...Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics defined a virtuous act to be an act that satisfied three conditions. He further elaborated on it using his function argument to emphasize that acting virtuously according to reason fulfilled our function and brought us pleasure. This claim seems to be in tension with Kant’s view that a dutiful action is motivated by the reason for your action, maxims, undertaken out of reverence to the moral law. Although dutiful actions conform to ‘the good will’, they may conflict with happiness. I will argue through Aristotle’s function argument, Kant’s definition of a good will and the parallels of their requirements for moral acts that although their claims about the nature of virtuous and dutiful action seem to be in tension with each other, they both agree the source of virtuous and dutiful actions is reason....
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...will do anything unless it makes us happy. Because happiness and its definition are so widely debated and thought provoking, it is no wonder that a mind such as Aristotle undertakes the task of writing about happiness. What we come to find in Book One Nicomachean Ethics is that Aristotle ultimately defines happiness as function. However, in this definition comes two major questions: Why does function equate to happiness and how can we even be sure that humans have a function? In this essay I will prove that happiness is the end that human function strives towards, and, by showing why Aristotle’s argument does not evoke the fallacy of composition, that humans...
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...ID - 22780878 Essay #3 – Aristotle’s Function Argument In this essay, I will be discussing Aristotle’s function argument. This argument is found in Nicomachean ethics, in which Aristotle claims that the best human good is “the soul’s rational activity expressing virtue” (1098a16-17). To better understand this claim, we must first discuss the function argument in its entirety. Aristotle prefaces this argument by presuming that the best good is happiness. What we need, however, is a clearer definition of what the best good is (1097b22-24). Beginning with the first premise of his argument, Aristotle states that we will be able to define what the best good is if we first discover what the function of a human being is. This is because the good (i.e. doing well in anything that has a function and characteristic action) depends on the function itself (1097b26-29). If this is true, then we can apply this concept to human beings, if human beings do indeed have a function. Furthermore, Aristotle questions if human beings have a function at all, aside from the functions projected onto them by whatever occupation they serve in society (i.e. farmer, blacksmith). In his argument’s second premise, Aristotle states that if every bodily part in a human being has a function, we can similarly attribute a function to the human being as a whole. This premise acts upon Aristotle’s argument prior to the function argument in Nicomachean ethics, which states that numerous goods can serve higher...
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...critically assess Aristotle’s argument regarding the definition of good, and the definition of happiness reached by considering the function of man in The Nicomachean Ethics. At first Aristotle states that the good we seek is different in actions and arts and that the good of each is “that for whose sake everything else is done”. So in every action pursued supposedly there’s an end: “therefore if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good achievable by action”. Since there’s more than one end, not all ends are final. Some ends are merely pursued for the sake of another. Evidently if there’s one final end, then that’s what we seek, but if there are more than one, the most final one’s the one we truly...
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...Pleasure resides in the activity which is perfected by that pleasure. A pleasure which is proper to an activity makes the activity more accurate, more enduring, and better, while an alien pleasure impairs the activity. The pleasure proper to a good activity is good, while the pleasure proper to a bad activity is evil. Just as each animal is thought to have a proper function, it also has a proper pleasure which corresponds to the activity of that function. The pleasures proper to human beings are those which correspond to the activity of a perfect and blessed man. Section 6: Let us review what has already been said about happiness. Happiness is an activity of some sort which is chosen for its own sake and is self-sufficient. Actions according to virtue are chosen for their own sake. Happiness is not found in amusement, for it would be absurd to argue that the goal of a person's life and work is amusement. Rather, amusement is chosen for the purpose of relaxation, which is necessary to enable a person to engage in serious work. Everything is thought to be chosen for the sake of something else except for happiness. A happy life is a life according to virtue. Section 7: Since it has already been established [in Book One] that happiness is an activity according to virtue, it is reasonable to posit that it is an activity according to the highest virtue, which would be an activity corresponding to the best part of man. The activity of the intellect is the best human activity...
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...According to “The Mythology of Selfishness,” by Mary Midgley, the natural function of society is not entirely selfish in nature. Midgley believes that the natural telos of society is the development of intellect based on an individual’s social nature or their inclination toward coexistence and empathy. However, the natural function of an individual is to ensure that individual’s own survival, but instead results in ensuring the survival of society. These ends can combine because one individual is tied to the whole society. Midgley’s telos and Aristotle’s telos of a city-state are very similar. Aristotle asserts that polis is the formation of community for the common good and is based on the social relationship of citizens to one another. Aristotle...
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...Dr. Katherine Heenan English 472 Spring 2007 February 20, 2007 Aristotle’s Life and the Rhetoric Books I and II Aristotle (384-322 BCE) • Aristotle was a student of Plato’s who disagreed with his mentor over the place of public speaking in Athenian life • born in Macedonia about the time Plato was opening the Academy in Athens • age seven went to Athens and entered the Academy--stayed on as teacher; left 20 yrs later on Plato’s death in 347 • Was ineligible to inherit Academy because he wasn’t Athenian • believed only scientific demonstration and the analysis of formal logic could arrive at transcendent truth • Dialectic and rhetoric form 2 major divisions in his view of human inquiry but they deal with subjects on which true knowledge isn’t available • Rhetoric: making persuasion possible • for Aristotle, rhetoric as the discovery in each case of the available means of persuasion--this discovery requires scientific investigation o in terms of speech situations, he focused on civic affairs • forensic speaking considers guilt or innocence—judicial speech centering on accusation and defense • deliberative speaking considers future policy—political speech centering on future policy • epideictic speaking considers praise and blame—ceremonial speech ▪ Aristotle classified rhetoric as the counterpart of dialectic o dialectic is on-on-one conversation; rhetoric is one...
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...simply be defined as the quality in a person to do what is right and shun what is wrong. Virtue enables a person to attain moral excellence. It is not only a quality which has substance, but also one, which is extremely desirable. In ancient Greek, during times of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, moral philosophy was an essential discipline which got taught in schools. Most of the Great philosophers of that time heard a different version, accounts and views about the ideal, moral virtues. In this essay, attempts are made critically to analyze the views, opinions and beliefs of two of the most influential philosophers of all time- Socrates and Aristotle ( Prior, 2001). The essays will showcase the crucial differences between Aristotle account on virtue, and Socrates account of virtue. This essay will then attempt to give an analysis of which among the two arguments is the most plausible. It should be noted from the onset the Socrates and Aristotle have different and also similar arguments about virtue. They concur that virtue is a state but differ sharply on its functions. These accounts shall get discussed in the essay ( Anagnostopoulos, 2011). The account on virtue as proposed, by Aristotle perceives morals virtues, to represent the characters that are a consequence of habits repeating themselves over and over again. His account explains that the virtues of a person can be traced between the two extreme ends of two cardinal states, which are scarcity and excess. His account...
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...The soul (psyche) is the structure of the body - its function and organization. This was the word Greeks gave to the animator, the living force in a living being. For Aristotle the psyche controlled reproduction, movement and perception. In contrast Aristotle regarded reason (nous) as the highest form of rationality. He believed that the ‘unmoved mover’ of the universe was a cosmic nous. Aristotle thought that the soul is the Form of the body. The soul is simply the sum total of the operations of a human being. Aristotle believed that there exists a hierarchy of living things – plants only have a vegetative soul, animals are above plants because they have appetites, humans are above animals because it has the power of reason. Aristotle tries to explain his understanding of the distinction between the body and the soul using the analogy of an axe. If an axe were a living thing then its body would be made of wood and metal. However, its soul would be the thing which made it an axe i.e. its capacity to chop. If it lost its ability to chop it would cease to be an axe – it would simply be wood and metal. Another illustration he uses is the eye. If the eye were an animal, sight would have to be its soul. When the eye no longer sees then it is an eye in name only. Likewise, a dead animal is only an animal in name only – it has the same body but it has lost its soul. What is important for Aristotle is the end purpose of something – an axe chops, an eye sees, an animal...
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...Aristotle believes that some people are by nature slaves. What is his argument for that claim? Do you agree with Aristotle that a slave-holding society can be democratic? According to Aristotle, a slave is the property of its master, and that any piece of property can be regarded "as a tool enabling a man to live". The slave, therefore, is a living tool of the master, whose purpose is to allow the master to live well. A slave belongs to a master, but a master doesn't belong to a slave. The rule of a master over a slave, then, is exercised with a view to the master's and the slave's goals or interests. He represents slaves as a tool in his definition of slavery. Aristotle continues his definition of slave by explaining that those people who are “slaves” are naturally born as slaves and they are naturally the property of some one else. “Those who are as different [from other men] as the soul from the body or man from beast – and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them – are slaves by nature….For he is a slave by nature who is capable of belonging to another – which is also why he belongs to another – and who participates in reason only to the extent of perceiving it, but does not have it.” Slaves are tools but they are alive and they belong to their masters. But when he widens his explanations about slavery, he states that all slavery instituted by human convention is not compatible with justice by saying...
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...Final Essay Both Kant and Aristotle discuss their own interpretations of what morality is and what it looks like. They have very different ways of looking at what it means to act morally and what needs to be done to achieve morality and how happiness factors in to morality however. Aristotle believes that the end goal of morality is happiness. Happiness is the “final end” to all moral actions, it is the thing all humans are striving for even subconsciously. It is the final end because all actions lead to happiness, but happiness can only lead to itself, you build a ship to travel, you travel to trade, you trade to make money, and so on until you reach happiness but there is nothing greater than happiness. Aristotle reasons that since happiness...
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...theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which is thought to survive the death of the body. However, this view point isn’t taken by all. Viewpoints on the soul can be separated into monism, dualism and materialistic views. Aristotle is a monist believing that the body and soul are not linked, whereas Dawkins is a hard materialist believing that biology is the key. Aristotle defined the soul, or psyche, as the ‘first actuality’ of the body and argued against it having a separate existence from the physical body, unlike other philosophers such as Plato. Aristotle’s belief was that the difference between a live body and a corpse is the presence of the soul. When the soul dies, so does the body. In his book, De Anima he stated that “the soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which belongs to a body.” In Aristotle’s view, full actualisation of a living thing is its soul. The soul is the form and shape of the body. Aristotle argued that the soul is not a substance like matter because matter can be many different things, but what gives matter its shape and function is its Form. By suggesting that the soul is the Form of the body, Aristotle means that the soul gives form to the matter which is the body. In just the same way that a marble statue is physically a block...
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...In his book Nichomacean Ethics, Aristotle states that to live a good and happy life a human being must have a proper function, “an activity of the soul in conformity with a rational principle” (p 17 line 3) that is ‘aim[ed] at some good” (p3 line 2). However, some achieve that proper function more effectively than others through their decisions. Aristotle mentions that “some vices exceed and others fall short of what is required in emotion and in action, whereas virtue finds and chooses the median” (p44 line 5), which shows that to live blissfully one must find the mean in all of their actions, which is a grey area within limits in the spectrum of choices, and avoid the extremes on the ends of this spectrum. This clip, Illegal Immigration: The Destruction of America, shows the views of a group of Americans against foreigners immigrating into their country to enjoy the benefits of the American society. However, this view on illegal immigration is unethical in terms of Aristotle’s principles as it prevents these people from attaining their high standards and proper human function by taking away the rights they could achieve in the land of the “free”, it also disregards the idea of a grey area, only showing the irrational and biased American extreme. The clip complains about how Mexican people come into America and take on the jobs that “Americans won’t do” (0:13), and how “they use hospital services while Americans pick up the bill” (1:35). This personally affected me as it contradicts...
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...of the soul is an integral point of concern in the writings of both Plato and Aristotle. Plato views the soul as beyond the body, something that must be released from the grip of mortality. Despite being the student of Plato, Aristotle has his own line of reasoning in regards to the soul, tying the existence of the soul to the existence of life. I will endeavor to show the differences between their thoughts on the soul and its purpose in their philosophical ideology, with the purpose of explaining how Aristotle’s beliefs on the matter of the soul are preferable. One of Plato’s clearest exposition on the soul occurs during the recounting of the death of Socrates, wherein Socrates tells of how “the wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself” and further that “the real philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die” (Plato). These statements on death will serve as an opening for the rest the Plato’s theories on the soul; the idea that for true knowledge to be grasped, the soul must be freed from the prison of the body. Plato argues that the soul, as an immortal expression of being, is capable of existing beyond the mortal world. He asserts that the body is a detriment to the pursuit of pure knowledge, that it “is a source of endless trouble to us…” (Plato), leading to the idea that purity can only be achieved once the soul is freed. One of the arguments Plato employs as his reasoning for the idea of the Soul being outside of the body...
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...Easter and Western Philosophers Comparison Dominick Mckeon 105 Philosophy Nancy Wack The philosopher I chose was Aristotle and his philosophy of naturalistic ethics. He discerned that what was good for us was defined by our natural objective. To him, happiness was the thing that we seek for its own sake and for no other reason and that this being our highest objective makes it also the highest form of good. He reasoned that in order to find out what makes us happy we must consider our function, what we actually do as human animals. The text claimed that, for the most part, we do two things, live and reason, and so happiness consists of enjoying life and honing our ability to reason. As living creatures with biological needs, we receive pleasure by satisfying those needs. Eating food is enjoyable, sleeping and napping can be enjoyable, procreation can also be enjoyable, and many other biological needs when met create enjoyment. He also argues that human beings are distinct from other animals in our ability to reason, I do not agree with this, but if I were living in his era, I probably would have agreed. The chapter goes on to say that because we can reason it is therefore, necessary to exercise our ability to achieve happiness; not just the pleasure of satisfying biological needs. Aristotle coined the term virtue which encompassed two variations, one in which we contemplate called intellectually virtuous and the other to be morally virtuous as when...
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