Human Flourishing

• Human flourishing


  • The highest good of human attempt to achieve his/her goal
  • A success as a human being when he/she achieved it for the betterment of his/her life
  • The best life is one of excellent human activity
• Eudaimonia


  • Literally "good spirited"
  • A term coined by Aristotle to describe the pinnacle of happiness that is attainable by human beings
  • Often been translated into "human flourishing" in literature, arguably likening humans to flowers achieving their full bloom
• Nicomachean Ethics


  • Aristotle's human flourishing arises as a result of different components such as PHRONESIS, FRIENDSHIP, WEALTH and POWER
  • In Ancient Greek Society, they believe that acquiring these qualities was surely bring the seekers happiness, which in effect allows them to partake in the greater notion of what we call the Good
• How to achieve flourishing

  1. What is/are your goals in life?

  2. What is happiness?

  3. How can you achieve your goals?

  4. Who are the people you need to achieve your goals?
• Aristotle's view on the good

  • The good is what is good for purposeful and goal-directed entities
  • The good of each species is finality existing to that species
  • Nature provides a person with guidance and respect to how he should live his life
  • Human beings with own rational mind and free will
  • Highest good- aim to live most fully a life that is proper to man
  • Proper function- to live happily, successfully and well
  • How: through the active exercise of a person's distinctive capacity, rationality, as he/she engages in activities to the degree appropriate to the person in the context of his/her identity as a human being
• Aristotle's view on egoism

  • Each person has a natural obligation to achieve, become and make something of himself by pursuing his true ends and goals in life
  • The good is what is objectively good for a person
  • Egoism: a person's normative reason for choosing actions stems from the idea that he/she must pursue his/her own good or flourishing
  • Self-interest is flourishing, the good in human conduct is connected to the self-interest of the acting person
  • Good means "good for" the individual moral agent
• Western society


  • More focused on the individual
  • Individual flourishing
• Eastern society


  • More community-centric
  • Group flourishing
• William Shakespeare: 'All the world`s a stage, And all the men and women are merely players, They have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts…'
• "Every living creature is meant to become what it is meant to be."
• How do people suffice their happiness, then and now??