Eudaimonia and Flourishing

Eudaimonia, often rendered as flourishing, is the notion of a fully good human life that serves in eudaimonist virtue ethics as the foundation grounding the value of the virtues.

Definition

Eudaimonia is the most complete and self-sufficient human good, understood not as a subjective feeling but as a life of activity that fully realizes a human being's nature, in which the exercise of the virtues is central and partly constitutive.

Scope

This topic covers the concept of eudaimonia and its modern descendant, flourishing: its objective and activity-centred character in the ancient tradition, its relation to virtue, the role of external goods and luck, and contemporary naturalistic attempts to ground flourishing in facts about the human form of life. It examines how flourishing functions as the evaluative bedrock of eudaimonist theories.

Core questions

• Is eudaimonia a subjective state of satisfaction or an objective condition of living well?
• How is flourishing related to the possession and exercise of virtue?
• What role do external goods and luck play in a flourishing life?
• Can flourishing be grounded naturalistically in facts about human nature?

Key theories

Eudaimonia as virtuous activity

Aristotle's view that flourishing is not a feeling but the soul's activity in accordance with complete virtue across a complete life, so that virtue is partly constitutive of the good life.

Natural goodness

Foot's naturalistic account on which the goodness of human virtues is assessed by the same teleological standard used to evaluate the characteristics of any living thing relative to its form of life.

History

Eudaimonia was the organizing aim of ancient ethics, with rival accounts offered by Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans, as Annas (1993) documents. The notion returned to prominence with the revival of virtue ethics, and Foot (2001) sought to ground human flourishing naturalistically, while Nussbaum developed a capabilities-based account of the components of a flourishing life.

Debates

Virtue, flourishing, and luck

Whether a virtuous person can fail to flourish through misfortune divides Aristotelians, who allow that external goods matter, from Stoics, who hold that virtue alone suffices for the good life.

The naturalistic grounding of flourishing

Foot's attempt to read evaluations of human virtue off facts about the human life form is challenged as either covertly normative or unable to vindicate the specific virtues morality recognizes.

Key figures

• Aristotle
• Julia Annas
• Philippa Foot
• Martha Nussbaum

Seminal works

• aristotleNE
• annas1993
• foot2001

Frequently asked questions

Is eudaimonia the same as happiness?

Not in the modern sense. Eudaimonia is sometimes translated 'happiness,' but it refers to an objective condition of living and acting well over a whole life, not a subjective feeling of pleasure or contentment.

How does flourishing ground the virtues?

In eudaimonist theories, the virtues are justified as the traits that enable and partly constitute a flourishing human life, so an account of flourishing provides the foundation for which traits count as virtues.