The Five Gifts from Aristotle for Living a Meaningful Life

By Jim Luckman and Elizabeth Luckman

During times of crisis, whether they be driven by economic factors (2008) or pandemics and social unrest (2020), it is natural to get caught up in the moment and potentially lose sight of the important things in life. We have observed that some people, however, are very thoughtful and adaptable during times of crisis and use the time to think deeply and re-focus who they are as well as their purpose in life. They challenge their current daily habits and practice new ways of connecting with others. They learn how to learn each day, making improvements for personal development.

An example of this “high value” change process:

In 2008, the stock market crashed as a result of the bursting housing bubble. That crisis affected businesses in substantive ways, decreased revenues, and resulted in job loss and uncertainty—all of which led to fear and blame.

One small group of sales associates in a high-end retail environment shifted the focus from what they couldn’t do to what they could do—in their own small space in the world. They focused on “changing lives,” providing the most exceptional psychological and socio-emotional experience for any client who walked through the door. They didn’t focus on dollars or units sold, but rather how the experience felt. They persisted, they survived, and they felt good about the work they were doing even in the most trying times. The result was happy customers and yes, you guessed it, maintenance and even small growth in sales.

This sales group created a new mental model that included a shared purpose for themselves and their clients as well as a new way to respectfully engage their clients in that shared purpose. They developed creative ways of learning and growing together.

You may find yourself asking what you can do today to stay grounded in what is important while successfully adapting to the changing environment. We, too, have been asking this question and have found many suggestions for how you can lead a meaningful and fulfilling life. Most of these suggestions come in the form of what we all “should” do, new behaviors to add to our already overburdened lives. Instead, we have found ourselves particularly attracted to a way of being that creates structure while encouraging one’s own unique perspective, a way of being that encourages us all to be much more thoughtful.

Surprisingly, it comes from some ancient wisdom of Aristotle.

Why Aristotle? As Edith Hall, classicist, and author of Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life points out, there is a timeless element to Aristotle’s perspective on ethics, and one that can play well in a complex and global environment. Instead of making suggestions about how we should behave, he gives us a process for making good decisions so that we can live the best life we can.

In this article, we offer five “gifts” from Aristotelean ethics that you can put into practice starting tomorrow. These gifts can help us realign and create focus for ourselves while we are participating in a complex world in the very moment of transformation. Inspired by his work Nichomachean Ethics, these gifts demonstrate how Aristotle uses a logical thinking process to define shared humanity, offers unity around our end-state goal, and suggests a daily practice that can allow each of us to find our unique fulfillment in life that comes from sharing our own gifts with others. We can then apply these gifts in our organizations and communities. We can begin to use these gifts to flourish and help others flourish in our work.

Gift #1: Ergon (Function Thinking)

• What Makes us Human? - Our Rational Activity
• What is the Function of an Organization?

As the son of a biologist, Aristotle’s education began with observation of the things in life. Then he broke down and categorized them into logical entities by defining the “function” of each category. The function, or ergon, is the active way something does what it does. The function of a knife is to cut things; the function of an apple tree is to grow apples. For humans, Aristotle argued that our unique function is rational activity: to think and act analytically and logically. We do not define rational” as an evaluative statement against cultural norms, rather “rational” in terms of the ability to think in a structured way. This rational activity includes deliberation, decision making, action, and learning.

Humans are social beings who solve problems together by interacting in organizations. What is the function of an organization? Organizations create and deliver products and services. Because organizations are made up of groups of humans (whose function is rational activity) working interdependently, organizations create and deliver products and services through the process of human rationality. Therefore, the function of the organization is to be a space for an organized approach for human rational thinking to deliver products and services.

Why does this matter? Consider these questions:

• To what extent do we use a defined, rational thinking, deciding, and acting process to achieve our personal goals, organizational goals, and our intent when we interact with others?
• To what extent does our organization understand and communicate its function? What does “excellence” mean for the organization?
• How much of our time and effort is focused on activity and “getting things done” vs. deliberating and taking time to truly grasp the current problem situation?
• How much time and effort are focused on making a choice and having a clear process for making a good, rational decision before we act?

What are the lessons here for today?

1) We are united as human beings in that we share the same function: rational thinking and acting. If we don’t know our own individual purpose, we cannot serve others or work for a greater purpose in the world with our teams and organization. Understanding our shared capacity to observe, act, learn, and reflect creates a common experience for us working together.

2) We should all work at becoming excellent at thinking and acting rationally.

3) Since we work in organizations or groups where we share the same function, we should respect each other’s thinking and work together at developing and improving our collective rational activity.

Since we work in organizations or groups where we share the same function, we should respect each other’s thinking and work together at developing and improving our collective rational activity.

The next step of Aristotle’s rational thinking process is to clarify our purpose so that we are guiding our action towards something that is good for us as individuals and all of us as humans. Gift #2 is how he defines the end for all humans. With that definition in mind, we can further examine our organization’s purpose and our purpose as individuals.

Gift #2: Telos (Ends Thinking) 

• What is our Human Telos? – Eudaimonia (Living a Good Life)
• What is the Telos for our organization?
• What is the Telos for us as individuals and how is it related to organizational telos?

Humans are motivated by end goals and need to have a purpose, something to pursue. Aristotle considers the purpose or ends: the final reason for that function’s existence. Aristotle used the Greek term telos to describe the inherent purpose of each thing, the ultimate reason for each thing to be the way it is. To return to the earlier examples, the telos of the knife is not just to cut (the function), but to cut sharply (the purpose). Human telos is not just to think rationally, but to think rationally in service of a final end.

Aristotle defines the telos for humans as Eudaimonia. The best condition possible for humans is happiness through leading a meaningful and virtuous life. He distinguishes between a means and an end. A means always has another end, while a final end has no further means. Aristotle argues there is only one final end for humans. It is through this analysis of ends and means that he concludes that our final end is eudaimonia.

Yet, we as individuals are not all the same. We are all driven to provide something that is core to our identity. Each of us may have a special calling in life, a specialized function that makes us who we are. It may be what we study in college, like finance, engineering, or marketing. You may be inherently best at providing a specialized skill like being an electrician, carpenter, etc. Or, your purpose might be to serve other people by being a leader, doctor, teacher, or parent. The same analysis can be applied to an organization.

What is an organization’s telos? We established that an organization’s function is to coordinate human rationality to create products and services. What is the end? Those products and services are created to meet a need: the need of the consumer or community member. Therefore, the organization’s telos is to provide value to the user of the products or services. For example, if your organization makes integrated circuit devices for a computer manufacturer, the end purpose of the organization is to deliver that product with the quality and timing expected by the customer, the computer manufacturer.

We have identified a telos for organizations, individuals and humans. Now, how do these work together? Individual telos exists both within and outside of the organization. Most people have a purpose that is not simply about work. Therefore, inside the organization, the personal telos should be guided by the telos of the organizations, while providing a space for individual telos to be enacted within that context.

Recall that we are all human beings and that we have a common function of rational activity, and a common final end of eudaimonia. We all are pursuing our final ends through our efforts to fulfill our individual and organizational definitions of telos.

Now, consider these questions:

• Have you been intentional in defining your own personal telos? What is it?
• Does your organization have a telos, a delivery of products or services that can serve as an alignment for individuals in the organization? What is it?

What are the lessons here for today?

1) All human beings share a telos, final-end state, to pursue that is happiness and living a good life. We can all be focused on that as a common goal for everyone.

2) We should know the telos of our organization, community, and team. This needs to be a well-defined purpose so that we are all working together for a larger community need of serving others. We recognize that this is in direct contrast to the idea that every individual needs to focus solely on individual outcomes—“every man for himself.” Today’s global and interconnected world requires coordination and appreciation for interdependence.

Today’s global and interconnected world requires coordination and appreciation for interdependence.

3) We should spend some time in reflection to clarify our individual purpose so that we can stay on track. It is through the pursuit of our own telos that we achieve happiness and are able to serve others. If we don’t know our own individual purpose, we cannot serve others or work for a greater purpose in the world with our teams and organization.

In the next section, we continue the rational thinking process with Aristotle’s suggestions for how humans can achieve eudaimonia in pursuit of telos.

Gift #3: Phronesis (Means Thinking)

• How can we achieve our final-end? – Practical Wisdom

Practical Wisdom (Phronesis) is the process of continuous learning through daily action. Aristotle was deliberate in describing that learning is not just about knowing, but rather about the process of learning: deliberation, deciding, acting, and reflecting.

Aristotle was an empiricist. He believed that we could learn by observing what was around us, looking for patterns, and testing our theories. This application of logic to real life through an active process is what makes Aristotle different from the other philosophers of his time who were more theoretical. He coined the concept of Phronesis, a type of wisdom that is achieved through habitual learning and acting in accordance with good character traits and habits.

Phronesis is more highly evolved than our current definition of Action or Active Learning. It not only gives us a process for achieving an end/purpose, but it includes an important reflection to determine if the actions taken are consistent with the aim of living a good life overall. The emphasis behind phronesis is achieving excellence of character by developing habits that align with our purpose.

Consider these questions:

• What is your current process for actively learning each day/week/month to achieve your goals?
• Do you have a standard problem solving and or logic process you follow? If so, describe it.
• To what extent do you use a process for decision making? What is it?

What are the lessons here for today?

1) Phronesis is a process of thinking and acting rationally which includes deliberation, decision, action, and learning. It is something that we need to practice for it to become a habit of building character.

2) It is through the process of Phronesis that we achieve happiness as an ongoing feeling, and we pursue excellence at our telos. It is the pursuit of our telos that we can at the end say we have lived a good, virtuous life.

3) Phronesis includes a decision-making process that helps us take ethical actions so that we can stay on track to pursue our own telos.

To enact practical wisdom, we need a goal that sets a framework for the learning and reflection process. In the next section, we describe Gift #4: how we use the concept of excellence to frame our decision options.

Gift #4: Arete (The Practice of Personal Excellence)

• How can we make good decisions? - Virtue Ethics and the Golden Mean.

Phronesis provides a framework for making good decisions and learning from the process. How can we ensure that the actions we are taking are ones that will help us to achieve our meaningful life?

Most of the actions we take are automatic and driven by habits we have acquired (like getting dressed or driving to work). However, there are times when we need to slow down, deliberate, and consciously decide on our next actions. This requires more evaluative thought for making good decisions.

Consider a situation at work where your boss has asked you to do something that to you, may not feel quite right. Maybe you have been told to adjust the numbers a bit in your accounting work or pad an expense account. You justify the process: it’s only a one time ask, or it only has minor implications. Over time, you find yourself doing this over and over. Eventually, you find yourself in a deep problem, not because you are an unethical person, but because you missed an opportunity to recognize the pressures of the situation that led you to make minor choices that had a slippery slope effect.

So, how do we make sure, in the moment, that we make the “good” decisions?

In moments like this, it is not necessarily about establishing a set of rules, or even evaluating the consequences. Aristotle gave us a way to seek arete—excellence—in our decision-making. His process for decision making includes guideposts (virtues to consider) and a method of deciding based on the current situation. This method allows us to select an action that is in the middle of two extremes (the Golden Mean) of the virtue category being examined. Aristotle wants us to be responsible for our own decisions by looking at the context of the situation and selecting the most virtuous actions for building excellence of character.

Let’s look at an example of the virtue of courage. (The extremes of courage are cowardice and rashness).

You are faced with a decision to make because your boss has asked you to change part of the data set you have collected so that a decision can be made about the best way to fix a product problem experienced by the customer. Your boss has a solution in mind that is quick and cheap but does not fix the problem completely. He knows that if you modify the data a certain way, he can more easily influence the other decision makers to accept his solution. At one end, you cave in and simply change the data and follow his command knowing that it is a sub optimum solution and it is unethical to change the data. You are on the extreme of cowardice. At the other end, you confront the situation directly with your boss and tell him that he is cheating, and you don’t like his aggressive bullying.

Now, you are on the side of being rash. There is a golden mean, some good decision between the two extremes, that will allow an ethical approach without the possibility of getting you fired.

Consider these questions.

• How can I suggest to him that he take some time to think about the situation?
• What are some alternatives for fixing the problem another way?
• How might I suggest using a root cause problem solving process to find an appropriate solution?
• How can I respect the boss’s opinion while suggesting that there still may be other technical viewpoints to consider?

What are the lessons here for today:

1) Building good habits makes good character. It takes thought, making the right decisions, and taking actions to make good actions a habit.

2) We often do not think about how we interact with others, nor do we consider the social virtues before we act.

3) Most of us have not been well-trained on how to act with good character by using a decision-making process that guides us to consider the golden mean, the best option between two extremes.

We humans are social animals and we need each other to achieve our common and individual goals. The virtue of courage is important because it can be used every day to examine our interactions with others. The table below is a list of other virtues to consider in your decision-making process using the golden mean.

In summary, by using virtue ethics and the golden mean for our decision-making process, we can increase our probability of making decisions that keep us on track of achieving happiness, serving others, and achieving excellence in terms of our telos.

Now that we understand the function of being human, the ends and means, and more detail on how to integrate Virtue Ethics and the Golden Mean for making good decisions, let's look at how Aristotle integrates all these Gifts into the final Gift #5, which serves to provide a mental model for us to keep on track for achieving higher level purpose.

Gift #5: Philosophia (Love of Wisdom)

• What is the best way to grow towards our purpose? – Become a Philosopher King

Aristotle's final gift integrates the other four gifts into a mental model for living a meaningful and fulfilling life; illustrating how we can use virtues as guideposts, practice reflection, and learning in service of our final purpose through the use of our primary function as rational thinkers.

Aristotle argued that being a philosopher, or “lover of wisdom,” was the most effective way to achieve our purpose. His belief was not that we should all enter the formal profession of philosophy professor; rather he believed that living philosophically—consciously seeking knowledge and learning—would allow us to live our highest purpose. Aristotle tells us that seeking wisdom is a natural inclination for us as human beings, but we can easily become diverted from this with demands of the day. We can reclaim this natural inclination to seek knowledge through making this a priority and practicing building new habits regularly.

He suggested that we become learners.

Leading requires modeling the behaviors you want to instill in those who are following. Leaders, therefore, have a special role as philosopher-learners in organizations.

Consider these questions:

• To what extent do you implement projects through a questioning process vs. getting tasks done?
• To what extend do you recognize what you do not understand and seek to find answers and/or drive to root cause in problem solving?
• To what extent do you reflect on the action you took and make corrections for improvement?
• How comfortable are you with your own and with other’s failures?

What are the lessons here for today?

1) We are more likely to achieve eudaimonia by adopting the process of phronesis and saying in a state of curiosity, recognizing that we have much to learn every day.

2) We can influence others by modeling a continuous process of learning that includes learning how to make virtuous decisions.

3) Our greatest accomplishments, our ability to change lives, comes about by being secure in our questioning mindset and pursuit of making virtuous decisions. If we model this for others, our influence grows and we can not only change our own life, but also change the lives of those around us.

Living a Meaningful and Fulfilling Life 

"We are human beings with a nature whose happiness will consist in virtuous activity over the course of the life, provided with the necessary means, done to cultivate that which is most important to us."

-Joseph Koterski, S.J., Phd., Fordham University

We love this quote because it encapsulates the Five Gifts from Aristotle. Decision-making at work is inherently ethical decision-making. They are one and the same.

Human beings are unique life forms in their ability to think “rationally”. Aristotle has gifted us with a framework for building excellence (arete) in our own lives through rational thinking. He provided this framework in the context of human purpose, setting out the ends to guide our behavior and thinking.

To recap:

• To navigate toward our end purpose of eudaimonia, Aristotle offers us the concept of phronesis as the means.
• Aristotle’s philosophical arguments give us a way to make good decision during the course of our life so that we can achieve happiness, serve others, and work with others for a larger purpose.
• Embedded in this process is his argument that if we have the love of wisdom and curiosity, and seek to create knowledge in everything we do, we will achieve pleasure every day and remain on track to attain our final purpose of living a good life.

How might you use this knowledge in your own development at home and at work? Start by thinking about your personal telos.

• How do you contribute to society?
• What is it you do on a daily basis?
• What types of problems do you regularly solve?

Play around with this, keep a file or a notebook where you write and refine your telos. Knowing your function helps you to better understand your nature. To know what something is, is to know what it does. Telos defines your nature, seeking arete of your telos leads to eudaimonia.

Think about the telos of your organization.

• What does your organization serve to do and for whom?
• What is it that your organization does on a daily basis?
• What types of problems does your organization regularly solve?

Practice your way to arete: Engage in a version of phronesis: begin a weekly cycle of reflecting on your work, learning from that reflection, and adapting to do something new or different (growth) from what you learned the prior week.

Remember the golden mean. Use this decision-making process particularly when you are engaging in group interactions.

Stay curious: approach problems (whether technical or social) with an interest in learning more about them before starting to address them. Look for opportunities for change that you may have missed in the past.

Start small, learn quickly, remain curious. This is how you build habits. Becoming virtuous at work—in essence, becoming an ethical and effective member of an organization or community—is a journey.