FREE ESSAY ON PLATO AND ARISTOTLE'S GOOD LIFE

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE'S GOOD LIFE

The good life is a condition in which a person will be the most happy. Both Plato and
Aristotle see the good life as the state in which a person exhibits total virtue. Plato
reasons that a person will exhibit total virtue when his desires have been extinguished,
while Aristotle believes the perfect state will bring forth the virtue in men. Plato
argues that the good life springs from love because through love, men can rid themselves
of desires. That is not to say that every loving relationship creates the good, only that
love is actually the quest for that good. Aristotle argues that the good life is
different for each individual because it comes from living one's life according to one's
virtues, and each person has different virtues. While both Plato and Aristotle agree that
good life is the exhibition of perfect virtue, they disagree on the particular definition
of virtue, and it's relevance to happiness, and therefore disagree on the means of
attaining happiness. Plato sees the good life as being attained through the perfect love
and lack of desire, while Aristotle believes that the good life is achieved through a
perfect state which causes its citizens to act upon their virtues.
The original Platonic view of the world is that it is a two tiered place, the upper tier
being the world of perfection, the lower tier being the world of reality, and love
falling somewhere in between. The theory is that the plane of reality is an imperfect
copy of the plane of perfection. According to the Platonic view, humans only see glimpses
of the good while existing in the plane of reality. Plato believes that love is the
midpoint between reality and perfection, mortality and immortality. Love does not fall
into the sphere of immortals and perfection because how could love be a god if he is not
in possession of beautiful and good things? (Plato, 38). Since Love is the love of
beautiful things, Love must have desires and therefore cannot be a god (Plato, 36). Yet
Love is greater than mortals because love has and always will exist. Thus Love is a great
spirit, a halfway point between the realms of existence (Plato, 38). According to
Diotima, love is the messenger and interpreter of the gods, and therefore is the gateway
to knowledge of what is godly. This knowledge is the ultimate good and cannot be attained
through logic or reason, only through an intuitive understanding which love brings. 
To Plato, the good life is one in which a person is exhibits perfect virtue and is
therefore closer to the higher realm of existence. Virtue is comes from the absence of
desires, so true happiness means being satisfied to the point one does not have desires.
This satisfaction, and therefore happiness, occur when a person arrives at the mystical
understanding of the world. According to Plato, through Diotima and Socrates' dialogue,
love is the medium in which humans will attain the knowledge of the good, and come upon
this understanding. It is human nature to seek out happiness, and ownership of good
things makes one happy. Diotima says that for humans love is desire to have the good
forever. (Plato, 43). Reproduction, an effect of love, is as close as humans come to
attaining physical immortality, and shows their desire to live on vicariously through
their children. Therefore the basic human desires are for the good and immortality, and
love is a means of achieving them (Plato, 44). Diotima believes that if a person is
slowly taught the ways of love through experience, they can achieve the good life. He
must progress from loving a person's physical beauty, to loving the beauty of his or her
mind, to loving beauty in general. After progressing through these stages he will have an
oblique understanding of the concept of formless beauty. From there he can understand
Beauty, and therefore understand the divine, achieving the good. Having that awesome
understanding he will project true virtue, and therefore has a chance of becoming loved
by the gods, and immortal. (Plato, 50). Since this person has come about the mystical
understanding of the world and achieved immortality, he has quenched his worldly desires.
He has therefore reached the good life according to its definition, and achieved ultimate
happiness. 
To show that happiness lies in virtue, Aristotle first splits forms of the good into
three parts, external goods, goods of the body, and goods of the soul. (Aristotle, 160).
He goes on to say that goods of the soul (virtues) are the most important because with
them, a person can gain material wealth and pleasure. Aristotle defines happiness and
therefore the good life as the realization and perfect exercise of excellence. And this
is not conditional, but absolute (Aristotle, 184). Meaning that ultimate happiness occurs
when a person's actions are all virtuous and have goals which are virtuous. It also
implies that in order to live the good life, there must be no action which is
unnecessary, but for the sake of virtue. This implies that the good life must be a group
goal, because unless all people are perfectly virtuous, action must be taken to maintain
virtue for those who are not virtuous. But, there are three things that make men good and
excellent; these are nature, habit and reason. (Aristotle, 185). Therefore the path to
happiness is through formation of habit and reason which create virtuous action, in
addition to possessing a nature that agrees with them. Some people are therefore not able
to lead the good life because the core of a person's nature cannot change. They way to
change habit and reason is through education, and training beginning at birth. One must
have been trained to be virtuous from a very young age in order to live the good life,
therefore a person does not have control over whether he lives the good life, it the job
of the state to create the good life for its citizens.
Both Plato and Aristotle see happiness as being virtuous, but disagree on the nature of
virtue, causing their ideas to follow vastly different paths, but converge at key points.
Plato sees happiness as being close to godliness. And by living virtuously one can obtain
this godliness. To Aristotle happiness is the result of being virtuous, because by being
virtuous one obtains pleasure and external wealth. Both Plato and Aristotle agree that
education is the means to attain virtue, but they disagree on how a person should be
educated because of their differing views on the cause of virtue. According to Aristotle,
virtue comes from the agreement of the nature, habits and reason in a human's conscience.
Therefore, Aristotle states that education should begin from birth and it should involve
changing the child's habits and forming his reason so that their nature, habits and
reason will align. Plato believes that virtue stems from an understanding of true Beauty,
which exists only in the higher plane of the world. Thus Plato believes the education
should begin when the child is ready to love another. Plato's ideal education involves
bringing a person along by having him experience different forms of love between people,
so that he may begin to love physical beauty and then beauty of the mind. Through this he
sees the beauty in all things and eventually, with guidance understands all forms of
beauty, ultimately understanding formless beauty. Both Plato and Aristotle agree on the
importance of interpersonal relationships in the quest for the good life. Both agree that
interpersonal relationships account for the education of individuals, but Aristotle goes
further because he sees attaining the good life as societal. He recognizes that if one is
forced to take action because of others misdeeds, he cannot lead the good life, and
therefore each person must be equal to the next so that nobody has to act on account of
another. Human happiness is the foremost concern for both Plato and Aristotle in their
works of literature. Since happiness is almost a universal emotion their conclusions on
the cause of happiness is similar. But, Plato and Aristotle are completely different
individuals, so the causes of their happiness are completely different.