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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Notes on Aristotelian Ethics, comparison with Greene & Hursthouse

Aristotle
  • studied under Plato
  • from Macedonia. Aristotle's practicality may be due to his childhood – father was a doctor. Plato formed one of the first philosophical schools; Aristotle went to Plato's school
  • Plato's focus is on the ultimate reality, outside of the senses
    • Socrates is not afraid to die because he sees it as freedom from this body that ages and decomposes
  • Aristotle's concern is not so much with the obvious fact that the senses deceive about the true reality
    • but there is not great philosophical surprise
  • Aristotle's orientation is about learning about this reality
    • yes, our senses can be misled, so let's make sure that our attention is on the reason behind the senses
    • don't deny your passions, they tell you something about the world
  • Nicomachean Ethics
    • written as a practical guide for his son
    • fairly practical – any abstraction has a practical point
    • Plato is not very practically oriented – lots of metaphysics, epistemology, theoretical stuff
    • Plato thought it was impossible to associate pleasure with the good
      • Plato wanted to denounce Pleasure = good and Pain = bad
      • Plato: pleasure is in the body, a feeling, a sensation, and so it changes
        • difference between the two is merely a sensation
      • if sensation is always changing, it is an imperfection, it is incomplete
      • if our measure is lesser than what we measure with it, then what we derive with that measurement will be defective
        • if we measured with a ruler that constantly changed length, we will misunderstand what is being measured; the pieces won't fit together
      • in Republic – nine books lead up to a big let down – an entire 'perfect' society is described, then it is realized that it is impossible, because
        people are always becoming
      • while you are on your way (becoming) you are not just (being)
    • Aristotle: it is not the good that is completed, not the body, but action
      • ethics is about action, not stagnation, perfection, completeness
      • ethics is about acting, living, doing
        • what you are doing and what you are doing it up is in constant change
      • Plato thought ethics are about being
        • once you are good, you are good (an end)
      • Aristotle thought ethics is about becoming
        • virtue is not a state of perfection or completion
        • it has to do with constant change
        • perhaps being is important for metaphysics, not for ethics
    • Aristotle wants framework to be honest in its concept of what the framework is
    • Ethics is about intellection
      • one cannot do what is right without knowing what is right
      • it is about thinking, contemplation → (highest of human undertakings)
      • you don't just stop when you arrive at a truth
      • to those who live, and do it well, it brings pleasure
      • virtue brings pleasure
    • ex. hard work and study → A grade
      → pleasure
    • kinds of pleasure
        • in book I, action is always about achieving something
      • action → end
          • 1. pleasure is appropriate to the action
            • P(p)
            • this is the desirable pleasure
          • 2. pleasure not appropriate to the action and to the end
            • P(~p)
      • All action is directed toward an end
        • end – Greek telos – purposive, directive,
        • Aristotle's ethics is known as teleological ethics
          • accomplishment oriented
          • why are you doing that if there is no point? Well there is always a point
        • irrational action – when the end is negated by the action itself
        • some ends are worth pursuing, because they have value, and some ends are bad
    • the best life for any kind of thing is to pursue its nature completely
      • to pursue the ingredients of its nature completely
      • there is a different telos for every kind of thing
      • the telos of a cow
        • what that thing should be because it could be if it acted as it ought
      • an acorn could be an oak tree if it acted as it ought
        • from a small acorn, if it chooses to function well, can become a huge oak, if it does as it ought because it can
        • when the acorn is simply allowing itself to act in accordance with its virtue
      • the end for a human is to live purposeful life
        • to live and act as completely as you can, given what you can
      • be careful: you can't just hide in your academy (like Plato) and pretend that the world does not go on, as social beings this does not work
        • we are part of the world
    • people with really bad parents: moral education is important
      • you might have had a crappy start
      • good parents are like rich soil and environment for the acorn
    • practical reasoning → the faculty of rationality involved in the determination of proper ends
  • Happiness
  • Pleasure
    • varies by kind
    • some are pleasures proper to human beings
    • what makes a pleasure proper?
    • proper pleasures complete the activity which generates them
    • pleasure is improper when it impedes
      • 1. an activity to which it does not properly belong (the flutist)
      • 2. when it is generated by an activity which is improper (an improper activity is directed toward not good ends / is not directed toward a good end)
    • why pleasure?
      • When people are asked what makes them happy, the answer is a pleasure
      • Aristotle believes we can understand the good by understanding what is happening in the world
        • what is the common feature? What cuts across all the answers to 'what is good?' or 'what is happy'
        • good is related to happiness, happiness is related to pleasurable things
          • anything is good, because somebody somewhere will think it is good; thinks it can't be that, because then good would be meaningless
      • Book 1: what unites all answers?
        • Looking for universal truths, which are empirically universal (not metaphysically universal)
        • if suddenly there were not any virtuous people, there would be no good, right, justice
        • Plato would say that the good always exists, even without anyone to express it
        • Aristotle: if no country practiced human rights anymore, there would be no such thing as human rights
        • Plato: human rights still exist, even when not in practice
        • Aristotle: if there were nothing that had the property of green, then would it make sense to still speak about green? If green was nonexistent, it wouldn't make sense to speak of green. If there was no point of reference of green, how could there be talk of green?
    • *telos for women: care for home, virtue is obedience*
    • *telos for free men: virtues are contemplation and lead/govern*
  • Problem with Aristotle's methodology: (as an empirically based ethics)
    • Bk 1 p.9
      • “happiness is a virtuous activity of the soul”
      • an activity that is virtuous is directed at the good
      • happiness is the highest good
      • an activity that brings happiness is a virtuous activity
      • circular: p1: happiness is a virtuous activity of the soul
        : directed at the good
              : is what brings happiness
      • happiness is what is proper to human life
        • Aristotle knows this: some people are happiest when they are vicious
      • so how do we know know who is virtuous? By the way they act
    • virtue is not a fixed ideal
      • a virtuous action is going to be virtuous braced by certain parameters
      • your virtuous action may not be the same as another person in the same situation
  • Plato's idea of virtue:
    • in The Republic – what is virtuous for you is dependent on what you are good at:
    • a philosopher is good at philosophy, so they should do justice and serve in a political way
    • a cobbler should make and repair shoes
    • if you are a slave, obedience is your virtue
    • virtues are different to different people depending on what their function is
  • Aristotelian Intellectual Virtue
    • intellectual virtue is an excellence of intellect
      • one cannot really have moral virtue without intellectual virtue
      • virtues that demonstrate your excellence of intellect: capacity to formulate beliefs about the world that are true
  • Aristotelian Moral Virtue
    • an excellence of character
    • different for different people, because people have different natures
    • Soul: a dot inside of you
      • ½ Desire – pleasure; pleasures proper to an action are qualitatively better than the improper action
      • ½ Reason – pleasure gets reason going, identifies a need which reason can bring about
        • also keeps desire in check
      • (sounds a lot like a primitive version of Freud's ego, superego and id)
    • character is a measure of one's action over a lifetime
      • you don't make or break your character on any given action
      • you can mess up and still be virtuous
      • possible to reform one's character by reforming one's action
      • (Plato allows little hope for reformation of one's character)
    • for Aristotle, one can start out badly in life, but can change and grow
      • don't expect to grow into a full oak tree, but you can be virtuous, and maybe a banzai tree
    • virtue is the “mean between extremes”
      • (similar to Kongzi's “golden mean”)
      • deficiency------------------------virtue------------------------excess
        (vice) (vice)
    • virtue is a perfection of character, but there are shades of imperfection
    • you can deviate quite some way from perfection before you get to imperfection
    • virtue is a becoming
    • one can be more or less virtuous
    • if Jesus was choosing between a blue Honda and a grey Honda, either one would be the moral choice, because the difference is morally irrelevant
    • Aristotle: one of the differences between us and vegetative things is that we are capable of acting in accordance with our telos through rationality
      • moral action is always directed at some end
    • nature is morally neutral: nature makes it possible for us to be virtuous or vicious
    • virtuous action is always in a context
    • though humans have rational souls, nothing but reason incline humans to act virtuously
    • nothing in our nature inclines us toward the good
    • (Kongzi says there is a natural inclination toward the good)
    • virtue is greater than social programming
    • habit – best way to start a person out is to teach them virtuous habits
  • knowledge
    • of ourselves
    • of circumstances in which action is required
    • of others with whom one acts or who are affected by one's actions
      • the virtue of generosity can be exhibited depending on the circumstances, the actor, and the amount of resources
  • intellectual virtues → intellect; knowledge/belief about the world
  • moral virtues → character; action
  • virtue is the mean between extremes
    • extreme of excess--------------------------virtue--------------------------extreme of deficiency
    • prodigality--------------------------------generosity--------------------------------miserly
    • this is not a relativistic ethics; virtues are derived from one's nature>the kind of thing one is (as a virtuous person)
    • this is not a mathematical mean: if that were so, virtue would be getting a C instead of an A
  • Aristotle's metaphysics: “Man is the moving principle”
    • the world can be broken down into two kinds
      • things with an internal moving principle
        • moves of its own accord – moves by itself
        • humans, oak tree
        • nothing makes an acorn sprout and grow
      • things without an internal moving principle
        • incapable of moving on its own accord
        • moves only by external principle
        • rocks, water
    • man is the agent who is capable of acting and acting according or against reason
    • man, more than anything else, can control the environment: we can grow oak trees, breed cattle, construct societies, even influence/change other people
    • voluntary actions – when the action is prompted by one's own passion/reason
    • involuntary actions – the action is prompted by an external force
      • 1. source of the action is not the desire of the soul/human; either for action or end
          • [human soul: (desire/reason)]
          • desire moves the human to action
        • being made (forced, coerced) to do it
        • blackmail as opposed to bribery
          • blackmail is forced out of fear
          • bribery still has choice
      • 2. desire without reason
        • desire without knowledge
        • rage – not prompted by reason
          • it is still your internal force
          • but is there any reason involved?
      • 3. the end / the action with an end was not chosen
      • an involuntary action is one that has no choice
        • punishment shouldn't be applied these types of actions
        • these actions are not counted against one's character
  • ethics is fundamentally about ends:
    • many possible actions can result in a particular end: ex. A, B, C, D, E
    • vice—A------C--B--------(E – virtue)------------F----D---vice

Key Points from Greene's Article
  • addresses Aristotle's circular reasoning
    • Happiness → Virtue → Virtuous Action → Virtuous Man → Happiness
    • fallacy – premise is restating the conclusion and the conclusion is restating premise
      • argument is valid by self-reference
    • premise is supposed to provide a reason or evidence to support conclusion
    • using reason, a step is made form the premise to a conclusion
      • this step is called an inference
      • “it's wrong to kill because it's wrong to kill”
    • Aristotle's Virtuous Person becomes self-referential
    • a virtuous action is an action that a virtuous person does
    • begging the question – keep asking the question – the conclusion provides no answer
  • why would this lay at the heart of Aristotle's ethics?
    • Problem: there is no independent validation for the truth of the conclusion or the truth of the premise
    • invalid core at the center of a theory which severely weakens a theory
      • fundamentally unverifiable
    • no independent way to figure out what the virtuous person is
    • if the heart of the theory is no valid, it isn't very applicable
    • you can't get a prescriptive point
  • Aristotle is very focused on practicality
    • criticizes Plato for focusing on metaphysics
    • but by doing it without metaphysics, there is no means to validate what he is left with
    • Plato: a virtuous person is one who comprehends the good and acts accordingly
    • rather than struggling with it, Aristotle tossed it aside
  • Greene: Maybe there is something else going on...
    • clearly Aristotle does not agree with Plato's lofty arguments
    • maybe there is an implicit premise
    • whenever there is something that is very difficult to account for, Aristotle appeals to the Virtuous Person
      • maybe the virtuous person is Socrates
    • Aristotle was once put in jail for same reason of Socrates, but decided to flee and lived in exile the rest of his life
      • 'lest Athens sin again against philosophy, I will escape'
    • Greene: 'Aristotle retains a lot of Plato's ideas, though he lops off the most central one'
    • Aristotle: 'if what you need here is a richer account, refer to the virtuous person (such as Socrates)
    • recall Aristotle's orientation is concerned with pragmatism
      • ethics is about living one's life in this world, and having a chance to be happy
    • Greene: What could one draw upon is something like 'everyone agrees a virtuous person is someone like X'
    • Aristotle draws on the all for empirical evidence to support general claims about human beings
      • Politiks – there are different kinds of human beings
        • all women are lesser than some men
        • some men and women are lesser than all women and some other men
    • not all people are virtuous
      • cannot draw on the all to establish what is virtuous to identify generalizations
    • Aristotle draws on these groups for these things
      • all – empirical evidence to support general claims about human beings
      • many – for evidence of common beliefs
      • few - provide grounding for basic claims and verification of those claims
    • doesn't every 'us' think they are superior/the way to be
  • Aristotle wants to avoid relativism
    • believes that what is good must be free of relativism
    • having sex with dead people cannot be good, so he believes
  • Greene: maybe in Athens at the time, everybody knew who the 'virtuous person' was; not all time, but in his time
    • (makes sense – practicality)
    • but even Socrates' 500 fellow citizens couldn't agree on whether Socrates was virtuous, when clearly he was. The decision was split almost down the middle, with fewer thinking he was virtuous
      Baudolino
  • many people basically have a hard time believing that Aristotle could have such a vicious circle in his ethics (happiness and virtue) because he was the first person to formalize logic
1. Happiness → an activity of the soul → Virtue (an excellence of character) → Virtuous Action (brings pleasure appropriate to the action and end) → Pleasure of virtuous action is the pleasure the virtuous man has when acting virtuously → Happiness
  • Hursthouse tries to put virtue theory in to practice, and in doing so finds how serious the circle is
    • when the theory is tried to be put into practice (as this is supposed to be a practical guide), the circle appears clearly
    • Plato's similar problem: you have to have an idea of the good before you can get going

2. What is the right action? → the Virtuous Action → what the virtuous man does → the right action
    • Hursthouse says this is the shorthand for a larger, more circular pattern
      • this circle is not vicious, invalidating
    • vicious circles – clearly invalid – what people think Aristotle's circle is
    • there are non-vicious circles too
      instead of asking “What is right action?”
      ask:
3. What would the virtuous man do?
  • Hursthouse acknowledges that there is a circle, but wants to persuade you that the larger vicious circle provides you with enough information to answer #3
    • 'does it really make any sense, if you are a pregnant teenage girl, when contemplating an abortion, to ask yourself what Socrates would do'
    • this doesn't make sense; it does not answer anything because Socrates, as a virtuous person, would not get himself into a situation like that, even if he were pregnant and teenage
  • key facts: pregnancy occurs inside of a woman's body (not in the fridge, not in man's body, etc)
  • Aristotle's theory provides that two different people, both virtuous, in the same situation, could act differently and both be acting virtuously
  • when applying virtue theory to abortion, ruled out is:
    right of women to control her body vs. right of fetus to life
    • this is not about rights, because if you grant one right then the other is denied
    • happiness does not equal individual pleasure, or desire, or wants, or feelings
      • but these are barometers
    • problem with rights: if I have a right to do it, I don't have to care
      • right to freedom of speech, you may say anything you wish to say
      • might not be virtuous to yell civil and gay rights to a seething group of KKK
      • there is no responsibility to exercise rights
      • if you want it, its yours
    • Hursthouse: dealing with rights and abortion dehumanizes the situation
  • Hursthouse: there is not absolute right or wrong → this is a virtuous action
    • this looks like relativity
    • there are however absolutely vicious actions

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