Aristotle's Ethics

(Originally written November 7, 2006 in Book 10)

"The First Entry as a Married Man"

Animal Drives and Practical Reason

Man is a shining and behaving animal. Aristotle looked for a psychological basis for human behavior.

Like Aristotle's conception of thought/soul he believes there is a gradual hierarchy of behavior.

Appetite

Animal's souls have two faculties:
1)Discrimination: thought and sense
2) Local movement

Movement in lower animals is less articulate than that of higher animals.

Motion in lower animals is reactive to a sense object. It is a forward motion toward an object of desire and a backward motion in avoidance of an object.

Lower animal's motion is instinctive and not thought through very much.

Lower animals identify the good as identical with pleasure and the bad as identical with pain.

Lower animals are solely concerned with immediate sensation.

Human behavior is much more complex than animal behavior.

Man distinguishes between a real good and an apparent good.

In humans, pleasure is good, but not synonymous with good.

Man is not solely concerned with immediate sensations.

Aristotle claimed that despite the major differences between human and animal behavior, the process was basically the same.

Animal behavior is dependent upon the existence of the sensitive soul, which perceives and remembers perceptions.

Animal behavior gradually becomes human behavior through cognitive processes. Thus, rudimentary universals of animals become the true universals of man's scientific knowledge.

Man's cognitive capabilities gives him alternatives. Animals do not have a choice, thus they face no problem with choice. Man must have a criteria to evaluate alternatives, thus they need to study ethics.

Ethics

"Ethics is the science of conduct corresponding to logic" (Jones, 259). It seeks to develop norms for evaluating judgments.

Ethics is based on anthropology, which collects empirical data of judgments.

Ethics aims to ascertain what the good really is.

Ethics is not a precise science.

Geometry was the model of precise science for Aristotle.

Ethics is based on opinions and thus its conclusions can never be definite and certain.

Plato held that opinion should always be replaced by truth. Aristotle held that ethics was based on opinion.

Aristotle held that all science was partially based on opinion. Every other scientists opinion served as a basis for scientific knowledge.

Skepticisms arises out of the idea that there is  radical schism between what the mind perceives and what exists in reality. Aristotle claimed that perception resembled reality.

Ethics is a science and differs from other sciences only because it is not precise. It also differs from tother science because it aims to change. Ethics asks "what is the good" and "how can I be good".

Ethics is tied to psychology because:
1) Ethics grows out of choice
2) The good is the good for man and can only be discovered once man has been defined and understood.
3) Psychological insights will produce knowledge of good behavior

Aristotle held that there is one ultimate end for man. The ultimate end is happiness. The problem was what exactly happiness was.

The Good

Happiness is the end for man. But people disagree what happiness is.

Most men, the vulgar type, identify happiness with pleasure.

Some men, of a higher type, identify happiness with honor. But this is too superficial.

Money-making is not happiness because money is made as a means, not an end.

"Especially as we are philosophers or lovers of wisdom; for while both are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends" (Jones, 263).

Goods sought for other goods are not the Good. The Good is one which is pursued for its own sake. The Good is the ultimate end.

Happiness is the final end and thus, The Good. Honor, pleasure, reason and every virtue are pursued as a means to happiness.

"Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action" (Jones, 264).

Aristotle's worldview was very unified and harmonious. Our worldview today is very split. Metaphysics, the unifying science is almost nonexistent today.

Happiness, function and Form

Every individual is a composite of form and matter.

Anything is happy to the extent that is what performing the function. Things are happy in so much that  they are actualizing their form, it was designed for by nature or art.

For Aristotle, finding how any thing can be happy basically boils down to discovering what that thing's function was.

Aristotle viewed ethics as cognitive, not emotive. Ethical judgments are statements about facts, not mere expressions of an individual's approval or disapproval.

Pleasure is a short range, immediate sensation. Pleasure is synonymous with the good (happiness) in things with only sensitive souls. Things with rational souls or mind have choices, thus pleasure is not happiness or the end. For man, who has a rational soul, there are choices. Thus, a short-range thing, such as pleasure, cannot be the good or happiness.

Happiness is long-range and more complete than pleasure.

Practical Reason

What is the end of man? "It is life in accordance with arational principle" (Jones, 267). What does that mean?

Aristotle distinguishes between:
1) Reason as a cognitive faculty
2) Reason as a practical faculty

There are two powers in every man:
1) one that understands the world
2) one that desires and acts in accordance with one that understands the world.

Two types of virtue:
1) Intellectual virtues
2) moral virtues

Two types of wisdom:
1) Philosophical wisdom/understanding
2) Practical wisdom/intellectual

Ethics is concerned with practical knowledge not theoretical.

Destruction in everything comes by either excess or defect, thus the mean preserves it.

Virtue is the mean in Aristotle, which is merely a restating of the Ancient Greek notion of "sophrosyne" (moderation)

Examples of the mean as virtue:
1) Courage is the mean of cowardice and foolhardiness
2) Pride is the mean of vanity and humility

Ethical ideals:

Ethics was to be relative to men's opinions. Thus Aristotle concentrates on Greek life at the time he lived and that is why it doesn't always fit with 20th century America.

The Doctrine of the Mean

Aristotle put virtues in situational contexts. The mean is the rightness between two-extremes in any given setting.

Aristotle maintained that there is a "right-relative-to-me, a good-for-me-now-in-this-set of conditions" (Jones, 273).

Virtues are variable and objective in Aristotle's theory.

The mean or virtue is stable and the psuedovirtues, which look like the virtue externally, are unstable.

A man's character is his potential that has been actualized consistently to a point that it is his nature to be "x" or to do "x". Anytime a courageous man acts in a fearful way or a fearful man acts in a courageous way they act out of their character.

Responsibility:

Aristotle distinguishes between:
1) Voluntary acts - those which are in accordance to their character
2) Involuntary acts - those which are not in accordance to their character

Acts can be voluntary (acts for which men are responsible) or involuntary (acts for which men are not responsible). Involuntary acts can be mixed (acts done from fear of great evil), compulsory and out of ignorance.

"When is a man not to be held responsible?" is asked as "when is a man not to be ashamed of his actions" because a good man will feel ashamed of bad acts.

Voluntary Acts are:
1) Those that originate in the agent
2) those that arise when the agent knows the relevant circumstances

Plato held that knowledge is virtue and that no one sins knowingly

Incontinence

Incontinence is solely a human phenomena.

Aristotle held that incontinence is not a duty breech, but a breech against one's own self because it leads to unhappiness in the long-term.

Incontinence is sinning willingly/knowingly. It is knowing what is right and acting contra to it.

Incontinent men prefer short-term gratification to any long-term happiness.

For Aristotle, morality has a natural, not a supernatural or transcendental basis. It comes from the fact that man is a rational animal.

Aristotle maintains that because man is a rational animal he must satisfy bodily needs but agrees with Plato that the activities of reason are qualitatively different and superior to acts of the body.

The intellectual virtues:

Intellect (reason in pursuit of truth) is proper to man.

Aristotle holds there are five levels at which the soul possess truth:
1) scientific knowledge
2) art
3) practical wisdom
4) intuitive reason
5) philosophical reason

Each of these is its own virtue.

Art was a state concerned with making, involving a true course of reasoning. It included architecture, technology, engineering, etc. for Aristotle.

Contemplation is perfect Happiness

Happiness is what we experience when we are living at our best and fullest.

Man's happiness will be at its best and fullest when he partakes in the best and fullest activity.

Contemplation was the best activity for man according to Aristotle.

Therefore, man is happiest in contemplation.

The life of contemplation is the supreme good for man.

Wealth, leisure time, natural ability were all parts of happiness because they are needed for the contemplative life.

Transition from Ethics to Politics

No man is sufficient to himself.

Man cannot live well outside of a community.

Aristotle distinguishes between three types of friendships:
1) Utility
2) Pleasure
3) Virtue

The best contemplation is that which is shared in virtuous friendships.