Section 6: A happy life is not found in entertainment or amusement

Now that we have spoken of the virtues, the forms of friendship, and the varieties of pleasure, what remains is to discuss in outline the nature of a happy life, since this is what we’ve put forward as the goal of human life.

Our discussion will be the more concise if we first sum up what we have said already. We said, then, that a happy life is not a disposition or character trait, since if it were, it might belong to someone who was asleep [or in a coma] throughout his life, living the life of a plant, or, again, to someone who was suffering the greatest misfortunes. If these implications are unacceptable, [and a happy life is not one lived in a coma or lived suffering the greatest misfortunes,] then we must rather classify a happy life as an activity, as we have said before. And if some activities are necessary and desirable for the sake of something else, while others are desirable in themselves, evidently a happy life must be placed among those activities that are desirable in themselves, not among those desirable for the sake of something else. For a happy life doesn’t lack anything it should have, but is self-sufficient. Now those activities are desirable in themselves from which nothing is sought beyond the activity itself. And virtuous actions are thought to be like this, since to do noble and good actions is a thing desirable for its own sake.

The pleasures experienced in entertainments and amusements are also thought to be like this, since we don’t seem to choose them for the sake of other things. For we are [sometimes] injured rather than benefited by these sorts of pleasures, since they can lead us to neglect our health and our property. But most of the people who are considered happy take refuge in such amusements and entertainment, which is why those who are entertaining and funny are highly esteemed at the courts of tyrants. They make themselves pleasant companions in the tyrants’ favorite pursuits, and that is the sort of person tyrants want. These sorts of entertainments and amusements are considered to bear the stamp of happiness because people in positions of power spend their free time and leisure on these sorts of things.

But perhaps these sorts of people prove nothing. For virtue and reason, from which good activities flow, do not depend on position of power. Nor, if these power people, who have never tasted pure and generous pleasure, take refuge in bodily pleasures, should bodily pleasures for that reason be thought more desirable. For children, too, think the things that are valued among themselves are the best. It is to be expected, then, that just as different things seem valuable to children and to adults, so different things will seem valuable to bad people and to good people.

Now, as we have often maintained, those things are both valuable and pleasurable which the good person finds valuable and pleasurable. And to each person the activity in accordance with his own disposition is most desirable. Thus, to the good person the disposition that is most desirable is that which is in accordance with virtue. Happiness, therefore, does not lie in entertainment or amusement.

It would, indeed, be strange if the goal of life were amusement or to be entertained, and if one were to take trouble and suffer all life’s hardships just in order to amuse or entertain oneself. For, in a word, everything that we choose we choose for the sake of something else–except for a happy life, which is the goal.

Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement or simply to be entertained seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right. For amusement and entertainment is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not the goal of life, since we relax for the sake of activity.

The happy life is thought to be virtuous. Now a virtuous life requires exertion, and doesn’t consist in amusement. And we say that serious things are better than funny things and those connected with fun and entertainment, and that the activity of the better of any two things–whether it be two elements of our being or two people–is the more serious. But the activity of the better is in itself superior and more of the nature of happiness. And any chance person–even a slave–can enjoy the bodily pleasures as much as the best person. But no one assigns to a slave a share in happiness–unless he assigns to a slave also a share in a properly human life. For a happy life does not lie in such passtimes, but, as we have said before, in virtuous activities.