2 page essay
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VIRTUE It is the week of Halloween, it is time to forget about the tsunami of work that school gives us, and hopefully have some fun. For this purpose I am keeping this week’s lesson short, and ask you only to write a one-page essay response. This week’s topic is virtue, or what it means to live well: to live a happy life, and the mindset that would allow you to do that. I am giving you to read two pieces of writing, one by the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the other by the Chinese philosopher Confucius. They both address the question of how to live a happy existence. They both offer advice. Compare these two pieces of writing – what do they have in common? What is different between them? You don’t have to answer these questions exactly, but these are just things that maybe you will notice yourself as you read them (their similarities and differences). Aristotle was writing in the 300s BC, and Confucius in the 400s BC. Do they say anything that is relevant to us today? I hope this semester has not completely drained you of your energy. I hope you find some enjoyment this weekend as it is Halloween, because we need enjoyment in our lives too. Here are the two writings:
THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Aristotle, c. 330 BC. Translation by J. K. Thomson.
Virtue of Character, like a Craft, is Acquired by Practice and Habituation Virtue is of two kinds: that of the intellect and that of character. Intellectual virtue owes its origin and development mainly to teaching, for which reason its attainment requires experience and time; virtue of character (ēthos) is a result of habituation (ethos), for which reason it has acquired its name through a small variation on ‘ethos.’ From this it is clear that none of the virtues of character arises in us by nature. For nothing natural can be made to behave differently by habituation. For instance, a stone, which has a natural tendency downwards, cannot be habituated to rise, however often you try to train it by throwing it up in the air; not can you train fire to burn downwards; nor can anything else that has any other natural tendency be trained to depart from it. Virtues of character, then, are engendered in us neither by nor contrary to nature; we are constituted by nature to receive them, but their full development in us is due to habit.
Again, of all those faculties with which nature endows us we first acquire the potentialities, and only later effect their actualization. This is evident in the case of the senses. It was not from repeated acts of seeing or hearing that we acquired the senses but the other way around: we had these senses before we used them; we did not acquire them as the result of using them. But the virtues we do acquire by first exercising them, just as happens in the arts. Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it: people become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarly we become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones. This view is supported by what happens in city-states. Legislators make their citizens good by habituation; this is the intention of every legislator, and those who do not carry it out fail of their object. This is what makes the difference between a good political system and a bad one.
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Again, the causes or means that bring about any form of excellence are the same as those that destroy it, and similarly with art; for it is as a result of playing the harp that people become good and bad harpists. The same principle applies to builders and all other craftsmen. Men will become good builders as a result of building well, and bad ones as a result of building badly. Otherwise there would be no need of anyone to teach them: they would all be born either good or bad. Now this holds good also of the virtues. It is the way that we behave in our dealings with other people that makes us just or unjust, and the way that we behave in the face of danger, accustoming ourselves to be timid or confident, that makes us brave or cowardly. Similarly with situations involving desires and angry feelings: some people become temperate and patient from one kind of conduct in such situations, others licentious and choleric from another. In a word, then, like activities produce like dispositions. Hence we must give our activities a certain quality, because it is their characteristics that determine the resulting dispositions. So it is a matter of no little importance what sort of habits we form from the earliest age – it makes a vast difference, or rather all the difference in the world. Virtue is Incompatible with Excess or Deficiency in Feeling and Action It is in the nature of virtues that they are destroyed by deficiency and excess, just as we can see (since we have to use the evidence of visible facts to throw light on those that are invisible) in the case of health and strength. For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroys one’s strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases and preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. The man who shuns and fears everything and stands up to nothing becomes a coward; the man who is afraid of nothing at all, but marches up to every danger, becomes foolhardy. Similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and refrains from none becomes licentious; but if a man behaves like a boor and turns his back on every pleasure, he is a case of insensibility. Thus temperance and courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency and preserved by the mean. The Doctrine of the Mean In anything continuous and divisible it is possible to take a part which is greater or less than, or equal to, the remainder; and that in relation either to the thing divided or to us. The equal part is a sort of mean between excess and deficiency; and I call mean in relation to the thing whatever is equidistant from the extremes, which is one and the same for everybody; but I call mean in relation to us that which is neither excessive nor deficient, and this is not one and the same for all. For example, if ten is ‘many’ and two ‘few’ of some quantity, six is the mean if one takes it in relation to the thing, because it exceeds the one number and is exceeded by the other by the same amount; and this is the mean by arithmetical reckoning. But the mean in relation to us is not to be obtained in this way. Supposing that ten pounds of food is a large and two pounds a small allowance for an athlete, it does not follow that the trainer will prescribe six pounds; for even this is perhaps too much or too little for the person who is to receive it – too little for Milo1 but too much for one who is only beginning to train. Similarly in the case of running and wrestling. In this way, then, every knowledgeable person avoids excess and deficiency, but looks for the mean and chooses it – not the mean of the thing, but the mean relative to us. If, then, every practical science performs its function well only when it observes the mean and 1 A prodigiously strong wrestler from Croton in southern Italy.
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refers its product to it (which is why it is customary to say of well executed works that nothing can be added to them or taken away, the implication being that excess and deficiency alike destroy perfection, while the mean preserves it) – if good craftsmen, as we hold, work with the mean in view; and if virtue, like nature, is more exact and more efficient that any art, it follows that virtue aims to his the mean. By virtue I mean virtue of character since it is this that is concerned with feelings and actions, and these involve excess, deficiency and a mean. It is possible, for example, to feel fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and pleasure and pain generally, too much or too little; and both of these are wrong. But to have these feelings at the right times on the right grounds towards the right people for the right motive and in the right way is to feel them to an intermediate, that is to the best, degree; and this is the mark of virtue. Similarly there are excess and deficiency and a mean in the case of actions. But it is in the field of actions and feelings that virtue operates; and in them excess and deficiency are failings, whereas the mean is praised and recognized as a success: and these are both marks of virtue. Virtue, then, is a mean, inasmuch as it aims at what is intermediate. The Doctrine of the Mean Applied to Particular Virtues But a generalization of this kind is not enough; we must apply them to particular cases. When we are discussing actions, although general statements have a wider application, particular statements are closer to the truth. This is because actions are concerned with particular facts, and theories must be brought into harmony with these. Let us, then, take a look at our diagram: Sphere of Feeling or Action Excess Mean Deficiency Confronting fear Rashness Courage Cowardice Pleasure Licentiousness Temperance Insensibility Spending money Wastefulness Generosity Miserliness Honor Vanity Magnanimity Pusillanimity Anger Irritableness Patience Passivity Speaking about oneself Boastfulness Honesty Self-depreciation Making conversation Buffoonery Wittiness Boorishness Everyday social conduct Flattery Friendliness Quarrelsomeness Shame Shyness Modesty Shamelessness
Summing Up We have now said enough to show that virtue of character is a mean, and in what sense it is so; that it is a mean between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency, and that it is such because it aims at hitting the mean point in feelings and actions. For this reason it is a difficult business to be virtuous; because in any given case it is difficult to find the midpoint – for instance, not everyone can find the center of a circle; only the man who knows how. So too it is easy to get angry – anyone can do that – or to give and spend money; but to feel or act towards the right person to the right extent at the right time for the right reason in the right way – that is not easy, and it is not everyone that can do it. Hence to do these things well is a rare, laudable and fine achievement.
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THE ANALECTS Confucius, c. 475 BC. Translation by James Legge.
Aphorisms concerning Virtue The Master said, “Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.”
* * * The philosopher Zeng said, “I daily examine myself on three points: whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful; whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere; whether I may have not mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher.”
* * * The Master said, “A youth, when at home, should be filial, and, abroad, respectful to his elders. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow in love to all, and cultivate the friendship of the good. When he has time and opportunity, after the performance of these things, he should employ them in polite studies.”
* * * Zi Xia said, “If a man withdraws his mind from the love of beauty, and applies it as sincerely to the love of the virtuous; if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength; if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life; if, in his intercourse with his friends, his words are sincere – although men say that he has not learned, I will certainly say that he has.”
* * * The philosopher Zeng said, “Let there be a careful attention to perform the funeral rites to parents, and let them be followed when long gone with the ceremonies of sacrifice – then the virtue of the people will resume its proper excellence.”
* * * The Master said, “He who aims to be a man of complete virtue in his food does not seek to gratify his appetite, nor in his dwelling place does he seek the appliances of ease; he is earnest in what he is doing, and careful in his speech; he frequents the company of men of principle that he may be rectified – such a person may be said indeed to love to learn.” Dimitri Papandreu, October 27, 2020