Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics

1
Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics
Clark Wolf Director of Bioethics Iowa State
University jwcwolf_at_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 mans 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
(No Transcript)
6
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.

7
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.

8
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

9
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 Platos Forms
• NE I.7 Characteristics of the Good Complete,
  self-sufficient, final end. Souls activity
  expressing virtue.
• NE I.8

10
What Matters?

• Money
• Security
• Happiness
• Fun
• Love
• Pleasure
• Power
• Achievement
• Knowledge
• Wisdom

11
Aristotelian Teleology

• Telos- end or goal.
• To find out what something is, find out where
  its 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.

12
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.

13

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

14
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.

15

• 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."

16
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?

17
The Function Argument

• 1) If something has a function, then its 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 things function, find out what its
  highest and best capacities are.

18
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.

19

• 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)

20

• 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 nonrational
  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.

21

• 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 Aristotles 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.

22
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)

23
Virtues and Vices

• Handout on Aristotelian virtues and vices.

24

• (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).

25
Weakness of Will?

• Socratic Paradox1) 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.

26

• 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, LawsSources 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

27
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.

28
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) (?!?!?!)

29

• 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?

30
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??)

31

• 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.

32

• 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

33
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 Aristotles experience of
  life, since Athenian citizens mostly did not have
  the option to retreat from public life.

34
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
  ltalways do/always shouldgt act in our own self
  interest. ltpsychological/ethicalgt
• 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.

35
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.

36
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.

37
Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good

• 3) Egoist view (Thrasymachus, Aristippus,
  Hobbes) We ltalways do/always shouldgt 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.
• BUT1) 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.

38
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
  Aristotles view, the good life is always
  fragile, and never entirely in our control.

39
Non Aristotelian Conceptions of the Human Good

• On to Epicurus (Epicureanism) and Epictetus
  (Stoicism)