Aristotle s Philosophy On Ethics Essay -- Ethics, Philosophy, Categoric

Aristotle is a strong believer that reaching happiness is the ultimate goal of humans. He says, â€Å"Another belief which harmonizes with our account is that the happy man lives well and does well; for we have practically defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action. The characteristics that are looked for in happiness seem also, all of them, to belong to what we have defined happiness as being† (Aristotle, Book I). Aristotle claims that a happy person lives well and that is what we should be striving for. We reach this happiness by doing good actions and it can take an entire lifetime to become virtuous. He also relates good actions to doing an activity well. Doing an activity well is important because after mastering an art you feel good about yourself or happy. For example, if you are a potter and you make a great pot, you feel happy. Kant poses the complete opposite of Aristotle’s philosophy and disregards happiness with being moral. Kant does not believe reaching happiness is the main goal of life, but instead doing good with a sense of duty is. Kant says, â€Å"A good will is good not because of what it effects or accomplishes†¦ it is good only throug... ... middle of paper ... ...nted to spread the knowledge, they are acting out of inclination instead of from duty. Aristotle and Kant propose very different philosophies. Aristotle is concerned with reaching happiness as to become a virtuous person. We are happy by doing good actions and mastering certain tasks. But happiness should not be the goal of humans to be virtuous because it possesses too many flaws as to what happiness really is. Kant offers a more concrete philosophy to being virtuous. He believes in following categorical imperatives or universal laws to doing what right. Doing right comes from a duty to do right and not from an inclination or desire to right. Since Kant exhibits a more concrete philosophy as to why do good, it would work a lot better in an ideal world. It would be very difficult for both philosophies to work in the real world because many questions can be raised.