that human happiness consists

properly in contemplation.
In addition, a complete span of life is not concerned with questions of how much rime is spent
contemplating as opposed to doing anything else but with whether a life in conformity with
intelligence is possible for the sage as a mere mortal. Aristotle thus begins with the paradox
that a life in conformity with intelligence is in fact more than human: it is divine. As higher
than human, such a life is not lived in virtue of our being composite but in virtue of having
some part within us that is divine. That intelligence is divine rests also on the idea that God is
intelligence, taken up in the third section. A life in conformity with intelligence is thus divine
in comparison with human life; thus, Aristotle spells out what is implicit in his initial
statements in 10.7 that intelligence is the most divine part in us and its objects are noble and
divine. He then replies to those who would confine us to the human by encouraging us to do
everything to live according to this highest part. He adds that this is the true self (literally that
each one is this: [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), (36) the ruling and
better part of us, however small it may appear. At 10.7.1178a5-8, he refers back to the end of
the discussion on pleasure, (37) where what is best and most pleasant for each creature is what
is proper to it by nature. With this background in place, he concludes once more that a life in
conformity with intelligence, as of the best part and as most what it is to be human, will be the
happiest; as such, he repeats the identification of happiness with the activity of intelligence,
already asserted in the first section.
He moves quickly to consider human life in the restricted sense of the moral virtues. "A life in
conformity with the other virtue [is happy] secondarily, for the activities according to this
virtue are human" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (38) The moral
virtues are human rather than divine because they necessarily involve elements outside
intelligence. The moral virtues, such as justice, courage, and the other virtues, relate us to
other people, whether by agreements, needs, or actions in general. Some virtues, moreover, are
concerned with our bodily condition or emotions, thus making clear their seat in the
composite. Most significant, however, is the description of practical wisdom ([GREEK TEXT
NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), the intellectual virtue closest to wisdom. Practical
wisdom receives its first principles from the moral virtues, which in turn receive their standard
from practical wisdom. These principles and this standard are intimately concerned with
activities involving other people, our own bodies, and sensible particulars around us. Since it
must operate with knowledge of particulars, neither its activities nor its objects are the best. In
sum, the moral virtues are not concerned exclusively with the highest part in us but with our
composite nature, and the virtues and happiness of out composite nature are merely human,
prescinding from the divine part in us. A life in conformity with the moral virtues is, therefore,
secondary both in terms of the nature of its activities as well as its objects.
While the happiness of the moral life is related to our composite nature, the happiness of
intellect is separate. Aristotle does not say why it is separate but seems to direct us to other
works where intellect (39) and its objects (40) are separate. How it is separate can be inferred
in the present context as not concerned with the composite and its particular needs. His
concern shifts from how other people fit into the structure of contemplation and practical
pursuits to the extent that external goods are necessary for their exercise. Both activities are
more or less equal in terms of the necessities of life, thus continuing Aristotle's attention to the
condition of the agent as relevant for the exercise of all activities, including contemplation, but
they differ in terms of the goods needed for their specific activities. Property, strength, and
opportunities ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), (41) for example, are

needed for the virtues of generosity, justice, bravery, and self-control. Further, moral virtue
includes both choice and particular actions. Choice, as the deliberation of the agent, is internal
and thus does not need external things for its exercise. Particular actions, however, need a
diversity of external goods or bodily strength to carry out the choice, especially for greater and
nobler actions.
In contrast, contemplation needs none of these things in its exercise, and they may in fact
hinder it. Aristotle is again referring to the structure of the activity itself. He thus adds that as
human and as living with others, an individual will need these things both for virtuous actions
and to live humanly, thereby including both benefit to others and perfecting oneself within the
purview of a complete human life. Thus, Aristotle's argument actually examines the role of
external goods in relation to the two kinds of activities, with virtuous activities needing a
variety of things to carry them out but contemplation either not needing these things or finding
them a hindrance. It is important to note that Aristotle continues to focus on the activities
involved. He does not say that the sage chooses a life of contemplation to the exclusion of a
life of moral virtue. In fact, he says just the opposite, that the sage "chooses to act in
conformity with virtue, thus there will be need of these things in order to act as a human
being" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (42)
The third section brings Aristotle's own account to a conclusion, adding opinions and
experiences that serve to confirm it. He begins with the point to be proven. "But happiness is
perfect because it is a contemplative activity, as the following will show" ([GREEK TEXT
NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (43) He states that the gods are regarded as eminently
happy and asks the kind of actions we attribute to them. He mentions several virtuous actions,
whether just, brave, generous, self-controlled, or any others one could list, and says that all of
them are trivial and unworthy of the gods. The gods, however, are alive and so active. Thus, if
doing is taken away from them and making even more, then only contemplation remains for
such a living being. "Therefore the activity of God, surpassing in blessedness, would be
contemplative. And thus, of human activities the one most akin to it will be the one most
conducive to happiness" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (44) He
confirms this by noting the inverse, that animals cannot share in happiness because they are
incapable of contemplation. Aristotle presents a comparison between the life of the gods,
which is solely manifest in contemplation, since doing and making are inappropriate to the
gods, and human beings, whose activities include doing and making, but are akin to the gods
by their ability to contemplate. The comparison is extended to show that human beings are
also distinct from other animals that may have a particular pleasure but cannot share in
happiness. Human beings thus fall in between: not completely blessed as are the gods nor
completely bereft of happiness as are other animals but happy insofar as they have some
likeness to this divine activity. This returns to and completes the search for the specific virtue
of the human function, begun already at 1.7, as well as the specific human pleasure that is set
as the task at 10.5. In 1.7, Aristotle states that it is not living or nutritive activities or sensing
but reason that defines the human function. In 10.5, he argues that each animal has a specific
pleasure, and he searches for that activity which defines the specific pleasure for human
beings, in terms of the sage. Happiness, as the activity of contemplation, is this specific human
pleasure, but it is unlike the pleasure of an animal since it is defined in terms of contemplation,
an activity that has its central case in terms of the gods.
It is worth noting that this is the only time in these two chapters that a comparison is drawn
about different kinds of lives, between the gods and human beings on the one side and human

beings and animals on the other. The major part of the argument compares and contrasts
activities and what is needed to carry them out. The conclusion that follows is the clearest
statement identifying happiness and contemplation. "As far as contemplation extends, so does
happiness, and the more it belongs to certain beings to contemplate, so [it belongs to them] to
be happy, not accidentally but owing to the contemplation: for contemplation is in itself
valuable. Happiness would, therefore, be contemplation in some form" ([GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (45)
This conclusion is more than just the clearest expression of Aristotle's argument that happiness
is proper to contemplation. He also articulates what is implicit all the way through these eight
chapters of book 10: why pleasure and happiness are not the same thing. At times in the course
of his discussion happiness may sound like a particular form of pleasure in relation to human
beings, but the two differ more essentially. Pleasure accompanies some activity of the body or
composite being, whether activities of the senses or of habits and dispositions, and includes
desires and appetites for external objects. Pleasure is, then, a bodily state that, as it were,
results from an activity or inclines to it. Happiness, on the contrary, is defined by
contemplation. Contemplation is not a bodily state but an activity of intelligence, which
Aristotle has been at pains to show needs neither the body nor external objects as internal
components of the activity itself. Contemplation is thus a perfect activity in the most precise
sense of the term since it is whole, complete, and continuous in a way that moves beyond the
merely human to include a sharing in the divine. The central case of contemplation is in fact
God, who can have no other kind of activity, such as doing or making, from Aristotle's point
of view.
After reaching this height, Aristotle concludes with the reminder that the structure of
contemplation is one thing and being human another. While contemplation in itself is selfsufficient, being human is not, so that for us to contemplate, external goods are needed,
beginning with health and food for the body but including those resources needed for virtuous
activity. In this last section, Aristotle gives various arguments for being content with moderate
resources, with only what is needed to be able to contemplate on one's own as well as for
engaging in virtuous activity, and he indicates that the wise are also virtuous. He finds
confirmation for this moderation in the opinions of philosophers, as he mentions Solon and
Anaxagoras as finding those happy whose moderate resources are sufficient for noble deeds,
and not the rich and powerful mistakenly preferred in the opinion of the many. He concludes
this section with the favor bestowed by the gods on those active with intelligence, and he
argues that this is one more bit of evidence that the wise are indeed the happiest. (46)
IV
In using the analysis of pleasure to shed light on the nature of happiness, the consistency of
Aristotle's position and the unity of 10.6-8 both become clear. Aristotle is insistent that
happiness is defined in terms of contemplation rather than moral virtue, but this is neither
inconsistent with his position in 1.7-8 nor does it imply an exclusively intellectualist view. The
key is his analysis in 10.7-8 that contemplation is precisely an activity. The traditional debate,
however, brings a number of assumptions to the text. The three lives are seen as choices that
are exclusive of one another. In recent literature, this exclusivity is combined with a
quantitative understanding of the preference for contemplation that sees Aristotle as
encouraging maximum engagement in this activity. Choosing a life of contemplation thus
means either that all one's time and energy are directed solely to contemplative activity, to the
exclusion of other activities, or, with a more benign reading, that more and more of one's time

and energy are so directed. This reading, however, does not take into account the task Aristotle
sets for himself in 10.5 of finding that activity of the sage that is distinctively human and thus
constitutive of human happiness in the strictest, formal sense. It also tends to obscure
Aristotle's comments that qualify the nature of contemplation as an activity in relation to the
human agent, who has a spectrum of needs and of activities designed to take care of them.
Central to clearing up what Aristotle means in 10.7-8 is his use of the term "life." The
introduction of the "complete span of life" has been taken to mean that contemplative activity
needs to be quantitatively dominant, with the implication that Aristotle wants an individual to
spend more and more time in contemplation. As I mentioned earlier, if that is the intent, it is
odd that Aristotle actually addresses a very different issue: whether a contemplative life is
possible or appropriate for a human being. Does a "complete span of life' have a different
meaning? If we look back to the occurrence of the same phrase in 1.7, Aristotle is concerned
that a life according to virtue (not further specified in that early passage) cannot be a single
event or even a few isolated events. It cannot be accidental but something substantial; one's
whole life must be essentially contemplative. The issue is then formal rather than quantitative,
and the discussion in 10.7-8 confirms this. Aristotle is concerned to show that intelligence is in
fact part of us, however small it may appear and however much its activity goes beyond the
human. The perfection of this part through contemplation is the highest perfection for a human
being, and this perfection is owing to the nature of intelligence as separate and of
contemplation as needing nothing external for its exercise. Its perfection formally exceeds the
secondary perfection of moral virtue, which thinks about particulars and which needs external
resources to carry out its activities.
Further, contemplation does not perfect intelligence as a habit or disposition since it is
essentially an activity. This fact is perhaps the reason Aristotle uses the locution, "a complete
span of life." Contemplation and happiness do not perfect us in the formal way virtues do but
in the way pleasure does in accompanying a sense and its object under the best of conditions.
Thus, contemplation and happiness perfect us as a final cause, with its twofold aspect of
increasing the activity as it is going on as well as the corresponding disposition for the future.
That is, we formally become wiser so that our life may indeed be said to be in conformity with
intelligence without the necessity of engaging in contemplation all the time or even most of
the time. When is it appropriate to engage in contemplation, or the secondary happiness of
moral virtue, or in amusements? Aristotle takes notice throughout the present discussion of the
concrete human being, with the common needs of life, health, and rest, as well as those needs
arising from our social nature. It would seem reasonable, therefore, that we engage in these
various activities according to the criteria of book 2: when the circumstances make it
appropriate and to the extent that it is appropriate.
To be sure, Aristotle compares three kinds of life but not as mutually exclusive options.
Rather, in both 1.5 and 10.6-8, he examines them as common opinions about the happy life.
We must keep in mind, however, Aristotle's usual procedure in examining common opinions.
(47) He criticizes what is false in them but also attempts to indicate the kernel of truth that
underlies the opinion and continues to make it relevant, even for the wise. Thus, some identify
happiness with a life of amusement. This opinion is based on the fact that amusement does
have a role to play in a happy life but only as the rest needed by the human subject to engage
in properly virtuous activities. If one were to take it as the end, one leaves out this subordinate
role relative to the moral and intellectual virtues that are central for defining human happiness.
The opinion that happiness can be found in moral pursuits is based on the fact that such

activities are directly associated with human virtue, but they are only secondary because such
activities are ordered to something else as their end, namely, the leisure that characterizes
contemplation.
Throughout 10.6-8, Aristotle is careful to distinguish the essential nature of contemplation that
establishes it as perfect human happiness from the complex character of the human agent as a
living being with a variety of needs and activities. Aristotle's procedure in dealing with
common opinions is thus not meant to exclude such opinions totally but to show how they can
be held by some in mistaken fashion and yet continue to have a kernel of truth when
understood with proper philosophical precision. His intent is clear from his constant
reintegration of these activities into the life of the sage. Aristotle observes throughout this
discussion that human beings exercise contemplation under certain conditions and that
contemplation, while the highest activity, is not the only activity. Thus, though its activity is
highest and most valuable, intelligence remains part of a complex being that has other
activities as well. Aristotle states quite simply toward the end of his discussion (48) that the
activity of intelligence is self-sufficient but that our nature is not self-sufficient for
contemplation.
Aristotelian happiness thus has a complex structure as an activity. It is, first of all, like
pleasure, whole, complete, and continuous and perfects the activity it accompanies. This
means that happiness is neither an activity that stands alone nor a disposition or virtue but that
it accompanies its proper activity and thereby enhances it. As the particular pleasure of human
beings, it concerns the highest human activity functioning in relation to its best objects.
Aristotle identifies this with contemplation, making happiness an activity of intelligence
characterized by leisure. Contemplation is the free and complete exercise of wisdom, the only
intellectual virtue whose activity is perfect since the crafts and sciences are imperfect and
practical wisdom is exercised through actions dependent on factors external to intelligence.
Contemplation perfects an individual much as pleasure perfects its proper activity. It
reinforces wisdom, making the individual more proficient at the activities of this virtue and
motivating continued interest in such activities. This means that contemplation is like pleasure
in structure, for it comes at the end of activities as a free and pure activity, one of leisure.
Leisure, in tutu, indicates how contemplation relates to amusement and practical pursuits since
it is their goal. Insofar as practical pursuits relate to virtue and intelligence, they have a share
in happiness, but since these activities consist of elements external to intelligence, this
happiness can only be secondary. While happiness is defined strictly in terms of a part small in
bulk within a human being, that part nevertheless constitutes what is central for human
identity, with all one's other activities done for the sake of this activity as their end. Thus,
Aristotle uses his notion of happiness to integrate the best of human activities rather than to
put us in the dilemma of choosing which human good to pursue. (49)
(1) In recent Anglo-American literature, W. F. R. Hardie, "The Final Good in Aristotle's
Ethics," Philosophy 40 (1965): 277-95, articulates the view of wisdom as dominant, with
Aristotle's approach appearing both intellectualistic and selfish, while John Ackrill, "Aristotle
on Eudaimonia," Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (1974): 339-59, proposes an
inclusive reading that defends a more humane view of Aristotle. Hardie is defended by Robert
Heinaman, "Eudaimonia and Self-sufficiency in the Nicomachean Ethics," Phronesis 33
(1988): 31-53; Richard Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1989); Anthony Kenny, "The Nicomachean Conception of Happiness," Oxford Studies
in Ancient Philosophy 9 (1991): 67-80; Roger Crisp, "White on Aristotelian Happiness,"

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 10 (1992): 233-40. Ackrill, in turn, has his defenders: T.
H. Irwin, "Permanent Happiness: Aristotle and Solon," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
3 (1985): 89-124; Timothy D. Roche, "Ergon and Eudaimonia in Nicomachean Ethics I,"
Journal of the History of Philosophy 26 (1988): 175-94; Stephen A. White, "Is Aristotelian
Happiness a Good Life or the Best Life?" Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 8 (1990):
103-43; Jeffrey S. Purinton, "Aristotle's Definition of Happiness (NE 1, 7, 1098a1618),"
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 16 (1998): 259-97. A few of these articles, as well as
others, appear in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1980). This is only a selection of the literature. Roche, "Ergon
and Eudaimonia," summing up for the inclusive view, ends with a call to reinterpret 10.7 so
that it does not conflict with 1.5-13 and Aristotle's general ethical position. By examining
10.6-8 in the context of Aristotle's discussion of pleasure in 10.15, I attempt to show that the
task of book 10 is to determine the precise activity constitutive of happiness in the strictest
sense, with practical pursuits contributing to happiness to a secondary degree and amusements
as providing necessary physical rest. This yields a reading of the text that sides with the
comprehensive or inclusive view but from a philosophical perspective different from the
assumptions of either side.
(2) In the debate, there is an underlying assumption that the three lives-of pleasure, of moral
virtue, and of contemplation--represent competing theories and exclusive choices. This
reading of the three lives has a long tradition and transcends philosophical approaches. For
example, Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, qq. 179-82, also assumes a choice among
lives, with the comparison of the contemplative and practical lives treated specifically in ST
II-II, q. 182, aa. 1-4. As White, "Aristotelian Happiness," 136-43 (for a lengthy discussion of
these sources) and Kenny, "Conception of Happiness," 74 (more briefly) make clear, this
reading traces back to late antiquity, in Aspasius, Heliodorus, and Alexander, and continues in
the Middle Ages, in Eustratius, Albertus Magnus, and Aquinas himself. The issue is the
meaning of "perfect" and "best" as qualifying virtue in NE 1.7. If this virtue is best in an
exclusive sense and perfect in the sense that nothing can be added to it, then it is not hard to
see why the tradition looked to 10.7 to find a virtue that could fit such strict requirements. The
three lives mentioned in 1.5 and 10.6-8 became completely differentiated theories, and opting
for one became an exclusion of the other two. I argue that both the tradition and its modern
interpreters miss the way in which Aristotle maintains that happiness is exclusive and perfect
in definition but not in relation to the sage as a concrete human being. He is constantly
distinguishing the nature of the activity of contemplation and happiness from the complex
needs and activities of the human subject. Only in the case of the gods does contemplation
find an exclusive and absolute sense. Thus, all three activities--pleasure, practical pursuits, and
contemplation--have a role to play in the happiness of the sage, namely, as providing
necessary rest, or as a secondary happiness that is oriented to the leisure of contemplation, or
as the final end in the strictest sense. For an account of the issue outside the analytic tradition,
see J. Donald Monan, Moral Knowledge and Its Methodology in Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1968). Monan defines the conflict in terms of a difference in method and psychology.
NE 1 and 10 represent a deductive method based on a psychology where the self is identified
with nous and happiness is limited to contemplation; the rest of NE and Eudemian Ethics
utilize a broader psychology in which the composite of body and soul and the respective
virtues of body and soul are integrated into a synthetic whole (see especially 122-6, 132-7).
Monan also discusses how this debate plays out in the wider literature of the twentieth century,

with Jaeger's theory of the development of Aristotle's thought as the underlying issue.
(3) Eugene Garver, "Aristotle's Metaphysics of Morals," Journal of the History of Philosophy
27 (1989): 7-28, discusses pleasure and pain as part of the material cause of virtue (17). His
article gives an interesting reading of how Aristotle uses ideas from his metaphysical and
psychological works, such as act and potency and the faculties of the soul, in the different
context of ethics. The virtues, for example, move neither as nature (automatically) nor as
crafts (needing desire) but with aspects of both; nor is it a rational or irrational power but
somehow in between. In this way, Garver argues, Aristotle bends his theoretical distinctions to
fit the much different context of the practical, especially in defining the nature of habit as
related to choice, with characteristics borrowed from natural powers as well as acquired skills,
but necessarily different, given that virtue defines a pattern of behavior that is stable like
nature but also related to rational choice. Garver, "Aristotle on Virtue and Pleasure," The
Greeks and the Good Life, ed. David Depew (Fullerton: California State University Press,
1980), 157-76, presents a preliminary version of his thesis in terms of courage, where the
rational and irrational factors are particularly pronounced. Garver escapes Timothy Roche's
critique of Irwin's attempt to connect ethics and metaphysics in "On the Alleged Metaphysical
Foundation of Aristotle's Ethics," Ancient Philosophy 8 (1988): 49-60, where he rightly shows
that Aristotle does not need to justify and is not interested in justifying his ethical position by
importing principles from his metaphysics.
(4) David Bostock, "Pleasure and Activity in Aristotle's Ethics," Phronesis 33 (1988): 251-72,
presents another reading of these first chapters of book 10. He takes for granted that the
pleasure of an activity is its completeness and that Aristotle holds that all pleasure is the
completion of an activity (251, 253). Without saying so, he infers the inverse as well, that all
complete activities are pleasant. Bostock points out that some pleasures are related to
replenishing natural states, with pain indicating the loss, as in the case of hunger or thirst. He
brings in the discussion of pleasure in book 7 to show the connection of such pleasures with
the processes of replenishing, concluding with the subject's need to be aware of such activity
for there to be pleasure (263-70). What bothers Bostock is that this account seems to
contradict book 10, where pleasure is associated with complete activities but is illustrated by
activities that are processes, such as walking or building a house. Bostock's solution,
ironically, denies his opening premise that pleasure is just the activity, adding nothing extra.
He distinguishes between the activity and our thought or perception of the activity, holding
that pleasure is only in the latter "activity of the mind" (271). It seems, however, that this
distinction introduces the idea that pleasure is something extra and not just the activity as
such, which fits my argument that pleasure is different from the activity it accompanies and
that there is a distinction between activities that are always accompanied by pleasure and those
that are not. This clears up much confusion. Aristotle distinguishes between pleasures
associated with natural replenishments, where awareness is automatic (due to the pain, no
doubt), and other pleasures associated with sight or the other senses, memory and learning,
and the virtues, where pleasure is not automatic but depends both on the condition of the
faculty and the appropriateness of the object. As Bostock points out, in cases where the
activity is a process, the pleasure comes when such activity is looked at as whole and
complete, whether anticipating or contemplating the completed object. In this anticipation or
contemplation, I would argue that there is a stepping back from the process so that it can be
taken as complete and enjoyed (such stepping back while fully engaged in the process would
be a distraction and interfere with its completion). In the case of complete activities, such as

sensing, memory, or learning, Aristotle is clear that not all instances are pleasant but only
where the organ and its objects are the best. The difference, again, seems to be a stepping back
in which the activity is enjoyed. This emphasizes the connection of pleasure with
contemplation, where both come at the end of an activity and hold it in view as whole and
complete. I tend to see this activity as distinct and as adding something extra but not separable
if that implies in any way that the pleasure or contemplation could occur without the
underlying activity, regardless of whether that is complete or a process.
(5) NE 10.4.1174a14-16; all translations are my own.
(6) NE 10.4.1174620-3. Kraut, Human Good, obscures the close parallel between sensing and
contemplation as activities. As a consequence, he is not able to see fully the role of Aristotle's
discussion of pleasure in his account of contemplation. Kraut's discussion of pleasure does
identify its role as a means to happiness with the need for relaxation and notes also that "the
pleasure associated with any activity ... [affects] the way we engage in that activity," but he
seems to take this as referring to those physical pleasures that serve as means to happiness
rather than that happiness itself has an element of pleasure intrinsic to it (236-7). In this text
and the following, however, Aristotle is making a much stronger claim about the relationship
between pleasure and happiness. Happiness and contemplation are the most pleasant of
activities, precisely as being free and complete. Happiness, moreover, has the same role of
perfecting the activities it accompanies and is thus not the kind of activity that can be
exercised independently of the activities it completes or perfects. Failing to see this results in
the identification of happiness exclusively with philosophical activities (see n. 29 below).
(7) NE 10.4.1174b31-1175a3.
(8) Kraut, Human Good, 68 n. 48, discusses the difference between activity ([GREEK TEXT
NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and process ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE
IN ASCII]) in their application to contemplation. He attempts to clear up some possible
confusions: that reference to a "perfect length of life" does not mean that "the project of
contemplation" is brought to a stage of completion, much less that the secondary happiness of
the moral virtues has some sort of completion as its goal. So far so good, but then he adds that
happiness, as consisting in such activities, has a temporal duration, so that a happy life cannot
be identified with only a few instances of contemplation or with the secondary happiness of
morally virtuous activity. This seems to cause a dilemma. Aristotle has defined happiness as an
activity rather than a habit, so it seems, given the definition of such an activity as whole,
complete, and continuous, that once begun happiness might be achieved once and for all or
that contemplation must be prolonged more and more, even to the point of driving out other
activities (one of the sources of conflict for this position). This looks at happiness abstractly,
as if it could be separate from the activity it accompanies, and also falls to take into account
the nature of the human subject, who cannot engage in such activity for very long periods of
time. Since contemplation follows upon virtuous activity, it is indirectly dependent on the
development of virtue as a habit and only follows upon its active exercise. Thus,
contemplation is not a project to be completed but an activity that is more easily and more
deeply engaged in as the virtue it accompanies is developed more fully and exercised more
frequently and easily. Contemplation is not in competition with the activity of virtue, but they
are related to the same agent who needs both kinds of activities at different and appropriate
times. The failure to make this distinction between the nature of the activity and the conditions
within the subject for its exercise leads to inevitable confusions among the commentators.
Kraut at least avoids the error of Irwin, whose comment that a "complete time will not be a

short time," he criticizes ("Aristotle and Solon," 105, as quoted in Human Good, 68 n. 48).
One can have a moment of contemplation, with its full sense of happiness, but that does not
indicate one's life is characteristically contemplative and consequently happy. He does,
however, tend to see contemplation as an activity that is somehow quantifiable, with some
strange results, such as the need to prolong it, mentioned here and below, n. 28.
(9) NE 10.5.1175a30-5.
(10) Richard Kraut, Human Good, "Introduction," 3-14, outlines the areas in Aristotle's
presentation that are unclear, stemming from the differences between the accounts of
happiness in books 1 and 10, and seeks to resolve these issues in the remainder of his book,
primarily by comparing the two kinds of lives and their implications for other issues (compare
Heinaman, "Self-Sufficiency," 48). Roche, "Reconsidering the Intellectualist Interpretation,"
192--4, and Purinton, "Definition of Happiness," 296, point out that the problem is specific to
those who hold the view that happiness is restricted to the contemplative lire and that a
reinterpretation of 10.7-8 would sustain the congruity with Aristotle's position elsewhere.
(11) NE 10.5.1175b13-17.
(12) NE 10.5.1175630-3.
(13) NE 10.5.1176a16.
(14) NE 10.5.1176a25-9.
(15) NE 7.13.115369-14.
(16) NE 10.6.1176b1.
(17) NE 10.5.1175a27-9.
(18) What is important to note in the present context is that amusement, moral virtue, and
contemplation are seen as related to happiness, at least in common opinion. As he
distinguishes the first two from the precise activity of happiness, Aristotle will identify the
particular notes that make contemplation different from amusement and moral activity,
defining how happiness is self-sufficient and consists in leisure, while the activities of moral
virtue have leisure as their end and the leisure afforded by amusements is actually only a
means relative to the bodily condition of the subject. These connections disappear in the
traditional interpretation where happiness is analyzed in terms of a choice between two lives,
theoretical or practical, with pleasure simply discarded. Most of the authors mention selfsufficiency and completeness as the major characteristics of happiness and contemplation but
almost totally neglect the role of leisure and the link it provides among the three activities.
(19) NE 10.6.1176616-17.
(20) NE 10.6.1176620.
(21) NE 10.6.1176b34-1177a1.
(22) This agrees with the traditional reading that amusement is hot to be identified with
happiness, but emphasizes that it is still related to happiness, understood in relation to virtue.
Amusement may not be needed for the happiness of the gods, who do hot have the same kind
of corporeal component, but such exclusion does not fit Aristotle's account of the human
subject. A1though a life of pleasure is hot so much a rival theory about a third kind of
happiness but a lire that is essentially vicious (since the basis for action is solely found in
pleasure), this does hot eliminate the role of amusement or pleasure in a virtuous life
characterized by moral activity and contemplation. The qualification that pleasure or
amusement concern bodily rest and the consequent connection of happiness with virtue,
moreover, emphasize that Aristotle sees the virtues, intellectual and moral, as going together.
My division of 10.7-8 is designed to show that both virtues are discussed together throughout

these two chapters. One might compare Plato's discussion of happiness in Republic 8-9, where
the happiness of the philosopher may also be seen in contemplation but where the philosopher
is distinct from others precisely in integrating the three aspects of the soul, reason, the spirited
part, and the appetites. For Plato, cities or souls devoted to honor or pleasure (subdivided to
yield four types) cut off the activity of the higher part and are thus not integrated wholes as are
the wise. It does not seem difficult to construe Aristotle as saying something quite similar
about a life that would be limited to practical pursuits.
(23) NE 10.7.1177a12-b26.
(24) NE 10.7.1177626-10.8.117867.
(25) NE 10.8.117867-1179a32.
(26) NE 10.7.1177a16-19.
(27) NE 10.7.117a19-27.
(28) In this context, Kraut's claim in Human Good (15, 27), that one should engage in
contemplative activities as much as possible, with a heavy stress on the quantity of time spent
in it, needs to be examined. He further argues that maximizing contemplation (11, 12, 29, 30
n. 15, 32, 76, 80, 82) brings up the issue of egoism, which would have us maximize such
activity as much as possible, in contrast to a nonegoist reading, where it may in fact be limited
within the context of other responsibilities proper to one's life. My argument rests on the idea
that contemplation is not an activity that one can engage in by itself but only as accompanying
other activities related to wisdom as the virtue of intelligence. Such activity is essentially
nonquantifiable as complete and perfect, but becomes more frequent and thus more
characteristic of the individual as wisdom is increased. Such virtues, moreover, eliminate by
their very nature a dichotomy based on egoism and altruism. See n. 8 above.
(29) Kraut, Human Good, in identifying philosophy tout court with contemplation, tends to
identify any philosophical activity with contemplation and thus intrinsically as manifestations
of happiness (6, 15-77, especially 47 and 73). He writes: "it occurs not only when one silently
reflects, but also when one lectures or writes about a certain subject, when one reads a book,
when one listens to a book being read, or when one hears someone presenting a lecture. The
teacher who is preparing lectures and notes, or who is orally presenting a subject to students
and colleagues, is consciously considering truths that he has already come to understand, and
so he is contemplating" (73). Perhaps he is taking contemplative as a general term that covers
all actions that are not practical, thus including the activities of all the intellectual virtues. In
the present context, however, Aristotle is making a distinction between complete activities that
are in a strict sense contemplative and motions, however intellectual, that are not
contemplative in this sense. The view that underlies Kraut's comments has some undesirable
consequences if applied to these activities. The claim would be suspect if it meant, for
example, that a philosopher always enjoyed such activities as preparing notes or lecturing to
students. If happiness, like pleasure, is a supervening activity, then one cannot engage in it by
itself and, as it were, independently of other activities, such as those of the intellectual and
moral virtues. It is also necessary to remember that Aristotle does not hold that such activities
are necessarily accompanied by pleasure or happiness (compare n. 4). These factors seem to
argue in favor of taking contemplation in a more restricted sense in the present passage, a
move that is not all that unusual for Aristotle.
(30) NE 10.7.1177a29.
(31) NE 8.3-4 discuss perfect friendship, while 8.1.1155a23-32 and 9.8-9 discuss the
importance of friendship for the political order and for the virtuous individual. It is interesting

that the same objections made against contemplation are also made about perfect friendship,
such as the problem of egoism. Keeping in mind Aristotle's notion of the kinds of virtues in
those capable, equally, of perfect friendship and contemplation, it seems such individuals have
moved beyond the instrumental categories that characterize justice and regard their friend in
no sense as a competitor but as the object of that good will which seeks the friend's success.
Aristotle makes a similar claim in Politics 2.4.126263-24 but in the context of a strong
criticism of Socrates' proposal in Republic 450b-c, 457 and following that wives and children
be held in common. His point is that Socrates' "altruistic" proposal would have the opposite
effect from that intended, the watering down of all relationships in the city; only the more
egoistic "mine" has the possibility of building up the bonds of unity in the city.
(32) NE 10.7.117761-6.
(33) In 8.9, moreover, Aristotle suggests how a more authentic kind of leisure is present in the
practical sphere. He describes the unity the polis gives to the communities within it, taking
"polis" in the wider sense of culture. "But all these [communities] seem to be under the polis,
for the political [community] does not aim at a present advantage, but one for the whole of
life. [They] offer sacrifices and hold gatherings for such sacrifices, rendering honor to the gods
and providing for themselves test with pleasure. For the ancient sacrifices and festive
gatherings appear to be after the harvest as an offering of first fruits, for at these rimes people
used to have most leisure" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII])
(8.9.1160a20-7). He is not speaking in this context of the activities of individuals, whether
military or political leaders, but rather of the community as a whole, gathered in leisure, with
the freedom to look at the human situation as a whole, through ritual and drama. In either case,
such activities have the characteristics of contemplation, a perfect activity done not as a means
but as that which is whole and complete. One can also refer here to Aristotle's idea that drama
is more philosophical than history, since it points toward the universal (Poetics 1.9.14516510).
(34) NE 10.7.1177619-25.
(35) David Keyt, "The Meaning of [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in
Aristotle's Ethics and Politics," Ancient Philosophy 9 (1989): 15-21, seeks to widen the range
of meaning of [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], arguing against John
Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975),
159-60. By this means, he wants to support what he sees as the growing consensus that 10.7-8
is consistent with the rest of the ethics as advocating a mixed life of political and
contemplative activity. He uses passages from the Politics to show that Aristotle does think
that one can have more than one [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] at a
time, so that his comments in 10.7-8 need not be taken as modes of life that are mutually
exclusive or that intellectual activity as such includes attention to all the virtues (as suggested
by John Cooper, "Contemplation and Happiness: Reconsideration," Synthese 72 [1987]: 208).
In contrasting [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and [GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], he sees the one as more related to faculties of soul and the
other to different occupations or careers. The use of [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE
IN ASCII] is more straightforward, with Aristotle differentiating the specific human function
in 1.7 as that power of the soul that differentiates human beings from animals. The use of
[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is more difficult to categorize. I find three
different locutions in EN, of which two are relevant to the discussion in 10.7-8. The first
occurs twice, at 1.7.1098a18 ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and here at

10.7.1177b25 ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). The second also occurs
twice, at 8.9.1160a23-4 ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], quoted above in
n. 33) and at 10.8.1178b26 ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). The third
occurs numerous times and consists of [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
with different adjectives or prepositional phrases. The first locution concerns a "complete
life," but it is not clear what Aristotle means by this. As indicated in n. 28, this has been taken
quantitatively, with the corollary that Aristotle is exhorting one to contemplate as much and
for as long as possible. This does not seem plausible to me since the context deals instead with
the possibility of contemplation for a human being. Aristotle argues that it is most human
precisely as a divine activity, and thus a contemplative [GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is not only possible but the proper end. His second use refers to
a "whole life," in relation to the polis in one instance, where happiness is the aim of politics,
and to the gods in the other, where it serves to contrast what the gods have by nature with what
human beings have to the extent that they have a likeness to that divine activity. In the first
case, the aim of politics (no doubt in a wider sense than currently used) is not for a present
advantage, but for the whole of life. The festival refers to the whole of life, not in a
quantitative sense but precisely as free from temporal contingencies and giving a glimpse of
human existence as a whole. This supports the notion that a "complete life" in 10.7-8 includes
all the aspects of human existence in relation to contemplation. In the second case, there is a
contrast between the gods, whose sole activity is contemplation, and human beings, who have
a variety of activities, including contemplation. These uses allow us to see that a life of
contemplation, for the sage as a man, need not exclude other activities. At the same time,
contemplation as an activity need not include other activities, such as those of the virtues. For
the other uses of [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Keyt is correct that they
can be successive or simultaneous. Finally, Keyt's description of [GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] as a career or occupation is a more away from the rigid sense of
mode of life but is perhaps a bit too extrinsic. Perhaps "personality" can provide an analogy
(rather than a translation) for what it means. Thus, a contemplative personality can be
dominant without being exclusive, allowing a secondary, virtuous personality to function. A
personality in conformity with moral virtue, however, is dominant in a more restrictive sense,
allowing for instances of contemplation, but only occasionally and accidentally. This allows
Aristotle to hold that a life exclusively devoted to pleasure cuts off the possibility of a virtuous
life, or that a life exclusively devoted to practical pursuits similarly cuts off a contemplative
life, but that a contemplative life necessarily includes the other two, in proper proportion, as
complete and whole.
(36) NE 10.7.1178a2.
(37) NE 10.5.1176a3-6.
(38) NE 10.8.1178a9-10. The life of moral virtue is ranked second not because it is a
secondary kind of happiness but because it consists in activities that are essentially for the
sake of something else. Leisure, to which the activities of the practical virtues, especially
political and military pursuits, are ordered as to their end, is the controlling concept in this
regard (compare n. 2). A life characterized by practical pursuits, consequently, is secondarily
happy because it is unleisurely and consists in those activities that are for the sake of leisure
and not because it is a second best option. Leisure is identified with the happiness of
contemplation since it is an activity done for its own sake, glimpses the wholeness of life, and
is pure and free. Contemplation, in other words, is that to which practical pursuits are ordered.

(39) De Anima 3.5.

(40) Metaphysics 1.2.
(41) NE 10.8.1178a29, 32, 33.
(42) NE 10.8.1178b6-7.
(43) NE 10.8.1178b7-8.
(44) NE 10.8.1178b21-3.
(45) NE 10.8.1178b28-32.
(46) A problem remains: is happiness restricted just to philosophers or not? I have shown
above that happiness cannot as such be identified simplistically with philosophical activities
but is identified with contemplation of divine and noble objects. This can come as the end of
philosophical reflection, as Aristotle makes clear in Metaphysics 1.1-2, but the question is
whether he restricts contemplation of the divine to this. Hints in the Poetics indicate that some
philosophical value is present in drama, and the Metaphysics itself seems to imply that the
Unmoved Mover can be contemplated in the motions of the heavenly sphere. In principle,
then, Aristotle need not restrict contemplation to the philosopher, but it does seem true that, in
practice, he and the rest of the Greek philosophical tradition have a tendency to restrict it.
Merrill Ring, "Aristotle and the Concept of Happiness," in Depew, Greeks and the Good Life,
69-90, is extreme in taking Aristotle's comments on happiness as contemplation to mean that
he advocates only one standard and only one conception for happiness (85-9). However much
Aristotle in practice identifies happiness with the wise, it is clear that the narrow view Ring
describes does not give due regard to the complex happiness of the wise, nor is Aristotle so
single minded as to preclude any vestige of happiness to others. In this regard, Amelie
Oksenberg Rorty, "The Place of Contemplation in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics," in Essays
on Aristotle's Ethics, 377-94, is helpful in widening the range of what Aristotle means by
contemplation (378), especially in her analysis of the use of [GREEK TEXT NOT
REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in relationship to friendship in 9.9 (388-91). Rorty tends,
however, to amalgamate contemplation and wisdom, as if contemplation and practical wisdom
were the two virtues that Aristotle compares. Her discussion of 9.9 indicates, however, the
sense of contemplation that I have attempted to clarify by distinguishing it as the activity that
comes as an end in relation to wisdom as its virtue.
(47) For a discussion of the dialectical relationship between common opinion and
philosophical reflection see Monan, Moral Knowledge, 98-104. Monan does not recognize
that this dialectical pattern applies to the discussion of the three lives in NE 10. (He is not
alone in this: no one in the current debate considers the possibility either). My argument,
however, takes this as exactly the procedure Aristotle is using in 10.6-8, with the result that
these chapters no longer need to be taken as being in disagreement with Aristotle's general
ethical position. It follows from this that Monan's notion that Aristotle is using a distinctive
psychology in 10.7-8 (122-6; 132-7), where the individual is identified with nous rather than
the composite of body and soul, and other attempts to make these chapters distinctive are no
longer needed.
(48) NE 10.8.1178b33-5.
(49) An earlier version of this paper was presented in April 1998 at John Carroll University
when I was visiting professor holding the Edmund F. Miller, S.J., Chair in Classical Studies.
My thanks are due to the Administration and the Department of Classical and Modern
Languages for their kind support of my research and to the audience for their receptive
comments on that early paper that have sustained me in revising it for publication.

Correspondence to: Philosophy Department, Boston College, Carney Hall, 140

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Publication Information: Article Title: The Activity of Happiness in
Aristotle's Ethics. Contributors: Gary M. Gurtler - author. Journal Title: The
Review of Metaphysics. Volume: 56. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2003. Page
Number: 801+. COPYRIGHT 2003 Philosophy Education Society, Inc.;
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group