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Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics

Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics. Clark Wolf Director of Bioethics Iowa State University jwcwolf@iastate.edu. REVIEW: PLATO ON JUSTICE.

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Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics

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  1. Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics Clark Wolf Director of Bioethics Iowa State University jwcwolf@iastate.edu

  2. REVIEW: PLATO ON JUSTICE Connection to Happiness and Well-Being: A person whose "soul" is out of harmony will be: internally divided (see 351a-c: This passage, and the analogy between individual and social divisions becomes clear now.) subject to inappropriate and unpleasant emotions motivated to do what she should not.

  3. “And justice was in truth, it appears, something like this. It does not lie in a man’s external actions, but in the way he acts within himself, really concerned with himself and his inner parts. He does not allow each part of himself to perform the work of another, or the sections of his soul to meddle with one another. He orders well what are in the true sense of the word his own affairs; he is master of himself, puts things in order, is his own friend, harmonizes the three parts like the limiting notes of a musical scale, the high, the low, the middls, and any others there may be in between. He binds them all together, and himself from a plurality becomes a unity. Being thus moderate and harmonious, he now performs some public actions or private contract. In all these fields he thinks the just and beautiful action, which he names as such, to be that which preserves this inner harmony, and indeed helps to achieve it, wisdom to be the knowledge which oversees this action, an unjust action to be that which always destroys it, and ignorance the belief which oversees that.” -Republic, Book IV, [443d]

  4. PLATO ON JUSTICE • Platonic Vices and Virtues: Courage- reason supports spiritCowardice- desire (to escape harm) and foresight (to see it coming) take too much precedence over spirit.Vainglory- spirit overcomes wisdomTemperance- desire is mediated by wisdomGluttony- desire takes overInsensibility- insufficient (desire and spirit) to care properly for virtue

  5. Book I Chapter 1: “Every craft and every line of inquiry, and likewise every action and decision, seems to seek some good; that is why some people were right to describe the good as what everything seeks. But the ends that are sought appear to differ; some are activities, and others are products apart from the activities. Wherever there are ends apart from the actions, the products are by nature better than the activities.”

  6. Book I Chapter 1: “Since there are many actions, crafts, and sciences, the ends turn out to be many as well; for health is the end of medicine, a boat of boat building, victory of generalship, and wealth of household management. But some of these pursuits are subordinate to some one capacity; for instance, bridle making and every other science producing equipment for horses are subordinate to horsemanship, while this and every action of warfare are in turn subordinate to generalship, and in the same way other pursuits are subordinate to further ones. In all such cases, then, the ends of the ruling science are more choiceworthy than all the ends subordinate to them, since the lower ends are also pursued for the sake of the higher. Here it does not matter whether the ends of the actions are the activities themselves, or something apart from them , as in the sciences we have named.”

  7. Book I Chapter 1: “Suppose, then, that the things achievable by action have some end that we wish for because of itself and because of which we wish for the other things; and that we do not choose everything because of something else, for if we do it will go on without limit, so that desire will prove empty and futile. Clearly this end will be the good, that is to say, the best good.” [NE 1094a]

  8. Aristotle on What Matters • NE I.1: Heirarchy of Goods • NE I.2: Existence of a Master Good • NE I.3 How to judge an ethical theory • NE I.4: Method: discover what most people think about happiness, then improve it. • NE I.5: Three conceptions of happiness • NE I.6: Against Plato’s Forms • NE I.7: Characteristics of the Good: Complete, self-sufficient, final end. “Soul’s activity expressing virtue.” • NE I.8: …

  9. What Matters? • Money • Security • Happiness • Fun • Love • Pleasure • Power • Achievement • Knowledge • Wisdom

  10. Aristotelian Teleology • Telos- ‘end’ or ‘goal.’ • To find out what something is, find out where it’s going. • Aristotle assumes that things have a “characteristic function.” This is the function or capacity that makes it the kind of thing it is. (Ex: Acorns function is to become an oak.) • A “good” thing is a thing that fulfills its function well.

  11. Aristotle on the Master Good: • The “master good” Aristotle is looking for is a complete description of the human function. • It will include within it all the things we want non-instrumentally, and its achievement will constitute our complete happiness.

  12. Properties of Aristotle's Master Good: 1) Complete 2) Self-Sufficient3) Final4) Attainable

  13. Contrast with Plato: • Aristotle recommends an “Attainable” good (proper to us). • Platonic ‘Good’ is beyond us, beyond our understanding or comprehension. We can only grope toward it.

  14. Test for Completeness of a good: For any good G, we ask "Is there some other good F that we could add to G to make G even better? If so, then G is not complete, and cannot be the "master good."

  15. Aristotle on What Matters: • Test for Completeness: Consider something that might be the master good. • Ask “If I possessed that good, is there something I could have that would make things even better? • If so, then the original good is not complete. • No good that is incomplete can be the master good. • Is there any such thing…?

  16. The Function Argument: 1) If something has a function, then it’s ‘good’ will involve the exercise of that function. 2) A things function will be associated with whatever is highest and best in things of that type. 3) To find a thing’s function, find out what its highest and best capacities are.

  17. The Function Argument: Aristotle on the Soul (I,13) • Non-rational Part: (1102b) 1) Nutrition and Growth (In common with plants) 2) Appetites (including desires and passions) (Possessed in common with animals) • Rational Part: Two Aspects: 1) Regulative -control appetite 2) Good for its own sake -philosophical thought and pursuit of truth.

  18. ARISTOTLE: The Function Argument (Start here Mon!) 1) If anything has a function, its happiness (or good) will lie in performing that function well. 2) If a human being has a function, its happiness (or good) will lie in performing that function well. 3) To determine what happiness is for a human being, we need to discover the human function. (look to the capacities of the human soul). 4) Four possible functions of the human soul: (Next slide)

  19. ARISTOTLE: The Function Argument 4) Three Possible Functions Humans Might Have: a) Nutritional and reproductive- these functions are common to all living things. Plants are said to be 'living' because they maintain themselves through nutrition and growth. b) Appetitive and perceptual function (use of perception and desire, or the animal soul). Animals have this function and are said to be 'living' in that they perceive and act on desire. This part of the 'soul' includes the non=rational appetites, emotions, pleasure, pain, sense perception, imagination, and the power of movement. c) Rational Function- Humans and God have this function. Human beings, unlike plants and animals, have projects and plans. We make choices, deliberate, we can calculate and even select a way of life for ourselves.

  20. ARISTOTLE: The Function Argument 5) Aristotle argues that (c)rationality is what is peculiar to human life. We have a life in the sense that we have reason, so our function lies in reason. 6) Happiness therefore lies in using our reasoning capacity well. 7) Since the virtues are what enable a thing to perform its function well, the human virtues are what enable us to reason well. Happiness, on Aristotle’s view, is a life of activities governed by reason: rational activities that are performed well (that is, virtuously or excellently). Aristotle's theory of the virtues shows how they are qualities that enable us to live a life according to reason, and to do it well.

  21. Aristotelian Virtues: The Human Function • VIRTUES OF CHARACTER: • DF: A (1) state involving decision, (2) lying in a mean, (3) a mean that is relative to us, (4) a mean defined by reason, and (5) by the reason by which the wise person would define it. (1106b36-1107a2) • VIRTUES OF THOUGHT: (For another time)

  22. Virtues and Vices • Handout on Aristotelian virtues and vices.

  23. (1) a. Virtue is a state (hexis) not simply a capacity or feeling, though it involves both capacities and feelings. Possession of a virtue requires more than behavior-- it also requires appropriate motivation and disposition for both behavior and motivation. b. Value of virtue is more than just a means to virtuous action. (Compare to Kant's "action in accordance with and for the sake of law...) Virtuous activity is not virtuous unless it is done for its own sake. c. State "involving decision (prohairesis): Certain pattern of desire and deliberation is characteristic of the virtuous person. Virtuous action is not just thoughtless "reflex," it involves intelligent decision making. (2-3) "Mean" does not merely mean 'moderation' in action or feeling. For example, achievement of 'the mean relative to anger' does not mean that we will never be more than moderately angry. On the contrary, a virtuous person will be EXTREMELY angry on occasions when extreme anger is called for (Irwin). When Aristotle says that the mean is "relative to us," he does not mean to defend a narrow relativism. The "mean" is the middle place between vices of excess and vices of deficiency. (4-5) Mean (4) defined by reason and (5) determined by the wise (phronimos) person-- refers to the intellectual virtue that is responsible for good deliberation. This connects the moral virtues (choice) with the intellectual virtues (belief).

  24. Weakness of Will? Socratic Paradox:1) All voluntary action aims at the achievement of some goal that the actor perceives, in some sense, as good or desirable. 2) To say that an end is 'wicked' or 'bad' is to say that it is neither properly desirable nor good. 3) Actions that spring from ignorance are involuntary. 4) When actors would not pursue some end but for their false belief that the end in question is desirable or good, then their actions spring from ignorance. 5) When actions are aimed at bad or wicked ends, the actor must perceive or believe these ends to be good or desirable. 6) Such actors would not pursue these ends but for their false beliefs. 7) So such actions spring from ignorance. 8) So such actions are involuntary. 9) So all actions that aim at bad or wicked ends are involuntary.

  25. Socratic/Platonic View: Plato, The Laws.Athenian: all wicked men are, in all respects, unwillingly wicked.This being so, my next argument necessarily follows. Cleinias: What argument? Athenian: That the unjust man is doubtless wicked; but that the wicked man is in that state only against his will. However, to suppose that a voluntary act is performed involuntarily makes no sense. Therefore, in the eyes of someone who holds the view that injustice is involuntary, a man who acts unjustly would seem to be doing so against his will. Here and now, that is the position I have to accept: I allow that no one acts unjustly except against his will. ...Well then, how am I to make my own arguments consistent? [860] • Aristotle's Response: NE VII.ii, 1145b29. [The Socratic view contradicts appearances. We need to look to the causes of faulty action.] • Plato, Laws:[Sources of "faults" and wrong choices:] Our first kind is a painful one, and we call it anger and fear. ... The second kind consists in pleasures and desires. The third, which is a distinct category, consists of hopes and opinion- a mere shot at the truth about the supreme good. If we divide this category twice [according to the various kinds of ignorance discussed earlier in the section] we get three types; and that makes, according to our present argument, a total of five in all. We must enact different laws for the five kinds...[864]

  26. Weakness of Will? • Aristotle's View: Incontinents make the right decision (1152a17) and then act against this decision (1148a13-17, 1151a5-7) Their failure to stick to their decision is the result of strong appetites. Aristotle's Example: We recognize that we should avoid eating this sweet thing, but our recognition that it is sweet triggers our appetite for sweet things, which causes us to eat it after all. • Proviso: Aristotle agrees with Socrates, against the implausible common sense view, believing that an appeal to ignorance is an important part of the explanation of incontinence. Though he admits that incontinents have the right decision and act against it because of appetite, he believes that it is impossible to act against a correct decision that they fully accept at the very moment of their incontinent action. (1147b15-17) • Explanation: Incontinent people's appetite causes them to loose part of the reasoning that formed their correct decision. They retain the right general principles but fail to see (at the time of action) just how these principles apply in their present situation. So even though they say that they know that they are wrong to do what they are doing, they are just saying the words, without really meaning them (1147b9-12). • To this extent, Aristotle thinks that Socrates is right to appeal to ignorance-- though he disagrees with Socrates about the kind of ignorance that is relevant.

  27. NE Book X Ch 6-8: The Best Life? • Happiness is an activity not a state. X.6 (1176b) • Happiness is “activity in accord with virtue.” X.7(1177a11) • Activities associated with reason and understanding are the most continuous, pure, self-sufficient, and complete. Therefore the highest good for humans must be the employment of reason and understanding (“study). X.7 (1177a20-24) • “Such a life would be superior to the human level…” (1177b25-1178a) (?!?!?!)

  28. Worries about NE X.6-8: • Worry: Is the view Aristotle defends in NE X.6-8 over intellectualized? Is it a Platonic view, inconsistent with his earlier insistence that the human good must be achievable within the scope of a human life?

  29. The Evidence: • X.7: • The activity of philosophy seems to be presented as the final good! • Thought is represented as “superior to the human level” (1177b25). (Is this Platonism??)

  30. Terence Irwin: "Though the evidence suggesting that Aristotle holds this purely contemplative conception of happiness is strong, it is not conclusive. He does not clearly claim that contemplation fully satisfies the criteriafor happiness, and therefore he does not infer that by itself it is sufficient for happiness. (1) If we were pure intellects with no other desires and no bodies, contemplation would be the whole of our Good (as it is for an immortal soul, as Plato conceives it in the Phaedo~). Still, we are not in fact merely intellects (1178b3-7); and Aristotle recognizes that the good must be the good of the whole human being. In his considered view, contemplation is the highest and best part of our good, but not the whole of it. (2) Though contemplation is the single most self-sufficient activity, in so far as it is the single activity that comes closest to being self-sufficient, this degree of self-sufficiency does not justify the identification of contemplation with happiness. For Aristotle has argued that happiness must be complete, and for this reason he argues that neither virtue nor pleasure alone can be happiness. He should not, then, agree that contemplation is happiness just because it is invulnerable and self-contained. For contemplation is not the complete good; we can think of other goods (e.g. virtue and honor) that could be added to it to make a better good than contemplation alone." ["Aristotle," in Becker, ed. Encyclopedia of Ethics p59-60.]

  31. Martha Nussbaum: [Aristotle's other works show that] "ethical Platonism of some sort exercised a hold over Aristotle's imagination in one or more periods of his career. We should, then, view the fragment x.6-8 as a serious working-out of elements of a position to which Aristotle is in some ways deeply attracted, though he rejects it in the bulk of his mature ethical and political writing. Surely this is not disappointing. Frequently Aristotle is rather quick and dismissive of Platonic positions. It seems far more worthy of him, and of his method, that he should seriously feel the force of this position and try to articulate the arguments for it. Perhaps we can say that, like anyone who has been seriously devoted to the scholarly or contemplative life, Aristotle wonders whether, thoroughly and properly followed, its demands are not such as to eclipse all other pursuits. (...) So he articulates the Platonist view, not attempting to harmonize it with the other view, but setting it side by side with that one, as the Symposium stands side by side with the Phaedrus. In a sense there is a decision for the mixed view; but the other view remains, not fully dismissed, exerting its claim as a possibility. This seems to me to be a worthy way for a great philosopher to think about these hard questions; and therefore worthy of Aristotle." [The Fragility of Goodness, p. 377]

  32. Upshot: • NE X.6-8 occur within a larger work that focuses on virtues of action and character, which cannot be exercised in a purely contemplative life. • The argument of NE X.6-8 is not entirely consistent (?) with the view expressed in the rest of the book. • The achievement of a complete good requires the exercise of all the virtues, not only the virtues of thought. • This would have fit Aristotle’s experience of life, since Athenian citizens mostly did not have the option to retreat from public life.

  33. Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good • 1) Hedonists and Cyrenaics [Epicurus, Aristippus] (Came after Aristotle) Pleasure, not virtue, honor, or self-control, is the human good. • 2) Socratic View: Virtue is sufficient for happiness. • 3) Egoist view: (Thrasymachus(?), Hobbes): We <always do/always should> act in our own self interest. <psychological/ethical> • 4) Stoic view: (Seneca, Epictetus) Achievement of the best life requires that we not only restrain our wants, but that we gain control over what we want.

  34. Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good • 1) Hedonists and Cyrenaics [Epicurus, Aristippus] (Came after Aristotle)Argued that pleasure is the human good. • Aristippus: Instant Gratification View • Epicurus: Take the long view. • Aristotle argues that a life of pleasure must be incomplete, since it allows no essential role to rational activity. Mere pleasure without rational activity is not the good for a rational agent. (1174a1-4). So: A life of pleasure can be Improved upon.

  35. Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good • 2) Socratic View: Virtue is sufficient for happiness. • Later accepted by the Stoics. [Epictetus, Seneca] Good for human beings is not happiness or pleasure, but discipline of the will by the use of reason. If we constrain our desires so that we want nothing that isn't entirely internal and within the control of our will, we will always be completely happy regardless of external circumstances. The virtuous stoic can be completely happy even while being tortured on the rack. • Aristotle notes that external misfortunes may impede rational activity (1100b29-30) and take away happiness (1100a5-6). Virtue is insufficient for happiness-- one also needs "goods of fortune." While virtue may help to achieve these, it won't always work.

  36. Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good 3) Egoist view: (Thrasymachus, Aristippus, Hobbes): We <always do/always should> act in our own self interest. Aristotle believes that our "end" is not "protection of life and gaining power." This follows from the fact that a life that was secure and powerful might still be lacking in some important ways. Thrasymachian view places too little weight on reason and understanding, and so misses that portion of the good that is most important for beings like ourselves. BUT:1) While virtue is insufficient for happiness, it is nonetheless its dominant component. That is, no matter what we have to lose as a result of being virtuous, we still have better reason to choose virtue than to choose any other combination of other goods that are incompatible with it. (1100b30-1101a8) 2) From the general conception of happiness, Aristotle infers the general features of a virtue of character (ˆthikˆ aretˆ = moral virtue). Like Plato, he argues that the excellent and virtuous condition of the soul will be the one in which the non-rational elements are guided by reason.

  37. Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good 3) Stoic View: (Epictetus, Seneca): Achievement of the best life requires that we not only restrain our wants, but that we gain control over what we want. (Note: The Stoics post-date Aristotle) In the strongest case, the Stoics recommend that we extirpate our wants and desires altogether. Epictetus allows that we may re-acquire wants that apply to things that are in the control of our will. Aristotle aggrees that acquisition of the virtues will enable us control what we want, and that this is crucial. Aristotle does not agree with the Stoic claim that self-control can render us invulnerable. On Aristotle’s view, the good life is always fragile, and never entirely in our control.

  38. Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good • On to Epicurus (Epicureanism) and Epictetus (Stoicism)

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