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Having mentioned in Nicomachean Ethics I.8 the desirability of external goods such as wealth and reputation, Aristotle naturally moves on to consider the causes of human flourishing. Is fulfillment something that can be learned through training and habituation, or is it a matter of fate or even chance? Well, he says, if flourishing and fulfillment consist in a certain kind of activity (ἐνέργεια), specifically working at the task (ἔργον) of living a complete human life in accordance with inherent thrivings of mind and character, then there must be effort involved. Although this kind of beautifully right (καλὀς) activity is consistent with human nature, still it needs to be acquired and practiced. This is why we don't say that a child has attained fulfillment: it's necessary to achieve reasonably complete excellence (ἀρετή) of mind and character in a reasonably complete life in order to be truly fulfilled.
But can't the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune throw even a fulfilled person off course? Aristotle introduces the example of Priam, the elderly king of Troy, whose city is destroyed, whose children are killed, and whose people are scattered by the Greek army, as related in Homer's Iliad. Priam seems to have led a blessed life until close to the end, when it all fell apart. This seems to be evidence for the ancient saying "call no man happy until after he has died"; and yet, although Aristotle grants the force of such examples, he also believes that the person who takes life seriously and succeeds at the task of being human will bear misfortune as beautifully and harmoniously as possible, since such a person is not easily dislodged from excellences attained through long years of striving to be good.
Even more importantly, such a person will make serious and beautiful use of whatever gifts of good fortune they are granted, for instance through admirable acts of generosity (more on that virtue when we get to Book IV).
Because excellence of character is acquired, it is also laudable: we praise people for their good deeds and good works, especially if they engage in these activities reliably, since that requires consistent endeavor and thoughtful deliberation throughout life.
By contrast, human fulfillment is not praised but prized: it is even better than virtue, and is thought to be glorious (τιμίων) and divine (θείων). The reason is that a life that fulfills our deepest human capacities and potentials is the complete good and therefore is the source and cause and culmination of all good things; as Aristotle puts it in a striking phrase, it is the completion of everything and complete in every way (1101a18-19).
Here Aristotle ends for the time being his consideration of the nature of eudaimonia. Beginning in I.13 and proceeding all the way through the end of Book V, he will delve deeply into the excellences of character, supplemented by Book VI on the so-called "intellectual virtues" of wisdom and sagacity. So we'll start on the consideration of ἀρετή in the next stretch of our walk with Aristotle.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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Yesterday evening I was honored to have a conversation with folks from the poetry circle of the Boulder Writers Alliance, at the invitation of poet Laura Border. Although I don't consider myself a poet or even primarily a writer, it was quite a pleasure to talk with such a welcoming group about the relationship between philosophy and poetry as well as the challenges of poetry translation and the differences between ancient and modern poetry. I also read aloud some poems from my books Ancient Fire and Songs of Zarathustra. Because this is a conclave of writers, we also took time toward the end of the session for each participant to write and then read aloud a short poem. Having discoursed a bit during the discussion on the attitudes of Socrates and Plato toward poetry, here's what I composed on the spot with reference to Plato's dialogues Republic and Phaedo:
Such irony that Socrates,
Fine artist of the wisdom tease,
Who always said the poets lied,
Turned his hand before he died
To making paeans, hymns, and odes -
These works the very antipodes
Of dialogues pursuing reason.
Yes, music always has its season!
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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Amidst all the excitement (for philosophy scholars!) about the "function argument" in Nicomachean Ethics I.7, Chapter 8 is often overlooked. Yet there are valuable insights here, too.
To start with, Aristotle re-uses a traditional division of the good things of human life into those which are external (e.g., wealth, fame, prestige), those which pertain to the body (e.g., health, strength, good looks), and those which pertain to the soul (e.g., character, knowledge, wisdom). The latter are the most "governing" or "authoritative" (κυριώτατα) goods and the ones that are "especially" or "most of all" (μάλιστα) good things. The active working-at-a-task (ἐνέργεια) that he lauded in Chapter 7 counts as a good of the soul (ψυχή), so this is another a sign that it is the complete good.
He also observes that his account is in harmony with those who say that the complete good accords with excellence of character, for what matters is not merely having such a trait but actively putting it into practice, which again is one kind of working-at-a-task. It's the people who take action in the correct (ὀρθῶς) ways who succeed at the task of living.
He goes on to argue that people who live well in this fundamental sense also enjoy life. The reason is that those who take life seriously - who love and practice what is beautifully right - also inherently value and pursue the best activities (άρἰσται ἐνέργειαι), and these are what is enjoyable "by nature".
Yet Aristotle emphasizes that it's not enough to be a good person: you also need those external goods to some extent in order to truly flourish and lead a blessed life (e.g., you can't be generous if you don't have anything to give). Aristotle definitely recognizes that people who live in poverty, who have no friends or family, who are powerless in the face of a tyrannical government, who are extremely ugly, whose children are incorrigibly bad (etc.) can have a hard time of it in life. But these external goods can depend on the whims of fortune, which raises the question of how much control you really has over your level of fulfillment in life. He will explore that topic in Chapters 9-12, the next destination in our long walk with Aristotle.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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Book I, Chapter 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics is one of the most consequential and intensively studied passages in all of Aristotle's writings, so it will behoove us to look at it closely. As mentioned last time, it's a rather knotty line of reasoning, but I'll try to describe it as briefly and simply as I can.
Aristotle picks up where he left off before I.6, reminding us that every type of craft and activity seeks its own characteristic τέλος (often translated as end or purpose). For our purposes here I'll translate τέλος as "completion", since that aligns so well with the working title of my forthcoming book on Aristotle: Complete Yourself. As one example, the doctor's activity and the craft of medicine achieve what they are seeking and reach their completion in the health of the patient. By contrast, the τέλος of generalship is victory, the τέλος of housebuilding is the completed house, etc.
Yet, paradoxically, not all the completions are complete. The purpose of the house is not just to sit there unoccupied, but to be a home, to be the primary place where a family pursues its life activities together; those are the activities that truly complete the house. Similarly, health is not an end in itself but a necessary precondition for the activities of one's life, and victory is not an end in itself but a necessary precondition for the freedom of a community or a nation to pursue peaceful activities.
Aristotle argues that the highest good achievable through human action must be something whole and complete. The criteria he specifies include: other goods (like health and wealth) are pursued for its sake, it is always chosen for its own sake (never for the sake of something else), all by itself it makes life valuable and worthwhile, it lacks nothing significant or meaningful, and it is the ultimate completion for all of our activities.
That's a tall order, but Aristotle proposes a natural candidate for this complete good: εὐδαιμονία. Traditionally rendered as "happiness" and often in more recent scholarship as "flourishing", I translate it as "fulfillment". However, he notes, we need say more about what exactly this fulfillment is - and we'll be able to get closer to a correct account if we can grasp the nature of a human being's ἔργον (task, work, job, characteristic activity). It might sound strange to say that a human being has a task to complete or a job to do, but Aristotle argues that if that weren't true then by their fundamental nature people would be ἀργόν: idle, inert, inactive, indolent, lazy, languishing, etc. Moreover, it doesn't make sense that every part of a person - eyes, heart, hands, feet, and so on - has a characteristic activity, whereas the overall person does not.
So what could this task be? Well, he says, it must be something distinctively human, not something we share with plants (a life of growth, nutrition, and reproduction) or animals (a life of perception and locomotion). Thus it must be some sort of active life of the part in us that has λόγος, i.e., our thinking, speaking, reasoning capacities for understanding things. Yet understanding (ἐπιστήμη) is meant in two ways: it's one thing to merely have understanding (e.g., a mathematician eating lunch with a friend), but it's another thing to actively use that understanding (e.g., a mathematician actively solving problems). It's this active being-at-work or working-at-a-task (ἐνέργεια) that matters most.
Here Aristotle warms my musician's heart by introducing the example of playing the kithara, the distant ancestor of the modern guitar. Just as it's the serious (σπουδαῖος) guitarist who plays the guitar well and beautifully, so it's the person who takes life seriously who lives well and beautifully, whose actions are accompanied by a correct account of what it is to be a human being, whose soul is in good shape, whose being-at-work is in accordance with human excellence. And not just for a day or a year, but for a lifetime. Thus the complete good is not some abstract rule like Plato's Form of the Good, but the best human life we can achieve.
This, at least, is Aristotle's rough outline of the complete good. It's precise enough for our purposes, he says, because our philosophical conversation in the Nicomachean Ethics only needs to be useful for the practical work of becoming better human beings; we need to know only what the best life consists in, not why it is that way in every theoretical detail. Thus we're less like geometers (who need a precise mathematical definition of right angles) and more like house-builders (who need to make sure that the walls are perpendicular to the foundation). Indeed, you could say that we're life-builders, whose task is to realize the highest good achievable through human action.
Onward and upward!
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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I continue to ponder various poems from the Tao Te Ching with an eye toward perhaps setting them to music. Here is my provisional rendering of chapter 44:
Fame or self, which is dearer?
Self or wealth, which is greater?
Gain or loss, which cuts deeper?
Craving makes great luxury
Luxury makes deeper loss
Be content, avoid disgrace
Know when to stop, risk no loss
This way leads to ageless life
As usual with the Tao Te Ching, there are paradoxes here. How can gain cut deeper than loss? Is it really possible to live an ageless life?
Although many Taoists after Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu turned away from philosophy and toward the pursuit of life extension or even immortality, I don't read that here; instead, an "ageless life" is at one with the ageless Way of the Tao. Such a life can be achieved through moderating your desires, steering clear of fame and wealth, being satisfied with what you have, and pulling back from greed.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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This is just a brief note that folks interested in Aristotle, Ayn Rand, the psychology of happiness, or any combination thereof might enjoy my review of Roger E. Bissell and Vinay Kolhatkar's new book Modernizing Aristotle's Ethics: Toward a New Art and Science of Self-Actualization, just published in Issue 44, No. 1 of the interdisciplinary journal Reason Papers. Check it out!
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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