 Basic to Descartes’ account is the distinction he draws between (i) the supreme good, (ii) happiness, and (iii) the final end or goal, notions generally taken as equivalent in ancient eudaimonism (AT IV 275/CSMK 261). Descartes identifies the supreme good with virtue, which he defines as “a firm and constant will to bring about everything we judge to be the best and to employ all the force of our intellect in judging well” (AT IV 277/CSMK 262). Virtue is the supreme good, he argues, because it is “the only good, among all those we can possess, which depends entirely on our free will” (AT IV 276/CSMK 261), and because it is sufficient for happiness. Descartes explains happiness (la béatitude) in psychological terms. It is the “perfect contentment of mind and inner satisfaction… which is acquired by the wise without fortune’s favor” (AT IV 264/CSMK 257). According to Descartes, “we cannot ever practice any virtue—that is to say, do what our reason tells us we should do—without receiving satisfaction and pleasure from doing so” (AT IV 284/CSMK 263). Thus, happiness is a natural product of virtue and can be enjoyed regardless of what fortune brings. The dependence of happiness on virtue is confirmed by Descartes’ account of the final end, which, he says, can be regarded either as happiness or as the supreme good: virtue is the target at which we ought to aim, but happiness is the prize that induces us to fire at it (AT IV 277/CMSK 262).