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Eudaimonía revisited, and human well-being


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Carmen Cozma
“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Romania
e-mail: carmen.cozma@uaic.ro


AGATHOS, Volume 15, Issue 2 (29): 35-50, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.13937891
© www.agathos-international-review.com CC BY NC 2024


Abstract: A concept of great interest in our incessant search for well-being, especially in the nowadays movement from crisis to crisis of a general evolution seriously marked by the challenges of cutting-edge technologies with the rise of AI, is eudaimonía. Comingfrom the teachings provided by eminent Greek philosophers and being always relevant, such a topic needs to be recovered if we want to develop the best of ourselves in a humane horizon of beingness-in-becoming in a real (and not artificial, and superficial) world. This crucial idea is to be valued as the purpose of a desirable life, finally designating the highest good for human beings with and in the variety of everything-there-is-alive. The attempt to revisit eudaimonía leads us to draw a comprehensive approach of tackling and activating at least part of the very own human potential for a ‘life worth living’ according to Socrates, which is so much required to be discussed with greater depth due to the particularities of the current complex and turbulent context we have to cope with; and eventually, to find a healthy and balanced humanistic perspective on life.


Keywords: eudaimonía, ancient Greek philosophers, well-being, moral philosophy


Being aware of the particularities – not at all calm and simple or happy – of the present time, but recognizing ourselves as agents in the search of ways and means to endlessly make life worth living, a wise and robust lesson is to be disclosed in the ancient philosophers’ eudaimonism. A major concept of moral philosophy at large still challenges us in the attempt to create a sense of well-being, namely happiness: eudaimonía.

 To genuinely comprehend happiness, we have to go back to the drawing board in the adventure of philosophical thinking (here, by reference only to the Western culture); thus benefitting from the core wisdom in life about a major theme linked to the humane that seems to be more and more at risk for the individual who is trapped in a hyper-technological consumerist society, with so many shallows, confusions and extremely fast changes in an instantaneous digital network – as Douglas Rushkoff (2013) called the “present shock”.

 The classical Greek term εὐδαιμονία / eudaimonía is usually translated as happiness or flourishing, thanks to the protection of, or having a good/benevolent (eu) deity/spirit (daimōn). It leads human being to strive into building and unfolding a complete good life; it connects to the ideal of the supreme good, “that at which all things aim”, precisely the “one which we will for its own sake”, as Aristotle stresses (Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a4, 20). And this ultimate goal that everyone follows is possible to be achieved on the route of knowing and practicing virtue (the Greek ἀρετή / areté).

 According to the Stagirite, “the virtue or excellence of man will be such a moral state as makes a man good and able to perform his proper function well” (Ibid, 1106a20). Virtue or areté is “the midst way between excess and deficiency”, a “mean between a too much and a too little” (Ibid, 1106a30, 1106b30-1107a); the greatest good being tied to the use of reason: “for man, the life according to intellect is best and pleasant, since intellect than anything else is man. This life therefore is also happiest” (Ibid, 1178a6-8).

 In order to clarify the overall framework, the etymology of eudaimonía is productive. This Greek concept is a compound that can help us to better fathom something about the significance of having a good guardian spirit that steers us in the territory of which the character excellence means cross-referencing with the encompass of human well-being; the happiness, finally. The term of eudaimonía is originated in two ancient Greek words: εὖ / eu, meaning “well, good”; also “true, genuine”, “luckily, happily”, and δαίμων / daimōn, which means “divinity, spirit, divine power, fate, or god” (Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, 392).

 From the very beginning of Western philosophical reflection, eudaimonía registered a widespread usage being linked to other notions that are important for human well-being – as the state of an individual or group to feeling healthy and happy. So, it is connected to some relevant Greek terms, like: ευ εἶναι / eu einai (being well); μακάριος / makários (blessed, happy)1; εὐτυχία / eûtychía (good luck, good fortune); ευ ζεν / eu zen (living well). In the Hellenistic period there are occurrences that show the use of eu zen as interchangeably with eudaimonía2.

 One of the foremost terms in philosophy, eudaimonía involves, through its etymology, a sacral dimension especially in the Presocratics’ thinking:

In colloquial terms, to be eudaίmōn was to be lucky, for in a world fraught with constant upheaval, uncertainty, and privation, to have a good spirit working on one’s behalf was the ultimate mark of good fortune. Even more it was a mark of divine favour, for the gods, it was believed, worked through the daimones, emissaries and conductors of their will (McMahon 2006, 7).

According to the American historian Darrin M. McMahon, precisely because of its components: eu (good) and daimon (god, spirit, demon), the Greek word eudaimonía

Contains within it a notion of fortune – for to have a good daimon on your side, a guiding spirit, is to be lucky – and a notion of divinity, for a daimon is an emissary of the gods who watches over each of us, acting invisibly on the Olympians’ behalf. (Ibid, 3-4)

Usually being taken as happiness, the old Greek eudaimonía can be found not only in philosophical but also in psychological approaches, in intimate relation with well-being understood as ‘the experience of health, happiness, and prosperity’. This syntagma – somehow, a nowadays buzzword - “includes having good mental health, high life satisfaction, and a sense of meaning or purpose. More generally, well-being is just feeling well” (Davis 2019).

 Both terms, ‘happiness’ and ‘well-being’ are and are not distinct at the same time. But almost always they imply an ethical articulation, engaging the valences of the moral character and actions of a person. In a nutshell, we could take into account the significance of moral health, the so desired equilibrium into and of the auto- and hetero-reporting, aiming at what is morally ‘good’ for the own self but in balance with what is morally ‘good’ for others, humans and nonhumans alike; seeing that a wise man/woman is the one who has already acquired and is still developing a clear consciousness he/she is part of a greater living system social, cultural and natural.

 “Well-being obviously plays a central role in any moral theory.” (Crisp [2001] 2021) Among the ethical views to address this concept, we mention: welfarism – a version of consequentialism – and virtue ethics or aretelogy, which continuously deal with the key concept of ‘happiness’ or ‘flourishing’, with eudaimonía.

 To a certain degree, well-being integrates happiness to be attained; even the latter is usually arising for short-lived states in different contexts of the real life of a person.

 The psychologists consider that, to building the overall well-being, it is necessary to assure the functioning of five or six major types of well-being, which are interrelating, namely the emotional, physical, social, workplace and societal ones.3 For example, Carol Diane Ryff and Corey Lee M. Keyes (1995) propose a theoretical model of psychological well-being encompassing six dimensions: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life and self-acceptance.

 We should note that, from the psychological point of view, a “science of well-being” has been developed. For example, Ed Diener imposed himself as a leading pioneer in scientific research on happiness, arguing for its aspect he coined “subjective well-being” that must be considered in a rich diversity of definitions to be applied to people at all times4. The quality of life, by priority the life satisfaction – deemed from physiology, psychophysiology, social psychology, psychiatry, communication and behavioural sciences, neuroscience positions, etc. – related to the nature of well-being in connection with the principles of hedonic adaptation and of utility is to be comprehensively examined on genetic basis, in ecological habitat and social context, by assessing “objective happiness” and “subjective well-being” (Kahneman 1999; Stone, Shiffman, and DeVries 1999; Schwarz and Strack 1999).

 Beyond any differences, from both philosophical and psychological, generally cultural viewpoints, the well-beingconcept involves, in its core, the value regarding the centrality of the quality of life - for individuals and communities alike -, implicitly the ideas of wellness, health, prosperity, accomplishment (personal and social, cultural and natural), blessedness, flourishing, etc.; briefly, the good of life equilibrium and satisfaction widely; no matter the general context with particularities of global, consumerist, digital developments, at the same time of profound moral crisis as we can find ourselves today.

 Intimately related to the so much wanted happiness, the human well-being imposes itself as the leading good cause or reason men/women not only project but also they permanently strive for.

 In this sense, the wise learning we get from the ancient Greek philosophers represents a substantial and useful potentiality to be activated in our effort to take care of and to work for what eventually means the ultimate purpose, the télos / τέλος of human life: the greatest good as happiness (eudaimonía).

 Avoiding a too hard concept such as happiness, perhaps that of well-being is more properly to be used. Both of them actually direct us toward the same meaning so much important for the thorough understanding of the essence of a life worth living, for its promotion and fully experience.

 In general, the discussion is around the morality of happiness; eudaimonía covering an end in itself, with a powerful moral component.

 A philosophy of happiness was unfolded by the Seven Sages, and, over the centuries, it has continuously challenged, inspired and educated humanity.

 Seeing that the Greek eudaimonía refers not only to an experience about which human being is just momentary aware of – living it as a passing phenomenon -, we think that this notion is not exactly synonymous with happiness. Rather eudaimonía is closer to what, at the beginning of the third millennium AD, we name ‘human well-being’. It, to some degree, supposes a process realized first of all in order of moral beingness-in-becoming; engaging a sustained effort of shaping and developing the human character on the route of moral virtue.

 We disclose the roots of the contemporary ‘well-being’ in the ancient eudaimonism, built around the lasting human aspiration towards Good(ness) and Beauty, toward harmony and order, circumscribing the entire spread of life, as much as we have access to these values we essentially need them. It is the ancient eudaimonism, in which man and nature, microcosm and macrocosm are to be deciphered in a dialectical identity that certainly means, at the same time, difference and sameness.

 The acuity of the spiritual crisis we traverse represents a serious risk and danger as regards the confusion and insecurity, the superficiality and violence, the loss of valuable benchmarks, the enslaving to technology and alienation from the nature; even the alienation from the human essence. Identifying and following viable paths of (re)discovering our authenticity in its best articulations are to be found by reconsidering the teachings of the ancient philosophers about eudaimonía. We can better learn to free ourselves from ignorance and to acquire axiological and normative elements of good choices in life, distinguishing the positive values, having confidence in them, adhering to them, and acting for their protection and achievement; that claims a wisdom in life, lucidity, good will, prudence, moderation, freedom, responsibility, etc. Thus, we discover support to understand and endeavour on the side of moral health / moral equilibrium, of ‘human well-being’ finally: “the central problem of ethics” as tracing the horizon of the “best life for all” (Bond 1996, 208-209); admitting that morality framework shows “how to reconcile the unavoidable separateness of persons (…) with their inherently social nature” (Ibid, 211).

 Mostly, with the earliest Presocratic thinkers till the late antiquity’s philosophers, eudaimonía is applied to the whole life, and it is inevitably related to areté.

 We must notice that acknowledging eudaimonía in its status of the ultimate purpose of human living doesn’t mean to be easy to grasp ‘how to achieve it’. Actually, this is one of the most tempting ideas philosophers have always dealt with, beginning with the earliest Western thinkers, the Milesians (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes), and subsequently flourishing during the Classical Age (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) and the Hellenistic and Roman periods (with the major philosophical schools of Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism and Stoicism) – all of them tackling the problem of eudaimonía as the goal of life and placing it in ἀταραξία / ataraxía and/or ἀπάθεια / apatheia, meaning tranquility, imperturbability, freedom from passions and sufferings, equanimity.

 We find a starting point in the teachings of Thales of Miletus, among the Seven Sages (οἱ ἑπτὰ σοφοί / hoi hepta sophoi) of ancient Greece. Even though just few fragmentary sources of his work survived, some evidences for his life and for his versatile so ingenious activities and opinions - as philosopher, mathematician and geometer, astronomer, engineer, etc. – are provided by many historians, philosophers and doxographers (see Dicks 1959).

 Having an inquiring mind, Thales tried to understand what really does matter for a human being and for its well-being alike. Part of Thales’ teachings is delivered by Diogenes Laërtius (I. 22-27; 37-38):

“Τις ευδαίμων, “ο το μεν σώμα υγιής, την δε ψυχήν εύπορος, την δε φύσιν ευπαίδευτος”” / “Who is happy? (He was asked) ‘He who is healthy in his body, enjoys soul wealth, and has a well trained nature’”. And: “Μη την όψιν καλλωπίζεσθαι, αλλά τοίς επιτηδεύμασιν είναι καλόν” / “It is good not to take care of our external smartening up but of our ‘επιτηδεύματα’/epitēdeumata - meaning ‘our works, occupations, actions, habits’” (Liddell & Scott). This is the way of life.

Apart from health, which is always desirable and necessary for all people, one must seek a ‘wealthy soul’, as happiness, which not accidentally is in direct conjunction with the ‘well trained nature’.

 The question of eudaimonía was considered by Socrates in connection with his particular concern for virtue. He focused on the major role of wisdom to discover and, finally, to make a life worth living: “everything the soul endeavours or endures under the guidance of wisdom ends in happiness” (Plato, Meno, 88c). No less, in Republic, Plato shows a peculiar interest on the issue, mainly related to the superiority of δικαιοσύνη / dikaiosúnē, ‘the just being more eudaimōnthan the unjust’ (Plato, Republic, 583b).

 An enlightening lesson is given us as regards the meaning of a good life. The ancient Greeks teach us about the value of thinking - and often they teach us about a practice of such thinking – upon the supreme goal pursued by any human being throughout life: to achieve εύ ζωή / eû zōḗ, to live well, to get a good life. Primarily (but not exclusively), this supposes to live a moral life displaying the importance of ἀρετή / areté - the fulfillment of human potential and functionality, the human excellence.

 We keep asking ourselves: What does mean ‘living a good life’? What an ultimate good life is and how should it be(come)?

 We may read, for example, in Book 1 of Aristotle’s Politics (1252b29-30): “The city-state comes into being for the sake of living, but it exists for the sake of living ‘well’”. According to Martin, Smith and Stuart (2003, 5), “This phrase implies more than what is usually meant by ‘living well’ in English, which is to say ‘being prosperous.’ The Greek phrase implies above all a life lived in accordance with excellence (areté). Living a prosperous life is not necessarily in conflict with this notion but is certainly not the principal implication of living ‘well’ in Greek.”

 About this kind of living well, Aristotle (Politics, 1278b21-25) stresses that

The goal or purpose (telos) of the city-state certainly encompasses physical existence and survival, but it is also more than that, namely, living ‘finely’ (to zen kalos).

And:

The city-state that is truly a city-state must be concerned with excellence (areté); (…) a city-state is clearly … living … for the sake of a fully developed and self-sufficient life. (Ibid, 1280b6-8; 1280b29-1281a8)

So, an aretelogy comes to the fore, as part of moral philosophy concerned with virtue or the excellence of character, with its nature and with the ways and means to study and exercise it throughout life an individual experiences. Pursuing happiness (eudaimonía), as the end goal of everyone, meets the education of moral virtue (areté) as the safe path to be followed. In Aristotle’s vision, “Happiness requires both complete virtue and complete life” since “life includes many reversals of fortune, good and bad” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1100a5-10). The Stagirite considers that the highest aim of all human practical thinking is eudaimonía, claiming reason, deliberate choice, the knowledge of virtues and their practice, understanding the importance of the ‘mean between excess and deficiency’, the development and the manifestation of theoretical and practical wisdom, courage, justice, temperance, etc.

 The philosophers of the Hellenistic age have approached important themes of moral philosophy that was considered in the function of guiding people towards leading better lives. Its key role was to live well, respectively to secure for oneself eudaimonía, for which a human being should endeavour; so, becoming the agent of more or less experiencing the eudaίmōn life - a life that any rational being should be able to attain.

 For Epicurus, eudaimonía is linked to tranquility. Here comes some of the meaning of ‘well-being’ as eustatheia / ευστάθεια (the steadiness, the inner tranquility, the just/good balance). In Letter to Menoeceus, the author features a happy life as one of ataraxia (ἀταραξία) and of aponia (ἀπονία), meaning the ‘calmness’ or ‘tranquility of mind’ and the ‘absence of pain’. This was regarded by Epicureans to be the height of bodily pleasure, hēdonē (ἡδονή). In its turn, the virtue represents a means to happiness.

 In Epicurean vision, pleasure is the final good of human being. Living well consists in living a life of pleasure. But what means the Epicurean pleasure? It has nothing to do with the vulgar comprehension of this concept, reduced to the immediate, bright and fleeting pleasure. Especially, it is far from the understanding of pleasure in the present time of hyperconsumption with the commodity fetishism and the instant happiness (that seems to merely be identifiable with lots of happy smartphone icons, for example), in a society of excessive materialistic consumerism, entertainment and advertising, which promotes a sort of ‘bright hedonism’ focused on the slogan “seize the moment/the day” - an attempt to translate just part of the Horace’s phrase (Odes, I. 11.8): “carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero”, which would completely mean: “Seize the day, put very little trust in tomorrow/the future”.

 We have to be aware of the fact that Epicurus’ hēdonē is related to virtues, such as prudence, wisdom, courage, friendship, mutual trust, justice, together with lucidity, discernment and sobriety, making sense through tranquility, peace or freedom from distress and worry (ataraxia), and in the absence of pain (aponia):

When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is … sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul. Of all this, the end is prudence. For this reason prudence is a more precious thing even than the other virtues, for a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honor, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, X. 27.131-132).

Following the path of virtue – taking into account that a prime virtue is phronēsis (the practical wisdom) - contributes to bringing the most amount of pleasure in man’s life; and consequently, more happiness. “Of all these, the beginning and the greatest good is prudence” (Ibid, X. 27.132).

 To resume, the eudaίmōn life is a pleasurable life. A happy life is identical to a virtuous life; the main purpose being to “fulfill the good of the soul and the good of the body” as an agent “free from pain and fear”, aims at pleasure as “the highest good in life” (O’Keefe 2014, 111-116). The Epicurean philosopher and poet Philodemus of Gadara (see Sbordone 1947, col. 5, 4.9-14) has suggestively emphasized a summary of Epicurus’ doctrine on happiness, through the so-called “tetrapharmakos” or “the four-part cure”. In four lines we find guidelines as regards the probabilities of living the happiest possible life: “Don’t fear god, / Don’t worry about death; / What is good is easy to get, and / What is terrible is easy to endure.”

 In their turn, the Stoics explained eudaimonía in connection with areté, too. They dwelled on the eudaίmōn life as a morally virtuous life.

 Being represented by great figures of antiquity (from Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus to Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius) and revived by some philosophies of Renaissance and of the contemporary era, the Stoic ethics has permanently maintained the interest in the problem of eudaimonía in unity with virtue and with the wise agent. This is obviously in the ways of dealing with happiness and well-being as complete and self-controlled human life within different topics developed by the “new Stoicism” at the present time (see Becker 1998); with a focus on collective well-being, on humankind relationship with Nature, sustainable development, sagely acting, eudaimonía emergence from virtue, etc. (see Whiting et al. 2018).

 In a Stoic perspective, eudaimonía is the human end for which, exercising phronēsis, virtuous thinking and behavior are required.

 Zeno of Citium held that the true good consists in virtue; and a good human life is that the wise man can live aiming at the conformity to the logos. At stake is the famous Stoics’ dictum, τέλος: τò ὁμολογουμένως ζῆν / télos: to omologoumenōs zēn. The route followed by a sage person is to ‘live in agreement (or harmony – a homology) with nature’, meaning ‘in accordance with our own human nature as well as that of the universe’ (Zeno, in Diogenes Laërtius, VII. 4; 87; 102, 127).

If, as seems likely, Zeno derived the term omologoumenōs from logos, the formula may simply have been intended to convey the idea that one should live in accordance with the logos or one’s essential self. It was made more specific (and perhaps less awkward) by Cleanthes’s addition of the word ‘nature’ as that to which one was urged to conform: telos esti to omologoumenōs tē phúsei zēn (Fortin 1996, 202).

And there is a basic connection between eudaimonía and practical wisdom, according to Chrysippus: “Phronēsis is nothing other than eudaimonía in and of itself, but just is eudaimonía” (see Plutarch, 26. 1046D).

 The Stoics identify the eudaίmōn life as one motivated by virtue, the human (moral) ‘excellence’. For Epictetus (Discourses, 1.4.18; 1.29.1), the progress towards excellence means to understand the true nature of one’s being and to keep one’s prohairesis / προαίρεσις (moral choice, will, intention, moral character) in the right state.

 Eudaimonía claims the moral virtue as a necessary condition. This thesis can be found in texts of late Stoics. For example, in his Moral Letters to Lucilius, Seneca offers a veritable ‘ethical guidance’ for human well-being. In fact, the entire discourse can be summarized as the search for ‘ethical perfection’ (Gill 2003), pursuing eudaimonía about which each of us might learn and educate.

 Also, the works of moral philosophy of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are testimonies for the major significance of guiding ourselves in the territory of a science and art of living a ‘good life’; and thus to activate as much as possible the capacities to morally shape a veritable human life and to flourish on the path of virtue.

 Thanks to Arrian of Nicomedia, who copied down Epictetus’ lectures and preserved them, we have the access to the Discourses (Ἐπικτήτου διατριβαί / Epiktētou diatribai) and the Handbook (Ἐγχειρίδιον Ἐπικτήτου / Enkheirídion Epiktḗtou) containing useful teachings about a rational, free, wise and happy life that must harmonize with “what is up to us”.

 In a similar key we have a lot to learn from the Meditations: Thoughts to Myself (Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν / Ta eis heauton) of Marcus Aurelius who imposed himself as a political leader and a moral philosopher. We can get valuable ideas for our times focused on be(com)ing a good individual, living in harmony with the nature, developing the reason in accordance with the universal logos that permeates everything-there-is-alive. This outstanding figure of the late Stoicism inspires us, beyond the historical and social context, to appreciate the real value and to build the moral virtues, no less to take into account the power of moral principles; finally, to reveal the potential of growing and flourishing the human excellence. Basic questions and answers deserve to particularly pay attention:

What is your art? To be good; Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one; Happiness is a good spirit/daemon, or a good thing. What then are you doing here, oh imagination? Go away…; Retire into yourself. The rational principle which rules has this nature that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility. …For the good is with me and the just. (Marcus Aurelius, 10.16; 7.17; 7.28, 42)

It is worth noting herein that also the physician and philosopher Galen of Pergamon took the virtue of apatheia (απάθεια) – even though in a different approach than the Stoics – as a relevant one for human well-being, as we find, for example, in Peri Alypias / Περί αλυπίας5. Claudii Galeni Pergameni has scientifically stressed on the importance of the soul/spirit-body balance. We need isoropia (ισορροπία) of pneúma (πνεῦμα) and sóma (σώμα); and the emotions, especially distress or lupè (λυπή) is to be avoided. Imposing also as a therapist of the emotions, “Galenus provides remedies in case of sadness, and depression, using his personal experiences” (Muraru 2019, 64). Peri Alypias (in Latin, De indolentia) bears witness to the ways of dealing with our vulnerable self and treating anxiety, following part at least from his own life-long; by avoiding distress, finally – so much needed in nowadays –, striving towards health and happiness.

 Certainly, this paper brought to the fore just part of the precious legacy centered on eudaimonía the ancient thinkers have left about the possibilities of human well-being in the world we have access to. Knowing, reflecting on, comprehending and applying it in our lives could improve the quality of living, especially, in times marked by a lot of risks, doubts and general bewilderment when individuals and communities are looking for real fulcrums, for safe values and norms, as they grapple with serious challenges and difficulties.

 Revisiting the works of the great classics of philosophy means to not maintain or even totally fall in sancta simplicitas, to not be easily manipulated, by anyone, for dishonest purposes; it means to not lose our very human autonomy, dignity and authenticity, and finally to slip risking to reach a complete denial of the humane from within us; and this, because of the abandonment into slavery and the life altering by “smart” machineries that invade the entire existence, engineering our behaviours, relations and experiences by technology, in an environment of appearances, of images mediated passive contemplation, of saturated consumerist culture by “amusing ourselves to death” (to quote Neil Postman), in the frame of the Debordian “society of the spectacle”. Such characteristics bring about a lack of naturalness and spontaneity, an inhabitation of valuable creativity and the atrophy of moral sense, a loss of critical thinking and of temperance, and a concrete manufacture of alienation. No less, they cause the weakening of any aspirations, the temptation of inactivity and irresponsibility, since we have to cope with a sort of social insanity due to the autocratic reign of mass culture marketing. Indeed, as Guy Debord (1988) noticed a few decades ago, once the individual discovers himself as enslaved by the spectacle, which became “a pseudosacre,” the human alienation and the meaninglessness increase, and the unhappiness gets stronger in the end.

 We focused on eudaimonía as a signifier of the ultimate goal of human life, mobilizing us in discovering and exploring an extra power and enlightenment welcome at all times. Undoubtedly, as the pursuit of happiness, it remains the ideal toward which all our toil will succeed to nurture the human well-being.

 The ancients’ philosophy of eudaimonía stands for a kind of moral organon in life, directing human conduct under the auspices of authentic values of life. It deserves to be inoculated in the daily practice, offering us guidelines for wisely deliberating, choosing, and decision making and acting; eventually, helping us to manage and to overcome the trials of life, and to ensure both individual and communal well-being just progressing in (and not giving up) our very own humanity.


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1 However, William David Ross calls attention to a distinction between eudaimonía (activity in accordance with virtue) and makarios (meaning eudaimonía and the blessings of fortune). Ross, W.D. [1923] 1995. Aristotle. London: Routledge, p. 192.

2 See the early and middle Stoic school with Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes of Assos, Posidonius of Rhodes, Chrysippus of Soli, and Diogenes of Babylon, mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius, Book VII. 87–88. See also Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1098b22.

3 In her 2019 article “What Is Well-Being? Definition, Types, and Well-Being Skills”, Tchiki Davis explains five types of well-being: 1. ‘Emotional Well-Being’ is “the ability to practice stress-management techniques, be resilient, and generate the emotions that lead to good feelings.” The skills contributing to the emotional well-being are: “happiness, mindfulness, positive thinking and resilience skills.” 2.‘Physical Well-Being’ is the ability to improve the functioning of human body “through healthy eating and good exercise habits”. Some of the things that can help to boost the physical well-being are: “eating for health, detoxing the body, correcting nutritional deficiencies and removing plastic from home.” 3. ‘Social Well-Being’, which is “the ability to communicate, develop meaningful relationships with others, and maintain a support network that helps overcome loneliness.” Concerning the skills that contribute to a better social well-being, some are: “practicing gratitude, building meaningful social connections, managing the relationship with technology.” 4. ‘Workplace Well-Being’: “The ability to pursue your interests, values, and purpose in order to gain meaning, happiness, and enrichment professionally”. The key skills needed for workplace well-being are: maintaining work-life balance and finding the own purpose. 5. ‘Societal Well-Being’: “The ability to actively participate in a thriving community, culture, and environment”. This type claims some skills possible to be built for greater societal well-being, such as “living your values, creating a plastic-free home, making positive impacts in other people’s living, kindness”.

4 See Ed Diener. 1984. Subjective Well Being. Psychological Bulletin, 95: 542-575; Ed Diener (Editor). 2009. The Science of Well-Being: The Collected Works of Ed Diener. Dordrecht: Springer.

5 Translated in English as Avoiding Distress, this is Galen’s 2005 writing discovered in a Greek manuscript, in Thessaloniki. See Antoine Pietrobelli. 2010. Variation autour du Thessalonicensis Vlatadon 14: Un manuscrit copié au xenon du Kral, peu avant la chute de Constantinople. Revue des etudes byzantines, 68: 95-126.