Solomon and Martin, Morality and the Good Life. 4th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2004, pp. 106-47. 

I. Background

A. Biography

 

B. Aristotle's style - lecture notes.

 

C. The Ethics

1. The Ethics is comprehensive

 

2. The Ethics is descriptive.

 

D. Teleological - telos = end, completion, goal, purpose related by A to function 

1. Final Goal or End - Completion, Perfection

 

2. Function - Purpose - "What is it for?"

 

A. Main Idea: Sections 1,2a,4,5,7,8,9,10:

The summum bonum is happiness which is living well through actively reasoning well, i.e.,exercising the unique human function well, continually producing good deeds and good thoughts, duly supplied with external goods and goods of the body, for a lifetime (a full term of years); aided by a good upbringing. The perfect life is the life of contemplation. [The moral life is happy to a secondary degree. Book 10]

Why teleological? Telos means end, goal, result, completion, perfection.  A’s views are teleological because he argues every act has a goal, some goals turn into means to other goals, there is a final good/goal that is supreme, chosen for its own sake, and self-sufficient–i.e., the summum bonum. According to A. all agree that the summum bonum is happiness, but disagree about what happiness is. Telos also relates to purpose/function for A.. The human telos must be "the good for man." For a "man" to be happy, he must fulfill his unique human function, i.e., to reason, well. S.B. by definition must be the final end, self-sufficing, chosen for its own sake and only happiness through reasoning well fits this definition

Section 1:

All arts, acts, inquiries have a goal or end.   They seek some good.  Some ends are means to other ends.  Final end is more desired.  Notice  "good" and "end" (completion, fulfillment) are tied together.

 

Section 2A:

The summum bonum is the ultimate end to which all others are subordinate. It is chosen for its own sake. Like archers aiming at a target, if we know what it is we will be better able to hit the target.

 

Section 4:

The ultimate good is eudaimonia, happiness - living or doing well, flourishing. But people define differently. Start from what we know.

 

Section 5:

Types of Lives and their Ends Compared:

A. Life of Enjoyment - Pleasure

 

B. Life of the Statesman or Politics - Honor

 

C. Life of Moneymaking - Wealth

 

D. Life of Contemplation

 

Section 7:

A. The Good is Final End or Goal (an "end in itself", 113), Chosen for Own Sake,  Self-Sufficing = Happiness

 

B. Happiness is the Life of Exercising Reason. The Unique and Characteristic Function of a Human Being. 

Highest good is the good for man, i.e., related to his unique function for A. Just as carpenters and cobblers have a function and parts of a person such as eyes and hands and feet have a function, humans have a function.  [Does this necessarily follow?]

 

What is the human function?  Life (nutrition and growth) shared with plants. Life of sense shared with animals. Life by which men act - life of reason exercised is distinctive.

 

C. Happiness is not a fleeting emotion, but a lifetime of reasoning well.

The good man exercises his unique function of reasoning well. (Harper and Good Harper) -

Full Term of Years  - "for one swallow or one fine day does not make a spring, nor does one day or any small space of time make a blessed or happy man" (115)

 

Section 8:

External goods and goods of the body support happiness although they do not constitute it.

 

Section 9:

Happiness (reasoning well) presupposes a good upbringing and good character. But these are aids, tools to happiness.

Children and animals cannot be happy because they cannot reason well.

 

Section 10:

Full term of years.

 

B. Book One - Loose Ends - Interesting Digressions

1. Section 2b. Politics and Relation of State and Individual.

 

2. Section 3 - Ethics is not a precise science. Need Mature Students.

 

3. Section 6 - omitted in Solomon and Greene. Rejects Plato's Theory of Forms.

 

C. Preparing for Book Two

Section 13:

Division of Faculties into Rational and Irrational Parts and thus Virtue into Intellectual and Moral Virtue.

1. Rational

A. Possessing reason in itself > intellectual virtues

B. Listening to reason as a man listens to his father> moral virtues

2. Irrational

A. Vegetative faculty - no share of reason

B. Faculty of appetite or desire - impulses which oppose and run counter to reason but can be controlled by reason as children can be controlled by a parent.

D. Critique of Aristotle's Ideas in Book One.

 

 

 

 

III.  Book Two: Moral Excellence or Moral Virtue (Arete)

A. Our Virtues List Compared to Aristotle's

(See list and chart on pp. 131-132 in Solomon and Martin, 4th ed.)

 

 

 

 

B. Definition of Moral Virtue by  Solomon and Martin, 128:

1. Activity [a, moral activity, not passive]

2. In Accordance with Reason

3. The Mean between Extremes

4. A Matter of Habit [Habit or trained faculty not an emotion or power]

5. And Gives Pleasure to the Virtuous Person

 

C. Criteria for An Action to be Virtuous (Section 4)

Solomon and Martin (4th ed.), 127:

You must know what you are doing.

You must deliberately choose to do it.

You must do it for its own sake.

It must be a manifestation of a state of character and not just an isolated incident.

D. Exploring the Definition

1. Habit or Trained Faculty, State of Character, not an Emotion or power (Sections 1,4,5, 6a)

a. Natural capacity to acquire virtues developed by training and repetition.

b. Virtue requires habituation of right activity

c. Not emotions or powers

 

2. Gives Pleasure to the Virtuous Person (Section 3)

Pleasure or pain test of the formed habit or character.

 

3. Mean between the Extremes (Sections 2, 6, 8, 9)

a. Simple definition: deficit, defect, lack = to fall short,  excess = to exceed

 

b. Mean relative to us (as people)

Absolute vs. Relative to Us Mean

 

c. Relative to Nature of Thing Itself- Area of Behavior (Section 8):

 

d. Hitting the Mean Difficult

 

e.  Not all acts or passions admit of moderation; some are by nature bad. Impossible to go right in them.

 

IV.  Aristotle Book 10 - Sections 4,5,7,8

A. Book 10. Sections 4,5 - Hierarchy of Pleasures - Kinds of pleasure vary with activities they accompany and complete; Test of value of various pleasures.

1. Competing Pleasures: A proof that there are different kinds of pleasure assoc. with different kinds of activities.

 

2. Since activities differ in ethical quality and may be divided into good, bad, and neutral, so too pleasures which accompany them. Intellectual Activities and their corresponding pleasures are best.

 

3. PROBLEM and TEST.

 

 

B. Book 10 - Sections 7 & 8 - The Life According to Reason, Contemplation, The Happiest Life. The Moral Life is Second.

1. Why is the life of the higher intellect, possessing reason in itself, exercising the intellectual virtues, the life of contemplation the happiest life?

a. the intellect is the best, ruling and unique part of us

b. this is the activity of the gods and goddesses and is approved by them.

c. Contemplation - most continuous form of activity and fatigue free

d. Self-sufficient

e. Chosen for its own sake

f. Pleasantest of all good activities.

 

2. Moral life also good and happy, but second to life of reason (contemplation), secondary form of well-being.

a. Moral life a secondary form of well-being

We are not all intellect (reason) and cannot always be living the contemplative life.

 

b. Helps to bring the contemplative life into being for the State and the individual.

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