ABSTRACT
Some theorists sympathetic to Aristotle have pointed out that sometimes having the right emotional motivation is essential to one's actions being the right actions. Thinkers sympathetic to Aristotle have charged that Kantians and utilitarian have, in their haste to give clear answers to moral questions, illegitimately simplified moral decision-making by simply ignoring some of the important issues. The Aristotelians might remind us that there can be situations in which there is one course of action that would lead to greatest utility, but readers can only bring about greatest utility by doing something that would be disrespectful of rational agency. One immediate issue has to do with the fact that Aristotle simply assumes that ethics should begin with the question of the agent's own happiness – living well, flourishing. Aristotle held that the basic point of morality, and the highest good for human beings, is eudaemonia, sometimes translated as "happiness" but perhaps better thought of as "flourishing".
