Eudaimonia

The ancient Greek idea of a flourishing human life, which Aristotle treated as the highest good.

Also: eudaemonia, flourishing, happiness (Greek ethics), living well

What it means

Eudaimonia is usually translated as 'happiness' or 'flourishing'. Many scholars prefer 'flourishing', because it is not just a feeling: a person can be mistaken about whether their life is going well. For Aristotle, eudaimonia is the final end, sought for its own sake, and he argued that it consists in the activity of reason in accordance with virtue, together with adequate external goods such as friends and wealth. Plato and the Stoics held, by contrast, that virtue alone is sufficient for it. Modern virtue ethicists in the Aristotelian tradition still treat flourishing as the reference point that explains why the virtues matter.

The questions it belongs to

• 3.2.3 Character-Based ApproachesShould ethics ask what to do, or who to be?
• 3.5 Value TheoryWhat would make your life go well, apart from being moral?

Thinkers

• Aristotle
• Plato
• Rosalind Hursthouse

Traditions

• Greek & Roman
• Analytic

To read

• Apology — Plato
• Categories — Aristotle
• Cratylus — Plato

Sources and further reading

• Aristotle’s Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Virtue Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Written by the Coordinates of Thought editors and checked against the sources above on 29 October 2026. Not peer-reviewed. How we write and check.

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