display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
15 ideas
| 46 | We must take for granted that we should act according to right principle [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That we should act according to the right principle is common ground and may be assumed as a basis for discussion. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103b31) | |
| A reaction: Hume grumbles that we can't prove values from facts, but Aristotle that is an absurd aspiration. His 'Ethics' is simply a handbook for people who wish to be good human beings. |
| 45 | We aim not to identify goodness, but to be good [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We are studying not to know what goodness is, but how to become good men. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103b27) | |
| A reaction: How can a philosopher not want to know what goodness is? Can you fail to be good if you know what goodness is? Can you be a good man without understanding goodness? |
| 5153 | There is no fixed art of good conduct, and each situation is different, as in navigation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Questions of conduct do not fall under any art or professional tradition, but the agents are compelled at every step to think out for themselves what the circumstances demand, just as happens in the arts of medicine and navigation. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104a08) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that some areas of medicine, and a lot of navigation, have become much more precise in modern times. His thought sounds pessimistic, but it is a lynchpin of virtue theory. 'Have the right disposition, then attend to the details'. |
| 22512 | Acts are voluntary if done knowingly, by the agent, and in his power to avoid it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whatever a man does - not in ignorance, and through his own agency - when it is in his power not to do it, must be voluntary, and that is what voluntary is. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1225b08) | |
| A reaction: This is the conclusion of the Eudemian discussion of responsibility. This is a definition by necessary and sufficient conditions. How can you be sure that something is in your power not to do? |
| 5858 | Men are physically prime at thirty-five, and mentally prime at forty-nine [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The body is in its prime from the ages of thirty to thirty-five, and the soul around the age of forty-nine. | |
| From: Aristotle (The Art of Rhetoric [c.350 BCE], 1390b09) | |
| A reaction: Wonderfully specific! It is important that Aristotle is interested in these questions. The good for man follows the path laid out by nature, in which a man rises to his highest good in maturity, and then declines from it into old age. |
| 5134 | Perhaps we get a better account of happiness as the good for man if we know his function [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Just saying that man's happiness is the supreme good seems a platitude, and some more distinctive account of it is still required. This might perhaps be achieved by grasping what is the function of man. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097b22) | |
| A reaction: Notice the 'perhaps', right at the heart of Aristotle's theory. The connection between happiness and function is not obvious. The connection is, of course, areté (virtue/excellence), which is known by the function, and generates the happiness. |
| 31 | If bodily organs have functions, presumably the whole person has one [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: As we see that eye, hand and foot have some function, should we not assume a human being has a function over and above these? | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097b30) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a case of the fallacy of composition - you can't infer the function of the whole from the function of the parts. This error by the great man smacks of desperation, but it leaves untouched his general claim that man has a function. |
| 5231 | To eat vast amounts is unnatural, since natural desire is to replenish the deficiency [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To eat or drink indiscriminately until one is full to bursting is to exceed in quantity one's natural limit, since the natural desire is merely a replenishment of the deficiency. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1118b21) | |
| A reaction: This illustrates nicely Aristotle's need for a concept of 'unnatural' to support his theory of virtues. A glutton could claim to have an enormous deficiency, and to counter that we must say that being overweight is unnatural. Etc. |
| 22509 | What is natural for us is either there at birth, or appears by normal processes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: By these marks we distinguish what comes naturally: everything that is there straightaway as soon as something comes to be, and all that occurs to us if growth is allowed to proceed normally - such as greying hair, ageing, and the like. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1224b32) | |
| A reaction: The word 'normal' has to do a lot of work here. Presumably jaundice in a neonate is not included. Or later hereditary diseases. |
| 6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586! |
| 5234 | For the great-souled man it is sometimes better to be dead [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For the magnanimous or great-souled man there are some circumstances in which it is not worth living. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1124b08) | |
| A reaction: He is not talking of suicide here, but of risking one's life. This seems to be a hallmark of the normally virtuous person, as well as of someone exceptional. Most people would agree with this, but for Aristotle it is a central issue. |
| 5855 | We all feel universal right and wrong, independent of any community or contracts [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is something of which we all have an inkling, being a naturally universal right and wrong, even if there should be no community between the parties or contract. | |
| From: Aristotle (The Art of Rhetoric [c.350 BCE], 1373b07) | |
| A reaction: This is the strongest assertion I know of in Aristotle of an absolute moral standard, independent of natural function. It makes Aristotle an intuitionist, and is strikingly opposed to contracts as the most basic aspect of morality. |
| 5075 | Aristotle said there are two levels of virtue - the conventional and the intellectual [Taylor,R on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Conventional virtue was not dismissed by Aristotle, as it had been by some of the Socratic schools, nor seen as the substance of virtue, as it was by Protagoras. Instead Aristotle distinguished two levels of virtue - the conventional and the intellectual. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Richard Taylor - Virtue Ethics: an Introduction Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: On balance I think Taylor is wrong about this. Aristotle is never going to concede a fully relativist view of social morality. Some things are 'just wrong', and the basis is the function of man as a political animal. Good citizenship is not conventional. |
| 21 | Moral acts are so varied that they must be convention, not nature [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Morally fine and just conduct…involves so much difference and variety that they are widely believed to be such only by convention and not by nature. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1094b14) | |
| A reaction: Relativists about morality do typically point to the very diverse standards in different cultures. Critics can point to the huge similarities, when basic human issues are concerned. |
| 2807 | Some say slavery is unnatural and created by convention, and is therefore forced, and unjust [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some say the distinction between slave and free is one of convention only, and in nature there is no difference, so that this form of rule is based on force and is therefore not just. | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1253b20) | |
| A reaction: Note that Aristotle gives good expression to the main view opposed to his own. History has clearly proved Aristotle wrong, and the present idea to be correct. Ditto the subjugation of women. |