I. What is happiness? (We haven’t identified it by looking at common forms of life.)
A. Must be self sufficient (must be an intrinsic value).
B. Seek it in the function of man.
1. Remember: good is what is (to be) aimed at. Everyone agrees that’s happiness. So happiness is supposed to be the good.
2. Look at other cases of being good. (Good flute player, good carpenter, etc.)
3. Goodness consists in fulfillment of function.
4. What is the function of man?
C. To live? No, even plants have that. That is a life of mere “nutrition and growth.”
D. To perceive? No, even horses and animals have that.
E. “There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle”
1. Existence of the element
2. Activity of that element.
F. The element that has a rational principle=your faculty of reason
G. Goodness=what is (to be) aimed at (in action)=happiness=the (distinctive) function of man=active use of reason.
II. But since good activity is virtuous activity and goodness=happiness, then (roughly) happiness is virtuous activity. So we must consider the nature of virtue.
III. Three kinds of “things found in the soul”
A. Passions: Appetites, anger, fear, confidence…in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure or pain.
B. Faculties: things in virtue of which we are capable of passions (e.g. sensory faculties).
C. States of character: things in virtue of which we stand well or badly in with reference to the passions (patience, courage, etc.).
1. An aspect of the soul responsible for moderating the passions appropriately.
2. Presupposes that there is such a things as standing badly with reference to the passions.
IV. What sort of state is virtue? An intermediate between excess and defect. A state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean—this being determined by the rational principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. (Circularity?)
V. The contemplative life, the moderation of reason itself by reason, is thus the ideal. But it may be beyond our actual human reach.