Arist Assign

ARISTOTLE

A short note on exhaustiveness. Things aren’t as simple as I can make them seem!

Aristotle’s Approach

· II.2 We care about ethics not because we want to know it, but so we can do it.

· Aristotle will leave much of the meta-ethical dilemmas behind (paraphrase: “with some things it only matters that we know that they are the case, not why they are the case” bottom of 102)

· Speaking to a certain audience: those interested in pursuing what we might call “true happiness” or “the best life” (pg 14) -> no addressing the sensible knave here

· I.4 Pluralistic rather than substantial or reductionistic

· Reduction: True Good a fundamental that other goods manifest in limited ways (Plato)

· [don’t worry too much about Plato and forms as they cameo in I.6]

· Substantial: all other goods are good because they are identical with a “true Good” (Mill)

· The Political Nature: Politics as improving quality of life for all those under it

· Requires stepping out from the good of an individual where they are at

· Note on the gods is interesting: bottom of 14 (the religion of Aristotle’s time would have not approved of being like the gods – shooting for excellence – since the Greek gods are jealous)

· Appeal to tradition and common intuition

· Finally, it is worth mentioning that Aristotle shares with Kant the concern for a universal view of ethics: that for which everything else of value gets its value. If it turns out to be one thing, such a thing is important to understand. If such things are many, we want to know all of them. (I.7)

( Useful analogy w/ hypo. Vs cate . imperatives )[Aristotle like Kant starts with a conceptual analysis coupled with Aristotle’s overarching methodology]

( I.1 )Good defined by ends

Ends can have priority over others

( I.2 )Regress ended by Chief Good

Chief Good = end wished for itself

( * talk here of I.2-4 and “good judges” ( also politics, the youth, and pragmatism) ) ( Pluralism I.7 pg 100 )Ends defined by context; chief good is contextless (and thus universal)

Chief Good = the Human Good

Chief Good = Happiness EUDAIMONIA (pg 12 note)

( I.5 )Pleasure Honor Understanding

(life of consumption) (life of action) (life of reflection)

· ( *These are only preliminary remarks. They are not meant to be conclusive on their own. )

Slavish people Honor is superficial

(convincing one’s self of one’s worth)

Evaluation via Ends – I.7

Excellent (i.e. the “best”) Ends are:

· Complete worth pursuing for itself (not dependent on other ends)

· Self-Sufficient worth even in isolation

· Unique (Human) Function (use of Reason for humans)

· Stable (I.10) not vulnerable/fragile; limited contingency [compare/contrast with Kant]

Human Good (Eudaimonia) = Activity of soul, done via reason, in accordance with an excellent life [I.7]

This definition comes from the good via function strategy

To this Aristotle adds: necessity of relevant resources to manifest (act) excellence [I.8]

Now we explore the soul since our discussion of excellence concerns activity “of soul”.

· This is just like when Kant moves from his argument that the general point that things get their moral value from the reason why they were done to an inquiry into the reasons that actually qualify as moral.

( I.13 )EXCELLENCE

( possibly interferes )Intellectual Character

rational non-rational

taught habitualized

requires experience

( ? )

( II.1 & 2 )Dispositions

Created by actions – not stable

(in reference to particular actions)

( II.3 )

Content: Pleasures & Pains

We will be exploring this rough map in much more detail next time…

SESSION 2

Review:

· Ethics pursues the Chief Good, human happiness, eudaimonia; to realize it.

· Happiness consists in:

· Activity of soul

· Via Reason

· Equipped with relevant goods

· In accordance with an excellent life

· Which is:

· Complete

· Self-Sufficient

· Uniquely human

· Stable

FOR TODAY: What are excellences? How do we have them? What is the excellent life?

2 Kinds of excellence/virtue

No virtue is innate for Aristotle!

· Intellectual/Rational (comes from teaching; experience)

· Moral/Character/”virtue”/non-Rational (comes from habitualization)

· [“virtue” is sometimes thrown around as excellence in general, or at other times as specifically character excellence]

· Character virtue is gained from doing virtuous things

· To forecast: doing something acquaints one with its particular connected pleasure and that pleasure contributes a momentum that in turn encourages the act (this is a disposition)

· Disposition = “states of character” (composed of tendencies for pain/pleasure)

· Actions themselves are not stable (just like with goods in Book I). Sometimes the same actions (or goods) destroy excellence just as often as they create it (preview of the “mean”)

· SO! Excellence/virtue of character does NOT consist in particular actions (taken by themselves)

· [same story for Kant]

Dispositions/States of Character (Aristotle’s Moral Psychology/Theory of Action)

· Composed of particular pleasures & pains such that given situation ‘C’ a subject ‘S’ with a certain disposition ‘d’ feels pain/pleasure ‘p’

· The disposition (‘d’) relates circumstances (‘C’) with affective/emotional responses (‘p’)

· Pain and pleasures themselves also (like actions) are NOT intrinsically good or bad.

[contrast with Mill]

· Thus, they do not constitute excellence!

· [contrast with Mill]

· However what IS good is to have the proper responses to the right conditions, so pains and pleasures are intimately related to excellence

· [contrast with Kant]

· Note this good is derivative of the role of dispositions in action

( Character ) ( Reason )

( sees )

( sees )

( ( determines action) ) ( ( constituted by pains & pleasures) ) ( Dispositions )

( ( determines virtuous/vicious dispositions) ) ( ( determined by function) ) ( (Right) Action ) ( Ends )

An Analogy: Excellent States of Character (virtues) vs. Skills

· Similar: both depend on dispositions to act and be sensitive in particular ways relative to an end (in neither case is this relativistic!!!)

· Different:

· Virtue is not just an ability to act, but also an unconditional preparedness to act in the relevant cases

· So I can have a skill even if I do not use it, but I do not have the virtue if I do not act on it

· I can also have a skill and then, even deliberately, lose it by failing to practice it. But I can’t do the same with virtue since unconditional preparedness applies temporally as well. Virtue is self-reinforcing

· (just like Mill’s ideal judges, once you taste the good shit…)

The Importance of Reason II.4

· For Aristotle acting excellently is not just a matter of performing in certain ways because one has the dispositions that cause them to act in that way.

· Instead, there are certain facts about the agent that Aristotle considers necessary for an action to count as excellent:

· They are done intentionally (“knowingly”)

· The agent decides to do them for themselves (the thing done is for the reason that it is the way it is – this draws on the way Reason sees the connection between functions, ends, and actions)

· This is arguably the most important of these 3 facts

· The agent does the action from a firm and unchanging disposition (he does such actions reliably under similar circumstances)

· Contribution from Tim: The most reliable way to ensure this is to have something I’ve coined “reason-responsive sentiments”. This amounts to having dispositions that explicitly depend on contributions from Reason as part of their preconditions.

Which Dispositions are Virtuous?

· Derived from the end and function of human life

· Reflecting on how too much or too little of something destroys the good relative to other ends, the same will hold for the Chief End/Good.

· Thus, we get the “rule of the intermediate”

· This is very precise and sensitive to many factors both internal and external:

· “to feel them (pleasures and pains) at the right times, with reference to the right objects, toward the right people, with the right motive (reasons), and in the right way”

· The rest is up to us to discover in experience and to balance via rational consideration

· THIS IS A VERY SIGNIFICANT POINT (or lack thereof)!

· 2 exceptions:

· Excellence itself (always good, no risk of excess)

· Actions by definition bad (no risk of deficiency) (ex: fornication)

· While not infallible the ‘rule of the intermediate’ gives us a good formal guide to discovery of the virtuous

· The intermediate is not more tolerating then the extremes!

· If anything, for Aristotle, being ethical is really really really hard!

What’s the Best Life?

Pleasure? Can it be valued for itself?

· When added to any good it makes that good more desirable

· So pleasure is a good of some kind

· Also, it accompanies every activity in a way that is inseparable (X.5; pg 247; 1175a20)

· So there are different kinds of pleasure (just as there are different kinds of activities)

· This should hearken back to Kant’s point that all the visions of happiness are actually different in content

· Since some activities are virtuous or not, so much the same with the corresponding pleasures

· CONCLUSION: Pleasure cannot be categorically valued (apart from the activities it is linked to) and while it has that connection it is not the true end of that activity (more like a bonus)

· The 1st claim is like Kant’s heteronomy charge

· The 2nd is unsubstantiated…

Action?

· Always done for something else so it isn’t complete

· Happiness is thought to reside in leisure (intuition appeal)

Reflective Life? YES, why?

· It is complete (nothing accrues from it but itself)

· The most continuous

· Its pleasures are pure & stable

· Self-sufficient

· Consistent with what is unique for humans

· Not as vulnerable to resources

· Is leisurely

Final Note: 2 types of pluralism

· Remember that Aristotle mentions at the introductory discussion of the Chief Good that it may be one or many, but either way we want to understand the foundations of all value.

· Aristotle’s pluralism can be found in either:

· If it is many: this is the straightforward option; Aristotle respects all such goods as possible ways to have an excellent life

· If it is one: there is still a “broad picture” view possible here since all the various ways in which this value is manifested take on their own significance. This is the “balancing act” of Aristotle’s ethics where we try to accommodate as many values and factors that affect value as we can. We need the conjunction of a lot of goods to have the excellent life

· Also, Aristotle’s pluralism is not relativistic. A relativist who was seeking the “good for themselves” would probably be viewed by Aristotle as small-minded. Aristotle’s ambitions are nothing less than a position that takes into account all possible goods.

· That being said, Aristotle leaves it open that there may be multiple paths toward the same destination. There may be another life other than the reflective life that satisfies Aristotle’s criteria of eudaimonia. This is the other way in which Aristotle is “pluralistically” minded.

· But we should certainly recognize the tension between Books I & II and Book X: the former suggests (only!) that the excellent life will be as diverse and rich with goods as we can make it, but the latter attempts to prove that there is a set of goods which have a privileged status.

· How might these two be made compatible? That’s a big question, but at the least it is worth observing that the reflective life (with some specific fleshing out) is quite compatible with a number of other lives. Perhaps all Aristotle is attempting to point out is that the reflective life is a pretty solid foundation from which to build an excellent life.