Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

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Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
(Text, pp. 37-70)

• The Concept of Eudaimonia

Dr. George Cronk BCC Dept. of Philosophy
Religion
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(No Transcript)
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Overall Structure of As NE I. The Human
Good II. Two Types of Human Excellence
Intellectual Moral III. Moral
Excellence IV. Freedom Moral Responsibility
V. Intellectual Excellence VI. Concluding
Discussion on the Good Life
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I. The Ultimate Human Good
(Text, pp. 37-45)
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The Human Good

• The Nicomachean Ethics is an attempt to describe
  what it takes for a human being to live a good
  (i.e., happy) life.
• The key concept in the NE is the idea of
  eudaimonia, usually translated into English as
  happiness.

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The Goal-Directed (Teleological) Nature of Human
Conduct

• All distinctively human (i.e., conscious,
  rational, voluntary) actions aim at some good.
• Some goods are ends, and others are means to an
  end.
• Ends are more valuable than means.
• Thus, some goods are higher than others.

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The idea of the Highest (or Ultimate) Good
What is it?
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Eudaimonia The Ultimate Good

• Verbal agreement that the ultimate human good is
  eudaimonia (happiness). Human beings naturally
  pursue happiness.
• Substantive disagreement as to the nature of
  happiness.
• Will the pursuit of pleasure the avoidance of
  pain make us happy?
• How about money, status, power?

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Aristotles View of Happiness -- General
Characteristics

• Finality completeness
• A pure end (not a means, not an end that is also
  a means). Desired entirely for its own sake
  not for the sake of anything else.
• Sufficient in itself. If you are happy, you
  dont need any other good.
• Not one good among others, but an ultimate good
  above all others.

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Aristotles View of Happiness -- Specific Nature

• What is the distinctive characteristic function
  (ergon) of a human being?
• It is not life (both plants animals are alive).
• It is not sentience (animals are sentient).
• The distinctive function of a human being is
  reasoning (nous).

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Excellent Functioning

• Aristotle adds the idea of excellence (arete) to
  the idea of distinctive function (ergon).
• The function of a guitar player is to play the
  guitar the function of an accomplished guitarist
  is to play the guitar excellently.
• If the function of a human being is to live in
  accordance with reason, then the function of a
  self-actualized human being is to reason
  excellently.

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Thus,

• happiness (eudaimonia) results from excellent
  reasoning from living in accordance with
  excellent reasoning.
• Another formulation Happiness results from a
  rational life focused on the pursuit of
  excellence.

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However,

• in addition to living in accordance with
  excellent reasoning, human beings also need
  external prosperity or circumstantial
  security (money, friends, power, etc.).

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Internal External Goods

• External Goods (Circumstantial Security)
• Friends
• Money
• Status
• Power
• Internal Goods
• Psychological (e.g., peace of mind)
• Bodily (e.g., physical health)

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Eudaimonia (Happiness)

• Human Excellence (arete) (an internal good)
• plus
• Circumstantial Security (an external good)

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II. Two Types of Human Excellence Intellectual
Moral
(Text, pp. 46-47)
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Human Excellence (arete)

• Rational Dimension Intellect
• Self
• Nonrational Dimension
• Life, Nutrition, Growth (Basic
  Organic Processes?)
• Desire

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Two Types of Human Excellence

• Intellectual Excellence the excellent
  functioning of the intellect (correct thinking
  reasoning) -- corresponds to the rational
  dimension of the self
• Moral Excellence desiring and acting in
  accordance with reason -- corresponds to the
  desiring dimension of the self

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Questions
Extra-Credit Essay (250 words or more)

• What about physical excellence?
• Is there a type of excellence corresponding to
  the physical-biological level of the self?
• Why does Aristotle not include this level of
  excellence? Should he include it?

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III. Moral Excellence (Moral Virtue)
(Text, pp. 48-58)
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How is moral excellence (virtue) acquired?

• Early-life moral training (moral habituation)
• and
• Moral practice (repeated performance of morally
  virtuous actions)

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What This Means

• Human beings have a natural potential for moral
  virtue, and this potentiality is actualized
  through early-life moral habituation and through
  the practice and performance of morally virtuous
  actions.

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Moral Virtue in General The Doctrine of the Mean

• Objective expression Morally virtuous feelings
  and actions are those that avoid the extremes of
  excess (too much) and deficiency (too little).
• Relative expression The moral mean is relative
  to the individual and to the circumstances in
  which the individual is situated.

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A Qualification

• The doctrine of the mean does not apply to
  absolute evils (e.g., murder) or to absolute
  goods (e.g., the pursuit of wisdom).
• There is no deficiency but only excess with
  regard to absolute evils.
• There is no excess but only deficiency with
  regard to absolute goods.

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Specific Moral Virtues

• See Table of Virtues Vices in text, p. 53.
• See also following slides on courage,
  temperance, justice.

Apply Aristotles Table of Virtues Vices to
yourself? Using at least three of his
virtue-vice categories, how virtuous (or
un-virtuous) are you?
Extra-Credit Essay (250 words or more)
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The Major Moral Virtues

• Courage (fortitude) -- fear confidence
  endurance of pain
• Temperance -- pursuit of pleasure
  avoidance of pain
• Justice -- doing good with regard to others

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Courage

• The willingness ability to expose oneself to
  danger pain when necessary to the achievement
  of some real substantial good

• The coward shrinks or runs from danger pain
  the reckless person confronts danger pain even
  when it is not necessary to the achievement of a
  real substantial good.

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Temperance

• The willingness ability to forego pleasure
  when necessary to the achievement of some real
  substantial good

• The mindless hedonist
• always pursues pleasure
• always avoids pain,
• no matter what the
• insensible person fails
• to enjoy the pleasures of
• life at all.

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JusticeThe Virtue of Doing Good with Regard to
Others

• A just person is in the habit of obeying the law
  of treating people fairly.

• An unjust person is a law-breaker and/or one who
  takes unfair advantage of others.

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There are, then, two forms of justice

• 1. Justice as
• lawfulness

• 2. Justice as
• fairness

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Justice as Lawfulness

• Good laws aim at the common good of society,
  i.e., the production preservation of the
  happiness of the political community.
• A system of good laws requires us to act in a
  morally virtuous way, i.e., to exercise ALL of
  the moral virtues, and it forbids immoral
  conduct. Is this true? Should it be?

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Questions

• Is a just person always morally obligated to
  obey all laws, even bad laws? Why or why not?
• Under what circumstances is civil disobedience
  justified? Examples?

Extra-Credit Essay (250 words or more)
Extra-Credit Essay (250 words or more)
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Justice as Fairness

• Giving and taking in accordance with
• the principle of equality
• and
• the principle of assignment by desert or merit
• This seems to amount to a principle of equality
  or inequality of desert or merit

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Fair (Equitable) Distribution of Goods Evils

• Should be based on equality or inequality of
  desert or merit
• Equally deserving equal shares
• Unequally deserving unequal shares in
  proportion to inequality. That is, those who are
  more deserving get more those who are less
  deserving get less.

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Application to Penalties Punishments

• Penalties punishments should be imposed only on
  those who deserve them, and no one should be
  penalized or punished either too much or too
  little.
• What about unequal penalties or punishments
  imposed on the equally deserving? Mr. A Mr. B
  are guilty of murder, and both deserve the death
  penalty. Mr. A is executed, but Mr. B receives a
  life sentence. This seems unjust on the basis of
  Aristotles theory of fairness, but where,
  exactly, is the injustice?

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The RetributiveTheory of Punishment
The Law

• -- Criminals deserve to be
• punished.
• -- Only criminals ( no non-criminals) should be
  punished.
• -- The punishment should be proportionate to the
  gravity of the crime.
• -- Where does deterrence fit in? Does it?

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Questions

• Why does Aristotle call justice as lawfulness
  complete or universal justice?
• Why does he call justice as fairness partial or
  particular justice?
• In what sense is justice a mean?

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• Summary to this point
• Eudaimonia excellence external security
• Human excellence intellectual moral --
• living in accordance with reason
• Moral excellence
• In general pursuing the mean (except
• where there is no mean)
• In particular courage, temperance,
• justice, the other specific moral virtues

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IV. Freedom Moral Responsibility
Next Slide
(Text, pp. 58-63)
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Moral Excellence, contd -- Moral Responsibility

• Should we praise the morally virtuous and condemn
  the morally vicious?
• That is, should we hold people morally
  responsible for what they feel and do?
• If so, what is the basis of moral responsibility?
  Under what circumstances does it make sense to
  hold people morally responsible?

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The Distinction between Voluntary and Involuntary
Action
Generally speaking, people may be
held responsible for their voluntary actions, but
not for their involuntary actions.
What, then, are differences between voluntary
involuntary action?
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Two Types of Involuntary Action

• Actions performed under compulsion, i.e., (1)
  caused by a force external to the agent (2)
  agent contributes nothing to the action.
• Actions performed on the basis of ignorance of
  the particular circumstances of the action
  (agent, act, object of action, instrument, aim or
  purpose, manner).

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Voluntary Action

• Not performed either (1) under compulsion or (2)
  on the basis of ignorance, but rather caused by
  the agent with knowledge of the particular
  circumstances of the act.

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Distinction between volition choice

• Some voluntary actions are not products of
  choice. Examples?
• The nature of choice requires thinking
  reasoning a product of prior deliberation.
• Proper objects of deliberation things that are
  possible things we can control means, not ends.
  Not ends?

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Moral Freedom Personal Responsibility

• Voluntary actions that result from deliberation
  choice are morally free.
• Actions that are morally free may be praised or
  blamed.

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Questions

• In what sense do praising, blaming, rewarding,
  punishing imply the reality of moral freedom
  personal responsibility?
• Is it always morally incorrect to blame /or
  punish people for involuntary actions based on
  ignorance? Why or why not? Examples?

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The Determinism-Libertarianism Debate in
MetaphysicsDeterminism All human behavior is
caused (determined) by environment (e.g.,
society), heredity, fate, etc. The individual
is not free.Libertarianism (self-determinism)
At least some human behavior is self-caused
(i.e., chosen by the individual).
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Are you a determinist or a libertarian? Why?
Extra-Credit Essay (250 words or more)
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VI. Intellectual Excellence the Intellectual
Virtues
(Text, pp. 63-66)
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Intellectual Excellence

• How is intellectual excellence acquired?
• Instruction
• Study
• Learning

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Two types of reasoning
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• Theoretical The Realm of
• Reasoning Necessity, Eternity,
• Intellect Universality
• Practical The Realm of
• Reasoning Contingency, Temporality,
• Particularity

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Five types of excellent reasoningthe five
intellectual virtues

• Practical reasoning
• (1) Artistry Craftsmanship (making)
• (2) Practical wisdom (doing, acting)
• Theoretical Reasoning
• (3) Inferential knowledge Theoretical
• (4) Intuitive knowledge Wisdom

(5)
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VI. Aristotles Conclusions on the Nature
of the Good Life
(Text, pp. 66-70)
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Aristotles Conclusions

• Why does Aristotle consider the life of
  intellectual excellence (at the level of
  theoretical reasoning) to result in the highest
  degree of happiness?
• Why does the life of theoretical reasoning bring
  us closest to the gods (or God)?
• Why does the life of moral excellence and
  practical reasoning result in only a secondary
  form of happiness?