Philosophy 361 Ethics Darwall Fall 1996 ARISTOTLE II I Aristotle begins the Nicomachean Ethics with the question of what the chief good is for human beings. Notice two things: A. His question is what life is best for us (or, rather, best for us humans) B. Even though he holds that what is intrinsically good about, e.g., pleasure, wisdom, and honor is different, nonetheless there must be a single chief good. Why? Because otherwise any conflicts between intrinsic goods would be irresolvable. Since every action aims at some good, if there is a basis for choice between "final" goods, it must be some "more final" or "most final" good. This is the chief good. Some definitions: Aristotle calls a good final if it is desired for its own sake. Not all final goods are equally final; some are more final than others. Call one good more final than another if it is never desired for the sake of the other, although the other can be desired for the sake of it. Call a good final without qualification if it "is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else." II Aristotle remarks that there is broad agreement that the chief good is eudaimonia, which Ross translates happiness, but which might better be understood as flourishing, living and doing well. But beyond that there is not general agreement [Note, by the way, the methodological role that consensus itself plays in Aristotle's thought--he is always taking seriously what common opinion is and tries to develop his views dialectically from within it.]. Eudaimonia is generally thought to be "most final." Any other final good we may also desire for the sake of a flourishing life, but such a life we desire only for its own sake. Therefore it is the most final good. [What does this remind you of? Recall Mill's arguments that everything else we desire for its own sake we desire as part of happiness. This comes straight out of Aristotle.] III There is a disagreement about what sort of human life is most flourishing. Some say it is a life of pleasure, others of honor, others a wealthy life, others a virtuous life. Aristotle will defend some version of the last view. The best human life is one of excellent human activity. His method: A. Dialectical--show how what is plausible about other answers can be explained by the view that the best human life is a virtuous one. E.g., B. Direct--the "function argument" IV Dialectical A. Pleasure is an effect or manifestation of the good (virtuous) life, not its substance. Excellent activity is inherently pleasurable to the virtuous person. B. Honor is not desirable simply for its own sake; rather what we really want is to merit honor, etc. V. Direct: The Function Argument 1. For anything that has a function or a characteristic activity, "the good and the well is thought to reside in the function." 2. As naturally functioning beings, human beings must have a function. 3. Their function must be whatever is distinctive about them. [Think about what why a teleological view of nature would lead Aristotle to this proposition.] 4. The distinctive activity of human beings is "activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle." 5. This is the function of human beings. 6. Human good is "activity of soul exhibiting excellence [arete or virtue], and if there are more than one excellence, in accordance with the best and the most complete." N.B., Two ways in which human experience and activity can involve rationality: A. Implicitly (in the way any emotion or action does, namely as responding to reasons. B. Explicity (through reflection and deliberation--e.g., of the kind that Aristotle is involving us in in the Ethics). VI In Book II, Aristotle turns to the question of what virtue and virtuous activity is. Some preliminaries: A. First, while virtue is a reasonable translation of arete, what Aristotle has in mind is: that human excellence which can be realized in distinctively human (rational) activity. B. Second, there is actually a puzzle about precisely which sort of excellent human activity Aristotle aims to argue is best. Up until Book X, Aristotle defends the view that the best human life realizes a harmoniously ordered range of ethical and intellectual virtues. But in Book X Aristotle seems to change his view and to argue that contemplation is the uniquely best and most excellent human activity, and that the other virtues are ultimately only of value insofar as they enable such activity to take place. This is obviously a very different view from that which Aristotle spends most of the NE defending and there is much scholarly debate about what Aristotle really meant. We will by and large ignore Aristotle's views about contemplation and thus this debate. C. In Book II Aristotle is interested in understanding the nature of ethical excellences, those which relate to passion and action. [Ross uses 'moral' here, but that may mislead given my remarks in the last lecture.] His general idea is that distinctively human excellence shows itself in our dispositions to feel and express passions in certain contexts and in certain ways, and to choose certain kinds of actions for their own sakes. VII Here are the questions with which Aristotle begins: 1. Given that virtues are aspects of "soul", what sort of aspect are they? 2. How are virtues acquired? 3. What can we learn about what virtues are by considering how they are acquired? 4. Given that virtues are human excellences with respect to passions and actions, is there anything general and informative to be said about the kind of relation that exists between virtues and different passions and actions? We shall take these in turn. VIII At II.5 Aristotle distinguishes three "things that are found in the soul"--passions, faculties, and states of character--and gives examples of these. He thinks neither of the former two items can be human excellences, however, because the excellences are that with respect to which we are praised or blamed, and these must "be modes of choice or involve choice." Thus, the virtues are states of character; we are praised or blamed in respect of these. "By states of character [I mean] the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions, e.g. with reference to anger we stand badly if we feel it violently or too weakly, and well if we feel it moderately; and similarly with reference to the other passions." Human beings are not simply passive with respect to, or subject to, passions. We can modulate and mediate our own passions and inform them with a conception of how they are appropriately felt and expressed; doing this appropriately is a distinctively human virtue. IX Virtues are acquired by habituation. We are not born with them, nor do we acquire them by any natural process that does not involve our own activity, and, perhaps more important, the activity of parents and other elders. This is because "the virtues we get by first excercising them" (II.1). "By doing the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of danger, and by being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly. . . Thus, in one word, states of character arise out of like activities." (1103b 16f) Thus, we become virtuous only by doing virtuous acts. In this way, virtue is like having the knack of an art or craft, which we can only acquire by doing. On the other hand, Aristotle claims that "the case of the arts and that of the virtues are not similar". It is not enough that a person have the knack, know how, or even habit, of doing what the virtuous person does. She must also do them virtuously (excellently); i.e. as the virtuous person would do them. This involves not just what gets done, but what state of character actions realize. Next time we will try to reconcile what may seem a tension here.