Si può essere felici senza la virtù? La risposta di Aristotele (guardando a Platone)

The moral sensibility of the Greeks distinguished among three main ends of human action: Kalon (the beautiful), agaton (the good) and hedu (the pleasant). Plato first indicated that human life as a unity has a single end, which rejoins these three distinct characters. Aristotle developed this focal intuition in his idea of eudaimonia as complete end (telos teleion) of human life. This essay puts to question the coincidence between eudaimonia and particular ends and asks about the role played by virtue as an ingredient of eudaimonia. The analysis develops considering central passages in Plato’s Republic and Philebus, and the three ethic treatises of Aristotle.