Eudaimonia and Drive
The original case for eudaimonia in Aristotle is that all of us desire it. It is the highest and most self-sufficient good we can pursue. If there were no final good, desire would continue infinitely, rendering itself pointless.
Self-sufficiency, however, has nothing to do with the self. It refers instead to something that can be pursued for the sake of itself. The problem is that many things can be pursued this way—even aretē (virtue), at least partially. What makes eudaimonia unique is that it can never be chosen as a means. Eudaimonia can only be for the sake of itself; it is impossible to choose it as a tool. In this way, eudaimonia orders our desire. It acts as a constraint.
Turning to Jacques Lacan, we discover a similar structure. Desire for Lacan moves from object to object, perpetually unsatisfied. Desire constantly fails to encounter the object that would satisfy it. Meanwhile, Lacan’s notion of drive is the satisfaction one finds through the repetition of this failure. Drive has no final object; it finds enjoyment in circling around one.
Between Lacan and Aristotle, we have two figures who seem worlds apart and yet strangely close together. At first glance, it may seem absurd to say that eudaimonia shares similarities with Lacanian drive. But consider how Aristotle understands ends and means: a wish for Aristotle is something impossible — something beyond the reach of choice. We choose only the means toward ends. We do not choose ends (wishes) themselves.
For example, you can choose the means that promote healing, but you cannot choose health itself. Likewise, you can choose the means that foster happiness, but you cannot simply choose to be happy.
This is where the bridge forms. Eudaimonia is an impossible object — not in the sense that it cannot be reached, but in the sense that it cannot be directly chosen. It must be pursued indirectly, through means. In Lacanian terms, eudaimonia is perpetually pursued through the very failure of not being an object we can choose.
Thus, drive and eudaimonia have an uncanny similarity, distinguished only by the line between the unconscious and the conscious.
What Aristotle offers Lacan is the idea that drive can function as an end — a constraint that orders desire through failure and repetition. What Lacan offers Aristotle is the insight that ends are themselves failures of repetition: pursuing something for the sake of itself is always a pursuit without completion.
Ironically, they converge at a single point:
failure can function as an end, and drive/eudaimonia are final ends.