Concept in Definition ABC

The concept that concerns us in this review has a use excluding in the field of philosophy, and to be more precise in one of its most relevant branches such as ethics.

And how could it be otherwise, the term has a Greek origin, where, as we know, philosophy was a fundamental part of the culture of classical Greece.
In the Greek language, eudaidomina, where the concept that attends us comes from, means happiness.

Philosophical ethics that approves everything that is done if the goal is to achieve happiness

Eudemonism is an ethical current and a philosophical concept that justifies everything that a person realize if the objective is to achieve happiness and therefore if what he does serves to achieve it.

Eudaemonism defends the thesis that the human being yearns for happiness as a supreme, maximum good. And then from this ethical conception, happiness will be a good to which we all aspire.

Always serve the common good

According to this current, man wants to be happy before anything else, although his behavior must be in harmony with

moral and the good ones traditions, on the basis that every person always has a prior moral sense that will allow them to distinguish the good from the bad.
For example, for eudaemonism, one must aspire to happiness but always thinking about the general well-being and not that it is achieved unscrupulously.

The maxim from which eudaemonism is based is that to reach the long-awaited happiness you have to act naturally, that is, this natural behavior will be the one that will unequivocally lead us towards the happiness. This will also involve acting naturally with a animal, rational and social part. The animal will correspond to physical and material goods, the rational will urge the culture of the mind and the social part will be the one that will concentrate on practicing virtue. Meanwhile, at pleasure he takes it as just a complement of happiness.

Eudaemonic ethics must be framed within the material type since it associates happiness with obtaining a good.

In some way, also related to other doctrines that promote something similar, such as the Hedonism, the Stoic Doctrine and Utilitarianism, since they base their moral standards on the full realization of happiness, conceived as a state of fullness and harmony of the soul although far removed from pleasure, eudaemonism is a Greek concept that implies the following: eu = good and daimon = divinity less.

There have been many eudemonists throughout history, although the Greek philosopher Aristotle he has been the most important and one of the first to subscribe to the eudaemonic question.

Aristotle, one of his greatest references

According to this popular Greek philosopher, the human being tends to do what characterizes him and what is essential and what distinguishes man is the use of reason. So, virtuous behavior, doing good, must be accompanied by the rational capacity that is what will guide us on that path.

In any case, it is worth noting that the eudaemonists recognized that one cannot be fully happy all the time of our existence, it is impossible.

Later, Saint Thomas Aquinas would turn this question around a bit, declaring that one cannot always be happy, and he would say that it is feasible to achieve that total and constant fullness but not in this life but in another life, not in this one, since in the world we live in, only happiness is available relative.

The other side is formal ethics

The other side of eudaemonism is formal ethics, raised by philosophers like Immanuel Kant and which proposes not a good as the essential but rather virtue. Kant believed that the ethical conception should propose something general, such as behaving morally so that everyone can imitate that behavior.

Topics in Eudemonism