The very highest human life, however, consists in contemplation of the greatest goods. In practical terms, this activity is expressed through ethical virtue, when a person directs his actions according to reason. Human happiness, therefore, consists in activity of the soul according to reason.
The activity which only human beings can perform is intellectual it is activity of the highest part of the soul (the rational part) according to reason. While the spirited and desiring parts of the soul are also important, the rational part of the soul is what one can most properly consider a person's identity. This natural function must be something which is specific to human beings, which is essential to being human. To discover the nature of human happiness it is necessary to determine what the function of a human being is, for a person's happiness will consist in fulfilling the natural function toward which his being is directed. This good toward which all human actions implicity or explicitly aim is happinessin Greek, "eudaimonia," which can also be translated as blessedness or living well, and which is not a static state of being but a type of activity. The necessary characteristics of the ultimate good are that it is complete, final, self-sufficient and continuous. Aristotle begins the work by positing that there exists some ultimate good toward which, in the final analysis, all human actions ultimately aim. Nicomachean Ethics is a philosophical inquiry into the nature of the good life for a human being.
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