Aristotele e l’etica della felicità: Etica Nicomachea I

Happiness is a much-debated topic in both ancient and contemporary philosophy. This paper is devoted to an analysis of Aristotle’s definition of eudaimonia in Book I of Nicomachean Ethics. My aim is twofold: first, to establish what are the necessary and sufficient conditions of eudaimonia for Aristotle; and second, to show how Aristotle’s theory is also a good answer to the questions of the contemporary common sense about what happiness is and how to achieve it. In this way, I would suggest new arguments to give a new voice to Aristotle and his ethics of happiness in the contemporary philosophical debate on this issue. My paper is therefore only tangentially a contribution to this debate and remains essentially an essay on the philosophy of Aristotle, centered on the crucial role of the ergon’s argument in the chapter 6.