This document summarizes and critiques Aristotle's argument in the Nicomachean Ethics that the contemplative life is best. It outlines Aristotle's view that happiness is the ultimate aim, and that happiness consists in living according to our rational nature. Aristotle argues the contemplative life, focused on philosophical wisdom, is best because it is more self-sufficient and complete than the moral life focused on practical wisdom. However, the document argues Aristotle's conclusions are unsound. The moral life will always be necessary given human flaws, and both lives seem to involve ongoing striving rather than completeness. Overall, the document questions whether Aristotle sufficiently justifies the claim that contemplation is best.

1. Spence 1
Clay Spence
Prof. Jim Kreines
Metaphysics
4/29/2015
Is the Contemplative Life Best?
What sort of persons ought we to be? In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle takes the
reasonable view that we ought to be happy; that happiness is our ultimate aim. He outlines two
kinds of wisdom – practical wisdom and philosophical wisdom – corresponding with two kinds of
lives: the moral life and the contemplative life. Ultimately, Aristotle thinks that the contemplative
life is best; that contemplation makes us happiest. This essay argues that Aristotle’s arguments fall
short in justifying this conclusion. While contemplation may play a crucial role in living a happy
life, it isn’t necessary to live happily. Instead, conducting oneself in a morally virtuous manner
towards other human beings is of primary importance in living the good life. I conclude that human
beings are inescapably drawn to some species of the moral life as best.
Aristotle provides two standards for determining the end at which we ultimately aim:
completeness and self-sufficiency. Completeness here means something like “finality” or
“intrinsic goodness” – our ultimate aim must inhere in an end which is an end-in-itself. If we aim
at an end “A” that is actually a means to another end “B,” then A could not be the ultimate object
of our aim. It would instead be a means to our ultimate goal, or an intermediate aim. Aristotle
writes, “If there is some one thing that is complete in itself, this would be what is being sought…the
simply complete thing, then, is that which is always chosen for itself and never on account of
something else” (11).1 Aristotle defines self-sufficiency as “that which by itself makes life
1 All quotes are from the Bartlett and Collins translation unless specified otherwise, which is the most recent
translation.

2. Spence 2
choiceworthy and in need of nothing” (11). Aristotle thinks that our ultimate aim inheres in a
singular end rather than a multiplicity of ends. In order for there to be a singular object of our
ultimate aim, that object must stand independent of other possible ends – that is, it must be self-
sufficient.
In light of the completeness and self-sufficiency standards, I find it useful to conceive of
Aristotle’s Ethics as a hierarchical “tree structure” – with a series of conceptual divisions branching
off from a singular starting point or idea. Aristotle identifies this starting point as eudaimonia,
which means “happiness” but connotes “flourishing” and “living well.” For Aristotle, happiness
is the complete and self-sufficient end at which we ultimately aim. Happiness fulfills the
completeness criterion: “honor, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue…we choose them also for the
sake of happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy. But nobody chooses
happiness for the sake of these things, or, more generally, on account of anything else” (11).
Aristotle thinks happiness also fulfills the self-sufficiency criterion – when faced with a choice
between happiness and some other conflicting aim, Aristotle thinks we will do what makes us
happy. This second point sounds controversial, but it is important to bear in mind that eudaimonia
is something different than pure pleasure (hedonia). Aristotle isn’t suggesting that we should
always choose the most pleasurable option, but rather that we should ultimately choose what makes
us happy. Moreover, it is important to bear in mind that the subject of Aristotle’s ethics isn’t
particular ethical acts, primarily – Aristotle is trying to discern which form-of-life taken as a whole
is ethically best. Aristotle thinks that we should choose a lifestyle which makes us happy over any
other kind of lifestyle.
This of course raises the question: what sort of lifestyle is conducive to happiness? What
does happiness involve or consist in? Aristotle’s answer comes in the form of his famous “function

3. Spence 3
argument.” For Aristotle, we come closest to realizing our ultimate aim if we act (and exist) in
accordance with our distinct function as human beings, which is the activity of the soul in
accordance with virtue. The argument goes like this: A flute player aims at playing well because
that is her distinct function and her good as a flute player. Similarly, a carpenter aims at doing
good carpentry because that is his distinct function and good as a carpenter. These examples justify
the general principle that each thing aims at its distinct function and good, and therefore the
particular conclusion that human beings aim at living a human life well because that is their
function as human beings. What is distinctive about the human life is our capacity to reason, since
nutrition-fueled growth is a quality we share with plants, and sensory perception is a quality shared
by animals. Since “what is peculiar to human beings is being sought,” by the process of elimination
the reasoned life must be the lifestyle most conducive to happiness (12). By “the activity of the
soul in accordance with virtue,” Aristotle thus means something like “the reasoned life” (13).
Now obviously this argument moves too hastily – grooming children for sexual abuse is
also a distinctly human characteristic, but nobody would go so far as to say that the happiest human
lives involve that kind of morally repulsive behavior. Yet Aristotle’s argument does have serious
intuitive appeal, particularly since we’re still living in Kant’s shadow. For one thing, a capacity
for reason is a distinctively human character trait that is almost universally shared amongst human
beings2, whereas a proclivity for pedophilia is not. For another, shared rationality seems to be an
explanatorily much deeper feature of human nature than pedophilia – after all, it seems as though
we do almost everything we do for reasons...even pedophiles have reasons. In light of these
considerations, I am game to accept Aristotle’s function argument and see where it gets him. At
2 Or universally shared, depending on your view. It’s hard to imagine an account which holds that very few human
beings are ‘rational’ in any meaningful sense of the word.

4. Spence 4
the very least, it is interesting to flesh out Aristotle’s account of rationality in order to see where
his argument leads.
Since the “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue” turns out to mean “the reasoned
life,” we must investigate the virtues of the rational part of the soul – namely, the intellectual
virtues. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defends moral virtues (e.g. liberality, moderation) in
addition to the intellectual virtues. However, my suspicion is that an analysis of the moral virtues
comes most naturally after a discussion of the virtues of the intellect. In any case, it is necessary
to tease out the intellectual virtues in order to determine what sort of rational stance a person ought
to take with regards to the moral virtues, that is, how to understand them. The remainder of this
paper will endeavor to do so.
Aristotle spends much of the Nicomachean Ethics discussing two major intellectual virtues:
phronesis and sophia. These words are tough to translate. Bartlett and Collins translate phronesis
as “prudence,” but this move is somewhat misleading. While the word “prudence” may connote
“shyness” or “pragmatism instrumental to self-interest,” phronesis properly understood involves
neither of these. I instead favor WD Ross’ translation of phronesis as “practical wisdom.” Practical
wisdom might be understood as “ethical know-how,” or the ability to make concrete ethical
judgments – an ability that needn’t involve theoretical knowledge. As Aristotle writes, “[practical
wisdom] is bound up with action, and action concerns particulars. Hence even some who are
without knowledge – those who have experience, among others – are more skilled in acting than
are others who do have knowledge” (124). Practical wisdom is a perceptual skill one acquires
through one’s upbringing, analogous to the skill of telling good wine from bad based on taste. With
respect to sophia I think a fair translation is “philosophical wisdom.” While sophia transliterates
as “wisdom” (and appears as such in Bartlett and Collins’ translation), it connotes abstract,

5. Spence 5
theoretical thinking of the kind a philosopher engaged in.3 Aristotle writes, “we suppose that there
are some wise people who are wise generally and not partially, or in some other respect…The wise
person, therefore, ought not only to know what proceeds from the principles but also to attain the
truth about the principles” (122-123). Philosophical wisdom involves two kinds of thinking:
intuitive reasoning out of bedrock truths, and the fleshing out of those truths via ‘scientific’
inquiry.4
Aristotle writes that “if there are several virtues,” then the human good is the activity of
the soul “in accord with the best and most complete one.” We now have two candidates on the
table: practical wisdom (phronesis) and philosophical wisdom (sophia). Each virtue corresponds
with a kind of lifestyle. Practical wisdom corresponds with what I will call “the Moral Life.”5 The
moral life is the life of virtuous action in accordance with practical reason, and it is therefore no
surprise that statesmen – great politicians and generals – are exemplars.6 Aristotle writes,
“[practical wisdom] is a true characteristic that is bound up with action, accompanied by reason,
and concerned with things good and bad for a human being…On account of this, we suppose
Pericles and those of that sort to be prudent – because they are able to observe the good things for
themselves and those for human beings” (120). By contrast, the contemplative life is concerned
with knowing rather than doing. Bartlett and Collins describe contemplation as “the act of looking
upon something so as to understand it, an understanding that is sought as an end in itself and hence
3 This connotation explains the etymology of the word “philosopher” from philia (lover) and sophia (wisdom).
4 Where, of course,the word “science” had a wildly different meaning for Aristotle than it does for us. In Aristotle’s
day, all knowledge was basically scientific, including philosophical knowledge.
5 This term is imperfect, but it is visually symmetrical with “the Contemplative Life” in a nice way. I will try to be
explicit enough about what “the Moral Life” involves to avoid any confusion.
6 Or in the case ofPericles, both.Pericles was the incredibly charismatic populist political leader and military strategist
who ushered in a golden age for the arts and sciences in Athens.

6. Spence 6
without regard to any subsequent doing or making” (307). Naturally, the representative for this
sort of lifestyle is Socrates, who died rather than give up his pursuit of philosophical wisdom.7
Which is better: the moral life or the contemplative life? In book X of the Nicomachean
Ethics Aristotle argues that it is the latter. His argument consists in a familiar appeal to the self-
sufficiency and completeness standards introduced in the discussion on happiness. With respect to
self-sufficiency, Aristotle argues that the contemplative life can be lived virtually alone since all
it requires is for you to engage with your thoughts – though he concedes that “it is perhaps better
to have those with whom [one] may work…” (224). By contrast, the moral life necessarily requires
other persons to be virtuous to; a politician like Pericles needs discord to overcome, and a just man
needs injustice to fight. My sense is that Aristotle’s argument is unsound. Aristotle wants to know
which kind of life (moral or contemplative) is best for a human being, and human beings do not
exist in a vacuum. Instead we are constitutively members of a species. As Aristotle remarks in
Book I, “We do not mean by self-sufficient suffices for someone by himself, living a solitary life,
but what is sufficient also with respect to parents, offspring, a wife, and in general, one’s friends
and fellow citizens, since by nature a human being is political” (11). Aristotle’s application of the
self-sufficiency standard to the life of the individual is thus a strange departure from the logic of
the function argument, which inquires into the function of a human being as a representative of
the human species, taken generally. And it looks to me like a feature of human nature and human
fragility is that there will always be others who need ethical concern, such that the moral life is a
self-sufficient way of being. As Madison wrote in the Federalist #51, “if men were angels, no
government would be necessary.” But men are not angels and, consequently, there will always be
a demand for practically wise individuals to solve human problems. Madison’s view does have its
7 For Aristotle, and for many modern philosophers and political theorists.

7. Spence 7
discontents – on a Marxist interpretation of Hegel, when we arrive at the end of history men will
start to act something like angels. In Marx’s utopia, individuals will peacefully exercise their
artistic impulses in harmony with other members of their commune. Nonetheless, we have not
reached the endpoint of Marx’s teleology, and the lesson of history thus far has decisively been:
perpetual peace is unlikely, and human conflict is omnipresent. In light of these considerations, I
think that while the contemplative life may plausibly eke out a slight win in this category, it
certainly does not do so in a decisive way.
With respect to the completeness standard, Aristotle argues that the contemplative life is
more final than the moral life because while virtuous actions are means to the end of virtuous states
of affairs (justice, peace), contemplation does not aim at anything other than itself. For Aristotle,
contemplation is pure leisure, and the pleasures of wisdom are “pure and stable” because they are
independent of most worldly concerns (224). To me, this seems like intellectual gerrymandering
rather than substantive argument on Aristotle’s part. After all, isn’t contemplation a striving after
a state of wisdom or knowledge of the truth? Perhaps Aristotle means that the contemplative life
is conducted by those who already know the truth. He writes, “those who are knowers conduct
their lives with greater pleasure than do those who are seeking knowledge” (224). But what does
this cryptic line mean? One interpretation is that contemplation is just a consideration of multiple
angles on a singular truth-object, such that as long as you have one good angle on the object, you
know ‘the truth.’ However this interpretation cannot sustain a completeness argument on this front
because it makes contemplation seem extraneous and maybe even meaningless. What is the
purpose of contemplation if one already understands the truth? Moreover, this interpretation would
probably collapse the distinction between the moral life and the contemplative life. Surely ordinary
people have some understanding of the truth. Instead, I think a more reasonable interpretation of

8. Spence 8
the contemplative life is to think that the life of contemplation involves a continual striving after
the truth, after wisdom. Unfortunately, this makes it look like the life of contemplation is just as
incomplete as the moral life.
Aristotle’s last card to play is an argument that the contemplative life is the most god-like,
since our rational capacity is the most divine part of our nature. He writes, “It is strange if someone
supposes the political art or [practical wisdom] to be most serious, if a human being is not the best
of things in the cosmos” (123). Aristotle suggests that the gods live a strictly contemplative life,
as they are too perfectly peaceful to need the moral virtues. This move marks a return to the
function argument: man’s good is determined by his nature, which is to strive after godliness. A
number of problems plague this stance. In the first place, Aristotle’s view in Book X that we should
cultivate our divine nature seems inconsistent with the function argument as articulated in Book I.
If you will recall, Aristotle’s argument for defining happiness as the reasoned life was that man
ought to live in accord with his distinctive, rational nature rather than in accord with his animal or
plant functions. From this perspective, it looks like a striving after a godly life may be a striving
after too much. Man may be better off cultivating practical wisdom in himself, and living a virtuous
life in relation to his fellow human beings. As Aristotle writes, “The activities that accord with
[phronesis] are characteristically human ones: it is in relation to one another that we do what is
just, courageous and whatever else accords with the virtues” (226).
This is confusing stuff, and seems obviously contradictory. One possible response for
Aristotle is to suggest that man is made in god’s image such that part of human nature is to try to
realize our divine aspect. Judeo-Christian theology strongly makes this move, and (for Christians)
God’s love for us – his mortal simulacra – is most exquisitely articulated in the sacrifice of himself
as the Christ, who was both fully human and fully divine. Yet this raises the question of what our

9. Spence 9
divine nature consists in, exactly. Ironically, it looks like on the Christian view the moral life is
actually best. Onthis account, God’s nature is to spread the good news of peace and ethical concern
for fellow man in the form of Jesus’ pacifistic ministry, and in the ultimate symbolic act of Christ’s
death upon the cross. Of course, one needn’t be a Christian. But a similar problem arises in other
traditions as well. Who is Aristotle to say that the gods exist in a state of contemplation? On eastern
mystical views God is in fact so perfect that he doesn’t even contemplate – in Buddhist tradition
God exists in a nirvanic state of unconscious bliss, freed of all earthly concerns and one with the
universe. And indeed, if God or the gods have perfect knowledge, it seems like they would not
have anything left to contemplate. Secular people like to say, “Really it is man that creates God in
his own image” – and this may be true. But if it is, there is an open question of whether that nature
is to be practically or philosophically wise. Finally, Aristotle’s argument about godliness raises a
variant of the Euthyphro dilemma: is the contemplative life good because the gods live that way,
or do the gods live that way because it is good? Aristotle spends the bulk of the Nicomachean
Ethics embracing the latter, rationalist horn of the dilemma and trying to reason out what the
human good is. It is thus surprising when he jumps ship and goes for Euthyphro’s approach in
Book X. In light of these considerations, I propose that we don’t take Aristotle’s godliness
argument very seriously.
Where does this leave us? Having finished the Nicomachean Ethics it looks like the moral
life is, in fact, best. While the contemplative life may be slightly more self-sufficient, it is equally
incomplete to the moral life. Moreover it looks like the function argument rules out a striving after
godly contemplation as a suitable form of life for a human beings or at least begs the question (per
the Euthyphro dilemma) and cuts against the grain of most of Aristotle’s text. I am hard pressed
to rehabilitate any of Aristotle’s arguments for the contemplative life as best. Now, you might

10. Spence 10
think that practical wisdom requires philosophical wisdom; e.g. you can’t have one without the
other. This would generate the conclusion that the best human life will involve both practical
wisdom and philosophical contemplation. This subtext certainly seems to be at play in Aristotle –
I believe Aristotle would characterize himself as a representative of each kind of wisdom. The bulk
of the Nicomachean Ethics engages with intermediate ethical principles (about the mean relative
to us for the 11 virtues) and specific examples, but the work as a whole tries to unify Aristotle’s
ethical theory in an abstract way (culminating in the highly theoretical Book X). It may be that in
order to really know how to do the right thing in a concrete situation, you need a command of more
theoretical ethical principles; that to say that we cultivate virtue in young people through
upbringing is strangely vague since what we really do is try to teach children abstract ethical
principles like the Golden rule. Moreover, you might think that philosophical wisdom must be
acquired and transmitted by learning from others and teaching younger people in turn. This kind
of information transmission is certainly interpersonal enough to qualify as an ethical act – so it
looks like the contemplative life is a kind of moral life. Coming at the issue from the other
direction, you might construe the moral life as a kind of “lived wisdom.” I would suggest that we
say the Dalai Lama is wise not, primarily, because he is very learned, but more because he radiates
general spiritual well-being and genuine ethical concern for others. This would suggest that
wisdom is more of an attitudinal state, or a happiness baseline. Isn’t wisdom about knowing how
to live well, ultimately? But none of these considerations justify the conclusion that the
contemplative life is best. On this view, the contemplative life is either instrumental to the pursuit
of the moral life, a species of the moral life, or identical with the moral life. But none of these

11. Spence 11
arguments justify the contemplative life as best, and seem instead to ground the value of
contemplation in moral virtue.8
These arguments do, however, carve out a role for contemplation as a possible component
of the good life, perhaps even for the contemplative life as a possible good life. This is good news
if, like me, you are academically inclined. But at the end of the day, it looks like the moral life is
best. Doing philosophy is good. But it’s only good if you share it with others, and if you realize
that other modes of virtue (e.g. the life of a Pericles) are minimally just as good and likely even
better than the life of the scholar. If we take Aristotle’s function argument seriously, it looks as
though the moral life is the best sort of life we can live. We are “all too human,” and permanently
cloistering ourselves away from others to grapple with philosophical questions is, for almost all of
us, an unsustainable and unhappy way to live.
8 Moreover, the view that the moral life and the contemplative life are identical come at the cost of failing to justify
the kind of academic contemplation Aristotle clearly had in mind in book X.

12. Spence 12
Bibliography:
Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics.” Trans. Robert Bartlett and Susan Collins. U Chicago P. London,
2011. Print.
Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics.” Trans. WD Ross. Oxford U.P., 1980. Print.