This supreme good is εὺδαιμονία – eudaimonia. It is a concept that in Greek moral thought goes back at least as far as Socrates, but which is most associated with Aristotle. The word is usually translated as ‘happiness’. To the Greeks eudaimonia meant much more. It was not a matter of the satisfaction of immediate desires, nor even of a sense of wellbeing, but described more broadly a state of human flourishing, or a state of being that is worth seeking, that which Aristotle calls ‘living well and doing well’.
