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AristotleTHE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE Aristotle was born in about 384 BCE at Stageira in Thrace in Ancient Greece. He was raised among royalty, since his father, Nciomachus, was the physician to the King of Macedonia, Amyntas II. At about age seventeen Aristotle went to Athens, the center of culture and philosophy in Ancient Greece. He studied at The Academy and became a member of this school, which was founded by Plato.1 It is fair to say, then, that as Plato followed Socrates, Aristotle followed Plato. Plato was Aristotle’s mentor and good friend. Even though Aristotle wound up disagreeing with Plato, he always showed enormous respect for the great thinker. Eventually Aristotle would proceed to start his own school, called the Lyceum. The important works of Aristotle are from this period, where his thought had matured and he struck out on his own to create a way of doing philosophy that remains the primary alternative to the Platonic conception of philosophy. The major works of this time are divided into five categories2: the De Interpretatione (on proposition and judgment), the Prior Analytics (on inference), Posterior Analytics (on proof, knowledge) all on Logic; the Metaphysics; the Physics and many other smaller works on natural sciences, biology, psychology, physiology; the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics on moral and political issues; The Rhetoric and the Poetics on Persuasion and Literature. Most of the works of Aristotle are not polished dialogues or even treatises. Instead, they are lecture notes or long developed outlines. Part of this is due to historical accident. We know that Aristotle wrote dialogues like his master Plato and popular works of the time. But this is also due to the way in which Aristotle did philosophy and the way in which that tradition has been carried on by other Aristotelians. THE MODE OF ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY Plato marks the beginning of western philosophy, as we know it. This is marked by an interest in particular questions: What is, How do we know what is, and what ought we to then do. Plato’s answers to the questions are developed in dialogues, where Socrates questions people about their beliefs and shows, through a logical dialectic, the answers to these questions. Aristotle also starts from the opinions of others, but not by dialogue. Instead, he builds from observation of others and their opinions a philosophy that is compressive and systematic. Aristotle’s method worked not just for the important questions but for all of knowledge. This explains why Aristotle and not Plato dealt with the natural sciences and physics. Aristotle’s method remains, in basic outline, the scientific method of today. He began with observation and worked his way “up” from those observations, by means of inference to general principles. From those principles he deducted back to the world to show us how not only the world behaved but also how we should behave. ARISTOTLE’S INFLUENCE Aristotle did not “catch on” in western philosophy like Plato did. The neo-platonists would come to dominate philosophy until the rise of Christianity. The first major Christian philosopher, Augustine, took that Platonic thought and combined it with Christian theology. Augustine’s work would be the cornerstone of Christian philosophy until Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Where did Aristotle go? Although Aristotle was not embraced by the western tradition, he did not disappear. Some libraries and some scholars keep Aristotle alive and in about the 9th Century Aristotle’s thought experienced a renascence, not in Europe but in the Islamic world. Islamic theologians and philosophers were beginning to form their own systems and were in search of the kind of foundation that would be useful. Since the Persian tradition had always been more interested in the sciences Aristotle became very in for a while in Islamic thought. Aristotle traveled from Persia with the Islamic religion across North Africa, into Spain in about the eleventh century and from Spain some manuscripts, now in Persian, made their way into Paris in the twelfth century. It is there that they were discovered by Aquinas and used to form what stands as the most systematic and compressive philosophy. Aquinas was more than a “Christian Aristotle” but the mode of philosophy, the terms used and questions asked were all Aristotelian. Thomistic thought reigned in western philosophy until Descartes in the seventeenth century. Sure, some theologians and philosophers were critical and argued that the secular Aristotle was corrupting Christianity. But there was a desire at the time for a systematic philosophy that would explain the world in a clear and comprehensive manner. The thinkers in Paris were amazed at Aristotle’s insights and used them to their advantage. With the scientific revolution and enlightenment, however, Aristotle, Aquinas, and their ilk were dismissed as outdated, tied to religion, and out of style. Modernity began with an explicit rejection of Aristotle’s influence on the Scholastics. In the twentieth century, however, modernity has began to falter. The enlightenment project of universal reason and skeptical doubt seems, according to many, to have petered out, as its naïve optimism runs headlong into the reality of a complicated world in which we must live. And so there has been recently an Aristotelian revival again. Thinkers are returning to the ancient Greeks to find resources to ask, once again, the questions of philosophy: What is? How do we know? What are we to do? Aristotle’s physics and natural sciences are outdated--but the method was right all along. In particular, ethicists are returning the Aristotle to fashion a system of ethics that is responsive to human existence and nuanced enough to avoid naïve assumptions, or worse, cultural imperialism. MILL AND KANT AS DEAD ENDS Part of the project of modernity was to create a moral system that was adequate to the assumption of universal reason. The two possibilities became utilitarianism (Mill) and deontology (Kant). Utilitarianism argued that our ethical actions should be that which maximizes utility--the greatest good for the greatest number, as the slogan goes. Moral actions would be determined on a cost-benefit analysis, so that what a person should do would be based on how much good would be created for how many people. The obvious flaw of utilitarianism--obvious to use now but incompressible to a true believer in the power of the scientific revolution--is that we can never really know what the consequences of our actions will be. And it seems to us that the moral good of an action must be assessed not after the consequences have occurred but before we take any action at all. Deontology is a system of moral based on the universal reason of humankind. Kant say that every person was a rational moral actor and that therefore a person should make moral decisions on this basis. From this followed Kant’s categorical imperative: always act as if the maxim by which you act was a universal law. Therefore (as the famous example goes) do not lie because that would mean everyone could lie and human community would become impossible. And yet, critics argue that different situations call for different actions. Circumstances seem to alter what we ought to do in a given situation. If a lie prevents the destruction of hundreds of people, and we know when we tell that lie it will do so, that lie seems ethical. And so, back and forth, Kantians and Utilitarians have argued for the last two centuries, coming to impasse after impasse, unable to fashion a moral philosophy that is both workable and coherent. Two dominant alternatives have emerged: one is a post-modern orientation, characterized either by nihilism or pragmatism. In this perspective, we cannot know and either throw up our hands or just act anyway. The other alternative is neo-Aristotelianism. ARISTOTLE’S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY Aristotle starts his analysis of any subject with the teleological question: that is, what is the end or purpose of this? He sees that everyone “seems to aim at some good; whence the good has rightly been defined as that at which all things aim.”3 Each person, of course has different ends: the physician intends to heal the sick, the warrior to win the battle, etc. “But if there is an end which we desire for its own sake and for the sake of which we desire all other subordinate ends or goods, then this ultimate good will be the best good, in fact, the good. Aristotle sets himself to discover what this good is and what the science corresponding to it is.”4 Since the good is the good as such, it would not only be the true end of individual action but also of the state. Aristotle’s political philosophy is based in his ethics for individual. So what is the end for man? Aristotle says that it is happiness or fulfillment. Through a long train of argument, he shows that this happiness must be not, as we commonly think of it, a state but rather an activity. This makes sense: we are happy when we are doing things: talking with friends, being entertained, thinking about something interesting, doing something exciting. So what sort of activities are “happy activities?” Aristotle’s answer is that happiness consists in activities in accord with the moral and intellectual virtues. When our activities are virtuous, then we will be happy. ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPTION OF VIRTUE Aristotle’s conception of virtue is what followers have called the doctrine of the mean. That is, the virtue is the mean--the middle--between two vices. Courage, for example, is the mean between foolishness (the excess) and cowardliness (the deficiency). Each virtue is, in some way, the mean between two extremes, one of excess and one of deficiency. “Virtue, then, is a disposition, a disposition to choose according to a rule, namely, the rule by which a truly virtuous man possessed of moral insight would choose.”5 What this means is that the capacity of judgment--prudence as Aristotle calls it, is the virtue par excellence, the ability to determine what is the mean and what is not. Aristotle’s claim is not that the mean is universal and valid for everyone. Instead, it is that we determine the relative to us and to our circumstances. Moral judgments are always made based on the circumstances that present themselves to the moral actor. In this way, Aristotle avoids the legalistic ethics of a Kantian system but also accounts for more than the consequences of an action. It is proper in Aristotle’s system to pay attention to the consequences, but this does not dominate the decision making process. In fact, what marks Aristotle’s system is that the truly virtuous person becomes so accustomed to acting virtuously that she does not “stress” or even “deliberate” about what is moral in a situation. Acting according to virtue becomes habit. ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPTION OF VICE For Aristotle, virtue and vice are not exclusive categories into which all individuals must fall. There are further extremes (divinity or heroism and bestiality) and intermediate levels as well. These are primarily continence and incontinence and resistance and softness. Incontinence and intemperance are primarily understood in terms of their relation to decision and reason. Both the incontinent and the intemperate person posses decision (although not correct decision). The incontinent person knows what the right thing to do is, but is unable to do such things because they are overcome by either their emotions or their appetites. These two (emotions and appetites) are distinct forms of incontinence. Aristotle writes that "if someone is incontinent about emotion, he is overcome by reason in a way; but if he is incontinent about appetite, he is overcome by appetite, not by reason" (1149b 3). The warrant for this claim is that to be overcome by emotions is to hear the commands of reason but to follow them to excess while to be overcome by appetite is simply to ignore (or worse, manipulate) reason to serve the ends of pleasure. It is for this reason that to be overcome by appetites is worse than to be overcome by emotions, for it is appetites which are most in conflict with reason. This conflict between reason and desire is the distinctive feature of not on incontinence, but even of continence. For the continent person still possess a difference between desire and reason, but is able to overcome such desire and to follow the dictates of reason. Temperance and intemperance, in contrast, illustrates no such difference between desire and reason. For the temperate person wants what is right and to the correct degree. Temperance, like all the moral virtues, expresses the mean between two extremes. What signifies a person as temperate, intemperate, or deficient is decision about the pursuit of pleasure. Aristotle writes, "One person pursues excesses of pleasant things because they are excesses and because he decides on it, for themselves and not for some further result. He is intemperate; for he is bound to have no regrets, and so is incurable, since someone without regrets is incurable." 6. Thus, just as there is no conflict in the mind of the temperate person, the intemperate also has no conflict. He has decided upon choosing pleasure, his reason has not been overcome by appetite or emotion. It is for this difference that Aristotle argues that intemperance is worse than incontinence. Aristotle writes, "Moreover, the incontinent person is the sort to pursue excessive bodily pleasures that conflict with correct reason, but not because he is persuaded [it is best]. The intemperate person, however, is persuaded, because he is the sort of person to pursue them. Hence the incontinent person is easily persuaded out of it, while the intemperate person is not."7 With the intemperate person, all someone caring for their character must do is convince then to follow their reason. With the intemperate person, however, one must also convince them that their reason has erred in reaching a conclusion. ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPTION OF JUSTICE Justice is one of the main virtues in Aristotle’s thinking. By justice, Aristotle means both obeying the law and what is fair and equal. Justice “is a mean in the sense that it produces a state of affairs that stand midway between that in which A has too much and in which B has too much.”8 Aristotle, as we should expect, distinguishes between unjust actions where the damage to another is forseen and when it is not. Another way of thinking about justice is that justice is a mean between being too strict and showing too much mercy. To act according to justice is to ensure that a person gets their due without costing another their own due. ARISTOTLE AND POLITICS Aristotle is clear from the beginning that human beings exist in society. People are not self-sufficient in themselves and need society to find happiness and exercise virtue. “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.”9 Society serves the function to make virtuous action more possible and more likely. Without society, basic needs would dominate our existence and virtue would be difficult if not impossible. Society is organized by the State, which for Aristotle meant the city-state. Copleston, the authority on the Thomistic and Aristotelian thread in philosophy, summarizes Aristotle’s conception of the state as follows: The only real guarantee of the stability and prosperity of the State is the moral goodness and integrity of the citizens, while conversely, unless the State is good and the system of its education is rational, moral, and healthy, the citizens will not become good. The individual attains his proper development and perfection though his concrete life, which is a life in Society, i.e. in the State, while Society attains its proper end through the perfection of its members. That Aristotle did not consider the State to be a great Leviathan beyond good and evil is clear from the criticism he passes on Lacedaemonians. It is a great mistake, he says, to suppose that war and domination are the be-all and end-all of the State. The State exists for the good life, and it is subject to the same code of morality as the individual. As he puts it, “the same things are best for individuals and states.”10 ARISTOTLE, SLAVERY, AND SEXISM Aristotle, without question, espoused the usefulness of slavery. He argued that some people were born to different stations and that slavery was one way that the state could ensure the well-being of most of its members. And Aristotle also saw the place of women as providing for the essential needs of the family and as being subservient to the men who ruled the household. The question is whether or not these conceptions were vitally important to Aristotle’s ethics or whether or not they can be removed and Aristotle’s ethics can be applied without these difficulties. Aristotelian’s argue that the system is not dependent on this hierarchy and that, in fact, Aristotle’s virtue of justice is a warrant for abandoning these hierarchies. Critics argue, on the other hand, that Aristotle’s idea’s of virtue as self-sufficient activity means that virtue is excluded for people who must attend, on a regular basis, to daily necessities. Virtue becomes, on this reading, a provision of the aristocracy that Aristotle himself was a member of rather than a way we can all make decisions. ARISTOTLE IN DEBATE So, how does this ethical system help us in debate? First, it functions as a real alternative to the dead ends of Mill and Kant, giving moral thinking another possibility. Debates that continually focus, round after round on the comparison between utility and rights, lack freshness and insight. Incorporating Aristotle and virtue ethics into your debates can not only catch people off guard but also provide new and better ways to examine the standard questions of debate. Second, Aristotelian ethics allow a balance of circumstances and principles to guide moral decisions. Aristotle is most often called a “common-sense” philosopher, and this is especially true of his ethics. This balance will allow you to support your claims based on both principles such as justice and on consequences. Third, Aristotle is a good counter to those that argue for different moral criteria for a State as opposed to individuals. Values such as security would not, in Aristotle’s system trump other ethical concerns but instead be simply a means to ethical society. When deciding questions about state action, we would first look to whether or not that action would promote the development of the virtue of the citizens. 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