Abstract

Since the Aristotelian notion of eudaimonia was translated as “human flourishing”, the underlying premises have been under discussion. Aristotle appears to say that eudiamonia consists in an excellent development of persons; a human life-form can be sorted out in comparison with other species. This is the starting-point for discussing the relationship between natural capacities of persons and their good lives. In this contribution, I shall develop a scheme which allows interpreting Aristotelian naturalism in four ways: as a theory about natural functions, about natural thriving, about natural mastership, and about comprehensive self-realization. In particular, I shall argue that at its heart Aristotelian naturalism is not about the good life of persons. Instead, it comprises a set of normative claims inherent in his understanding of nature. Building these claims into a theory of the good life is a second step which needs to be analysed on different grounds. In discussing these possibilities, one central outcome will be that none of these ways of reasoning about the good life needs to be rejected because it reintroduces evaluative statements into a theory of nature. Instead, the central problem in reintroducing them into contemporary theories results from interpreting them as a norm for the good life of persons.