ABSTRACT
Some ethical theories hold that each and every aspect of a person’s life is to be decided by ethical principles that describe obligations. Utilitarianism, for example, says that it is wrong to do some action if an alternative action could be performed that would better promote people’s happiness or preference satisfaction. Human beings are organisms, and so survival, growth, and reproduction are goals that human beings try to achieve. Aristotle thought that human beings have godlike as well as animal characteristics. Aristotle offers three arguments for thinking that the life of theoretical reason provides the best form of happiness. The first and most important argument appeals to the fact that the capacity to reason is uniquely human. The second claims that human beings find happiness in drawing fine discriminations and in mastering complex tasks. The third sees the contemplative life as supremely good because it is the life in which one is most independent of others.
