Abstract

The concept of eudaimonia put forward by Aristotle in the first Book of his Nicomachean Ethics reflects an attempt to synthesize and clarify a well known concept in the Greek society, in popular as well as in more restricted intellectual circles, giving it a new scope and conceptual consistency. Ordinarily translated as happiness, well-being or prosperity, this concept frequently had a subjective sense, describing the lives of those who lived well or were eudaimon; but it also had an objective sense, establishing a life conducting rule for everyone who wanted to be happy or eudaimon. In the present paper we give an account of the meaning and operative range of the concept of eudaimonia and show the eudaimonia's guiding role in the Aristotelian ethical project, namely as its founding principle and final horizon, its relations with the good and virtue, as well as with the nature of man and the generation of a new modality of being. Finally, we establish that the concept of eudaimonia is central to an ethics seen as a life project.