In an unacknowledged, but award-worthy tweet I asked, “Why is the telos of arete eudaimonia and not makarismos?” Since eudaimonia is the telos of arete (as developed since Classical times as Virtue Ethics), it has a well-known, broadly discussed definition, which you can find all over the place, starting here (I mean, ad fontes, eh?). But why not makarismos? The two words share most of the same semantic field, and any debate about what makarismos is vis-à-vis Virtue Ethics would fall along pretty much the exact same contour. I wonder, then, why the one over the other? Did they flip a drachma? Or does eudaimonia lend something to the Gestalt of Virtue Ethics that gives the term its advantage? Let’s explore just a bit. Consider the following diagram:

Except for the terms “acquired” and “bestowed,” each of the vocables within both semantic fields are read for both (I didn’t run a search on frequency distribution, but this is good enough). I have added the distinguishing terms, basically out of sense. When eudaimonia is read, generally the actor is active; when makarismos is read, generally the actor is passive. Divine beings, or those attributed as being divinities, possess eudaimonia. Naturally, those who are going about the work of ethical virtuousness are pursuing eudaimonia. Ethical virtuousness is not a requirement for the bestowal of makarismos.

A question, then, which I think is obvious: why bother with all the labor of ethical virtuousness if I can get the same benefits without working?

Before I ask, however, I pause: neither did I search for provenance. Perhaps makarismos is just a dirty, stinking, rotten Macedonian word, not fit for the sterile Athenian marketplace.