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But this is not Broadie and Rowe. To be sure, if I had been a more critical reader of the webpage, I would have discovered a link that led me elsewhere and from that I could have figured that out. I just received the Dover Thrift edition of Nichomachean Ethics and to my dismay discovered that this is not the Broadie and Rowe edition. Look elsewhere. But with all the explicit references to the Broadie and Rowe edition on this webpage, I looked no further. From the audiobook version of Broadie and Rowe, I can attest to the very natural language of the translation, and I would recommend it. The Dover edition is 100 years old and by modern standards the language is rather stilted, though certainly readable. But I am greatly disappointed.
If one's behavior resembles the otherworldly behavior it is good, otherwise it is bad. He based his ideas and behavior on what could be proven. "Good" is what corresponds to some otherworldly item. Plato's view is somewhat mystical and impractical. Why is it important for even average people to know about the ancient philosopher Aristotle. Proper charity is not stinginess, nor is squandering a sizable part of one's wealth. Aristotle, in contrast, was a pragmatist, a scientist, a clear intelligent observer of the world, people and society. This approach to life has not helped humans improve themselves and society.
Good behavior is what promotes and improves a person's well being; specifically, habits of action that are performed according to the "golden mean," not tending to an extreme of avoidance or its opposite. How is this helpful. It is necessary to realize that there are two approaches to life; one worldview follows the fourth century BCE Greek philosopher Plato, while the other is based on his disciple Aristotle. Thus, a chair is an item that can be used to sit on. If a chair is like the otherworldly chair, it can be called a chair. Unfortunately, and this is the vital point, most religions have followed the amorphous, impractical, non-informing Platonic view. People should not starve themselves or overeat. Once this practical Aristotelian worldview is understood and once people realize that they must use their intelligence and not rely on the ideas of the past, they will live a better, be healthier, and have a more complete and satisfying life; and practice their religion as it should be practiced, with active productive behavior, not ascetic passivity.
When one commits a vice, he acts immorally according to his choice. 3.Books II, III, IV. 6.Book X. Yet while man engages in friendship and community, his decisions should be governed by the intellect in accordance with virtue.
Friendship and Community Although a life of intellectual virtue is man's highest state of happiness, it involves a level of isolation that is not completely possible for man. Moderation is the key to the virtues. He concludes that there are certain values, such as courage or generosity, that are absolutely good, though they may manifest themselves in each individual differently.2.Book I. Aristotle holds that man's purpose is to lead a life of reason and deliberation. In matters of wealth, the two extremes are prodigality, which leads to waste, and meanness or stinginess, which attaches too much importance on wealth. Happiness is thus equated with the rational activity of the soul that seeks to contemplate and understand reality.
Aristotle defines moral virtue is a "mean" between the extremes of excess and deficiency. Incontinent action is therefore not vice in the strict sense, and one may be consciously aware that he is committing an incontinent act while he is in the act of committing it. Virtue furthers this purpose and leads to a more complete life. HappinessThe ultimate purpose behind each person's existence is the attainment of happiness, which Aristotle defines as the contemplation of universal truth. Just as sharpness is the quality that makes a knife excellent because it furthers the knife's purpose, so too must we look to man's purpose in order to determine the qualities that further it. Rather, pleasure is for Aristotle the ultimate good that results from virtuous action. For example, courage is a virtue that is the mean between cowardice and rashness: whereas the cowardly will not act at all, the rash will rush into imprudent and risky action. He focuses his discussion on continence and incontinence.
1.Overview In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle develops a framework from which to explore morality, human happiness, and man's purpose. In order to determine what this state of happiness looks like, Aristotle must define virtue. Generosity or liberality, in contrast, is the mean in matters pertaining to wealth. Whereas incontinence is weakness of will that impedes an individual from acting according to what he knows to be good, continence is the strength to do as he knows to be good and successfully resist the passions. When he acts incontinently, however, he acts against what he knows to be the moral good, and thus acts against what his mind wills.
4.Book VII. Similarly, pride is the mean between vanity and humility and gentleness is the mean between irascibility and spiritlessness. Virtue of Character and the Preconditions of Virtue What are the virtues that enabled man to fulfill his purpose. Happiness is not for Aristotle a subjective feeling but rather an objective state that comes about when the soul engages in activity that accords with virtue. IncontinenceAristotle distinguishes between three bad moral states--vice, incontinence, and brutishness--and their contrary states--virtue, continence, and superhuman virtue. Although Aristotle's form begins with the particulars in a more inductive fashion, his Ethics demonstrates that he is as much as a absolutist as Plato was.
The pleasures that may lead to incontinency revolve around three kinds of activities: (i) unnecessary pleasures, such as honor and wealth; (ii) things worthy of avoidance; and (iii) the necessary functions for life, such as food and sexual intercourse. It is not an "average" between extremes, but rather, a central, balanced position. Because virtue is inextricably tied up to happiness, the virtuous man leads the most pleasant life. Because man is a social creature, a necessary part of his life involves community and friendship, the relationship where a man acts out for the good of another and tastes his joys and shares his sorrows as though they were his own.
Some have suggested that Aristotle's framework for ethics was less rigid than that of his predecessor Plato, who took a deductive approach that began with the forms. An incontinent man is unable to abide by his resolutions to resist these desires. 5.Book VIII. The more the individual acts out with knowledge and self-discipline in accordance with these virtues by making moral choices for the good, the more the individual will acquire virtue and true happiness.
All of these virtues manifest themselves differently in each individual, but they always hold the characteristic of moderation between extremes. He first equates virtue with excellence in furthering man's purpose. PleasureAs for pleasure, Aristotle does not equate it with the hedonistic sense that it has come to acquire in our modern day. The courageous, in contrast, act at the right time and to the right extent in undertaking the right degree of risk. Wealth is therefore best used by the generous man, who spends for the sake of the noble and right; he will give the right amount to the right people at the right time.Among the other virtues, Aristotle discusses magnanimity, temperance, truthfulness, justice, and wit.
It is the purpose of politics and the city to enable the framework from which men can realize this vision and thus live the good life. Although the end or purpose of virtue is not pleasure, the virtuous man, because he engages in virtue for its own sake, will experience pleasure as a natural consequence of his nature.
6, and his virtue ethics aims to help people to achieve the 'Good'. "Is it, then, the Good that people love, or only what is good for them." Ethics VIII. The discussion is peppered with insighful observations and sayings and it even includes a short treatise on money and economics.Aristotle can be difficult to read, but this translation is friendly and the text flows well especially from Book V onwards. According to Aristotle, "men are bad in countless ways, but good in only one" II. VII. Hugh Tredennick's footnotes, glossary and appendices are an invaluable aid to understanding, though the introduction is more profitably read after the work.
Book V.6). 2 The Nicomachean Ethics presents Aristotle's search for the Good which leads the reader through a detailed analysis of the virtues, justice, pleasure and friendship. Though Aristotle repeatedly returns to the issue of pleasure and justice, this analysis was the weakest part of the book and his study of intention ultimately yields too much to the passions (c.f. I would advocate forming your own view first and then challenging it against Barnes' stimulating essay. Aristotle advocates the 'mean' as a practical moral guide (except for wrongs like murder) and he discusses this along with his table of virtues and vices across several chapters. Aristotle is certainly aware of the problems of hedonism and relativism but his solution of contemplation as happiness and the highest good can come across as too individualistic, elitist and lacking the required authority.I can only at most half agree with statements such as:"The study of pleasure and pain is the task of the political philosopher, because he is the master craftsman who decides the end which is the standard by which we call any given thing good or bad without qualification.
6"This aside, Aristotle's work is highly innovative, thorough and rightly respected as one of the best ethical treatises of all time.Further ReadingBEFORE:Aristotle for Everybody Great Introduction to Aristotle by his most passionate and articulate spokesman Mortimer AdlerAristotle: A Very Short Introduction Written by the author of the introduction Jonathan BarnesAFTER:The Politics (Penguin Classics) The natural follow on from the EthicsThe Athenian Constitution (Penguin Classics) Aristotle's treatises applied to reality
The irony is that virtue ethics actually fits Christian theology better than an ethics based on moral rules (See this week's readings on Romans (Monday) and John (Wednesday).Aristotle's theory, on the face of it, seems very similar to recent Utilitarianism (greatest good for the greatest number), but Aristotle is far more concerned with the kind of happiness which develops out of intellectual pleasures. A. In fact, an important statement of Christian virtue, the sixth beatitude (Matthew 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.") is very close to Aristotle's highest ideal of contemplation: ".if happiness consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us.it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness, and it has been stated already that the activity is the activity of contemplation, because the intellect is the highest faculty in us." One of Aristotle's great contributions was in the addition of `intellectual' virtues such as prudence to the traditional `moral' virtues. K. Aristotle may or may not have been devoted to the Olympian gods of Homer, Hesiod, and the playwrights, but I suspect he didn't take them too, too seriously, and he certainly did not even know of the Hebrew god. This is a testament to the importance of this ancient work. But the tide started shifting in that very same year with the publication of G.E.M.
Among Greco-Roman philosophy, it is probably in the same league as Plato's Republic, since they arrive at the same main conclusion, albeit from very different routes.After I left the study of professional philosophy and went off to earn a living, something very odd happened back in academia. Rackham (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1934)I offer references to both a very modern, inexpensive, easily available edition, and to a scholarly edition with Greek and the English translation on facing pages. The philosophical theories dominated by Kant's Categorical Imperative, Hobbes' social contract', and John Stuart Mill's `greatest good for the greatest number' all seemed to be reawakened to the value of `virtue ethics', of which Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the earliest, and still one of the best presentations. The aim of legislation is to train citizens in right action.
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, translated by J. Anscombe's journal article, `Modern Moral Philosophy', which questioned how well we really knew the meaning of psychological terms thrown around in the debates on moral theories.I also have a suspicion that virtues staged a comeback with the great interest in modern biomedical ethics, where the relative roles of patients and health care professionals are so dramatically skewed, that normal rules of behavior between equals simply don't work. And if you consult modern texts on Biomedical Ethics, it is precisely the Nicomachean Ethics which they cite as their inspiration.The less encouraging picture is that virtue ethics may be experiencing a comeback as a theory one can justify without any reference to the Judeo-Christian God. Thus, his ethical theories contain no divine underpinning, such as you find in Kant's ethics. There was some, but not much, talk of personal goods and virtues. Intellectual virtues are developed by instruction, but moral virtues are the product of habit and practice, they are not `natural' abilities, present at birth, like the ability to see. Thomson (London, Penguin Classics, 2003) orAristotle XIX, Nichomachean Ethics, translated by H. While those who dwell on moral rules may be inclined to push them a bit too far, Aristotle calls on prudence to attend to the details of the situation.In reading Aristotle, I'm constantly impressed by the level of `common sense' he exhibits, as when he says that morality is all about doing and not purely an `intellectual exercise'.
These theories from the first half of the 20th century all seemed to forget about the individual and concentrate on rules operating between people and `collective good'. The apotheosis of the 'modern' ethics, Kurt Baier's book The Moral Point of View, published in 1958 says nothing about virtues and only the thinnest section on 'Duties to Oneself'. Just as one gets good at evaluating wines by tasting them and good at appreciating graphic art by looking at a lot of pictures, one improves one's virtue by consistently exercising your moral sensibilities. Just as the aim of the church is to train our young in the best virtues.
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