Happiness
Philosophy of ethics is based on a couple of main theories that were found by the philosophers of the past several thousand years. Two of the main theories are the Virtue Theory found by Aristotle and the Theory of Utilitarianism found by the British philosopher John Stuart Mill. The two of them have very different opinions on what happiness is to each human being and how we should live our lives to reach the ultimate happiness. It is understandable that the theories they each came up with are quite different because they happened to live over two thousand years apart and one would expect that the way people look at life would change over such a long period of time. Living couple of hundred years before common era and learning philosophy from Plato, Aristotle came up with the Virtue theory. He believed tha
To Aristotle, happiness was the activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue and the highest level of happiness could be achieved from the activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with the virtue of thought. Not all conditions of the soul can be called virtues. His Greatest Happiness Principle says that the action we ought to perform in a given situation is the one that promotes the greatest happiness for everyone concerned, not only the agent's own happiness. Virtues are conditions of the soul. Given the contrasting views of happiness by Aristotle and John Stuart Mill one could wonder what Mill would say if Aristotle ever met him and told him that his notion of happiness is worthy only of a swine. He says that people do not get blamed or praised for their feelings but rather for their virtues and vises. Scholars, in his opinion, ultimately led the happiest and most productive life styles. According to Aristotle, feelings are not virtues. The majority of people would become bored really fast and become unhappy with their careers. Mill also has an opinion on the subject of greatest happiness. Mainly, he could say that the definition or the meaning of happiness is different for every person. There are several ways Mill could respond to Aristotle. To Mill, the right action in any given circumstance is the one that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. Even if you could get everyone to become a scholar, there will be nobody left to do the other essential tasks needed for the general population to survive.
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