Happiness and the External Goods
T.D. Roche
In Polansky, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Cambridge, 2014

"Aristotle rejects the idea that a person's happiness or unhappiness is determined, *merely*, by his good or bad fortune: 'They are not what doing well or badly depend on, though, as we said, human life must have them in addition. What really *controls* [kuriai] happiness are activities in accordance with virtue, and what controls its contrary are the contrary activities.' (1100b8-11) To say that activity in accordance with virtue *controls* happiness falls short of saying that happiness consists in nothing but virtuous activity. This point is supported by Aristotle's use of comparative forms of the term kurios (e.g., at 1094a26, 1098b14-15, 1168b30-32, 1178a34-b3, GC 335b34, and PA 640b28)." (ROCHE-2014, p. 41)

"The reasons given in [1100b33ff] for why the happy person will not fall into unhappiness is that such a person will not engage in 'hateful and petty actions,' that is, vicious actions. This is so because the happy person has put activity in accordance with virtue in 'control' of his life." (ROCHE-2014, p. 46)

"Why would one be deprived of happiness if one could engage in activities in accordance with virtue but only with difficulty? Perhaps Aristotle's close association of pleasure with happiness helps to explain this idea.... [F]or Aristotle, pleasure is an unimpeded activity of a natural state (1153a12-15), or that which supervenes upon, or completes, the unimpeded activity of a state in good condition (1174b31-1175a1).... And this is why everyone thinks that the happy life is pleasant and weaves pleasure into happiness - reasonably enough, since no activity is complete when it is impeded (empodizomene), and happiness is something complete. The happy person therefore needs bodily goods, external goods, and good fortune, so that he will not be impeded in these respects. (1153b14-19)." (ROCHE-2014, p. 48)

"[D]espite reversals of fortune, the virtuous person 'will spend all, or most, of his time engaged in action and contemplation in accordance with virtue' (1100b19-20)." (ROCHE-2014, pp. 54-55)

"Since happiness is a cause of goods, we take it to be something honorable and divine (1102a3-4). What does Aristotle mean by saying that happiness is 'the cause of goods' (to aition ton agathon)? He cannot mean that happiness *produces* all good things. His point rather is that if we consider eudaimonia in terms of its primary component, activity in accordance with virtue, then external goods, those things are good without qualification (i.e., ideally, but not necessarily, good for a person) really do become goods for the happy person. Activity in accordance with virtue ensures the actual goodness of those 'goods.' For the virtuous person is the standard and measure of what is good (1113a22-33, 1166a12-13), has the proper attitude toward the external goods (1124a1-20), and always uses them rightly. [fn50: See in addition to the passages of the NE cited in support of this interpretation, EE 1248b31-34, 1237a4-5, Politics 1332a7-24, and esp. MM 1183b27-35 and 1183b39-1184a4.]" (ROCHE-2014, p. 61) [PSA: furthermore, eudaimonia is living well, i.e., the best life, which is the complete good and the highest good achievable in action.]

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