ARISTOTLE
Aristotle was born in the
small town of Stagira on the northeast coast of Thrace. His father was the physician in the royal
court of Macedonia. At the age of
seventeen, he went to Athens to enroll in the Academy, where he spent the next
twenty years as a pupil and member. After
the death of Plato, his nephew, Speusippus succeeded him as head of the
Academy. He directed the focus of the
school on mathematics which Aristotle found uncongenial to his interest and so
he decided to leave the Academy.
In 348, he accepted the invitation of Hermeias to
come to Assos, near Troy, to instruct a small group of thinkers he gathered in
his court. There he stayed for the next
three years. Aside from teaching, he
also found time to write and conduct research.
While at Assos, he married Pythias, the niece and adopted daughter of
Hermeais. She bore him a daughter.
After three years in Asso, Aristotle moved to the
neighboring island of Lesbos and he settled in Mitylene, where he taught and
continued his investigations in biology, studying especially the many forms of
marine life. Here he also became known
as an advocate of a united Greece, urging that such a union would be more
successful than independent city-states in resisting the might of Persia.
In 343, Philip of Macedon
invited Aristotle to become the tutor of his son Alexander, who was then thirteen
years old. As a tutor to a future ruler,
Aristotle included politics in his instruction.
When Alexander ascended
the throne after the death of his father, Aristotle ended his tutoring, and
after a brief stay in his home town of Stagira, he returned to Athens. Upon his return to Athens in 335, Aristotle
embarked upon the most productive period of his life. Under the protection of the Macedonian
statesman, Antipater, he founded his own school. His school was known as the Lyceum, named
after the groves where Socrates was known to have gone to think and which were
the sacred precincts of Apollo Lyceus.
Here Aristotle and his pupils walked in the Peripatos, a tree-covered
walk, and discussed philosophy, for which reason his school was also called peripatetic.
Besides these peripatetic
discussions, there were also lectures, some technical for small audiences and
others of a more popular nature for larger audiences. Aristotle is also said to have formed the
first great library by collecting hundreds of manuscripts, maps, and specimens,
which he used as illustrations during his lectures. Moreover, his school developed certain formal
procedures whereby its leadership would alternate among members. Aristotle formulated the rules for these
procedures as he also did for the special common meal and symposium once a
month when a member was selected to defend a philosophical position against the
critical objections of the other members.
For twelve or thirteen years Aristotle remained as
the head of the Lyceum, not only teaching and lecturing, but above all
formulating his main ideas about the classification of the sciences, fashioning
a bold new science of logic, and writing his advanced ideas in every major area
of philosophy and science, exhibiting an extraordinary command of universal knowledge.
When Alexander died in 323, a wave of
anti-Macedonian feeling arose in Athens, and this threatened the position of
Aristotle because of his close connections with Macedonia. Like Socrates before him, Aristotle was charged
with impiety but, as he is reported to have said - "lest the Athenians
should sin twice against philosophy,” he left the Lyceum and fled to Chalcis
where he died in 322 of a digestive disease of long standing. In his will he expressed sensitive human
qualities by providing amply for his relatives, preventing his slaves from
being sold and providing that some of his slaves should be emancipated.
ETHICS
Aristotle,
as a philosopher, invented a lot of terms, and had a lot of insights while he
was alive. His thought dwelled upon the Soul, Logic, Physics, Psychology,
Biology, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, and Literary Criticism. All of his
works contributed to all of the fields nowadays. With all his works, I would
like to focus myself on his Ethics, where he discussed the types of ends, the function
of human beings, happiness as the end, virtue as the golden mean, and
deliberation and choice.
Types of Ends
Aristotle
sets the framework for his ethical theory with a preliminary illustration. Having
said that all action aims toward an end, he now wants to distinguish between
two major kinds of ends: (1) instrumental ends or that acts that are done as
means for other ends, and (2) intrinsic ends or the acts that are done for
their own sake. (Stumpf, S.
& Fieser, J. (2008). Socrates and Sartre and Beyond. (8th
Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill. page 82)
According to Holy Trinity College
Seminary Handbook on Contemporary Philosophy, Aristotelian
morality centers on the view that man, as everything else in nature, has a
distinctive end to achieve or a
function to fulfill. For this reason,
his theory is rightly called teleological.
He begins his Nicomachean Ethics by saying that
“every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is
thought to aim at some good.”
The
principle of good and right is imbedded within each man; moreover, this
principle could be discovered by studying the essential nature of man and could
be attained through his actual behavior in daily life. He warned his reader, however, not to expect
more precision in a discussion of ethics than "the subject- matter will
admit." Still, just because this
subject is susceptible of "variation and error" does not mean, that
ideas of right and wrong "exist conventionally only, and not in the nature
of things." With this in mind, he
set out to discover the basis of morality in the structure of human nature.
These two types of end are illustrated, for
example, in “every action connected with war.”
When we consider step by step what is involved in the total activity of
a war, we find, says Aristotle, that there is a series of special kinds of
acts, which have their own ends but which, when they are completed, are only
means by which still other ends are to be achieved. There is, for one thing, the art of the
bridle maker. When the bridle is
completed, its maker has achieved his end as a bridle maker. But the bridle is
a means for the horseman to guide his horse in battle. Also, a carpenter builds
a barrack, and when it is completed, he has fulfilled his function as a
carpenter. The barracks also fulfil their function when they provide safe
shelter for the soldiers. But the ends here achieved by the carpenter and the
building are not ends in themselves but are instrumental in housing soldiers
until they move on to their next stage of action. Similarly, the builder of
ships fulfils his function when the ship is successfully launched, but again
this end is in turn a means for transporting the soldiers to the field of
battle. The doctor fulfils his function to the extent that he keeps the
soldiers in good health. But the end of health in this case becomes a means for
effective fighting. The officer aims at victory in battle, but victory is the
means to peace. Peace itself, though sometimes taken mistakenly as the final
end of war, is the means for creating the conditions under which men, as men,
could fulfil their function as men.
When we discover what men aim at, not as carpenters,
doctors, or generals, but as men, we
will then arrive at action for its own
sake, and for which all other activity is only a means, and this
"must be the good of man." The understanding of the word good is to be
tied to the special function of a thing.
A hammer is good if it does what hammers are expected to do. A carpenter is good if he fulfils his
function as a builder. This would be
true for all the crafts and professions.
But a distinction must be made between a man’s craft or profession and
his activity as a man. To be a good
doctor, for example, did not mean the same thing as being a good man. One could be a good doctor without being a
good man, and vice versa. There are two different functions here, the function
of doctoring and the function of acting as a man. To discover the good at which a man should aim, we must discover the
distinctive function of human nature.
The good man is the man who is fulfilling his function as a man.
The Function of Man
"Are
we then to suppose that while carpenter and cobbler have certain works and
courses of action, man as man has none, but is left by nature without a
work?" Or, if "the eye, hand,
foot and in general each of the parts evidently has a function, may one lay it
down that man similarly has a function apart from all these?" Man certainly has a distinctive mode of
activity and this is discovered by analyzing his nature in order to discover
his unique activity.
First of all, the end of man "is
not mere life," because that plainly is shared with him even by
vegetables, and "we want what is peculiar to him." Next there is the life of sensation,
"but this again manifestly is common to horses, oxen and every animal."
There remains then “an active life of the elements that has a rational
principle… if the function of man is an activity of the soul which follows or
implies a rational principle… then the human good turns out to be activity of
the soul in accordance with virtue…”
The Nature of the Soul
Since the function of man as a man
means the proper functioning of his soul it is therefore necessary to describe
the nature of the soul.
The
soul is the form of the body. As such,
the soul refers to the total person. The
soul has two parts: the irrational and the rational. The irrational part in turn is composed of
two subparts, the vegetative and the desiring or appetitive part. For the most part, these are "something contrary
to the rational principle, resisting and opposing it." The conflict between the rational and
irrational elements in man is what raises the problems and subject matter of
morality.
PLANT
|
NUTRITION
GROWTH
REPRODUCTION
|
ANIMAL
|
nutrition
growth
reproduction
LOCOMOTION
SENSATION
|
MAN
|
nutrition
growth
reproduction
locomotion
sensation
INTELLIGENCE
CHOICE
|
Morality involves action, for nothing is called good unless it is functioning. "As at the Olympic games it is not the
finest and strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists, for out
of these the prize men are selected; so too in life, of the honorable and good,
it is they who act who rightly win the prizes."
The particular kind of action implied
here is the rational control and guidance of the irrational parts of the soul. Moreover, the good man is not the one does a
good deed here or there, now and then, but whose whole life is good, "for
as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one
day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy."
The End of Morality
Human action should aim at its proper end. Everywhere men aim at pleasure, wealth, and
honor. But none of these ends, though
they have value, can occupy the place of the chief good for which man should
aim. To be an ultimate end an act must
be self-sufficient and final, "that which is always
desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else," and it must
be attainable by man.
All
men will agree that happiness alone is the end that alone meets all the
requirements for the ultimate end of human action. Indeed, we choose pleasure, wealth, and honor
only because we think that "through their instrumentality we shall be
happy." Happiness, it turns out, is
another word or name for good, for like good, happiness is the fulfilment of
our distinctive function: "happiness… is a working of the soul in the way
of excellence or virtue."
The Way to Happiness
The general rule of morality is "to act in
accordance with right reason. This is
how the soul works to attain happiness.
What this means is that the rational part of the soul should control the
irrational part.
That
the irrational part of the soul requires guidance is obvious when we consider
what it consists of and what its mechanism is.
Referring now only to the appetites, or the "appetitive" part
of the soul, we discover first that it is affected or influenced by things
outside of the self, such as objects and persons. Also, there are two basic ways in which the
appetitive part of the soul reacts to these external factors, these ways being
love and hate, or through the concupiscent and irascible passions. The passion leads one to avoid or destroy
them. It becomes quickly apparent that
these passions or capacities for love and hate, attraction or repulsion,
creation or destruction, taken by themselves could easily "go
wild." In themselves they do not
contain any principle of measure or selection.
"None of the moral virtues
arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit
contrary to its nature." Morality
therefore has to do with developing habits, the habits of right thinking, right
choice, and right behavior.
The Doctrine of the Mean
Since the passions are capable of a wide
range of action, all the way from too little to too much, a person must
discover the proper meaning of excess and defect and thereby discover the
appropriate mean. Virtue is concerned with our various feelings
and actions, for it is in them that there can be excess and defect.
For
example, it is possible to feel the emotion of fear, confidence, lust, anger,
compassion, pleasure, and pain, too much or too little, and in either case
wrongly. To feel these when we ought to,
on which occasions, toward whom, and as we should is the mean; that is the best
state for man to be in, and this is virtue.
Vice, again, is either extreme, excess or
defect, and virtue is the mean. It is
through the rational power of the soul that the passions are controlled and
action is guided. The virtue of courage, for example, is the mean between two
vices: namely, fear (defect) and foolhardiness (excess). Virtue, then, is a state of being, "a
state apt to exercise deliberate choice, being in the relative mean, determined
by reason, and as the man of practical wisdom would determine.
The
mean is not the same for every person, nor is there a mean for every act. Each mean is relative to each person
inasmuch as the circumstances will vary.
In the case of eating, the mean will obviously be different for an adult
athlete and a little girl. But for each
person, there is nevertheless a proportionate or relative mean, temperance,
clearly indicating what extremes – namely, gluttony (excess) and starvation
(defect) – would constitute vices for them.
Similarly, when one gives money, liberality, as the mean between
prodigality ands stinginess, is not an absolute figure but is relative to one's
assets.
Moreover, for some acts there is no
mean at all; their very nature already implies badness, such as spite, envy,
adultery, theft, and murder. These are
bad in themselves and not ion their excesses or deficiencies. One is always wrong in doing them.
Deliberation and Choice
There are in the rational soul two kinds of
reasoning: the first is theoretical, giving
us knowledge of fixed principles or philosophical wisdom. The other is practical, giving us a rational guide
to our action under the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves,
and this is practical wisdom. A man would not be virtuous if he accidentally
did what virtuous men do. A virtuous act
must be done knowingly.
What is important about the role of reason is that
without this rational element, man would not have any moral capacity. Although man has a natural capacity for right behavior, he does not act
rightly by nature. A man's life consists of an
indeterminate number of possibilities.
Goodness is in man potentially;
but unlike the acorn out of which the oak will grow with almost
mechanical certitude, man must move from what is potential in him to its
actuality by knowing what he must do, deliberating about it, and then choosing
in fact to do it.
To know the good is not sufficient to do the
good. There must be deliberate choice in
addition to knowledge. "The origin
of moral action - its efficient, not its final cause - is choice, and (the
origin) of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end." There cannot be choice without reason.
And again, “intellect itself… moves nothing, but only the intellect
which aims at an end and is practical.”
TO BE GOOD IS TO BE EVIL?
I have a critic on Aristotle
regarding his Function of Man. The good man is the man who is fulfilling his
function as a man. (Holy Trinity College Seminary Handbook on Contemporary
Philosophy, 2009)
If man must fulfill his function to
be a man, it cannot be totally distinguished if the man will be good or evil.
If goodness is to follow a certain function, what if the function is evil?
Would we say that to be good is to be evil?
Examples for this are the syndicates
and criminals. We all know that these
people have good intentions for themselves but they appear to be evil because
of their actions. If they possess the evilness of their actions, then their
function is to be evil.
So, we can never say that to follow
the function is to be good. But, we rather say that to follow our function is
to be good “to ourselves” because we can never say that what is good to
ourselves is also good for others. That’s why, this guided me to my own idea –
the only end.
THE ONLY END
If we can remember, we have two types
of ends: instrumental end and intrinsic end. Both of them have their own
differences with each other. For me, there is only one end: the mixture of instrumental
and intrinsic ends. If instrumental end is the act of a person for the sake of
others and the intrinsic end is the act of a person for the sake of the own
self, the mixture end is the end by which a person acts for the sake of others
and for his own self.
In life, there are mixtures. It
might be mixtures in chemical compositions or mixtures in phases of matter.
There may also be mixtures of animals which we call breeding. And there are
also mixtures of genders: the gays and lesbians.
Connecting to the
act-towards-something, end can never be for the sake of one only. End can never
be the sake of others only or for the self only. End is always for the sake of
others and the own self because nowadays, practicality is needed. We cannot act
for the sake of others only and for ourselves only. When we say that a person
will help his friend, it does not only mean that he cares for his friend, but
the person is also thinking not to lose a friend that will cause him a lot of
grief that’s why he will help his friend.
For example, the “five-six” people
are those who lend money to the needy, but this lending will cost an increasing
interest if the debt is not paid at the right time. From the original amount
borrowed, it will increase thoroughly until the time that the person indebted
to the “five-six” can never pay the debt anymore with money, but will pay the “five-six”
with his own house, his own properties or with his own life.
Let’s look at the side of the “five-six”
first. There is his willingness to share what he has to others and that’s the
instrumental end, and at the same time, he is waiting for the payment of the
one indebted to him, and this shows the reality that he is also thinking of himself,
the intrinsic end.
Another example is love. A boy loves
his girlfriend and a girl loves her boyfriend. We can say that when two persons
are in love with each other, the ONLY end is, again, present. If we are going
to understand the boy’s feelings for the girl, let us ask this question, “Does
he love his boyfriend for the sake of his girlfriend’s happiness or for the
sake of his own happiness?” I would say, both of them. When we love a person
there are always two “for the sake” that are needed to be given attention to.
For my girlfriend’s happiness. Let’s
ask ourselves, what do we feel if we are in love? Of course, there is an
everlasting happiness. But what if the one whom we love also loves us? Of
course, it’s 30 times greater than that everlasting happiness. This is the
feeling that is felt by our loved ones. He or she will feel great, like
floating in the air, if he or she will know that someone loves him or her. We want
to let our loved ones feel the happiness, and with this wanting, we are
thinking of their sake.
Since love is a two-way process, it
is so great to feel that you are loved by the one you love. By this, we can
feel the happiness within us. With this happiness within us, we can say that we
need that person for us to be happy, and it will be a great loss to lose that
someone. This is thinking for our own safe.
So everything in this world needs “the
only end”: the acts for the sake of others and for the sake of self or what I
call mixture end.
Bibliography
Webster’s
Universal Dictionary and Thesaurus
Holy
Trinity College Seminary Handbook on Contemporary Philosophy, 2009
Ramos,
C., PhD. (2010). Introduction to Philosophy. (2nd Edition). 856 Nicanor Reyes, Sr. St., Sampaloc, Manila: Rex
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S. & Fieser, J. (2008). Socrates and Sartre and Beyond. (8th
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