What comparison can be made between Aristotle and Aquinas view on human happiness and the good?
Answer The key thing to understand here is that Aqunias used the most general categories and concepts of Aristole’s philosophy to transform Christianity from a commitment to a community, to a commitment to a set of very shaky philsophical conclusions, thereby laying the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation and creating the frozen, rigid Roman Catholic church of today. He basically repudiated all this work because of a vision he had while saying a mass a few years before his death. That’s neither here nor there in regard to your question. For Aristotle, for whom God, if he exists at all, is a philosophical abstraction without personality, human happiness has nothing to do with religion and is the privilege of the few in society who are not destined, by nature, to be slaves. These few attain it by the practice of virtue, which, for Aristotle, are essentially the behaviors of the few who are destined not to be slaves. The key virtue is prudence, e.g., moderation in all things, calcul
