The Age of Arthur

AVI posted this site earlier this week, but it belongs at the Hall as well. This entry, which AVI also noted, is a good starting point because it validates the exercise of trying to study the historicity of Arthur. After that there's just a wealth of good information about the era. 

It is an era about which good information is difficult to discern. I believe it was Chesterton who wrote, though I cannot find the reference, that the era was one in which legends were born out of history: one generation was suffused with bureaucratic notes on the logistical shipments from Rome, and within a short time there were the disciplined chronicles of the Anglo-Saxons. Yet for a space, for a while, we have only stories of men striving with giants and dragons: and there among them is Arthur, with the cross pinned to his shoulder, holding against the tide. 

Anti-Revolutionaries

Today Vodkapundit has an article for subscribers that is based on a play on the name of the famous Beatles song about revolution. I don't subscribe so I didn't read it, but I did read something interesting about the Beatles not long ago. It was some remarks by Lemmy Kilmister, the founder, lead singer, and bass player of Motörhead. I won't censor his remarks, which would be very much against the spirit of the man.

“[T]he Beatles were hard men,” he wrote in his 2004 memoir White Line Fever. “[Manager] Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool, which is like Hamburg or Norfolk, Virginia – a hard, sea-farin' town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. Ringo's from the Dingle, which is like the fucking Bronx.”

He continued: “The Rolling Stones were the mummy's boys – they were all college students from the outskirts of London. They went to starve in London, but it was by choice, to give themselves some sort of aura of disrespectability."

Hard men they may have once been, for all of the fact that they came to be emblems of the Flower Children thanks to Lennon. I'm prepared to take Lemmy's word on that. It's interest, though, that the song that Vodkapundit is riffing off of contains a cautionary note very appropriate to our own moment. In fact it's repeated three times as variants:

But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out?...

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait...

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow...

The hard men from the sea-faring town didn't want to see things burned down. Neither do the working class of today, for whom all this recent celebration of murder and mayhem is unlikely to be a winning stance. 

Even the real revolutionaries had a note of caution.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

I think even most people who really are worried about the current administration recognize that it's a passing moment. Trump is nearly eighty and on his last term; the odds of his work surviving him in a recognizable form are not high. Whoever replaces him, which right now might be many people even if the Democrats lose the next election, that person will be of a very different character. 

It's not the time for blood right now, no more than after the election of 2020. Prudence, often like phronesis being defined as "practical wisdom," indeed dictates. 

This being more of a Motörhead sort of blog, I'll close with them instead.

Incontinence and Alcohol

We've just finished Aristotle's long inquiry into the problem of incontinence. Probably the clearest case of human incontinence lies with alcohol, where very often we have known that another drink isn't the best choice and that we have to get up tomorrow, but we're out with friends or listening to moving music and decide that just one more won't hurt. There are many similar cases, so many that it has filled libraries with folk songs and country music, and hardly any blues music fails to mention 'the whiskey.' 

Readers know that I do an annual alcohol fast of 30 days, which I used to do in January but decided this year that I would move to another time of year. (January is miserable enough.) This time I chose to do it now, and am a week into it as of today; the reason is that I am combining it with training for a Strongman competition that is coming up on the 18th of October. 

To help myself with it this time, I decided to try one of the several apps that claim to be of use on the point of reducing one's drinking. Some of these use hypnosis; I didn't want one of those both because I doubt the efficacy of hypnosis. Others had social groups you could join, but I don't like socializing nor people all that much. There were several other options, alcohol as mentioned being one of the chiefest of human trials and many people having issues with it. 

I picked one called Reframe, which promised that it would "use neuroscience" to assist. What it turns out to mean by that is that it explains the neuroscience to me, a bit at a time and day-by-day. This is actually an excellent approach for me personally, even if it isn't the right one for everyone; I enjoy learning new things and find the information persuasive in a way that other things might not be for me. 

What I have learned so far is that alcohol has both immediate and long-term effects on several important hormones and receptors that affect the brain and have follow-on effects on your emotional state. It causes spikes in dopamine and seratonin, affects glutamate and GABA receptors. The effects of all of these interactions are to increase your sense of happiness and well-being, while reducing your ability to feel troubled about things. Over time, the natural production of all of these things can be affected such that your body adapts to what had been spikes by producing less of its own feel-good things. 

That provides a ready explanation for how something like 'incontinence' can develop. The right rule that was developed out of youth's good upbringing and study runs into what is in fact an altered reality: the brain is no longer capable of generating the world of youth, and has come to rely upon alcohol at some level to carry part of the weight of creating what was once a natural sort of happiness and well-being. 

This of course underlines the importance of things like these 30 day fasts in order to allow the brain to trend back to normal, and to give the self another opportunity to redraw the lines and enforce proper limits. 

It's information that also might have made the puzzle of incontinence less troubling to the Greeks, had they known of it. To put it in Aristotle's terms, alcohol makes the brain into something like the Lesbian Rule, because the brain as the measuring device ends up being bent and adapted to the world. 

This doesn't disqualify Aristotle's general approach, however: it remains true that one's habit ends up informing and even defining one's character. We understand the mechanism better now, and can make better decisions thereby. 

Nicomachean Ethics VII.10

Finally, the last chapter on incontinence.

Nor can the same man have practical wisdom and be incontinent; for it has been shown that a man is at the same time practically wise, and good in respect of character. Further, a man has practical wisdom not by knowing only but by being able to act; but the incontinent man is unable to act-there is, however, nothing to prevent a clever man from being incontinent; this is why it is sometimes actually thought that some people have practical wisdom but are incontinent, viz. because cleverness and practical wisdom differ in the way we have described in our first discussions, and are near together in respect of their reasoning, but differ in respect of their purpose-nor yet is the incontinent man like the man who knows and is contemplating a truth, but like the man who is asleep or drunk.

Indeed, the incontinent man is likely to be drunk; excessive drinking is the clearest case of incontinence, though not the only one.  

There's a slight ambiguity there that I think is helpfully cleaned up: the incontinent man isn't unable to act per se, but unable to act in accord with what he knows is the right rule. He does act, just not well. 

And [the incontinent man] acts willingly (for he acts in a sense with knowledge both of what he does and of the end to which he does it), but is not wicked, since his purpose is good; so that he is half-wicked. And he is not a criminal; for he does not act of malice aforethought; of the two types of incontinent man the one does not abide by the conclusions of his deliberation, while the excitable man does not deliberate at all. And thus the incontinent man like a city which passes all the right decrees and has good laws, but makes no use of them, as in Anaxandrides' jesting remark,

The city willed it, that cares nought for laws; but the wicked man is like a city that uses its laws, but has wicked laws to use.

Now incontinence and continence are concerned with that which is in excess of the state characteristic of most men; for the continent man abides by his resolutions more and the incontinent man less than most men can.

Strictly applied, that makes "most men" neither continent nor incontinent in what Aristotle likes to call 'the unrestricted sense' of the terms; most men therefore vary between the states, rather than being defined by either state. 

Of the forms of incontinence, that of excitable people is more curable than that of those who deliberate but do not abide by their decisions, and those who are incontinent through habituation are more curable than those in whom incontinence is innate; for it is easier to change a habit than to change one's nature; even habit is hard to change just because it is like nature, as Evenus* says:

I say that habit's but a long practice, friend,

And this becomes men's nature in the end.

So this is a version of what will end up being a core doctrine for Aristotle, the idea of 'second nature.' I have spoken of this already, in the commentary on VI.13; the idea is going to be that you have a 'first nature,' i.e. the nature you are born with, and also a 'second nature,' that which your habituation builds into a permanent character. The second nature will end up being dominant over the first nature, training and guiding it, yet will be as difficult to defy as your first nature can be. 

We have now stated what continence, incontinence, endurance, and softness are, and how these states are related to each other.

This is one of the longer inquiries in the EN, and not the most pleasant. The inquiry into friendship will be of more interest to most of you, I think. 

* I'm not sure which Evenus is intended by Aristotle here; probably not the river god, but perhaps one of the other two associated with the Iliad. However, my guess is it really might be Evenus the poet, whom Socrates mentions in the Phaedo and to whom Socrates ascribes the character of a philosopher. 

Nicomachean Ethics VII.9

Bull-headed readers, should any be found in the Hall, will find themselves discussed in this section. 

Is the man continent who abides by any and every rule and any and every choice, or the man who abides by the right choice, and is he incontinent who abandons any and every choice and any and every rule, or he who abandons the rule that is not false and the choice that is right; this is how we put it before in our statement of the problem. Or is it incidentally any and every choice but per se the true rule and the right choice by which the one abides and the other does not? If any one chooses or pursues this for the sake of that, per se he pursues and chooses the latter, but incidentally the former. But when we speak without qualification we mean what is per se. Therefore in a sense the one abides by, and the other abandons, any and every opinion; but without qualification, the true opinion.

So, properly speaking, it is not incontinent to abandon a bad decision or a stupid rule. You could say so in a way, since it's similar to the most proper ('without qualification') use of the term in that it means not living up to your rule. But if it was not a good rule, probably because your upbringing misled you as to what the most worthy thing to do was (as sometimes it does, as for example when the young are taught to admire antiheroes instead of heroes), the wise man will reform the rule and adjust his behavior accordingly. 

There are some who are apt to abide by their opinion, who are called strong-headed [or bull-headed --Grim], viz. those who are hard to persuade in the first instance and are not easily persuaded to change; these have in them something like the continent man, as the prodigal is in a way like the liberal man and the rash man like the confident man; but they are different in many respects.

Yes, for example, the rash man has a vice rather than a virtue; the prodigal likewise. Thus, bull-headed stubbornness is a vice, whereas tenacious continence is a virtue. But not, we shall see at the end of this chapter, as good a virtue as actual temperance, as liberality is not of the scale of magnificence and the love-of-lesser-but-proper-honor is less than true magnanimity. 

For it is to passion and appetite that the one will not yield, since on occasion the continent man will be easy to persuade; but it is to argument that the others refuse to yield, for they do form appetites and many of them are led by their pleasures. Now the people who are strong-headed are the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish-the opinionated being influenced by pleasure and pain; for they delight in the victory they gain if they are not persuaded to change, and are pained if their decisions become null and void as decrees sometimes do; so that they are liker the incontinent than the continent man.

But there are some who fail to abide by their resolutions, not as a result of incontinence, e.g. Neoptolemus in Sophocles' Philoctetes; yet it was for the sake of pleasure that he did not stand fast-but a noble pleasure; for telling the truth was noble to him, but he had been persuaded by Odysseus to tell the lie. For not every one who does anything for the sake of pleasure is either self-indulgent or bad or incontinent, but he who does it for a disgraceful pleasure.

In the story Neoptolemus is a boy, and Odysseus persuades him to lie to Philoctetes, who was given the bow of Heracles, in order to obtain access to that bow. Neoptolemus does so under the persuasion of his famous elder, but eventually is overcome by guilt and admits the truth. Thus, here he did not obey his 'rule,' or choice; but it was a bad rule. Aristotle cashes this out as a sort-of persuasion by pleasure, since the boy hasn't achieved the right age to have fully-formed first principles from which to reason (i.e., his noble upbringing is not complete and, indeed, it is being deformed a bit by Odysseus here). 

Nicomachean Ethics VII.8

More on incontinence and repentance. 

The self-indulgent man, as was said, is not apt to repent; for he stands by his choice; but incontinent man is likely to repent. This is why the position is not as it was expressed in the formulation of the problem, but the self-indulgent man is incurable and the incontinent man curable; for wickedness is like a disease such as dropsy or consumption, while incontinence is like epilepsy; the former is a permanent, the latter an intermittent badness. And generally incontinence and vice are different in kind; vice is unconscious of itself, incontinence is not (of incontinent men themselves, those who become temporarily beside themselves are better than those who have the rational principle but do not abide by it, since the latter are defeated by a weaker passion, and do not act without previous deliberation like the others); for the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e. on less than most people.

This last analogy is a little ironic, because the kind of person who gets drunk quickly and on little wine is most likely to be the one who usually abstains completely. A tolerance is generally the product of practice, and the heavier the practice the greater the tolerance is likely to become.

Fat Bear Week

The National Park Service is having some fun. 

Call them whatever you like while they’re far away. You have to be delicate, though, if the bears are close enough to hear you. 

Nicomachean Ethics VII.7

Still more examination of incontinence and softness. We are about halfway through this book after today.

With regard to the pleasures and pains and appetites and aversions arising through touch and taste, to which both self-indulgence and temperance were formerly narrowed down, it is possible to be in such a state as to be defeated even by those of them which most people master, or to master even those by which most people are defeated; among these possibilities, those relating to pleasures are incontinence and continence, those relating to pains softness and endurance. The state of most people is intermediate, even if they lean more towards the worse states.

Now, since some pleasures are necessary while others are not, and are necessary up to a point while the excesses of them are not, nor the deficiencies, and this is equally true of appetites and pains, the man who pursues the excesses of things pleasant, or pursues to excess necessary objects, and does so by choice, for their own sake and not at all for the sake of any result distinct from them, is self-indulgent; for such a man is of necessity unlikely to repent, and therefore incurable, since a man who cannot repent cannot be cured.

Necessary pleasures include sex for the purpose of procreating children, without which society and civilization would cease to exist; eating and drinking; and certain other necessary bodily functions. The unnecessary pleasures include fine wines and silken sheets and so forth. So you can go wrong by pursuing an excess of unnecessary pleasures, but also by pursing to an excess the necessary things. 

This is the first mention of repentance as a concept, and a core concept: those who cannot repent cannot be cured. The object here is not to save them, as in their souls; it is to fix them in the present life, so they become virtuous rather than vice-ridden people.  

3-Year Ninja Recipe

This is great. Max knows how to do his history.

Maybe MREs aren't all that bad.

The Natural Law and the EN

A point that came out in the discussion below is one that will be of interest to any of you following the discussion of the Nicomachean Ethics. How does Aristotle's ethics fit into what you believe today? 

Well, for those of you who are Catholics, Aristotle's ethics were adopted into Catholic ethics as the Natural Law as it applies to human beings. Because Aristotle derived the virtues and vices without benefit of scripture or Judeo-Christian tradition, but from reason applied to nature, Aquinas adopts them and the later traditions about them into the model on the terms of natural theology: things we can know about God's intent by knowing about God's works.

Isidore says (Etym. v, 4): "The natural law is common to all nations."

I answer that, As stated above (Article 2,Article 3), to the natural law belongs those things to which a man is inclined naturally: and among these it is proper to man to be inclined to act according to reason. Now the process of reason is from the common to the proper, as stated in Phys. i. The speculative reason, however, is differently situated in this matter, from the practical reason. For, since the speculative reason is busied chiefly with the necessary things, which cannot be otherwise than they are, its proper conclusions, like the universal principles, contain the truth without fail. The practical reason, on the other hand, is busied with contingent matters, about which human actions are concerned: and consequently, although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects. Accordingly then in speculative matters truth is the same in all men, both as to principles and as to conclusions: although the truth is not known to all as regards the conclusions, but only as regards the principles which are called common notions. But in matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail, but only as to the general principles: and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all.

It is therefore evident that, as regards the general principles whether of speculative or of practical reason, truth or rectitude is the same for all, and is equally known by all. As to the proper conclusions of the speculative reason, the truth is the same for all, but is not equally known to all: thus it is true for all that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles, although it is not known to all. But as to the proper conclusions of the practical reason, neither is the truth or rectitude the same for all, nor, where it is the same, is it equally known by all. Thus it is right and true for all to act according to reason: and from this principle it follows as a proper conclusion, that goods entrusted to another should be restored to their owner. Now this is true for the majority of cases: but it may happen in a particular case that it would be injurious, and therefore unreasonable, to restore goods held in trust; for instance, if they are claimed for the purpose of fighting against one's country. And this principle will be found to fail the more, according as we descend further into detail, e.g. if one were to say that goods held in trust should be restored with such and such a guarantee, or in such and such a way; because the greater the number of conditions added, the greater the number of ways in which the principle may fail, so that it be not right to restore or not to restore.

Consequently we must say that the natural law, as to general principles, is the same for all, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge. But as to certain matters of detail, which are conclusions, as it were, of those general principles, it is the same for all in the majority of cases, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge; and yet in some few cases it may fail, both as to rectitude, by reason of certain obstacles (just as natures subject to generation and corruption fail in some few cases on account of some obstacle), and as to knowledge, since in some the reason is perverted by passion, or evil habit, or an evil disposition of nature; thus formerly, theft, although it is expressly contrary to the natural law, was not considered wrong among the Germans, as Julius Caesar relates (De Bello Gall. vi).

Later Protestant traditions walk away from this ancient but pagan heritage to some degree, preferring to return to Scripture alone. And indeed, Aristotle's ethics and the classical ethics that follow from it differ substantially from, say, the Ten Commandments. There is no prohibition against murder, though there is a virtue of justice and a vice of lawlessness. There is no prohibition against having other gods, but there is a virtue of piety and a vice of blasphemy. 

The two come down very similarly on the duty to respect one's father and mother, and not to bear false witness against one's neighbors, however, as well as on many other points. 

Nicomachean Ethics VII.6

Incontinence and anger,* today. Who among us hasn't lost their temper and said or done some things they knew they shouldn't? Perhaps some of you; I have definitely given way to temptation on this one. Fortunately:

That incontinence in respect of anger is less disgraceful than that in respect of the appetites is what we will now proceed to see. (1) Anger seems to listen to argument to some extent, but to mishear it, as do hasty servants who run out before they have heard the whole of what one says, and then muddle the order, or as dogs bark if there is but a knock at the door, before looking to see if it is a friend; so anger by reason of the warmth and hastiness of its nature, though it hears, does not hear an order, and springs to take revenge.

Rest in Peace, Mr Sikorsky

 

A Scene from Lonesome Dove

You can watch the scene here, if you like.

 
The thing is, this scene takes place in what was at the time the Indian Territory; the men carrying out the executions are former Texas Rangers. So they're not only not in Texas, they're not still Rangers. The territory wasn't subject to Texas law or any state law at the time, and they had no Federal authority former or present. This is pure vigilante justice, without any sort of due process, in which they indulge to such a degree as to kill another fellow former Ranger who didn't himself kill anyone. 
It's a very dodgy example to hang much of a lesson on. A powerful scene, which Lonesome Dove contains in spades, but I'm not sure how good a moral or ethical example this really is.

Equinox

The autumn started about half an hour ago, if you missed it. 

It's usually pretty glorious around here; over the next moth the world will become colorful like no other time. I hope yours is good.

Free Speech: An Opportunistic Defense

As a Free Speech absolutist myself, I'm pleased to see the sudden interest even if I doubt its depth or sincerity.

Of the countless words expressed by friends and foes since the shocking killing of conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk, the young husband and father who dared express opinions in the crowded public square, only two matter: free speech.

Hopefully some of it is sincere, and not just occasioned by the moment. Arguments against interest are usually assumed to be sincere, so people challenging Trump and Bondi from the right probably are: 

Both [FCC Carr's and AG Bondi's] statements were badly out of line as a matter of law and policy.  But they were also politically damaging.  Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, have fought an endless battle to preserve freedom of speech and to claim the high ground of being the protectors of free speech.  They need to keep this high ground.

It's better than the usual mode in which people are trying to compete to see how much speech they can rule out of bounds, I guess. At least it's a short break.

Apparently I Missed Quite a Service

I was busy working on my motorcycle yesterday, which developed an issue with the front tire after the Dragon run. It's a brand new tire -- literally that was its first ride -- so I'm hoping the shop can figure something out without having to replace it. Still, as with other things of first importance, whatever it costs is what it costs. 

Having never known of Kirk during his lifetime, I wasn't inclined to a lengthy celebration of his life; but I can tell that many people were moved in different ways by it. The hatred has resumed on my social media feeds on the one side, and the hagiography on the other. I suppose the truth of the man's life was somewhere in the middle, as it is for most of us. It remains striking to me how very different this movie looks to the two groups of people I know on either side.  The experience of watching him murdered brought joy to the hearts of many -- a literal version of Conan's dictum (actually Genghis Khan's) that the best thing is to watch your enemies crushed -- and horror to the hearts of others. I can't imagine this bodes well for a peaceful future of mutual kindness and understanding. 

Words hitting my gut

J.D. Vance at the Kirk memorial: "It is better to die a young man in this world than to sell your soul for an easy life with no purpose, no risk, no love, and no truth."

Erika Kirk to the NYT a few days ago: she imagines Jesus asking her, "An eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?"

Elon Musk on X: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

And the many stillshots of Musk sitting with Trump at the memorial, with the caption "For Charlie."

Nicomachean Ethics VII.5

A rather juicy section today that treats several topics that readers are likely to have strong opinions about. 

(1) Some things are pleasant by nature, and of these (a) some are so without qualification...

Existence itself, for example; almost without qualification beings of all sorts will try to continue to exist, either through themselves or through having children or creating great and memorable works that will survive them. 

...and (b) others are so with reference to particular classes either of animals or of men; while (2) others are not pleasant by nature, but (a) some of them become so by reason of injuries to the system, and (b) others by reason of acquired habits, and (c) others by reason of originally bad natures.

If you've ever tried Jagermeister, "a drink that was once used as a field anesthetic by doctors in World War II," you probably didn't like it the first time.

This being so, it is possible with regard to each of the latter kinds to discover similar states of character to those recognized with regard to the former; I mean (A) the brutish states, as in the case of the female who, they say, rips open pregnant women and devours the infants, or of the things in which some of the tribes about the Black Sea that have gone savage are said to delight-in raw meat or in human flesh, or in lending their children to one another to feast upon-or of the story told of Phalaris.

The reference is to his cannibalism, not to his innovative torture and execution device, the brazen bull.

These states are brutish, but (B) others arise as a result of disease (or, in some cases, of madness, as with the man who sacrificed and ate his mother, or with the slave who ate the liver of his fellow), and others are morbid states (C) resulting from custom, e.g. the habit of plucking out the hair or of gnawing the nails, or even coals or earth, and in addition to these paederasty; for these arise in some by nature and in others, as in those who have been the victims of lust from childhood, from habit.

Yes, it's that kind of a day in the study of the Nicomachean Ethics.

Note that this provides Aristotle's assessment of our contemporary 'born this way' controversy, in which he takes both horns of the dilemma: in his opinion, some people are born inclined to pederasty ("by nature") but others because they were victimized from youth and became accustomed to it ("from habit").

The Last Fruits of Summer

Tomorrow is the equinox. Another glorious summer will be gone. 

Here be Sea-Dragons

Fans of Robert E. Howard will recognize that this AI-generated trailer is almost completely unlike the plot of the actual story Queen of the Black Coast. The central heroine is invented, there aren't any dragons in the original, and the plot of that story doesn't turn on any of the elements described in this trailer. It still looks like a fun kind of story.

Nicomachean Ethics VII.4

We continue examining incontinence and related states. Today's discussion includes some questions of when and how to pursue honor, a topic of great importance to the EN.

(2) We must next discuss whether there is any one who is incontinent without qualification, or all men who are incontinent are so in a particular sense, and if there is, with what sort of objects he is concerned. That both continent persons and persons of endurance, and incontinent and soft persons, are concerned with pleasures and pains, is evident.

Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary, while others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of excess, the bodily causes of pleasure being necessary (by such I mean both those concerned with food and those concerned with sexual intercourse, i.e. the bodily matters with which we defined self-indulgence and temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary but worthy of choice in themselves (e.g. victory, honour, wealth, and good and pleasant things of this sort).

We often say that wealth can be pursued excessively. This is usually put in a Christian context, but the pagan Greeks understood the idea as well. The character of a man for whom wealth is unreasonably important admits of many bad things, even though there's nothing per se wrong with wealth. Simply not valuing the several goods of life in the right order is damaging to one's character.

Yet it is much harder to see how one can go to excess in pursuing victory. Perhaps in unimportant matters, as when it might be praiseworthy to let someone else have a turn rather than having to win all the time; but in the ancient world especially, a great deal hung on victory. Even today it can. Remembering the Charmides' introduction, the failures of Athenian virtues that led to their defeat in the Peloponnesian War led to their loss of power, their subjugation by Sparta, and a period of rule by the Thirty Tyrants over them. For Troy it led to the destruction of their city, the death of almost all of their men and boys, and the enslavement of their women. Victory in that sense surely has to be pursued with a whole heart.

And honor, we have said repeatedly in this commentary, defines how one identifies the best and most worthy of actions and lives. How can one go wrong with that?

Role-Playing Games

That is, pen & paper RPGs / table-top RPGs, to be exact. One free, one Arthurian, one Viking.

Basic Fantasy RPG

If you liked the early editions of Dungeons & Dragons (pre-AD&D or AD&D) or you like free RPGs, let me recommend the free and open Basic Fantasy RPG.

It's based on early D&D and was started when Wizards of the Coast created the Open Game License (OGL). The creator, Chris Gonnerman, keeps it "open source" and free -- you can download PDFs of all of the books, adventures, etc., for free on the website as well as the LibreOffice files if you want to edit them and create your own version of the game. You can also order print versions for cost from Amazon, DriveThru RPG, and Lulu.com. Gonnerman makes almost nothing on these, e.g., the softcover 208-page core rulebook is only $10 on Amazon as of this posting and since it's print-on-demand, that mostly covers printing.

The BFRPG community is great and has created all kinds of supplements for the game. Want more character races or classes? There are free supplements for that. Want more monsters? There is a free 3-volume field guide for that. Want a ton of ready-made adventures? Free supplements. Want to write some free supplements? The community is happy to look at your work and give feedback. If you come up with something you think others would like, you can share it on their website. (Check out the downloads page for most of the free PDFs and LibreOffice files.)

Pendragon

Want to play an Arthurian RPG? Chaosium's Pendragon is the best I've seen.

Pendragon has a relatively simple rules set that heavily encourages role-playing (vs roll-playing) Arthurian-type adventures. It begins in the 5th century, moves through Uther Pendragon's reign, then Arthur's life, the quest for the Holy Grail, and on somewhat further into the "Twilight" years. The PCs play knights (yes, just knights -- no wizards or thieves or rangers). Stafford sets the game in the late 5th and early 6th centuries, but he also included some anachronisms like castles and heraldry.

In addition to the Arthurian setting, there are two features that are particularly interesting. The most interesting to me is that it has rules for virtues and vices which come into play, as well as passions (loves and hatreds). These don't control the character, per se, but encourage the player to play to the character's virtues, vices, and passions. Like such things in the real world, the character's actions can improve or worsen the scores for these. E.g., one's character becomes more courageous by doing courageous things. Although maybe it's not a common use for RPGs, I thought this virtue / vice aspect could be a fun way for a group of youngsters to learn about virtue ethics.

The second feature I found interesting is that the player will play several generations of a family. Rolling up a character begins with rolling up the feats, battles, and deaths of the character's father and grandfather, events that can result in passions if, e.g., one's father was killed by Irish raiders which could result in a hatred of the Irish. This gives the family a history. The player's first character is the heir of a knight with a manor which he will inherit, and marriage and family are part of the game. When the character dies, the player takes up the character's heir as a new PC.

I played the 5th edition and have a couple of small complaints, although these may have been fixed in the 6th edition. First, there is a huge amount of material, which is great, but it's not entirely well-organized and I spent too much time looking at the table of contents and index to see where the rule for one thing or another was. Second, I don't know why, but it seems that every medieval story I have read lately has to have the local priest shacking up with some young woman and Pendragon's starter adventure carried on this sordid tradition. But that can be easily changed by the GM.

I only played it for a few months, but it was engaging and I really hope I get the chance to play more sometime. It would be fun to do the entire campaign from Uther to post-Arthur.

Age of Vikings

Another Chaosium title, Age of Vikings looks pretty good. I haven't played it, but I think I'd enjoy it and since Vikings are a common topic here, I thought I'd mention it.

Here's the product blurb:

Age of Vikings covers the history of mythic Iceland in minute detail. The book outlines the life of a Viking, laws and government, religion, and the wild and wondrous creatures of legend. Take to the frigid seas with extensive rules for ships and seafaring, including naval combat—No other roleplaying game so effortlessly thrusts you into one of the most fabled cultures and time periods in history!

If you play, let us know how you like it.

Relief & Refinement of Terms

After Charlie Kirk's assassination and the resulting sense of outrage on the right and rejoicing on the left, I was concerned that the violence would escalate. The number of leftists celebrating was shocking.  It was possible, I thought, that left extremists might be encouraged to step up attacks and right extremists might retaliate. I am very relieved that hasn't happened and impressed that the right has broadly responded peacefully, both in remembering Kirk and in their recognition that there is an extreme element of the left that hates them. I sense a stiffening of the spine on the right which is nonetheless peaceful.

In the comments here soon after Kirk's assassination I said that, while I didn't think it probable, for the first time I felt there was the chance of a civil war. I used the term "civil war" just because it's been floating around for some years now and that's what came to mind. However, it's a particularly good time to use language clearly. I do not at all fear a civil war like the US war from 1861-1865. What I fear is more of a low-intensity conflict, like "Bleeding Kansas" in the five years leading up to the Civil War or like the Troubles in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s to 1998. The 1960s and '70s here in the US had more violence as well with riots and the Weather Underground bombings, etc. Maybe a return to that as Angela Davis and other leftist terrorists are now leading lights on the left. That said, I am much relieved by the right's reaction over the last week. We'll see how it plays out.

Dragons and Trees of Woe

 

Nicomachean Ethics VII.3

This is a longer chapter, most of which will be after the jump. Aristotle begins his investigation into the difficulties described yesterday.

Of some such kind are the difficulties that arise; some of these points must be refuted and the others left in possession of the field; for the solution of the difficulty is the discovery of the truth. (1) We must consider first, then, whether incontinent people act knowingly or not, and in what sense knowingly; then (2) with what sorts of object the incontinent and the continent man may be said to be concerned (i.e. whether with any and every pleasure and pain or with certain determinate kinds), and whether the continent man and the man of endurance are the same or different; and similarly with regard to the other matters germane to this inquiry. The starting-point of our investigation is (a) the question whether the continent man and the incontinent are differentiated by their objects or by their attitude, i.e. whether the incontinent man is incontinent simply by being concerned with such and such objects, or, instead, by his attitude, or, instead of that, by both these things; (b) the second question is whether incontinence and continence are concerned with any and every object or not.

Nicomachean Ethics VII.2

Today we discuss some of the problems around incontinence. 

Now we may ask (1) how a man who judges rightly can behave incontinently. That he should behave so when he has knowledge, some say is impossible; for it would be strange-so Socrates thought-if when knowledge was in a man something else could master it and drag it about like a slave. For Socrates was entirely opposed to the view in question, holding that there is no such thing as incontinence; no one, he said, when he judges acts against what he judges best-people act so only by reason of ignorance.

This sort of ignorance would be a special sort, a thing where you often think you know that something is wrong, but don't really know.  Is that plausible, enough that a man like Socrates could take it seriously? 

It seems like it might be. We all know people who get involved with someone whom they know to be a bad person, suffering the obvious consequences eventually. Or we can think of Charmides, who must have known after a while that hangovers would follow the drunken nights. Or even ourselves: I doubt any of us is without some habit that doesn't have predictable negative consequences, yet we keep doing it.

Signs of decaying society

From Robert Heinlein's 1982 science fiction novel "Friday," a list of symptoms of a society circling the drain.

Citizens identify themselves primarily with a group rather than with the nation.

The population loses faith in the police and the courts. The justice system combines denial of bail with failure to grant a speedy trial.

Taxes are high, the currency is inflated, and the country runs a chronic deficit.

The country passes unenforceable laws regarding private behavior.

The culture treats as civil rights conditions that must be earned by behavior, such as good credit and academic credentials.

Violence is increasingly uncontrolled.

The government relies on arbitrary compulsion, such as slavery and military conscription.

Personal civility collapses, in favor of a conviction that everyone is entitled to tactless expression of his true self at all times.

Heinlein admires characters who gamely try to fight a losing battle against this decay, but identifies more strongly with those willing to emigrate to new worlds and start again. He believed strongly that emigration was a sorting process that would so improve the new population that secular success would at last be achieved. He had no use for religion, but to the end of his days obviously had a core faith in personal honor and virtue.

Uh-oh

A Guardian reporter describes her experience at England’s recent mega-rally. 

Since leaving I’ve been grappling with how best to describe what I saw and heard. It was a far-right rally, yes, but many people attended unperturbed by the fact it had been billed as such by many media outlets, including the Guardian. They did not feel alienated by such an extreme, and previously fringe, label.

The shields are failing, Captain.  

Trump as Next UK Prime Minister?

GB News is running a poll on this. Until this evening I did not know that Trump's mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, was a Scottish immigrant. That appears to make him eligible for British citizenship, which would then make him eligible to run for office in the UK. Coincidentally, the next major election in the UK is scheduled for 2029.

This adds a point to my "the Democrats' claim that Republicans hate immigrants is absurd" argument. Trump's mother and wife as well as Vance's in-laws and Rubio's parents all immigrated here.

Evil as the Demons that Haunt You

I don't watch TV, but I've never once seen a Jimmy Kimmel bit that was even a little bit funny. All the same, this alignment of corporate and government power to silence opposing view is wicked. He was himself a corporate mouthpiece, of course; it's not like he was a human being. Not when he was speaking on ABC, he wasn't, though I'm sure he is over coffee. 

My very good friend Jim Hanson is happy about the designation -- provisional, but the paperwork will likely catch up given that the Secretaries of State and the Treasury seem to be on board with the President -- of Antifa as a 'terrorist organization.' It was the considered conclusion of his wife and his after a fairly thoughtful discussion. I respect their thoughtfulness. All the same, it's hard to say what the limiting principle might be that would guarantee the rights that is the only legitimate reason for any government to exist. Antifa is barely an organization at all. That lack of structure will open anyone who's been anywhere near one of the protests at which their ilk have been seen to Federal prosecution or worse.

What worse? We're killing people in the Caribbean now without due process, on the strength of the President's word that, you know, we were really sure they were hauling drugs. 

Well, I've participated in killing a lot of people myself. In Iraq, we'd blow them apart if they were out at night near a road with a shovel in their hands even if they had no visible weapons. Probably planting IEDs, obviously; and anyway, why take a chance? In Afghanistan, it was worse still. 

These demons you're haunted by, they turn you. It's not for no reason that I turned to philosophy after the war. Strong feelings about what's good and evil aren't going to help you. Such feelings give you pleasure and pain, and if you've learned anything from the recent study it should have been that you should push off pleasure and pain like the old men looking on Helen at the gates of Troy. Troy, whose failure to do that led to her being so leveled by the Greeks that her very location was lost for two thousand years. Homer carefully conveyed what their helmets looked like, but they were so comprehensively destroyed that for all that time nobody could even find their high and ancient walls. Even the Wise came to believe that they were no more than a myth.

Beware.

Nicomachean Ethics Interlude: The Charmides

Some of you may be flagging from all of the relatively dense philosophy, and would appreciate a more pleasing story. As it happens, this discussion of incontinence and its problems -- philosophical and actual -- is a good occasion to look at one of the relevant dialogues of Plato. The Charmides is Plato's most famous investigation of this set of problems, but it takes the form of a story told by Socrates about a time in his youth when he had just returned from battle and was enjoying a moment of peace and comradeship. 

The story happens right after the Battle of Potidaea. Socrates does not recount any of the battle in the dialogue, he only mentions that there was a long discussion of it and great interest about it. This is because no recounting of it was necessary, for one thing; and for another, Socrates was one of the great heroes of this battle that was otherwise a tremendous disaster for Athens. Plato did not wish to embarrass Socrates by suggesting that he would have been bragging about his role in it, and in any case everyone knew what Socrates did at Potidaea. 

After the talk about the war and the army, some young men join the company, including one named Charmides. It is possibly not quite a coincidence that the word looks like our "charm," but the etymology doesn't follow a clear route to us from the Greek through the Latin to the French to the English like usual. Rather, the linkage if it exists is all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European *kan. In any case Charmides is not a fictional character whose name was invented by the author to sound 'charming'; that was his real name. He was in fact Plato's uncle. Charmides went on to be one of the Thirty Tyrants, which makes his inability to understand these matters of self control and self-discipline a matter of significant importance to the generation Plato was speaking to directly with his dialogues. 

In other words, this dialogue treats a military disaster that led to the great war in which Athens was defeated by Sparta, an even greater disaster; it concerns one of the Tyrants that were placed over Athens after the war, perhaps a greater disaster yet. This is set up as a charming story about a beautiful young man who has hangovers because he drinks too much wine by night, and is seeking a war hero's sympathy and help (as well as, perhaps, his love). Yet it is really an examination of some of the most dire events of the age, and an attempt to understand how they could have happened.

A Backdoor Departmental Closure

Clever idea, in a way. If you can convince the school systems to walk away from the money, in order to secure their academic freedom and independence, the Department of Education would eventually only be funding relatively right-leaning school districts. That would greatly reduce the resistance to closing the DoE entirely, since right-leaning institutions generally support that (although in this case there would be strongly countervailing rice-bowl winds, especially as new funds were freed up to support those districts directly).

Nicomachean Ethics VII.1

Today we begin Book VII.

Let us now make a fresh beginning...

This characteristically Aristotelian move also happens in Physics I.9. There as here, nothing that has been said before is being set aside; yet it is being pushed into the background. You are meant to clear your mind of all those technical details for the moment for a fresh discussion. Keep the furniture in the back of your mind so that you can call on it when appropriate, but we are beginning as if anew. 

...and point out that of moral states to be avoided there are three kinds-vice, incontinence, brutishness. The contraries of two of these are evident,-one we call virtue, the other continence; to brutishness it would be most fitting to oppose superhuman virtue, a heroic and divine kind of virtue, as Homer has represented Priam saying of Hector that he was very good,

For he seemed not, he,
The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God's seed came.

Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue, of this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish state; for as a brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god; his state is higher than virtue, and that of a brute is a different kind of state from vice.

So part of our new beginning, you'll notice, is that we are no longer talking about vice as the balancing point between two errors. We are talking about it as a clean opposition to vice. Also, now we aren't just talking about virtue and vice; we're adding in two other states to avoid, and (therefore) two other states to strive for in ourselves.  

Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found-to use the epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call him a 'godlike man'-so too the brutish type is rarely found among men; it is found chiefly among barbarians...

Hey!

...but some brutish qualities are also produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by this evil name those men who go beyond all ordinary standards by reason of vice.

We often think of those whom drugs have rendered toothless and covered in scabs to have been reduced to more of an animal state; and not a healthy animal, at that. In men health entails rational control of such desires, i.e. virtue, and in fact one of the particular virtues (temperance) already discussed earlier. Yet there the account stops short of brutishness; Aristotle said (in III.12) that self-indulgence doesn't destroy the nature of the man. Here we see a way in which those who 'go beyond all ordinary standards by reason of vice' can have their human nature destroyed, and be reduce to brutish things.

A contemporary philosopher would usually try to avoid a 'fresh start' like this, since getting people to think through and adopt even one new model is hard enough; but it is a mark of Aristotle's sophistication that he can come at the same problem in more than one way, and find important insights on each road.

Of this kind of disposition, however, we must later make some mention, while we have discussed vice before we must now discuss incontinence and softness (or effeminacy*), and continence and endurance; for we must treat each of the two neither as identical with virtue or wickedness, nor as a different genus.

Once again we are making a distinction between things that aren't at least completely different. The vice of self-indulgence wasn't the same thing as the brutality that can result from extremes of vice; but they are not completely separate either.  

We must, as in all other cases, set the observed facts before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about these affections of the mind, or, failing this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for if we both refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved the case sufficiently.

Another I.3 point: we're not after a logical proof that would establish this exactly and forever, because that isn't the right kind of exactness for ethics. It suffices as a proof if we can refute the objections without creating disturbances for the common opinions (common, that is, among those whose opinions are worth considering due to their proven excellence of character or age and experience, not common in the sense of just anyone's opinion at all). 

Now (1) both continence and endurance are thought to be included among things good and praiseworthy, and both incontinence and softness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man is thought to be continent and ready to abide by the result of his calculations, or incontinent and ready to abandon them. And (2) the incontinent man, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result of passion, while the continent man, knowing that his appetites are bad, refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them (3) The temperate man all men call continent and disposed to endurance, while the continent man some maintain to be always temperate but others do not; and some call the self-indulgent man incontinent and the incontinent man self-indulgent indiscriminately, while others distinguish them. (4) The man of practical wisdom, they sometimes say, cannot be incontinent, while sometimes they say that some who are practically wise and clever are incontinent. Again (5) men are said to be incontinent even with respect to anger, honour, and gain.-These, then, are the things that are said.

And indeed, they were said here too in the second part of Book III, when we discussed incontinence the first time. I warned you that you'd be hearing a lot more about it. So you shall.

* In Latin, 'virtue' is derived from 'vir,' which means man. As we've discussed, the Greek word ἀρετή doesn't imply manhood in the way that the Latin word does. This word being translated here is μαλακίας, which Irwin gives as "softness." The word could be used to indicate effeminacy; it was so used by Herodotus and Thucydides according to Liddell. Yet, Liddell points out, it was also used by Caesar in its Latin form to indicate the softness or calmness of the sea ("malacia ac tranquillitas").

The school where Aristotle taught Alexander would have been an exclusively male space, however, which does explain the male-focused discourse. Effeminacy is an exclusively male trait, a defect in achieving their full nature as men; women are never effeminate because they are feminine by nature rather than by defect, according to this Ancient view. 

Alexander Hamilton

As a rule, I favor politicians and bureaucrats fighting duels. It keeps the worst people out of the field for fear of it, and it provides a bracing risk that can temper rhetoric. The last time I can remember one being discussed in explicit terms was in 2004, when Zell Miller expressed regret that dueling was no longer legal after a media nobody who had browbeaten a woman on his show got in his face about something.

There's a lot to be said for the institution, which I used to write about much more often. Once Saddam Hussein challenged George W. Bush to a duel to settle the Iraq War, which is literally Homeric. In retrospect I wish it had happened. It would have been far better than the war, whichever way it had gone. 

UPDATE: On the subject of Presidential duels, I recently read this story.

You would think that Andrew Jackson was giving you his undivided attention, and then you would glance over and notice that he had devoted the last several minutes to making a laborious sketch of an alligator.

“Mr. President!” you would gasp, indignantly.

“I have a bullet lodged inside my body,” he would say. “From killing a man in a duel. A better man than you.” He would resume drawing the alligator.

I don't know if that story is actually true: it's from the Washington Post, after all. But the alligator doodle is real. 

Nicomachean Ethics VI.13

This is the end of Book VI. There are ten books in total.

We must therefore consider virtue also once more; for virtue too is similarly related; as practical wisdom is to cleverness-not the same, but like it-so is natural virtue to virtue in the strict sense.

This is the first time that Aristotle has mentioned "natural virtue." Until now we've talked about virtue as an acquired habit. But, to return to the potentiality/actuality distinction that is so important in Aristotle, you can't make a saw out of wool. Potentiality is first actuality: iron can become a saw, and so it is already potentially a saw in a way that wool is not. Natural virtue is going to play the role of this first actuality of virtue. 

This is going to become important. It is where we get the notion of something being "second nature" to you: you have your first nature -- the potential -- and then your second nature -- what you developed that potential into. Let's continue.

For all men think that each type of character belongs to its possessors in some sense by nature; for from the very moment of birth we are just or fitted for self-control or brave or have the other moral qualities; but yet we seek something else as that which is good in the strict sense-we seek for the presence of such qualities in another way. For both children and brutes have the natural dispositions to these qualities, but without reason these are evidently hurtful.

This is a point that will appeal to AVI, I think, for whom nature tends to prevail in the nature/nurture discussion. Here is Aristotle's nod to it: some people, by nature, have more fitness to be brave or self-controlled. These qualities can and should be guided and perfected by reason, but if you don't have them as potentials to start with you never will have the actualities either.

Only we seem to see this much, that, while one may be led astray by them, as a strong body which moves without sight may stumble badly because of its lack of sight, still, if a man once acquires reason, that makes a difference in action; and his state, while still like what it was, will then be virtue in the strict sense. 

Therefore, as in the part of us which forms opinions there are two types, cleverness and practical wisdom, so too in the moral part there are two types, natural virtue and virtue in the strict sense, and of these the latter involves practical wisdom.

So: while you may be born fitted for courage (say), you won't become courageous in the strict sense until you develop phronesis. You have to learn to apply this natural quality wisely. at you

Now we can talk more completely about how this process works (which Thomas was interested in earlier: how to realize it). The steps are these:

1) Birth, with the natural virtues that you happen to have.
2) A good upbringing, which gives you stories about the good and noble, honorable and virtuous from trusted sources.
3) Intuitive reason, which apprehends what is good from the stories and the way in which they are told.
4) Philosophical wisdom, which derives the first principles about what is good, noble, honorable, and virtuous from the findings of your intuitive reason about the stories from that upbringing.
5) Practical wisdom (phronesis), by which you derive in the circumstances in which you find yourself what the virtuous thing to do actually is, and do it using your natural virtue's potential to do such a thing.
6) Virtue, the state of character that arises from this practice becoming a habit and then the state of character itself. 

This is why some say that all the virtues are forms of practical wisdom, and why Socrates in one respect was on the right track while in another he went astray; in thinking that all the virtues were forms of practical wisdom he was wrong, but in saying they implied practical wisdom he was right.

This is confirmed by the fact that even now all men, when they define virtue, after naming the state of character and its objects add 'that (state) which is in accordance with the right rule'; now the right rule is that which is in accordance with practical wisdom. All men, then, seem somehow to divine that this kind of state is virtue, viz. that which is in accordance with practical wisdom. But we must go a little further. For it is not merely the state in accordance with the right rule, but the state that implies the presence of the right rule, that is virtue; and practical wisdom is a right rule about such matters. Socrates, then, thought the virtues were rules or rational principles (for he thought they were, all of them, forms of scientific knowledge), while we think they involve a rational principle. It is clear, then, from what has been said, that it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral virtue. 

Nice concession to Socrates there. I suspect he would have appreciated it; there's a chance he would have bought the argument, since it considered his difficulties directly and addresses them in a way that many subsequent generations found satisfactory.. He and Aristotle never met directly but were connected by Plato, who was the student of one and the teacher of the other.   

Aristotle goes right on to solve another puzzle that daunted Socrates.

But in this way we may also refute the dialectical argument whereby it might be contended that the virtues exist in separation from each other; the same man, it might be said, is not best equipped by nature for all the virtues, so that he will have already acquired one when he has not yet acquired another. This is possible in respect of the natural virtues, but not in respect of those in respect of which a man is called without qualification good; for with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, will be given all the virtues. And it is plain that, even if it were of no practical value, we should have needed it because it is the virtue of the part of us in question; plain too that the choice will not be right without practical wisdom any more than without virtue; for the one deter, mines the end and the other makes us do the things that lead to the end.

That issue of the separation (or not) of the virtues really bothered Socrates; it is ubiquitous in Plato's dialogues. Aristotle has given us the furniture for a straightforward answer to why a man could be virtuous in one way but not another: he lacked the natural virtue for one virtue, but had it for another. As such, when he applied his phronesis, he was able to excel in one virtue (say courage) but not the other (say moderation of sexual appetite). The phronesis is the same; but the underlying potential is not the same in all people. 

Some people become more virtuous than others because they had the potential to actualize. Some people become virtuous in one way and not another because they had potential here but not there. We can look at the cases we know empirically and see how plausible that answer is: he's just like his father; he reminds me of his grandfather; it's no wonder he turned out that way. 

But again [phronesis] is not supreme over philosophic wisdom, i.e. over the superior part of us, any more than the art of medicine is over health; for it does not use it but provides for its coming into being; it issues orders, then, for its sake, but not to it. Further, to maintain its supremacy would be like saying that the art of politics rules the gods because it issues orders about all the affairs of the state.

The art of medicine is not supreme over health because it is practiced for the sake of health. Therefore, it is subordinate because it is in the service of the prior thing. Philosophical wisdom showed us what the great, the noble, and the good were. Phronesis is just helping us achieve what philosophy attained: it is the servant, not the master.  

Nicomachean Ethics VI.12

Almost finished with Book VI; one more after this.

Difficulties might be raised as to the utility of these qualities of mind. For (1) philosophic wisdom will contemplate none of the things that will make a man happy (for it is not concerned with any coming into being), and though practical wisdom has this merit, for what purpose do we need it? Practical wisdom is the quality of mind concerned with things just and noble and good for man, but these are the things which it is the mark of a good man to do, and we are none the more able to act for knowing them if the virtues are states of character, just as we are none the better able to act for knowing the things that are healthy and sound, in the sense not of producing but of issuing from the state of health; for we are none the more able to act for having the art of medicine or of gymnastics. But (2) if we are to say that a man should have practical wisdom not for the sake of knowing moral truths but for the sake of becoming good, practical wisdom will be of no use to those who are good; again it is of no use to those who have not virtue; for it will make no difference whether they have practical wisdom themselves or obey others who have it, and it would be enough for us to do what we do in the case of health; though we wish to become healthy, yet we do not learn the art of medicine. (3) Besides this, it would be thought strange if practical wisdom, being inferior to philosophic wisdom, is to be put in authority over it, as seems to be implied by the fact that the art which produces anything rules and issues commands about that thing.

Only philosophers talk like this, but Tom wanted to read some philosophy and now you know we really are! This is a related problem to those I raised before, but here the issue is that the categories are artificial. The issue in (1) above is that "philosophical wisdom" has been defined as pertaining only to unchanging things, which for Aristotle include the movement of the stars as well as mathematical truths. It is possible to be philosophical about the nature of justice, but not about how to be just in a particular case: that requires practical action in a set of things that come-to-be and have a particular history. For that we are told we need a separate thing, "practical wisdom," which is -- being separate -- somehow unrelated to the philosophical wisdom from which it draws its first principles for which to reach particular conclusions.

Yet obviously these things are unified. We unify them. They are parts of a whole, the whole that is us. The way the cuts are made may be customary, as the French butcher beef differently from Americans. 

The problem with (2) is about 'coming to be,' to whit, how goodness comes to be. If a man is good, what use has he for a faculty for becoming good? (The answer, probably obvious to all of you, is that it was only by having the faculty in the first place that he got to being good.)

(3) is potentially a serious problem, except that it has the same issues as (1). 

These, then, are the questions we must discuss; so far we have only stated the difficulties.

(1) Now first let us say that in themselves these states must be worthy of choice because they are the virtues of the two parts of the soul respectively, even if neither of them produce anything.

(2) Secondly, they do produce something, not as the art of medicine produces health, however, but as health produces health; so does philosophic wisdom produce happiness; for, being a part of virtue entire, by being possessed and by actualizing itself it makes a man happy.

Since you need both philosophical wisdom (to get the first principles) and practical wisdom (to get to the correct actions) to be virtuous, each is part of "virtue entire." Since virtue produces happiness, each of them thus is a necessary condition for producing happiness. The analogy to 'health producing health' seems to me to further complicate the artificial divisions: the analogy suggests they are really a whole. 

(3) Again, the work of man is achieved only in accordance with practical wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means. (Of the fourth part of the soul-the nutritive-there is no such virtue; for there is nothing which it is in its power to do or not to do.)

The nutritive is the part of the soul we share even with plants, for Aristotle: but it doesn't make decisions, it just does what it has to do. A man has to eat; a buzzard, same as worms.  

(4) With regard to our being none the more able to do because of our practical wisdom what is noble and just, let us begin a little further back, starting with the following principle. As we say that some people who do just acts are not necessarily just, i.e. those who do the acts ordained by the laws either unwillingly or owing to ignorance or for some other reason and not for the sake of the acts themselves (though, to be sure, they do what they should and all the things that the good man ought)...

Now, you'll remember that in V.1 justice-as-lawfulness was said to be complete virtue, but not absolutely. Here Aristotle seems to deny that it is properly even justice; just as he had said in III.8 that courage was not really true courage if it was compelled by law, as it is in the citizen-soldier. In both cases he's looking for good-enough solutions for the many, for whom perhaps it is good enough if they can be made to do the right thing even if only under duress. Yet he is truly interested in what the best kind of person will do, not just what will make people behave.  

...so is it, it seems, that in order to be good one must be in a certain state when one does the several acts, i.e. one must do them as a result of choice and for the sake of the acts themselves. Now virtue makes the choice right, but the question of the things which should naturally be done to carry out our choice belongs not to virtue but to another faculty. We must devote our attention to these matters and give a clearer statement about them. There is a faculty which is called cleverness; and this is such as to be able to do the things that tend towards the mark we have set before ourselves, and to hit it. Now if the mark be noble, the cleverness is laudable, but if the mark be bad, the cleverness is mere smartness; hence we call even men of practical wisdom clever or smart.

So, above he pointed out that to really be good, and not just being driven to right actions by the law, you have to be in the right state. That state is the state of setting yourself the right ends for the right reasons. You got the right reasons from what he is calling "philosophical wisdom." But you have to derive from those reasons the right acts; and you have to choose those right acts because of those right reasons. That's the only thing that counts as "being good," properly speaking. It isn't obedience to authority; it's internal choice for proper reason. 

Practical wisdom is not the faculty [of cleverness], but it does not exist without this faculty. And this eye of the soul acquires its formed state not without the aid of virtue, as has been said and is plain; for the syllogisms which deal with acts to be done are things which involve a starting-point, viz. 'since the end, i.e. what is best, is of such and such a nature', whatever it may be (let it for the sake of argument be what we please); and this is not evident except to the good man; for wickedness perverts us and causes us to be deceived about the starting-points of action. Therefore it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good.

That's a fascinating way to conclude this, since the problem he raised in the first (2) was that it might be possible to be good without being practically wise. This inverted proof that B requires A doesn't prove that A requires B.

If we take it with the claim that 'being good' only occurs when you do the things that practical wisdom entails, however, we can see the point: you don't get to 'being good' without practical wisdom. A clever man can choose noble aims, but cleverness can easily devolve into mere smartness, in which one is applying intelligence to bad purposes. It's only when you make the shift into tying your intelligence to this facility of wisdom -- whether or not that wisdom is properly divided into two parts, the up-looking "philosophical wisdom" and the down-looking "practical wisdom" -- that you can be sure of being good.

Joining the good guys

This X post by someone named "Comet" caught my eye last week, because it's so similar to my own experience, and echoes a theme that C.S. Lewis often uses. I think it appeals to people who were raised as atheists, or became determined atheists when they came of age after a perfunctory childhood religious training. It was a huge stumbling block to me to believe in a literal, personal God and an afterlife. It still is difficult, when the chips are down, though it's a faith I strive for all the time. Even now, Comet's gut conviction is the one that keeps me trying:

I’ve never been a religious person because I don’t know if God is real

But I’m becoming more religious every day because I know that Evil is real, and I want to be on the other side of it

A Lemonade Stand

On a country road high in the mountains today, I came across a young lady of seven or so running a lemonade stand. Naturally my wife and I stopped our motorcycles and bought some lemonade from the girl. It was the sort of thing children used to do when I was young, but I haven't seen in ages. 

There were more precautions than we had as kids. Her family was watching from above near the house, and she had a dog that came over to be sure she was ok -- as well as, I noticed, a walkie-talkie on her belt in case she needed to call for help. I think we would have only had a dog, and he was a beagle.

It was obviously being a good experience for her, in spite of the light traffic way up there. She explained that she and her brothers and sisters had been doing it for a while, and they'd only recently expanded into baked goods as they made enough money to buy the lemonade supplies, then more supplies. 

As we were leaving a big dump truck towing a heavy-equipment trailer stopped, and the bearded trucker got out to buy some lemonade too. He looked so happy. I imagine it was a nostalgic moment for him too.

I would have taken a picture before we left, but I didn't wish to take a photo of a minor without her parents' permission (which I would easily understand them not granting to a stranger, although they might remember me either from the hurricane or from the time I drove their horse back up to their house from standing in the road). You'll just have to imagine a lemonade stand from your own youth. It was just like that.