Aristotle

Aristotle believed that the goal of our actions is eudaimonia. This could be described as a FLOURISHING life. This term is not in opposition to happiness, but it gives happiness a deep and lasting coloration. Aristotle believed that our ideal life should be very much like the life of the gods. The gods don't do what they do out of necessity, but for the sheer pleasure of doing. Professor Daniel N. Robinson, of Oxford University, states it this way concerning Aristotle's beliefs: "If the contemplative life is engaged in not because it results in greater material wealth, greater sensual pleasure, a longer life--but for the sheer, deep, lasting cognitive and spiritual gratification aroused in you and sustained in you by contemplative devotion to those things that matter most, that is a nearly divine kind of life, one that approximates eudaimonia."

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