Aristotle's Concept of Human Flourishing: Implication for Post truth Value Perspective on Materialism

Abstract

At the very opening of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, he posited that every art and every investigation, and similarly every action and pursuit is considered to aim at some good. Hence, the Good has been rightly defined as 'that at which all things aim'. In his understanding, all intermediate goals, also referred to as instrumental goals, must tenaciously aim at a final goal, which he identifies as human flourishing. However, changes in societal composition have allowed many people alternative ways in deciding the pathways of their flourishing or happiness, while at the same time neglecting traditional and cultural moral bases appropriate for guidance. This leaves open the questions of what is good and worthwhile to pursue in one's life. In this paper, we argue that, the idea of human flourishing has changed today as it has become predominantly of vain pursuit and living undifferentiated life of pleasure with all sorts of materialistic tendencies. The analytic method has been adopted to explore the potentials of the ideas enshrined in Aristotle's concept of human flourishing for post-truth value disposition on materialism. Our position in this paper, therefore, is that in order to attain the teleological vision of happiness, our idea of human flourishing should not be defined by vain pursuits especially as seen in our world today. Human flourishing is only sustained through right desire with the right reason and good choice of action and not mere materialism.