A ética aristotélica: a relação entre o agir virtuoso e o ideal de felicidade

Abstract

The present work has the objective of analyzing ethics, having as referential base the work Ni- comachean Ethics by Aristotle. In this work is possible to verify that the author deals with human ac- tions and the search for true happiness. The present text rescues the discussion about eudaimonia, de- rived from an ethical action, having as a starting point a life directed to the ethical action. It is through the exercise of virtue that man will reach happiness. First, the work approaches the actions of an ethical property, making a demonstration of the character dispositions based on the Nicomachean Ethics. As the title of this work already anticipates, virtue will have an important focus in this work, explaining that moral virtue does not arise from nature, but it is acquired through habit. Therefore, without practical life is impossible for a man to be good, since moral virtues are acquired through practical life and actions, being the man the cause of his own actions. In the sequence of the work, happiness is also presented as a commendable good, giving to this individual some notoriety, since happiness is com- mendable for being an activity of the soul in accordance with the ethical virtues, which is self-sufficient and has perfection and is the result of a life of constant search. In the last part of the work, it will be approached the question of the activity of man, such activity which is proper of the human being, there- fore possessing an orientating character for a virtuous life distant from passions. Through the practical life, the man is led to practice acts considered ethical, and it is through the community where he lives that these actions must be put to practice. Therefore, the man as a political animal that he is needs the community to live and shall in the same community demonstrate which is its true state of character. In this manner, this individual will achieve happiness when he dedicates himself to practicing virtual ac- tions in the community. This work has as objective to study Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle and to demonstrate ethics as a practical action in human relations in a community. Nowadays ethics is merely a discursive issue, in other words, what we actually have today is the theoretical part from ethics, but we will see that Aristotle is interested in ethics as action, and not only a question to be known, but to be practiced.