The good is what we aim at. Aristotle opened the Nicomachean Ethics with the observation that every action and pursuit aims at some good. Health is the good of medicine. Victory is the good of strategy. But what is the highest good, the one we want for its own sake and not for the sake of something else? Aristotle called it eudaimonia, often translated as flourishing or happiness. It is not a feeling but a way of living, guided by virtue and supported by external goods.

Philosophers have proposed different accounts of the good. Hedonists say pleasure is the good. Desire-satisfaction theorists say the good is getting what you want. Objective list theorists say the good includes friendship, knowledge, achievement, and aesthetic experience, whether or not you desire them. Kant distinguished the good will from the good as an object of desire. Moore argued that good is a simple, indefinable property, known by intuition. The debate between monists, who think all goods reduce to one, and pluralists, who think there are many irreducible goods, remains open. The good is not the same as the right. The right concerns what we ought to do. The good concerns what is worth pursuing.

Accounts of the good

• Hedonism. Pleasure is the good.
• Desire-satisfaction. Getting what you want is the good.
• Objective list. Certain things are good regardless of desire.
• Eudaimonia. Flourishing through virtue and activity.

The good is both a philosophical question and a personal one. What is worth wanting? The answer shapes how you live.