Aristotle and the Cynics on happiness and misfortune
type: CreativeWork
description: The fundamental concern of ancient ethics is the question concerning happiness. As Aristotle famously poses it in EN I, that everyone is concerned with happiness is given but as to what it is there is much dispute. My dissertation project takes up the question of happiness and considers its relation to fortune, and in particular, misfortune, as it is treated in both Aristotle and his contemporaries, the ancient Cynics. It is my thesis that fortune has a problematic status in relation to happiness in Aristotle’s ethical and political thought: Aristotle’s consideration of Solon’s dictum ‘Look to the end’ in NE I.10 reveals two problems for Aristotle’s attempt to establish that happiness is essentially virtuous activity plus external goods. First, since external goods result from fortune, and happiness requires external goods, happiness depends on fortune, something Aristotle is at pains to at the very least minimize if not deny outright. Second, fortune as causal principle for external goods threatens to permanently unsettle one of Aristotle’s essential criteria for happiness: durability. Aristotle’s attempt to harmonize his accounts of happiness as virtuous activity with the workings of fortune is at odds with his attempt to ground his ethical and political theory within his more encompassing natural philosophy. It is my contention that there are resources in Aristotle’s own thought, hitherto not sufficiently considered in this context that can be deployed to respond to, if not resolve, these tensions. I bring these Aristotelian resources to bear on the tensions within a more orthodox reading of Aristotle by situating Aristotle’s ethical and political thought alongside that of his contemporaries and rivals, the ancient Cynics. My objective is to trace Aristotle’s account of happiness vis-à-vis misfortune from the fundamental aporia in NE I, that happiness is both virtuous activity plus external goods and that happiness is almost impossible within our lifetimes becaus…
abstract: The fundamental concern of ancient ethics is the question concerning happiness. As Aristotle famously poses it in EN I, that everyone is concerned with happiness is given but as to what it is there is much dispute. My dissertation project takes up the question of happiness and considers its relation to fortune, and in particular, misfortune, as it is treated in both Aristotle and his contemporaries, the ancient Cynics. It is my thesis that fortune has a problematic status in relation to happiness in Aristotle’s ethical and political thought: Aristotle’s consideration of Solon’s dictum ‘Look to the end’ in NE I.10 reveals two problems for Aristotle’s attempt to establish that happiness is essentially virtuous activity plus external goods. First, since external goods result from fortune, and happiness requires external goods, happiness depends on fortune, something Aristotle is at pains to at the very least minimize if not deny outright. Second, fortune as causal principle for external goods threatens to permanently unsettle one of Aristotle’s essential criteria for happiness: durability. Aristotle’s attempt to harmonize his accounts of happiness as virtuous activity with the workings of fortune is at odds with his attempt to ground his ethical and political theory within his more encompassing natural philosophy. It is my contention that there are resources in Aristotle’s own thought, hitherto not sufficiently considered in this context that can be deployed to respond to, if not resolve, these tensions. I bring these Aristotelian resources to bear on the tensions within a more orthodox reading of Aristotle by situating Aristotle’s ethical and political thought alongside that of his contemporaries and rivals, the ancient Cynics. My objective is to trace Aristotle’s account of happiness vis-à-vis misfortune from the fundamental aporia in NE I, that happiness is both virtuous activity plus external goods and that happiness is almost impossible within our lifetimes becaus…
author: Turner, Christopher
keywords: Aristotle, Diogenes of Sinope, ancient cynicism, eudaimonia, virtue ethics
date published: 2016-06-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:04:00Z
provider: DePaul University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: DePaul University