Introduction
The Aristotelian tradition has always maintained that human happiness must consist in a life of virtue. Indeed, Aristotle himself defined happiness as “an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there is more than one virtue, in accordance with the best or most complete.”[i] This definition may be one which is accepted by many, but it remains nonetheless debated and denied. Consider Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s notorious statement that “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”[ii] In the 25 years since this startling declaration was made, society, especially in the West, has continued to wage war on common moral sense, and advocates for a more or less purely autonomous man. Man can now reimagine himself, and as if by fiat, determine what he is, who he is, and what will make him happy. To the contrary, the purpose of this paper is to lay out clearly and succinctly why the happy life for man must consist in a life of virtue. The necessary connection between happiness and virtue, far from being something known only by the wise, can be known by anyone through a careful reflection on their own lives.
To that end, this paper is divided into five parts. In part one I will examine the general notion of happiness and the good. Part two will answer an objection to the notion of happiness discussed in the first part and clarify how our understanding of happiness and the good must be rooted in man’s natural inclinations. In part three I will discuss how we can judge and determine the rectitude of our desires in relation to man’s natural powers and activities. In part four I will determine which activities of man are most constitutive of his happiness and why this is the case. And in the final part I will conclude with a general consideration of virtue and why our happiness must be the virtuous life.
[i] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.7
[ii] Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
I. Happiness, the Good, and our Desires
Every voluntary action of man is done for the sake of happiness. Man is free and is therefore capable of making judgements about what he thinks will make him happy and freely determining himself to one course of action instead of another. By a free act we mean one that is neither necessary nor forced, it is within the power of the agent to do or not do the particular act. These actions are always for the sake of something that we think will make us happy in one way or another. All men naturally have some understanding of what happiness is. The most general notion of happiness—one which would be common to the many—is that happiness is getting what we want. This notion is not unfounded in common human experience. When we lack something and desire it, we seek it out, and if we manage to attain it, we are happy. We are happy, then, when our desires are fulfilled. But these fulfillments are temporary, and they admit of a greater and a less. A hungry man experiences a kind of happiness when his hunger is satisfied, but this satisfaction will not last. Moreover, not all satisfactions of hunger are equally pleasant or intense. Furthermore, the fulfillment of hunger does not additionally satisfy his other desires as well. He may still be tired, poor, and scrawny. We could only be completely happy, then, if all our desires were fulfilled in a stable and complete way. We can now define complete happiness as the total and perfect fulfillment of all our desires.
This brief treatment of happiness as the purpose of all our activities is a general understanding of why we act the way we do. But we should examine more specifically what it is that we think will make us happy, that is, what are those things which we choose for the sake of happiness? Happiness is not a particular thing or activity which we choose at any given moment, like an apple or watching TV. Rather, we desire particular things or activities because we think that through them, we will be happy. These things and activities, through which and in which we hope to find happiness, are goods. Put simply, we only do or choose what seems good to us. We should ask, then, what is the good? A good is that which is desirable. Those things which we desire are what seem good to us, for no one desires what he judges to be evil.
Through a brief self-reflection we can see that every time we deliberately act, we do so for an intended good. We eat when we are hungry and desire food, we sleep when we are tired and desire rest, and we listen to music because it is pleasing to us. In these examples, food, sleep, and music are the goods which we desire, and which we think will make us happy when obtained. It is obvious that we do not always do what is good, often we do evil, but even in these cases we only choose that course of action because something about it seemed good to us. It is impossible to desire and choose something which we judge to be evil in every respect. And so, we can conclude that not only do we always act for the sake of happiness, but also that we always do what appears good to us in some way.
II. Happiness and the Good Reconsidered
At this point there is an objection that demands attention. If we only desire and choose what appears good to us, and further, if happiness is having our desires fulfilled, then it seems that everyone would always be happy when they achieved what they desired. But this is not the case; many people in choosing what seems good to them are made miserable thereby. In order to answer this objection, we must notice two truths: 1) not all men agree about what happiness consists in, and 2) some judgments about what makes man happy are better than others.
The first truth is known through common human experience. For some people, happiness consists in pleasure, for others, in wealth or possessions, and some would say complete happiness can be found in fame, honor, glory, or power. None of these things are bad in themselves, but we will have to see if they can truly be considered man’s ultimate happiness, that is, can these things completely and perfectly satisfy man? Furthermore, not only is there disagreement about what man’s happiness consists in, but we also see that some judgments about what makes a human being happy are better than others. The easiest way to see this truth is by examining those desires which are commonly viewed as evil. What do we say about a man who delights in the sight and sound of people in pain? We would all agree that this man is wicked and that his desire to inflict harm on innocent people is perverse. We could say, without fearing being labeled judgmental, that this man ought not to desire that; his desires are disordered. But whenever we use language like should or should not, we are appealing to an objective standard by which we measure other things. If there were no objective moral standards common to all then we could never condemn this man for his desires. But we do condemn him, and rightfully so. Therefore, it is not the fulfillment of any desire whatsoever which makes us happy, but only the fulfillment of those desires which are in accord with certain objective standards, only those desires which we ought to have.
One might object further, arguing, ‘I do not disagree that his desires are bad, but happiness does not extend to the quality of the desire, but only to the fulfillment of it.’ In other words, someone might think that by happiness we only mean having your desires fulfilled, regardless of their moral quality. According to this view the man who enjoys hurting innocent people is wrong, but since it is what he desires, if he fulfills this desire, then he is happy. Hurting innocent people is his happiness. This objection is specious and is disproven by the relationship between our desires and the good. Firstly, we might note in passing that, if all men have the same nature, and happiness is a fulfillment of a thing, then we should expect that happiness be fundamentally the same for all men. Furthermore, we say that all men have a right to pursue happiness. But if all have this right and happiness is nothing more than getting what we want, then we must agree to the absurd conclusion that all men have a right to do whatever they want.
Moreover, we defined the good as that which is desirable, but we must not think that the thing desired is good simply because it is desired. Rather, things are desired because they are good; the goodness in things is the cause of our desiring them. We desire pizza because it is good, we desire rest because rest is good, and we desire friendship because friendships are good. The goodness in the things themselves is what makes our desire for and possession of them good.
Nor can we allow for a purely subjective happiness. Certainly, we cannot deny that some people take pleasure in disordered activities, but this should not lead us to conclude that this disordered way of life is ‘their happiness’. As noted above, when we speak about human happiness, we are referring to something common to all men. There are, of course, some variations in the preferences from one to another, but it cannot be that the only common thread between the happiness of different individuals is that they each have their desires fulfilled. For if all men have the same nature, then they all must fundamentally need the same things for fulfillment. If two morally contrary ways of life can both be considered happiness, then the word happiness has been stripped of any real meaning. If we say that a murderer is made happy by his murders, and a mother is happy in serving her children, the word happiness no longer signifies something in reality, but it has been reduced to naming truly unrelated realities. If the pain of innocent people is evil, then causing it is evil and desiring it is evil as well. But the word happiness signifies something good; happiness is a perfection, not just a fulfillment of any desire whatsoever. Furthermore, we saw that happiness is achieved by choosing those things and actions which seem good to us. But if happiness is the fulfillment of those desires which we ought to have, and we desire what seems good to us, then our happiness depends on desiring and possessing real goods. Genuine happiness is therefore inseparable from authentic goods. We must now determine what those goods are, that is, what is it which actually makes us happy?
III. Proper Desires and Human Activities
In the previous section we argued that there are better and worse desires and that, therefore, there is an objective standard by which we judge human desires, goods, and happiness. Now we should examine more specifically what it is that makes a desire good. The answer to this question is rooted in man’s nature and purpose. To ask what makes a man’s desires good is the same as asking what makes a man good. Consider some parallel examples to illustrate this point. What makes a chair good? A chair is said to be good if it performs its function well, that is, if it accomplishes what it was made for. The better the chair accomplishes its intended purpose, the better is the chair. So, if the chair is sturdy, comfortable, and constructed in such a way that it supports the legs, backside, and back of a person, then it is a good chair. Similarly, a knife is good if it cuts well, and a refrigerator is good if it keeps perishable foods at the desired temperature. The question is, then, what is the purpose of man?
This analogy may seem strange since we are far more complex than a knife or a chair. Moreover, the language of purpose implies that we have been made in a specific way for a certain reason and fulfillment, which is something that we should prove, not assume. But the reasonability of the question of man’s purpose or ultimate goal will be justified by a consideration of the activities natural to man. We could initially say that we determine the purpose of a tool or machine by examining its activities, or what we can accomplish with it. But we quickly notice that tools and machines can be used for different and sometimes even unrelated purposes. The purpose of a wrench, for example, seems to be gripping small objects too small for the hand that need to be twisted, moved, or held tightly. This is reasonable given the physical construction of the wrench which can be adjusted to firmly grasp varying sizes of relatively small objects. But I can also use a wrench to break open a car window or dig a hole (if I was desperate). Why can we not say that smashing things or digging is the purpose of the wrench? In answer to this difficulty, we should notice two things.
First, while I may have some success in digging a hole with a wrench, if I really persisted, the tool is clearly not well suited for the task. A wrench is not a good tool for digging. We could say, then, that the activity of a wrench is whatever it can do well. But what about smashing windows? The wrench is a very good tool for that task. Must we say, then, that the proper activities of a wrench are gripping small things tightly and smashing things? The answer to this question is the second truth we should notice. A wrench may be good at smashing windows but that is not because it is a wrench, but because it is heavy and durable. Put simply, it is not because it is a wrench that it is good at smashing windows but because it is made from metal. But we want to know what the proper activity of a wrench is, not what belongs to the wrench simply because of what it is made from. There is simply no need for the wrench to have the adjustable mechanism by which it can grasp things of varying sizes if its purpose is merely to smash. What we must see here is that the proper activity of a thing will explain why it is made the way that it is. The parts of a thing, the relationship between the parts to each other, as well as the parts to the whole, are made intelligible by the activities which they were supposed to perform. The purpose of a wrench is, therefore, not to dig or smash things, but to firmly grasp and adjust things too small for the human hand. We can say generally, then, that the purpose of a thing is what it alone can do, or at least, what it does best.
How does this help us understand the purpose of man? Like the example of the wrench, we should try to determine what the activities of man are. Now unlike artificial things, man is alive. This means that his activities are self-originating and self-beneficial. The activities of living things do not come merely from an external source, but they originate from within the thing itself. The dog grows, nourishes itself, and moves. These activities are from the dog and, moreover, they are good for the dog. In nature we discover three fundamental levels or tiers of living things, and these tiers are based on the diversity of the thing’s activities. The first group includes all plants, which nourish themselves, grow and reproduce. The second group performs the three activities belonging to plants, but they can also sense and move locally. This group includes brute animals. The final and highest tier is man, who nourishes himself, grows, reproduces, senses, and moves, but can also know and love. These are the seven activities of life, and man is capable of all of them.We began this section by arguing that we can only know what will make man happy once we have discovered his purpose or end, and that this purpose will become clear once we have determined man’s activities. In light of the conclusion of the previous paragraph, we can now say that the happiness of man will depend on the fulfillment of his seven activities. Moreover, since man’s happiness consists in the perfection of his activities, those desires are good which lead to the actual fulfillment of his powers or natural abilities. We must now consider whether man’s happiness is found in the fulfillment of all his activities equally or if some of his activities hold a pride of place in human fulfillment.
IV. Man and the Preeminence of Reason
With the example of the wrench, we saw that the proper activity of a thing is what it alone can do or what it does best. The wrench is good if it performs its proper function well. The primary goodness of a thing must be understood in reference to its proper activity, not simply any activity it is able to perform. What do we find when we apply this truth to the case of man? We saw above that man is capable of all seven activities of life. But five of those activities, namely, self-nourishment, growth, reproduction, sensation, and locomotion, are not proper to man, they are common to other lower living creatures. To be proper to something means that it belongs to that thing, all of that thing, only that thing, and all the time. Five of the seven activities of life belong to man insofar as he is an animal, not insofar as he is a man. Only the powers of reason and will belong to man alone, only these powers can be properly called human.
This truth is crucial for our present discussion, for this entire paper is for the sake of discovering in what human happiness consists. It stands to reason that human happiness will be some fulfillment of what is uniquely human. It would be strange indeed if what constituted the perfection and fulfillment of an oak tree or a lemur was the same as what fulfills man. Despite the obvious similarities between men and animals, if man is naturally different from a brute animal, then his happiness will be unique as well. Common human experience supports this conclusion well. No one would honestly claim that a man could be fulfilled living the life of a cow or a mouse. It seems, then, complete human happiness must consist, at least principally, in those activities which are distinctively human. We should examine this a bit further.
Among earthly creatures, the powers which are proper to man are reason and will. Besides possessing the activities common to other living creatures, man is also capable of knowing universal truth and loving the universal good. These powers not only make man unique on earth, but what is more, they elevate him infinitely above the non-spiritual world. Philosophical arguments could be given for the high dignity of man over non-rational creatures, but we can also reach the same conclusion by a brief consideration of what man commonly considers most valuable. We should not think that since reason and will are man’s highest powers that there is no place for the fulfillment of the other powers in human happiness. Indeed, the development of our other activities is necessary, to a certain extent, in this life. The point here is that we naturally value our higher activities above the rest. No amount of delicious food and drink, no wealth of lavish comforts, could ever move a sane man to trade in his ability to think, carry on a conversation, or maintain a fruitful friendship. It seems that our lower activities like eating, growing, and moving, are pursued for the sake of maintaining a healthy life so that we can successfully engage in those activities which make life worth living. Even our precious abilities to see and hear, abilities the healthy could hardly imagine living without, even these, would be considered of little to no value in comparison to the mind.
We see, then, that it is consistent with common experience that the full happiness of man must consist principally in the fulfillment of those powers which are proper to man, viz., reason and will. But what does this mean? Does this mean that we should neglect our other powers and activities because they are not of the same dignity as reason and will? We will see below that this is not the case and that the perfection of the rational activity in man is complex and multi-faceted.
Reason is the immaterial power in man that knows truth, reaches conclusions through reasoned out arguments, makes judgements on what is good and evil, discovers order in the created world, and puts order into things. And since the will is the power in man that desires universal goodness, the existence of the will is a kind of natural corollary to the existence of reason. Put simply, man has a will because he has reason. There is, then, a natural subjection of the will to reason because the will is a blind power and desires only what reason proposes to it as good or rejects what reason judges as evil. The activity of the will depends on the activity of reason. Moreover, the freedom of the will is fundamentally rooted in the rationality of man. Reason makes judgements on the moral quality of human action, and only after this moral judgment does the will act voluntarily. The proper object of the will is the universal good, and so whatever reason perceives as lacking goodness in any way, cannot necessitate the will in choosing it. This is why we are free. It is reason, then, which is the first principle of morality in human action; the will is guided and directed to its proper course by the activity of reason.
In addition to the rational appetite, namely the will, man also possesses lower desiring powers called the sense appetites or passions. The passions are movements of the soul and body following upon a sensitive perception of bodily pleasant goods or painful evils. These passions, like anger, fear, love, desire, and aversion, arise spontaneously from the desiring power in man once a good or evil is sensed. Unlike the voluntary actions of the will, the sense appetites are not freely exercised. We do not choose to feel scared when we are surprised by an intruder in our home, we do not choose to desire the pizza we smell when we are hungry, and we do not choose to feel satisfied when the pizza is consumed. These ‘emotional responses’ occur immediately and do not depend on the direction and governance of reason. Because of this it may seem that the passions are completely out of our control and that they have no place in a discussion of morality. For morality is a consideration of the principles of good and evil in voluntary human action; morality is concerned with those things for which we are responsible. So, if the passions are not under our control, if we do not freely feel them at any given moment, then we are not responsible for them, and we should disregard them in our present considerations.
But we should not be so hasty. For while it is true that the immediate movements of the sense appetites are not voluntary, this does not mean that they are in no way under the guidance and power of reason. Through careful consideration we can see that the passions of the soul can be governed and shaped by reason. Reason can reflect on the other powers of the soul and understand what each requires for its proper perfection. And since the activity of the sense appetites depends on the perception of the senses, man can control what he allows himself to present to his appetites. Notice that our appetites change over time. The food we like, the music we find pleasing, the company we keep, the leisurely activities we engage in, these are not always the same. A child grows out of fearing the dark and despising the taste of everything green and leafy.
Man is capable, over time, of shaping and molding his appetites. We can develop a taste for certain foods we have disliked in the past by frequent and consistent consumption of them. If a bachelor feels an intense romantic desire towards a married woman, he can change this desire by freely choosing to stop meeting her. His appetites will likely diminish over time so long as he keeps himself at a distance, not allowing those passions to be moved by her. If a woman feels a sudden surge of anger in traffic, she can reflect on that anger, notice perhaps that it is not reasonable and consciously work on calming herself down. By not allowing herself to indulge her anger, by keeping it in check, she is training herself to not feel so angry in similar situations. If this conscious reflection and control of her anger is done consistently, then gradually her anger in these situations will diminish until it is not felt at all. The point of these examples is to illustrate that we can do something about our passions. While they are not as immediately subject to our reason as the will is, they do participate in the life of reason inasmuch as they can be guided and changed by it.
We see, then, that in addition to the power of reason, man’s will and passions participate in the activity of reason. Reason, the highest power in man, gives rise to the will and the will depends on reason for its own activity. The passions are subject to change and development under the guidance of reason and free will. And so, when we say that the full perfection and happiness of man must consist in the activity of his highest power, we see that this activity is not limited merely to the rational power itself, but it extends to those powers which fall under the guidance of reason. The happiness of man, then, will consist in the good activities of reason, the will, and the passions.
V. The Governance of Reason and Virtue
We have now reached the final part of this paper. We have seen that the happiness of man must consist in the fulfillment of his purpose and that this purpose can only be determined by an examination of the activities of life belonging to man. We then argued that human perfection will be found in the fulfillment of those powers and activities that are uniquely human. Finally, in the last section, we showed that the highest power in man is reason, and that the fulfillment of the rational activity is threefold, extending to those powers and activities which are subject to reason. It remains to be seen what exactly this fulfillment is.
Through reason man can understand himself, his powers and activities, as well as what his powers need for their proper fulfillment. Only reason can know the perfections of his parts and what perfects him as a whole. But man does not give himself his own nature; he does not determine autonomously what he needs to live, thrive, and be happy. What man needs, in at least a general way, is already determined by his nature and natural powers. This means that each of man’s powers has a natural ordering and determination to what perfects it. Consequently, man cannot be perfected and happy unless reason rightly determines what his powers demand for their proper perfection. And since reason is the knowing and governing power in man, if the proper perfections of man are known by reason, it can in turn direct and order those powers subject to reason to their own fulfillment. This knowledge of what constitutes the perfection of man, along with the careful direction and ordering of man to his perfection is what we mean by right living.
Consider an example. Man is not in control of his digestive powers, that is, his powers of digestion and nourishment do not depend on the command of reason or will to perform their activities. Once food is eaten, we do not need to will to use the food well. If the body is healthy, the food will be assimilated and used for the nourishment of the body. But the act of eating itself is subject to reason and will; eating is a voluntary action. This means that in order to eat well, reason must determine which foods are good for man, that is, which foods can provide nourishment. A man cannot decide, for example, that he will be nourished by eating shards of broken glass. The nature of the human body and digestive system reject this as food. But once the good is known, we can freely direct ourselves to eating those things which will perfect the nutritive power. This process is the same with every other power in man. We must determine which objects will perfect the senses, the will, and even reason itself, if we wish to truly perfect these powers and be happy.
The difficulties of human life, together with our inclination to sin, make this discovery and self-direction arduous. The necessity of correctly understanding ourselves and what we need for natural perfection is made evident by the frequency and abundance of bad choices and desires. We do not always choose or even desire what we ought, and we often are blind to our errors. It seems, then, that the first and most necessary perfection demanded for moral rectitude and happiness is the cultivation of reason in the truth. Once this is accomplished, we can begin to put due order into our actions and desires and live a fulfilling life.
We now have a good picture of what we mean by human happiness, but we have not yet discussed virtue. How does virtue fit into this picture of human fulfillment? Recall that happiness is the complete and perfect fulfillment of our good desires. This perfect happiness is not attainable in this life, but the life of virtue does approximate it in many ways. When we desire something good and obtain it, we are happy. But happiness is incomplete and diminished if it is fleeting and inconsistent. All men desire happiness and we want our happiness to be stable. Indeed, the expectation of losing the good we possess is a blight on the joy we feel when we possess it. Moreover, we have seen that human happiness is complex; it involves the combination of truthful knowledge of ourselves and the world we live in, right conduct in human action, as well as desires ordered to what is good. But we must also strive for stability in this happy life. We do not want to have correct knowledge of what should be done only sometimes, but all the time. Similarly, we do not want to act well and desire the right things only occasionally, but consistently. This stability is what virtue offers.
Knowledge can be cultivated and, in time, so firmly established in the mind that it is there when we wish to consider it. As human beings age and mature, the way they act and feel takes on a quasi-permanent form. In fact, our actions spontaneously arise from our character. What we need to notice here is that through the activity of reason, through the directing and gradual shaping of our will and desires, we begin to form habits. A habit is simply a stable inclination of a power to act in a certain way. And, of course, there are good habits and bad habits. A man with bad habits consistently acts in accordance with his habits, that is, he consistently acts poorly. It seems, then, that good habits would have the opposite effect. Let’s examine this more closely.
We saw that human happiness depends fundamentally on three things: knowledge, good action, and good desires. Moreover, we argued that happiness demands that these conditions be stable. Our conclusion, then, is upon us. For virtue is nothing more than the stable quality or disposition of a power to act well. And so, since our happiness must consist in the stable and good activity of man’s highest faculty, and since, in addition to reason itself there are two other powers which participate in the life and direction of reason, we can now see that happiness will consist in the stable dispositions of those powers to acting well. We can see our conclusion in the following syllogism.
Premise 1: Man’s happiness consists in the good and stable use of his highest power or powers.
Premise 2: The highest powers in man are reason, and those powers which participate in the activity of reason by being governed by it.
Conclusion: Therefore, man’s happiness consists in the good and stable use of reason, and those powers governed by reason.
Virtue is the stable disposition of these powers. And since there are different powers that can act in accord with reason, there are also different virtues. We should not think that this is too simplistic of an understanding of virtue. For virtue is simply that by which anything consistently performs its activities well. We could say, for example, that the virtue of a knife is its sharpness and durability, since a knife must be sharp enough to cut and be strong enough to consistently hold a sharp edge. Even in this analogous case with the knife, we see that it does not require only one perfection to perform its function well. The more complex and versatile something is, the more will be required for it to be fulfilled.
Man possesses many different powers which need to be cultivated and trained to act well. We are not born with perfect knowledge, nor are our wills and desires naturally fixed in the good. The orientation of our powers to their perfecting objects is a gradual process that only occurs through the conscious and deliberate ordering of ourselves to the good. If this process is sufficiently consistent and intense, it will eventually result in our powers being fixed in the good in a stable and habitual way. Man requires many virtues since his powers are capable of performing many different activities. Every unique virtue, then, perfects some power of man enabling that power to perform one of its proper activities well. There are virtues which are in reason itself, perfecting his knowledge about the world, himself, and right living; these are called the intellectual virtues. The virtues in the will and desires of man, called the moral virtues, order these powers swiftly and effortlessly to the good. We can now see why Aristotle defined happiness as a life in accordance with virtue or virtues. The perfection of man does not only consist in the perfection of reason alone, but in the perfection of the whole soul guided by right reason. Reason orders and directs itself and the powers subject to it into virtue. Without the formation of virtues, then, man could never consistently and effectively perform his activities well. But we saw that in order for man to be happy he must seek to fulfill his purpose and reach the perfection of his nature through the proper and stable fulfillment of his natural activities, especially his highest activities. Therefore, the happy life can only be a life of intellectual and moral virtue.