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3 ideas
18230 | 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. |
23909 | 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. |
5870 | 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. |