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ARISTOTLE:
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
by Gordon L. Ziniewicz
1. Human beings by nature desire to know (they are curious);
human beings by nature are also social and political. They need
other human beings in order to fulfill themselves. Even though philosophical
contemplation is superior to productive, practical (and political)
activity, the ability to pursue scientific knowledge depends upon
achieving order in the city (justice). For Aristotle, the philosopher
is not a king, and the king is not a philosopher (the philosopher
imitates the best life -- God's -- which is not political). The
best life is the philosophical life; the philosopher is more noble
and happier than the ruler. Truth is higher than justice. The affairs
of state would be very disturbing to a scholar. But the pursuit
of the best life is impossible unless the pursuers of the second-best
life (rulers) succeed in making the city just and keeping the peace.
War interferes with research. Thus, for Aristotle, the happiest
life, the greatest human good, is the fulfillment of the philosopher.
This "happiness" is the highest end in the city. But the art or
know-how (techne) of the practical ruler is the highest
art or know-how (although every know-how is inferior to knowing
for the sake of knowing). The good ruler, himself denied the leisure,
peace, and joy of scientific knowledge, orders the city so that
intellectual scientists may be fulfilled. Politics is the master
art that brings about the final end of human beings (happiness,
eudaimonia -- well-being, smiled upon by the gods, etc.).
But this final end is most adequately realized not in the ruler,
but in the scientist. Leisure, not work, is the basis of culture.
And the ruler has very little leisure.
Question: Do you agree that contemplation is better
than, higher than action? Why or why not? In a similar vein: Is
motion for the sake of rest? Work for the sake of leisure? Toil
for the sake of retirement?
2. There is a hierarchy of means and ends, just as there is
a hierarchy from matter to form, potentiality to actuality. Everything
we do, make, or learn seems to aim at some end -- something that
is or "seems" good to us. The end or goal of a particular activity
may turn out to be itself a means to a further end, etc. Most ends
are themselves means to further ends. Money, which is sought after,
is a means for providing the necessities of life (and health). Health
is a means for functioning well. Aristotle is trying to locate empirically
where the "buck stops" with ends; he is trying to discover what
is the final end for man -- an end that is sought for itself and
is not itself a means. This end, as both the many and wise (the
wise and noble citizens provide the standard) would agree, is happiness.
But happiness means many things to many people.
3. According to Aristotle, happiness must be related to right
functioning. The happiness of men is their "correct operation,"
doing what they should be doing as human beings. This right functioning
is self-fulfillment or self-realization. A tree is fulfilled if
it performs according to its nature -- actualizes its potential
by growing, reproducing, etc. A human is happy or fulfilled if he
realizes his specifically human potential (actualization of basic
human tendencies, desires, and inclinations). Now, what potential
distinguishes human beings? Their reason. Even though humans, like
animals, have lively inclinations to nutrition, growth, perception,
reproductiion, etc., the end of man is the fulfillment and perfection
and completion of his reason. If a man makes nourishment his final
end, he is fulfilling the potential he shares with a slug. This
right functioning is not a static condition, but an active operation.
According to Aristotle, "human good turns out to be activity of
soul in accordance with virtue, and of there are more than one virtue,
in accordance with the best and most complete."
Question: For Plato, the "end" of human beings is justice,
personal and social order. For Aristotle, the end of human beings
is happiness or well-being, of which only a part is justice. Discuss
how Plato and Aristotle differ with respect to "right functioning."
4. Virtue is an habitual state, a condition of the soul that predisposes
an individual to act in a certain way. Activity is the "activation"
or exercise of virtue. Virtue is an habitual state achieved through
conscious practice, effort, exercise. There are intellectual virtues
and moral virtues. Intellectual virtues are superior to moral virtues.
Intellectual virtues aim at knowledge; moral virtues aim at some regulation
of bodily activity. The intellectual virtues are productive knowledge
(techne or art), practical wisdom (phronesis or prudence, providence),
science (episteme), wisdom (sophia), and intellectual
intuition (nous). The last three constitute scientific wisdom.
The intellectual virtues (such as nous) are higher than the moral
virtues (such as courage, justice, etc.). Thus, the best activity
of the soul must be the exercise or activity of nous (pure knowing
or contemplating).
Question: How does this compare to Plato's view that
the universe is a kind of great city, guided by justice (order and
arrangement)? Will contemplation of the heavens, in Aristotle's
view, reveal structures applicable to personal and social life?
Is contemplation of non-human nature (especially heavenly bodies)
superior to contemplation of justice? Reflect on these and similar
issues.
5. Thus, nourishment and exercise, etc. are means to the end
of bodily health. The health of the body is a means for the performance
of moral actiions, which are in turn a means for the moral health
of the soul. Moral actions aim at personal and social stability.
Personal and social stability aim at scientific inquiry. Scientific
inquiry aims at the possession of knowledge (and knowing that one
knows) that imitates the best activity in the universe, the activity
of God.
6. There are levels of happiness. "Supreme" happiness (or blessedness)
does not consist finally in pleasure, wealth, health, justice, or
courage. "Why then should we not say that he is happy who is active
in accordance with complete virtue and has sufficient external goods,
not for a time but throughout a complete life." Happiness would
include moral fulfillment, intellectual fulfillment, bread on the
table, and "good luck" til the end of one's days. It would also
include friendship, as we shall see.
7. There is a great ambivalence and happy inconsistency in
Aristotle. Scientific wisdom is higher than justice, but Aristotle
gives "justice" to justice in the Ethics. Furthermore, we
shall see how that divine part of us (nous) is tied to that
human part of us that needs friends in order to be happy. Our happiest
moments are moments of contemplation that cannot be shared (speech
is not knowledge), although we can "contemplate" in the same room
with our friends (co-contemplators?). Yet the happiest human life
includes friendship.
8. Friendship is a virtue (arete -- excellence) or it implies
virtue. In order to be happy, one needs --
(1) sufficient external goods,
(2) health,
(3) opportunity to practice and actual practice of moral virtues
(such as courage, temperance, justice, generosity, etc.),
(4) opportunity to practice and actual practice of intellectual
virtues (such as science and contemplative wisdom -- which activate
the divine part of the soul),
(5) friends, and
(6) good luck.
Even the self-sufficient man needs friends to be generous to.
Also he needs sufficient external goods to exercise his generosity.
Those who have only enough or less than enough are unable to give
to their friends. We also need friends to ensure against future
calamity, etc. Finally, we need friends to facilitate thinking and
acting. We can think by ourselves, but conversation with friends
facilitates our learning. Friendship also binds citizens together
in the polis or city (community). Where there is friendship, there
is no need to enforce action through moral constraint (justice).
Aristotle mentions these and many other benefits of friendship.
Question: Does Aristotle's view of friendship seem
self-centered? Explain.
Question: Do you agree, more or less, with Aristotle's
listing of the components of happiness?
Question: Do you agree that happiness is the end or
purpose of life?
Question: Given this "recipe" for happiness, was Socrates
happy? Discuss.
9. According to Aristotle, there are three basic kinds of friendship;
all other kinds are variations of these kinds:
(1) Friendship based on mutual usefulness or mutual advantage.
These people love some good or advantage they can get from the
other. This would include business relationships, etc. One does
not really love the other for the sake of the other; one loves
the external benefit one can derive from friendship.
(2) Friendship based on mutual pleasure. Pleasure is an internal
good. One does not really love the other for the sake of the other;
one loves the pleasure one can derive from friendship with the
other. When being together is no longer pleasant, the friendship
comes to an end.
(3) Friendship based on the good, on mutual goodness and
mutual willing of good for the other. It is love for the other
for the sake of the other. This is the friendship between those
who are happy, fulfilled, or self-realized through the practice
of moral and intellectual virtue. The most lasting and most unselfish
friendship is friendship between the good, where the good of the
other is the object of the friendship and not some external advantage
or internal satisfaction (pleasure).
Nevertheless, though these friendships do not aim at utility
or pleasure, they are accompanied by utility and pleasure. Such
friendships are rare and take time. True friends, friends who are
friends for their own sake and not for some other advantage, must
be good (habitual practitioners of moral and intellectual virtue).
True friendship is based upon a love of what is truly good (good
without qualification) -- fully developed moral and intellectual
humanity.
Question: Give some examples of friendship based on
pleasure or utility.
10. True friendship is between equals, where each gives the
same to the other. Family relations and relations between ruler
and ruled involve inequality. No one would wish for his friend to
become God. There is no friendship between God and man (the inequality
and distance are too great). A man wishes for his friends all of
the greatest goods but one, that he be like God. This good he wishes
only for himself (in his "divine" moments of self-sufficient contemplation).
11. Aristotle states that friendship "seems to lie in loving
rather than in being loved." But in a deeper sense for Aristotle,
all love of others is based on self-love. It is out of one's own
goodness that one wishes well to another who is seen to be good.
For Aristotle, self-development and self-realization through moral
and intellectual perfection are self-sufficient. One both needs
and does not need others. Satisfaction is found in the development
of one's own potentiality; doing good for one's friends is part
of one's moral self-development. Friends are a desirable extra.
The perfection of every natural being is the extent to which it
achieves independence, self-sufficiency, and self-movement. Human
beings are more independent of external conditions than are plants
and animals, but they are not absolutely independent of anything
outside of themselves as God is. God needs nothing outside of himself.
Needing nothing outside of himself (self-sufficiency) is imitated
by the self-sufficient contemplation of the scientist, who enjoys
conversation with friends, but enjoys even more reflecting upon
what he knows in his own mind. Aristotle spends much of Book IX
in a very strained attempt to show that the supremely happy man,
who is self-sufficient and quite content in himself, nevertheless
needs friends. This is because, for Aristotle, contemplation (in
one's mind) and not conversation (between two people) is the home
of truth; ideas or forms are in the mind, not in a separate realm;
and moral goodness is an internal perfection separable from coordinating
one's life with others. Socrates, outside of Athens, has no place;
at his post, he is the best Athenian individual. For Aristotle,
individual perfection is somewhat dependent upon external factors
and other human beings; but the tie is less pronounced than it is
for Plato. Aristotle witnessed the beginnings of the breakdown of
the city-state. He himself was indicted for impiety, but he chose
to leave Athens so that, in his own words, "Athens might not sin
twice against philosophy." Moreover, Aristotle was impressed by
the individualism of life, and he was impressed by a view of nature
filled with biological individuals (each self-moved and self-determining
to a greater or lesser extent -- each having a soul). Self-realization
is the key term. Thus, we read that "a friend is another self."
We love the good other because he/she is good like ourselves.
Questions for Review and Discussion:
1. Name the four causes or principles which, according to Aristotle,
make a thing to be what it is. Give an example of each.
2. What is the status of heavenly bodies (for Aristotle) --
such as sun, moon, and stars? What, if anything, do they have to
do with life on earth? Are they superior or inferior to human beings?
Explain.
3. What is the essential difference between natural and artificial
beings, according to Aristotle?
4. Name and explain the three types of friendship discussed
by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics.
5. According to Aristotle, what (six things) does a person
need to have or do in order to be happy?
6. Why would Plato call Aristotle an atheist?
7. According to Aristotle, happiness is related to "right functioning."
Explain what this means.
8. Describe the tension between body and soul for Aristotle.
In what ways is knowledge for its own sake dependent upon yet independent
of practical and productive knowledge?
9. What is the relationship between the practice of the political
art and the pursuit of scientific wisdom, according to Aristotle?
Would Plato agree or disagree? Why?
10. Explain the nature and the importance of Aristotle's God.
11. Explain the relation (according to Aristotle) between ascending
grades of beings in the universe and their dependence upon or independence
of the environment.
12. According to Aristotle, what keeps the universe going?
How?
13. What is eternal and unchanging for Plato? For Aristotle?
14. According to Aristotle, what good would a person wish for
himself, but would not wish for his friend? Why?
15. Discuss the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle in the
light of attachment and detachment.
16. Discuss the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle in the
light of in- dividuality (or private good) and community (or common
good).
17. Discuss thinking as escape versus thinking as strategic
withdrawal in the thought of Plato and Aristotle.
18. What lessons can be learned from Aristotle?
19. Graph or describe the attitude toward other people, human
institutions, non-human nature, the self, and God in Aristotle.
Do the same with Plato.
20. What is the end or purpose of human life? Defend your answer.
Direct inquiries and comments to:

Copyright © 1996 Gordon L.
Ziniewicz
This page last updated 10/14/12
Please note: These philosophical commentaries,
though still in process, are the intellectual property of Gordon L.
Ziniewicz. They may be downloaded and freely distributed in electronic
form only, provided no alterations are made to the original text.
One print copy may be made for personal use, but further reproduction
and distribution of printed copies are prohibited without the permission
of the author.
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