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Originally Posted by Arwen

Eudaimonia

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Eudaimonia
For the moth, see Eudaemonia (moth).
Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'. Etymologically, it consists of the word "eu" ("good" or "well being") and "daimōn" ("spirit" or "minor deity", used by extension to mean one's lot or fortune). Although popular usage of the term happiness refers to a state of mind, related to joy or pleasure, eudaimonia rarely has such connotations, and the less subjective "human flourishing" is often preferred as a translation.[1]

"Eudaimonia", is a central concept in ancient Greek ethics (along with "arete", most often translated as "virtue"). Some philosophers believe eudaimonia (not arete) is the highest human good, and are concerned with saying just how to achieve it. Eudaimonia is often translated into English as "happiness". But "happiness" is more correlated a subjective state or overall measure of such states as an assessment of the quality of one’s life, whereas eudaimonia refers to an objectively desirable life. Bad events that do not contribute to one’s experience of happiness, do affect one’s eudaimonia, so eudaimonia is not synonymous with happiness in this sense, either.
A moral theory which links virtue (arete) and happiness (eudaimonia) specifying the relation between these two concepts is one of the central preoccupations of ancient ethics, and a subject of much disagreement. As a result there are many varieties of eudaimonism. Two of the most influential forms are those of Aristotle and the Stoics. Aristotle takes virtue and its exercise to be the most important constituent in eudaimonia but does acknowledge the importance of external goods such as health, wealth, and beauty. By contrast, the Stoics make virtue necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia and thus deny the necessity of external goods.