Contemplation and Eudaimonia in the Nicomachean Ethics
Norman O. Dahl
In Miller, ed., Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: A Critical Guide
Cambridge, 2011

"The exercise of ethical and political virtue in a life with sufficient external goods would be enough to make that life worth living and sufficiently satisfying to be called happy. But realizing ethical and political virtue and contemplation in such a life would make that life even more worth living and satisfying and so a prime candidate for the primary form of eudaimonia." (DAHL, p. 76)

"[O]ne can understand the ergon of human beings as being unique to them when compared with both other animals and Aristotle's god if the ergon of human beings includes practical and theoretical rational activity.... Given this way of understanding the ergon of human beings, it looks as if one should take eudaimonia to be a life of rational activity in accord with the virtues of practical and theoretical, and so take it to be a life of rational activity in accord with virtue including the best and most final virtue." (DAHL, p. 78)

After quoting NE VI.12 / EE V.12 1143b36-1144a7, Dahl says: "Here both contemplation and the exercise of ethical virtue are said to contribute to eudaimonia. Sophia, part of virtue entire, contributes to eudaimonia because its actualization in contemplation makes men happy. Ethical virtue contributes to eudaimonia because the ergon of human beings, the kind of rational activity which when in accord with virtue constitutes eudaimonia, is achieved through the exercise of phronesis and ethical virtue. Eudaimonia, thus, seems to be a life of rational activity in accord with virtue, including the best and most final virtue." (DAHL, p. 79)

"Rather than arguing that contemplation is the central good, NE X.6-8 argues that contemplation is activity in accord with the best and most final virtue." (DAHL, p. 82)

"Politics VII.9 says that various social roles should be served by the same people at different times of their lives - military service when a person is young, legislative service when the person has acquired wisdom, and service as priests when the person is old. Although contemplation is not mentioned in this discussion, one would expect that it too would best occur at a certain time of a person's life, if only because a person will need a considerable amount of education and experience before he can successfully engage in contemplation." (DAHL, p. 87) [PSA: thus a central focus on theoria might be most appropriate only at a later stage of life, as in the Hindu ashramas of vanaprastha and sannyasa.]

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