re in learning and understanding.5 Plato believes that the pleasure of the intellect, or reason, is the most fulfilling. Therefore, a life of contemplation is a happy life for people. This relates to the idea of justice as well. The lower appetites of the soul must be kept sated, and the reasonable part of the soul must have control over all the appetites. Allowing the lower appetites to take over causes a condition of injustice, and thus unhappiness. Reason governs the soul of a just person, as people called philosopher-kings, who represent the highest degree of reason and understanding, govern the just state. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle puts forth a similar argument in the defense of justice and its role in creating happiness. The just life, as he perceives it, is a life in accordance with virtue. Virtue involves a disposition to act and feel in a way that is in agreement with the mean, or in way that does not lend itself to extremes.6 Therefore, like Plato, Aristotle finds that in order to lead a just life, one’s soul must function properly. Furthermore, Aristotle asserts that happiness is the supreme good for human beings. In fact, in the Nicomachean Ethics, the labels of ‘happy life’ and ‘good life,’ may be used interchangeably. In order to understand the relationship between the just life and the good life, Aristotle’s criterion for a supreme good must be identified. In order for something to be a supreme good, it should be an end in itself, it should be complete, and it should be self-sufficient.7 Just as Plato argues that justice is a good in itself, Aristotle finds that happiness is a complete and self-sufficient good. Also like Plato’s philosophy, the crucial link between the just life and the happy life in Aristotle’s teachings seems to have its basis in the idea of pleasure. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes good functioning of ...
