“Good Time to Take … Inventory”

This chapter argues that the good life requires playfulness. Building on Aristotle’s account of the virtues, it shows that the virtue of eutrapelia (εὐτραπελία), commonly translated as “wittiness” and understood to refer only to jokes and humorous speech, is in fact broad enough to cover all manner of play and amusement, including playing video games. Two positions of the role of play in the good life are then considered: Bernard Suits’ view in The Grasshopper , which presents play as the goal of life, versus Aristotle’s view in the Nicomachean Ethics , which presents play in terms of its instrumental value. After weighing the pros and cons of each position, the chapter concludes with the certainty that the good human life requires play and that such play may involve video games.