ABSTRACT
The idea of eudaimonism is indeed the idea that a life of virtuous activity is a life worth living, a choiceworthy life. Eudaimonism on this understanding would hold out a prospect that often tempts ethical theorists: that distinctively ethical reasons for acting might be authenticated by representing them as derivative from perhaps less contentious rational considerations. This chapter offers some reflections on what underlies the invention: on what makes modern readers tend to suppose that Aristotle needs external validation to sustain his realism. It suggests some general conclusions about the prospects for ethical realism, independently of issues in the exegesis of Aristotle. When Aristotle makes his identification of the good life for human beings with a life of activity in accordance with virtue he bases it on a train of thought that connects what doing well is, for a thing of a given kind, with the ergon or "function" of things of that kind.
