Construct · 1 fields · 3 citations

eudaimonia: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaningauthentic leadershipcompare the meanings
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eudaimonia1 CONSTRUCTEudaimoniaARISTOTLE · FLOURISHING

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Philosophy (ethics)

Human flourishing, a whole life lived well in accordance with virtue, as the highest good

Aristotle set out the term in the Nicomachean Ethics (c. 350 B.C.E.), where eudaimonia, often rendered as happiness but closer in meaning to flourishing or living well, names the highest human good: not a passing feeling of pleasure but a whole life lived fully and excellently in accordance with reason and virtue. For Aristotle it is the end that every other good serves, reached through the habitual exercise of the virtues rather than through wealth, honour, or momentary enjoyment. Modern psychology revived the idea to mark a distinct kind of well-being: Waterman (1993) tied eudaimonia to personal expressiveness and the realisation of one's true potential, and Ryan and Deci (2001) set the eudaimonic tradition, which is centred on meaning and self-realisation, against the hedonic tradition, which defines well-being as pleasure and the absence of pain. What makes eudaimonia a landmark is its scope: it frames the good life as an activity extended across a lifetime and grounded in character and function, so it anchors both a strand of ethics reaching back to antiquity and a measurable branch of contemporary well-being research.[1][2][3]

Unit
A conception of the highest human good, understood as a whole life of activity in accordance with virtue
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
In philosophy identified through conceptual and textual analysis of the good life; in psychology operationalised with eudaimonic well-being instruments such as measures of personal expressiveness, meaning, and self-realisation

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Nearby constructs

well-being4 names · 5 citationsjangle · one word, four well-beingscharacter4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsself-determination3 fields · 4 citationsjingle · autonomy of a person, or a people

References

  1. Aristotle. (1999). Nicomachean ethics (T. Irwin, Trans.; 2nd ed.). Hackett. (Original work published ca. 350 B.C.E.)
  2. Waterman, A. S. (1993). Two conceptions of happiness: Contrasts of personal expressiveness (eudaimonia) and hedonic enjoyment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(4), 678–691. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.4.678
  3. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 141–166. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.141

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