341 ideas
| 78 | Wisdom is scientific and intuitive knowledge of what is by nature most precious [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom is scientific and intuitive knowledge of what is by nature most precious. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1141b03) | |
| A reaction: Precious for what? Theoretical or practical? Note the implied rational and empirical routes to wisdom. |
| 5248 | Wisdom does not study happiness, because it is not concerned with processes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom studies none of the things that go to make a man happy, because it is not concerned with any kind of process. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1143b20) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a very Platonic view, and not really consistent with Aristotle's overall metaphysics. It strikes me as simply wrong. Maybe all of reality is a process, and wisdom is then a maximum understanding of that process. |
| 2682 | Aristotle thinks human life is not important enough to spend a whole life on it [Nagel on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle believes, in short, that human life is not important enough for humans to spend their lives on. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Thomas Nagel - Aristotle on Eudaimonia p.12 | |
| A reaction: The explanation of why Aristotle values contemplation more highly than the moral virtues. |
| 103 | Wise people can contemplate alone, though co-operation helps [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The wise man can practise contemplation by himself (though no doubt he does it better with fellow-workers). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1177a32) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to argue with this balanced view of the individual versus team concept of philosophy. |
| 7170 | 'Wisdom' attempts to get beyond perspectives, making it hostile to life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Wisdom' is an attempt to get beyond perspectival appraisals (i.e. beyond the 'wills to power'), a principle that is disintegratory and hostile to life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[14]) | |
| A reaction: I just don't accept that there are no general truths, which are true beyond any 'perspectives'. One sensible person amidst a group of fools should not bow to their misguided perspectives. |
| 112 | Most people are readier to submit to compulsion than to argument [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Most people are readier to submit to compulsion and punishment than to argument and fine ideals. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1180a05) | |
| A reaction: How perceptively pessimistic. We must hope that the picture has changed now that we have fairly universal education. Some people may submit to argument, but NOT to fine ideals. |
| 7167 | Words such as 'I' and 'do' and 'done to' are placed at the point where our ignorance begins [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We place a word at the point where our ignorance begins - where we can't see any further, e.g. the word 'I', the words 'do' and 'done to': these may be the horizons of our knowledge, but they are not 'truths'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[3]) | |
| A reaction: A nice contribution to the debate over whether our understanding is restricted to what we can say. Compare Ideas 2937 and 6870. Nietzsche seems to support Wittgenstein. I prefer Keith Ansell Pearson. |
| 7196 | Pessimism is laughable, because the world cannot be evaluated [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The total value of the world is unevaluable, consequently philosophical pessimism is among the comical things. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[72]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche always has Schopenhauer in mind when he laughs at pessimism. Presumably, by the same token, optimism would be equally ridiculous. But how can Nietzsche's dynamic hopes for the future operate without optimism? |
| 7137 | Is a 'philosopher' now impossible, because knowledge is too vast for an overview? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Is the 'philosopher' still possible today? Is not the extent of what is known too large? Is it not very unlikely that he will be able to reach an overview, the less so the more conscientious he is? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 35[24]) | |
| A reaction: If Aristotle had a wonderful overview because knowledge was limited, presumably the overview was inaccurate - not an idea that would appeal to Nietzsche, with his relativism. I'd rather have too much knowledge, and struggle towards an overview. |
| 7132 | Philosophers should create and fight for their concepts, not just clean and clarify them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The last thing to dawn on philosophers is that they must no longer merely let themselves be given concepts, no longer just clean and clarify them, but first of all must make them, create them, present them and persuade in their favour. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 34[195]) | |
| A reaction: Compare the disagreement between Wittgenstein (Idea 2937) and Keith Ansell Pearson (Idea 6870). The trouble is that now every book you read is creating new concepts, which usually fail to catch on. I agree, though, with Nietzsche. |
| 22 | Trained minds never expect more precision than is possible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the mark of the trained mind never to expect more precision in the treatment of any subject than the nature of that subject permits. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1094b18) | |
| A reaction: An excellent remark in the context of moral philosophy. There is a dream that moral principles might derive from pure reason, or consist of a single rule expressible in a few words, but daily life isn't like that, and morality is not likely to be. |
| 76 | The object of scientific knowledge is what is necessary [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The object of scientific knowledge is what is necessary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1139b24) | |
| A reaction: This is diametrically opposed to the Humean view, which takes the nature of each thing, and the laws which guide it, to be contingent. Kripke has pointed us towards necessities in nature. |
| 4333 | Contraries are by definition as far distant as possible from one another [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Contraries are by definition as far distant as possible from one another. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1108b33) | |
| A reaction: A nice concept and definition. Note that it is being used about ethics (the mean), not just about pure logic or mathematics. |
| 21356 | Piety requires us to honour truth above our friends [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: While both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a16) | |
| A reaction: Interesting that 'piety' requires it. Piety doesn't figure much in Aristotle. He has just been talking about Platonic Forms. It would be an odd person who sacrificed a friendship for a trivial truth. |
| 35 | A statement is true if all the data are in harmony with it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A statement is true if all the data are in harmony with it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098b12) | |
| A reaction: I think being 'in harmony' is a better than 'corresponds' as an attempt at pinpointing the truth relationship. It seems impossible to pin down how 'the bus is coming' relates to the bus coming. |
| 7188 | Logic tries to understand the world according to a man-made scheme [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Logic is the attempt to understand the real world according to a scheme of being that we have posited. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 09[97]) | |
| A reaction: This is the ruthless relativist trying to relativise the holy-of-holies, pure logic. I don't believe it. Once you allow counting, identity and sets, based on types, (and why not?) then logic follows. |
| 7145 | Logic is not driven by truth, but desire for a simple single viewpoint [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In logic a drive rules, first of falsifying, and then of implementing a single viewpoint: logic does not originate in the will to truth. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 40[13]) | |
| A reaction: Presumably logic derives from a will to simplify rather than a will for truth. Ockham's Razor describes the essence of human thinking. Even if Nietzsche is right, there is still a desire that the simplified view should be true. |
| 7144 | Logic must falsely assume that identical cases exist [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Logic assumes identical cases exist; to think and conclude logically, the fulfilment of this condition must first be feigned. That is: the will to logical truth cannot realise itself until a fundamental falsification of all events has been undertaken. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 40[13]) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This implies that the particularism espoused by virtue theorists (there are no principles, as each case is slightly different) should be extended to other branches of human understanding. So arithmetic is impossible?? |
| 7153 | We can't be realists, because we don't know what being is [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One would have to know what being is in order to decide whether this or that is real - but we don't know that. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[87]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche is a genius - he puts his finger on something which has always bothered me about realism, even though I call myself a 'realist'. Being and existence are utterly indefinable, and even incomprehensible, so what do we realists believe in? |
| 7174 | Categories are not metaphysical truths, but inventions in the service of needs [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The inventive force that thought up categories was working in the service of needs - security, quick comprehensibility using signs and sounds, means of abbreviation - 'substance', 'subject', 'being' etc are not metaphysical truths. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 06[11]) | |
| A reaction: This is a relativism going right to the heart of thinking and planting bombs. And yet we happily translate Confucius, and they can translate Aristotle. I bet the aliens could translate and understand our philosophy. How, without similar categories? |
| 7175 | Philosophers find it particularly hard to shake off belief in necessary categories [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers, in particular, have the greatest difficulty in freeing themselves from the belief that the basic concepts and categories of reason belong without further ado to the realm of metaphysical certainties. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 06[13]) | |
| A reaction: As usual with Nietzsche, if you make any attempt to disagree with this, you are merely proving his point. All of Nietzsche's philosophy is couched in traditional categories, even when he criticises them. Is 'will to power' a new category? |
| 27 | Eternal white is no whiter than temporary white, and it is the same with goodness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nor will the Good be any more good by being eternal, if a long-lasting white thing is no whiter than an ephemeral one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096b05) | |
| A reaction: A powerful point, made with a hint of sarcasm. You can't add extra Form of White to increase the whiteness of your paint. And the paint is no whiter because it endures for years. |
| 5130 | It is meaningless to speak of 'man-himself', because it has the same definition as plain 'man' [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One might ask: what on earth do you mean by speaking of the thing-itself? - assuming the definition of man is one and the same both in man and in man-himself; for qua man they will not differ at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a32) | |
| A reaction: Effectively applies Ockham's Razor to the Forms. Do they add anything to our ability to explain? A particular man will have red hair, but a definition of man will mention properties shared by all men. But doesn't man-himself indicate what is essential? |
| 28 | How will a vision of pure goodness make someone a better doctor? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: How will one who has had a vision of the Idea itself become thereby a better doctor or general? | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097a12) | |
| A reaction: Plato might reply that it would motivate them. Why would a doctor learn of the skills of their craft if they didn't care about the end result? |
| 7189 | Maybe there are only subjects, and 'objects' result from relations between subjects [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The subject alone is demonstrable: hypothesis - that there are only subjects - that 'object' is only a kind of effect of subject upon subject...a mode of the subject. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 09[106]) | |
| A reaction: This is an ultimate implication of 'perspectivism'. Elsewhere, though, (Idea 7183) he challenges the ontological status of 'subjects', suggesting that even they are purely fictional. Nietzsche wanted to relativism everything, but kept clutching lifebelts. |
| 7207 | Counting needs unities, but that doesn't mean they exist; we borrowed it from the concept of 'I' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We need unities in order to be able to count: we should not therefore assume that such unities exist. We have borrowed the concept of unity from our concept of 'I' - our oldest article of faith. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[79]) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think that counting derives from patterns, and that all creatures can discern patterns in their environment, which means discriminating the parts of the pattern, which are therefore real and existing entities. |
| 7161 | The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[150]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche seems sympathetic to essentialism about natural laws (based on 'power'), but this is the classic rejection of Aristotelian essences, because they are unknowable or unprovable. Personally I think scientists are revealing essences. |
| 7134 | Something can be irrefutable; that doesn't make it true [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Something can be irrefutable; that doesn't make it true. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 34[247]) | |
| A reaction: This is a warning to rationalists who are looking for strategies to demonstrate necessities a priori. |
| 7186 | There are no necessary truths, but something must be held to be true [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What's necessary is that something must be held to be true; not that something is true. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 09[38]) | |
| A reaction: This may be right, but it doesn't follow that the truths we label as 'necessary' are the ones that we have to believe, or even that we have to believe that our chosen beliefs are necessary rather than contingent. Why did we pick those beliefs? |
| 4391 | Opinion is praised for being in accordance with truth [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Opinion is praised for being in accordance with truth. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112a07) | |
| A reaction: This presumably makes Aristotle a realist, and it seems to me that the concepts of 'opinion' or 'belief' are incomprehensible without the concept of truth. |
| 7154 | We can't use our own self to criticise our own capacity for knowledge! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A critique of our capacity to know is nonsensical: how should the tool be able to criticise itself when it can, precisely, only use itself for the critique? It can't even define itself! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[87]) | |
| A reaction: I am inclined to answer that it seems impossible, but it happens. Thinking about ourselves is the hardest part of philosophy, but phenomenologists and others (starting with Descartes) have had an impressive crack at it. Nietzsche was good at it. |
| 2573 | To perceive or think is to be conscious of our existence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our existence (for we have seen that existence is sensation or thought). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1170a32) | |
| A reaction: A lovely glimpse of Descartes' Cogito, which was made more explicit by Augustine. Is an animal (which presumably perceives) conscious of its existence? |
| 7146 | Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 40[15]) | |
| A reaction: Compare Spinoza in Idea 4833. Hawking says he thinks better because he is largely paralysed. Externalism about mind makes it necessarily a part of the world and hence physical. I am inclined to agree with Nietzsche. |
| 7156 | Sense perceptions contain values (useful, so pleasant) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All sensory perceptions are entirely suffused with value judgements (useful or harmful - consequently pleasant or unpleasant). | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[95]) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a wonderful anticipation of modern neuroscience findings about emotion. It is a nice challenge to Hume's 'impressions' and Russell's 'logical atoms'. But knowledge is power, and we can strip off the values from the perceptions. |
| 7181 | Pain shows the value of the damage, not what has been damaged [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Intellectuality of pain: pain does not indicate what is momentarily damaged but what value the damage has with regard to the individual as a whole. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[48]) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim, but rather hard to substantiate. Boiling water on the back of a hand might be very painful, but not of huge consequence in terms of damage. The palm of the hand is much more important to us than the back. |
| 7129 | Perception is unconscious, and we are only conscious of processed perceptions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Sense-perception happens without our awareness: whatever we become conscious of is a perception that has already been processed. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 34[30]) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me wonderfully perceptive for its date, and a crucial truth, because we have the delusion that we are our consciousness, whereas that is only a tiny part of what we are. |
| 5220 | Particular facts (such as 'is it cooked?') are matters of sense-perception, not deliberation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Deliberation is not concerned with particular facts, such as 'is it a loaf?' or 'is it properly cooked?'; these are matters of sense-perception. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112b33) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be Aristotle's commitment to direct cognition through perception, though if pressed he might concede that concepts (such as 'cooked') are involved in perception. |
| 22141 | It is enough if we refute the objections and leave common opinions undisturbed [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If we both refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved the case sufficiently. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1145b05), quoted by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 3 | |
| A reaction: This quotation is a sacred text for philosophers who place a high value on the consensus of thinking among the majority of people. I hate it when philosophers hijack an ordinary word and assign it a different meaning. |
| 95 | If everyone believes it, it is true [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What everyone believes is so. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1173a01) | |
| A reaction: Would you think me terribly unfashionable if I agreed with this? Huge numbers of people can be wrong, but if 'everyone' believes something it seems crazy to go against it. |
| 79 | Intuition grasps the definitions that can't be proved [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Intuition apprehends the definitions which cannot be logically demonstrated. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1142a25) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see that (like me) he has a positive view of intuition. I'm not sure how you would 'prove' a definition of the hidden nature of a thing (which is usually taken to be hidden). |
| 7149 | Comprehending everything is impossible, because it abolishes perspectives [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Comprehending everything' - that would mean abolishing all perspectival relations, that would mean comprehending nothing, mistaking the nature of the knower. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 01[114]) | |
| A reaction: The point here, I take it, is not just that there is too much to comprehend, but that comprehending is partly a subjective matter. Personally I am drawn to the opposite pole, expressed by Spinoza (Idea 4840). |
| 7169 | Is the perspectival part of the essence, or just a relation between beings? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Fundamental question: whether the perspectival is part of the essence, and not just a form of regarding, a relation between various beings? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[12]) | |
| A reaction: I don't personally understand how the perspectival could be part of the essence of anything. If everything is perspectival, then perspectives are limits, and essences are unknowable. It seems to me that we have learned a lot about essences. |
| 7182 | 'Perspectivism': the world has no meaning, but various interpretations give it countless meanings [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Inasmuch as the word 'knowledge' has any meaning at all, the world is knowable: but it is variously interpretable; it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings. 'Perspectivism'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[60]) | |
| A reaction: This account sounds like Humean 'projectivism', espoused by Simon Blackburn - meanings are projected onto a meaningless world. If nearly all of our perspectives agreed, might that not be because they were all true? |
| 7183 | 'Subjectivity' is an interpretation, since subjects (and interpreters) are fictions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Everything is subjective', you say: but that itself is an interpretation, for the 'subject' is not something given but a fiction added on, tucked behind. Even the interpreter behind the interpretation is a fiction, hypothesis. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[60]) | |
| A reaction: How glorious to even suggest that the subjective account of knowledge is making too many assumptions! If modern students of philosophy were to meet Nietzsche, they would be reduced to the response of Cratylus (Idea 578). |
| 7133 | There are different eyes, so different 'truths', so there is no truth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There are many different eyes, .... and consequently there are many different 'truths', and consequently there is no truth. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 34[230]) | |
| A reaction: Sorry, I just don't follow this. Most people see the same things with their eyes, even if the perspective is subtly different. If we are puzzled by what we see, we swap places to check it. Nietzsche's life was too solitary. Some 'truths' are wrong. |
| 7139 | Explanation is just showing the succession of things ever more clearly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Showing the succession of things ever more clearly is what's named 'explanation': no more than that! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 35[52]) | |
| A reaction: If you lay bare all causal sequences, you may not have explained anything until you have pointed out a pattern in the events. Explanations must partly depend on the interests of the enquirer, so pure catalogues of events won't do. |
| 20043 | Evolutionary explanations look to the past or the group, not to the individual [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: In evolutionary explanations you may explain a population trait in terms of what it is for the sake of an individual, or explain it in terms of what it was for the sake of in earlier generations, but never in terms of what the trait is for the sake of. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 2 'Functions') | |
| A reaction: So my ears are for the sake of my ability to hear, but that does not explain why I have ears. Should we say there is 'impersonal teleology' here, but no 'personal teleology'? Interesting. |
| 20058 | Not all explanation is causal. We don't explain a painting's beauty, or the irrationality of root-2, that way [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Not all explanation is causal. Explaining the beauty of a painting is not explaining why something happened. or why a move in chess is illegal, or why the square root of two is not a rational number. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 5 'Argument') | |
| A reaction: It is surely plausible that the illegality of the chess move is caused (or 'determined', as I prefer to say) by the laws created for chess. The painting example seems right, though; what determined its configuration (think Pollock!) does not explain it. |
| 7131 | The intellect and senses are a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The intellect and the senses are, above all, a simplifying apparatus. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 34[46]) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a profound truth to me. The world, and our own bodies, are of almost infinite complexity, such that only a god could grasp it. In order to teach, we have to simplify even further. We choose a level of simplification for contexts. |
| 5146 | Everything that receives nourishment has a vegetative soul, with it own distinctive excellence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One can assume a vegetative part of the soul in everything that receives nourishment, even in embryos; thus the excellence of this faculty is common and not confined to man; ...because of its nature it has no part in human goodness. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1102a33) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the excellences of this part of the soul would be strength, health and appropriate size. If plants have psuché, then neither 'soul' nor 'mind' seem very good translations. 'Vitality' seems a possibility - humans having it in a conscious form. |
| 5147 | In a controlled person the receptive part of the soul is obedient, and it is in harmony in the virtuous [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One element of the soul is irrational but receptive to reason; it struggles and strains against reason. ...In the continent (controlled) man it is obedient to reason, and is more amenable in the virtuous man, as it is in harmony with rational principle. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1102b16) | |
| A reaction: The very core of Aristotle's theory, with an image of psychic harmony derived from Plato (who likens in to a well-tuned musical instrument). Aristotle's merely controlled man ('enkrateia') sounds like Kant's truly moral man, following duty. |
| 5148 | The irrational psuché is persuadable by reason - shown by our criticism and encouragement of people [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That the irrational part of the psuché is in some way persuaded by reason is indicated by our use of admonition, and of reproof and encouragement of all kinds. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1102b33) | |
| A reaction: These attempts to influence people include disapproval of people's feelings, as well as their principles, or their interpretation of the facts. This doesn't prove that feelings can be changed, but it certainly shows that we sometimes want to change them. |
| 5232 | If beings are dominated by appetite, this can increase so much that it drives out reason [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In an irrational being the appetite for what gives it pleasure is insatiable and indiscriminate, and the exercise of the desire increases its innate tendency; and if these appetites are strong and violent, they actually drive out reason. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1119b09) | |
| A reaction: The end-result of this would be a person Aristotle describes as 'brutish'. The remark seems significant because, even though man is essentially a 'rational animal' (man's 'proper function'), it is actually possible to annihilate our reason. |
| 5145 | The rational and irrational parts of the soul are either truly separate, or merely described that way [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The rational and irrational parts of the soul are either separate like parts of the body, or are distinguishable only in definition and thought, like the convex and concave aspects of the circumference of a circle. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1102a27) | |
| A reaction: Whether or not the soul is unified was a clear issue for Aristotle, explored further in De Anima (408a15 and 411b10). He appears to say the soul is not a unity, thus disagreeing with Descartes (Med. 6). |
| 7152 | With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Along the guiding thread of the body. When protoplasm divides ½ + ½ does not = 1, but = 2. Thus the belief in the soul as monad becomes untenable. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[68]) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably an anticipatory remark about the cutting of the corpus callosum (in the brain), which seems to cut a physical person into two people. Personally I always found the absolute unity of the mind or person implausible. |
| 7130 | Unity is not in the conscious 'I', but in the organism, which uses the self as a tool [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If I have anything of a unity within me, it certainly doesn't lie in the conscious 'I' and in feeling, willing, thinking, but somewhere else: in the ... prudence of my whole organism, of which my conscious self is only a tool. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 34[46]) | |
| A reaction: What an interesting thinker Nietzsche was! I think I agree with this. I think the self is built on the necessary internalised body-map all animals must have. The body requires the map, not the map needing the body. |
| 7155 | Consciousness exists to the extent that consciousness is useful [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness exists to the extent that consciousness is useful. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[95]) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as being a great truth, first because it emphasises the necessity of giving an evolutionary (survival) explanation of consciousness, and also because it invites us to consider the 'extent' to which we are conscious of brain activity. |
| 7143 | Consciousness is a 'tool' - just as the stomach is a tool [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is just a 'tool' and nothing more - in the same sense that the stomach is a tool. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 37[4]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche was very critical of Darwin, but he absorbed his teachings quicker than anyone. I agree with this, and with Fodor (Idea 2508), that to understand a mind you must think about why we have minds. |
| 7157 | We think each thought causes the next, unaware of the hidden struggle beneath [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: On the table of our consciousness there appears a succession of thoughts, as if one thought were the cause of the next. But in fact we don't see the struggle going on under the table -- | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[103]) | |
| A reaction: A brilliant thought. I am increasingly struck by my own lack of control over my 'trains' of thought. I am a slave to my own thinking. |
| 5266 | It would seem that the thinking part is the individual self [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It would seem that the thinking part is, or most nearly is, the individual self. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1166a25) | |
| A reaction: It seems that where Socrates identifies the self with the whole of the psuché (and hence is interested in its immortality, in 'Phaedo'), Aristotle considers the self to be merely the thinking and rational part of the psuché. |
| 7148 | The 'I' is a conceptual synthesis, not the governor of our being [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The 'I' (which is not the same thing as the unitary government of our being!) is, after all, only a conceptual synthesis - thus there is no acting from 'egoism'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 01[87]) | |
| A reaction: Compare Sartre in Idea 7116. Since I am inclined to define the self as the controller of the brain, I am intrigued by the remark in brackets. Presumably he considers the self to be a fiction, and that animals don't have one. I think, probably, animals do. |
| 7138 | The 'I' is a fiction used to make the world of becoming 'knowable' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I take the 'I' itself to be a construction of thinking, of the same rank as matter, thing, substance, individual, purpose, number: that is, only a regulative fiction used to insert a kind of 'knowability' into a world of becoming. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 35[35]) | |
| A reaction: Personally I consider the 'I' to be a very real brain structure, which controls the multitude of brain operations, and focuses them on the survival and success of the organism. |
| 8007 | Aristotle never discusses free will [Aristotle, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle never gets involved in the riddles of later philosophers about free will. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a very great philosopher who was intensely interested in the well-springs of human action. 'Free will' never crossed his mind. This is because free will is nonsense. Owen Flanagan is best on this subject (Ideas 5345 and 5332). |
| 12961 | For an action to be 'free', it must be deliberate as well as unconstrained [Aristotle, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle has rightly noted that we are not prepared to call an action 'free' unless as well as being unconstrained it is also deliberate. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b06) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 2.21 | |
| A reaction: This is quite an important message for David Hume. I love the respect which Leibniz accords Aristotle, at a time when he was becoming thoroughly unfashionable. This is the nearest Aristotle gets to discussing so-called 'free will'. |
| 4118 | A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113b18) | |
| A reaction: Ultimately Aristotle believes that free will is an absolute fact, once influences are stripped away. He should have questioned more deeply. |
| 20192 | Aristotle assesses whether people are responsible, and if they are it was voluntary [Aristotle, by Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle makes the concept of moral responsibility more fundamental than the concept of the voluntary, the reverse of the typical contemporary approach. Given that we hold persons responsible, such acts must be voluntary. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110-ish) by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind 4.2 | |
| A reaction: Good for Aristotle. Whether we hold people responsible or not is widely understood, but whether they are 'free' to act is obscure, and may even be incoherent. We should look at praise and blame, and (above all) excuses. |
| 7135 | 'Freedom of will' is the feeling of having a dominating force [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is our feeling of having more force that we call 'freedom of will', the consciousness of our force compelling in relation to a force that is compelled. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 34[250]) | |
| A reaction: I don't agree. That describes well how we experience the will, and develop the concept of a will, but the idea that the will is 'free' seems to me to be totally theoretical (and false), and doesn't derive from experience at all. |
| 4405 | The attainment of truth is the task of the intellectual part of the soul [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The attainment of truth is the task of both the intellectual parts of the soul (calculation and deliberation). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1139b10) | |
| A reaction: Obviously true, I would have thought, and equally true of the evolved brain, though there are plenty of people out there who try to deny it. |
| 5160 | There is a mean of feelings, as in our responses to the good or bad fortune of others [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are mean states also in the sphere of feelings. …The man who feels righteous indignation is distressed at instances of undeserved good fortune, but the envious man is distressed at any good fortune, and the spiteful man rejoices at bad fortune. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1108a29) | |
| A reaction: This example captures nicely the crucial point that Aristotle wants our actions and responses to be appropriate, rather than just restrained. The disciple of Aristotle does not conduct himself like a cold Stoic, but has lively responses to situations. |
| 4326 | Aristotle gives a superior account of rationality, because he allows emotions to participate [Hursthouse on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle gives a superior account of human rationality, because he allows emotions to participate in reason, rather than being mere animal, non-rational impulses. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Intro | |
| A reaction: This is obviously helpful in virtue ethics, but it is a bit questionable, if the core of rationality is 'giving reasons'. A feeling might be a reason, but only once it has been conceptualised. "For RLS, his feelings were his reasons", said Henry James. |
| 7171 | Rationality is a scheme we cannot cast away [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Thinking rationally is interpreting according to a scheme we cannot cast away. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[22]) | |
| A reaction: We can turn the tables on this one: how could Nietzsche know that this is the case if he cannot criticise his own rationality? The brain is a truth machine, and truth is (mostly) vital for survival. |
| 72 | Assume our reason is in two parts, one for permanent first principles, and one for variable things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Assume the rational soul has two parts, one to contemplate things with invariable first principles, one to contemplate variable things. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1139a06) | |
| A reaction: 'Assume' is interesting. He presumably isn't asserting this division as a fact. So his methodology is make assumptions - probably as aids to clear thinking. |
| 20035 | Philosophy of action studies the nature of agency, and of deliberate actions [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: The philosophy of action is concerned with the nature of agency: what it is to be a full-blown agent, and what it is to realise one's agency in acting deliberately on things. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 1 'Being') | |
| A reaction: 'Full-blown' invites the question of whether there could be a higher level of agency, beyond the capacity of human beings. Perhaps AI should design a theoretical machine that taps into those higher levels, if we can conceive of them. Meta-coherence! |
| 20084 | Agency is causal processes that are sensitive to justification [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: My conclusion is that wherever you can identify causal processes that are sensitive to the recommendations of systems of justification, there you have found agency. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 9b 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: [the last paragraph of his book] Justification seems an awfully grand notion for a bee pollinating a flower, and I don't see human action as profoundly different. A reason might be a bad justification, but it might not even aspire to be a justification. |
| 20061 | Mental states and actions need to be separate, if one is to cause the other [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: If psychological states and action results cannot be identified independently of one another, then it does not make sense to describe one as causing the other. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 5 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: This summarises a widely cited unease about the causal theory of action. Any account in action theory will need to separate out some components and explain their interrelation. Otherwise actions are primitives, and we can walk away. |
| 20079 | Are actions bodily movements, or a sequence of intention-movement-result? [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Are actions identical with bodily movements? Or are they identical with sequences of things starting inside the agent's mind with their intentions, going through their body movements and finishing with the external results being achieved? | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 9 'What is action') | |
| A reaction: If bodily movements are crucial, this presumably eliminates speech acts. Speech or writing may involve some movement, but the movement is almost irrelevant to the nature of the action. Telepathy would do equally well. |
| 20080 | If one action leads to another, does it cause it, or is it part of it? [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: When we do one action 'by' doing another, either the first action causes the process of the second, or the first action is part of the process of the second | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 9 'What is by') | |
| A reaction: Stout says the second view is preferable, because pressing a switch does not cause my action of turning on the light (though it does cause the light to come on). |
| 20059 | I do actions, but not events, so actions are not events [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: I do not do an event; I do an action; so actions are not events. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 5 'Are actions') | |
| A reaction: Sounds conclusive, but it places a lot of weight on the concepts of 'I' and 'do', which leaves room for some discussion. This point is opposed to the causal theory of action, because causation concerns events. |
| 20081 | Bicycle riding is not just bodily movement - you also have to be on the bicycle [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: You do not ride a bicycle just by moving your body in a certain way. You have to be on the bicycle to move in the right sort of way | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 9 'Are body') | |
| A reaction: My favourite philosophical ideas are simple and conclusive. He also observes that walking involves the ground being walked on. In complex actions 'feedback' with the environment is involved. |
| 4380 | Not all actions aim at some good; akratic actions, for example, do not [Burnyeat on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle does not fully endorse the famous first sentence of the 'Ethics'; he does not think every action aims at some good - for one thing akratic action does not. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1094a03) by Myles F. Burnyeat - Aristotle on Learning to be Good p.91 n25 | |
| A reaction: Nice point. Aristotle's claim never sounded right, and yet vice presumably aims at what it perceives as good. Socrates presumably endorses the opening sentence, though Aristotle wouldn't. |
| 20039 | The causal theory says that actions are intentional when intention (or belief-desire) causes the act [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: The causal theory of action asserts that what characterises intentional action is the agent's intentions, or perhaps their beliefs and desires, causing their behaviour in the appropriate way. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 1 'Outline') | |
| A reaction: The agent's intentions are either sui generis (see Bratman), or reducible to beliefs and desires (as in Hume). The classic problem for the causal theory is said to be 'deviant causal chains'. |
| 20047 | Deciding what to do usually involves consulting the world, not our own minds [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: In the vast majority of actions you need to look outwards to work out what you should do. An exam invigilator should consult the clock to design when to end the exam, not her state of mind. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 3 'The belief-') | |
| A reaction: Stout defends externalist intentions. I remain unconvinced. It is no good looking at a clock if you don't form a belief about what it says, and the belief is obviously closer than the clock to the action. Intellectual virtue requires checking the facts. |
| 20065 | Should we study intentions in their own right, or only as part of intentional action? [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Should we try to understand what it is to have an intention in terms of what it is to act intentionally, or should we try to understand what it is to have an intention independently of what it is to act intentionally? | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Acting') | |
| A reaction: Since you can have an intention to act, and yet fail to act, it seems possible to isolate intentions, but not to say a lot about them. Intention may be different prior to actions, and during actions. Early Davidson offered the derived view. |
| 20067 | You can have incompatible desires, but your intentions really ought to be consistent [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Intentions are unlike desires. You can simultaneously desire two things that you know are incompatible. But when you form intentions you are embarking on a course of action, and there is a much stronger requirement of consistency. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Relationship') | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure why anyone would identify intentions with desires. I would quite like to visit Japan, but have no current intention of doing so. I assume that the belief-plus-desire theory doesn't deny that an uninteresting intention is also needed. |
| 20078 | The normativity of intentions would be obvious if they were internal promises [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: One way to incorporate this [normative] feature of intentions would be to treat them like internal promises. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 8 'Intention') | |
| A reaction: Interesting. The concept of a promise is obviously closely linked to an intention. If you tell your companion exactly where you intend your golf ball to land, you can thereby be held accountable, in a manner resembling a promise (but not a promise). |
| 20044 | The rationalistic approach says actions are intentional when subject to justification [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: The rationalistic approach to agency says that what characterises intentional action is that it is subject to justification. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 2 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: [Anscombe is the chief articulator of this view] This seems to incorporate action into an entirely intellectual and even moral framework. |
| 20036 | Intentional agency is seen in internal precursors of action, and in external reasons for the act [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: It is plausible that we find something characteristic of intentional agency when we look inward to the mental precursors of actions, and also when we look outward, to the sensitivity of action to what the environment gives us reasons to do. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 1 'How') | |
| A reaction: This is Stout staking a claim for his partly externalist view of agency. I warm less and less to the various forms of externalism. How often does the environment 'give us reasons' to do things? How can we act, without internalising those reasons? |
| 20066 | Speech needs sustained intentions, but not prior intentions [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: The intentional action of including the word 'big' in a sentence does not require a prior intention to say it. What is required is that you say it with the intention of saying it. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Relationship') | |
| A reaction: This seems right, but makes it a lot harder to say what an intention is, and to separate it out for inspection. You can't speak a good English sentence while withdrawing the intention involved. |
| 20073 | Bratman has to treat shared intentions as interrelated individual intentions [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Bratman has to construe what we think of as shared intentions as not literally involving shared intentions, but as involving interrelating of individual intentions. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: Stout rejects this, for an account based on adaptability of behaviour. To me, naturalism and sparse ontology favour Bratman (1984) . I like my idea that shared intentions are conditional individual intentions. If the group refuses, I drop the intention. |
| 20069 | A request to pass the salt shares an intention that the request be passed on [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: When one person says to another 'please pass the salt', and the other engages with this utterance and understands it, they share the intention that this request is passed from the first person to the second. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Shared') | |
| A reaction: Simple and intriguing. We form an intention, and then ask someone else to take over our intention. When the second person takes over the intention, I give up the intention to acquire the salt, because it is on its way. It's political. |
| 20070 | An individual cannot express the intention that a group do something like moving a piano [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: It is unnatural to describe an individual as intending that the group do something together. ...What could possibly express my intention that we move the piano upstairs? | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Shared') | |
| A reaction: Two possible answers: it makes sense if I have great authority within the group. 'I'm going to move the piano - you take that end'. Or, such expressions are implicitly conditional - 'I intend to move the piano (if you will also intend it)'. |
| 20071 | An intention is a goal to which behaviour is adapted, for an individual or for a group [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: An individual intention is a goal to which an individual's behaviour adapts. A shared intention is a goal to which a group of people's behaviour collectively adapts. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Shared') | |
| A reaction: This is part of Stout's externalist approach to actions. One would have thought that an intention was a state of mind, not a goal in the world. The individual's goal can be psychological, but a group's goal has to be an abstraction. |
| 23320 | Choice is not explained by the will, but by the operation of reason when it judges what is good [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In Aristotle choices are not explained in terms of a will, but in terms of the attachment of reason to the good, however conceived, and the exercise of reason to determine how the good might best be obtained. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112b11-24) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 2 | |
| A reaction: I am personally happy to use the concept of the 'will', as the faculty which makes the final arbitration between competing mental drives, but this idea shows that the whole issue could be managed without it. |
| 20038 | If the action of walking is just an act of will, then movement of the legs seems irrelevant [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: If volitionism identifies the action with an act of will, this has the unpalatable consequence (for a Cartesian dualist) that walking does not happen in the material world. It would be the same act of walking if you had no legs, or no body at all. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 1 'Volitionism') | |
| A reaction: Is this attacking a caricature version of volitionism? Descartes would hardly subscribe to the view that no legs are needed for walking. If my legs spasmodically move without an act of will, we typically deny that this is an action. |
| 5211 | An action is voluntary if the limb movements originate in the agent [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In cases where the movement of the limbs that are the instruments of action has its origin in the agent himself, it is in his power either to act or not, and therefore such actions are voluntary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110a15) | |
| A reaction: He asserts this to show that an action is voluntary even under extreme compulsion or pressure. This seems right, and moves the focus to the concept of an 'excuse', which covers forgivable voluntary actions. |
| 5221 | Deliberation ends when the starting-point of an action is traced back to the dominant part of the self [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In every case a man stops inquiring how to act when he has traced the starting-point of action back to himself, i.e. to the dominant part of himself; for it is this that makes the choice. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113a06) | |
| A reaction: A footnote says the 'dominant part' of the soul is reason. If we dispense with 'free will' (and we should), this is the core of moral responsibility. Responsible actions are those caused by the dominant part of the mind. |
| 20050 | Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Most philosophers are uneasy with understanding the causal aspect of actions in terms of an 'agent' making something happen. They prefer to think of some event in the agent, or state of the agent, making something happen. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 4 'The causal') | |
| A reaction: There is a bit of a regress if you ask what caused the event or state of affairs. It is tempting to stop the buck at the whole agent, or else carry the reduction on down to neurons, physics and the outside world. |
| 20052 | If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Once you lose the agent from an account of action it stops being an account of action at all. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 4 'Agent') | |
| A reaction: [he refers to Richard Taylor 1966] This could be correct without implying that agents offer a unique mode of causation. The concept of 'agent' is reducible. |
| 4383 | Aristotle seems not to explain why the better syllogism is overcome in akratic actions [Burnyeat on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of akrasia seems to leave the vital point unexplained, which is why the better syllogism is overcome. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1102b14) by Myles F. Burnyeat - Aristotle on Learning to be Good p.85 | |
| A reaction: The problem is where exactly the action originates within us - is it sometimes from deliberation, and sometimes from some irrational force? Either akrasia is easy and action baffling, or vice versa. |
| 68 | The akrates acts from desire not choice, and the enkrates acts from choice not desire [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The incontinent man (weak-willed, 'akrates') acts from desire but not from choice, but the continent man (controlled, 'enkrates') acts from choice but not from desire. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b14) | |
| A reaction: These two categories are contrasted with the truly wicked and the truly good, in both of whom choice and desire work together. The akrates and the enkrates include most people, hovering in the middle ground of moral apprenticeship. |
| 4318 | Virtue is right reason and feeling and action. Akrasia and enkrateia are lower levels of action. [Aristotle, by Cottingham] |
| Full Idea: Morality rises from vice (bad reason, bad feeling, bad action), to akrasia ('no control', but get the reason right), to enkrateia (wrong feeling, but right reason and action), culminating in virtue (right feeling, as well as right reason and action). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b15) by John Cottingham - Reason, Emotions and Good Life p.1 | |
| A reaction: Very illuminating, especially for showing the importance of feeling in Aristotle's account. True virtue is effortless, not steely control. This has to be right, and seems to differ from Kant. |
| 4372 | Akrasia merely neglects or misunderstands knowledge, rather than opposing it [Achtenberg on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: According to Aristotle, the incontinent person never acts against active knowledge of particulars, but either acts against knowledge that is possessed but not exercised, or knowledge that is not fully possessed, or against knowledge of universals alone. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b15) by Deborah Achtenberg - Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics 2.1 | |
| A reaction: This comments aims to bring Aristotle closer to Socrates (who says virtue IS reason), and it certainly fits with the high value which Aristotle normally places on reason. |
| 5254 | Some people explain akrasia by saying only opinion is present, not knowledge [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some thinkers say that when some people are unable to resist pleasures then what they have is not knowledge but only opinion. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1145b33) | |
| A reaction: You would have thought that people take their own opinions for knowledge, but Aristotle seems to refer to weakly held beliefs. Aristotle allows that this might excuse mild misbehaviour, but not true vice. |
| 5255 | A person may act against one part of his knowledge, if he knows both universal and particular [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is quite possible for a person who has knowledge of both universal and particular to act inconsistently with his knowledge, if he is exercising knowledge of the universal but not of the particular. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1147a01) | |
| A reaction: In this way Aristotle says (at 1147b15) that he can agree with Socrates about akrasia. I.e. that the evil deed does indeed arise from some sort of ignorance (perhaps of the relevant particular), and not just from desire. |
| 23317 | Aristotle sees akrasia as acting against what is chosen, not against reason [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle explicitly characterises akrasia cases as ones in which one acts against one's choices [prohairesis], rather than as cases in which one chooses to act against reason. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1148a09) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 2 | |
| A reaction: The point is that Socrates and Plato give reason top authority, and Aristotle is not undermining that. Akrasia is a mistake at a lower level. Frede's discussion is subtle! |
| 23318 | Akrasia is explained by past mental failures, not by a specific choice [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It is past failures (of training, discipline, reflection…), rather than a specific mental event, a choice or a decision, which in Aristotle accounts for akratic action. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1148a10) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 2 | |
| A reaction: This is to demonstrate that Aristotle has no concept of a 'will' which arbitrates over difficult choices. What we call 'willing' he applies only to choices which are rational. |
| 5257 | Licentious people feel no regret, but weak-willed people are capable of repentance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The licentious man is unrepentant, because he abides by his choice; but the incontinent (weak-willed) man is always capable of repentance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1150b28) | |
| A reaction: This is the very important feature of virtue theory - that what happens AFTER the action is almost as important as what happens before and during it. Character can be revealed just as much by pride or regret for an action. |
| 7209 | There is no will; weakness of will is splitting of impulses, strong will is coordination under one impulse [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Weakness of will is misleading, for there is no will, and hence neither a strong will nor a weak one. Multiplicity and disaggregation of the impulses results as 'weak will'; coordination under the dominance of a single one results as 'strong will'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[219]) | |
| A reaction: That Nietzsche seems to be right is clearer if we remember that the Greek terms are 'control' (enkrateia) and 'lack of control' (akrasia), with no reference to anything called the will. |
| 20077 | If you can judge one act as best, then do another, this supports an inward-looking view of agency [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Weakness of will is a threat to the outward-looking approach to agency. It seems you can hold one thing to be the thing to do, and at the same time do something else. Many regard this as a decisive reason to follow a more inward-looking approach. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 8 'Weakness') | |
| A reaction: It hadn't struck me before that weakness of will is a tool for developing an accurate account of what is involved in normal agency. Some facts that guide action are internal to the agent, such as greed for sugary cakes. |
| 20049 | Maybe your emotions arise from you motivations, rather than being their cause [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Instead of assuming that your motivation depends on your emotional state, we might say that your emotional state depends on how you are motivated to act. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 3 'Emotions') | |
| A reaction: [He says this move is made by Kant, Thomas Nagel and McDowell] Stout favours the view that it is external facts which mainly give rise to actions, and presumably these facts are intrinsically motivating, prior to any emotions. I don't disagree. |
| 20046 | For an ascetic a powerful desire for something is a reason not to implement it [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: If wanting something most were the same as having the most powerful feelings about it, then as an ascetic (rejecting what you most powerfully desire), your wanting most to eat a bun would be your reason for not eating the bun. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 3 'The belief-') | |
| A reaction: This sounds like reason overruling desire, but the asceticism can always be characterised as a meta-desire. |
| 69 | We deliberate about means, not ends [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We deliberate not about ends, but about means. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112b12) | |
| A reaction: A young person choosing a career path probably ought to deliberate about ends, as well as means. Is he implying at ends are irrational? That sounds unlikely. |
| 20212 | Practical reason is truth-attaining, and focused on actions good for human beings [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Practical reason [phronesis] is a truth-attaining intellectual quality concerned with doing, and with the things that are good for human beings. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1140b21) | |
| A reaction: [tr. Greenwood] That sounds suspiciously like wisdom to me. Or maybe wisdom also has a contemplative aspect. |
| 5247 | Prudence is mainly concerned with particulars, which is the sphere of human conduct [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Prudence ('phronesis') is not concerned with universals only; it must also take cognizance of particulars, because it is concerned with conduct, and conduct has its sphere in particular circumstances. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1141b14) | |
| A reaction: Note that 'phronesis' is partly concerned with universals, although it is crucial to Aristotle's theory that each particular situation is different, and so no rules can actually dictate moral action. |
| 80 | Virtue ensures that we have correct aims, and prudence that we have correct means of achieving them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Virtue ensures the correctness of the end at which we aim, and prudence that of the means towards it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1144a07) | |
| A reaction: I'm not wholly clear about how virtue identifies correct aims. Virtue finds the mean, but how? Prudence is busy with strategy. Theoretical reason stands back from the world. A gap in the theory? |
| 5249 | One cannot be prudent without being good [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One cannot be prudent (have practical reason) without being good. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1144a33) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that for Aristotle this is more of a tautology than an observation. We might think of a very clever criminal as having 'phronesis' (practical reason), but Aristotle simply wouldn't, though he has no simple explanation for his view. |
| 82 | The one virtue of prudence carries with it the possession of all the other virtues [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The possession of the single virtue of prudence will carry with it the possession of them all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1145a02) | |
| A reaction: Prudence is phronesis, of which I prefer the translation 'common sense', thought he scholars call it 'practical wisdom'. People can be sensible in one are, and stupid in another. |
| 4371 | Seeing particulars as parts of larger wholes is to perceive their value [Achtenberg on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, practical perception is perception of particulars as parts of larger wholes, which involves the perception of their value (as in seeing my food as part of bodily health, and all action as part of a flourishing life). | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Deborah Achtenberg - Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics Intro | |
| A reaction: An appealing idea. Hume (who separates facts from values) would call it rubbish, but with the addition of a premiss like "life is good", this seems plausible and appealing. |
| 73 | Practical intellect serves to arrive at the truth which corresponds to right appetite [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The function of practical intellect is to arrive at the truth that corresponds to right appetite. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1139a28) | |
| A reaction: And right appetite may well have to be educated by theoretical intellect. |
| 67 | Bad people are just ignorant of what they ought to do [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Every bad man is ignorant of what he ought to do and refrain from doing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110b29) | |
| A reaction: This sounds more like the view on akrasia of Socrates than that of Aristotle. Aristotle thinks bad people can also know what is good, but be pulled away from it by strong desires. |
| 5218 | Some people are good at forming opinions, but bad at making moral choices [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It seems that the same people are not equally good at choosing the best actions and forming the best opinions; some are comparatively good at forming opinions, but through a moral defect fail to make the right choices. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112a09) | |
| A reaction: It is not enough to say that they CAN be separate. What type of opinions? Wise actors rarely have stupid opinions, and the opinions of bad actors usually contain error. See Jane Austen. |
| 81 | For Socrates virtues are principles, involving knowledge, but we say they only imply the principle of practical reason [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whereas Socrates thought that the virtues are principles (because they are forms of knowledge), we say they imply a principle (practical reason). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1144b30) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to pin down how rational an Aristotelian virtue is supposed to be. Is a virtue a quasi-platonic vision of 'the good', but in each specific area, rather than in general? |
| 5267 | Our reasoned acts are held to be voluntary and our own doing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is our reasoned acts that are held to be in the fullest sense voluntary and our own doing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1169a01) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me crucial in morality. Morality concerns important decisions made by the core of a person. If we ask how 'core decisions' are known, their hallmark will be reasons, because reasons are the peak of human awareness. |
| 20060 | Beliefs, desires and intentions are not events, so can't figure in causal relations [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Beliefs, desires and intentions are states of mind rather than events, but events are the only things that figure in causal relations. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 5 'Do beliefs') | |
| A reaction: This is exactly why we have the concept of 'the will' - because it is a mental state to which we attribute active causal powers. We then have to explain how this 'will' is related to the other mental states (which presume motivate or drive it?). |
| 20055 | A standard view says that the explanation of an action is showing its rational justification [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: The idea running through the work of Aristotle, Kant, Anscombe and Davidson is that explanation of action involves justifying that action or making it rationally intelligible. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 5 'Psychological') | |
| A reaction: Stout goes on to say that instead you could give the 'rationalisation' of the action, which is psychological facts which explain the action, without justifying it. The earlier view may seem a little optimistic and intellectualist. |
| 20056 | In order to be causal, an agent's reasons must be internalised as psychological states [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: It is widely accepted that to get involved in the causal process of acting an agent's reasons must be internalised as psychological states. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 5 'Psychological') | |
| A reaction: This doesn't say whether the 'psychological states' have to be fully conscious. That seems unlikely, given the speed with which we perform some sequences of actions, such as when driving a car, or playing a musical instrument. |
| 5213 | If you repent of an act done through ignorance, you acted involuntarily, not non-voluntarily [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When a man repents of an act done through ignorance, he is considered to have acted involuntarily; but a man who does not repent of such an act is another case, so he may be said to have acted non-voluntarily. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110b22) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me as crucial to virtue theory that how you acted could be partly decided by your attitude AFTER the event. There is a 'residue' (Hursthouse) to every action, of guilt, pride etc. 'Voluntary' evidently has internal/external components. |
| 20053 | An action is only yours if you produce it, rather than some state or event within you [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: For action to be properly yours it must be you who is the causal originator of the action, rather than some state or event within you. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 4 'Agent') | |
| A reaction: [He invokes Chisholm 1966] The idea here is that we require not only 'agent causation', but that the concept of agent must include free will. It seems right we ought to know whether or not an action is 'mine'. Nothing too fancy is needed for this! |
| 20048 | There may be a justification relative to a person's view, and yet no absolute justification [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: In a relativistic notion of justification, in a particular system, there is a reason for a vandal to smash public property, even though, using an absolute conception of justification, there is no reason for him to do so. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 3 'The difference') | |
| A reaction: I suppose Kantians would say that the aim of morality is to make your personal (relative) justification coincide with what seems to be the absolute justification. |
| 4384 | For Aristotle responsibility seems negative, in the absence of force or ignorance [Irwin on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle seems to define responsibility negatively: I am responsible for an action if and only if I do it neither by force nor because of ignorance. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1114b13) by Terence Irwin - Reason and Responsibility in Aristotle p.117 | |
| A reaction: Reminiscent of David Hume, suggesting that Aristotle may at heart be a determinist, because he lacks any positive notion of free will? |
| 5212 | A man should sooner die than do some dreadful things, no matter how cruel the death [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Presumably there are some things such that a man cannot be compelled to do them - that he must sooner die than do, though he suffer the most dreadful fate. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110a27) | |
| A reaction: This is a central concept for virtue theory - that no possible 'utilitarian calculation' could allow a virtuous person to do some awful thing because of a cool assessment that it will eventually add up to increased happiness. |
| 20068 | Describing a death as a side-effect rather than a goal may just be good public relations [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: The real signficance of the doctrine of double effect can be public relations. You can put a better spin on an action by describing a death as an unfortunate collateral consequence, rather than as a goal of the action | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Doctrine') | |
| A reaction: The problem is that it the principle is usually invoked in situations where it is not clear where some bad effect is intended, and it is very easy to lie in such situations. In football, we can never quite decide whether a dangerous tackle was intended. |
| 7194 | Experiencing a thing as beautiful is to experience it wrongly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To experience a thing as beautiful necessarily means experiencing it wrongly. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 10[167]) | |
| A reaction: So much for 'beauty is truth' (Keats). I suppose I agree, for example, about a face. If you don't experience the beauty of a good melody, there is nothing else left to experience - no mundane truth that needs reporting. |
| 52 | We choose things for their fineness, their advantage, or for pleasure [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: (roughly) Three pairs of factors cause choice or avoidance: fine/base, advantageous/harmful, pleasant/painful. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104b29) | |
| A reaction: I love the Greek idea that we choose actions for their 'fineness' [kalos, nobility, beauty]. We sometimes celebrate fine deeds in the media, and even award honours for them, but we don't talk about them much. |
| 7136 | Morality is a system of values which accompanies a being's life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: By morality, I understand a system of valuations which is contiguous with a being's conditions of life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 36[264]) | |
| A reaction: It needs to be added that the values influence and control the life. Note that this defines morality as neither the qualities of character of virtue theory, nor the rules for conduct of deontology and utilitarianism. Morality MUST be rooted in values. |
| 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'. |
| 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. |
| 7163 | Morality is merely interpretations, which are extra-moral in origin [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: My main proposition: there are no moral phenomena, there is only a moral interpretation of those phenomena. This interpretation itself is of extra-moral origin. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[165]) | |
| A reaction: The origin will, of course, be the 'will to power', which is the drive for survival, linking Nietzsche with sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. |
| 7147 | Values are innate and inherited [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Valuations are innate (despite Locke!), inherited. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 01[21]) | |
| A reaction: This would conform with Charles Taylor's views (e.g. Idea 4002). But how are we sheep ever going to fall in with the values of our Superman when he arrives, if we are stuck with our own innate values? |
| 7190 | Our values express an earlier era's conditions for survival and growth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of value is always antiquated, it expresses a much earlier era's conditions for survival and growth. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 10[23]) | |
| A reaction: Nice. I myself grew up in the aftermath of the Second World War. Have I ingested values that were created for that era, and are no longer required? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 4370 | For Aristotle 'good' means purpose, and value is real but relational [Achtenberg on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In my view, 'good' for Aristotle means 'telos', and value is real, but relational. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Deborah Achtenberg - Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics Intro | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Hence Aristotle is pursuing a naturalist project in ethics, since he connects purpose to function, which is natural and self-evident. |
| 18227 | We desire final things just for themselves, and not for the sake of something else [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097a30), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Finality' | |
| A reaction: This is such a simple and neat test for dividing what you value into two groups. You end up with things like art, philosophy, gardening, sipping wine, looking at beautiful views, talking to friends. |
| 4381 | How can an action be intrinsically good if it is a means to 'eudaimonia'? [Ackrill on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A question for Aristotle is, how can an action be good in itself if it is valued as a means to 'eudaimonia'? | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1101a15) by J.L. Ackrill - Aristotle on Action p.93 | |
| A reaction: A good question, but one which shouldn't trouble Aristotle. There is no short cut to eudaimonia (e.g. a pill); it is a state of accumulated good actions. |
| 7201 | Knowledge, wisdom and goodness only have value relative to a goal [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge and wisdom have no value as such; nor does goodness: one must always first have a goal that confers value or disvalue on these qualities. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[122]) | |
| A reaction: So what goals should we have? Nietzsche talks about the 'enhancement of life', but what is that, and why should we want it? There may be an ecological cost to enhancing human life. |
| 33 | 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'. |
| 5154 | Excess and deficiency are bad for virtue, just as they are for bodily health [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Excessive and insufficient exercise or food destroy one's strength or health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases and preserves them. It is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104a15) | |
| A reaction: An example of Aristotle's philosophy originating in his biological background. This appears to be true of health, but he notes exceptions in morality. Adultery has no mean. In health a middle way is needed, but in morality it is what is 'appropriate'. |
| 5268 | Disreputable pleasures are only pleasant to persons with diseased perception [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One may argue that disreputable pleasures are not pleasant; they may be pleasant to persons of unhealthy disposition, just as things may seem sweet or bitter or white to persons with unhealthy taste or vision. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1173b20) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle's analogy gives quite good support for what seems a rather implausible view. Bentham disagrees. It certainly seems odd to deny that a sadist is obtaining pleasure. Surely that is what we object to? Is pleasure a value? |
| 5229 | The more virtuous and happy a person is, the worse the prospect becomes of ending life [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The more completely a man possesses virtue, and the happier he is, the more he will be distressed at the thought of death, for to such a man life is supremely worth living. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1117b11) | |
| A reaction: Virtuous people are also, of course, brave. There is a horrible logic which says that you try to be less happy as death becomes more probable. Maybe happy people should pretend they are immortal. |
| 7205 | Altruism is praised by the egoism of the weak, who want everyone to be looked after [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Behind the general praise for 'altruism' is the instinct that the individual will be best safeguarded if everyone looks after each other....it's the egoism of the weak that created the praise, the exclusive praise for altruism. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[5]) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand why Nietzsche so strongly despises the weak. Callicles (in Plato's 'Gorgias') embodies the strong, but he is utterly unlovable, and appears to be motivated mainly by a desire to have fun at other people's expense. |
| 90 | All altruism is an extension of self-love [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All friendly feelings for others are extensions of a man's feelings for himself. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1168b06) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what his evidence is for this. The love of parents for their children doesn't seem to be based on self-love. |
| 5262 | Only lovable things are loved, and they must be good, or pleasant, or useful [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is generally accepted that not everything is loved, but only what is lovable; and that this is either good, or pleasant, or useful. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1155b16) | |
| A reaction: It needs the great analyst himself to explain to us the ingredients of love. He, of course, goes on to say that good things are the most lovable. It is hard to disagree. |
| 5263 | Most people want to be loved rather than to love, because they desire honour [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Most people seem to want to be loved rather than to love, the reason being their desire for honour. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1159a13) | |
| A reaction: The footnote says 'honour' here is 'esteem'. In other words, wanting to be loved is a type of vanity, which sounds right. Most people would like being loved from afar, by a person who could do nothing to benefit or please them. |
| 2689 | Good people enjoy virtuous action, just as musicians enjoy beautiful melodies [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The good man, qua good, takes pleasure in morally virtuous actions and dislikes vicious ones, just as a musician enjoys beautiful melodies and is pained by bad ones. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1170a09) | |
| A reaction: This is the best illustration of the Greek love of 'fine' [kalon] actions. 'That was a beautiful thing you just did'. |
| 101 | Slaves can't be happy, because they lack freedom [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nobody attributes happiness to a slave, unless he also attributes to him a life of his own. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1177a08) | |
| A reaction: Give them freedom then! In 'Politics' he allows a degree of friendship between masters and slaves, and recognises that not all slaves are stupid. |
| 5142 | Oxen, horses and children cannot be happy, because they cannot perform fine deeds [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We do not speak of an ox or a horse as happy, because none of them can take part in fine deeds; similarly, no child is happy, because its age debars it as yet from such activities. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099b32) | |
| A reaction: This is a place where 'happy' is not a very good translation for 'eudaimon', as we universally acknowledge a 'happy childhood'. We can have a 'successful' life, but not a successful childhood. I'm not convinced that even Greeks understood 'eudaimonia'. |
| 7141 | A living being is totally 'egoistic' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A living being is 'egoistic' through and through. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 36[20]) | |
| A reaction: Can't I even fight against my own dominating egoism? I just don't accept that this generalisation applies necessarily to all human beings at all times. How can a totally egoistic creature have 'low self-esteem'? |
| 5243 | The best people exercise their virtue towards others, rather than to themselves [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The best person is not the one who exercises his virtue towards himself but the one who exercises it towards another, because this is a difficult task. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1130a07) | |
| A reaction: This is an importance counterbalance to the view that Greeks are concerned with self-development, and we are concerned with altruism. Above all, Aristotle wants us to be good citizens, and this implies a great deal of altruism. |
| 92 | Self-love benefits ourselves, and also helps others [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is right for the good man to be self-loving, because then he will both be benefited himself by performing fine actions, and also help others. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1169a12) | |
| A reaction: This is the simple and correct defence of self-love. If everyone develops their own character and abilities, we all benefit. Selfishness is the excess, not the mean. |
| 3559 | For Aristotle, true self-love is love of the higher parts of one's soul [Aristotle, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that those who think self-love is bad are identifying the self with the lower, irrational parts of the soul. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 12.1 | |
| A reaction: That seems to imply love of (and developmen of) one's intellect, but surely the less bookish person can develop their social virtues in a self-loving way? |
| 5128 | Each category of existence has its own good, so one Good cannot unite them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things are called good in as many senses as they are said to exist (e.g. substance, quality, quantity, relation, place, time); clearly, then, there cannot be a single universal common to all cases. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a23) | |
| A reaction: It doesn't follow that because you can divide the substratum, that therefore the superstructure lacks unity. One tree has many roots. We must ask whether a good substance and a good quantity have anything in common. |
| 5129 | There should be one science of the one Good, but there are many overlapping sciences [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Of things that come under one Idea there is one single science, so there should be some one science of all good things; but in fact there are more than one science even of those that fall under one category (e.g. opportunity in medicine and in war). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a27) | |
| A reaction: The reply might be that there are many sciences because humans are confused. A truly wise person would see that the science of opportunity is the same in medicine and war. If the good was pleasure, or the glory of God, this would be obvious. |
| 20 | The good is 'that at which all things aim' [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Good has rightly been defined as 'that at which all things aim'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1094a02) | |
| A reaction: So it is logically impossible to aim at evil? Maybe in practice people always aim for what they take to be good, but it must be possible to deliberately do evil, just to prove a point. |
| 5131 | Intelligence and sight, and some pleasures and honours, are candidates for being good in themselves [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What sort of things can one posit as good in themselves? Everything that is pursued even when considered in isolation - intelligence, for example, and sight, and some pleasures and honours? | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096b15) | |
| A reaction: He means good-for-man, of course. If only 'some' pleasures are good, that implies a further good which is used to judge the pleasures. For Aristotle what is 'fine' (kalon) is the ultimate self-evident good. |
| 5135 | Goods are external, of the soul, and of the body; those of the soul (such as action) come first [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Goods have been classified (by Plato) under three heads, as external, or of the soul, or of the body; of these we say that goods of the soul are good in the strictest and fullest sense, and we rank actions as goods of the soul. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098b13) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is famous (or notorious) for allowing external goods in his theory, but it is important that he always makes them subordinate to the central goods. Wealth and glamour could never compensate for vice. |
| 5269 | Pleasure is not the Good, and not every pleasure is desirable [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is clear, then, that pleasure is not the Good, and that not every pleasure is desirable. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1174a08) | |
| A reaction: This is the culmination of a length discussion. Despite all of Aristotle's efforts, it may well be impossible to demonstrate that pleasure is not the Good. All the rivals, such as knowledge, intelligence, sight, excellence etc. give great pleasure. |
| 23 | The masses believe, not unreasonably, that the good is pleasure [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The masses…seem - not unreasonably - to believe that the Good or happiness is pleasure. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1095b15) | |
| A reaction: Since Aristotle seems to see the pursuit of understanding, through various types of philosophy, as the supreme good, then this is 'understandable' because the masses lack the education for such a thing. |
| 109 | Clearly perfect conduct will involve both good intention and good action [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is disputed whether the intentions or the actions have greater importance; …clearly the perfection of conduct will involve both. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1178a32) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, so choosing one or the other as prior seems misguided. What to make of attempted murder? What of moral luck? |
| 26 | Wealth is not the good, because it is only a means [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Wealth is obviously not the good we are seeking, because it serves only as a means. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a06) | |
| A reaction: So what are we to say to someone who considers wealth to be an end? Someone who has no desire to spend their horde. |
| 5136 | Happiness seems to involve virtue, or practical reason, or wisdom, or pleasure, or external goods [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Candidates for the required constituents of happiness are said to be virtue, or practical reason, or wisdom; others say it is these with the addition of pleasure, and others include favourable external conditions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098b21) | |
| A reaction: Characteristic of Aristotle to start from what both ordinary people and philosophers have previously said. By the end of his book (remarkably) wisdom is the only one of these which is excluded from normal human happiness. Wisdom transcends life. |
| 7168 | Modest people express happiness as 'Not bad' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The happiness whose proper name on earth the modest believe is: 'Well, not bad'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[7]) | |
| A reaction: Alexei Sayle expresses it in the English slogan 'Mustn't grumble'. Nietzsche certainly had the English in mind. Nietzsche seems to have the romantic tendency to think that only something completely new and original can bring happiness. |
| 25 | You can be good while asleep, or passive, or in pain [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The possession of goodness is thought to be compatible with being asleep, or…with inactivity, or…with atrocious suffering. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a02) | |
| A reaction: This helps to distinguish eudaimonia from the pleasant view of happiness. Pain probably annuls most immediate happiness, but has little to do with long-term flourishing. |
| 18673 | Eudaimonia is said to only have final value, where reason and virtue are also useful [Aristotle, by Orsi] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, what sets eudaimonia apart from things like reason and virtue is that it is exclusively finally valuable; ...reason and virtue are valuable also for contributing to other things, such as happiness. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 2.2 | |
| A reaction: This makes it sound as if eudaimonia is a super-value, and superior to virtue, but I don't think that is right. Eudaimonia just seems to be success in the areas that matter. |
| 5127 | Does Aristotle say eudaimonia is the aim, or that it ought to be? [McDowell on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We can distinguish at least two possible interpretations of Aristotle's thesis that eudaimonia is the chief good: either eudaimonia is that for the sake of which all action IS undertaken, or that for which all action OUGHT to be undertaken. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097b22) by John McDowell - Role of Eudaimonia in Aristotle's Ethics §1 | |
| A reaction: It seems to me Aristotle is describing how people DO behave (they all want ot flourish), and then goes on to describe how they OUGHT to behave to achieve the end they all want. His theory does not describe convention, which mostly concerns pleasure. |
| 5143 | Some good and evil can happen to the dead, just as the living may be unaware of a disaster [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is popularly believed that some good and evil, such as honours, or disasters of children, can happen to a dead man, inasmuch as they can happen to a live one without his being aware of them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1100a17) | |
| A reaction: This suggests 'internalist' and 'externalist' accounts of happiness, with eudaimonia being the externalist view. If an architect designs a spectacular building, and it collapses the day after they die, that has to be a disaster for the architect. |
| 2681 | Aristotle is unsure about eudaimonia because he is unsure what people are [Nagel on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle shows an indecision between an intellectualist and a comprehensive account of eudaimonia. …It is because he is not sure who we are that he finds it difficult to say unequivocally in what our eudaimonia consists. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Thomas Nagel - Aristotle on Eudaimonia p.8 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is quite right to be unsure about what people are, given the fluidity of human nature, in comparison with other animals. He needs a stable core to human nature, and I think that exists. |
| 5132 | Goods like pleasure are chosen partly for happiness, but happiness is chosen just for itself [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Happiness more than anything else is thought to be a final end without qualification, because we always choose it for itself, and not for any other reason. Pleasure, intelligence and good qualities generally we choose partly for the sake of our happiness. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097a32) | |
| A reaction: The obvious reply is that happiness might be chosen because it gives us pleasure. Imagine if a sense of happiness resulted in an instant feeling of guilt. If we could ONLY have intelligence, we would choose that just for itself. |
| 30 | Happiness is perfect and self-sufficient, the end of all action [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Happiness is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097b21) | |
| A reaction: This will be eudaimonia, so while this sounds like an announcement of the secret of life, eudaimonia is only really a placeholder for things going very well, in some way or other. |
| 7159 | The only happiness is happiness with illusion [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Happiness with existence is only possible as happiness with illusion. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[110]) | |
| A reaction: A characteristically tough remark! It is, of course, indefeasible, because if you claim to have happiness without illusion, Nietzsche brands you as another fool. But why should a gradual stripping of illusion totally destroy happiness? |
| 39 | Happiness needs total goodness and a complete life [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Happiness demands not only complete goodness but a complete life (e.g. final misfortune of King Priam of Troy). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1100a05) | |
| A reaction: Eudaimonia may be ruined if a serious defect of character emerges near the end, but surely not if they are merely the victim of misfortune? |
| 5139 | If happiness can be achieved by study and effort, then it is open to anyone who is not corrupt [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If happiness is not a divine gift, it will be something widely shared; for it can attach, through some form of study or application, to anyone who is not handicapped by some incapacity for goodness. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099b17) | |
| A reaction: This is a non-elitist view, even though he is saying that study and effort are needed. The explanation of this is that happiness is not achieved through wisdom, but through practical reason (phronesis), which does not require advanced education. |
| 5144 | Happiness is activity in accordance with complete virtue, for a whole life, with adequate external goods [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We define the happy man as 'one who is active in accordance with complete virtue, and who is adequately furnished with external goods, and that not for some unspecified period but throughout a complete life'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1101a13) | |
| A reaction: The only plausible objection to this definition is that it sounds worthy but dull. There is some exciting, romantic, Nietzschean ingredient missing - but the happy man will routinely perform 'fine deeds', and these may involve novelty and boldness. |
| 106 | The best life is that of the intellect, since that is in the fullest sense the man [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The best and most pleasant life is the life of the intellect, since the intellect is in the fullest sense the man. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1178a08) | |
| A reaction: He would say that, wouldn't he? He's Aristotle, after all. The question of what is a human's essential nature is the nub of the Aristotelian project. |
| 100 | The happy life is in accordance with goodness, which implies seriousness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The happy life seems to be lived in accordance with goodness, and such a life implies seriousness. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1177a03) | |
| A reaction: There are far more jokes in the talk of Socrates than in the writings of Aristotle. Presumably seriousness is required by anything which turns out to be difficult. |
| 4374 | For Aristotle, pleasure is the perception of particulars as valuable [Achtenberg on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, pleasure is the perception of particulars as valuable. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1173b20) by Deborah Achtenberg - Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics 5.6 | |
| A reaction: This never strikes me as very plausible. Pleasure may be a side-effect of the perception of value, but we can experience pleasure (e.g. a taste) without even knowing what the cause is, let alone whether we value it. |
| 7197 | Pleasure needs dissatisfaction, boundaries and resistances [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of pleasure lies precisely in the unsatisfaction of the will, in the way it is not yet satiated unless it has boundaries and resistances... | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[75]) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a 'higher' sort of pleasure, preferred by Nietzsche and Mill and clever chaps like that. Personally I like sunbathing and listening to music, and I float along very comfortably, like a cork on the stream of indulgence... |
| 383 | God feels one simple pleasure forever [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: God feels one simple pleasure forever. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1154b25) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 382. |
| 5270 | Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1176a02) | |
| A reaction: This claim, for which he here offers no support, depends on the idea that pleasure can have a value, as well as an intensity. Mill agreed with him, but Bentham disagreed (Idea 5271) |
| 5230 | There are pleasures of the soul (e.g. civic honour, and learning) and of the body [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish pleasures of the soul from pleasures of the body; examples of the former are love of civic distinction and love of learning. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1117b28) | |
| A reaction: An example of where enthusiasm for analysis leads to oversimplification, and of how dualism about mind can colour the rest of one's views. There is a physical pleasure in learning something, and some physical pleasures are almost spiritual. |
| 5259 | If we criticise bodily pleasures as licentious and bad, why do we consider their opposite, pain, to be bad? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who hold that bodily pleasures, which are the concern of the licentious man, are not desirable, ought to consider why in that case the pains that are contrary to them are bad. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1154a08) | |
| A reaction: This seems a simple and effective argument against 'puritanical' views, which sometimes appear in Plato, and in the Stoics (where bodily pleasures are 'indifferent'). Still, I think most people overvalue bodily pleasure. |
| 96 | Nobody would choose the mentality of a child, even if they had the greatest childish pleasures [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nobody would choose to live his life with the mentality of a child, even if he continued to take the greatest pleasures in the things that children like. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1174a02) | |
| A reaction: This seems absolutely right, but I'm not sure why. Presumably we are strongly attached to our own nature, but what if we could start again with a different nature? |
| 97 | There are many things we would want even if they brought no pleasure [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are many things which we should be eager to have even if they brought no pleasure with them, e.g. sight, memory, knowledge, and several kinds of excellence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1174a06) | |
| A reaction: I think he suggests eyesight, which implies that we want the knowledge that brings. Many things we want give us security, which seems to be an unconscious pleasure. |
| 98 | It is right to pursue pleasure, because it enhances life, and life is a thing to choose [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is reasonable that people should be eager for pleasure; because it perfects life for each individual, and life is a thing to choose. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1175a15) | |
| A reaction: It is so nice to hear that pleasure is a good thing. Compare Socrates in 'Gorgias', who tries to prove that pleasure is not at all what we want. Life with no pleasure is not much of a thing. |
| 99 | If happiness were mere amusement it wouldn't be worth a lifetime's effort [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Happiness is not amusement; it would be paradoxical if we toiled and suffered all our lives just for that. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1176b28) | |
| A reaction: So he promotes contemplation above pleasure as the end of life, on the grounds that it motivates a lifetime of effort? Maybe happiness is quite easy for a lot of people. |
| 5256 | Some things are not naturally pleasant, but become so through disease or depravity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some things are not naturally pleasant but become so, either through injury, or through habit, or through congenital depravity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1148b16) | |
| A reaction: We might say that there are indeed 'unnatural pleasures' (e.g. sadism?), but still have to admit that we have no clear way of distinguishing the natural from the unnatural. What about gambling? Or watching horror films? |
| 5258 | While replenishing we even enjoy unpleasant things, but only absolute pleasures when we are replenished [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: People do not enjoy the same things while their natural state is being replenished as they do when it is complete; in the restored state they enjoy things that are absolutely pleasant, but while it is being replenished they enjoy even unpleasant things. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1152a03) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice distinction, which ties in with the dictum "never go to the supermarket when you are hungry". It is also a nice illustration of Aristotle's vital moral view that there is a 'natural state' for a human being. |
| 53 | Feeling inappropriate pleasure or pain affects conduct, and is central to morality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To feel pleasure or pain rightly or wrongly affects our conduct, so our whole enquiry must be concerned with them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1105a07) | |
| A reaction: Apparently the Nazi staff at Auschwitz said that they all felt largely 'indifferent' to what they were doing. Aristotle hopes you can teach these right feelings, but children can develop very unpredictably. |
| 49 | Character is revealed by the pleasures and pains people feel [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The pleasure or pain that accompanies people's acts should be taken as a sign of their dispositions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104b04) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Nothing reveals a person quicker than their apparently finding rather strange sources for pleasure or dislike. A nice short cut for novelists wanting to reveal character. |
| 84 | The greater the pleasure, the greater the hindrance to thought [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Pleasures are a hindrance to thinking, and the more enjoyable the greater the hindrance (e.g. sex). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1152b15) | |
| A reaction: The intellectual's objection to excessive pleasure. He means practical thought, as well as theorising. |
| 88 | Nobody would choose all the good things in world, if the price was loss of identity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nobody would choose to have all the good things in the world at the price of becoming somebody else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1166a23) | |
| A reaction: This now looks like a particularly good objection to utilitarianism, which aims to promote pleasure, no matter what the cost. |
| 91 | A man is his own best friend; therefore he ought to love himself best [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A man is his own best friend; therefore he ought to love himself best. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1168b09) | |
| A reaction: Both halves of this sound odd. Being your own best friend has all the oddness of self-identity. Maybe this sort of self-love should be resisted. Altruistic people are lovely. |
| 71 | Licentiousness concerns the animal-like pleasures of touch and taste [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Licentiousness is concerned with such pleasures as are shared with animals (hence thought low and brutish). These are touch and taste. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1118a25) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche is the best opponent of this view, when elevates purely physical pleasures such as dancing to a supreme status. It must be possible to give a justified account of 'high' and 'low' activities, perhaps related to increased generality + universals. |
| 34 | The good for man is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The good for man is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098a13) | |
| A reaction: Although an 'activity of the soul' sounds like a mere state of mind, he emphasises that virtue requires action. 'Soul' here is more like 'the life' than the consciousness. |
| 5137 | Many pleasures are relative to a person, but some love what is pleasant by nature, and virtue is like that [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Lovers of beauty find pleasure in things that are pleasant by nature, and virtuous actions are of this kind, so that they are pleasant not only to a particular type of person but also in themselves. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099a14) | |
| A reaction: An optimistic but crucial claim that virtue is dictated by nature, and so can't just be relative to individuals. The claim that some things are 'pleasant by nature', rather than just being liked by some individuals, is controversial but appealing. |
| 4342 | Aristotle must hold that virtuous King Priam's life can be marred, but not ruined [Hursthouse on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In discussing Priam, Aristotle, I take it, would allow that the virtuous person's life can be marred, but not, I think, ruined. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1101a14) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.3 n11 | |
| A reaction: This seems right. At first it seems that Aristotle is saying that Priam's eudaimonia was utterly lost, but elsewhere he implies that this is impossible if the disaster is external to his character. |
| 4382 | Feelings are vital to virtue, but virtue requires choice, which feelings lack [Kosman on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It seems perplexing in Aristotle that he apparently claims that virtues involve choice, while feelings do not. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104b10) by L.A. Kosman - Being Properly Affected p.110 | |
| A reaction: This captures the Kantian unease about Aristotle's theory. Presumably the answer is that choice comes into the training of the feelings, including self-training. Is choice involved in a dog trained to beg? |
| 54 | Actions are not virtuous because of their quality, but because of the way they are done [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Virtuous acts are not done justly or temperately because of their quality, but because they are done in a certain way. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1105a29) | |
| A reaction: These seems to be the contrast between correct behaviour because of a cold sense of duty (sometimes associatied with Kant), and the pleasure of acting with true virtue. |
| 58 | If virtues are not feelings or faculties, then they must be dispositions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If virtues are neither feelings nor faculties, it remains that they are dispositions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106a10) | |
| A reaction: Makng virtues into dispositions connects his moral theory to his accounts of potentialities and powers in his physics. |
| 4373 | Virtue is the feeling of emotions that accord with one's perception of value [Achtenberg on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle virtue is the acquisition of a developed capacity or tendency to experience emotion and desire accordantly with one's cognition of value. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106b16) by Deborah Achtenberg - Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics 2.2 | |
| A reaction: Leaving still the problem of the criminal whose emotions correctly follow their warped values. An interesting point, nevertheless. |
| 63 | Virtue is a purposive mean disposition, which follows a rational principle and prudent judgment [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1107a01) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the last two are getting both the theory and the practice right. Are saying that virtues finds the appropriate mean, or that virtue IS the mean? Of what? |
| 5214 | Acts may be forgivable if particular facts (rather than principles) are unknown [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What makes an act involuntary is not ignorance in the choice (which is a cause of wickedness), nor ignorance of the universal principle (which is blameable), but particular ignorance, of circumstances and objects. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110b31) | |
| A reaction: The point here has to be that particular facts are much more significant in moral decisions than principles. This is the whole key to virtue theory - that principles are overruled by the facts of a situation, and only virtue can see you through. |
| 107 | A life of moral virtue brings human happiness, but not divine happiness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Life in conformity with moral virtue will be happy in a secondary degree, because such activities are human (not divine). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1178a10) | |
| A reaction: It seems a bit silly for a human being to aspire to 'divine' happiness. If contemplation is the eudaimonia of the gods, why does that mean that humans should aspire to it. Should cats try to play chess? |
| 5215 | There are six categories of particular cirumstance affecting an action [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Particular circumstances of an action can involve 1) the agent, 2) the act, 3) the object, and also sometimes 4) the instrument, 5) the aim, and 6) the manner. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111a04) | |
| A reaction: 'Particular circumstances' are a crucial ingredient in virtue theory. It is interesting that 'the aim' (no.5) is only 'sometimes' a factor. Odd for a teleologist. Aristotle is interested in factors affecting decisions, and also excuses afterwards. |
| 5216 | An act is involuntary if the particular facts (esp. circumstances and effect) are unknown [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anyone who is ignorant of any of the six factors affecting an action is considered to have acted involuntarily (especially the circumstances of the act, and its effect). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111a17) | |
| A reaction: This seems to concede that 'moral luck' may be an excuse. Cf. Idea 269. The big problem here is when someone offers one of the six types of ignorance as an excuse, and we feel they should have made the effort to know the facts. |
| 55 | People who perform just acts unwillingly or ignorantly are still not just [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some people who perform just acts are still not just (for example, if the good act is done unwillingly or ignorantly). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1144a10) | |
| A reaction: This is because virtue must be an 'activity of the soul'. The thought seems to be that the truly good action involves the commitment of the whole agent, not just a part of them. |
| 5149 | The two main parts of the soul give rise to two groups of virtues - intellectual, and moral [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Virtue is divided into classes in accordance with differentiations of the soul. Some are called 'intellectual' (e.g. wisdom, understanding, practical reason), others are called 'moral' (e.g. liberality or temperance). The latter are virtues of character. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103a04) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle arrives at a rather sharp division, and hence a sharp division between two virtuous lifestyles, the social and the intellectual. His only overlap is practical reason ('phronesis'). My vision of the good life (and the soul) is more integrated. |
| 5156 | How can good actions breed virtues, if you need to be virtuous to perform good actions? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A difficulty with saying that people must perform just actions if they are to become just is that if they do what is just they must be just already, as they are already musical if they play music correctly. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1105a19) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is himself voicing a charge often made against him (by Kantians and utilitarians). He goes on to rebut the charge, but there is still a problem (despite the benign circle of virtue-and-good-action), which is the familiar one of relativism. |
| 5157 | If a thing has excellence, this makes the thing good, and means it functions well [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Any kind of excellence renders that of which it is the excellence good, and makes it perform its function well; thus the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and its function good. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106a17) | |
| A reaction: To say that a thing's excellence makes it good seems tautological to us, but Aristotle perceives a family of concepts (such as good, fine, excellent, and functioning well) which capture different psychological states. We need 'good', as well as 'right'. |
| 4369 | It is not universals we must perceive for virtue, but particulars, seen as intrinsically good [Aristotle, by Achtenberg] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle believes cognition of particulars is more important for virtue than cognition of universals, ..and I would add that it is cognition not just of particulars, but of their value, that is, perception of them as good or beautiful. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Deborah Achtenberg - Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics Intro | |
| A reaction: This gets quickly to the heart of the problem, which is what fact about the particular is perceived which makes it good. Utilitarians are queueing up to answer this question. Interesting, though. |
| 5158 | Actions concern particular cases, and rules must fit the cases, not the other way round [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When we are discussing actions, although general statements have a wider application, particular statements are closer to the truth. This is because actions are concerned with particular facts, and theories must be brought into harmony with these. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1107a29) | |
| A reaction: This implies criticism of Kant's whole theory, suggesting that there cannot be a universal law for most given situations. I take Aristotle's view to be (in modern terms) that a key virtue is sensitivity, taken as acute awareness of detail in a situation. |
| 5237 | We cannot properly judge by rules, because blame depends on perception of particulars [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not easy to define by rule how, and how far, a person may go wrong before he incurs blame; because this depends upon particular circumstances, and the decision lies with our perception. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1126b04) | |
| A reaction: This is a key objection to Kantian approaches to morality. Aristotle does not flatly deny the role of rules (indeed, he is a great endorser of the law), but this shows why virtues of character are a better guide than rules can ever be. |
| 3548 | Aristotle neglects the place of rules in the mature virtuous person [Annas on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle has not thought through the place of rules in the virtuous person's thought. He moves from the problem-solving of the learner to the immediate sensitivity of the fully virtuous without explaining the structure of the latter's thinking. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 2.4 | |
| A reaction: Good point. If Kantians are all rules, then Aristotle is a very good corrective, but the fact is that many people live well by following good rules, or at least good guidelines. They can be taught (or written on a poster). |
| 7165 | Virtue is wasteful, as it reduces us all to being one another's nurse [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Nothing would be more expensive than virtue: for in the end it would give us the earth as an infirmary, and 'Everyone to be everyone else's nurse' would be the pinnacle of wisdom. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 04[7]) | |
| A reaction: Once again, I think that Nietzsche does not understand Aristotelian virtue theory. This attacks Christian virtue (his bête noir), with its emphasis on compassion and humility. A truly virtuous person is more likely to be an artist/politician/philosopher. |
| 7193 | Virtue for everyone removes its charm of being exceptional and aristocratic [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The preachers of virtue are its worst enemies. For they teach virtue as an ideal for everyone; they take from virtue the charm of the rare, the inimitable, the exceptional and unaverage - its aristocratic magic. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 10[109]) | |
| A reaction: At last I think I have found why Nietzsche disliked Aristotle, who makes elementary 'phronesis' (practical reason) a sufficient intellectual endowment to achieve virtue, with no need of more than moderate wealth or power. I prefer Aristotle. |
| 5223 | We are partly responsible for our own dispositions and virtues [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Our virtues are voluntary, because we ourselves are in a sense partly responsible for our dispositions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1114b21) | |
| A reaction: This seems half way to what we would now call existentialism. See Aristotle's other comments on natural virtue. The opposing view is Heraclitus's remark that "character is fate". |
| 4367 | Moral virtue is not natural, because its behaviour can be changed, unlike a falling stone [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: None of the moral virtues is engendered in us by nature, since nothing that is what it is by nature can be made to behave differently by habituation. For instance, a stone, which has a natural tendency downwards, cannot be habituated to rise. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103a19) | |
| A reaction: Not much of an argument. Training a flower to grow up a drainpipe is not unnatural, but then the whole notion of 'unnatural' is hard to justify these days. |
| 4362 | Dispositions to virtue are born in us, but without intelligence they can be harmful [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is universally believed that we have a disposition for justice or temperance or courage from birth, but moral qualities are acquired in another way; natural dispositions are found in children and animals, but without intelligence they can be harmful. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1144b04) | |
| A reaction: An interesting argument, supporting the idea that moral virtue is not only teachable, but has to be taught, because it has an intellectual component. |
| 5225 | The end of virtue is what is right and honourable or fine [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The end of virtue is what is right and honourable ('kalon'). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1115b14) | |
| A reaction: This wretched word 'kalon' (fine/beautiful/honourable) is at the heart of Aristotle's account, but many people think it is 'fine' for your family to avenge a murder, or to fearlessly commit a dangerous crime, or to be brazenly rude. |
| 56 | A person is good if they act from choice, and for the sake of the actions in themselves [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A person is a good man when he does the acts from choice, and for the sake of the acts themselves. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1144a19) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about 'for the sake of the acts themselves'. A good deed might be something unpleasant, in order to achieve a generally desired end. An action might be right but not good. |
| 93 | Existence is desirable if one is conscious of one's own goodness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What makes existence desirable is the consciousness of one's own goodness, and such consciousness is pleasant in itself. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1170b09) | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we are much more conscious than Aristotle was of vanity as a vice, probably thanks to Christianity. The smugness of virtue signalling is especially annoying. But you see his point. |
| 44 | We acquire virtues by habitually performing good deeds [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103b01) | |
| A reaction: This is the circularity which is sometimes criticised, but seems to be benign. When two good things reinforce one another, that is not a vicious circle. |
| 51 | True education is training from infancy to have correct feelings [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The importance of having been trained in some way from infancy to feel joy and grief at the right things; true education is precisely this. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104b14) | |
| A reaction: I love this. I suspect the majority of parents neglect this, and allow children to indulge in feelings (both pro and anti) which will diminish them in later life. |
| 43 | Nature enables us to be virtuous, but habit develops virtue in us [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Moral virtues are neither by nor contrary to nature; we are constituted to receive them, but their full development is due to habit. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103a21) | |
| A reaction: The notion of the habit of virtue is hugely important, precisely because such an idea is missing in Hobbes, Bentham and Kant. The concept of a true 'lady' or 'gentleman'. |
| 5152 | Like activities produce like dispositions, so we must give the right quality to the activity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Like activities produce like dispositions; hence we must give our activities a certain quality, because it is their characteristics that determine the resulting dispositions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103b22) | |
| A reaction: Who doubts that a child brought up working for a charity would tend to be charitable, and one brought up amidst crime would tend to criminality? I just wish Aristotle could pin down the 'certain quality' the acts are supposed to have. 'Fine', I suppose. |
| 4378 | We must practise virtuous acts because practice actually teaches us the nature of virtue [Burnyeat on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is not giving us a bland reminder that virtue takes practice; rather, practice has cognitive powers, in that it is the way that we learn what is noble and just. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104b02) by Myles F. Burnyeat - Aristotle on Learning to be Good p.73 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This seems right about Aristotle, and suggests that we come to appreciate the arts (for example) by doing them rather than studying them. (NE 1147a21) |
| 6793 | People can break into the circle of virtue and good action, by chance, or with help [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is possible to get started in virtuous action without being virtuous, just as it is in the arts; it is possible to put a few words together correctly by accident, or at the prompting of another person. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1105a24) | |
| A reaction: This is a crucial idea, applicable in many areas. Philosophers love to say that it is logically impossible to get started in something (e.g. scientific theory and scientific observation) because of circularity. But they are wrong. |
| 57 | We acquire virtue by the repeated performance of just and temperate acts [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is from the repeated performance of just and temperate acts that we acquire virtues. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1105b04) | |
| A reaction: Presumably one can endlessly compel a child or an employee or a slave to perform just and temperate acts, but still not generate the actual virtue. |
| 2690 | Associating with good people can be a training in virtue [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A sort of training in virtue may result from associating with good people. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1170a12) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle doesn't say much about role models, but they strike me as basic to moral education. Good habits are largely acquired by copying. Teach the young to admire the right people. Not media celebrities! |
| 5222 | A person of good character sees the truth about what is actually fine and pleasant [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What makes the man of good character stand out furthest is the fact that he sees the truth in every kind of situation: he is a sort of standard and yardstick of what is fine and pleasant. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113a32) | |
| A reaction: A question for Aristotle seems to be whether practical reason ('phronesis') is sufficient to enable one to see what is truly fine and pleasant. Phronesis must crucially involve perception of values, and not just of what is expedient. |
| 4394 | People develop their characters through the activities they pursue [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In every sphere of conduct people develop qualities corresponding to the activities that they pursue. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1114a07) | |
| A reaction: Correct. Hence the crucial thing for a good human life is the choice of activity when young. We can impose activity on the young, but the top aim of education is to teach people how to make good choices. ('Fat chance!' I hear you say..) |
| 5239 | When people speak of justice they mean a disposition of character to behave justly [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When people speak of justice we see that they all mean that kind of state of character that disposes them to perform just acts, and behave in a just manner, and wish for what is just. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1129a07) | |
| A reaction: No remark shows more clearly that for the Greeks morality is a matter of character, rather than of actions or rules. This doesn't totally disagree with Plato's 'Republic', where justice turns out to be harmony in an individual person. |
| 4379 | It is very hard to change a person's character traits by argument [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is hard, if not impossible, to remove by argument the traits that have long since been incorporated in the character. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1179b18) | |
| A reaction: True, and a strong justification for Aristotle's approach, that the crucial element in morality is the early creation of character. But teachers can argue about what to teach. |
| 4386 | Character can be heroic, excellent, controlled, uncontrolled, bad, or brutish [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle there are six possible states of character: heroic excellence, excellence, self-control, lack of self-control, badness of character, and brutishness. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1145a15) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.158 | |
| A reaction: The two extremes are odd, but the distinction between bad and brutish is interesting, and the distinction between control and true excellence is vital (pace Kant). |
| 5250 | The three states of character to avoid are vice, 'akrasia' and brutishness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are three kinds of states of character to be avoided: vice, 'akrasia' and brutishness. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1145a16) | |
| A reaction: The three are distinguished by the state of their reason: vice exhibits bad reason, akrasia exhibits right reason (but no control), and brutishness exhibits an absence of reason. A good distinction, which should be used to judge criminals. |
| 7191 | What does not kill us makes us stronger [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What does not kill us makes us stronger. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 10[87]) | |
| A reaction: A famous remark! Actually, of course, a very stressful human life tends to be much shorter than a comfortable one, but Nietzsche wouldn't equate strength with longevity. Nowadays we are all a bunch of softies. |
| 3545 | The mean implies that vices are opposed to one another, not to virtue [Aristotle, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of the mean claims that virtues are not the polar opposites of vices, but rather stand between two vices which are opposed. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104a13) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 2.2 | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about that. If the two extremes of courage are cowardice and recklessness, how are those two opposed to one another? |
| 47 | Virtues are destroyed by the excess and preserved by the mean [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Temperance and courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency and preserved by the mean. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104a23) | |
| A reaction: It sounds as if drifting off into an excess, like binge drinking, is not just having a bad day, but actually 'destroys' the virtue. Presumably it permanently diminishes the good habit. |
| 4406 | Aristotle aims at happiness by depressing emotions to a harmless mean [Nietzsche on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Moralities which aim at the promotion of individual 'happiness' do it with recipes to counter the passions….such as the depression of emotions to a harmless mean at which they may be satisfied, the Aristotelianism of morals. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104a24) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil §198 | |
| A reaction: A serious error by Nietzsche, in which he confuses the mean with the virtue of temperance. The mean aims at appropriate emotion, not suppression. Extreme anger might be appropriate. What does Nietzsche think about inappropriate emotions? |
| 60 | The mean is relative to the individual (diet, for example) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The mean is relative to US (as an average diet is too small for Milo the wrestler). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106a32) | |
| A reaction: Does that mean that if I am a dreadful coward, then achieving a tiny bit of courage will enough to qualify me as courageous? Surely there is something absolute (or external) about the required courage? |
| 61 | Skills are only well performed if they observe the mean [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Every science performs its function well only when it observes the mean. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106b09) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Not sure what he has in mind. Most people aspire to perfection in their skills. The mean needs a continuum between two obvious extremes. |
| 4388 | One drink a day is moderation, but very drunk once a week could exhibit the mean [Urmson on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of the mean does not require the doctrine of moderation: if I say we should drink lots of alcohol once a week, but you propose a little each day, your view is more in line with moderation, but we can agree on the doctrine of the mean. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106b16) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.162 | |
| A reaction: So two people could agree on the doctrine, but end up behaving differently. This is important for virtue theory. In a moral dilemma there might be several right things that could be done. |
| 4387 | In most normal situations it is not appropriate to have any feelings at all [Urmson on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In a normal context, if you invite me to dinner the appropriate amount of anger, pity, fear and confidence I should feel is none. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106b17) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.160 | |
| A reaction: Not an objection to Aristotle, but an important point towards clarifying the doctrine of the mean, which is more to do with appropriateness than with having middling feelings. |
| 62 | We must tune our feelings to be right in every way [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We must have feelings at the right times on the right grounds towards the right people for the right motive and in the right way. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106b18) | |
| A reaction: And you thought feelings were just whatever comes naturally! We sometimes talk now of 'emotional intellgence', but we should talk more of 'educated emotions'. |
| 5159 | The mean is always right, and the extremes are always wrong [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In all things the mean is to be commended, while the extremes are neither commendable nor right, but reprehensible. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1108a16) | |
| A reaction: This is the aspect of Aristotle which Nietzsche hated, as a stultifying conservativism seems to be implied. Elsewhere, though, Aristotle emphasises what is 'appropriate' (e.g. in anger) which allows the possibility of bolder and more exciting actions. |
| 65 | The vices to which we are most strongly pulled are most opposed to the mean [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the things towards which we have the stronger natural inclination that seem to us more opposed to the mean….(e.g. pleasure). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1109a12) | |
| A reaction: Trying to identify these might lead to a circularity (if strong opposition can only be identified by strong pull). If the pull varies with individuals, that implies that the opposition is also relative. |
| 5161 | To make one's anger exactly appropriate to a situation is very difficult [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is easy to get angry - anyone can do that - but to feel or act towards the right person to the right extent at the right time for the right reason in the right way - that is not easy, and it is not everyone that can do it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1109a26) | |
| A reaction: This shows clearly that Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is NOT the same as the virtue of temperance (as Nietzsche seemed to think). Appropriate anger could be very forceful indeed, and bravery might be quite extreme in a particular crisis. |
| 5235 | Patient people are indignant, but only appropriately, as their reason prescribes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Patience is commended, because a patient person tends to be unperturbed and not carried away by his feelings, but indignant only in the way and on the grounds and for the length of time that his 'logos' prescribes. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1125b33) | |
| A reaction: Because the word 'logos' is used here, this strikes me as Aristotle's best statement of his doctrine of the mean (which is never the middle way, but always the appropriate way). |
| 5238 | The sincere man is praiseworthy, because truth is the mean between boasting and irony [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Falsehood is bad and reprehensible, while the truth is a fine and praiseworthy thing; accordingly the sincere man, who hold the mean position, is praiseworthy, while both the deceivers (the boaster and the ironist) are to be censured. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1127a29) | |
| A reaction: An interesting and surprising claim - that truth is not an abstract Platonic absolute, but a human virtue seen as a mean between two extremes of falsehood (excessive assertion and excessive denial). Truth is a human value. |
| 5217 | At times we ought to feel angry, and we ought to desire health and learning [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are some things at which we actually ought to feel angry, and others that we actually ought to desire - health, for instance, and learning. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111a29) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously an important part of virtue theory. Other theories are inclined to take our feelings as a given, and then offer rules for controlling and directing them. Emphasis on character can involve re-educating bad desires. |
| 5236 | It is foolish not to be angry when it is appropriate [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who do not get angry at things that ought to make them angry are considered to be foolish. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1126a05) | |
| A reaction: This remark most clearly shows that Nietzsche did not understand Aristotle, as he seemed to think that Aristotle was recommending bland restraint. Aristotle loves reason, but that does not mean that he admires boring tedium. |
| 64 | There is no right time or place or way or person for the committing of adultery; it is just wrong [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: No matter whether a man commits adultery with the right woman or at the right time or in the right way, because anything of that kind is simply wrong. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1107a18) | |
| A reaction: It would be nice if he gave a reason or a criterion for this opinion. Kekes says this points to something even more morally basic than virtue. Some acts should not even be considered. |
| 4117 | Nowadays we (unlike Aristotle) seem agreed that someone can have one virtue but lack others [Williams,B on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We accept, indeed regard as a platitude, an idea that Aristotle rejected, that someone can have one virtue while lacking others. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Probably because we don't think as hard about it as Aristotle did. What are the prerequisites of even a single virtue? Distinguish a true virtue from an accidental good quality. |
| 7151 | Courage, compassion, insight, solitude are the virtues, with courtesy a necessary vice [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Our four cardinal virtues: courage, compassion, insight and solitude - they would be unbearable to themselves if they hadn't forged an alliance with a cheerful and mischievous vice called 'courtesy'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[13]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche was wonderfully wicked. I struggle (with Aristotle) to see how a naturally social creature can have solitude as a virtue. It is startling to see Nietzsche naming compassion as a virtue, but how ironic is the whole remark? |
| 5251 | Gods exist in a state which is morally superior to virtue [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A god has no virtue or vice, any more than a brute has; the goodness of a god is more to be esteemed than virtue. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1145a24) | |
| A reaction: A very interesting comment, implying how very human the virtues are, with all the implied limitations. The virtues are just the natural excellences for a human, but this leaves open how naturally excellent the human race is. |
| 5240 | The word 'unjust' describes law-breaking and exploitation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The word 'unjust' is considered to describe both one who breaks the law and one who takes advantage of another, i.e. acts unfairly. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1129a32) | |
| A reaction: Roughly, injustice is bad dealings with fellow citizens. We have 'distributive justice', and justice in keeping contracts. Our central meaning, of giving each citizen what they deserve, doesn't seem to be here. |
| 5261 | Between friends there is no need for justice [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Between friends there is no need for justice. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1155a26) | |
| A reaction: This is something like Aristotle's distinction between 'enkrateia' (control) and true virtue. It is an important point for those (usually on the left wing) who think that justice is the highest aim of a society. |
| 4389 | What emotion is displayed in justice, and what are its deficiency and excess? [Urmson on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle notoriously has difficulty in finding the specific emotion that is displayed in just and unjust actions, and equal difficulty in distinguishing the two errors of deficiency and excess required by the doctrine of the mean. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1129a03) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.164 | |
| A reaction: Not a criticism of Aristotle, but it opens up the complexity of his view. It seems to make justice a super-virtue, a combination of lesser sets of combined mean and right feeling. Maybe. |
| 23556 | Particular justice concerns specific temptations, but universal justice concerns the whole character [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Beside universal justice there is particular justice, with the same name. ...Particular injustice concerns honour or money or security, and is actuated by the pleasure that the advantage offers, but universal justice has the same field as the good man. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1130b01) | |
| A reaction: Miranda Fricker finds this distinction in testimonial justice, and implies that most virtues divide in this way. |
| 5242 | Justice is whatever creates or preserves social happiness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We call 'just' anything that tends to produce or conserve the happiness of a political association. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1129b18) | |
| A reaction: This is closer to a modern view, though we probably think that some societies might flourish while being unjust, while others might be very just but disintegrate. We are more cynical than Aristotle. |
| 5151 | Justice concerns our behaviour in dealing with other people [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the way that we behave in our dealings with other people that makes us just or unjust. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103b16) | |
| A reaction: This makes clear that 'justice' for the Greeks concerns what we think of as basic morality, rather than legal distribution of pleasure or pain. It will be the Greek word 'dikaiosuné', which is the main topic of Plato's 'Republic'. |
| 5224 | Strictly speaking, a courageous person is one who does not fear an honourable death [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In the strict sense of the word the courageous man will be one who is fearless in the face of an honourable death, or of some sudden threat of death. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1115a33) | |
| A reaction: I.e. one is rightly afraid of a DIShonourable death. This seems to be more of a touchstone than a definition. Presumably one can show true courage in the face of pain as well as of death. |
| 5226 | True courage is an appropriate response to a dangerous situation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The man who faces or fears the right things for the right reason and in the right way and at the right time is courageous. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1115b18) | |
| A reaction: This is the consistent view of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Their concept is much broader and more value-laden than ours. We are inclined to see courage as simply being undeterred by pain, and place the morality elsewhere. |
| 24 | Honour depends too much on the person who awards it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Honour is felt to depend more on those who confer than on him who receives it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1095b22) | |
| A reaction: That presumably means that honour is not only highly relative (much more so than a society's other virtues), but that the persons awarding the honours are highly biased. See the absurd UK House of Lords. |
| 5233 | Honour is clearly the greatest external good [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Honour is clearly the greatest external good. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1123b20) | |
| A reaction: Honour was earlier dismissed as 'the good', largely because it depended on other people. It is not far off to say that the aim of Aristotle's theory is to achieve genuine and justified honour. One's 'eudaimonia' is judged by others too. |
| 4119 | If you aim at honour, you make yourself dependent on the people to whom you wish to be superior [Aristotle, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: People who aim at political honour tend to defeat themselves by making themselves dependent on those to whom they aim to be superior (what might be called the 'Coriolanus Paradox'). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1095b25) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: This brings out Aristotle's point nicely. This is why aristocrats withdraw behind their fences, among small coteries of accolytes. |
| 110 | Lower animals cannot be happy, because they cannot contemplate [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The lower animals have no share in happiness, being completely incapable of contemplation. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1178b25) | |
| A reaction: I've heard it suggested that the recipe for human happiness is to be good looking and rather dim. Very few people can be seriously good at contemplation. |
| 104 | Contemplation (with the means to achieve it) is the perfect happiness for man [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Contemplation (with enough self-sufficiency, leisure and energy) is the perfect happiness for man. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1177b17) | |
| A reaction: I assume this is successful and elevating contemplation, rather than sinking into depression as one contemplates human folly and wickedness. Stick to anodyne contemplations? |
| 18229 | Only contemplation is sought for its own sake; practical activity always offers some gain [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: This activity [contemplation] alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the activity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1177b), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Finality' | |
| A reaction: Not true. Gardening, walking, travelling, chatting with friends, reading. I'm shocked that he should say this. |
| 5272 | The intellectual life is divine in comparison with ordinary human life [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If the intellect is divine compared with man, the life of the intellect must be divine compared with the life of a human being. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1177b31) | |
| A reaction: This raises an interesting question: what, for Aristotle, was the value of a human life? This raises a meta-question for virtue theory, because the latter only concerns itself with excellence for humans? What is the value of a slug? |
| 18232 | The gods live, but action is unworthy of them, so that only leaves contemplation? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The circumstances of action would be found trivial and unworthy of gods. ...Still, everyone supposes that they live and are therefore active. ...Now if you take away from a living being action, and still more production, what is left but contemplation? | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1178b), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Finality' | |
| A reaction: Is the ideal life for a human being to be paralysed by injury, and hence capable of nothing except godlike contemplation? |
| 105 | We should aspire to immortality, and live by what is highest in us [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We ought, so far as in us lies, to put on immortality, and do all that we can to live in conformity with the highest that is in us. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1177b33) | |
| A reaction: This high/low picture should be treated with caution. 'Be a good animal, true to your animal self', says a D.H. Lawrence character. Why aspire to what is unattainable? |
| 111 | The more people contemplate, the happier they are [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The more people contemplate, the happier they are. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1178b29) | |
| A reaction: On the other hand he regularly says that virtues concern actions, not thoughts. He sees slavery as essential to allow others to contemplate, but feeling guilty about that would ruin it. |
| 5138 | The fine deeds required for happiness need external resources, like friends or wealth [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It seems clear that happiness needs the addition of external goods, for it is difficult if not impossible to do fine deeds without any resources; many can only be done by the help of friends, or wealth, or political influence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099a32) | |
| A reaction: One should ask what fine deeds can be done without external resources, and also what corruptions of virtue result from the pursuit of external goods (esp. political influence!). Aristotle wants to DO good, where Stoics want to BE good. |
| 38 | A man can't be happy if he is ugly, or of low birth, or alone and childless [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A man is scarcely happy if he is very ugly to look at, or of low birth, or solitary and childless. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099b03) | |
| A reaction: This seems a bit shocking for us, when none of these setbacks is the person's fault. Socrates was said to be ugly, and Plato seems to have had no children. |
| 1665 | It is nonsense to say a good person is happy even if they are being tortured or suffering disaster [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who say that a man who is being tortured and has suffered terrible calamities is happy if he is a good man are willy-nilly talking nonsense. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1153b19) | |
| A reaction: Someone expressed this extreme idea, and the Stoics sympathised with it. Happiness is life going well. Making a supreme sacrifice for an enormous good seems like life going well. |
| 108 | The virtue of generosity requires money [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The liberal man will need money to perform liberal acts. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1178a28) | |
| A reaction: The sort of thing Margaret Thatcher used to say, with a passive aggressive tone. The virtue also needs someone to be short of money. The paradox of virtue - that bad situations are needed, to give them opportunities. |
| 2686 | Aristotle does not confine supreme friendship to moral heroes [Cooper,JM on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: I argue that Aristotle does not make friendship of the central kind the exclusive preserve of moral heroes, and that he does not maintain that friendships of the derivative kinds are wholly self-centered. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1155a03-) by John M. Cooper - Aristotle on Friendship p.305 | |
| A reaction: Glad to hear it. Though he does seem to think that only virtuous people can have true friendships. He sees friendship as the cement of a good society, so it has to be fairly widespread. |
| 2687 | For Aristotle in the best friendships the binding force is some excellence of character [Cooper,JM on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle what makes a friendship a virtue-friendship is the binding force within it of some - perhaps for all that partial and incomplete - excellence of the character. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1156b10) by John M. Cooper - Aristotle on Friendship p.308 | |
| A reaction: It is certainly hard to imagine a really good friendship that doesn't involve mutual respect, and possibly even mutual admiration. |
| 85 | Bad men can have friendships of utility or pleasure, but only good men can be true friends [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Where the object is pleasure or utility friendship is possible between bad men,…but obviously only good men can be friends for their own sakes. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1157a16) | |
| A reaction: If bad men try to be friends, they presumably become aware of the vices in the other person, and vices are usually fairly unfriendly. |
| 7185 | Replace the categorical imperative by the natural imperative [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Replacement of the categorical imperative by the natural imperative. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 09[27]) | |
| A reaction: This places Nietzsche rather firmly with evolutionary psychologists (who see morality in evolutionary terms), which he probably would not like. I just don't believe we are helpless victims of nature, and nor must we endorse what it asks of us. |
| 5252 | 'Enkrateia' (control) means abiding by one's own calculations [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The continent man (controlled, 'enkratic') is identical with one who tends to abide by his own calculation. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1145b09) | |
| A reaction: The point is that this is NOT virtue, even though it results in doing the right thing. In such an 'enkratic' (controlled) person the reason is in a healthy state, but the desires, emotions and pleasures are badly trained. |
| 7164 | Not feeling harnessed to a system of 'ends' is a wonderful feeling of freedom [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What a sensation of freedom it is to feel, as we freed spirits feel, that we are not harnessed up to a system of 'ends'! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[206]) | |
| A reaction: Given his view that we are utterly dominated by the 'will to power', I am beginning to wonder in what sense we could ever be 'free'. If my happiness is an 'illusion' (Idea 7159), then I retaliate by saying that his freedom is also an illusion. |
| 7198 | Nihilism results from measuring the world by our categories which are purely invented [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Belief in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism - we have measured the value of the world against categories that refer to a purely invented world. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[99]) | |
| A reaction: What a remarkable thought! He will have Kant especially in mind. The implication is that we might avoid nihilism by creating more accurate categories, but Nietzsche, as relativist, thinks that is impossible (Ideas 7174, 7175). Nihilism is our fate. |
| 7150 | By developing herd virtues man fixes what has up to now been the 'unfixed animal' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Men's increasing morality allows them to fancy they can rise to the rank of 'gods', whereas in fact they sink; by cultivating the virtues by which a herd can flourish, they develop the herd animal, and 'fix' what has up to now been the 'unfixed animal'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[13]) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] More than any other remark, this explains the sense of distress found in all of later Nietzsche. If he is right, it looks even more true now than in 1886, because of the globalisation of culture. I think he is right. |
| 7177 | Virtues from outside are dangerous, and they should come from within [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The virtues are as dangerous as the vices, to the extent that one allows them to rule as authority and law from outside instead of generating them from within oneself. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[6]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche was a romantic, who thought things only have worth if they are authentic, individual, autonomous, original. Existentialism is the last fling of romanticism, and expresses an adolescent yearning for 'freedom'. From what? |
| 7172 | Existence without meaning or goal or end, eternally recurring, is a terrible thought [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is, without meaning or goal, but inevitably recurring, without any finale into nothingness: 'eternal recurrence'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[71].6) | |
| A reaction: I take this in a positive spirit - that if you wish to live well you should create a life which you could endure and enjoy, even if it recurred eternally. But that might be rather conservative rather than exciting, if we always avoided giving offence. |
| 5245 | Society collapses if people cannot rely on exchanging good for good and evil for evil [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: People expect either to return evil for evil, or good for good, and if this is impossible no exchange can take place, and it is exchange that holds people together. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1132b34) | |
| A reaction: This is not far from a Thomas Hobbes contract view of society, with someone being needed to enforce the justice of contracts. Many societies, though, seem to have survived despite being riddled with injustices. |
| 5265 | Even more than a social being, man is a pairing and family being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Man is by his nature a pairing rather than a social creature, inasmuch as the family is an older and more necessary thing than the state. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1162a20) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 5133. It seems that the family fulfils the most basic human function, but that political life arises from the next level of function, which is a combination of friendship and the wider needs of a family. |
| 7166 | Man is above all a judging animal [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Man is above all a judging animal. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 04[8]) | |
| A reaction: This seems awfully close to Aristotle's supposed claim that we are the 'rational animal' (though see Idea 6559). To me it implies that if judging is our proper function, then judging well is our highest virtue. The highest good for man is understanding. |
| 5133 | Man is by nature a social being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Man is by nature a social being. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097b10) | |
| A reaction: A famous idea traditionally translated (e.g. by Irwin) as "man is a political animal", but Thomson's translation seems better. Aristotle presumably means that man lives in a 'polis'. This is the natural function that gives the moral virtues.Cf Idea 5265. |
| 86 | A bad political constitution (especially a tyranny) makes friendship almost impossible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In societies with perverted political constitutions friendship is little found; in a tyranny there is almost no friendship. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1161a29) | |
| A reaction: See 'Politics' for more on this. He wants a benign circularity between friendship and the good society. Friendship facilitates the good society, which in turn fosters friendship. I like it. |
| 5140 | Political science aims at the highest good, which involves creating virtue in citizens [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The end of political science is the highest good, and the chief concern of this science is to endue the citizens with certain qualities, namely virtue and readiness to do fine deeds. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099b29) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core of modern communitarianism, which is much more paternalistic than is normally acceptable in a liberal democracy. Freedom is downgraded, and there is an assumption that legislators are generally wiser than citizens. |
| 21046 | The aim of legislators, and of a good constitution, is to create good citizens [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103b03), quoted by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 08 | |
| A reaction: I always admired the UK Race Relations Act, which made certain sorts of racism illegal, quite a long time before many of the population grasped the point. The legislation educated the citizens. |
| 5241 | We hold that every piece of legislation is just [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What is prescribed by legislation is lawful, and we hold that every such ordinance is just. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1129b12) | |
| A reaction: This sounds astonishingly conservative, and doesn't seem to allow for the possibility of bad laws (even those made by tyrants, let alone those made by a misguided democracy). The basis is, presumably, society as a 'natural' institution. |
| 7204 | The upholding of the military state is needed to maintain the strong human type [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The upholding of the military state is the ultimate means to either adopt or keep hold of the great tradition respecting the highest human type, the strong type. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[407]) | |
| A reaction: I do find this kind of thing disappointing, after Nietzsche's wonderful deconstruction of traditional value systems. Is a killing field the only place where human strength can be exhibited? What's the point of human strength if it is displayed in killing? |
| 87 | Democracy is the best constitution for friendship, because it encourages equality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Friendships are most commonly found in democracies, because the citizens, being equal, have much in common. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1161b09) | |
| A reaction: He also implies that friendship promotes democracy, presumably because friends prefer to be equals. |
| 5260 | Friendship holds communities together, and lawgivers value it more than justice [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Friendship seems to be the bond that holds communities together, and lawgivers seem to attach more importance to it than to justice. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1155a23) | |
| A reaction: An interesting aspect of the Aristotelian view of society which we now call 'communitarian'. Even lawgivers should be concerned with friendship (how?). There is 'such a thing as society', because friendship networks overlap. |
| 5264 | Friendship is based on a community of sharing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The proverb 'friends have all things is common' is quite right, because friendship is based on community. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1159b30) | |
| A reaction: Thus communism is a kind of sentimental dream that everybody will be friends. The aspiration of all good people should be to spread the boundaries of the networks of friends to be ever more inclusive. This is the new left-wing of politics. |
| 21047 | Aristotle thought slavery is just if it is both necessary and natural [Aristotle, by Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For slavery to be just, according to Aristotle, two conditions must be met: it must be necessary, and it must be natural. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 08 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle thought it met both conditions, but no one now thinks it meets either condition. |
| 7173 | Rights arise out of contracts, which need a balance of power [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Rights originate only where there are contracts; but for there to be contracts, a certain balance of power must exist. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[82]) | |
| A reaction: It is a notorious problem with contractual ethics that the weak have nothing to bargain with. Nietzsche's view would make the concept of animal rights almost incoherent, but we understand them, even if he would not have done. |
| 21044 | For Aristotle, debates about justice are debates about the good life [Aristotle, by Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle believes that debates about justice are, unavoidably, about honour, virtue and the nature of the good life. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 08 | |
| A reaction: Nozick cannot deny that his desperate attachment to freedom is a vision of the good life, and social contract theories start from the ideal of equality, which is a vision of right living. |
| 5246 | Natural justice is the same everywhere, and does not (unlike legal justice) depend on acceptance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are two sorts of political justice, one natural and the other legal; the natural is that which has the same validity everywhere and does not depend upon acceptance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1134b18) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be the germ out of which Aquinas developed more fully the idea of 'natural law'. This remark is strong counterevidence that Aristotle was not merely describing convention in his theory of the virtues. |
| 5150 | Intellectual virtue arises from instruction (and takes time), whereas moral virtue result from habit [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Intellectual virtue owes both its inception and its growth chiefly to instruction, and so needs time and experience; moral goodness, on the other hand, is the result of habit. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103a15) | |
| A reaction: If one adds to this his idea of practical reason as the intellectual virtue that makes the moral virtues possible, one has a good formula for running a school. The formula: 1) instruction about theory, 2) practical experience, 3) drilling good habits. |
| 5228 | A suicide embraces death to run away from hardships, rather than because it is a fine deed [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It shows weakness of character to run away from hardships, and the suicide endures death not because it is a fine thing to do but in order to escape from suffering. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1116a14) | |
| A reaction: It is easy to construct a situation where suicide IS a fine deed. And when I put on a warm coat I am running away from hardships rather than pursuing fine deeds. He does have a point, though. |
| 2684 | Aristotle needed to distinguish teleological description from teleological explanation [Irwin on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle does not distinguish teleological description and teleological explanation, or not as clearly as he should. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Terence Irwin - Metaphysical and psych. basis of 'Ethics' p.40 | |
| A reaction: I assume the explanation has to be factual and true, but the description might be a convenient way of focusing our view of something. |
| 5227 | The nature of any given thing is determined by its end [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The nature of any given thing is determined by its end. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1115b23) | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of the essence of the teleological view. A counterexample might be something which had a very unimpressive end, but was incidentally rather wonderful, like being a perfectionist about a menial task. |
| 7176 | 'Purpose' is like the sun, where most heat is wasted, and a tiny part has 'purpose' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The case of every purposive action is like the supposed purposiveness of the sun's heat - the huge mass of it is wasted, and a part barely worth considering has 'purpose', has 'meaning'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[1]) | |
| A reaction: A very nice metaphor for human life, where you might discern a purpose in certain large events, but you certainly won't find it in the myriad of small actions that make up nearly all of our existence. |
| 7195 | If the world aimed at an end, it would have reached it by now [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If the world process were directed towards a final state, that state would have been reached by now. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[72]) | |
| A reaction: If advanced aliens existed, they would be here by now... I doubt if anyone now believes that the world has an end. However, strictly speaking, how could we possibly assess the time scale for such things? |
| 5219 | Types of cause are nature, necessity and chance, and mind and human agency [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The accepted types of cause are nature, necessity and chance, and also mind and human agency. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112a28) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle accepts this traditional analysis, but also has his own four types (material, formal, efficient and final). Presumably 'nature' would be contingent causes. 'Chance' seems the odd one out. 'Mind' seems to imply free will. |
| 20083 | Aristotelian causation involves potentiality inputs into processes (rather than a pair of events) [Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: In the Aristotelian approach to causation (unlike the Humean approach, involving separate events), A might cause B by being an input into some process (realisation of potentiality) that results in B. | |
| From: Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 9 'Trying') | |
| A reaction: Stout relies quite heavily on this view for his account of human action. I like processes, so am sympathetic to this view. If there are two separate events, it is not surprising that Hume could find nothing to bridge the gap between them. |
| 7206 | Things are strong or weak, and do not behave regularly or according to rules or compulsions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Things' do not behave regularly, not according to a rule: things are our fiction, and nor do they behave under the compulsion of necessity. That something is as it is, as strong or as weak, is not the consequence of obeying or rules or compulsion. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[79]) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about the denial of 'things', given that they are then said to be strong or weak, but Nietzsche seems to have had the key insight of modern essentialism, that the so-called 'laws' are merely the outcome of the inner natures of things. |
| 7140 | Chemical 'laws' are merely the establishment of power relations between weaker and stronger [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I take care not to talk of chemical 'laws'. It is rather a matter of the absolute establishment of power relations: the stronger becomes master of the weaker to the extent that the weaker cannot assert its autonomy - there is no respect for 'laws'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 36[18]) | |
| A reaction: This links Nietzsche's will to power with Locke's talk of physical powers, and both point towards an essentialist view of natural laws, rather than seeing laws as something imposed from outside on nature. |
| 7142 | All motions and 'laws' are symptoms of inner events, traceable to the will to power [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One must understand all motion, all 'appearances', all 'laws' as mere symptoms of inner events. ...all the functions of animal and organic life can be traced back to the will to power. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 36[31]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche must be the first philosopher to put inverted commas round the word 'law', referring to nature. |
| 7180 | Darwin overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Darwin absurdly overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[25]) | |
| A reaction: In some ways Nietzsche was just as bad as the Christians in his reluctance to face up to Darwin's idea. Does he really think that creatures evolve a certain way because they want to? Even fans of Nietzsche must bite the bullet of natural selection. |
| 7179 | Survival might undermine an individual's value, or prevent its evolution [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Something useful for maintaining the individual over time might be unfavourable to its strength and magnificence; what preserves the individual might simultaneously hold it fast and bring its evolution to a standstill. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[25]) | |
| A reaction: He heads this 'Against Darwin', but I think Darwin could accommodate these observations, as he merely points out a mechanism, and makes not value judgements at all. |
| 7178 | The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[25]) | |
| A reaction: This may be wishful thinking on Nietzsche's part, wanting the human mind to be free of its utility for survival, so that it can be focused on 'higher' things. We can explain by origin and purpose, but also by causal possibilities. |
| 7192 | Remove goodness and wisdom from our concept of God. Being the highest power is enough! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Let us remove the highest goodness from the concept of God, and likewise remove the highest wisdom, for which the vanity of the philosophers is to blame. No! God the highest power - that is enough! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 10[90]) | |
| A reaction: Since everything is, apparently, 'will to power', then power must be the ideal. Why does Nietzsche want such a thing? As far as I can see, the greater seekers of power are idiots who have no idea what to do with it when the achieve it. |
| 7158 | Morality kills religion, because a Christian-moral God is unbelievable [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Religions perish through belief in morality: the Christian-moral God is not tenable: hence 'atheism' - as if there could be no other kind of god. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[107]) | |
| A reaction: This remark is mainly aimed at Christianity, which has become progressively more sentimental in its conception of God. When some great earthquake comes, this God is not plausible, where a tougher sort of God might be. |
| 7199 | It is dishonest to invent a being containing our greatest values, thus ignoring why they exist and are valuable [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is the pinnacle of man's mendacity to think up a being as a beginning and 'in-itself', according to the yardstick of what he happens to find good, wise, powerful, valuable - and think away the whole causality by which they exist and have value. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[122]) | |
| A reaction: I think most non-religious people feel that religion completely fails to solve the problems it is meant to address, by just ignoring the problems, or pushing them to another place. |
| 7162 | Morality can only be upheld by belief in God and a 'hereafter' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Naivety: as if morality remained when the sanctioning God is gone. The 'hereafter' is absolutely necessary if belief in morality is to be upheld. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[165]) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'good' and 'evil' of social values, not the natural values which accompany the life of any creature (see Idea 7136). Even with a God, it required the priests to interpret the morality and the sanctions, and they had their thumbs in the scales. |
| 7208 | Paganism is a form of thanking and affirming life? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Is the pagan cult not a form of thanking and affirming life? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[89]) | |
| A reaction: Yes, but it also centres on worries about life, such as potential famine and natural disasters. It is rooted as much in the negative of fear as in the positive of gratitude and appreciation. |
| 7160 | Christian belief is kept alive because it is soothing - the proof based on pleasure [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It seems that Christian belief is to be kept alive precisely for the sake of its soothing effects; ...this hedonistic turn, the proof based on pleasure, is a symptom of decline. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[144]) | |
| A reaction: The abolition of hell by the Anglican church in the 1990s is the last stage in this development. To be fair (and why not?), the Christian life demands a rather large effort, if it is to be lived properly, so it is a rather demanding sort of hedonism. |
| 24037 | We all assume immortality is impossible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We do not wish for impossible things - for immortality, for instance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b22) | |
| A reaction: Obviously this primarily means physical immortality, in contrast to the immortal gods, though Aristotle doesn't seem to believe that humans have an immortal part. |
| 7203 | In heaven all the interesting men are missing [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Has anyone noticed that in heaven all the interesting men are missing? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[153]) | |
| A reaction: It does appear that the huge problem with paradise, when it is portrayed as lying around being waited on and revering God forever, is boredom. No charity work will be possible, so only a deadening politeness will remain of the good human life. |
| 7200 | A combination of great power and goodness would mean the disastrous abolition of evil [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A high degree of power in the hands of the highest goodness would entail the most disastrous consequences ('the abolition of evil'). | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[122]) | |
| A reaction: This goes with Mackie's claim that the actual existence of evil is proof that an omnipotent and benevolent God can't exist (Idea 1472). |