Happiness Essay Examples and Research Papers

What to write about if you’re writing essays on happiness in life? Sometimes general topics like this one may puzzle you and bring the question of what you actually should write about. Down below you can read more on the topic to get an idea of what this topic is all about. 

Happiness is something everyone in life strives for. We all have our own idea of what happiness is and what personally makes us happy. But what really is “happiness”? How can someone find what makes them happy? We always tend to question the meaning of life and what makes life valuable. What is my purpose as a human being? There are so many questions about this topic. The famous philosopher Aristotle conquered the topic of happiness in his book “Nicomachean Ethics”. He argued that happiness is the ultimate good for human beings. We all need to find out what this happiness is for us to live a full and meaningful life.

Virtue ethics was one of the main topics he discussed in his theory. He argued that we need to find out what the final good or end is in human life. We have to look for something we desire for its own sake. Examples of this are money, our jobs, family, and education. We desire these things for the sake of this “unlimited goal” and perhaps even for its own sake. We do not choose everything for the sake of everything else. The own sake as for the intrinsic value. He means something that we naturally need or a basic need. Examples of these are instrumental goods such as money, going to college, and family. All of these things lead to happiness.

Essays on happiness in life state that true happiness will lead to living well and doing well in life. The pleasure was also brought up among these views. Pleasure was described as the vulgar view of happiness. Life is suitable to beasts. Pleasure focuses on the body a lot and not so much on the mind. Examples of these pleasures are sex, food and fun. He does not think we need these pleasures to live a full life. These type of pleasures lead us to want more. They are said to be insatiable desires. He continued to express that most pleasure is selfish because it only benefits the self. We need to do unselfish acts to be able to help us achieve our happiness. If we give in to these pleasures, it is only benefiting us at the moment but will pass. He used the example of money. Money-making is considered being an instrumental good. We want money because we can buy things with it. Money is only good for something else. Just to have the money doesn’t mean anything. It is needed to lead up to something and is not the final goal. We need to have a final goal in happiness. We want and need something self-sufficient and complete.

What is the function of human beings? This question comes up in a lot of essays on happiness in life. He talks about the good and the well of an activity. He goes on to explain that we need to have virtue and virtuous means to do its function well. All these things lead to finding happiness. As said before, most people question what happiness is. Happiness translates to eudaimonia. The “eu” part translates to well and the eudaemonia translates to well spirit and activity. Living well translates to Eu Zen. When he is talking about happiness, he means it in the sense that it translate to living well. Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue. The main and end goal is good fortune. We have to really question these things though. These questions are not that easy to find the answers to. It is not going to just come to us, but instead, we have to go looking for them. By going through experiences and highs and lows, they will come to us. This is how meaning and happiness is found. The ultimate good is happiness. The final good should be self-sufficient. He said we need to have a life worth living.

What are Aristotle’s views on moral virtue? He thinks it is all about developing moral character. It is a way of habit and we should get used to this idea. By nature it is like a potential capacity. We have to develop these by practice and developing habits. He compared it to learning an instrument. We do not always know how to do it but with time and practice, we can soon excel at it. We need to have a state of character. We are adapted by nature to receive more virtues. We are made perfect by our habits. There is a means between excess and defect. It is not always an easy task but it is something that needs to be done. We have to become in routine and do this kind of thing. He goes on the idea that we need to better ourselves as people. We all need to do this. We have to look at things from a bigger picture to see the good in them. Giving back and not doing selfish acts can help us reach these goals. This ties back to the idea that we do not really need all those life pleasures. They are nice to have, but because they are only short-term and only benefit the self, they will not help us get to the idea of happiness.

Happiness is something that everyone needs in order to live a full life. Happiness though needs to be searched for. Sometimes challenges and struggles will come along with the search, but once that final end goal is met, everything is worth it. Aristotle focused mostly on the meaning of happiness and how to achieve it. In his books he goes into the theory behind it. He believes this is truly how you find happiness. Not everyone agrees with him, but overall it does make a lot of sense. Not everything is going to be handed to us. We have to go out looking for these things. If we never truly go looking for them, we will have wasted our whole lives.