The intellect is the highest thing in
us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that
can be known . . . we are more capable of continuous contemplation
than we are of any practical activity.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
Eudoxus, a member of Plato’s Academy, argues that pleasure
is the supreme good because we desire it as an end in itself and
it makes other good things more desirable. However, this only shows
that pleasure is a good. Further, Plato argues
that other things, like intelligence, make pleasure more desirable,
so it cannot be the supreme good. There are also flaws in the arguments
that all, or even some, pleasures are bad. These arguments rely
on the mistaken notion that pleasure is an incomplete process of
replenishment.
We cannot say that pleasure is desirable without qualification: for
instance, we would not choose to live with the mentality of a child
even if that life were pleasant. There are also other goods, like intelligence
or good eyesight, which are desirable without necessarily being
pleasant. It seems clear that not all pleasures are desirable and
that pleasure is not the supreme Good.
Pleasure is not a process, since it is not a movement
from incompleteness to completeness and does not necessarily take
place over an extended period of time. Rather, pleasure accompanies
the activity of any of our faculties, like the senses or the mind,
when they are working at their best. Pleasure perfects our activities,
and since life itself is an activity, pleasure is essential to life.
Only those pleasures enjoyed by a good person and for the right
reasons are good.
Happiness, as an activity that serves as an end in itself,
is our highest goal in life. We should not confuse happiness with
pleasant amusement, though.
The highest form of happiness is contemplation. Contemplation is
an activity of our highest rational faculties, and it is an end
in itself, unlike many of our practical activities. Only a god could spend
an entire lifetime occupied with nothing but contemplation, but
we should try to approximate this godlike activity as best we can.
All the moral virtues deal with the human aspects of life, which are
necessary but secondary to the divine activity of contemplation.
If learning about happiness were sufficient to
leading a good life, discourses in philosophy would be far more
valuable than they are. Words alone cannot convince people to be
good: this requires practice and habituation, and can take seed
only in a person of good character.
