On Aristotle's Two Kinds Of Happiness

The theory of happiness is an important topic in Aristotle's ethics. In Ethica Nicomachea, Aristotle produces two kinds of happiness: the inclusive notion takes happiness as an aggregate of various virtues and external goods; while the intellectual notion equals it with contemplation. Western researchers have argued much about the meaning of Aristotle's happiness, about which notion he claims, about whether and how the two notions can be united. But there are few special studies on it in China. The keystone of this paper is firstly to support and demonstrate the inclusive notion. It is not a simple one but an amended notion. I will prove that the concept of Aristotle's happiness is a self-limited final end, which guides and regulates people's practices and actions as the highest good. And secondly is to discuss the reasons of two happiness, after explaining the relation between them.Besides the preface, there are four parts in this paper. The first part mainly interprets the happiness as the highest good from Aristotle's end argument, and moreover, put forward happiness as an inclusive end consisted of the various limits of ends. The second part clarifies Aristotle's defining on happiness from the most famous and ambiguous function argument. I will prove that the function argument does not support the intellectual notion, but serves the inclusive notion as another proof. After illuminating the connection between nous and the contemplating happiness and practical wisdom and moral happiness in the third part, I will focus on the relation between the two lives. From my point of view, in Aristotle's eyes, contemplation is the highest happiness, but the best life is not the unification of the two lives, because they are different. In the last part, I...