Sample Solution

success in life, better marriages, better social relationships, better self-respect, and better abilities to cope with difficult situations.
Happiness is valuable not only for one’s mind, but it extends to each aspect of one’s life. Whether one’s happiness can help their own mental to physical health or it is helpful to the people with whom they interact, happiness is powerful.
As one can see by the positive examples mentioned above, happiness exists in many different forms. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle fails to explain the specifics of a life of contemplation. He mentions how not to live, but does not advise what actions one can actually take to promote their personal joy. J. L. Mackie maintains in his book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong:
“As guidance about what is the good life, what precisely one ought to do, or even by what standard one should try to decide what one ought to do, this is too circular to be very helpful. And though Aristotle’s account is filled out with detailed descriptions of many of the virtues, moral as well as intellectual, the air of indeterminacy persists. We learn the names of the pairs of contrary vices that contrast with each of the virtues, but very little about where or how to draw the dividing lines, where or how to fix the mean. As Sidgwick says, he ‘only indicates the whereabouts of virtue.’” (p. 186)
The issue arises that Aristotle is vague in his advice. He argues that a life of contemplation is one that is worthy of the Gods (Nicomachean Ethics: X, 8). But, if anything, this grand claim only ostracizes the average person. He is so vehemently against the lives of pleasure and politics that he does not see that it is human nature to fail. His main praise for a life
of contemplation shows that he believes that happiness can only be achieved when humans reach the level of Gods.
The constant personal battle to reach God status can actually be more harmful to one’s overall happiness than it is beneficial. The line lies where a life of contemplation becomes an obsession. When a person only sits and contemplates about life, no new experiences are gained. Aristotle’s main issue with a life of pleasure is echoed in this criticism of a life of contemplation: Inactivity. While he has proved that contemplation is a big part of happiness, when it is taken too far, it becomes too internal. In a similar argument, when the external factors of honor and virtue that are involved in a life of politics are ignored, an individual loses his or her sense of rational thought. This isolation means that the individual will actually not be able to accurately assess and reflect on their actions. If people follow a life of contemplation to an extreme, they risk a biased view of their actions (lack of external honor) as well as never having motivation to take action at all (lack of internal pleasure). It is incorrect to deny human nature and limit people to the life of contemplation.
Mackie shares this concern that a life of contemplation is too limited and not easily accessible. He says, “We learn the names of the pairs of contrary vices that contrast with each of the virtues, but very little about where or how to draw the dividing lines, where or how to fix the mean” (p. 186). The solution is to combine the three lives. To take the internal focus of a pleasurable life and the external focus of a political life and combine it with the wisdom of a life of contemplation solves the problem a