Narrator: What does it mean to be happy? The Lydian king Croesus, a man of legendary wealth, once posed this question to the wise Athenian lawmaker, Solon. Confident in his own fortune, Croesus expected to be named the happiest of all. But Solon refused, telling him of obscure, ordinary men who had lived virtuously and died honorably. True happiness, Solon argued, could not be judged by wealth or power, but only at the end of a complete life. Croesus dismissed this as foolishness, only to later lose his kingdom and recall the lawmaker’s words as he faced his own demise.

This ancient story captures a question that has haunted humanity for millennia: What is the good life, and how do we achieve it? Over two thousand years ago, the philosopher Aristotle provided one of the most powerful and enduring answers in his masterwork, The Nicomachean Ethics. He sets aside simple answers like wealth, honor, or pleasure, and instead provides a detailed blueprint for achieving eudaimonia—a state often translated as "happiness," but which more accurately means human flourishing or living well and doing well.

Narrator: Aristotle begins with a simple observation: all human activities aim at some good. We study to get a degree, we work to earn a living, we exercise to be healthy. But many of these are just intermediate goals. A degree helps get a job, a job provides money, and money buys things we need. Aristotle asks if there is an ultimate good, a final end that we desire for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else. He argues that this chief good is what everyone agrees to call happiness, or eudaimonia.

However, people disagree wildly on what happiness is. To solve this, Aristotle uses the "function argument." He posits that to understand the good for any thing, we must first understand its unique function. The function of a knife is to cut, so a good knife is one that cuts well. The function of a doctor is to heal, so a good doctor is one who heals well. What, then, is the unique function of a human being? It is not merely to live, for plants do that. It is not to perceive, for animals do that. The unique function of humanity, Aristotle concludes, is our capacity for reason. Therefore, the good life—the happy life—must be an activity of the soul in accordance with reason. Happiness isn't a passive state or a fleeting feeling; it is the active, excellent exercise of our highest capacities over a complete life.

Narrator: If happiness is excellent rational activity, how does one become excellent? Aristotle’s answer is clear: through virtue. But he makes a crucial distinction. We are not born virtuous or vicious. Rather, moral virtue is a state of character that is developed through habit.

He offers a practical analogy: people become builders by building, and lyre-players by playing the lyre. In the same way, we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, and brave by doing brave acts. Virtue is not something you can learn simply by reading a book; it must be practiced. At first, performing a virtuous act might feel difficult or unnatural. But through repetition, these actions shape our character. Eventually, a truly virtuous person not only does the right thing but also finds pleasure in doing it. This pleasure is the sign that the virtuous disposition has been fully acquired and has become a part of who they are.

Narrator: Aristotle provides a practical model for identifying virtue: the doctrine of the mean. He argues that in both feelings and actions, virtue is an intermediate state, or a "golden mean," that lies between two extremes: one of excess and one of deficiency. Both extremes are vices.

Consider the feeling of fear. A person who feels too much fear and flees from every danger is a coward—a vice of deficiency in confidence. A person who feels too little fear and rushes into every danger, no matter how foolish, is rash—a vice of excess. The virtuous person, the courageous one, stands in the middle. They assess the situation, feel the appropriate amount of fear, and act for a noble cause. This isn't a simple mathematical average. The mean is relative to the individual and the situation. For example, the temperate amount of food for a professional athlete is far more than for a sedentary office worker. Finding this mean is not easy; it requires judgment and perception.

Narrator: It is not enough to simply know the good or to have good intentions. To consistently hit the "golden mean" in complex situations, one needs an intellectual virtue Aristotle calls phronesis, or practical wisdom. Practical wisdom is the reasoned capacity to deliberate well about what is good and expedient for a flourishing human life. It is the moral compass that allows a person to perceive the right course of action in any given circumstance.

This is why choice is so central to Aristotle’s ethics. He distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary actions. We can only be praised or blamed for actions we choose voluntarily, with knowledge of the circumstances and without being forced. Imagine a ship captain in a storm who must decide whether to jettison expensive cargo to save the crew. The act is "mixed," done out of fear of a greater evil, but it is ultimately voluntary because the captain makes a deliberate choice. Practical wisdom is what allows the captain to deliberate correctly and make the best possible choice in that difficult moment. Virtue sets the right goal—saving lives—and practical wisdom identifies the correct means to achieve it.

Narrator: Aristotle’s ethics are not for an isolated individual. He famously states that "man is by nature a political animal," meaning we are meant to live in a community. Therefore, a flourishing life must involve others, which requires the virtues of justice and friendship. Justice, he argues, is a unique virtue because it is "another's good." It is the whole of virtue in its other-regarding aspect, concerned with fairness, lawfulness, and what is due to others in the community.

He devotes two full books to friendship, which he considers "most necessary for our life." He identifies three kinds of friendship: those based on utility, those based on pleasure, and those based on virtue. The first two are incidental and easily dissolved; friends of utility part ways when the mutual benefit ends, and friends of pleasure drift apart when the fun stops. The highest and most enduring form of friendship is based on virtue, where two people love each other for who they are and wish good for one another for the other's own sake. This kind of friendship is rare, requires time and trust, and is essential for happiness, as it allows us to contemplate virtuous actions in the lives of our friends and grow better together.

Narrator: After building this comprehensive framework for a virtuous life of action, Aristotle makes a surprising turn. He asks which human activity is the highest and most perfect. His answer is contemplation. The life of theoretical study and philosophical inquiry, he argues, is the most continuous, self-sufficient, and godlike activity a human can engage in. It exercises our highest faculty—pure reason—and deals with the most noble and eternal objects of knowledge.

For Aristotle, the life of a virtuous citizen, full of moral action and practical wisdom, is a happy one. But it is only secondarily happy. The happiest and most complete life is that of the philosopher, dedicated to understanding the world. This conclusion reveals his ultimate belief that the full realization of our human function—reason—is found not just in acting well, but in knowing and understanding for its own sake.

Narrator: Ultimately, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics delivers a profound and challenging answer to the question of what it means to live well. Happiness is not a destination to be reached or a prize to be won. It is the very process of living—an activity of the soul in accordance with complete virtue, guided by reason, sustained over the course of a full life. It is a life of purpose, practice, and perception.

While some of Aristotle's views, like his elevation of the contemplative life or his specific social virtues, may feel distant to the modern world, his core challenge remains as relevant as ever. He asks us to move beyond the pursuit of fleeting pleasure or external validation and to instead focus on the cultivation of our own character. He challenges us to live deliberately, to practice goodness until it becomes second nature, and to constantly ask ourselves not "What will make me feel happy?" but "What actions will make me a good person?"