Happy Father's Day
Nicomachean Ethics I.9
For this reason also the question is asked, whether happiness is to be acquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of training, or comes in virtue of some divine providence or again by chance.
Those of you who have followed my earlier commentaries know that this question was one of Plato's regular subjects, and had been Socrates' as well. For example, the Meno -- which we looked at recently during our reading of the Anabasis -- comes down on the side that it must be a kind of divine gift, because the issues around treating virtue as a kind of knowledge that can be taught are so problematic and deep. If it were knowledge, you should be able to teach it; but even very good men often can't convey virtue to their sons. If it's knowledge, you should be able to define it if you know it; but it turns out to be devilishly hard to define even a relatively simple virtue like courage correctly (this is the subject of the Laches).
Socrates was apparently really bothered by this, and the puzzle was something that Plato worried about extensively also. It is the main subject of the Protagoras, where the two thinkers Socrates and Protagoras end up adopting the position that virtue is knowledge but can't be taught, or that it isn't knowledge but can be. It comes up in various forms in many other dialogues, such as the Lesser Hippias (which I wrote my Master's thesis partly about). In his major political works, the Republic and the Laws (see commentary on sidebar) Plato tried to deal with the problem practically. In the first of these, he decides that the problem is that not all that many people are rational enough to really learn these things, so that political power should be invested only in a select class of philosopher kings who would rule but be stripped of their families and raised with that class consciousness instead. In the second, he apparently abandons that idea, but instead suggests that virtue could be instilled by an elaborate system of social controls and laws, overseen by a secret police led by a hidden nocturnal council of the virtuous. Both of those ideas are totalitarian and implausible to the point of being ridiculous, but they were the best Plato could come up with after a lifetime of thinking about it.
So this is a short section of Book One of the EN, but it's aimed at a huge problem that two of the greatest minds in history had been struggling with for both of their generations. Virtue doesn't seem to be knowledge, and obtaining it requires more than reading about it or having teachers instruct you.
Aristotle has an answer to the problem that is highly satisfying. I've written about it many times here, so you all know how it goes. Happiness -- eudaimonia -- is an activity, so it is something you have to do. Specifically, you have to engage in the practice of doing virtuous acts. Virtue -- aretḗ -- is both the excellence you will practically display by acting with practiced skill from having done such acts many times, and also the character you develop by doing these virtuous things.
An example: the reason we still have Airborne school isn't because we're going to drop an army of paratroopers again; it's because it requires the practice of courage, as well as several other virtues. Getting into the habit of acting courageously will eventually make you a courageous person. Once you get there, it'll be pleasant to do what was terrifying before. Technical Rescue doesn't do paratrooper school, but it does require rappelling and rope rescue as its first discipline. It's the same thing more or less: you have to get used to stepping out into nothing with only your faith in the equipment you helped prepare. It is eventually quite fun.
Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning or training, to be among the most godlike things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something godlike and blessed.
It will also on this view be very generally shared; for all who are not maimed as regards their potentiality for virtue may win it by a certain kind of study and care. But if it is better to be happy thus than by chance, it is reasonable that the facts should be so, since everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective arrangement.
The answer to the question we are asking is plain also from the definition of happiness; for it has been said to be a virtuous activity of soul, of a certain kind. Of the remaining goods, some must necessarily pre-exist as conditions of happiness, and others are naturally co-operative and useful as instruments. And this will be found to agree with what we said at the outset; for we stated the end of political science to be the best end, and political science spends most of its pains on making the citizens to be of a certain character, viz. good and capable of noble acts.
It is natural, then, that we call neither ox nor horse nor any other of the animals happy; for none of them is capable of sharing in such activity. For this reason also a boy is not happy; for he is not yet capable of such acts, owing to his age; and boys who are called happy are being congratulated by reason of the hopes we have for them. For there is required, as we said, not only complete virtue but also a complete life, since many changes occur in life, and all manner of chances, and the most prosperous may fall into great misfortunes in old age, as is told of Priam in the Trojan Cycle; and one who has experienced such chances and has ended wretchedly no one calls happy.
An Actual Effect on Immigration
“We are heartbroken. Their sudden removal is both destabilizing and deeply unjust,” said Blumberg, who expects her labor costs to rise by $600,000 a year as she tries to attract new workers with higher wages. “Unfortunately, higher costs will be passed on to the residents of every senior living facility in the entire country that’s affected.”
Happy 250th Birthday to the US Army
Although the US Army dates its founding to June 14, 1775, the flag of the US Army was only adopted in 1956. According to the US Army Quartermaster Museum, the emblem is the original seal of the War Office, approved by the Continental Congress in May of 1779.Male Friendship
Cornwallis' Sword
Jimbo on the Israel/Iran War
The Iranian nuclear program probably is intolerable, as Jim says; with one such weapon, detonated in the air above Oklahoma, they could wipe out most of the American population due to the destruction of our electrical grids. I'm not sorry to see it go, but I would be sorry to see a MEU(SOC) or a Ranger battalion deployed into this conflict.
Nicomachean Ethics I.8
We must consider it, ["it" meaning this general inquiry into ethics] however, in the light not only of our conclusion and our premisses, but also of what is commonly said about it; for with a true view all the data harmonize, but with a false one the facts soon clash. Now goods have been divided into three classes, and some are described as external, others as relating to soul or to body; we call those that relate to soul most properly and truly goods, and psychical actions and activities we class as relating to soul. Therefore our account must be sound, at least according to this view, which is an old one and agreed on by philosophers.
Philosophers rarely agree on anything, so that is itself a remarkable finding. Except it isn't true:
It is correct also in that we identify the end with certain actions and activities; for thus it falls among goods of the soul and not among external goods. Another belief which harmonizes with our account is that the happy man lives well and does well; for we have practically defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action. The characteristics that are looked for in happiness seem also, all of them, to belong to what we have defined happiness as being. For some identify happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others with a kind of philosophic wisdom, others with these, or one of these, accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others include also external prosperity. Now some of these views have been held by many men and men of old, others by a few eminent persons; and it is not probable that either of these should be entirely mistaken, but rather that they should be right in at least some one respect or even in most respects.
Indeed, we see that the philosophers don't actually agree! Some say this, and some say that. Here Aristotle is ready to accept that they might at least each have part of the answer.
With those who identify happiness with virtue or some one virtue our account is in harmony; for to virtue belongs virtuous activity.
Again, an ethical life is lived virtuously; just having virtues you don't use doesn't count.
But it makes, perhaps, no small difference whether we place the chief good in possession or in use, in state of mind or in activity. For the state of mind may exist without producing any good result, as in a man who is asleep or in some other way quite inactive, but the activity cannot; for one who has the activity will of necessity be acting, and acting well. And as in the Olympic Games it is not the most beautiful and the strongest that are crowned but those who compete (for it is some of these that are victorious), so those who act win, and rightly win, the noble and good things in life.
This restatement of that point may remind you of Theodore Roosevelt's famous speech about the man in the arena, which was actually called "Citizenship in a Republic."
Their life is also in itself pleasant. For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant; e.g. not only is a horse pleasant to the lover of horses, and a spectacle to the lover of sights, but also in the same way just acts are pleasant to the lover of justice and in general virtuous acts to the lover of virtue. Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that these are pleasant for such men as well as in their own nature. Their life, therefore, has no further need of pleasure as a sort of adventitious charm, but has its pleasure in itself.
This is an interesting argument: the virtuous life is pleasant because to live it you must be virtuous, and if you are virtuous you must love virtue. Since you love virtue, you will love to see and perform virtuous actions. Thus, it will not only be a morally good life you will lead, it will be a pleasing life.
That may be true, but it is not obvious. Many men practice the virtue of moderation in eating and drinking, but only because they don't wish to become fat or hung-over, not because they don't enjoy delicious food and strong ale. It is pleasing to discover that you can control yourself and walk away from temptations you know you ought; but is it as pleasing as the night you could have had if you didn't? Aristotle says it is: you'll be pleased by doing right, once you develop a character that is habituated to loving doing right.
For, besides what we have said, the man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good; since no one would call a man just who did not enjoy acting justly, nor any man liberal who did not enjoy liberal actions; and similarly in all other cases.
This is a return to the proper upbringing: you learn what is noble by hearing stories from your elders about noble things that have been done. Part of developing a moral character fit for the good life is developing this taste for the good, the noble, the just, the upright.
If this is so, virtuous actions must be in themselves pleasant. But they are also good and noble, and have each of these attributes in the highest degree, since the good man judges well about these attributes; his judgement is such as we have described. Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos-Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;But pleasantest is it to win what we love.For all these properties belong to the best activities; and these, or one- the best- of these, we identify with happiness.
N.B. "what," and not "whom," we love. You might have thought, as I have too, that winning the heart of your beloved was most pleasant.
Yet evidently, as we said, it needs the external goods as well; for it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment.
This is more evident to Aristotle, for whom citizenship required service in armor: Socrates fought three campaigns in the Peloponnesian War, and was a hero for his actions in the rear guard during a famous retreat, and for saving the life of Alcibiades at Potidaea. You needed some wealth to fund armor, horses were valuable -- recall Xenophon here -- and so forth. In the Middle Ages, you needed a whole array of support to field a knight in armor who had been able to spend time training in such combat.
There is a virtue we will encounter later that points to the kind of goods that only the very rich can afford: Magnificence. Even a man of otherwise complete virtue may not be able to afford magnificence. It's for men like Elon Musk to build starships; none of us can do it, no matter how upright we are otherwise. That comes a bit later on, though, so I will leave it except to note it in passing.
In many actions we use friends and riches and political power as instruments; and there are some things the lack of which takes the lustre from happiness, as good birth, goodly children, beauty; for the man who is very ugly in appearance or ill-born or solitary and childless is not very likely to be happy, and perhaps a man would be still less likely if he had thoroughly bad children or friends or had lost good children or friends by death.
This is the Stoics' problem: see the commentary on Epictetus on the sidebar. Epictetus was a slave, after all, and managed to be happy through virtue alone. The Stoics come a bit later on, however.
As we said, then, happiness seems to need this sort of prosperity in addition; for which reason some identify happiness with good fortune, though others identify it with virtue.
Happy 250th Birthday to the US Merchant Marine
Historian and former merchant mariner Sal Mercogliano tells the story of the Merchant Marine's first battle.
The Riots of Ballymena
Looks like War Again
Nicomachean Ethics I.7b
Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth.
Aristotle is seeking the telos of human life, the point of the thing. He is therefore excluding what we have in common with lower forms of life, and looking for something unique to ourselves. Mere nutrition-seeking and growth is something we have in common with all forms of life; it's not therefore despicable, and indeed is the definition of life. It is not, however, a candidate for the purpose of the best human life: that requires finding our highest capacities, and fulfilling them.
Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal.
Philosopher Hans Jonas, mentioned in the second link, points out that it isn't quite 'common'; predators have much higher degrees of perception than prey animals. If you find an animal that can smell water and see green plants and perhaps detect motion near itself, it is prey. If you find the eyes of an eagle, you found a killer.
That may be significant to natural theology; Aristotle doesn't go into it, however, so we will pass it for now.
There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle; of this, one part has such a principle in the sense of being obedient to one, the other in the sense of possessing one and exercising thought. And, as 'life of the rational element' also has two meanings, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what we mean; for this seems to be the more proper sense of the term.
This is a response to his own objection that merely possessing unused virtues wasn't a candidate for the best life; you have to do something with them for it to count.
Now if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle, and if we say 'so-and-so-and 'a good so-and-so' have a function which is the same in kind, e.g. a lyre, and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of goodness being added to the name of the function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case, and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.
Emphasis added and deserved. That's it: that's the definition of "happiness" that tells you how to live the best life. The word is eudaimonia in the Greek, 'eu' meaning 'good' and 'daimon' being a personal soul-like entity that the Ancient Greeks believed in.
The word for 'virtue' is aretḗ, which really doesn't mean 'virtue' in the sense of the English word: it means excellence. In Latin 'vir-' implies a kind of manliness; that isn't present in the Greek.
What he's telling you is this: happiness is an activity, and the particular activity it is proves to be seeking excellence with all your vital powers. That means that you can choose to be happy, or not; and the road to happiness is clearly marked out if you want it. This is one of the most important lessons in all of human history, in all of philosophy. Somehow we fail to convey it to our children. No one once said those words to me until Iakovos did when I was a senior in my undergraduate studies.
But we must add 'in a complete life.' For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
This is an important point, and one he explores further in Politics III: "These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community... for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together. But these are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. The end of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. And the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life."
We will hear a great deal more about friendship in the later books of the EN. It is also fundamental to the good life as he understands it.
Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably first sketch it roughly, and then later fill in the details. But it would seem that any one is capable of carrying on and articulating what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer or partner in such a work; to which facts the advances of the arts are due; for any one can add what is lacking. And we must also remember what has been said before, and not look for precision in all things alike, but in each class of things such precision as accords with the subject-matter, and so much as is appropriate to the inquiry. For a carpenter and a geometer investigate the right angle in different ways; the former does so in so far as the right angle is useful for his work, while the latter inquires what it is or what sort of thing it is; for he is a spectator of the truth. We must act in the same way, then, in all other matters as well, that our main task may not be subordinated to minor questions. Nor must we demand the cause in all matters alike; it is enough in some cases that the fact be well established, as in the case of the first principles; the fact is the primary thing or first principle. Now of first principles we see some by induction, some by perception, some by a certain habituation, and others too in other ways. But each set of principles we must try to investigate in the natural way, and we must take pains to state them definitely, since they have a great influence on what follows. For the beginning is thought to be more than half of the whole, and many of the questions we ask are cleared up by it.
Blue Collar Cycles
Marines Deployed To Another Third-World Country Full Of Hostile Foreigners
My usual reaction to Babylon Bee headlines is to SWS* and check the first sentence or two of the article to see if it's funny as well. Usually, the joke is all in the headline and the article doesn't add much. Sometimes, though, they knock it out of the park and I genuinely do LOL. This one made me laugh.
Marines Deployed To Another Third-World Country Full Of Hostile Foreigners
NIcomachean Ethics I.7a
Let us again return to the good we are seeking, and ask what it can be. It seems different in different actions and arts; it is different in medicine, in strategy, and in the other arts likewise. What then is the good of each? Surely that for whose sake everything else is done. In medicine this is health, in strategy victory, in architecture a house, in any other sphere something else, and in every action and pursuit the end; for it is for the sake of this that all men do whatever else they do. Therefore, if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good achievable by action, and if there are more than one, these will be the goods achievable by action.
So the argument has by a different course reached the same point; but we must try to state this even more clearly. Since there are evidently more than one end, and we choose some of these (e.g. wealth, flutes, and in general instruments) for the sake of something else, clearly not all ends are final ends; but the chief good is evidently something final. Therefore, if there is only one final end, this will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the most final of these will be what we are seeking.
So we are looking for the good that we seek from our chosen actions. Aristotle points out that there may be one, or sometimes more than one. He isn't interested in cataloging everything we want to accomplish with every action, however: he's looking for the chief thing that human actions seek.
He has a couple of heuristics for sorting out what that chief good really is. One of them is that some goods are not pursued for themselves, but as a means-to-an-end for obtaining something else. Wealth, for example, is one he has already told us is always sought for something else. No one really wants piles of cash or coins to swim in, a la Scrooge McDuck; people want wealth for the other things they can trade it to obtain. Thus, even though very many of our actions are taken to obtain wealth, wealth is not a candidate for the chief end. Neither are things sought as means-to-ends for other ends: we should look at the final ends for our candidates.
Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.
Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for self and never for the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.
The second heuristic is a variation of the first. Some things we would choose as final ends, such as honor: it is right to do the honorable thing even if it leads to nothing other than the fate of having lived with honor. Yet such things, though worthy as ends-in-themselves, can also be chosen because they will reasonably reliably produce other things. Remember I.3: we are looking for rules that hold 'for the most part' or 'probably,' allowing for a world that contains chance and fate. An honorable action is worthy of choice even if it leads to death, but behaving honorably will reasonably reliably lead to other goods as well. It may lead to wealth, if it is rewarded; political success, if it builds a reputation in consideration of which people would vote for you; and whatever other end was being sought by the honorable action, as for example if it was courage in battle. The battle was being fought for some reason other than the opportunity to show honor and courage, after all.
Thus, while honor is a final good, it is not the chief and final good we seek. Aristotle thinks that happiness is a good candidate -- but recall that there was already a problem that people don't agree on what happiness entails. That still needs to be defined.
From the point of view of self-sufficiency the same result seems to follow; for the final good is thought to be self-sufficient. Now by self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by himself, for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents, children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is born for citizenship.
For Aristotle's account of why humanity is born for some sort of political life, see Politics I.2ff.
But some limit must be set to this; for if we extend our requirement to ancestors and descendants and friends' friends we are in for an infinite series.
Aristotle has a significant account of the infinite. Potential infinites do exist for him, for example, one can potentially divide any single unit in half, in half again, etc. For mathematics the potential infinites suffice. Actually infinite series are impossible to complete, and therefore inadmissible to practical philosophy. It can't do in ethics to have an infinite series of obligations, for example, because no human being can practically satisfy it. We are looking for things that are practical in ethics.
Let us examine this question, however, on another occasion; the self-sufficient we now define as that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing; and such we think happiness to be; and further we think it most desirable of all things, without being counted as one good thing among others- if it were so counted it would clearly be made more desirable by the addition of even the least of goods; for that which is added becomes an excess of goods, and of goods the greater is always more desirable. Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.
OK, with the continued proviso that happiness hasn't yet received and agreed-upon definition. The thoughts of the Wise were dismissed in I.5.
Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a platitude, and a clearer account of what it is still desired. This might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of man. For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the 'well' is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function. Have the carpenter, then, and the tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he born without a function? Or as 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? What then can this be?
Here we are looking for the telos of human life, that is, the proper end of it. For those of you who read Iakovos' article on good upbringing mentioned in the commentary on I.4, you will recall that it begins with modern philosophy's desire to reject that there is such a thing as a single telos for human life. Iakovos has his own argument for why we should continue with Aristotle even absent a human telos.
We can, though, apply our practical reason to other parts of ourselves to find a telos. We can judge that the telos of our eyes is to see, for example, with a fairly straightforward application of our reason. We can then judge whether an eye performs its function well or badly. We reason that we should correct eyes that cannot see 20/20 with our optical arts.
Note that we have the art to alter their vision further, and for some purposes that is appropriate: when you wish to shoot a deer precisely across a meadow, it can be helpful temporarily to see much further with the eye than 20/20. We judge that 20/20 is the right scale with reference to the overall human being: the eye's correct general telos is to see at that range because that is the range that enables you to participate in a complete human life most easily. At that range you can navigate a human city, read a human menu in a human restaurant, and otherwise participate in the life most fit for human beings. (See, again, the Politics for Aristotle's thinking on this.)
Thus, even in the clear-cut case of an eye having a telos, we need to make reference to an overarching human telos. Modern philosophers may reject such a thing on the grounds that they would prefer the freedom to determine their own final ends; but regardless of why they reject it, they cannot practically do without it. Since ethics is a practical science, one cannot abandon even pragmatically necessary conditions; and therefore, says I, there's no getting around the thing. Just as Kant deduces that one must always act under the idea of freedom in his Groundwork (and thus that determinism, even if it were true, is useless in ethics), I deduce that a human telos is likewise necessary for ethical thought.
Tomorrow we will discover what Aristotle thinks human happiness is, properly speaking.
Sympathy vs. Empathy
1580s (1570s in Latin form), "affinity between certain things" (body and soul, persons and their garments), from French sympathie (16c.) and directly from Late Latin sympathia "community of feeling, sympathy," from Greek sympatheia "fellow-feeling, community of feeling," from sympathēs "having a fellow feeling, affected by like feelings," from assimilated form of syn- "together" (see syn-) + pathos "feeling," which is related to paskhein, pathein "suffer" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer").
Sympathy thus implies a natural connection or community as the root of the fellow-feeling. You could feel sympathy for your brother, but also a member of your church or community organization; more extended but still valid, for a fellow firefighter or veteran, a fellow American, a fellow Westerner, etc. The idea is that there is some sort of real connection that makes you recognize a likeness between yourself and the one suffering, and this causes you to share in their suffering to some degree.
Empathy, by contrast, is an art project.
1908, modeled on German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"), which was coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) as a translation of Greek empatheia "passion, state of emotion," from assimilated form of en "in" (see en- (2)) + pathos "feeling" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer"). A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer's ability to project his personality into the viewed object.
'Not only do I see gravity and modesty and pride and courtesy and stateliness, but I feel or act them in the mind's muscles. This is, I suppose, a simple case of empathy, if we may coin that term as a rendering of Einfühlung; there is nothing curious or idiosyncratic about it; but it is a fact that must be mentioned.' [Edward Bradford Titchener, "Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the Thought Processes," 1909]
The concept here is that a connection doesn't really exist between you and the other person: indeed, since it was coined in the service of art appreciation, there needn't actually be another person who is really suffering at all. The art is conjuring an idea of suffering in your mind, that -- according to the analogy of 'the mind' as having muscle movements -- causes it to feel, inwardly (ein/in), a sense of suffering. In this way it is an egotistical feeling, just as described: 'a projection of his personality into the viewed object.'
Empathy is really dangerous. It can cause us to interfere passionately in matters we don't really know anything about, because there's no actual connection between us and the alleged suffering. We end up drawn into other people's wars. We end up drawn into inter-family conflict that is far too dense for us to really help or even grasp. Empathy can allow pictures painted in the media, using the tools of cinema and art, to drive even mass popular movements into the streets. It can, insofar as it successfully makes us feel deep psychic pain on behalf of the alleged suffering, justify extraordinary measures in defiance of ordinary constraints on our behavior. It has, when so used, given rise to tremendous brutality.
It's better to mind your business. Be mindful, I would suggest, when you find yourself experiencing fellow-feeling: ask yourself if it is coming from a real connection between you and the suffering, or if it is one being conjured by art. Beware the conjurers.
UPDATE: The OED:
Nicomachean Ethics I.6b
But let us discuss these matters elsewhere; an objection to what we have said, however, may be discerned in the fact that the Platonists have not been speaking about all goods, and that the goods that are pursued and loved for themselves are called good by reference to a single Form, while those which tend to produce or to preserve these somehow or to prevent their contraries are called so by reference to these, and in a secondary sense. Clearly, then, goods must be spoken of in two ways, and some must be good in themselves, the others by reason of these.
Here Aristotle is acknowledging the Platonic defense I mentioned yesterday, while insisting that "good" has to have at least two meanings in order for that defense to be valid.
This is part of a larger Aristotelian point that he mentioned yesterday in passing when he said that "'good' has as many senses as 'being.'" In Metaphysics Γ.2, Aristotle says that 'being is said in many ways,' and it is true: when we use words like "is" or "are" to speak of things that exist ("John is") or that have certain qualities ("John is bold," "...is my nephew") we are doing several different things. Aristotle is the root of Aquinas' and Avicenna's conception that being and goodness are in fact the same thing, but here we can see that Aristotle isn't wholly committed to that point because he is willing to accept that "good" could have not less than two senses, but not necessarily as many as "being" does. (How many is that? It's complicated.)
Let us separate, then, things good in themselves from things useful, and consider whether the former are called good by reference to a single Idea. What sort of goods would one call good in themselves? Is it those that are pursued even when isolated from others, such as intelligence, sight, and certain pleasures and honours? Certainly, if we pursue these also for the sake of something else, yet one would place them among things good in themselves. Or is nothing other than the Idea of good good in itself? In that case the Form will be empty. But if the things we have named are also things good in themselves, the account of the good will have to appear as something identical in them all, as that of whiteness is identical in snow and in white lead. But of honour, wisdom, and pleasure, just in respect of their goodness, the accounts are distinct and diverse. The good, therefore, is not some common element answering to one Idea.
Aristotle begins by denying that the Platonic Form of the Good can exist by showing two ways that it might exist, and denying each of the horns of that dilemma. The first is that "things that are Good in themselves" only includes the Form of the Good itself; but if that were true, the Platonic Form wouldn't be the form of anything else, and therefore the Form would be empty. That clearly isn't what Plato wanted; he wanted a Form that embraced and unified all the various good things.
Then, by analogy to a physical quality, Aristotle attempts to show that the qualities being unified aren't a good fit for a Form. When we say that snow and white lead are both white, we mean something that these days is easy to explain: they are reflecting light waves in such a way that our eyes send signals to our brain that our brain interprets as 'white.' When we say that honor is good and that wisdom is good and that pleasure is good, we mean different things -- or so Aristotle says here. Since they aren't the same thing, a unifying Form seems to be inappropriate.
Is Aristotle right about this? Not obviously, not even on his own terms. As I mentioned when discussing EN I.2, in the Rhetoric he gives an account of how honor can be used as a means of creating a comparable system of valuation for apparently unlike goods. It turns out that it is possible to treat the goods of pleasure and wisdom as comparable, which means there must be something that does unify them on a scale of value. That something is honor, which is his other candidate for a thing good in itself.
So when we sit around as properly brought-up men and women and discuss whether pleasure or wisdom is more honorable, we are talking about the goods of all of these things as if they were one kind of thing, possessed in a larger or smaller quantity. If so, the Platonic idea seems more defensible than he is giving it credit for here.
But what then do we mean by the good? It is surely not like the things that only chance to have the same name. Are goods one, then, by being derived from one good or by all contributing to one good, or are they rather one by analogy?
Analogy is an Aristotelian defense against the idea I just raised: maybe there isn't a real comparison between pleasure and wisdom, but we can use honor as a way of creating an analogy between them. Analogies always break, as I frequently remark here, because comparing unlike things will always run into a point of dissimilarity unless it turns out that you were really comparing the same thing by different names (e.g. "Clark Kent is [analogy] with Superman").
Wisdom and pleasure are obviously not the same thing by different names. Is the goodness in them analogous, or is it really the case that we can compare the goodness of pleasure with the goodness of wisdom?
As is often true in philosophy, it is possible to argue this one from either side. You could say that there is an analogy just because the pleasure one will get from getting drunk instead of studying Aristotle tonight is just different from whatever good comes from the increased wisdom you get by studying Aristotle. Perhaps, then, we are just making an analogy.
On the other hand, it does seem like we can easily judge between whether we are ourselves made better by drinking or by study; so there is a common good, the good for us, that is seems to be the same. If we are doing it as Aristotle himself suggests, by comparing the honor involved, there is some honor to be gained by drinking heroically among friends; but there is more to be had by obtaining a reputation for wisdom among those same friends. So again, this doesn't seem to be an analogy: it does seem that in both cases we are comparing the same thing to itself.
Certainly as sight is in the body, so is reason in the soul, and so on in other cases. But perhaps these subjects had better be dismissed for the present; for perfect precision about them would be more appropriate to another branch of philosophy.
Here is the point about each science having its own fit subject. Aristotle wants to talk about ethics; but he's veered into metaphysics, and now is starting to talk about natural philosophy (the precursor of medical science).
And similarly with regard to the Idea; even if there is some one good which is universally predicable of goods or is capable of separate and independent existence, clearly it could not be achieved or attained by man; but we are now seeking something attainable.
This argument seems neatly to exclude Platonic thought from the field of ethics. A man can't attain one of the Forms, even if he might pursue it; but ethics should aim at something men could obtain. There is an obvious counterargument, which Aristotle gives immediately to acknowledge and reject it.
Perhaps, however, some one might think it worth while to recognize this with a view to the goods that are attainable and achievable; for having this as a sort of pattern we shall know better the goods that are good for us, and if we know them shall attain them. This argument has some plausibility, but seems to clash with the procedure of the sciences; for all of these, though they aim at some good and seek to supply the deficiency of it, leave on one side the knowledge of the good.
So if you could grasp the Form of the Good, it could at least lead you to the goods you could obtain because you would recognize that they instantiated goodness in some way. Then you could usefully employ Platonic ideals ethically. Aristotle acknowledges the plausibility of that, but stands on the division of sciences (the division that he has himself been violating throughout this discussion of metaphysics as applied to ethics).
Yet that all the exponents of the arts should be ignorant of, and should not even seek, so great an aid is not probable. It is hard, too, to see how a weaver or a carpenter will be benefited in regard to his own craft by knowing this 'good itself', or how the man who has viewed the Idea itself will be a better doctor or general thereby. For a doctor seems not even to study health in this way, but the health of man, or perhaps rather the health of a particular man; it is individuals that he is healing.
Here are just some further objections to a high and distant Good as useful for practical purposes. We have a mechanism for testing these arguments that Aristotle did not. In later Christian thought this will become aligned with the idea of God. Is knowing God useful to a weaver in the production of good weavings? It might be; it has certainly been men who pursued knowledge of God who made extraordinary stained glass, or stonework cathedrals. Would it make you a better doctor? It might; even in our relatively secular society, a large proportion of hospitals are explicitly religious entities.
But enough of these topics.
The L.A. Riots and the Misuse of History
Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, is credited with the
quote, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” This maxim can also be applied to
political advocacy, and no offender is worse than Victor Davis Hanson.
Last night Mr. Hanson appeared on the Fox Network’s Laura
Ingraham show claiming that California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor,
Karen Bass are Neo-Confederates in a tortured attempt to draw a parallel between
the rioting in L.A. and the Civil War. This is a ridiculous claim he regularly
makes when discussing the sanctuary policies of California and L.A. This nonsense
has the unfortunate effect of distorting history and undermining the political
point he was trying to make.
To the degree Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass make an argument in support of their incompetent handling, or non-handling, of illegal immigration it appears to be based in a perverted humanitarianism grounded in an open borders ideology. None of their statements refer in any way to secession, states rights, or even nullification (Nullification predates the Civil War but is associated with the South due to the Southern statemen such as Thomas Jefferson, James Maddison, And John C. Calhoun that advocated the idea). Consequently, it’s patently inaccurate to draw comparisons between Newsom and Bass with the Confederacy. The only thing accomplished with such unnecessarily incendiary claims is to spread historical ignorance and undermine genuine criticism of the incompetent performance of Newsom and Bass. Mr. Hanson has sacrificed historical accuracy in an attempt to score a cheap political point. (Cross posted on my Facebook page)
Nicomachean Ethics I.6a
We had perhaps better consider the universal good and discuss thoroughly what is meant by it, although such an inquiry is made an uphill one by the fact that the Forms have been introduced by friends of our own. Yet it would perhaps be thought to be better, indeed to be our duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers or lovers of wisdom; for, while both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.
We have been discussing what is the proper end of ethics. Aristotle points out that we also need to come to a general idea about what it means for something to be 'good,' since we surely want something good to be the end of our ethics. But what is it 'to be good'? Aristotle not-very-gently suggests that Plato and the other Platonists of the Academy, whom he does not name but who were his friends as well as his teachers, have caused a lot of difficulty by introducing their bad ideas about Forms. He feels a duty as a philosopher (which just means 'lover of wisdom': philo - sophia) to try to get at the truth even though it means refuting his friends publicly.
Aristotle and Plato both believed in what we call hylomorphism. This word means that things are composed of both matter-that-can-be-organized-lots-of-ways (hyle means 'wood,' but stands here for any sort of matter that can be used to construct something else, as wood can be made into a bed or a ship or a house) that is then organized according to a form (morphē- here is 'form'). They differ quite a bit in their conception of how this relationship works.
Aside: while we are talking about this today in order to understand Aristotle, these metaphysics are not as arcane as you might imagine. You can read a paper I wrote defending the idea that hylomorphism is actually a better way of thinking about the world we live in according to our modern scientific understanding than the usual alternatives.
For Plato, the Forms are somewhere else: exactly where is not clear from what we have left of the Academy's thought. Later Neoplatonists, from Plotinus, perhaps were carrying forward Platonist ideas in asserting that there must be One that is ultimate and unified, and in the mind of that One would be the forms as Ideas: ideas in the mind of God, if you like. Aristotle, who was directly taught by Plato, will use the words Form and Idea interchangeably in this sense, so it could be that Plato's doctrine was indeed close to that (though there seem to have been two principles for Plato: the One, and something opposed to it. Avicenna demonstrates the impossibility of this 'dyad' concept in his Metaphysics of the Healing). In any case the Form of the Lion is not in the individual lion, but is a feature of basic reality whose independent existence from any actual lions is what enables lions to exist in the world. If the idea of the lion didn't exist in the mind of God, to extend that helpful metaphor, reality would not support lions existing in the world.
Aristotle has a much more straightforward account of how this works. Form for him is 'the way in which the matter is organized,' and therefore the form is in the thing. If you have some wood and you put it into the form of a table, you have a table. If you put it into the form of a chair instead, you have a chair and not a table. The wood doesn't change: in fact, if you imagine that you can use all and exactly the same wood to make either a chair or a table, you will see the point of the doctrine. The wood is the same wood whether it is a chair, a table, or a pile of parts lying on the floor. Thus, the material is the same. What changes is the form of organization.
Importantly, though the form is in the thing -- or, as you might prefer to say, the thing is in the form -- the form is not itself material. The material, again, hasn't changed. The form is therefore immaterial; and this deduction proves that materialism, which most intellectuals believe in today, is false. The immaterial not only exists, it is fundamental to things being whatever it is that they are.
So, with all that background, we can begin trying to understand what Aristotle wants to say about 'the good.'
The men who introduced this doctrine [i.e. Plato's doctrine of Forms] did not posit Ideas of classes within which they recognized priority and posteriority (which is the reason why they did not maintain the existence of an Idea embracing all numbers); but the term 'good' is used both in the category of substance and in that of quality and in that of relation, and that which is per se, i.e. substance, is prior in nature to the relative (for the latter is like an off shoot and accident of being); so that there could not be a common Idea set over all these goods.
This sentence employs a lot of mental furniture that Aristotle himself built. Aristotle divided the world into two kinds of things: substances and attributes. Substances are things like men or horses -- those are Aristotle's favorite examples -- and they are the primary things (just as he says here). Attributes only exist as qualities that belong to substances.
"Relation" is a particular kind of attribute. It is a little clumsy, because a relationship links two things. Say you have a father and a son; there is, then, a relation attribute that links them. If attributes only exist insofar as they belong to a substance, which one does it belong to?
The answer for Aristotle is that there are two relations: the father has one of being "related to the son," and the son has a different one of being "related to the father." That's a very strange way of thinking about relationships -- and, I think, wrong: relationships are real, which is a metaphysical discussion for another day -- but it does allow Aristotle to preserve his metaphysical model of only two kinds of things existing.
So, you can now understand his objection: "good" as an idea can't be the same thing for substances as for attributes, because they differ in priority. Substances are the primary things of the world. The attributes don't matter nearly as much, and can't exist independently. What's good for the substance is good in a higher and better way than anything could be good 'for an attribute.'
Plato might reply that the Idea of the Good (or the Form of the Good) still is necessary for understanding what it means for things to be good for anything at all; the fact that there might be a 'good for substances' and 'good for attributes' doesn't mean there isn't a 'Good in itself' standing above those two subcategories and unifying them. But we aren't here to discuss Plato today.
Further, since 'good' has as many senses as 'being' (for it is predicated both in the category of substance, as of God and of reason, and in quality, i.e. of the virtues, and in quantity, i.e. of that which is moderate, and in relation, i.e. of the useful, and in time, i.e. of the right opportunity, and in place, i.e. of the right locality and the like), clearly it cannot be something universally present in all cases and single; for then it could not have been predicated in all the categories but in one only.
The categories are Aristotle's too -- we have a book by that name from him, and you will find his explanation of substance and attribute in it as well as many other things. You can see the point he is making: if Good was only one, it would belong to one category, not all the categories. Plato's rebuttal would presumably be the same: for the concept of 'goodness per se' to make any sense, there has to be an overarching unity that connects all the different goods in the various categories.
Further, since of the things answering to one Idea there is one science, there would have been one science of all the goods; but as it is there are many sciences even of the things that fall under one category, e.g. of opportunity, for opportunity in war is studied by strategics and in disease by medicine, and the moderate in food is studied by medicine and in exercise by the science of gymnastics.
This is a very similar objection. Why isn't there a Science of the Good, which contains all knowledge pertaining to the pursuit of any good thing? (In fact, there is: metaphysics is the science of existence, and existence -- we shall learn from Aristotle and those who followed him -- is the same thing as goodness. Aquinas has quite a lot to say about that point, following Aristotle and Avicenna.)
And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by 'a thing itself', is (as is the case) in 'man himself' and in a particular man the account of man is one and the same. For in so far as they are man, they will in no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will 'good itself' and particular goods, in so far as they are good. But again it will not be good any the more for being eternal, since that which lasts long is no whiter than that which perishes in a day. The Pythagoreans seem to give a more plausible account of the good, when they place the one in the column of goods; and it is they that Speusippus seems to have followed.
More Serious Matters
WWF
The Trump-Musk breakup is performance art for the Age of the Internet Era. Two cartoon-like celebrities with massive egos went from a superhero duo to arch-nemeses with the tap of a phone. It’s no different from Wrestlemania III, when friends and “faces” Hulk Hogan and André the Giant went from friends to enemies in the twinkling of a body blow. Back then, only 8-year-old boys took the performances seriously. Now, the entire commentariat is atwitter with apprehension and advice.
Hot Time in the State of Franklin
Once upon a time, there was a US state called Franklin that comprised East Tennessee and Western North Carolina's mountainous regions. There are some historic sites in Johnson City, Tennessee, if you are ever passing through there.
Prior to 1796, Tennessee didn’t exist. The population that existed at the time and that made up east Tennessee wanted to form a state. So in 1784, they wrote a constitution, elected a governor and began business affairs. They called their new found state, the State of Franklin.
The State of Franklin was an interesting little place.... In Franklin, they never used money. They created a complicated system of barter. They also banned ministers of the gospel and lawyers from public office in their constitution.
During this time, this part of Tennessee belonged to North Carolina. When the people from the State of Franklin proposed their new home to Congress, North Carolina fought against passing their proposal.
One day I hope to see Franklin restored, as that polity makes a lot more sense than lumping mountainous Western North Carolina with the more heavily urban down-east parts.
Treating the State of Franklin as a geographic entity for the purpose of this post, it's had an interesting week.
Asheville saw a gunfight that left one man killed by another man's illegally concealed firearm, but which will see no charges forthcoming from the local police.
The Blue Ridge Parkway was temporarily closed, and Federal investigators brought in to investigate an improvised incendiary device found at the Folk Art Center.
Gatlinburg saw a car careen through its crowds, injuring six. This was feared to be an act of terrorism, similar to a famous one in Nice, France and a recent one in New Orleans; it proved to be a woman who had a cardiac while driving. She was the only fatality.
An Anniversary of Liberty
Another Attempt to Explain Young Men to Democrats
Yeah, you know, just keep doing what you're doing. You'll be fine.
One Pass at Explaining Young Men to Democrats
I think “apolitical” women are not in the movement for very good reasons, and as long as we say “you have to think like us and live like us to join the charmed circle,” we will fail. What I am trying to say is that there are things in the consciousness of “apolitical” women (I find them very political) that are as valid as any political consciousness we think we have. We should figure out why many women don’t want to do action. Maybe there is something wrong with the action or something wrong with why we are doing the action or maybe the analysis of why the action is necessary is not clear enough in our minds.
That approach worked really well. If they really want to win young men, they should try exactly the same approach with the same degree of seriousness. Maybe there is something wrong with the actions they are taking, or why they are doing those actions; or maybe they need to think more clearly about the whole project.
Because my son is in the right demographic, I happen to know quite a few young men. Here is what I hear from them.
1) They are angry that their educations were useless. Democrats control teachers unions and education bureaucracies everywhere. My son explained from middle school, with me to reinforce this, that he wanted to be an engineer and needed more math. The teachers and administrators explained that there was nothing they could do: he had to take the required literature and social studies courses. The high school offered pre-calculus and calculus classes, but to get to them you had to navigate a very tight path and somehow he could never get room in a schedule between the required courses. He ended up at least a year and probably two years behind in math from where he wanted to be.
2) Meanwhile, those literature and social studies courses were heavy on indoctrination: diversity literature, 'geography' studies that focused on the lingering effects of slavery, history that taught important figures like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman but not others who weren't considered proper role models (as if history was about teaching role models rather than how the world became what it is today). They know the schooling they have had has been aimed at breaking their spirits and making them compliant, not empowering them to succeed.
3) They can see the political system aims to reduce them to tax farms to fund benefits for others. All these scholarships go to others, especially to women but also various favored minority groups. For those who don't succeed with the scholarships, there is Section 8 housing and Aid to Families with Dependent Children and a host of other benefits, which will be paid for by the taxes levied on these young men. Though in principle these are gender-neutral, in practice women who have children with men they didn't marry or did but left get the children and access to the benefits (plus child support from the men). The Democratic-led education establishment is at once trying to suppress their accomplishment and lift other people over them economically and culturally, and the Democratic platform aims at using them as a source of funds all their lives.
4) Finally, these young men find that the young women they fancy -- as young men will -- have totally bought into all this ideological indoctrination and economic benefits package, which is entirely in their favor. When looking for mates they find women who defiantly express demands that they consent to all the ideology, and all the exploitation. The women like that they will be given a leg up in education and career, and if it doesn't work out they will have the back-up plan of government aid. The young men are being offered the duty of supporting these women and any children they generate, but without the benefits of necessarily getting to be the fathers of the children or the husbands in a family. They'll still have to pay for it.
Even Marxists should be able to grasp the economic interest aspect of this set of complaints, since their ideology reduces everything to economics. The Democrats are losing men because they have constructed an ideology that economically disadvantages young men systematically. Rather than the ideological indoctrination making them submissive to this, it has instead created a kind of class consciousness: they know they're being oppressed, and they know whose fault these distortions are. They've been in that education system most of their lives. They are completely familiar with where all this is coming from. They are not fooled; in spite of best efforts, they are not fools.
Solipsism and Romance
LLMs may well signal the end of the author, but this isn’t a loss to be lamented. In fact, these machines can be liberating: They free both writers and readers from the authoritarian control and influence of this thing we call the “author.”
By coincidence, the WSJ just published an article about the current state of literature, one that arises precisely from trying to give readers what they want. "What Hot Dragon-Riders and Fornicating Faeries Say About What Women Want Now: ‘Romantasy’ novels are booming when romance in general is in decline."
The “ACOTAR” series, for example, features a romance between a 19-year-old woman and a Fae, or faerie, lord who is around 500 years old (perhaps the age at which a male’s emotional maturity peaks). It is set in a timeless world where the main characters essentially sext each other all day via a magical telepathic bond.... “You always want to know what your partner is thinking,” she explained....
You really don't, but with AI there to rewrite the scene for you -- freeing you from the authoritarian designs of the author -- your partner can always be thinking the exact right thing. Only you can know what that is!
The sex in the genre’s bestselling books is fairly vanilla, but it’s explicit and heavy on female pleasure. Readers can expect a great deal of ornately described oral sex by male lovers... Yet one of the most talked about moments doesn’t involve an orgasm at all: It’s a tender bath scene in Yarros’s “Onyx Storm” in which Xaden, a heavily tattooed “shadow-wielder,” asks Violet, “May I wash your hair?”
Because these scenes always take a woman’s point of view, they are helping female readers reframe “how they understand their own pleasure... As a woman, you know how you want, personally, to be loved,” she said.
It is obvious that these fantasies are further divorcing people from the possibility of a real relationship with an actual human being by raising impossibilities of 'telepathic connection' with someone who is always thinking the right thing, or just wanting to do exactly what you want him to do without you having to tell him (or, therefore, to take responsibility for wanting it).
The only remaining human connection is that with the author, another woman who shares the reader's basic desires but perhaps not in exactly the same way. The AI can strip that last part out, giving the reader perfect control over the world as if she were the only real person extant in the whole universe.
I don't want to sound critical of the act of having fantasies, and the world would not be harmed if this whole genre of authors were replaced by automatons. How strange to find romance, of all places, the ground of this sort of solipsism! But as one of those interviewed explained, the real driver in this field is the desire to avoid rejection; one cannot be rejected if there is no one to reject you. So too the concern about consent: there is no danger of anything nonconsensual if there is no other will involved.
Especially with the AI to rewrite the scenes as many times as it takes to get it just right for you, whatever it says will be just what you wanted, at least at that moment. When you change your mind, you can have it rewrite again, or just start over without consequences for abandoning an existing relationship.
Is this literature? It might be an opportunity to explore your own inner landscape, as if we were much in need of more opportunities for that.
Nicomachean Ethics I.5
Let us, however, resume our discussion from the point at which we digressed. To judge from the lives that men lead, most men, and men of the most vulgar type, seem (not without some ground) to identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent types of life- that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life. Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts, but they get some ground for their view from the fact that many of those in high places share the tastes of Sardanapallus. A consideration of the prominent types of life shows that people of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is, roughly speaking, the end of the political life. But it seems too superficial to be what we are looking for, since it is thought to depend on those who bestow honour rather than on him who receives it, but the good we divine to be something proper to a man and not easily taken from him. Further, men seem to pursue honour in order that they may be assured of their goodness; at least it is by men of practical wisdom that they seek to be honoured, and among those who know them, and on the ground of their virtue; clearly, then, according to them, at any rate, virtue is better. And perhaps one might even suppose this to be, rather than honour, the end of the political life. But even this appears somewhat incomplete; for possession of virtue seems actually compatible with being asleep, or with lifelong inactivity, and, further, with the greatest sufferings and misfortunes; but a man who was living so no one would call happy, unless he were maintaining a thesis at all costs. But enough of this; for the subject has been sufficiently treated even in the current discussions. Third comes the contemplative life, which we shall consider later.
The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else. And so one might rather take the aforenamed objects to be ends; for they are loved for themselves. But it is evident that not even these are ends; yet many arguments have been thrown away in support of them. Let us leave this subject, then.
This is a further consideration of the Opinions of the Wise on the subject of 'what is happiness?' Of surprisingly contemporary import is Sardanapallus, who is not especially famous today but was a legend in Aristotle's time. Maybe literally: we don't know that he really existed, and there are some reasons to doubt it. "Diodorus says that Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes, exceeded all previous rulers in sloth and luxury. He spent his whole life in self-indulgence. He dressed in women's clothes and wore make-up. He had many concubines, female and male. He wrote his own epitaph, which stated that physical gratification is the only purpose of life." That gives you the spirit of the thing Aristotle is criticizing, which we more regularly call hedonism. The life of physical pleasure is not taken seriously as a candidate for happiness, even though 'many in high places' like it.
Honor, however, is considered a serious candidate. Remembering the importance of a proper upbringing to discussing this, Aristotle notes that "people of superior refinement and active disposition" consider honor to be the end of ethics. Aristotle doesn't quite agree, for two reasons. First, some good men pursue honor to be assured of their goodness, and therefore they must really be seeking goodness (virtue) primarily.
Second, having honors bestowed upon you by others puts the power and agency in the hand of the others; Aristotle thinks you should seek an end for ethics that is in your own power.
The mere possession of virtue, meanwhile, doesn't succeed because merely being virtuous is compatible with not doing anything virtuous. You would have been brave had you gone to war or to sea; but you didn't, so your virtue doesn't really come to anything. It is bootless, and therefore inadequate as the ground of a happy life.
We will discover that honor is actually of fundamental importance to ethics and the definition of happiness Aristotle prefers. However, it will prove to be a divining rod to identifying what is best rather than the actual end (telos) of the ethical project. We will get there when we reach the discussion of magnanimity.
Wealth is pursued never for its own sake, but always for something else, and thus it cannot be the proper end of ethics either. Because you need wealth for these other things, which are more necessary than the wealth itself, the pursuit of wealth is a kind of compulsion -- and it is not a happy life to be always acting under compulsion. Even the things you pursue wealth in order to obtain are not, because these things are also wanted as means to some further end.
None of these candidates succeed. Even the Wise, and those with good upbringings and who have lived good lives, have not given us the correct answer. (This is quite usual for Aristotle's review of Wise opinion, which usually has failed in a similar way; otherwise, why would he be constructing a new inquiry?)