Prompt: Explain Aristotle’s argument for virtue as the content of happiness in Book I & II of the Nicomachean Ethics. It must be clear from your exposition why happiness is the nature end of human action. Second, explain why we should think that Aristotle has the right way to think about happiness – Do you think some of the pursing some of the common conception of happiness could work? Regardless of what position you take on the matter, provide two examples that support your argument.
Required Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. I & II
Remember: A response consists of more than one word or simply agreeing. Please cite all passages in the text (including page number) and cite all outside information according to MLA guidelines. Your answer should have AT LEAST 3 responses (possibly more), aside from your original post. You will always be required to create a post responding to the discussion prompt (300-600 words), before viewing any responses of other students. Please review your work carefully before you submit since you will not be allowed to edit it afterwards (i.e., type and edit your responses in a WordDoc before posting.) Additionally, each discussion board requires you to respond to at least three other students (50-100 words per response).
Youtube Videos To help answer prompt:
Introduction: Aristotle’s ethics takes as a premise the end of all human action (telos), anything you do is toward the goal of happiness. I think it’s plain to see if we look at why you might be enrolled in this class – to achieve credit for a degree. Why? To be hired for a decent paying job. Why? So that you don’t have to work as hard, can have a family, live comfortably, or simply acquire all the major things in life that might make you happy. Regardless of how we look at this pattern, we can easily see it tends toward happiness. But as you also know not everyone takes the same road toward happiness. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle will explain how each person will conceive of happiness in different ways, chiefly pleasure, wealth or honor – Whatever you think happiness is composed of is how you will pursue it. As you might expect, Aristotle does not think any of these common conceptions of happiness are the correct answer to the question.
If we take a moment and think back to the Ergon Argument and the meaning of ‘eudaimonia’, we can explain what is missing. Happiness must be an end in itself, not something pursued for the sake of anything else, and a thing must be functioning properly in order to achieve its purpose. What follows from Aristotle’s argument is that everything must work according to its nature, operating according to the highest principle in it; this principle is what separates it from the rest of nature. When we inquire about what principle separates human beings from the rest nature we see it’s our rational capacity. Since we are primarily rational beings, we flourish (i.e., function properly) when we utilize our rational capacity. The exercise of reason allows human beings to flourish, allowing us to choose the best ways to live. When we make enough of the correct choices enough times we acquire virtue (build a good habit); when we do things against reason we acquire vice. So, virtue ethics is about finding out what actions, when repeated, will allow us to form a habit that tends toward happiness.
You will be assigned specific chapters of the first books in the Nicomachean Ethics. You should pay specific attention to how Aristotle constructs ethics as a science, it’s relation to politics, and why virtue is the correct conception of happiness.
Additional Information: (You can skim through it)
Aristotle began by looking at this formulation of morality known as virtue ethics. You might have noticed that Book I began with a discussion of science and politics – two topics which seem out of place for a discussion on ethics. For Aristotle, all inquiry is a scientific inquiry. While Aristotle means something specific by scientific inquiry, it will not be too far removed from what we understand as science. Scientific inquiry has three parts for Aristotle – the principles, subject matter, and the ends.
(1) The principles of a science (or axioms), are something taken as either self-evidently true, or as given without demonstration. I’ll use the science of physics as our exemplar science. The principles of physics are that matter and motion exist, for without which we would not be able to understand the physical realm. So, the science takes them as necessary for its inquiry and does not attempt to give a demonstrate for their existence.
(2) The subject matter of a science explains how this specific science studies something separate from all other sciences. In the case of physics, the science aims to study everything that is physical. You might notice or be able to recall from science classes you have taken that the study of physics is involved with many other sciences. So how can we say that physics study everything as physical, but biology does not? The subject matter also sets up the boundaries of an inquiry, in this case physics studies all being in so far as it is physical. This last distinction is useful for setting up the last distinction.
(3) The end of a science (again the word here is telos), is the whole purpose of the inquiry, or more precisely what the inquiry aims at. Specific to Aristotle, the end of any science means to discover the cause of the subject matter generally. For our example of physics, the end of the science would be the cause of being insofar as it is physical; Aristotle believes this would be the unmoved mover (See his Proof of Locomotion in the Physics for more information.) What (3) also let’s us understand is the hierarchy that exists for all inquiry, and further the aim of some sciences is (theoretical) knowledge, while other sciences aim at production.
Using this distinction between the parts of a science, Aristotle explains in the first book the difference between ethics and politics, since it seems the subject matter of morality is the same for both sciences. First there is the distinct between ethics and politics, because politics ends in command and aims to cause all persons to be good (virtuous), it is the master science of the good for Aristotle. Ethics on the other hand will explain to us how to become good. Because Aristotle thinks all actions aim at some good, ethics and politics are practical sciences, because the end of these sciences is to become good.
For the science of ethics, the principle taken is human nature as rational animal; our capacity to reason is the highest principle in us because it is what differentiates us from the rest of nature. Because human beings have the capacity to reason, the subject matter of ethics is human action as it is a result of deliberate choice. But what do all human actions tend toward? Most philosophers then, and now agree that people act for the sake of happiness. But how a person conceives of happiness will determine how they pursue it.
The Greek word eudaimonia is often translated as ‘happiness,’ but should be understood to mean also ‘human flourishing’. Aristotle makes the argument that wealth, pleasure, or honor could not constitute happiness, since they each lack the characteristic of an end, they are not self-sufficient. Pleasure because it is finite and requires something material for its occurrence. Wealth comes close to happiness because it could be used to acquire pleasure or honor, but wealth could not be pursued for its own sake. Honor too is important for happiness because it allows people to know if they are performing the correct actions. Aristotle will argue that the content of happiness must be virtue.
The core of Aristotle’s formulation of virtue can be understood by three points, where (1) Happiness is an activity in the soul in accordance with virtue; (2) Virtue is a characteristic of a power in the soul which must be acquired. But importantly, (3) virtue lies in the mean between excess and deficiency. Number (3) is the most important, commonly referred to as the Golden Mean. Doing the right actions, at the right time, in the correct portions will allow the formation of the correct habits. Habituation, the key to acquiring virtue, requires both knowledge and experience – knowing what the good actions are and having experience of them lets us know why they are good.
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