Jules Verne - "Le château des Carpathes"

George Otto Trevelyan - "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay"

William Allan Reed - "Negritos of Zambales"

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa - "History of the Incas"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ethics

A >> Aristotle >> Ethics




XII

Well, we have now stated the nature and objects of Practical Wisdom and
Science respectively, and that they belong each to a different part
of the Soul. But I can conceive a person questioning their utility.
"Science," he would say, "concerns itself with none of the causes of
human happiness (for it has nothing to do with producing anything):
Practical Wisdom has this recommendation, I grant, but where is the need
of it, since its province is those things which are just and honourable,
and good for man, and these are the things which the good man as such
does; but we are not a bit the more apt to do them because we know them,
since the Moral Virtues are Habits; just as we are not more apt to be
healthy or in good condition from mere knowledge of what relates to
these (I mean, of course, things so called not from their producing
health, etc., but from their evidencing it in a particular subject),
for we are not more apt to be healthy and in good condition merely from
knowing the art of medicine or training.

"If it be urged that _knowing what is_ good does not by itself make a
Practically-Wise man but _becoming_ good; still this Wisdom will be no
use either to those that are good, and so have it already, or to those
who have it not; because it will make no difference to them whether they
have it themselves or put themselves under the guidance of others who
have; and we might be contented to be in respect of this as in respect
of health: for though we wish to be healthy still we do not set about
learning the art of healing.

"Furthermore, it would seem to be strange that, though lower in the
scale than Science, it is to be its master; which it is, because
whatever produces results takes the rule and directs in each matter."

This then is what we are to talk about, for these are the only points
now raised.

[Sidenote:1144a] Now first we say that being respectively Excellences
of different parts of the Soul they must be choiceworthy, even on the
supposition that they neither of them produce results.

In the next place we say that they _do_ produce results; that Science
makes Happiness, not as the medical art but as healthiness makes health:
because, being a part of Virtue in its most extensive sense, it makes a
man happy by being possessed and by working.

Next, Man's work _as Man_ is accomplished by virtue of Practical Wisdom
and Moral Virtue, the latter giving the right aim and direction, the
former the right means to its attainment; but of the fourth part of the
Soul, the mere nutritive principle, there is no such Excellence, because
nothing is in its power to do or leave undone.

As to our not being more apt to do what is noble and just by reason of
possessing Practical Wisdom, we must begin a little higher up, taking
this for our starting-point. As we say that men may do things in
themselves just and yet not be just men; for instance, when men do what
the laws require of them, either against their will, or by reason of
ignorance or something else, at all events not for the sake of the
things themselves; and yet they do what they ought and all that the good
man should do; so it seems that to be a good man one must do each act in
a particular frame of mind, I mean from Moral Choice and for the sake of
the things themselves which are done. Now it is Virtue which makes the
Moral Choice right, but whatever is naturally required to carry out
that Choice comes under the province not of Virtue but of a different
faculty. We must halt, as it were, awhile, and speak more clearly on
these points.

There is then a certain faculty, commonly named Cleverness, of such a
nature as to be able to do and attain whatever conduces to _any_ given
purpose: now if that purpose be a good one the faculty is praiseworthy;
if otherwise, it goes by a name which, denoting strictly the ability,
implies the willingness to do _anything_; we accordingly call the
Practically-Wise Clever, and also those who can and will do anything.

Now Practical Wisdom is not identical with Cleverness, nor is it without
this power of adapting means to ends: but this Eye of the Soul (as we
may call it) does not attain its proper state without goodness, as we
have said before and as is quite plain, because the syllogisms into
which Moral Action may be analysed have for their Major Premiss, "since
----------is the End and the Chief Good" (fill up the blank with just
anything you please, for we merely want to exhibit the Form, so that
anything will do), but _how_ this blank should be filled is seen only by
the good man: because Vice distorts the moral vision and causes men to
be deceived in respect of practical principles.

It is clear, therefore, that a man cannot be a Practically-Wise,
without being a good, man.

XIII

[Sidenote:1144b] We must inquire again also about Virtue: for it may be
divided into Natural Virtue and Matured, which two bear to each other a
relation similar to that which Practical Wisdom bears to Cleverness, one
not of identity but resemblance. I speak of Natural Virtue, because men
hold that each of the moral dispositions attach to us all somehow by
nature: we have dispositions towards justice, self-mastery and courage,
for instance, immediately from our birth: but still we seek Goodness
in its highest sense as something distinct from these, and that these
dispositions should attach to us in a somewhat different fashion.
Children and brutes have these natural states, but then they are plainly
hurtful unless combined with an intellectual element: at least thus much
is matter of actual experience and observation, that as a strong body
destitute of sight must, if set in motion, fall violently because it has
not sight, so it is also in the case we are considering: but if it can
get the intellectual element it then excels in acting. Just so the
Natural State of Virtue, being like this strong body, will then
be Virtue in the highest sense when it too is combined with the
intellectual element.

So that, as in the case of the Opinionative faculty, there are two
forms, Cleverness and Practical Wisdom; so also in the case of the Moral
there are two, Natural Virtue and Matured; and of these the latter
cannot be formed without Practical Wisdom.

This leads some to say that all the Virtues are merely intellectual
Practical Wisdom, and Socrates was partly right in his inquiry and
partly wrong: wrong in that he thought all the Virtues were merely
intellectual Practical Wisdom, right in saying they were not independent
of that faculty.

A proof of which is that now all, in defining Virtue, add on the "state"
[mentioning also to what standard it has reference, namely that] "which
is accordant with Right Reason:" now "right" means in accordance with
Practical Wisdom. So then all seem to have an instinctive notion that
that state which is in accordance with Practical Wisdom is Virtue;
however, we must make a slight change in their statement, because that
state is Virtue, not merely which is in accordance with but which
implies the possession of Right Reason; which, upon such matters, is
Practical Wisdom. The difference between us and Socrates is this: he
thought the Virtues were reasoning processes (_i.e._ that they were all
instances of Knowledge in its strict sense), but we say they imply the
possession of Reason.

From what has been said then it is clear that one cannot be, strictly
speaking, good without Practical Wisdom nor Practically-Wise without
moral goodness.

And by the distinction between Natural and Matured Virtue one can
meet the reasoning by which it might be argued "that the Virtues are
separable because the same man is not by nature most inclined to all at
once so that he will have acquired this one before he has that other:"
we would reply that this is possible with respect to the Natural Virtues
but not with respect to those in right of which a man is denominated
simply good: because they will all belong to him together with the one
faculty of Practical Wisdom. [Sidenote:1145a]

It is plain too that even had it not been apt to act we should have
needed it, because it is the Excellence of a part of the Soul; and that
the moral choice cannot be right independently of Practical Wisdom and
Moral Goodness; because this gives the right End, that causes the doing
these things which conduce to the End.

Then again, it is not Master of Science (i.e. of the superior part of
the Soul), just as neither is the healing art Master of health; for it
does not make use of it, but looks how it may come to be: so it commands
for the sake of it but does not command it.

The objection is, in fact, about as valid as if a man should say
[Greek: politikae] governs the gods because it gives orders about all
things in the communty.


APPENDIX

On [Greek: epistaemae], from I. Post. Analyt. chap. i. and ii.

(Such parts only are translated as throw light on the Ethics.)

All teaching, and all intellectual learning, proceeds on the basis
of previous knowledge, as will appear on an examination of all. The
Mathematical Sciences, and every other system, draw their conclusions in
this method. So too of reasonings, whether by syllogism, or induction:
for both teach through what is previously known, the former assuming
the premisses as from wise men, the latter proving universals from
the evidentness of the particulars. In like manner too rhetoricians
persuade, either through examples (which amounts to induction), or
through enthymemes (which amounts to syllogism).

Well, we suppose that we _know_ things (in the strict and proper sense
of the word) when we suppose ourselves to know the cause by reason
of which the thing is to be the cause of it; and that this cannot be
otherwise. It is plain that the idea intended to be conveyed by the term
_knowing_ is something of this kind; because they who do not really know
suppose themselves thus related to the matter in hand and they who
do know really are so that of whatsoever there is properly speaking
Knowledge this cannot be otherwise than it is Whether or no there is
another way of knowing we will say afterwards, but we do say that we
know through demonstration, by which I mean a syllogism apt to produce
Knowledge, i.e. in right of which through having it, we know.

If Knowledge then is such as we have described it, the Knowledge
produced by demonstrative reasoning must be drawn from premisses _true_
and _first_, and _incapable of syllogistic proof_, and _better known_,
and _prior in order of time_, and _causes of the conclusion_, for so the
principles will be akin to the conclusion demonstrated.

(Syllogism, of course there may be without such premisses, but it will
not be demonstration because it will not produce knowledge).

_True_, they must be, because it is impossible to know that which is not.

_First_, that is indemonstrable, because, if demonstrable, he cannot be
said to _know_ them who has no demonstration of them for knowing such
things as are demonstrable is the same as having demonstration of them.

_Causes_ they must be, and _better known_, and _prior_ in time,
_causes_, because we then know when we are acquainted with the cause,
and _prior_, if causes, and _known beforehand_, not merely comprehended
in idea but known to exist (The terms prior, and better known, bear two
senses for _prior by nature_ and _prior relatively to ourselves_ are not
the same, nor _better known by nature_, and _better known to us_ I mean,
by _prior_ and _better known relatively to ourselves_, such things as
are nearer to sensation, but abstractedly so such as are further
Those are furthest which are most universal those nearest which are
particulars, and these are mutually opposed) And by _first_, I mean
_principles akin to the conclusion_, for principle means the same as
first And the principle or first step in demonstration is a proposition
incapable of syllogistic proof, i. e. one to which there is none prior.
Now of such syllogistic principles I call that a [Greek: thxsis] which
you cannot demonstrate, and which is unnecessary with a view to learning
something else. That which is necessary in order to learn something else
is an Axiom.

Further, since one is to believe and know the thing by having a
syllogism of the kind called demonstration, and what constitutes it to
be such is the nature of the premisses, it is necessary not merely to
_know before_, but to _know better than the conclusion_, either all or
at least some of, the principles, because that which is the cause of a
quality inhering in something else always inheres itself more as the
cause of our loving is itself more lovable. So, since the principles are
the cause of our knowing and behoving we know and believe them more,
because by reason of them we know also the conclusion following.

Further: the man who is to have the Knowledge which comes through
demonstration must not merely know and believe his principles better
than he does his conclusion, but he must believe nothing more firmly
than the contradictories of those principles out of which the contrary
fallacy may be constructed: since he who _knows_, is to be simply and
absolutely infallible.




BOOK VII



I

Next we must take a different point to start from, and observe that of
what is to be avoided in respect of moral character there are three
forms; Vice, Imperfect Self-Control, and Brutishness. Of the two former
it is plain what the contraries are, for we call the one Virtue, the
other Self-Control; and as answering to Brutishness it will be most
suitable to assign Superhuman, i.e. heroical and godlike Virtue, as, in
Homer, Priam says of Hector "that he was very excellent, nor was he like
the offspring of mortal man, but of a god." and so, if, as is commonly
said, men are raised to the position of gods by reason of very high
excellence in Virtue, the state opposed to the Brutish will plainly be
of this nature: because as brutes are not virtuous or vicious so neither
are gods; but the state of these is something more precious than Virtue,
of the former something different in kind from Vice.

And as, on the one hand, it is a rare thing for a man to be godlike (a
term the Lacedaemonians are accustomed to use when they admire a man
exceedingly; [Greek:seios anhaep] they call him), so the brutish man is
rare; the character is found most among barbarians, and some cases of it
are caused by disease or maiming; also such men as exceed in vice all
ordinary measures we therefore designate by this opprobrious term. Well,
we must in a subsequent place make some mention of this disposition,
and Vice has been spoken of before: for the present we must speak of
Imperfect Self-Control and its kindred faults of Softness and Luxury, on
the one hand, and of Self-Control and Endurance on the other; since we
are to conceive of them, not as being the same states exactly as Virtue
and Vice respectively, nor again as differing in kind. [Sidenote:1145b]
And we should adopt the same course as before, i.e. state the phenomena,
and, after raising and discussing difficulties which suggest themselves,
then exhibit, if possible, all the opinions afloat respecting these
affections of the moral character; or, if not all, the greater part and
the most important: for we may consider we have illustrated the matter
sufficiently when the difficulties have been solved, and such theories
as are most approved are left as a residuum.

The chief points may be thus enumerated. It is thought,

I. That Self-Control and Endurance belong to the class of things good
and praiseworthy, while Imperfect Self-Control and Softness belong to
that of things low and blameworthy.

II. That the man of Self-Control is identical with the man who is apt to
abide by his resolution, and the man of Imperfect Self-Control with him
who is apt to depart from his resolution.

III. That the man of Imperfect Self-Control does things at the
instigation of his passions, knowing them to be wrong, while the man of
Self-Control, knowing his lusts to be wrong, refuses, by the influence
of reason, to follow their suggestions.

IV. That the man of Perfected Self-Mastery unites the qualities of
Self-Control and Endurance, and some say that every one who unites these
is a man of Perfect Self-Mastery, others do not.

V. Some confound the two characters of the man who has _no_
Self-Control, and the man of _Imperfect Self-Control_, while others
distinguish between them.

VI. It is sometimes said that the man of Practical Wisdom cannot be a
man of Imperfect Self-Control, sometimes that men who are Practically
Wise and Clever are of Imperfect Self-Control.

VII. Again, men are said to be of Imperfect Self-Control, not simply
but with the addition of the thing wherein, as in respect of anger, of
honour, and gain.

These then are pretty well the common statements.

II

Now a man may raise a question as to the nature of the right conception
in violation of which a man fails of Self-Control.

That he can so fail when _knowing_ in the strict sense what is right
some say is impossible: for it is a strange thing, as Socrates thought,
that while Knowledge is present in his mind something else should
master him and drag him about like a slave. Socrates in fact contended
generally against the theory, maintaining there is no such state as that
of Imperfect Self-Control, for that no one acts contrary to what is best
conceiving it to be best but by reason of ignorance what is best.

With all due respect to Socrates, his account of the matter is at
variance with plain facts, and we must inquire with respect to the
affection, if it be caused by ignorance what is the nature of the
ignorance: for that the man so failing does not suppose his acts to be
right before he is under the influence of passion is quite plain.

There are people who partly agree with Socrates and partly not: that
nothing can be stronger than Knowledge they agree, but that no man acts
in contravention of his conviction of what is better they do not agree;
and so they say that it is not Knowledge, but only Opinion, which the
man in question has and yet yields to the instigation of his pleasures.

[Sidenote:1146a] But then, if it is Opinion and not Knowledge, that is
it the opposing conception be not strong but only mild (as in the case
of real doubt), the not abiding by it in the face of strong lusts would
be excusable: but wickedness is not excusable, nor is anything which
deserves blame.

Well then, is it Practical Wisdom which in this case offers opposition:
for that is the strongest principle? The supposition is absurd, for
we shall have the same man uniting Practical Wisdom and Imperfect
Self-Control, and surely no single person would maintain that it is
consistent with the character of Practical Wisdom to do voluntarily what
is very wrong; and besides we have shown before that the very mark of
a man of this character is aptitude to act, as distinguished from
mere knowledge of what is right; because he is a man conversant with
particular details, and possessed of all the other virtues.

Again, if the having strong and bad lusts is necessary to the idea of
the man of Self-Control, this character cannot be identical with the man
of Perfected Self-Mastery, because the having strong desires or bad ones
does not enter into the idea of this latter character: and yet the man
of Self-Control must have such: for suppose them good; then the moral
state which should hinder a man from following their suggestions must be
bad, and so Self-Control would not be in all cases good: suppose them on
the other hand to be weak and not wrong, it would be nothing grand; nor
anything great, supposing them to be wrong and weak.

Again, if Self-Control makes a man apt to abide by all opinions without
exception, it may be bad, as suppose the case of a false opinion: and
if Imperfect Self-Control makes a man apt to depart from all without
exception, we shall have cases where it will be good; take that of
Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, for instance: he is to be
praised for not abiding by what he was persuaded to by Ulysses, because
he was pained at being guilty of falsehood.

Or again, false sophistical reasoning presents a difficulty: for because
men wish to prove paradoxes that they may be counted clever when they
succeed, the reasoning that has been used becomes a difficulty: for the
intellect is fettered; a man being unwilling to abide by the conclusion
because it does not please his judgment, but unable to advance because
he cannot disentangle the web of sophistical reasoning.

Or again, it is conceivable on this supposition that folly joined with
Imperfect Self-Control may turn out, in a given case, goodness: for by
reason of his imperfection of self-control a man acts in a way which
contradicts his notions; now his notion is that what is really good is
bad and ought not to be done; and so he will eventually do what is good
and not what is bad.

Again, on the same supposition, the man who acting on conviction pursues
and chooses things because they are pleasant must be thought a better
man than he who does so not by reason of a quasi-rational conviction but
of Imperfect Self-Control: because he is more open to cure by reason of
the possibility of his receiving a contrary conviction. But to the man
of Imperfect Self-Control would apply the proverb, "when water chokes,
what should a man drink then?" for had he never been convinced at all
in respect of [Sidenote: 1146b] what he does, then by a conviction in a
contrary direction he might have stopped in his course; but now though
he has had convictions he notwithstanding acts against them.

Again, if any and every thing is the object-matter of Imperfect and
Perfect Self-Control, who is the man of Imperfect Self-Control simply?
because no one unites all cases of it, and we commonly say that some men
are so simply, not adding any particular thing in which they are so.

Well, the difficulties raised are pretty near such as I have described
them, and of these theories we must remove some and leave others as
established; because the solving of a difficulty is a positive act of
establishing something as true.

III

Now we must examine first whether men of Imperfect Self-Control act with
a knowledge of what is right or not: next, if with such knowledge, in
what sense; and next what are we to assume is the object-matter of the
man of Imperfect Self-Control, and of the man of Self-Control; I mean,
whether pleasure and pain of all kinds or certain definite ones; and as
to Self-Control and Endurance, whether these are designations of the
same character or different. And in like manner we must go into all
questions which are connected with the present.

But the real starting point of the inquiry is, whether the two
characters of Self-Control and Imperfect Self-Control are distinguished
by their object-matter, or their respective relations to it. I mean,
whether the man of Imperfect Self-Control is such simply by virtue of
having such and such object-matter; or not, but by virtue of his being
related to it in such and such a way, or by virtue of both: next,
whether Self-Control and Imperfect Self-Control are unlimited in their
object-matter: because he who is designated without any addition a man
of Imperfect Self-Control is not unlimited in his object-matter, but has
exactly the same as the man who has lost all Self-Control: nor is he so
designated because of his relation to this object-matter merely (for
then his character would be identical with that just mentioned, loss
of all Self-Control), but because of his relation to it being such
and such. For the man who has lost all Self-Control is led on with
deliberate moral choice, holding that it is his line to pursue pleasure
as it rises: while the man of Imperfect Self-Control does not think that
he ought to pursue it, but does pursue it all the same.

Now as to the notion that it is True Opinion and not Knowledge in
contravention of which men fail in Self-Control, it makes no difference
to the point in question, because some of those who hold Opinions have
no doubt about them but suppose themselves to have accurate Knowledge;
if then it is urged that men holding Opinions will be more likely than
men who have Knowledge to act in contravention of their conceptions,
as having but a moderate belief in them; we reply, Knowledge will not
differ in this respect from Opinion: because some men believe their
own Opinions no less firmly than others do their positive Knowledge:
Heraclitus is a case in point.

Rather the following is the account of it: the term _knowing_ has two
senses; both the man who does not use his Knowledge, and he who does,
are said to _know_: there will be a difference between a man's acting
wrongly, who though possessed of Knowledge does not call it into
operation, and his doing so who has it and actually exercises it: the
latter is a strange case, but the mere having, if not exercising,
presents no anomaly.

[Sidenote:1147a] Again, as there are two kinds of propositions affecting
action, universal and particular, there is no reason why a man may not
act against his Knowledge, having both propositions in his mind, using
the universal but not the particular, for the particulars are the
objects of moral action.

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