Happiness in the Views of Aristotle and Ibn Miskawayh Razi

The question of the concept and referent of “happiness” is rooted in Man’s nature. A comparison of the ideas of two authorities in this field, one from ancient Greece and the other from among the Islamic philosophers who were contemporary with Ibn Sina, is of great importance in appreciating the innovations of Muslim thinkers in comparison to those of Greek thinkers in various fields of philosophy. This short paper, which is based on an analytic-comparative study, after explaining the philosophical and ethical principles of each of these two schools, inquires into the similarities and differences between their ideas concerning happiness. Aristotle defined the theory of virtue and happiness based on the concept of “golden mean” with reference to some components such as the intellect, joy, and friendship. However, given his non-monotheistic view of God and the world and heedlessness of resurrection, he was not capable of providing a successful model for the concept and referent of happiness. In contrast, Ibn Miskawayh tries to explain the same concepts on the basis of the knowledge of the soul, the intellect, and the divine rule in the light of his monotheistic worldview. He divides happiness into two worldly and other-worldly types and introduces divine proximity as the true referent of happiness. Both of them define happiness as the transcendent good (supreme good); however, since the basic principles of their ethical philosophies are different from each other, their philosophical concomitants are also different from each other.