Introduction
For many decades, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, his most important study of personal morality and the ends of human life, has been a widely read and influential text. Even though it was published over 2,000 years ago, it provides contemporary readers with insightful insights into human needs and behavior. It also assists participants in better understanding and living a healthier and more appetitive lifestyle. It helps people and mentally prepares them to learn more about life and how to remain within the life that God has given. Aristotle insists that there are no established absolute moral principles and that every ethical philosophy must be founded in part on an understanding of psychology and firmly grounded in the realities of human nature and daily life. In addition, the book vividly reflects Aristotle's achievements in other areas of philosophy and is a good example of his analytical method, which must be considered the ultimate basis of all modern scientific research.
The Universality of Human Challenges
Therefore, people have not altered in the many years even if Aristotle lectured on ethics. The human challenges are the same across the board. This is due to the fact that they are all created by the same God. The rules of conduct and explanations of virtue and goodness that he proposes can all help modern man to attain a fuller and more satisfying understanding of his responsibilities as a member of society and the purpose of his existence. In his lecture he pointed out the main points on the ethical philosophy. First, he talked about the highest good and the end towards the end of human life is being directed to happiness. This can be defined as continuous contemplation of eternal and universal truth. This helps one to develop well healthy. When one feels happy and says the truth it makes one live more than expected. Therefore, one attains happiness by a virtuous life and the development of reason and the faculty of theoretical wisdom. For this one requires sufficient external goods to ensure health, leisure, and the opportunity for virtuous action. Secondly, when people have moral virtue, it makes people have a clear and concise mind which makes them reason and make the right decision.
The Role of Moral Virtue
It also encourages the appetite and desires of moderation in life. No human appetite or desire is bad if it is controlled by reason according to a moral principle. Moral virtue is acquired by a combination of knowledge, habituation, and self-discipline. This enables one to have a personal moral responsibility for his actions. Ideally, when we have a personal thought it elongates the time of stay in the human life. This is due to the fact that one makes his/her own decisions which increases the healthy and desire of staying more. Moral virtue cannot be achieved abstractly – it requires moral action in a social environment. Ethics and politics are closely related, for politics is the science of creating a society in which men can live the good life and develop their full potential.
Aristotle's Search for the Highest Good
Besides, Aristotle begins by giving an idea that the difference of opinion about what is best for human beings is that ethics is not a theoretical discipline. We are asking what the good for human beings is not simply because we want to have knowledge, but because we will be better able to achieve our good if we develop a fuller understanding of what it is to flourish. In raising this question – what is the good? – Aristotle is not looking for a list of items that are good. He assumes that such a list can be compiled rather easily; most would agree, for instance, that it is good to have friends, to experience pleasure, to be healthy, to be honored, and to have such virtues as courage at least to some degree. The difficult and controversial question arises when we ask whether certain of these goods are more desirable than others. Aristotle's search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.
The Centrality of Reason
Basically, no one tries to live for the sake of some further goal but we have the highest end and all the subordinate goals health wealth and other such resources are sought because they promote well-being, not because they are what well-being consists in. But unless we can determine which good or goods happiness consists in, it is of little use to acknowledge that it is the highest end.
Additionally, we have a reason placed in our central mind that modern perspectives tend to be skeptical. We should also be humbled about the reasons that can achieve the needs of the human psychology. On contrary, it does not follow that but gives reasoning abilities that are limited. Therefore, the ability to reason in a central feature of human life and should be treated equally. The ingredients of good life does not involve one of the difficulties of living in the modern world is the crumbling of traditional certainties and ensuing confusion but also it holds the values and aims about pursue. Hence, time is limited, and we are torn between competing aims such as career family, personal development, education, success money and many other factors.
Aristotle's View on the Good Life
In the light of this predicament, Aristotle's discussion of the good life is at the very least food for thought. His view that there are certain things that just are essential to living a fully human life, and to that extent are non-negotiable, challenges the "givens" of a relativistic age. Like other philosophers of his time, Aristotle talks about the ultimate good being eudaimonia – a good life, a flourishing life, a fulfilled and worthwhile life. As he himself acknowledges, however, simply naming it does not tell us much about what sorts of ingredients are required for such a life, so he starts by considering various popular contenders – money, success, pleasure, relationships. His discussion of this topic is an excellent starting point for reflection, on our own or in the context of philosophical counseling. Finally for one to have an endless life with a lot of enjoyable experience he she need to have the following strategy. Once one has such ingredients they will automatically have a provisional "recipe" for a good life, therefore, could involve enough basic goods, some success and recognition, some pleasure and enjoyment, some love and friendship, but most importantly learning/understanding choosing wisely and developing the virtues of character.
