According to the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, we may achieve happiness by moderation. Happiness is not something you have to reach to, it is not a goal in itself, and it is not the end or destination of our daily activity. Actually, it is the activity itself. Our activity should be a happy activity. Happiness is not a fixed static condition; it is a dynamic ongoing accompaniment of our activity. It is how we do things; it is not what things bring to us.
We feel happy when we eat good tasty food in good company. We do not eat without any feeling of happiness and then at the end we feel happy. When we recall some good happy memories of good past times and we feel happy, this in itself is an activity accompanied by happiness. We have to engage in activities in our daily life to feel happy. We cannot sit down and wait for happiness to come to us.
However, people differ in what makes them happy. Someone may feel happy among crowds of people and hectic activity. Another may feel happier when he is alone or in a quiet peaceful environment. There is no fixed formula or a prescription to tell people how to get happiness. We can only achieve happiness by trial and error. If a certain situations or activities make us happy, that is how to achieve happiness. However, what makes you happy may seem unpleasant to me.
Does this mean that there are no rules and people can decide for themselves what sort of activity to make for being happy? Is this unrelated to the impact of such activity on other people and on the individual's own future happiness?
Aristotle has introduced the principle of the golden mean. By this, he implies a certain degree between two extremes. It does not mean the middle or average value. Someone may find that he feels happy to eat as much as he wants, may end up suffering unhappiness in the future. Moderation is the way to strike a balance between current happiness and future outcomes.
The moderate pleasures are those, which would make you happy now and will not make you suffer in the future or make other people suffer because of your behaviour. That moderate degree is different among different people. Some people may need to eat more than others and many do not feel happy when they sense they are bloated and obese. What is good for one person may not be good for another. We cannot prescribe how much activity a person should do to make him happy. We have to take in consideration individual variations and choices.
The moral philosophy of Aristotle considers what is ethical and moral and what is unethical and evil. It looks at how much pleasure and happiness a particular behaviour would bring to the majority of people and to the persons involved. Sometimes we cannot decide by rational thinking alone if certain behaviour would lead to happiness or unpleasantness. Trial and error may lead us to know which behaviour to choose. We do need to learn from others' experiences.
A certain amount of experimentation would help us know how to be sure of our choices. A well documented and evidenced scientific knowledge may also provide us with warning signs about the future consequences of a certain current happy behaviour.
Some of our behaviours which makes us happy may make others would suffer. This is not ethical in any logical argument. A certain degree of self-control and restraint on unethical behaviour is needed. The government or the state enforce law and order to prevent unchecked hedonism from inflicting pain and suffering on others.
Moral education is needed for the young to develop a sense of moral judgement and to develop self-control. Some people by nature are morally weak or lack self-control. Self-discipline is a crucial element to achieve happiness for the individual and for the group.
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