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22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / b. Successful function

[functioning well as a source of value]

9 ideas
A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon]
     Full Idea: A dung-basket is fine, and a golden shield contemptible, if the one is finely and the other badly constructed for carrying out its function.
     From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.8.6
     A reaction: This is the basis of a key idea in Aristotle, that virtue (or excellence) arises directly from function. I think it is the most important idea in virtue theory, and seems to have struck most Greeks as being self-evident.
A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato]
     Full Idea: The function of anything is what it alone can do, or what it can do better than anything else.
     From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353a)
     A reaction: I take this concept to be the lynchpin of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Note that it arises earlier, in Plato. Perhaps he should say what it is 'meant to do'.
If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato]
     Full Idea: Anything which has been endowed with a function also has a state of being good.
     From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353b)
     A reaction: 'ought' from 'is'?
Each named function has a distinctive excellence attached to it [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: An individual distinctive excellence is attached to the name of the function (e.g. a good 'harpist').
     From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098a09)
     A reaction: This is the core idea of Aristotle's metaethics. It seems hard to deny that a function implies the values of success and failure. The debate is likely to focus on the exact meaning of 'distinctive'.
Wearing a shoe is its intrinsic use, and selling it (as a shoe) is its coincidental use [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: There is intrinsic use of a possession, such as of a shoe or a cloak, and its coincidental use - not of course when using a shoe as a weight, but as, for example, selling it or hiring it out (for then a shoe is used as a shoe).
     From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1231b37)
     A reaction: This seems to need a third label, for using the shoe as a weight. 'Inessential use' perhaps, since the intrinsic use points towards the essential nature or function of the shoe.
Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function.
     From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 286a08)
     A reaction: This is the central idea of Aristotle's Ethics. Did it originate with Plato, or Socrates, the young pupil Aristotle? I suspect the strong influence of Aristotle on later Plato. A major idea. Functions link the facts to life.
A thing's active function is its end [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: A thing's active function is its end.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050a16)
     A reaction: This sort of remark is the basis of modern teleological functionalism about the mind. I think that is misguided. Don't define things by their function. They have functions because of intrinsic character.
Being a good father seems to depend on intentions, rather than actual abilities [Foot]
     Full Idea: Being a good father, or daughter, or friend seems to depend on one's intentions, rather than on such things as cleverness and strength.
     From: Philippa Foot (Goodness and Choice [1961], p.138)
     A reaction: Not sure about that. In wartime a good father might need to be actually brave, and in times of hardship be actually economically successful. 'He meant well, but he was a hopeless father'?
The function of a heart depends on what we want it to do [Searle]
     Full Idea: If the only thing that interested us about the heart was that it made a thumping noise, we would have a completely different conception of its "functioning", and correspondingly of heart disease.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.III)
     A reaction: Ditto if we were only interested in ears as support for earrings, but that would seriously miss the point of ears. The intrinsic function is the reason for its existence.