Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

It might appear that Aristotle is inconsistent when he says that the highest happiness for a human being is the contemplative life, which aims at something divine. He then also says that human beings are social, not solitary, which aims at the human good. However, these statements that focus on Aristotle’s belief that a human should strive for both the human good vs. the divine good do not conflict. Aristotle is consistent throughout his philosophy of the Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle, the happiness of man can be determined by identifying the function proper to man (Aristotle, Book One). Aristotle uses the analogy of how the good for a sculptor is to sculpt and the good of a carpenter is to carpet things, so to is it the same …show more content…
If you reach the contemplative life you can be alone, that is why Aristotle says, that if you are solitary you are either a beast or a God. Contemplation is the most continuous activity; you cannot continuously sustain Phronesis because variable objects come and go. For example, the opportunity to jump in front of a train is not always there. So to show any characteristic like bravery relies on external circumstance where one has the opportunity to display it. However, you can always contemplate because it is the most self-sufficient activity. The contemplative life is the type of life the divine live. It is through trying to achieve this life that human beings come most nearly to being divine (Aristotle, Book Ten). Only a god can spend an eternity engaged in nothing but contemplation, but we should try to reach this godlike ability as best we can. Unlike a God, a human would need external good fortune also: for our nature does not itself create all that is necessary for contemplation; the body and mind must be in good health, and supplied with food, and then the body must be cared for. That is why a human being can be divine for periods of time but you cannot stay in such a state. Aristotle identifies the counter intuitive nature of this idea of striving to be divine when he says, “We ought not to follow the proverb-writers, and ‘think human, since you are human’,

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