---
title: "Book 3 Chapter 2: Aristotle, Happiness, and The Good"
date: 2020-07-26T21:35:55Z
series: "The Consolation of Philosophy"
image: img/1295493-1594550903169-a760175a5bfb6.jpg
enclosure: audio/podcast_2020-07-12_boethius-book-3-chapter-2.mp3
draft: false
---

{{< audio "https://gmgauthier.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/podcast/audio/podcast_2020-07-12_boethius-book-3-chapter-2.mp3" >}}

Happiness is the one end which all created beings seek. They aim variously at (a) wealth, or (b) rank, or (c) sovereignty, or (d) glory, or (e) pleasure, because they think thereby to attain either (a) contentment, (b) reverence, (c) power, (d) renown, or (e) gladness of heart, in one or other of which they severally imagine happiness to consist. Analysis: Boethius debates Aristotle on the nature of the Summum Bonum, and comes down on the side of Plato. The highest good is an absolute, not a relative. I read several passages from **Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics**.