• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.141
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• pp.63-84
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• 2017

In the twentieth century Anscombe's 1958 article "Modern Moral Philosophy" argued that duty-based conceptions of morality are conceptually incoherent for they are based on the idea of a "law without a lawgiver". Concepts such as "morally ought", "morally obligated", and "morally right" require a legislator as the source of moral authority. In the past God occupied the role, but systems that dispense with God are lacking the proper foundation for meaningful employment of those concepts. Aristotle's virtue ethics can do so without appealing to any such lawgiver, and ground morality in the well being of human moral agents. Therefore Anscombe recommends a return to the eudaimonistic ethical theories of the ancients as secular approaches. Eudaimonia is a central concept in Aristotelian ethics, along with the terms "aret?"(translated as virtue or excellence) and "phronesis"(translated as practical wisdom). In Aristotle's works, eudaimonia was used as the term for the highest human good, and so it is the aim of practical philosophy to consider what it really is and how it can be achieved. Eudaimonia is a Greek word commonly translated as well-being, happiness, welfare or "human flourishing". As Aristotle points out, saying that eudaimon life is a life which is objectively desirable, and means living well. Everyone wants to be eudaimon. And everyone agrees that being eudaimon is related to faring well and to an individual's well being. But the really difficult question is to specify just what sort of activities enable one to live well. Aristotle says that the eudaimon life is one of "virtuous activity in accordance with reason," this is a necessary condition of eudaimonia, the pleasure accompanied by virtuous activities is a sufficient condition. Hence we have a more accurate translation of eudaimonia with a review the practical meaning of eudaimonia, and the correlation between eudaimonia and arete, pleasure.