Aristotle

This and the following 2 readings are among the most important things you will ever read.  You will be reading the thoughts and practical advice on how best to live from 3 of the greatest minds in Western history.  People pay tens of thousands of dollars to get life advice from barely educated charlatans.  This is orders of magnitude better and it's free.

Introduction

When discussing ethics from the ancient Greeks we have to consider their writings within the context of their primary concern, which is "the first question of philosophy": How should I live my life?  To which the obvious but unhelpful answer is "you should live the best life possible."  Part of answering the first question involves figuring out where the line is between obligations to my community and obligations to myself, and this is domain of ethics, or moral philosophy.  Relating the two issues is the question of whether living a moral life is necessary for the best possible life.  Aristotle's answer is yes.  Let's find out why.

Key points

Happiness as an activity/way of life it's not a psychological state.

Our moral virtues are latent (exist in a state of potentiality) and need to be actualized through habituation, training, teachers, etc...  If we do not receive the appropriate interactions, our potentialities will never be actualized. 

A virtue is an excellence.

Everything aims at some good (Telos).  We need to find the good of living a human life

The first issue to resolve is what is the "best good"?  If I'm going to aim for the best possible life, I need to know: if out of all the good things out there, is there one that's better than the rest?  If there is, then I'm going to direct my actions at that good (why go for the stuff that less good?).

• The good of any activity is that at which the activity aims.
  • E.g., for shipbuilding it's a vessel, for the medical art it's health.
  • When some arts fall under a single capacity (all military action under strategy), the goals of the master arts are to be preferred.
• We choose some ends for their consequences and others for themselves. This can't go on for ever so there must a chief good. This will tell us what to aim at in life.
• Which of the sciences aims at the chief good? Political science.
  • Attaining the end for a nation or city-state is more worthwhile than for an individual (social good)
• Arg 1 What is this good? End in itself That for whose sake everything else is done. But there seems to be more than one good—how do we choose the master? It must be something final.
  • It must not be desirable for the sake of something else, not desirable in itself and for something else, but always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.
• Happiness is the chief good of a human life: not honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue because although we choose them for themselves we also choose them for the sake of happiness. Happiness, on the other hand, we don't choose for the sake of the others.
• Arg 2: Self-sufficiency: that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing. It isn't made more desirable by addition of even lesser goods. Additions are considered excess.
• Happiness is final and self-sufficient.

What is Human Happiness?  Student Plotagon

Ok, so we've identified the chief end of living a human life, but "happiness" is pretty vague.  What is its nature?  Short answer: it is the active perfection of human virtues: it is "an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue."

Aristotle's Functionalism

In order to get a full grasp on Aristotle's definition of happiness we're going to have to make a quick detour into his metaphysics.  For Aristotle, all objects have 2 components: the form and the function.  The form is the shape and the stuff that the thing is made out of.  The function is the "essence" of whatever a particular thing is.  It is "that which makes something what it is."

For example, the form of a knife is its wooden handle and steel blade.  Its function is its nature or essence: that which makes it what it is.  In the case of a knife it is its capacity to cut.  A fake knife only has the form of a knife because it doesn't have the same function as a real knife (cutting).  

Excellence is defined in terms of how well something's defining function is performed.  An excellent knife is one that cuts "excellently."  So, an excellent human is one that functions excellently.  Huh? Let's explain that...

Aristotle's theory of the soul

For animate objects, it is the soul that gives form its function.  Souls also have different parts: the vegetative, the appetitive, and the intellectual. The human soul (i.e., human nature) shares certain elements with other creatures (vegetative and appetitive).  What is distinct about the human soul (i.e., human nature) is the rational element of the soul.  It follows that human excellence is perfection of rational activities.  In other words, the function of a human is to act in accordance with reason.  To do this excellently would be what counts as human virtue and excellence in human virtue is the chief good for humans, which in turn is happiness.

In sum: Happiness= the chief good for humans.  The chief good for humans is perfection of human virtues.  Virtue=excellence in function; human virtue is excellence in those activities that are specific to humans (i.e., the activities and capacities that define humans as humans, in this case, rational capacities).

Two Types of Rational Capacities (Virtues): Intellectual and Moral

The rational capacity can be divided into two categories: intellectual and moral. The practice of either is a virtue for humans (excellence in function).  Intellectual virtues pertain to the part of the soul the engages in reasoning.  They are philosophical wisdom and understanding, and practical wisdom. Moral virtues pertain to the part of the soul that can follow reason.  Examples are liberality (right disposition in regards to spending money) and temperance. 

It follows that happiness=active perfection of human virtue because 

(a) happiness is the chief good

(b) goodness is perfection of essential functions/features and human essential function is reason

(c) perfection of essential functions are virtues 

(d) actively perfecting your virtues is happiness.

How Does Aristotle's Virtue Ethics Answer Glaucon and Adeimantus' Challenge?
Why be moral?  Because you cannot have the best possible life without actualizing and perfecting all your human virtues.  Part of you remains undeveloped.  By not acting morally you are not practicing human excellence and therefore cannot achieve the highest good which is happiness. Maximum happiness is only achievable if you become maximally excellent, and this requires you develop all of your distinctively human capacities maximally.

Book 2: Moral Virtue and the Doctrine of the Mean

Section 1

Moral virtue is a consequence of habituation.  Moral virtue doesn't arise in us naturally this is why it requires habituation.  However, it is in our nature to receive the moral virtues.  I.e., we have in our nature the potential to be moral but habituation is necessary to actualize that potential.  

(Think about why someone subjected to the Ring of Gyges test might answer that they wouldn't do whatever they wanted).

We get the virtues by exercising them, as with the arts.  To become a builder one must build, to become a guitarist, one must play the guitar, it follows that to become temperate, one must do temperate acts; to become just, one must do just acts; we become brave by doing brave acts.

READ last paragraph 1st column of p. 509: "It is from the by same cause and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art [. . .].  It all comes down to practice.  If at a young age you didn't form the right habits, your chances at moral virtue (and consequentially, a good life) are minimal.

ISSUE:  Is Aristotle right about people who aren't habituated to moral behavior at a young age?

Something to think about: "[. . .] legislators make citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one."  Is this how we conceive of the role of our legislators? Is it how they conceive of themselves?

Section 2: The Doctrine of the Mean, Habituation as the origin and growth of moral virtue, and the self-perpetuation of moral virtue
I'm not interested in meta-ethics, I don't really care what the definition of a virtue is, I want to know how I ought to live.  I want to know what I should do to be virtuous.

We need to know how to act virtuously because the nature of one's actions determine the nature of one's character.

The doctrine of the mean is the idea that between between any two contraries there is a mean and it is the mean that is the virtuous course of action.

READ: p. 510, 1st column, 1st paragraph (con't from previous page)

Virtuous behavior entails adopting the doctrine of the mean because excess and defect destroy things. For example (1) both too much and too little exercise destroys strength.  (2) Both excessive or insufficient food and drink can destroy health.

Habituation is the source and cause of the origination and growth of our moral virtues.  It is also the cause of a self-sustaining positive feedback loop.  For example, the habits of good eating and regular exercise bring about strength, yet it is the strong person who is also most able to eat well and exercise.  There is an analogy with the virtues.  For example, it by habituating ourselves to stand our ground in the face of fear we become brave but it is also the brave person who is most able to stand his ground.

Section 3: The Relation of Pleasure and Pain to The Formation of Good Character
It's important to form the correct associations between pleasure and pain in relation to acts.  We are led to do bad things if we associate pleasure with those acts and we abstain from doing good things if we associate pain with those acts.

For example, if you teach yourself to delight in abstaining from bodily pleasures you'll develop and maintain temperance.  (p. 510, 1st column, last paragraph).  However, you must find the appropriate amount of pleasure and pain you feel in things (i.e., adhere to the doctrine of the mean) otherwise your character will develop too far in the wrong direction.

E.g.,  If you take too much pleasure in avoiding bodily pleasures you'll become insensible.  If you take too much pain in avoiding bodily pleasures, you'll become self-indulgent.

These associations have to be formed early in life or your chances at virtuous life will be severely diminished (if possible at all).

4.  Escaping the Tautology (Check your Attitude)
On the surface it seems tautological to say "we must become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate acts; for if men do just and temperate acts, they are already just and temperate..."

Here's the way out:  If a certain act is just it doesn't follow that the character of the person who did it was just.  It could be that your unjust motives happen to align with an act that appears just.  What makes an act just or temperate is the attitude of the person who acts.  An action is just if they are done as a just man would do them (i.e., with his same attitude).

In short, the nature of an act is determined by the attitude of the person who acts.  Also, by reflecting on "what would a just person do in this situation" (i.e., habituation) our actions become just.

5.  Virtues are States of Character
READ: Full Doctrine of the Mean p. 512 1st column, last paragraph to the end of 512.

6.  What is Virtue? (READ: p. 512 1st column, 1st paragraph) The virtue of a man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well.

Further Definition of Doctrine of the Mean: READ: p. 512, 1st column, 2nd paragraph)  "...that which is equidistant between excess and defect....the intermediate not in object (re:objective claim) but relatively to us."

9.
We have to be aware of our personal dispositions
Happiness does not equal pleasure

ISSUE:  Is happiness more than a psychological state?

ISSUE: To what degree is Aristotle giving a descriptive account and to what degree is is prescriptive.
What is his meta-ethical position?

ISSUE:  Is Aristotle right that immoral people can't be happy?