Øyvind Rabbås

Aristotle defines human happiness (_eudaimonia_) as the successful realization of the human _ergon_: reason (_logos_). But if ethics is to be normative, the question is what kind of normativity this can be. After some preliminary remarks on the teleological structure of human endeavour and the place of the notion of _eudaimonia_ within that structure, the chapter focuses on the so-called ‘function [_ergon_] argument’ (_EN_ I 7), where Aristotle lays out the premises and outline for his entire ethical project. In the final section it is argued that naturalism and normativity can be reconciled once we see that the human _ergon_ is a rational task that, although given by nature, consists in performing rational activities that are constitutive of us, and that therefore set us a task that we cannot but perform, although it is up to us how serious we are about this, i.e. how committed and disciplined we are in doing so.

Laches' first definition is rejected because it is somehow formally inadequate, but it is not clear exactly how this is so. On my interpretation, the failure of this definition cannot be explained by reference to the distinction between universals and particulars. Rather, it provides a paradigm of courage, which is inadequate because it fails to make clear how it is to be projected into other, non-paradigmatic cases. The definition is interesting because it articulates essential elements of the dominant moral tradition, including both its normative content (it is is too conservative and aristocratic) and its form (it is sustained by a certain limited canon of ideals, idols, and images of excellence). Socrates' elenchus of this definition thus amounts to a challenge to this tradition