Aristotle and his beliefs on Ethics

When it comes to the subject of Aristotle 's opinion on ethics , it is difficult to misquote or misstate the philosopher 's opinion . The reason for this is that Aristotle was very clear , precise and deliberate in the definitions that he put forth in his writings . Precision , however , does not equate unilateral accuracy within the definitions itself . While Aristotle is clear to explain in a general manner what constitutes a moral and ethical life and the rewards such a life can bring , he does not take into consideration the possibility people may personally

br subcategorize Aristotle 's definitions of ethics from a perspective of relativism . This relativism can conflict with the Aristotle 's absolute generalities

Aristotle was a believer in the theory that the ultimate goal of a human being is to seek happiness and that only a virtuous person can truly achieve happiness . Whether one is willing to accept this belief depends on how specific the criteria one opts to hold against the definitions of happiness ' and virtue . In Aristotle 's words , We are now in a position to define the happy man as one who is active in accordance with complete virtue ' If a person follows the conventional definitions of these two words , happiness can be referred to as peace of mind and virtuous can be defined as having s strong degree of moral character Now , from this conventional definition , it can be noted that happiness and virtue , while many times go hand in hand , they can also be exclusive of one another as well

A virtuous person can be a tortured soul . That is , even the most pious decent human being can be conflicted internally . To seek happiness does not necessarily mean that the person will achieve it no matter how good the deeds the person performs are , as the internal dialogue a conflicted person might be experiencing may not silence itself in the presence of performing virtuous actions or thoughts . One possible reason for this is that psychological scars can run deep and no external stimuli (making oneself more self-aware , changing one 's lifestyle , helping people who may be less fortunate ) might be able to silence the chaos

To compound the matter further , if happiness equates to pleasure , then one could make the argument that the ultimate goal for certain people will be to seek hedonism which essentially indicates that the person is not virtuous . Unless of course , virtue remains defined in terms of relativism . If it is , then the nature of relativism will undermine the definition of being virtuous on acceptable standards of what is virtuous and spirals it into a definition found within a certain personal comfort zone . This concept of hedonism is somewhat defined by Aristotle as being different than happiness . Aristotle acknowledges that it is important to live one 's life with goals and objectives of success in mind However , one should not define success by the acquisition of wealth or power , nor should one confuse being successful with being a virtuous person...