More often than not the men (and women) we have labeled great have been those who have either sought answers to our questions of existence or those who have pushed the envelope of our capabilities and shown us that the limits to our potential are only as restrictive as we perceive them to be. In our Western experience one of the foremost envelope pushers is Aristotle. Aristotle lived in Greece in the fourth century before the Common Era. He was a student of Plato and wrote numerous volumes on drama, poetry, mathematics, logic, physics, reality and ethics. He personified the definition of philosophy in his love and pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. In this paper I would like to explore Aristotle's explanation of happiness and how happiness relates to his explanation of virtue.

Aristotle was the first authority on the subject of moderation. His theory of the Golden Mean explains that for every virtue there are two vices, one that shows a lack of a specific virtue and one that shows an excess. To illuminate this further let's look at raising children. There are many, many books, magazines, talk shows and schools of thought on the subject which vary from the spare the rod, spoil the child mentality of days past to several current theories that suggest letting children explore and experience their environment without boundaries. The Golden Mean would suggest that the most virtuous path would be to set reasonable boundaries for our children and to temper discipline with compassion and empathy. This can also be applied to food- one with the appetite and means of Henry VIII may gorge themselves on whatever is available where as someone with anorexia nervosa may deny himself or herself any food at all. The virtuous person chooses to eat food that is healthy and nourishing in moderation. In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle examines the virtue of courage. A brave man, by Aristotle's definition, is one who bravely faces what is difficult and challenging and shuns that which is foolish or evil. A man who jumps out of an airplane without a parachute just because he isn't afraid of death would probably be considered foolish while a man who takes responsibility for his actions and admits his shortcomings would be considered brave. A man who charges windmills like Don Quixote with little or no common sense would be considered rash or perhaps a little crazy while a man like Dr. Martin Luther King, who proposed peace without violence and was willing to say what most were unwilling to hear would be considered brave. According to Aristotle happiness is the result of being virtuous which is the result of fulfilling our purpose, r

Some common words found in the essay are:
Ethics Virtue, Common Era, According Aristotle, Golden Mean, , Ethics Aristotle, Mean Shakespearean, Henry VIII, Luther King, Don Quixote, golden mean, man's purpose, considered brave, virtue happiness, virtuous path, compassion empathy, nicomachean ethics, virtue excess, according aristotle, human nature,
Approximate Word count = 1253
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)