eudaimonism (from Greek eudaimonia, ‘happiness’, ‘flourishing’), the ethical doctrine that happiness is the ultimate justification for morality. The ancient Greek philosophers typically begin their ethical treatises with an account of happiness, and then argue that the best way to achieve a happy life is through the cultivation and exercise of virtue. Most of them make virtue or virtuous activity a constituent of the happy life; the Epicureans, however, construe happiness in terms of pleasure, and treat virtue as a means to the end of pleasant living. Ethical eudaimonism is sometimes combined with psychological eudaimonism – i.e., the view that all free, intentional action is aimed ultimately at the agent’s happiness. A common feature of ancient discussions of ethics, and one distinguishing them from most modern discussions, is the view that an agent would not be rationally justified in a course of action that promised less happiness than some alternative open to him. Hence it seems that most of the ancient theories are forms of egosim. But the ancient theories differ from modern versions of egoism since, according to the ancients, at least some of the virtues are dispositions to act from primarily other-regarding motives: although the agent’s happiness is the ultimate justification of virtuous action, it is not necessarily what motivates such action. Since happiness is regarded by most of the ancients as the ultimate end that justifies our actions, their ethical theories seem teleological; i.e., right or virtuous action is construed as action that contributes to or maximizes the good. But appearances are again misleading, for the ancients typically regard virtuous action as also valuable for its own sake and hence constitutive of the agent’s happiness. See also EGOISM, ETHICS, HEDONISM , UTILITARIANIS. D.T.D.