Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'The Philosophy of Logic' and 'Eudemian Ethics'

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3 ideas

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
No one would choose life just for activities not done for their own sake [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If we put together all the things that are ....not done or undergone for their own sake ...no one would choose, in order to have them, to be alive rather than not.
     From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1215), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Finality'
     A reaction: Debatable. Roughly his question is whether you would rather be dead than be a slave, since slaves work for means, but have no ends. Aristotle would rather die, but those who surrendered in ancient battles preferred slavery.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / b. Successful function
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.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / d. Health
Everything seeks, not a single good, but its own separate good [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is not true that everything that there is seeks some single good: each thing has an inclination for its own good, the eye for sight, the body for health, and so on.
     From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1218a30)
     A reaction: Aristotle's pluralism. Elsewhere this pluralism arises from his function argument - that the good of each thing is the successful fulfilment of its function, which is different for each thing. This is basic to virtue theory, and has my approval.