Eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία) — a central concept of ancient Greek ethics, frequently translated as “happiness,” “flourishing,” or “well-being,” though none of these terms is exact: it does not name a pleasant mood but a fully realized, objectively successful human life. The etymology helps explain why: the word joins eu (“good,” “well”) and daimōn (“spirit” or guardian divinity), suggesting the condition of someone whose existence is guided by a “good spirit.” Its most influential formulation appears in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which presents eudaimonia as the supreme human good, the telos (final end) of all action — the thing sought for its own sake and never as a means to something else. In the so-called function argument (ergon), Aristotle holds that the good proper to each being lies in performing its characteristic activity with excellence; since the distinctive faculty of human beings is reason, eudaimonia consists in “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue” (aretē), exercised over a complete lifetime. It is therefore neither a fleeting feeling nor the mere possession of goods, but a sustained activity, which may also require certain external goods such as health and friendship. Other schools reinterpret the concept: the Stoics identify eudaimonia with virtue alone, sufficient in itself for the good life; the Epicureans, with pleasure understood as freedom from mental disturbance (ataraxia) and from bodily pain (aponia). The concept is closely tied to the notion of aretē (virtue or excellence) and stands opposed to a hedonism that reduces living well to mere sensory pleasure.
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