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Aristotle says a young person can’t be happy. I’m twenty-two. Is he insulting me or does he have a point?

Baraka Mwakyusa Contributor
· 3 replies
Happiness & well-beingGreek & RomanAristotelianismAristotle#beginner#complete-life#eudaimonia#youth
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Its coordinates: 3.5 Value Theory

My uncle (the one who quotes Nyerere) has started quoting Aristotle as well, which is worse. At dinner he said Aristotle proved I am too young to be happy, and everybody laughed.

I looked it up. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, the translation on Project Gutenberg says: "a child is not happy either, because by reason of his tender age he cannot yet perform such actions". And nearby he says one swallow does not make a summer.

So:

  • Does he mean children only, or young men like me as well?
  • What are "such actions"?
  • I am quite happy most days. Is Aristotle saying I'm wrong about my own life?

Simple answers please. I need to win the next dinner.

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3 answers

  1. Giulia Ferrante

    Fellow

    Your uncle has stretched it. The word Aristotle uses there is pais, a child, not a young man.

    The key is that his word for happiness, eudaimonia, doesn't mean feeling happy. It means a life going well as a whole: activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, he says, in a complete life. "Such actions" are the activities of a good character: being just, generous, brave, wise in practice, over years. A child can't do those yet, the way a child can't yet be a good carpenter. Nobody is insulting the child.

    So your good days count. What Aristotle would say is that it's too early to judge the whole, and he says the same about everyone still alive. His example is Priam of Troy, who prospered for most of his life and then lost everything at the end.

    One small thing for the dinner: the Greek actually says one swallow does not make a spring. English translators usually changed it to summer.

  2. Serkan Aydoğdu

    Fellow

    If your uncle wants a line that does apply to you, it's in Book I, chapter 3: Aristotle says a young man is not a good student of ethics, because he lacks experience of life and tends to follow his feelings.

    But read the next sentence before he does. Aristotle adds that it makes no difference whether someone is young in years or youthful in character. It is not age, it is following one's feelings. I know some uncles that would include.

  3. Baraka Mwakyusa

    Contributor

    So I'm not unhappy, I'm unfinished. I can live with that. Next dinner: "youthful in character", with a long look across the table.