Musings from the Ozone

Aristotle began his Nicomachean Ethics addressing the issue of the good. The good is what every endeavor should attempt to attain. There are many endeavors in life, such as science, art and medicine. Each of these arts has branches of endeavors within them, which also aim at some good. Although these subordinate endeavors are not as important as their respective master arts, it is toward the good of their master arts that they function. The master arts themselves are subordinate to a greater master art, which Aristotle holds to be politics. All of the other arts aim at the good of the individual, but politics aims at the good of everyone, and therefore, it aims at the higher good.

If we know that it is the good that we must strive for, what then is this good? The good is something that must be done for its own sake, that is, it must be self-sufficient. It is generally agreed upon to be happiness. Happiness is what people; both great and small have as a common goal. Granted that the good is happiness, what then is happiness? Aristotle cites several different views that people hold it to be, and he refutes it. He says it is not wealth, because many with wealth are not happy. It is not pleasure, because some pleasures are evil and self-destructive. It cannot be honor, because honor depends more on the people awarding it than the actions of those who have obtained it. Happiness is an activity. It is born of activity but is dependent on the proper functioning of man. Rather than a state of being, it is an activity that you continue at throughout life. Rational principles have the requirement in them that the possessor acts with virtue. Being that there is more than one virtue, man must live in accordance with the best of them, and live in such a way throughout his whole life.

It is necessary to explain what virtue is and how it can be maintained. Virtue is of the soul. Aristotle believes the soul consists of two parts: the rational and the irrational. There are then two types of virtue, those in common with the rational, which is the intellectual virtues, and those in common with the irrational, the moral virtues. Intellectual virtues can be obtained through teaching, time and experience, but moral virtue must be arrived at through habit. Virtues are not our emotions, because we are not said to be good people by our emotions; we are known to be good by our virtues, or bad because of our vices. Our moral virtues do have emotional content. One can feel confident, frightened, angry, pity, loving, etc, but to feel these emotions in the right way, right time, right amount, for the right purpose is something that has to be achieved through experience, trial and error. Virtue must be sustained through practice, but failure to exercise it will cause it to wane. It necessitates action on the part of the individual. A virtue also requires knowledge, and deliberate choice. It must be practiced for it’s own sake, from a stable character, and from one, which would choose the virtuous every time. Virtue is a state of character, and a consistent moral state of being. Intellectual virtue is of the rational part of the soul. It is composed of two parts: one, which contemplates the unchangeable, the scientific; and the calculative contemplative, which discerns those things, which are true in accordance with pure motives. The soul arrives at truth through the five major intellectual virtues. The scientific virtue divines the unchangeable truths. Art is for the creation of products, either for utility or beauty. Practical wisdom, or prudence, is used to deliberate over the best means to the ends of life. Intuitive reason is the spark which gives rise to the scientific ideas. Finally, philosophical wisdom is the product of the joining of the intuitive and the scientific parts. These virtues all lead to the living of the good life, by securing the means of which one may be happy and giving the direction necessary to achieve moral virtue.

Aristotle asserts that virtue is characterized by choosing the mean between two extremes. The extremes of any mean, or intermediate are either excess, i.e. too much, or deficiency, too little. There are no set rules for how this is to be achieved, because they are impossible to define. One cannot not have precision in Ethics. It is for the individual to choose what is the mean, relative to his own circumstance. He gives examples of the selection of the mean. With respect to courage, the excess is rashness, charging foolishly into a deadly situation. The deficiency would be cowardice. Although there are degrees of extremes away from the mean, which can be morally acceptable, the difference between the extremes are further away from each other than from the mean. Many other examples are given of virtue and their respective excesses and deficiencies. Among them are temperance, between self-indulgence and insensibility; pride, between vanity and humility; truth, between boastfulness and irony; liberality, between wastefulness and stinginess. All are taken up in some detail in Ethics, but the underlying theme is that we do all virtuous acts by choice, and that we are responsible for our decisions, whether they are good or bad. Those that have bad habits should not have allowed them to form. A vice, being an opposite of virtue, is deficient or excessive from the mean of a virtue. It appears to come from a lack of desire to achieve a virtue or an inordinate desire to do more than is appropriate to obtain a virtue. A disposition is acquired by our arrival, over arrival or under arrival of acquiring a virtue. Continual inattention to virtue is one way to achieve a vice while excessiveness in any virtue appears as an ugly obsession. Aristotle pointed out that it is easy to fail, and difficult to succeed, and deficiencies and excesses are errors. Generally speaking, one may apply nearly every feeling to this mean and determine how much he has to adjust his reactions up or down to reach for a virtuous condition. Not every action or feeling can use the method of the mean for applying excess or deficiency. That is because some actions are wrong in any sense and are automatically determined to be base. Such actions, bad in themselves, include murder, adultery, theft, spite, etc, and are such that they cannot be right in any degree.

In desiring happiness, it is not the end of happiness that we deliberate over, but rather the means to that happiness, which is virtue. Happiness is embedded in working towards a virtue. How can we arrive at continual happiness over our lifetime? We cannot wait until life is nearly over to decide whether our life was really blessed, and thus make us happy. We cannot wait so long to find out whether we were successful, since we can feel and know nothing after death. If we perceive happiness as an activity, we will note that a stable person, keeping his actions in accord with virtue, will become the character and disposition that he has practiced throughout his life. Happiness could be considered a state of becoming. We never totally arrive at this condition, but we are constantly in motion to become virtuous. We continue to hope and work for excellence: happiness becomes a by-product of our striving and working.

Aristotle teaches that we must continually stretch ourselves and if necessary, drag ourselves away from drifting into the wrong directions, away from our goals. He implied that this would not be easy; rather it is very hard work striving to be excellent in virtues. Moving in the direction of excess or deficiency, away from doing well doesn’t always cause us serious problems; it is only when we are deviating from the mean a long way that it will be noticed. As long as we are aiming toward the intermediate state we are bound to hit the mark eventually.

A virtue of high status is the virtue of bravery. There are different states of bravery, and yet shirking the burdens and duties of braveness would be called softness. This virtue, measured by the method of the mean, still can leave the basic motive of bravery under question. Is bravery applied because something fine such as honor is desired? Is bravery applied because force from superiors dictated the action? Different conditions such as war will bring out the apparent courage or the lack of it. Some virtues, it appears leave motives

Temperance is a virtue with an appetite that has been controlled. Intemperance, or lack of control goes in the direction of excess easily. Eating and drinking indiscriminately demonstrates a lack of knowledge or understanding regarding pleasure. Their excesses of pleasure cause bodily harm, and are not profitable in the long run.

The giving and receiving of funds is a virtue known as generosity. It is worth a closer examination. To be above the mean of generosity, would be to display ostentation, and below the mean would certify stinginess of character. The generous person will give correctly, to the right person and the right amount at the right time. Withholding funds from the wrong people or the wrong reasons does not make him a stingy person. To the contrary, he will have money to give to the right people and the right reasons, if he acquires his wealth from right sources, and cares for his proper expenditures. Size of donations and assistance are not important, as is the giving in accord with ones abilities. If a person should have less to give, but gives more than a wealthier person would give, he has been considered a more generous person. There should be pleasure in the exchanges, as giving virtuously implies there is joy in the process.

Justice, another virtue, is basically, by Aristotle, complete virtue with respect to one’s neighbors. There are two kinds of justice: universal, which deals with all that is lawful and unlawful, and particular justice, all that is fair and unfair. Particular justice is contained within universal justice. Justice, like virtue, is not an action. It is a state of character to be developed, and therefore, difficult to obtain.

Aristotle observes that nature has not given us our moral virtues, as no natural property can be changed by habit. He mentions the force of gravity, by saying the nature of a stone is to move downwards. Fire cannot be trained to move downwards, or anything that behaves in a natural way cannot be trained into a habit to behave another way. Moral virtues like intellectual virtues must be acquired through using them, practicing them as you would any of the arts. We become just, temperate, brave, truthful, etc, by practicing them and doing the acts. Since we have not been born with natures that have these virtues, we must acquire them.

Virtues must be practiced to reach the qualifications of what is good, superior or excellent. He gave an example of a harpist. The function of a harpist is to play the harp, but a qualification of his harp playing is whether the harpist plays his instrument well, mediocre or badly. To achieve excellence, or to reach perfection of the mean in his endeavor, the harpist would have to continually exercise and practice his activity of harp playing.

Continence or self-control is what is used by man to follow the above-mentioned virtues. The continent man will be virtuous, and thereby happy. Aristotle said there are three conditions of character to be avoided, and that is vice, incontinence, and bestiality. The incontinent man, lacking in self-control, knows how to be virtuous, but acts against that knowledge because of weakness of will. He is not excusable for his wrong actions. The continent will follow the mean in regards to pleasure, while the incontinent will over-indulge.

Aristotle examines the views of pleasure and happiness and they are two themes that intertwine throughout the Ethics. Happiness is an umbrella term over the whole process of moral virtues and intellectual virtues that Aristotle mentions. To be happy, one has to reach for success in these virtues from the cradle to the grave. It is the end product at which all actions aim.

In discussing pleasure, we find that it is subjective, because to different people pleasure can mean different things. Pleasure is seen in two ways, neither of which Aristotle agrees with: pleasure is the supreme good, or it is wholly bad. Pleasure cannot be the supreme good, because it is not a full satisfaction, but is only a compliment to the actions of life. It is not continuous, as the supreme good is, and it can in many cases be harmful. It is not wholly bad, because each pleasure is complete and whole in itself. It perfects life, and adds to it as nothing that is evil does. Good pleasures are those that belong to the man that exercises virtue, and to him alone. Pleasure is something that helps man enjoy the good activities of life, which are in themselves happiness. Happiness is not a moral state, such as virtue or justice, but is an activity, and self-sufficient. It involves actions, not amusement or relaxation. It is the activity of the highest part of man’s nature, the intuitive reasoning. It is achieved best through the contemplative life. Men do not achieve happiness or virtue by reading ethical theory. They are made good through habit, teaching and nurture, and should put into practice what they learn in order to develop the moral character necessary for virtue, and thus happiness can be acquired.

Granted that pain is evil, Aristotle maintains that pain is an evil to be avoided. Pleasure is not the same sort of thing to be avoided and indeed, it makes an excellent person more pleasant if his activities are also pleasant. There are pleasures of a base nature that try to cure something inherently deficient in an individual. He maintains that when it is harmful to your body, it is base, and only pleasures that coincide with good health, or the coming into good health are proper for our enjoyment. Pleasure without pain, and of no excess is good when it coincides with some action that helps us to remain healthy. The conclusion that Aristotle appears to reach is that pleasure has qualifications. There are motives in choices of pleasures; a man of good virtues will choose the noble and expedient pleasures, while the man of vice and avoidance will choose harmful and base pleasures.

We regulate many of our actions by the prospect of the pleasure that will follow. Animals do the same. It is part of the base nature and it is hard to eradicate it from our systems. It is hard to manage this desire for pleasure but he stresses that all virtues are harder to achieve. The practice of virtues must contain pleasure and pain, and the question will become, which actions performed will enhance the virtue, or what actions may destroy it. Pleasure or pain is part of a package as to whether we will find something enjoyable, or to be avoided. Moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way regarding pain or pleasure. Vice is making an error in the relationship of pleasure and pain. For instance, a person is in a great deal of emotional pain. A person should study the causes of the emotional upset and try to eradicate the cause. A weakness in his character and disposition could cause him to turn to alcohol as a numbing, pleasurable masking of his pain, and yet in the long run it will not eradicate his problem. It will work temporarily, but ultimately it will ensnare the soul in a vice stemming from his base actions. Men are corrupted through their pains or their pleasures when they, pursuing or avoiding them, make errors in judgment. The non-rational side of man leans toward pleasure, but we must make it listen to the rational side of ourselves.

I have very much appreciated Aristotle’s philosophy of life. In writing this paper, I had to stop again and again, to try to absorb his insight, and contemplate the depth of his intelligent and profound thoughts. I feel that he would fit well with the humanistic and phenomenological approach to personality that we propose today.