Esoteric Concepts About Eudaimonia
How a Cottage Industry of Academic Articles Define Our Better Selves
We have wars, refugees, immigration problems, malevolent
dictatorships, overly zealous religious groups, terrorists, poverty, drug
addiction, violent crime, and climate-change issues in more than
enough places worldwide. Yet, from an historical perspective, the
doom and gloom are not as prevalent. Still, our best version of human
blossoming and well-being has a long way to go. In other words, we
still gotta whole lotta of work to do to become better human beings.
What can we do about it? In my armchair, autodidactic, philosophical
and psychological studies, one word always comes up when thinking
about how humanity can get better, quicker: eudaimonia. Here I
attempt to synthesize what I’ve learned about eudaimonia from some
of the academic papers I’ve read.
Reading too many overbearingly esoteric academic papers can make
you crazy, but it’s also a worthwhile effort to pursue if you are patient
and can figure out how to slice and dice the most important
descriptive elements and the most consistent and proven ideas and
theories related to any topic of interest you may be studying.
I personally like to define eudaimonia very simply with two words:
“know thyself,” professed by both Socrates and Plato – and even
further back into pre-Socratic times. However, Aristotle is most
always noted as having invented and popularized a deeper
philosophical understanding of eudaimonia, although it’s more
complicated than that.
Leading scholar of what’s called “eudaimonic well-being” (EWB),
University of Wisconsin-Madison Psychology Professor Carol D. Ryff,
and many other academic scholars, frequently write about the
meaning of eudaimonia, often referring to Artistotle’s Nichomachean
Ethics. In a March 2018 article, Well-Being With Soul: Science in Pursuit of
Human Potential, published in the journal Perspectives of Psychological
Science, Ryff writes:
For Aristotle, the highest of all human goods was activity of the soul
in accord with virtue. The key task in life is thus to know and live in
truth with one’s daimon, a kind of spirit given to all persons at birth.
Eudaimonia embodied the Greek imperatives of self-truth (know
thyself) and striving toward an excellence consistent with innate
potentialities (become who you are). These ideas deepened this
philosophical significance of the new approach to psychological well-
being.
In the introductory chapter of the over-priced, but well-informed,
2016 academic textbook, Handbook of Eudaimonic Well-Being, Editor
Joar Vittersø, from UiT The Arctic University of Norway, cites scholars
who explain how “Aristotle didn’t originate the concept of
eudaimonia. It was included in the Greek vocabulary hundreds of
years before he was born. Actually, Aristotle never seemed
particularly interested in the etymology of eudaimonia and the term
had little influence on his thinking.” Vittersø then lists 41 different
scholarly definitions of eudaimonia – calling them a “small
convenience sample,” adding that the task of explaining what EWB
means “has turned into something of a conceptual cottage industry.”
The Handbook also describes what it refers to as the “big three”
theoretical concepts for understanding EWB (there are many more):
One is Ryff’s six-factor model, first published in 1989; another
theoretical concept was proposed in 1984 by Psychology Professor
Emeritus at The College of New Jersey Alan S. Waterman; and the
third comes from University of Rochester Psychology Professors
Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci.
As an extremely brief description, Waterman’s theories were all about
fostering a sense of personal identity, becoming self-actualized in the
Maslovian sense, having a strong internal locus of control over one’s
overall life, and practicing principled and moral behavior. Ryan and
Deci came up with their “Self-determination theory,” which is
essentially based on autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They
also point to behaviors related to intrinsic motivation, integrity, and
life satisfaction (or well-being). All of these researchers (and many
others) also write extensively about hedonism, or Hedonic well-being
(HWB) as it compares and contrasts to eudaimonia, which is a whole
other area of study (and confusion).
So where does all this take us? In some respect, I feel all this talk
about eudaimonia is superfluous. I think the vast majority of adults
already fully understand the basic tenets for living eudaimonically –
that knowing who you are; being the master of your fate; engaging in
activities that bring out and utilize your most fertile talents; and
pointing your energies toward self-transcendent, for-the-greater-
good, intrinsically rewarding activities will make you a happier, more
fulfilled human being who can die in peace having known that you
lived your life with a keen eye toward its just and honorable potential.
And whether or not you feel that you succeeded does not matter –
what matters is the pursuit. The pursuit ultimately brings great joy
and well-being as long as you keep trying, regardless of the outcome.
The bottom line: If more people continue to pursue the basic ideals
espoused under the banner of eudaimonia, the world will continue to
become a better place – which takes me back to the solution to the
retrogressive-oriented first paragraph of this article. As Ryan and Deci
noted in their 2001 article, On Happiness and Human Potentials: A
Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being:
Perhaps the concern of greatest importance, not only for
psychological theorists, but also for humanity, is the study of the
relations between personal well-being and the broader issues of the
collective wellness of humanity and the wellness of the planet. It is
clear that, as individuals pursue aims they find satisfying or
pleasurable, they may create conditions that make more formidable
the attainment of well-being by others. An important issue, therefore,
concerns the extent to which factors that foster individual well-being
can be aligned or made congruent with factors that facilitate
wellness at collective or global levels.
Although published 17 years ago, their sentiments are timeless.
Thanks for stopping by,
George
“Each person is
obliged to know and
live in truth to his
daimon, thereby
progressively
actualizing an
excellence that is his
innately and
potentially.”
- David Norton