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professor:Why have you enrolled in my course?
student:Because it’s required for my major.
professor:But why are you doing what’s required for your major?
student:Because I want to complete my degree.
professor:But why do you want to complete your degree?
student:Because I want to get a good job.
professor:But why do you want to get a good job?
student:Because I want to earn a good salary.
professor:But why do you want to earn a good salary?
student:So that I can afford to buy the things I want—a nice house, a fast car, delicious food, fashionable clothes, and so on.
professor:But why do you want those things?
student:Because having them will make me happy.
professor:But why do you want to be happy?
student:Huh?
It was probably Aristotle who first took note of the special role that the concept of happiness plays in our thinking about how to live. Happiness, he argued, is the final end of all human activity, that for the sake of which every action is performed. The Student is perplexed at the end of the exchange above because the Professor, in posing her final question, betrays a lack of familiarity with this basic Aristotelian insight. The Student understands that there really is no response to the question “Why do you want to be happy?” To identify an action as necessary for one’s happiness is to explain why one would even perform it. When explaining human action, happiness is where the buck stops.
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