Nicomachean Ethics · Chapter
Book X: Pleasure and the Contemplative Life explained
Aristotle examines the nature of pleasure, arguing against those who claim it is wholly bad and against Eudoxus who identifies it with the good.
What happens
Aristotle examines the nature of pleasure, arguing against those who claim it is wholly bad and against Eudoxus who identifies it with the good. He distinguishes between pleasures that hinder virtuous activity and those that complete it. He then argues that happiness (eudaimonia) is activity in accordance with virtue, and the highest happiness is the contemplative life of the intellect, which is most continuous, self-sufficient, and divine. Moral virtue yields a secondary form of happiness, suited to our composite human nature.
Themes in this chapter
Pleasure and Pain
Aristotle examines pleasure as a natural accompaniment to activity, distinguishing between good and bad pleasures, and arguing that pleasure completes virtuous activity.
Happiness and the Good
The chapter culminates in the identification of perfect happiness with contemplative activity, the highest good achievable by humans.
Practical Wisdom and Reason
Reason is identified as the divine element in man; the life of contemplation is the exercise of the highest faculty and constitutes true happiness.
Virtue and Character
Moral virtue is presented as a secondary form of happiness, bound up with the passions and practical life, while intellectual virtue is primary.
Characters to notice
- Aristotle
Author of the Nicomachean Ethics; presents the main arguments on pleasure and the supremacy of contemplation.
- Eudoxus
Argued that pleasure is the good because all beings seek it; his character lent credibility to his view.
- Plato
Cited for his argument that pleasure cannot be the good, since the pleasant life is more desirable with wisdom than without.
- Socrates
Referenced implicitly through Platonic arguments; part of the philosophical tradition Aristotle engages with.
- Anaxagoras
Mentioned in the context of the contemplative life and the divine element in human nature.
- Heraclitus
Alluded to in the discussion of the flux of pleasure and the importance of stable pleasures.
- Speusippus
Represented the view that pleasure is bad; Aristotle critiques this position.
- Bywater
Editor of the Greek text; referenced in the scholarly apparatus of the translation.
Key passages
“For pleasure seems, more than anything else, to have an intimate connection with our nature; which is the reason why, in educating the young, we use pleasure and pain as the rudders of their course.”
Pleasure is deeply tied to human nature, which is why we guide children by rewarding and punishing them.
Aristotle introduces the pedagogical role of pleasure and pain in shaping character.
“Eudoxus thought pleasure was the good, because he saw that all beings, both rational and irrational, strive after it; but in all cases, he said, that which is desirable is the good, and that which is most desirable is best.”
Eudoxus argued that since every creature seeks pleasure, it must be the highest good.
Aristotle presents Eudoxus's hedonistic argument, which he will later qualify.
“If then reason be divine as compared with man, the life which consists in the exercise of reason will also be divine in comparison with human life.”
Since reason is the divine part of us, living a life of contemplation is living a divine life.
Aristotle elevates the contemplative life as the highest form of human flourishing.
“The life that consists in the exercise of the other kind of virtue is happy in a secondary sense; for the manifestations of moral virtue are emphatically human [not divine].”
The practical moral virtues yield a happiness that is human, not divine, and thus secondary to contemplation.
Aristotle distinguishes between the primary happiness of contemplation and the secondary happiness of moral action.
