Learning Intention:
To identify and define the key concepts inBook 1 of The Nicomachean Ethics.
Reading:
You should have read Chapters 1-5 and 7-9 of Book 1. Chapter 6 is not a relevant discussion to our study of ‘The Good Life’. For next week you will need to have read Book 2.
Aristotle’s Ethics is a companion to his writings on Politics, and in many ways the arguments he sets out in Ethics prepare the way for the arguments he will put in Politics. In each he considers the production of ‘good character’ to be the aim; for the individual in the case of Ethics; in Politics for governments or statesmen.
In both cases he places such high regard on ‘good character’ because he considers this the indispensible condition and chief determinate of happiness. Without good character happiness is impossible, and only through good character can happiness be achieved.
In his Ethics Aristotle directs his attention to how we form good character, at considers especially which qualities befit a good citizen of the state and equip him for a good life. Aristotle’s moral philosophy, like that of other Greeks of his time, is essentially idealistic. He considers there to be some ideal ‘end’ toward which all human activity is focussed. This ‘end’ is knowable and definable (it exists in an ideal sense) and once we come to know it it will guide all the practical decisions of our life. For this reason, while Aristotle is idealist he is careful not to ignore the practical world in which we live. He wants his Ethics to be a useful guide to living and not simply an exercise in reasoning. From the outset he is mindful not just of what we ‘should’ desire, or what ought to be considered desirable, but of what we actually do desire, even when we know we shouldn’t. From this basis Aristotle determines that the ‘end’ we are all oriented toward, (and on which the wise and the ignorant, the educated few and the simple masses, all agree) is happiness.
Aristotle dismisses, or perhaps ignores, Plato’s belief in a good which is the end of the whole universe. He is instead utterly focussed on the good toward which human desire and practical activity is directed. This then must be something which is attainable and which we can achieve by our own efforts. Aristotle’s ‘happiness’ then is not merely theoretical but practical. It comes from applying our reason and developing the powers and natural capacities that are in the nature of man. The main factor which determines our success or failure is not nature or chance, but the acquisition and development of the ‘virtues’ (perfections, or excellences of character)
Below is my summary of Aristotle’s discussion in Book 1:
Chapter 1:
Aristotle starts by establishing his belief in a ‘Chief Good’: “That which all things aim at”. To do this he suggests, as Plato did, that every action aims at some good. These he calls ‘Ends’. He acknowledges that there are different Ends to different activities (health is the End of healing, a vessel is the End of ship-building, victory is the End of military art, etc…) He also suggests that there is a hierarchy, or taxonomy, of ends (eg: the End of bridle-making is a bridle, this comes under the art of horsemanship, which itself comes under the military art, etc…). Within this hierarchy the ‘master-arts’ are more ‘choice-worthy’ than those under them “because it is with a view to the former that the lesser are pursued” (ie: the military art is more choice-worthy than horsemanship and horsemanship more choice-worthy than bridle-making. If it weren’t needed for horsemanship the bridle-making would have no purpose).
Chapter 2:
Since Aristotle has constructed a hierarchy he now turns his attention to what End is the highest, and which all others are beneath. This will be the most choice-worthy End. It must be something we “desire for its own sake, and with a view to which we desire everything else”. (ie: we do not want it because it will lead us to something better, as the bridle led to horsemanship and so to military victory. We desire it for itself.) This End Aristotle call the “Chief Good”, “the best thing of all”.
His first suggestion for this ‘Chief Good’ is Politics (best understood as Statesmanship or Governance. “Politics” now carries too much of the connotation of the soap-opera, Labor v Liberal, electoral campaigning, etc… Aristotle doesn’t mean this. He means the running of the state). He suggests Politics because “we see also ranging under this the most highly esteemed faculties, such as the art military, and that of domestic management, and Rhetoric.” Politics he says is “The Good of Man” both in the individual sense (governing one’s own life) and in the community (governing a state).
Chapter 3:
Aristotle here puts aside his discussion of the nature of good for a moment and focuses instead on the nature of Politics. He acknowledges that speaking on these matters may lack “exactness” but dismisses this as a criticism. He also broaches the topic of nature and convention that we saw in Socrates’ dialogue with Callicles. In the end he allows that a thing can be good without being ‘exactly’ good in every circumstance. “some have perished through wealth, and others through valour.”
He therefore explains that he is seeking only to set forth a rough outline of the truth. Each individual should then receive his outline of what is good and fill in the details for themselves. He says that “each man judges well what he knows, and on these things he is a good judge…” but warns that “the young man is not a fit student of Moral Philosophy, for he has no experience in the actions of life… the end in view being practice and not mere knowledge.” Aristotle doesn’t want people to believe they can read his Ethics and be content that they know what a good life is. He wants them to read his work and apply it to their lives in the way that they best know to do. The knowledge he is giving will be “unprofitable” to those who live “at the beck and call of passion”, but “to those who form their desires and act in accordance with reason, to have knowledge on these points must be very profitable”
Chapter 4:
Aristotle now returns to his consideration of Politics and questions what good it is aimed at. “What is the highest of all the goods which are the objects of action?” His answer is “Happiness”, which he says both the “multitude” (the ignorant masses) and the “refined few” (the educated elite) agree upon. He equates “living well”, “doing well” and “being happy”. He does acknowledge that there is disagreement about exactly what happiness means. He suggests that people give different definitions of happiness at different times: “when ill, he calls it health; when poor, wealth…” so that happiness is what we feel we are lacking in our lives, or what would make our lives better. After a brief digression explaining the nature of how he will reason he decides to examine (and reject) some of these definitions himself.
Chapter 5:
“The many and most low conceive it to be pleasure…” but “the many are plainly quite slavish, choosing a life like that of brute animals…” Clearly Aristotle does not agree that happiness = pleasure (just as with Plato).
“The refined… conceive it to be honour… yet it is plainly too superficial for the object of our search, because it is thought to rest with those who pay rather than with him who receives it…” Aristotle will not accept a definition of happiness which is given to us by others and may be taken away. He also argues that virtue is higher than honour in his hierarchy of Ends, and even so raises several objections to this definition of happiness: “a man possessed of virtue might sleep or be inactive all his life”, and this for Aristotle is neither a good nor a happy life; a virtuous man may also “suffer the greatest evils and misfortunes…” so that no one would call it a happy life “except for mere disputation’s sake.”
“Wealth manifestly is not the good we are seeking because it is for use…” ie: we only seek wealth to use it for something else, and that something else must therefore be a greater good than wealth. Wealth is the tool, and not the End in itself.
Chapter 7:
Having rejected several common understandings of what the ‘Chief Good’ in life might be Aristotle now recaps his discussions from the first 5 chapters and reiterates what he is seeking: “…the Chief Good is manifestly something final…” and explains that “of this nature Happiness is mostly thought to be, for this we choose always for its own sake and never with a view to anything further; whereas honour, pleasure, intellect, in fact every excellence we choose for their own sakes… but we choose them also with a view to happiness conceiving that through their instrumentality we shall be happy…”. He also claims that happiness is self-sufficient because it “taken alone makes life choice-worthy and to be in want of nothing”. He is then satisfied that happiness is “manifestly something final and self-sufficient, being the end of all things which are and may be done”. It seems then that he has found the object of his search, and yet he acknowledges that “it may be, to call Happiness the Chief Good is a mere truism…” (ie: have we simply replaced one term with another. To say ‘Black is black and white is white’ may be true, but it has no value to us. It tells us nothing new. This is a ‘truism’. “What will be, will be.”) Aristotle therefore intends to seek “a clearer account of its (happiness) real nature.”
Aristotle reasons that everything and everyone has a ‘work’. Cobblers and carpenters have their work making shoes and houses respectively, should we not then suppose that “Man as Man” has some ‘work’? He also argues that “as eye, hand, and foot and generally each of his members, has manifestly some special work, so too the whole of Man…” Here he is inquiring as to our purpose for being. What is it we, as humans, should be doing with our time on Earth?
“Not mere life…” he argues. Even vegetables share this. It therefore is not the special purpose of humanity. He then considers “the life of sensation”, but this is shared by “horses, oxen and every animal.” He comes then to “Rational Nature” which he separates into intellectual reasoning and acting rationally.
If “the work of the harp-player is to play the harp, and of a good harp-player to play it well…” then the work of Man is “a working of the soul, and actions with reason, and of a good man to do these things well and nobly…” Aristotle summarises this as “a working of the soul in the way of Excellence” (or even “the best and most perfect Excellence”). He also adds that this must be the work of one’s “complete life; for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy” (on a personal note I don’t really like the translation to ‘blessed’. I find Aristotle’s professions of piety to the Greek pantheon to be unconvincing and perhaps an expediency of the time in which he was writing rather than a conviction of faith, but that’s a personal view).
Chapter 8:
Aristotle sets up three ‘common divisions of goods’: The external, the soul and the body. This is a metaphysical statement in that he is separating everything which exits into these divisions. There is my soul, my body, and the things which are not me. Of these “those belonging to the soul we call most properly and specially good”. It is the “actions and the workings of the soul” which constitute Happiness…”
He then goes on to reassure his readers that his account of Happiness as the Chief Good accords with other accounts of the Good. He compares it with ancient teachings and accepted philosophy of the time, he looks at different views that rest either on the views of the many, or on antiquity, or on a few notable men, and finds that his account accords with them all either mostly or in part.
He also makes clear that he draws no real distinction between possessing a virtue or acting with virtue. He again uses the analogy of the sleeping man possessed of virtue to show that simply being virtuous is not enough (cf: Socrates’ arguments in Gorgias). For Aristotle the good is in virtuous acts.
“at the Olympic games it is not the finest and strongest men who are crowned but they who enter the lists… so too in life, of the honourable and good, it is they who act who rightly win the prizes.”
He also addresses the argument that happiness is pleasure, saying that those who act with virtue have a life which “is in itself pleasant” and “has no need of pleasure as a kind of additional appendage…” Noble acts themselves bring pleasure and just men take pleasure from acting justly.
“Thus then Happiness is most excellent, most noble, and most pleasant…”
Aristotle acknowledges that Happiness depends, to some extent, on the external as well, and that without some external factors (“friends, money, political influence”) it is impossible, or at least much more difficult to do noble acts. Likewise some external factors make Happiness harder to achieve (“for he is not at all capable of Happiness who is very ugly, or is ill-born, or solitary and childless; and still less supposing him to have very bad children or friends, or to have lost good ones by death.”) Hence Aristotle considers the extent to which Happiness is the result of good fortune, and the extent to which it can be learnt or acquired by discipline and habit. (Here too he pays what appears to me to be lip-service to the Greek Gods).
Ultimately he largely rejects the role of fortune on Happiness and gives several reasons for doing so. He reasons that a man can face changing fortunes and at different times of his life either face good fortune or misfortune, even if he is sleeping or inactive this is true; even for animals this is true; even after death this is true and the misfortune or bad acts of a child or descendant may reflect poorly on him even though he is deceased. This, Aristotle says, is absurd. He therefore claims that Happiness is not dependent on fortune but on working in the way of virtue. He justifies this by suggesting that “the nobleness shines through when a man bears contentedly many and great mischances not from insensibility to pain but because he is noble and high-spirited.” “For the man who is truly good and sensible bears all fortunes, we presume, becomingly and always does what is noblest under the circumstances, just as a good general employs to the best advantage the force he has with him; or the good shoemaker makes the handsomest shoe he can out of the leather which has been given to him…” (here, echoing through millennia ‘if life gives you lemons, make lemonade’).
Not only does Aristotle expect that we must live this way according to the virtues and excellences, but so too we must die in keeping with this way of living. This then is Aristotle’s ‘good life’: to live at all times with a virtuous soul, acting virtuously, accepting good fortune, bearing misfortune nobly, making the best of what life has given us and dying, likewise, nobly and well.
Responses:
Is there a chief good toward which all our acts are aimed?
Is it sufficient to say the ‘Chief Good’ is ‘Happiness’ or is this a truism?
Is Aristotle right to place all human activities (arts) into a hierarchy? Should we value some pursuits above others? How does this belief co-exist with a modern, egalitarian, belief that people are equal?
Is happiness really independent of fortune? Do you need at least some good luck to be really happy?
Is it impossible, as Aristotle suggests, for ugly people to be happy? What about the disabled? The mentally handicapped?
Mr. Melican's VCE Philosophy 