To quickly review the first post on the Hillsdale course Aristotle’s Ethics, there were three main points.
- We are looking for an appropriate level of precision and evidence. The precision and evidence expected of mathematics is different from that expected for biology, history, etc.
- There is a hierarchy of “good” in things, pursuits, methods, etc. Some things, pursuits, methods, etc., are more valuable than others. I think it is easier to think of it as a hierarchy of value, maybe, but the Nicomachean Ethics (EN) consistently calls it good, the good, goods, etc.
- This hierarchy is established first by the theory that if something exists for the sake of something else, that something else is a higher good, or more valuable.
The example was the work of the bridle maker, which, in ancient Athens,
was for the sake of having cavalry, and cavalry was for the sake of military victory,
and that was for the sake of preserving the city-state. So, the work of the
bridle maker is good, but that of the cavalryman is a higher good, that of the
general even higher, and the existence of the city-state yet higher. I surmised
that this would make the work of citizenship, political engagement, the highest
form of work.
The very highest goods exist for their own sake, like
happiness.
The comments brought up a lot of good points, but I’d like
to focus on something J Melcher brought out: How are we different than the
ancient Athenian city-state, and how does that affect how we think about Aristotle's ideas?
First, though, we need some background.
The second lesson in the course diverted from the EN to the first
book of Aristotle’s Politics. The reading is chapters 1 and 2.
On a side note, for texts, Aristotle's works are freely available at The Internet Classics Archive:
However, for the EN, I highly recommend Joe Sachs's Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
because he includes some extremely helpful footnotes and explanations
of terminology, etc. This is the version the Hillsdale course uses, as
well, and if you create an account you can download the readings from it
for each lesson.
Back to the discussion.
With his hierarchy of goods in mind, Aristotle looks at
communities.
Aristotle claims that humans are by nature political because
they have logos, a word that is translated both as reason and language. Logos,
reason and language, makes us political.
The most basic community, he proposes, is the household, but
while it is essential, the household is limited. Who will the children marry
when they grow up? How can it defend itself? Who will trade for its goods or provide
it goods it cannot produce itself?
The village is a collection of households. It is a higher
good than the household, providing marriage partners, better defense, and
better trade. But it is not self-sufficient.
The city-state (polis, in Greek -- the root of politics) is a partnership of
villages. It can be self-sufficient, and its aim is enabling its residents to
live well. As such, it is the highest good in terms of community.
Here, Aristotle clearly adds self-sufficiency to his method
of determining the good. A self-sufficient good is higher than one that depends
on other things. So now we have two criteria to determine value: purpose (existing
for the sake of something) and self-sufficiency. He would say that those things that exist for
their own sake and are self-sufficient are the highest good, or so I believe at this point.
My first question about this is: What about us today? Our
states are a collection of urban and rural areas where often there are 2 or
more large cities. Our nation is composed of 50 states and a number of territories.
Is the nation-state a higher community than the ancient city-state Aristotle
knew? Does it give us something the city-state cannot? If it is a higher good,
then is there still a higher good? Would one world government be best?
Also, in today's politics rural areas and urban areas seem to be in great conflict. Is the nation-state simply too big? Aristotle proposes that a community is defined by a shared concept of what is just and unjust. Does the nation-state make that impossible? Is revolution and rebellion and civil war inevitable?
Also, last week I pointed out that there were no real
politicians in the Athenian democracy. Every eligible citizen could vote on
proposed legislation directly. However, our republic requires politicians. How
does that change the hierarchy of work? Our nation does put civilian politicians
above our generals, so we do value the work of politicians above the work of generals.
However, the citizens elect those politicians, so can we still say that the work of responsible
citizenship is the highest?
What say you?
10 comments:
I wrote some exploratory pieces which you can find on the sidebar ("Justice & the Law," I and II). I give an argument that isn't Aristotle's, but also explore his thoughts. It may be helpful as an introduction to the questions you are raising.
Nam-checked, I feel obliged to chime in:
"Is the nation-state a higher community than the ancient city-state Aristotle knew? "
Surely Ari was aware of empires and satrapies. I'm not aware of his opinion of such super-political structures. In my own view, communities larger than the "city-state" can be either good or not depending on whether they have been formed, and continue, in voluntary association or by conquest. Post-1860 it has been arguable about whether the United State are, or "is", a nation by association or a nation by military conquest. I think and hope we still respect one another, agree to disagree on lesser policies and join (or die) together in support of the large ones.
"Does it [super-structure] give us something the city-state cannot? "
Surely yes. By analogy, the hierarchy of a denominational church allows believers to accomplish goals (running a seminary, sending missionaries, planting a new church) that would be more difficult for an individual church, even a modern so-called "mega-church". There are trade-offs. There are philosophers who address the issues. See "subsidiarity". Ideas, and the assessment of the virtues thereof, apply to corporations and major league sports as much as political structures and churches.
"If it is a higher good, then is there still a higher good? Would one world government be best?"
Well, "government" is intrinsically NOT a good thing. A dangerous servant and a cruel master. The monopoly of violence. I can't see a world-government as other than a tyranny. World-wide, or at least globe-spanning, voluntary associations can be otherwise. "Christiandom" or the "Anglo-sphere" or "free-market partners".
Grim, I'll check those out as I can later this week.
J: Surely Ari was aware of empires and satrapies. I'm not aware of his opinion of such super-political structures.
Yeah, you're right, I believe, and I don't know his opinion either. Since the course focuses on EN, I don't think we'll read much more of the Politics to find out (if that's where he discusses it).
Post-1860 it has been arguable about whether the United State are, or "is", a nation by association or a nation by military conquest.
Some of both, and I think the conquests continue to cause us problems. In addition to the Confederate States, The Native American tribes surely did not want to be absorbed, and neither did the native Hawaiian people, as I understand it.
When I posted, I was thinking of the rural/urban split, but you are right to point out the voluntary/conquered split.
One question I have is why we have the rural/urban split in, at least, a number of developed nations.
Aristotle seems (in the 2 chapters we read) to suggest that the city exists to complete the households and villages. There is an interdependence there and we all (rural & urban) share the same goals such that there should be harmony between rural citizens and urban citizens.
He places the urban at the peak. It enables citizens to live the good life.
But in the US today, and I think in many places around the world, we are seeing a deeper conflict than harmony. The goals of the urban citizens, in general, are in conflict with the goals of the rural citizens. The two seem to have contradictory ideas about what "the good life" entails.
I'm curious why this should be.
Well, in talking about the voluntary/conquest split, I left out the descendants of the slaves.
Altogether, there are many American citizens who can rightly, in one sense or another, believe that they never gave their consent to our national community as it is currently constituted.
I just finished the post Justice and the Law, I.
Some relevant and interesting points were:
According to Plato, the just individual is someone whose soul is guided by a vision of the Good, someone in whom reason governs passion and ambition through such a vision. When, but only when, this is the case, is the soul harmonious, strong, beautiful, and healthy, and individual justice precisely consists in such a state of the soul. Actions are then just if they sustain or are consonant with such harmony.
Aristotle, on the other hand, anchors individual justice in situational factors that are largely external to the just individual. Situations and communities are just, according to Aristotle, when individuals receive benefits according to their merits, or virtue: those most virtuous should receive more of whatever goods society is in a position to distribute (exemptions from various burdens or evils counting as goods). This is what we would today call a desert-based conception of social justice; and Aristotle treats the virtue of individual justice as a matter of being disposed to properly respect and promote just social arrangements.
Grim commented, So where does justice emerge? It seems that on Plato's account it emerges in the individual, but on Aristotle's it does not emerge until there are multiple individuals in relationship to one another. ... Either way, justice is a property of pre-political levels. ... Justice is therefore not a property that belongs to the law.
He continues that, to avoid exploitation of one party by another in a larger community, we have laws, and disputes are settled and enforced by the state. However, there is a conflict between what the state enforces and what is merited by virtue. Thus, he concludes:
... that true justice is impossible for the law, or for the state. If justice is desired, and it is surely desirable, the state and the law must be carefully constrained to their proper and limited role. We should use the state or the law no more than absolutely necessary to enable the benefits of a larger, political society. Nor should the state be allowed to transgress into the intimate spaces where true justice is possible, because the best it can achieve is a mere shadow of true justice. People should be free to depart from such bonds if they fail to be just, but the power to sever or re-order such bonds ought to be located only in the individual, not in the state.
I trust that if I have misunderstood and so misstated anything that Grim will correct me.
Just from this, it seems that maybe the conflict is in the attempt by the urban citizens to exercise improper control over the rural citizens, and to impose the shadow of justice (state control) in areas that are properly the realm of true, private justice.
However, I'm predisposed to think that anyway. In rather stereotypical fashion, I'm afraid, I see the generalized urban citizen as arrogantly trying to impose on my way of life.
Still, this doesn't answer the question of why the urban citizen and I have such different values and concepts of justice.
As a side note, I probably won't get to the second post today, but I'll try tomorrow.
Aristotle seems (in the 2 chapters we read) to suggest that the city exists to complete the households and villages. There is an interdependence there and we all (rural & urban) share the same goals such that there should be harmony between rural citizens and urban citizens...He places the urban at the peak. It enables citizens to live the good life....But in the US today, and I think in many places around the world, we are seeing a deeper conflict than harmony. The goals of the urban citizens, in general, are in conflict with the goals of the rural citizens.
Remember that the goods of ethics aren't chosen in Aristotle's view. What your goals are don't determine what the right ends of ethics are. Rather, the right ends of ethics allow us to judge the quality of your goals.
This is because (per the warm-up exercise of the weekend) the ends of ethics follow from nature. The end is perfecting one's existence, i.e., living a healthy life for as long as nature permits, having healthy children who themselves become well-formed, developing your capacities into virtues, and developing your rational nature so that you can pursue the very highest things through philosophy.
So the reason the urban life (for Aristotle) is the highest is that it enables that kind of life. The rural life in those days did not; it was a life of labor, but only in the city was there room for the leisure necessary to develop into a philosopher.
That's not really true any more. There are good universities in the rural parts of America; maybe better ones, especially if your goal is to become an Aristotelian or to live an Aristotelian life.
More, you can look at the urban politics' goals and judge them by the Aristotelian standards. Look at the life being advocated by those elements -- their goals, as you put it -- and judge them by the Aristotelian ends. They pursue philosophy, but is it rationally ordered to ultimate ends? What does the embrace of abortion say about the natural end of flourishing children? What does the embrace of transgenderism say? Of euthanasia? Of post-modernism? Of Marxist philosophies or economics?
From that perspective, Aristotle's approach suggests that the urban is no longer the seat of the good life. It may be destructive to the good life, at least as Aristotle frames it.
So, it seems that Aristotle would say the level of community organization that gives one the leisure time to live a good life (as you describe it) would be best. It's not about where one lives, so much, but rather the lifestyle one can afford.
I looked up ancient Athens and apparently, all included, it amounted to about 300,000 people, including the farmers, etc., who lived outside the city proper.
...that gives one the leisure time to live a good life (as you describe it) would be best. It's not about where one lives, so much, but rather the lifestyle one can afford.
Leisure sounds luxurious to American ears; Aristotle is arguing that you need time to think. He gives the same argument about why we have a long intestine: so we don't have to chase after food constantly, and thus have time to contemplate. Society, like the body, should be organized to allow that.
Still, we're getting a bit ahead of Aristotle, who has a lot more to say. Scholars generally read him as saying that there are two kinds of lives that might be plausibly called good: the active life of politics, war, and deeds (vita activa), and the contemplative life of the philosopher and scholar (vita contemplativa). Scholars generally want to say that only the latter is the highest form of 'good life,' but acknowledge that Aristotle's politics require the best sort of men to also pursue the active life at least some of the time. Otherwise, you'd have to entrust the powers of the state to less-good men, which would tend to lead to a state unfit for the good life. So there's a kind of moral duty (we'll encounter it with magnanimity in the EN) to pursue the active life some of the time.
I'm not convinced that's quite right; I think Aristotle has a view of the active life that can embrace it for some people as the best kind of life for them, in part because it enables others to pursue a purer contemplative life. Hannah Arendt wrote extensively about the distinction, and accuses Marx of trying to reverse the polarity so that the contemplative life should serve the interests of the active, political life; there may be something to her reading in terms of why Marxists in the academy cause so many political problems.
But as I said, we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We're still in book one. :)
Post a Comment