ABSTRACT
All work tasks, Aristotle (2006: X: VII: 7–8) says, ‘are in themselves unpleasant and trying, but they are of use. We do not try to attain them for their own sake, only for the purpose of the income or other advantages that we get from them.’ The term ‘joy in work’ would be self-contradictory to Aristotle. Not so for Jean Lacroix (1952: 10), who says: ‘There is no work without joy: it is born from the transforming activity, from the completed oeuvre, from what is created.’ In the terms of our days, we would call the Aristotelian view on work an instrumental or a non-committed attitude and the Lacroix one an engaged or a committed attitude.
