[aside]
Pochacco, this is very good:
For a long time now, I’ve believed that England is just a conspiracy of cartographers.
[/aside]
I disagree with the translation of eudaimonia as happiness. As was previously noted, happiness, is very inwardly directed. The translation which I think brings more accuracy to Aristotle’s overall ideal is flourishing. In this respect, the greatest good is flourishing which necessarily includes civic involvement, generosity, tenderness and other outwardly-directed virtues.
Also, Mortimer Adler wrote about the Hedonist Error where we presume that what pleasures people can vary, thus what is good for people can vary too. Adler agrees that what pleasures people varies across individuals. However, he contends that what is good for people is universally good. As such, things like health and eudaimonia are universal goods–they are self referencing–good for everyone, everywhere, across all time. In the end, it is a mistake to assume that because Joe and Sharon partake in different pleasures, they must therefore be searching for different goods. The only true goods are those things that are indeed good for one and all.
Of course you could take the evolutionary approach to ethics whereby good is simply that which we’ve negotiated as more conducive to human survival and reproduction than the non-good.
I believe that most human beings have an inborn desire to do good, but what shape that good takes depends on their perspective, their context, and their knowledge of themselves and others. Notwithstanding, the desire remains.
It competes with other desires, and sometimes these other ones win out. It can be forced out of mind by a clever rationalization. And yet it is still there.
I think it is easier to perceive evil than good. Take the recent debates on the board. Most people seem to agree that taking innocent life is wrong, and the subject up for debate is how to ensure the least loss of innocent life in the future. Both pro-war and anti-war sides seem to agree on this fundamental, the question of evil, and disagree on what the good is. For me, it stands to reason we could define “good” negatively – it’s whatever gets us as far away from “evil” as possible. Of course, the best way there is up for debate.
Does this necessarily mean the existence of God? Not unless, as one Christian friend of mine says, God is nothing more than a metaphor for this desire. After all, if we weren’t a species capable of functioning as a group, this hornless, wingless, clawless, soft, slow animal would never have lasted five minutes in the proverbial jungle.