Happiness in accordance with pleasure.

I liked how after everything was said and done, Aristotle thought it wise to wrap up the argument on justice brought up in the beginning of Book I. In line 1177a30, Aristotle says "...we believe the pleasure must be mixed in with happiness." This is a little hard for me to believe. Although I do agree with this statement, it is hard for me to believe because I believe that most people in this world are not physically able to do certain things that are good with pleasure. In other words, I am saying that it is almost impossible for anyone to be fully virtuous in one's life. No matter what area it may be, someone will always have to be at the level of self-restraint for one's entire life. Being bound by the flesh, that is subject to our bodies that decipher both pleasure and pain, we are always going to have to do things that the flesh does not usually find pleasureful. For instance, one might want to go and eat some food, when there is a homeless person on the side of the street begging for something to eat. It will not be pleasureful to the body to not eat. Likewise, it might be pleasing to the body to look at pornography, but to abstain from it, requires a level of self-restraint. Me, being a man, am tempted with lust and pornography daily, and though my flesh would love to divulge in the lie, I restrain myself for a reason bigger than myself. I do not believe I will ever be free from these temptations, because I live in the flesh, however, I am able to restrain myself from them, and though it may not be pleasureful, it is what is right.

The correlation between pleasure and excellence

Around 1175a, line 30, an interesting claim is made by aristotle. "...since the appropriate pleasure contributes to the growth of the activity. For those who are at-work with pleasure discern each sort of thing better and are more precise about it..." Aristotle is claiming that people who take pleasure in a certain activity, are automatically better at it then those who do not.

In my opinion, this statement is wrong in many cases. The most notably would be athletic achievement, an area that would very much be in effect in Aristotle's time. There are people on this planet that are more skilled at certain activities, naturally, then others. Most people are trained to find something that they are good at and do it for the rest of their life. This is even a very general way of wording Aristotle's philosophy. The issue that Aristotle is not addressing is that fact that these individuals might not find pleasure in the action that they excel at. It is true that people who pursue something with passion and pleasure work harder to attain excellence. The issue is that hard work is sometimes not enough to surpass someone of greater talent.