Aristotle in Plain and Simple English

Aristotle also made it clear that happiness is paramount, and that friendship, wealth, and power are fundamental – and that our happiness is impaired if we lack certain advantages. For example, a man who is born extremely ugly or has lost children and close friends early in life is severely lacking in the opportunity to be happy. This matters, according to Aristotle, because the potential to achieve the highest ‘good’ will be diminished if certain attributes are inadequate. The unfortunate man who is ugly, childless and friendless will find fewer ways of taking part in virtuous activity than the more fortunate. This seems to imply that Aristotle thinks our chances of achieving ‘eudaimonia’ depend on our whole fortune – but he elsewhere insists that the highest good (virtuous activity) does not simply come our way through chance – we share much of the responsibility for obtaining and using the virtues.

For Aristotle, there are two types of excellences of virtues – those of character and excellences of reasoning

Aristotle differs from his teacher Plato since Plato held the belief that our souls existed before we are born, and simply join us at birth, only to leave us when we die. But for Aristotle the pragmatist – souls could no more survive our bodies that such attributes as our skills and character. ‘Clearly, those principles whose actuality is corporeal cannot exist without a body – for example, walking without feet; hence they cannot come from outside – for they can come in neither alone (for they are inseparable), nor in some body.’