Ethics--Books 8 and 9

This is just some basic stuff about friendship I'm reviewing for a segment of my paper:

Books eight and nine of Nicomachean Ethics begin with evaluating what makes a relationship a friendship. The most prominent quality is a friend wishes good will for the sake of the other. Also, the good will must be mutually recognized and reciprocated. This good will is closely tied to the practice of moral virtues. Aristotle identifies three relationships between friends. The first two, friendships of utility and pleasure, are short lived and exist for the purpose of an exchange between the friends. They happen accidentally arising from a need that the involved parties can meet. This is not a perfect friendship, but is merely a shadow reflecting the relationship between true friends. A perfect friendship is based on each person’s qualities of excellence. It is enduring because its foundation is set in characteristics that do not change.

Within a perfect friendship, the benefits of a utility or pleasure friendship can also be present. Because true friends love for the sake of the other, they will naturally be inclined to offer benefits like in an associations of utility. Also, out of love for the goodness of the person, they will receive pleasure from each other as well. Aristotle describes the importance of friends as such: “friends help young men avoid error; to older people they give the care and help needed to supplement the failing powers of action which infirmity brings in its train; and to those in their prime they give the opportunity to preform noble actions.” In this way, friends contribute to eudaimonia not just from the benefits and pleasure received, but also because, like in the polis, it provides a structure under which to practice virtuous actions.

Comparison of the Cave and Ethics

Plato and Aristotle both come to the conclusion that intelligence is the highest capacity of man. But it is not easy for man to achieve this highest potential. Plato says a man must be forced out of the metaphorical cave of ignorance by being turned towards using his intelligence. When initially untied, “if he were compelled to look at the light itself, wouldn’t his eyes be pained and wouldn’t he turn around and flee toward the things he is able to see, and believe that they are really clearer than the ones he is being shown” (Republic, 515e)? And again upon leaving the cave, “when he came into the light, wouldn’t he have his eyes filled with sunlight and be unable to see a single one of the things now said to be truly real” (Republic, 516a)? Every time the man is brought closer to seeing reality, it is painful for his unadjusted eyes to take in the light and he does not go willingly. It is a difficult thing for him to let go of the security of the beliefs he maintains, even if they are in ignorance. It is painful to his eyes to look upon something greater than what he already knows, and the intelligence is not obtained easily. Aristotle also acknowledges that cultivating intelligence is not an easy task. He says “moral virtue… is formed by habit… and none of the moral virtues is implanted in us by nature, for nothing which exists by nature can be changed by habit” (Ethics, 1103a15). A habit takes time to form and reflects a behavioral practice. Moral virtue, as Aristotle says, is not in our nature, so it is something that must be intentionally pursued. Intelligence, as the highest virtue, should be a habit man strives to form if he wants to live a good life, but to do this, he must struggle against his natural inclinations until it becomes a habit.

Although there is difficulty in cultivating intelligence, Aristotle and Plato both agree that in doing so, man enhances the best part of himself. Aristotle compares the best part in man to something of a divine nature, and claims “the gods enjoy a life blessed in its entirety; men enjoy it to the extent that they attain something resembling the divine activity” (Ethics, 1178b25). Plato also calls “the virtue of wisdom… something more godlike” (Republic, 158e). The comparison of intelligence to something of a divine nature shows that it is the best part of man. It is the highest human capacity because it allows man to transcend his current condition to become or understand things higher than himself, enabling him to live a good life in its fullest capacity. Man is naturally drawn to wanting eudaimonia, for if one does not live a good life, he does not have a life worth living.

 

 

Happiness and Intelligence—Book 10

     In Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle seeks to explain what it means to live a good life. He uses the term eudaimonia, which is understood as being happy in a sense of living well or flourishing. He says that “happiness is activity in conformity with virtue, [so] it is to be expected that it should conform with the highest virtue, and that is the virtue of the best part of us” (Eth. Nic., 1177a10). Happiness is self-sufficient and is an activity desirable for its own sake, which is what makes it in conformity with virtue. The activities that matter, namely, those that contribute to eudaimonia, will be those that are grounded in what Aristotle calls the highest virtue. He describes the highest virtue as something in which “its very nature rules and guides us and which gives us our notions of what is noble and divine; whether it is itself divine or the most divine thing in us; it is the activity of this part when operating in conformity with the excellence or virtue proper to it that will complete happiness” (Eth. Nic., 1177a15). He goes on to define intelligence as the highest possession we have in us, the highest attribute man can obtain, and the best part of him. From this, it can be understood that for man to be able to live well and possess a life of eudaimonia, he must cultivate his intelligence. It can be taken a step further to say that the completeness of one’s happiness, or eudaimonia, depends on how well one uses his intelligence in a manner that aligns with Aristotle’s description—it must rule and guide us towards appropriate things and work towards excellence and virtue.

Virtue in the Community

Here is a quick run down of virtue:

The word that Aristotle uses for virtue is arête. If this were literally translated, it would mean excellence. Virtue is the way in which man acquires eudaimonia. Or, it is this characteristic of excellence that allows man to live a flourishing life. There are two types of virtue according to Aristotle, intellectual and moral. How do we attain the characteristics of virtue? In this case, the outworn phrase “practice makes perfect” actually fits. It is through habituation, repetitive actions, which makes it part of who you are and perfect the virtue to its fullest capacity. You know you have acquired the virtue you are practicing when you take pleasure in doing it. Because when you take pleasure in it, it is a sign that it is natural to your way of acting. The thing to be careful of, though, is that vice works the same way. You can acquire a vice by habituation of those actions, and worse, you’ll even begin to take pleasure in doing them.

So how do we know what actions to be putting into practice? What determines the virtues we should be aiming for? Or in other words, what is excellent? Aristotle gives part of the answer, imitation. We should look at people who have these virtues that we want and do the actions they do. Makes sense, but how did they know what was virtuous? This is way the community is essential to being a virtuous person. It is society that determines appropriate habituation. It is the society that dictates by its laws and social expectations how a man should act. The man who does these actions best and most consistanlty has virtue by the standard of that community.

Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1

It was in rereading this first book that ideas started forming for what I wanted to write about for my paper topic. Aristotle will talk a lot throughout Ethics about the Good, what it is to man, and how man achieves it. When I first read Nicomachean Ethics last semester, I thought it was odd that Aristotle would frame this discussion with mentions of politics at the beginning and end of Ethics. But in rereading it and looking at the translator’s notes, I realized that I had a misconstrued interpretation of what Aristotle meant by politics, so I went back to look at what the translator had to say since he has knowledge of both the Greek and English languages (surprise! It’s a little sad that it took me the second time reading this to look it up).

So here it is: Politike is the science of the city-state (polis) and the members of it. It is not constrained to our narrow “political science” sense of the word, but also in the sense that a civilized human existence is only possible in the polis. Therefore, politike involves not only politics as a science of the state, but our concept of society as well.

 

So what does this mean in the context of serving as the opening and closing framework of Ethics? This is part of what I will be exploring in my paper, but if I had to make a preliminary guess… Society, or any form of community really, is necessary for man to reach the highest good. Man flourishes within the structure of community because he is able to put into practice much of the things the Aristotle discusses throughout Nicomachean Ethics. This is why Aristotle devotes an entire book to the importance of friends, because that is another form of community in which man can flourish and grow. (This is a little rough in terms of accuracy and depth, but writing a blog post about it has helped solidify ideas about what I want to write about.)

Symposium: The Five Speeches

As a means of review for myself I’m going back to the five speeches:

Phaedrus says that Love is the oldest of all gods. He claims that “because of his antiquity, Love is the source of our greatest benefits.” This is because love is the inspiration of honor and virtue and is the spirit of self-sacrifice. (In part because a man would rather die than appear as a coward in the eyes of his beloved.)

Pausanias distinguishes between heavenly love and common love.  The object of common love is women and young boys; the object of heavenly love is young men. He advocates laws to rule the proper way to love in society. He thinks that love is neither good nor bad, but it can be used for either depending on the actions behind it.

Euryximachus is a physician. He makes the distinction the distinction of bad and good love (balance and harmony) into a cosmic principle and ergo universally applicable. He says love is everywhere and is the driving force behind everything. This definition acts as a transition from the narrow definition of love as physical desire (Phaedrus and Pausanias) to the intellectual love.  As a physician he speaks of the healthy and the ill and advises from a foundation of practice.  

Ariststophanes is a comic playwright and tells a humorous tale to frame his account of love. He defines love as the "desire and pursuit of the whole”.  He recognizes that love is a need whose satisfaction is more than physical and that love is a longing to regain a lost happiness.  

Agathon is a tragic poet who gives the party. His contribution is the admission that love's object is Beauty. He says love is the force of bringing things together. Unlike Phaedrus, he believes love is the youngest god. 

Symposium: Socrates' Speech

This is a short account of Socrates’ speech on love (or rather, his retelling of a conversation he had with Diotima on the subject).

Socrates argues that love or desire is relational and expresses lack or deficiency. If love is love of some object, then love desires that object. One desires only what one does not have, so love is not beautiful but is desire of beauty.

Socrates then tells how Diotima described the nature of love. Love is neither beautiful nor ugly, neither good nor evil. He is an intermediate state—half man, half god. He is like opinion (Intermediate between ignorance and episteme). He is the true lover of wisdom because wisdom is beautiful and beauty is the object of love. Men are lovers of the good which they want to possess perpetually. Perpetuity is achieved through procreation. Thus, Eros is procreation: physical, spiritual and philosophical (that of wisdom).

The correct way to begin to love is to love beautiful bodies, ideally he should start with loving just one body. Next, he will reduce the love of a single body and appreciate the beauty of all beautiful bodies. Then he should reduce the love of beautiful bodies to love the beauty of minds. Next is to find beauty in laws, observances and kinship and to let go of the beauty of bodies altogether. Then he will find beauty in the forms of knowledge (general not particular branches). Finally, he will be “turned towards the great sea of beauty and gazing on it he’ll give birth, through a boundless love of knowledge, to many beautiful and magnificent discourses and ideas.” 

It is in this way that “when someone goes up these stages, through loving boys in the correct way, and begins to catch sight of that beauty, he has come close to reaching the goal.”