...The nature of the universe in Aristotle lecture in “Nicomachean Ethics” is the end of in all the things we do, “Therefore, if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good achievable by action (Aristotle 5). We are uncertain of the end to come because the choices we are to make in life has a different ending to them. Aristotle implication in his lecture are that we may find that end through knowledge of art or particularly, political sciences and desiring to aim at it for the sake of pursing something good. The universe teaches us that the good things to be learned in life starts with known about certain subjects. An end is reached when men performs acts that’s leading to that end. Which is the only way men arriving at any state...
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...The last question to address is, how is one’s individual potential shaped by one’s relationships to others? The reading on Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle goes into great depth on the many types of friendships and how each one differs from the next. Aristotle identifies the three main types of friendships; the friendship of goodness, friendship for the sake of utility, and friendship for the sake of pleasure. The friendship that only seeks pleasure is, according to Aristotle, a bad friendship because the goal is merely to benefit one person and not both people in the relationship. This relationship’s foundation is based on each person’s vices rather than their virtues (Aristotle 3). When one does not possess a virtuous relationship, they are...
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...Within book 8, and 9 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he concludes friendship is the best external good an individual can possess. However, Aristotle in book 8, chapter 3 he asserts the best friendships are forged through the similarities of enduring virtues. However, this doesn't seem correct, because people can still want goodwill for one another though their virtues differ. Arguably, it is the enduring characteristics between two individuals that forge friendships; it is not solely the virtuous similarity between the two. In effect, this essay will argue that enduring friendships are maintained through the lovable characteristics of an individual, rather the virtuous similarity between the two agents. This is because experiences between...
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...The Nicomachaen Ethics The Nicomachean Ethics are philosophical analysis of the nature of the good life for a human. Aristotle starts off his work by stating that there exists an ultimate good in which ultimately all human actions aim for. The characteristics of the ultimate good are that they are complete, final, self-sufficient, and continuous. The good which all humans aim for is happiness in Greek, “eudaimonia,” which can also be translated as living well, and is not a state of being but rather a type of activity. “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”(Ch. 1) To discover the nature of human happiness one must determine what the function of a human being is. The function must be specific to human beings, which is essential to being a human. A person is mainly his intellect. Although the spirit and desire of people is also important, the rational part of the soul is what can most closely be considered a person’s identity. Human happiness consists of the activity of the soul according to reason. “Far best is he who knows all things himself; Good, he that hearkens when men counsel right; But he who neither knows, nor lays to heart Another's wisdom, is a useless Wight.”(Ch. 4) Every action that is taken must be done deliberately. Knowing what he/she is doing, and doing it because it is ethically correct is the meaning...
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...I will summarize and 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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...Imagine a newborn baby crying in the hospital. This baby was not born with the knowledge of being kind nor evil but with a pure state of mind. Not knowing what is right and wrong, virtue can guide people to knowing what is good. But what exactly is virtue? According to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, virtue is described as neither a feeling nor capacity but a settled state or disposition. It is shown as a state that allows people to aim for what is transitional and also what decides the mean between two practices, one of being overly full and the other being a lack of. A great example of a common virtue would be courage. People usually depict courage as being strong and facing danger without fear. But this common assumption isn’t what true courage is. In reference to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, there are those who appear to be courageous and those who are actual courageous people. Therefore what exactly is a courageous person and how do we distinguish from one to another? Aristotle describes courage in the text through the various principles taken from virtue and examples of those who have a part of what is considered courageous. It starts out with the balance of the mean between fear and confidence. People portray fear as everything that seems bad. They fear all bad things such as bad reputation, poverty, sickness, savage and death but none of these should be a concern for a courageous person. For example, fear of bad reputation is actually considered a normal and...
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...The Nicomachean Ethics is a famous book, where Aristotle follows Socrates and Plato in discussing the virtues of a central to a well-lived life. In this specific passage, Aristotle regards the ethical virtue of Friendliness to be a central part of social intercourse. Aristotle describes how different people act differently in different situations because of the social situation and kind of person they are. The passage builds the case to show how people are different, and how we should be able to better identify who a true friend truly is. There are different types of friendship, friendship based on greed, and friendship based on goodness of character. This assignment will discuss and better interpret these different characteristics which Aristotle...
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...In “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle distinguishes the vicious man, who is unrepentant of his actions (which are contrary to the good, as it is performed by a virtuous person), from the incontinent man, who regrets his actions (which regularly miss what they know to be good). Aristotle proposes the vicious man does not know he is vicious (otherwise he would regret failing to act toward the good), but the incontinent man knows he is incontinent. This is why they possess such relationships to repentance. I argue the incontinent man regrets his weakness in not acting as he thinks he should, but the vicious man has no weakness to repent for, therefore its absence is not proof he is ignorant of how he is perceived by a culture. The vicious man...
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...Aristotle:Nicomachean Ethics Jonathan Rodriguez I. Introduction Aristotle is considered to be one of the greatest philosophical thinkers of all time. His writings compose of searching 'what is the purpose of life' and 'function of man'. His goal was to know what makes a person’s life well and how we get there. Aristotle believes that the nature of morality is grounded in the function of persons, meaning that we must act in order to become happy and fulfilled. What are the functions of persons and how does one acquire virtue? To live a good life is to aim towards living a good life by acquiring habits that make one become good by doing good. Essentially human activity is aimed towards acquiring happiness for themselves and others to achieve a status of well-being. The idea is that moral excellence is an activity that is in our power and we practice this activity through reasoning. An individual doesn’t do anything for no reason, an individual has reasons as to why one does things, and we act with ends in mind whatever those ends may be. According to Aristotle the ultimate end is to contribute happiness to oneself. A person is always searching for happiness by aiming towards what makes him happy and this doesn’t take a day, it takes a lifetime. Aristotle has an idea as to what the functionalist accounts of persons are which I will introduce in Section two. Next in Section three, I will discuss the connection between virtue and the function of persons. Lastly in Section...
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...From seeking enjoyment to avoiding grief, most people's goal in life is about achieving happiness. However, how to define and obtain happiness in one's life and also living it virtuous can be challenging. When we consider the questions of how we should live our lives, we often seek for some method or schematic that we can apply to help us classify our actions and qualities as good, bad, or indifferent. Such a means of methodology would surely make it easier to determine what the right thing to do is. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle formulates a concept in which we can integrate into our lives to measure and characterize our actions and choices. This concept is called the Doctrine of the Mean and according to Aristotle if we utilize his...
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...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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...Nicomachean Ethics Book II & X Aristotle In Book II of Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle talks mostly about virtue and being virtuous. He says that virtue is character; it’s what makes us see if we are good or bad. He argues that for you to become good you have to do goodness and act good. If you act good the habit of being good will make your character that of a good person. He uses the example of a builder. A builder becomes a builder by building; a good person becomes good by doing good and making it a habit to do good. In order to be good you have to do good. Aristotle then discusses how one does good. He says that in order for you to do good you must avoid excess and deficiency. Being good is requires balance, a mean. Anything in excess is harmful. This mean is relative. Goodness is not universal and it is relative to each person. We must each find this average of good that applies to your own case. As humans we grow up and naturally we want to avoid displeasure and go after pleasure. Aristotle believes that often this isn’t the right thing; sometimes the good thing is having pain and displeasure if it means doing what is good. We must condition ourselves to choose what is good not what gives us pleasure. He then questions weather it is possible to do good with out trying to be good. Meaning that good happened on accident. Aristotle doesn’t think this is good enough. He says that you have to do the good action and still have to be good when you’re doing it in order for...
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...Topic 1: In Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines virtue as “the mean relative to us.” In separate paragraphs, please describe briefly the basic notion of virtue as a mean, and then explain why he believes that such a mean is relative to us. Provide quotations/examples to support your claims. Include a final paragraph in which you explain your views on this issue of relativity. Be sure to take into consideration the counter-arguments we discussed in class. The mean is relative to the person who is trying to find his mean. This is the only way you can look at mean. Everything in life is relative, to one person a situation can be completely different to another. The virtues on a scale of a person can be different to another, thus it is hard to judge another person's relativity. To understand this concept we need to understand means, virtue, and virtue in the moral and the intellectual sense. First off Aristotle does not think the same way as his teacher Plato does. Aristotle comes up with the idea that we should think of the means to get to the ends. Whereas Plato, his teacher, thinks that we should think of the ends to find the means. “the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth.” Aristotle shows that not only one thing is under the means there can be multiple means to one end. An example, the making of sails and woodcraft can both go towards making a ship. This shows that the means...
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...Aristotle writes the Nicomachean Ethics in an attempt to express his views on how men should best live their lives. Aristotle states that friendship is a true virtue, and something that is worth focusing on to achieve happiness, and a good soul. He believes that friendship is “most necessary for our life” (Aristotle 30). Aristotle spends the majority of his Nicomachean Ethics focusing on friendship as opposed to other virtues, such as intellect, justice, fairness, and magnanimity. He views friendship highly and places it above all other virtues. In Aesop’s fable, “The Friends and the Bear”, two men do not exhibit the same values that Aristotle so devotedly describes must be evident in a friendship “The Two Friends and the Bear” describes the story of two men walking together for safety and coming across a bear. Instead of standing by his friend, the second man takes cover for himself in a tree and leaves his friend to fend for himself. The lesson behind this fable is “Do not be too quick to resume your fellowship with that other man, in case you fall once again into the clutches of another wild beast” (Aesop). In other words, do not be too quick to give out trust to a friend who has once betrayed it. Aristotle describes a virtuous true friendship, in disagreement with Aesop’s faulty friendship between the two men. The friendship that Aesop describes defies many of the virtues that Aristotle writes about. Aristotle writes that in a friendship both people should benefit from the...
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...There is no contesting that Abraham as he appears in Genesis has faith in God. Although this is true, many hold Abraham to be an example of what faith should look like despite reoccurring examples of his occasional lack of total faith in certain situations. In line with this, many would assume that Abraham possesses a virtuous character, as many perceive faith to be a virtue. However, by Aristotle’s definition of virtue as it is presented in Nicomachean Ethics, faith itself would not be a virtue but in fact an excess condition of trust and loyalty. It because of Abraham’s lack of total faith in God – which is itself would be considered a vice for two reasons: because it is an excess condition and because it doesn’t account for self-interest...
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