Ethics

A >> Aristotle >> Ethics

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

The treatment of Justice in Book V has always been a source of great
difficulty to students of the _Ethics_. Almost more than any other part
of the work it has exercised influence upon mediaeval and modern thought
upon the subject. The distinctions and divisions have become part of the
stock-in-trade of would be philosophic jurists. And yet, oddly enough,
most of these distinctions have been misunderstood and the whole purport
of the discussion misconceived. Aristotle is here dealing with justice
in a restricted sense viz as that special goodness of character which
is required of every adult citizen and which can be produced by early
discipline or habituation. It is the temper or habitual attitude
demanded of the citizen for the due exercise of his functions as taking
part in the administration of the civic community--as a member of the
judicature and executive. The Greek citizen was only exceptionally, and
at rare intervals if ever, a law-maker while at any moment he might
be called upon to act as a judge (juryman or arbitrator) or as an
administrator. For the work of a legislator far more than the moral
virtue of justice or fairmindedness was necessary, these were requisite
to the rarer and higher "intellectual virtue" of practical wisdom. Then
here, too, the discussion moves on a low level, and the raising of
fundamental problems is excluded. Hence "distributive justice" is
concerned not with the large question of the distribution of political
power and privileges among the constituent members or classes of the
state but with the smaller questions of the distribution among those of
casual gains and even with the division among private claimants of a
common fund or inheritance, while "corrective justice" is concerned
solely with the management of legal redress. The whole treatment is
confused by the unhappy attempt to give a precise mathematical form to
the principles of justice in the various fields distinguished. Still it
remains an interesting first endeavour to give greater exactness to some
of the leading conceptions of jurisprudence.

Book VI appears to have in view two aims: (1) to describe goodness of
intellect and discover its highest form or forms; (2) to show how this
is related to goodness of character, and so to conduct generally. As all
thinking is either theoretical or practical, goodness of intellect has
_two_ supreme forms--Theoretical and Practical Wisdom. The first, which
apprehends the eternal laws of the universe, has no direct relation to
human conduct: the second is identical with that master science of human
life of which the whole treatise, consisting of the _Ethics_ and the
_Politics_, is an exposition. It is this science which supplies the
right rules of conduct Taking them as they emerge in and from practical
experience, it formulates them more precisely and organises them into a
system where they are all seen to converge upon happiness. The mode in
which such knowledge manifests itself is in the power to show that such
and such rules of action follow from the very nature of the end or good
for man. It presupposes and starts from a clear conception of the end
and the wish for it as conceived, and it proceeds by a deduction which
is dehberation writ large. In the man of practical wisdom this process
has reached its perfect result, and the code of right rules is
apprehended as a system with a single principle and so as something
wholly rational or reasonable He has not on each occasion to seek and
find the right rule applicable to the situation, he produces it at
once from within himself, and can at need justify it by exhibiting its
rationale, _i.e._ , its connection with the end. This is the consummate
form of reason applied to conduct, but there are minor forms of it, less
independent or original, but nevertheless of great value, such as the
power to think out the proper cause of policy in novel circumstances or
the power to see the proper line of treatment to follow in a court of
law.

The form of the thinking which enters into conduct is that which
terminates in the production of a rule which declares some means to the
end of life. The process presupposes _(a)_ a clear and just apprehension
of the nature of that end--such as the _Ethics_ itself endeavours to
supply; _(b)_ a correct perception of the conditions of action, _(a)_ at
least is impossible except to a man whose character has been duly formed
by discipline; it arises only in a man who has acquired moral virtue.
For such action and feeling as forms bad character, blinds the eye of
the soul and corrupts the moral principle, and the place of practical
wisdom is taken by that parody of itself which Aristotle calls
"cleverness"--the "wisdom" of the unscrupulous man of the world. Thus
true practical wisdom and true goodness of character are interdependent;
neither is genuinely possible or "completely" present without the other.
This is Aristotle's contribution to the discussion of the question, so
central in Greek Moral Philosophy, of the relation of the intellectual
and the passionate factors in conduct.

Aristotle is not an intuitionist, but he recognises the implication in
conduct of a direct and immediate apprehension both of the end and of
the character of his circumstances under which it is from moment to
moment realised. The directness of such apprehension makes it analogous
to sensation or sense-perception; but it is on his view in the end due
to the existence or activity in man of that power in him which is the
highest thing in his nature, and akin to or identical with the divine
nature--mind, or intelligence. It is this which reveals to us what is
best for us--the ideal of a happiness which is the object of our real
wish and the goal of all our efforts. But beyond and above the practical
ideal of what is best _for man_ begins to show itself another and still
higher ideal--that of a life not distinctively human or in a narrow
sense practical, yet capable of being participated in by man even under
the actual circumstances of this world. For a time, however, this
further and higher ideal is ignored.

The next book (Book VII.), is concerned partly with moral conditions, in
which the agent seems to rise above the level of moral virtue or fall
below that of moral vice, but partly and more largely with conditions in
which the agent occupies a middle position between the two. Aristotle's
attention is here directed chiefly towards the phenomena of
"Incontinence," weakness of will or imperfect self-control. This
condition was to the Greeks a matter of only too frequent experience,
but it appeared to them peculiarly difficult to understand. How can a
man know what is good or best for him, and yet chronically fail to act
upon his knowledge? Socrates was driven to the paradox of denying the
possibility, but the facts are too strong for him. Knowledge of the
right rule may be present, nay the rightfulness of its authority may be
acknowledged, and yet time after time it may be disobeyed; the will may
be good and yet overmastered by the force of desire, so that the act
done is contrary to the agent's will. Nevertheless the act may be the
agent's, and the will therefore divided against itself. Aristotle is
aware of the seriousness and difficulty of the problem, but in spite of
the vividness with which he pictures, and the acuteness with which he
analyses, the situation in which such action occurs, it cannot be said
that he solves the problem. It is time that he rises above the abstract
view of it as a conflict between reason and passion, recognising that
passion is involved in the knowledge which in conduct prevails or is
overborne, and that the force which leads to the wrong act is not blind
or ignorant passion, but always has some reason in it. But he tends to
lapse back into the abstraction, and his final account is perplexed and
obscure. He finds the source of the phenomenon in the nature of the
desire for bodily pleasures, which is not irrational but has something
rational in it. Such pleasures are not necessarily or inherently bad, as
has sometimes been maintained; on the contrary, they are good, but only
in certain amounts or under certain conditions, so that the will is
often misled, hesitates, and is lost.

Books VIII. and IX. (on Friendship) are almost an interruption of the
argument. The subject-matter of them was a favourite topic of ancient
writers, and the treatment is smoother and more orderly than elsewhere
in the _Ethics_. The argument is clear, and may be left without
comment to the readers. These books contain a necessary and attractive
complement to the somewhat dry account of Greek morality in the
preceding books, and there are in them profound reflections on what may
be called the metaphysics of friendship or love.

At the beginning of Book X. we return to the topic of Pleasure, which
is now regarded from a different point of view. In Book VII. the
antagonists were those who over-emphasised the irrationality or badness
of Pleasure: here it is rather those who so exaggerate its value as to
confuse or identify it with the good or Happiness. But there is offered
us in this section much more than criticism of the errors of others.
Answers are given both to the psychological question, "What is
Pleasure?" and to the ethical question, "What is its value?" Pleasure,
we are told, is the natural concomitant and index of perfect activity,
distinguishable but inseparable from it--"the activity of a subject at
its best acting upon an object at its best." It is therefore always
and in itself a good, but its value rises and falls with that of the
activity with which it is conjoined, and which it intensifies and
perfects. Hence it follows that the highest and best pleasures are those
which accompany the highest and best activity.

Pleasure is, therefore, a necessary element in the best life, but it is
not the whole of it nor the principal ingredient. The value of a life
depends upon the nature and worth of the activity which it involves;
given the maximum of full free action, the maximum of pleasure necessary
follows. But on what sort of life is such activity possible? This leads
us back to the question, What is happiness? In what life can man find
the fullest satisfaction for his desires? To this question Aristotle
gives an answer which cannot but surprise us after what has preceded.
True Happiness, great satisfaction, cannot be found by man in any form
of "practical" life, no, not in the fullest and freest exercise possible
of the "moral virtues," not in the life of the citizen or of the
great soldier or statesman. To seek it there is to court failure and
disappointment. It is to be found in the life of the onlooker, the
disinterested spectator; or, to put it more distinctly, "in the life of
the philosopher, the life of scientific and philosophic contemplation."
The highest and most satisfying form of life possible to man is "the
contemplative life"; it is only in a secondary sense and for those
incapable of their life, that the practical or moral ideal is the best.
It is time that such a life is not distinctively human, but it is the
privilege of man to partake in it, and such participation, at however
rare intervals and for however short a period, is the highest Happiness
which human life can offer. All other activities have value only because
and in so far as they render _this_ life possible.

But it must not be forgotten that Aristotle conceives of this life as
one of intense activity or energising: it is just this which gives it
its supremacy. In spite of the almost religious fervour with which he
speaks of it ("the most orthodox of his disciples" paraphrases his
meaning by describing its content as "the service and vision of God"),
it is clear that he identified it with the life of the philosopher, as
he understood it, a life of ceaseless intellectual activity in which at
least at times all the distractions and disturbances inseparable from
practical life seemed to disappear and become as nothing. This ideal was
partly an inheritance from the more ardent idealism of his master Plato,
but partly it was the expression of personal experience.

The nobility of this ideal cannot be questioned; the conception of the
end of man or a life lived for truth--of a life blissfully absorbed in
the vision of truth--is a lofty and inspiring one. But we cannot resist
certain criticisms upon its presentation by Aristotle: (1) the relation
of it to the lower ideal of practice is left somewhat obscure; (2) it is
described in such a way as renders its realisation possible only to a
gifted few, and under exceptional circumstances; (3) it seems in various
ways, as regards its content, to be unnecessarily and unjustifiably
limited. But it must be borne in mind that this is a first endeavour to
determine its principle, and that similar failures have attended the
attempts to describe the "religious" or the "spiritual" ideals of
life, which have continually been suggested by the apparently inherent
limitations of the "practical" or "moral" life, which is the subject of
Moral Philosophy.

The Moral Ideal to those who have most deeply reflected on it leads
to the thought of an Ideal beyond and above it, which alone gives it
meaning, but which seems to escape from definite conception by man.
The richness and variety of this Ideal ceaselessly invite, but as
ceaselessly defy, our attempts to imprison it in a definite formula or
portray it in detailed imagination. Yet the thought of it is and remains
inexpungable from our minds.

This conception of the best life is not forgotten in the _Politics_ The
end of life in the state is itself well-living and well-doing--a life
which helps to produce the best life The great agency in the production
of such life is the State operating through Law, which is Reason backed
by Force. For its greatest efficiency there is required the development
of a science of legislation. The main drift of what he says here is that
the most desirable thing would be that the best reason of the community
should be embodied in its laws. But so far as that is not possible, it
still is true that anyone who would make himself and others better must
become a miniature legislator--must study the general principles of law,
morality, and education. The conception of [Grek: politikae] with which
he opened the _Ethics_ would serve as a guide to a father educating his
children as well as to the legislator legislating for the state. Finding
in his predecessors no developed doctrine on this subject, Aristotle
proposes himself to undertake the construction of it, and sketches in
advance the programme of the _Politics_ in the concluding sentence of
the _Ethics_ His ultimate object is to answer the questions, What is the
best form of Polity, how should each be constituted, and what laws and
customs should it adopt and employ? Not till this answer is given will
"the philosophy of human affairs" be complete.

On looking back it will be seen that the discussion of the central topic
of the nature and formation of character has expanded into a Philosophy
of Human Conduct, merging at its beginning and end into metaphysics
The result is a Moral Philosophy set against a background of Political
Theory and general Philosophy. The most characteristic features of this
Moral Philosophy are due to the fact of its essentially teleological
view of human life and action: (1) Every human activity, but especially
every human practical activity, is directed towards a simple End
discoverable by reflection, and this End is conceived of as the object
of universal human desire, as something to be enjoyed, not as something
which ought to be done or enacted. Anstotle's Moral Philosophy is not
hedonistic but it is eudaemomstic, the end is the enjoyment of Happiness,
not the fulfilment of Duty. (2) Every human practical activity derives
its value from its efficiency as a means to that end, it is good or bad,
right or wrong, as it conduces or fails to conduce to Happiness Thus his
Moral Philosophy is essentially utilitarian or prudential Right action
presupposes Thought or Thinking, partly on the development of a clearer
and distincter conception of the end of desire, partly as the deduction
from that of rules which state the normally effective conditions of
its realisation. The thinking involved in right conduct is
calculation--calculation of means to an end fixed by nature and
foreknowable Action itself is at its best just the realisation of a
scheme preconceived and thought out beforehand, commending itself by its
inherent attractiveness or promise of enjoyment.

This view has the great advantage of exhibiting morality as essentially
reasonable, but the accompanying disadvantage of lowering it into a
somewhat prosaic and unideal Prudentialism, nor is it saved from this
by the tacking on to it, by a sort of after-thought, of the second and
higher Ideal--an addition which ruins the coherence of the account
without really transmuting its substance The source of our
dissatisfaction with the whole theory lies deeper than in its tendency
to identify the end with the maximum of enjoyment or satisfaction, or to
regard the goodness or badness of acts and feelings as lying solely in
their efficacy to produce such a result It arises from the application
to morality of the distinction of means and end For this distinction,
for all its plausibility and usefulness in ordinary thought and speech,
cannot finally be maintained In morality--and this is vital to its
character--everything is both means and end, and so neither in
distinction or separation, and all thinking about it which presupposes
the finality of this distinction wanders into misconception and error.
The thinking which really matters in conduct is not a thinking which
imaginatively forecasts ideals which promise to fulfil desire, or
calculates means to their attainment--that is sometimes useful,
sometimes harmful, and always subordinate, but thinking which reveals
to the agent the situation in which he is to act, both, that is, the
universal situation on which as man he always and everywhere stands,
and the ever-varying and ever-novel situation in which he as this
individual, here and now, finds himself. In such knowledge of given
or historic fact lie the natural determinants of his conduct, in such
knowledge alone lies the condition of his freedom and his good.

But this does not mean that Moral Philosophy has not still much to
learn from Aristotle's _Ethics_. The work still remains one of the best
introductions to a study of its important subject-matter, it spreads
before us a view of the relevant facts, it reduces them to manageable
compass and order, it raises some of the central problems, and makes
acute and valuable suggestions towards their solution. Above all, it
perpetually incites to renewed and independent reflection upon them.

J. A. SMITH

The following is a list of the works of Aristotle:--

First edition of works (with omission of Rhetorica, Poetica, and
second book of Economica), 5 vols by Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1495 8,
re impression supervised by Erasmus and with certain corrections by
Grynaeus (including Rhetorica and Poetica), 1531, 1539, revised 1550,
later editions were followed by that of Immanuel Bekker and Brandis
(Greek and Latin), 5 vols. The 5th vol contains the Index by Bomtz,
1831-70, Didot edition (Greek and Latin), 5 vols 1848 74

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Edited by T Taylor, with Porphyry's
Introduction, 9 vols, 1812, under editorship of J A Smith and
W D Ross, II vols, 1908-31, Loeb editions Ethica, Rhetorica,
Poetica, Physica, Politica, Metaphysica, 1926-33

Later editions of separate works
_De Anima_ Torstrik, 1862, Trendelenburg, 2nd edition, 1877,
with English translation, L Wallace, 1882, Biehl, 1884, 1896, with
English, R D Hicks, 1907
_Ethica_ J S Brewer (Nicomachean), 1836, W E Jelf, 1856, J F T Rogers,
1865, A Grant, 1857 8, 1866, 1874, 1885, E Moore, 1871, 1878, 4th
edition, 1890, Ramsauer (Nicomachean), 1878, Susemihl, 1878, 1880,
revised by O Apelt, 1903, A Grant, 1885, I Bywater (Nicomachean), 1890,
J Burnet, 1900

_Historia Animalium_ Schneider, 1812, Aubert and Wimmer, 1860;
Dittmeyer, 1907

_Metaphysica_ Schwegler, 1848, W Christ, 1899

_Organon_ Waitz, 1844 6

_Poetica_ Vahlen, 1867, 1874, with Notes by E Moore, 1875, with English
translation by E R Wharton, 1883, 1885, Uberweg, 1870, 1875, with
German translation, Susemihl, 1874, Schmidt, 1875, Christ, 1878, I
Bywater, 1898, T G Tucker, 1899

_De Republica Athenientium_ Text and facsimile of Papyrus, F G Kenyon,
1891, 3rd edition, 1892, Kaibel and Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, 1891, 3rd
edition, 1898, Van Herwerden and Leeuwen (from Kenyon's text), 1891,
Blass, 1892, 1895, 1898, 1903, J E Sandys, 1893

_Politica_ Susemihl, 1872, with German, 1878, 3rd edition, 1882,
Susemihl and Hicks, 1894, etc, O Immisch, 1909

_Physica_ C Prantl, 1879

_Rhetorica_ Stahr, 1862, Sprengel (with Latin text), 1867, Cope and
Sandys, 1877, Roemer, 1885, 1898

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ONE OR MORE WORKS De Anima (with Parva
Naturalia), by W A Hammond, 1902 Ethica Of Morals to Nicomachus, by
E Pargiter, 1745, with Politica by J Gillies, 1797, 1804, 1813, with
Rhetorica and Poetica, by T Taylor, 1818, and later editions Nicomachean
Ethics, 1819, mainly from text of Bekker by D P Chase, 1847, revised
1861, and later editions, with an introductory essay by G H Lewes
(Camelot Classics) 1890, re-edited by J M Mitchell (New Universal
Library), 1906, 1910, by R W Browne (Bohn's Classical Library),
1848, etc, by R Williams, 1869, 1876, by W M Hatch and others (with
translation of paraphrase attributed to Andronicus of Rhodes), edited
by E Hatch, 1879 by F H Peters, 1881, J E C Welldon, 1892, J Gillies
(Lubbock's Hundred Books) 1893 Historia Animalium, by R Creswell (Bonn's
Classical Library) 1848, with Treatise on Physiognomy, by T Taylor,
1809 Metaphysica, by T Taylor, 1801, by J H M Mahon (Bohn's Classical
Library), 1848 Organon, with Porphyry's Introduction, by O F Owen
(Bohn's Classical Library), 1848 Posterior Analytics, E Poste, 1850, E S
Bourchier, 1901, On Fallacies, E Poste, 1866 Parva Naturaha (Greek and
English), by G R T Ross, 1906, with De Anima, by W A Hammond, 1902 Youth
and Old Age, Life and Death and Respiration, W Ogle 1897 Poetica, with
Notes from the French of D Acier, 1705, by H J Pye, 1788, 1792, T
Twining, 1789, 1812, with Preface and Notes by H Hamilton, 1851,
Treatise on Rhetorica and Poetica, by T Hobbes (Bohn's Classical
Library), 1850, by Wharton, 1883 (see Greek version), S H Butcher, 1895,
1898, 3rd edition, 1902, E S Bourchier, 1907, by Ingram Bywater, 1909 De
Partibus Animalium, W Ogle, 1882 De Republica Athenientium, by E Poste,
1891, F G Kenyon, 1891, T J Dymes, 1891 De Virtutibus et Vitus, by W
Bridgman, 1804 Politica, from the French of Regius, 1598, by W Ellis,
1776, 1778, 1888 (Morley's Universal Library), 1893 (Lubbock's Hundred
Books) by E Walford (with AEconomics, and Life by Dr Gillies), (Bohn's
Classical Library), 1848, J E. C. Welldon, 1883, B Jowett, 1885, with
Introduction and Index by H W C Davis, 1905, Books i iii iv (vii)
from Bekker's text by W E Bolland, with Introduction by A Lang, 1877.
Problemata (with writings of other philosophers), 1597, 1607, 1680,
1684, etc. Rhetorica, A summary by T Hobbes, 1655 (?), new edition,
1759, by the translators of the Art of Thinking, 1686, 1816, by D M
Crimmin, 1812, J Gillies, 1823, Anon 1847, J E C Welldon, 1886, R C
Jebb, with Introduction and Supplementary Notes by J E Sandys, 1909 (see
under Poetica and Ethica). Secreta Secretorum (supposititious work),
Anon 1702, from the Hebrew version by M Gaster, 1907, 1908. Version by
Lydgate and Burgh, edited by R Steele (E E T S), 1894, 1898.

LIFE, ETC J W Blakesley, 1839, A Crichton (Jardine's Naturalist's
Library), 1843, JS Blackie, Four Phases of Morals, Socrates, Aristotle,
etc, 1871, G Grote, Aristotle, edited by A Bain and G C Robertson, 1872,
1880, E Wallace, Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle, 1875, 1880,
A Grant (Ancient Classics for English readers), 1877, T Davidson,
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals (Great Educators), 1892, F
Sewall, Swedenborg and Aristotle, 1895, W A Heidel, The Necessary
and the Contingent of the Aristotelian System (University of Chicago
Contributions to Philosophy), 1896, F W Bain, On the Realisation of the
Possible, and the Spirit of Aristotle, 1899, J H Hyslop, The Ethics of
the Greek Philosophers, etc (Evolution of Ethics), 1903, M V Williams,
Six Essays on the Platonic Theory of Knowledge as expounded in the later
dialogues and reviewed by Aristotle, 1908, J M Watson, Aristotle's
Criticism of Plato, 1909 A E Taylor, Aristotle, 1919, W D Ross,
Aristotle, 1923.

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS

BOOK I

Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like
manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good:
for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief
Good is, "that which all things aim at."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26