Nicomachean Ethics I.13

Today we end the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics. This last chapter lays the foundation for most of the rest of the work. 

Since happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect virtue, we must consider the nature of virtue; for perhaps we shall thus see better the nature of happiness.

This answers some of the objections that have been raised in the comments. We have now a definition of happiness, but it entails a definition of virtue. We need to study the virtues now, in order to better understand even the defined concept of "happiness."  

The true student of politics, too, is thought to have studied virtue above all things; for he wishes to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws. 

As an example of this we have the lawgivers of the Cretans and the Spartans, and any others of the kind that there may have been. And if this inquiry belongs to political science, clearly the pursuit of it will be in accordance with our original plan.

Emphasis added. The student of politics isn't studying virtue to make himself better, note, but to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws. This is a point of discontinuity between Aristotle and American society, and to some degree between the Modern world and Aristotle. Americans think of virtue as a private matter. The function of the law is not to make us good people, but to set the most minimal limits possible on human behavior in order to enable us to be free within those limits. What we choose to do with that freedom is where we find out whether or not we are virtuous. It isn't anyone else's business.

Among the other Moderns, a less-strong version of this idea prevails. Kant, for example, divides his Metaphysics of Morals into two Doctrines: the Doctrine of Right, and the Doctrine of Virtue. The dividing point between those two is whether or not the state has the right to use physical force against you to require you obey. The Doctrine of Right is where force is permitted -- interestingly, marriage law is included here -- and the Doctrine of Virtue is where no one is allowed to force you to do the right thing. There is still a right thing, but it is yours to decide whether to be good or bad.

That is not true for Aristotle. As we will see when we reach his discussion of Justice, the point of the laws is to mandate virtuous behavior, to make everyone behave as if they were virtuous. You may not get genuinely virtuous people that way, but you at least get a society in which people are treating each other as if they were the virtuous people they aren't really. 

Aristotle also wants people to develop the internal virtues, and to come to that point we have already discussed in which they want to be virtuous and find it pleasant to be. However, virtue is a matter of habituation; being forced to be better for a while can help you internalize the habits, and at least takes care of some of the bad behavior. 

But clearly the virtue we must study is human virtue; for the good we were seeking was human good and the happiness human happiness. By human virtue we mean not that of the body but that of the soul; and happiness also we call an activity of soul.

Thus, this will not be a book on weightlifting or fast running, but on courage and justice.  

But if this is so, clearly the student of politics must know somehow the facts about soul, as the man who is to heal the eyes or the body as a whole must know about the eyes or the body; and all the more since politics is more prized and better than medicine; but even among doctors the best educated spend much labour on acquiring knowledge of the body. The student of politics, then, must study the soul, and must study it with these objects in view, and do so just to the extent which is sufficient for the questions we are discussing; for further precision is perhaps something more laborious than our purposes require.

Socrates would have taken this and made a problem out of it for showing that the inquiry wasn't working well. Aristotle manfully accepts that we have to understand the subordinate questions in light of our inquiry into the prior questions. This is a difference between him and his predecessors. 

This is a longer chapter, so I will put the rest after a jump break. There's an important new concept here, so don't skip it.

On the Eve of War

This is not a political post. I have expressed my thoughts on what is wise and desirable, but I am not in charge of anything: my fellow citizens have elected me to no public office, nor have I sought one in any case. This is just a discussion of the facts as I see them through the lens of decades of involvement in war.

I don't know if this leak is accurate, but it lines up with my own expectations. There's really only one reason that Israel would even ask us to join the war: Fordow. They've done a much better job of dismantling Iran's leadership and air defenses than we would have. Their intelligence service and military have demonstrated great superiority to that of our ossified, bloated agencies: compare the campaign of the last few days with any period from any of our long wars. They have lived up to Sun Tzu's dictum: "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

Our President seems to think that he is doing the same thing, telling the press that he is still open to talks and that he won't make a decision until a second before, that no one knows his plans. In the age of open source intelligence, that's not good enough for a military as large as ours. Everybody knows that we deployed a dozen F-22s to Jordan and KC-130 tankers to southern Europe (not northern Europe, where they might do something regarding Ukraine). Everyone knows that our ships are at sea and we will soon have three aircraft carriers in range. Diego Garcia has hosted extra B-2 bombers since March, and how has some extra B-52s as well. 

Prime Minister Starmer isn't the only world leader reacting to this. Russia's President Putin has affirmed Russia's neutrality -- no help is coming, comrades -- as he calls for new diplomacy.

While a B-52 bombing campaign would likely shorten the war, there is as I said just one thing that Israel can't do for itself that it desperately wants done. The Fordow nuclear facility is buried under a mountain, and a deep earth penetrating weapon is the only way to reach it without a substantial ground invasion. The latter is out of Israel's reach, even if they weren't fighting a war in Gaza already. So both horns of the dilemma posed by Fordow require a US solution: either we send the Marines to seize it and dismantle it, or we bring in a B-2 -- the only bomber that can carry the only bomb that can do the job. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see us use more than four to crack a hole deep enough, and perhaps even follow up with a nuclear weapon. That would also have the advantage of rendering the site impossible to reoccupy for some time. The point that the US would like to make, our major strategic interest, is the same point that was made when Obama ignored the War Powers Act to ensure the destruction of Gaddafi in Libya: no one else may have the Bomb. As in Dune, where the Great Houses all had Atomics because having Atomics was how you became a Great House, the possession of nuclear weapons determines the power structure of the world. Holding that power structure together with America at its top is the only real reason to consider doing this. The opportunity to completely eradicate a nuclear weapons program that is so close to completion may likely prove impossible to resist, especially given the vocal commitment of the involved nation on the subject of "Death to America." 

Thus I suspect that, dissembling aside, Trump intends to issue the order. Despite both Houses of Congress introducing resolutions opposing it, semi-bipartisan in the Senate where Thomas Massie has joined it, unpassed resolutions are not even empty gestures. 

Reportedly -- who knows if it's true? -- Trump asked Israel not to assassinate the Ayatollah Khamenei. The reasoning given in the brief quote aside, a better reason to leave him alive is that he is the only one who can plausibly negotiate a surrender. You have to leave someone alive that the losing side recognizes as their legitimate leader if you are to have any hope of getting them to accept the legitimacy of the order to lay down arms. 

With the air defenses already effectively destroyed, a US air campaign will face relatively easy sailing. I would expect the Fordow strike to be done in more than sufficient force to leave it obviously and permanently destroyed. The psychological effect of having that fortress reduced to ash in one night might compel the aging Ayatollah to consider surrender, especially if more generous terms than "unconditional" are truly on offer behind the scenes. 

If not, a B-52 campaign can go on for quite a while. That would be quite tragic, as it would harm a lot of people who have no more control over all of this than you or I do. Many of them would doubtless prefer a different government than the one they find themselves with no control over. As to that, this guy at least has been angling for this moment for decades; I have been running into his people for years. Long organization may pay off for him. I don't think he has a lot of support within the US government, but he may have some support in Iran especially among the true Persians. They are the largest and most powerful of the various ethnic groups and will have a lot to say about any future. 

Nicomachean Ethics I.12

 Another short chapter today.

These questions having been definitely answered, let us consider whether happiness is among the things that are praised or rather among the things that are prized; for clearly it is not to be placed among potentialities.

As I've mentioned in the discussion of I.2 and I.6b, this is following a parallel argument from the Rhetoric. Aristotle holds, I said, that when "incomparable things are being weighted against each other -- should I prefer this meal, or that victory at war? -- honor provides the common ground for valuation." Here we are going to talk about things like that, but we have a further mechanism for differentiating them into the merely 'praised' versus the more valuable 'prized.' 

Everything that is praised seems to be praised because it is of a certain kind and is related somehow to something else; for we praise the just or brave man and in general both the good man and virtue itself because of the actions and functions involved, and we praise the strong man, the good runner, and so on, because he is of a certain kind and is related in a certain way to something good and important. This is clear also from the praises of the gods; for it seems absurd that the gods should be referred to our standard, but this is done because praise involves a reference, to something else. But if if praise is for things such as we have described, clearly what applies to the best things is not praise, but something greater and better, as is indeed obvious; for what we do to the gods and the most godlike of men is to call them blessed and happy. And so too with good things; no one praises happiness as he does justice, but rather calls it blessed, as being something more divine and better.

So when we praise strength or bravery, a fast runner or even a just man, we are celebrating those qualities because they point to the easier acquisition of something that is a good in itself. Strength is good because it lets you do more work, which is good because it obtains whatever the end result of the labor was meant to be. Bravery is good because it can help you obtain victory in war and peace through strength -- but victory is good because it can bring a just peace, whereas such peace is good because it enables the best kind of human life.  

This is to be contrasted with the truly prized things, the things we really want for themselves rather than as a mere means to something else. 

Eudoxus also seems to have been right in his method of advocating the supremacy of pleasure; he thought that the fact that, though a good, it is not praised indicated it to be better than the things that are praised, and that this is what God and the good are; for by reference to these all other things are judged.

This thread will grow only stronger in the Christian period, though Aquinas and others will have to point out that the Goodness of God is not equivalent to the goodness of men; rather, that the word 'good' just has a different and categorically lesser meaning when applied to any created thing. Eudoxus was another head of the Academy, one of Aristotle's teachers as Iakovos was one of mine. Sadly, all of his works have been lost. 

Praise is appropriate to virtue, for as a result of virtue men tend to do noble deeds, but encomia are bestowed on acts, whether of the body or of the soul. But perhaps nicety in these matters is more proper to those who have made a study of encomia; to us it is clear from what has been said that happiness is among the things that are prized and perfect. It seems to be so also from the fact that it is a first principle; for it is for the sake of this that we all do all that we do, and the first principle and cause of goods is, we claim, something prized and divine.

So there you have it. There's a little bit of an ambiguity in this discussion, as even the things that are prized are also praised, and encomia turn out to be just higher and more formal forms of praise. 

The real issue is whether you seek the thing in order to obtain other things, or if the thing itself is your end. Happiness is an end in itself. Bravery gives you the victory, which combined with justice can give you a lasting peace, which itself enables the conditions for the best kind of life. The thing you are seeking in such a life is happiness, eudaimonia. 

Nicomachean Ethics I.11

A quite short section today.

That the fortunes of descendants and of all a man's friends should not affect his happiness at all seems a very unfriendly doctrine, and one opposed to the opinions men hold; but since the events that happen are numerous and admit of all sorts of difference, and some come more near to us and others less so, it seems a long- nay, an infinite- task to discuss each in detail; a general outline will perhaps suffice.

It is strange to see the philosopher weigh in against a doctrine as being "unfriendly." That is also how Terence Irwin gives it, though, in his translation. In the Greek original it is ἄφιλον, which is usually 'friendless' rather than 'unfriendly,' but I trust either of these translators' Greek more than my own very limited Greek. Harris Rackham's translation gives it as "heartless." 

In any case it's not a proof or a logical argument; it's a sense that the doctrine isn't desirable and that it is widely rejected and without popularity. That doesn't mean it isn't true.

If, then, as some of a man's own misadventures have a certain weight and influence on life while others are, as it were, lighter, so too there are differences among the misadventures of our friends taken as a whole, and it makes a difference whether the various suffering befall the living or the dead (much more even than whether lawless and terrible deeds are presupposed in a tragedy or done on the stage), this difference also must be taken into account; or rather, perhaps, the fact that doubt is felt whether the dead share in any good or evil.

That sentence could use some analysis. If some misadventures have more or less weight than others, then also our friends' misadventures may be more or less important to them. Also, it seems to Aristotle that it matters whether the misfortunes happen to a living or a dead man. 

That's sensible enough. It would bother almost anyone if a financial disaster befell them that cost them literally everything they own; but every dead man immediately yields up all his worldly goods, and seems not to suffer from it much at all. The ancients sometimes buried men and women with grave goods, but not all of their goods; and even in the famous Viking funeral sequence recorded by Ibn Fadhlan at least some was left to the inheritance. 

Aristotle says that this living/dead distinction is even more important than the truth/fiction distinction: a dead man seems to suffer less than a fictional one from the loss of his goods, say. So perhaps the dead do not suffer any evil, or any good. That was the unfriendly doctrine. It might be true. 

For it seems, from these considerations, that even if anything whether good or evil penetrates to them, it must be something weak and negligible, either in itself or for them, or if not, at least it must be such in degree and kind as not to make happy those who are not happy nor to take away their blessedness from those who are. The good or bad fortunes of friends, then, seem to have some effects on the dead, but effects of such a kind and degree as neither to make the happy unhappy nor to produce any other change of the kind.

Aristotle ends on some middle ground. There is something about the fortune of friends or descendants that might affect the dead; but it can't be very strong. The blessed remain blessed; the unhappy dead cannot be made happy by us afterwards, no matter what we try to do.

This seems consistent with much of later theology, although the Church has sold pardons and indulgences at times, and many a man has donated in the hope of Masses sung for the repose of his soul. It is doubtful that these do much good; but why not hedge your bets? 

Some Sober Reflection on Trans Issues

Ezra Klien interviews Sarah McBride in the NYT (there is the usual paywall). 

[T]he one thing that’s maybe different here is there’s a set of narrow policies, like nondiscrimination, and then a broader cultural effort — everybody should put their pronouns in their bio or say them before they begin speaking at a meeting — that was more about destabilizing the gender binary.

And there people had a much stronger view. Like: I do know what it means. I’ve been a man all my life. I’ve been a woman all my life. How dare you tell me how I have to talk about myself or refer to myself!

And that made the metaphor break. Because if the gay marriage fight was about what other people do, there was a dimension to this that was about what you do and how you should see yourself or your kids or your society.

I think that’s an accurate reflection of the overplaying of the hand in some ways — that we as a coalition went to Trans 201, Trans 301, when people were still at a very much Trans 101 stage.... 

I think some of the cultural mores and norms that started to develop around inclusion of trans people were probably premature for a lot of people. We became absolutist — not just on trans rights but across the progressive movement — and we forgot that in a democracy we have to grapple with where the public authentically is and actually engage with it. Part of this is fostered by social media.

We decided that we now have to say and fight for and push for every single perfect policy and cultural norm right now, regardless of whether the public is ready. And I think it misunderstands the role that politicians and, frankly, social movements have in maintaining proximity to public opinion, of walking people to a place.... 

I will say, while the left made this mistake of fostering an illiberalism based on a false sense of cultural victory, the right is now making the exact same mistake. I think they’re overplaying their hand.

They’re interpreting the 2024 election to be a cultural mandate that is much greater than what it actually is. And if they continue to do that, there will be a backlash to the illiberalism — the cultural illiberalism, not just the legal illiberalism — of the right, in the same way that there’s been a backlash to the cultural illiberalism of the left. 

In general people like to be left alone. Making everyone put pronouns out there was not leaving them alone. That wasn't really the issue, though it was aligned to it. Telling parents that the state would take their children away and then castrate their children was intolerable. That's not just the sort of thing that causes you to lose elections; governments get overthrown over things like that. As well they should, since that action violates natural law in such a clear and deep way. Telling fathers they had to watch their daughters beaten up in sports arenas by physically more powerful males was intolerable. Telling parents they would lose their parental rights for not going along with all this was intolerable. 

McBride may be correct that the cultural right is going to far the other way. It is good to see some actual reflection on all this, and likewise the admission that they went too far and were in fact illiberal. It's a genuine start.

Nicomachean Ethics I.10

There are thirteen chapters in the first book, if you are wondering. 

Aristotle was just talking about a complete life being necessary for the fullness of happiness. He now continues on the topic of describing and analyzing this 'completeness' requirement.

Must no one at all, then, be called happy while he lives; must we, as Solon says, see the end? Even if we are to lay down this doctrine, is it also the case that a man is happy when he is dead? Or is not this quite absurd, especially for us who say that happiness is an activity?

Remembering that this is pre-Christian, this discussion of being happy after death is differently pointed than it would be after the conversion of Europe. Hades was described in the Odyssey as a pretty miserable place; not Hell exactly, but not happy for certain. Achilles appears to Odysseus and basically explains that life is always better than being dead, and that there's nothing good in the underworld. 

Philosophically, it is a puzzle to suggest that a dead man can be happy if happiness is an activity. That deserves further exploration, which we get: 

But if we do not call the dead man happy, and if Solon does not mean this, but that one can then safely call a man blessed as being at last beyond evils and misfortunes, this also affords matter for discussion; for both evil and good are thought to exist for a dead man, as much as for one who is alive but not aware of them; e.g. honours and dishonours and the good or bad fortunes of children and in general of descendants. And this also presents a problem; for though a man has lived happily up to old age and has had a death worthy of his life, many reverses may befall his descendants- some of them may be good and attain the life they deserve, while with others the opposite may be the case; and clearly too the degrees of relationship between them and their ancestors may vary indefinitely. It would be odd, then, if the dead man were to share in these changes and become at one time happy, at another wretched; while it would also be odd if the fortunes of the descendants did not for some time have some effect on the happiness of their ancestors.

It's worth noting that honor turns out to be the principal consideration for the happiness of the dead. Whether their descendants flourish might concern them, if they could be concerned after death; but whether they are honored or dishonored pertains to them themselves.

But we must return to our first difficulty; for perhaps by a consideration of it our present problem might be solved. Now if we must see the end and only then call a man happy, not as being happy but as having been so before, surely this is a paradox, that when he is happy the attribute that belongs to him is not to be truly predicated of him because we do not wish to call living men happy, on account of the changes that may befall them, and because we have assumed happiness to be something permanent and by no means easily changed, while a single man may suffer many turns of fortune's wheel. For clearly if we were to keep pace with his fortunes, we should often call the same man happy and again wretched, making the happy man out to be chameleon and insecurely based. Or is this keeping pace with his fortunes quite wrong? Success or failure in life does not depend on these, but human life, as we said, needs these as mere additions, while virtuous activities or their opposites are what constitute happiness or the reverse.

This section treats what I think is a real problem with the approach of thinking of happiness as being judged once overall. If happiness is an activity, you can only be happy when you're doing it. It's in your control, at least while you're alive, but you won't always be doing it. Thus, you won't always be happy.

Aristotle notes that it would be incoherent to say that we can only judge happiness after death, because at that point action is no longer possible. (Those of you who are serious students of philosophy, note the talk about predication. This is a very serious matter for Aristotle, as it will be for Kant and others; but it is inside baseball for those who are not deeply committed to the study of philosophy.)

The question we have now discussed confirms our definition. For no function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities (these are thought to be more durable even than knowledge of the sciences), and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because those who are happy spend their life most readily and most continuously in these; for this seems to be the reason why we do not forget them. The attribute in question, then, will belong to the happy man, and he will be happy throughout his life; for always, or by preference to everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action and contemplation, and he will bear the chances of life most nobly and altogether decorously, if he is 'truly good' and 'foursquare beyond reproach'.

Emphasis added. There's a lot going on there. Your actions echo in permanence if they are virtuous, and those who are virtuous do more of them more often; and therefore, they are among the honored dead. This is almost exactly what Odin tells his listener in Havamal 77. 

Yet we also see a tension that will continue through the book: the perfectly vicious are very similar to the perfectly virtuous. You will always remember the events of 9/11, and everyone knows the name of Lee Harvey Oswald. They too found what they did to be pleasant, indeed worthy of dying for. For now I will just raise this problem and not resolve it. Why is the life of virtue preferable to the life of committed vice? They look surprisingly alike, but as a vicious man you'd get to do whatever you want all the time.

Now many events happen by chance, and events differing in importance; small pieces of good fortune or of its opposite clearly do not weigh down the scales of life one way or the other, but a multitude of great events if they turn out well will make life happier (for not only are they themselves such as to add beauty to life, but the way a man deals with them may be noble and good), while if they turn out ill they crush and maim happiness; for they both bring pain with them and hinder many activities. Yet even in these nobility shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness of soul.

AVI has pointed us to studies that indicate that in fact this stuff matters much less than we think it does: an individual has a kind of happiness level, and shortly after either a great fortune or misfortune they return to it. Aristotle did not consider that as a possibility, and I think would have been surprised by it. He does however suggest that one's character is important to whether one is easily disturbed by misfortune; see two quotes down.

If activities are, as we said, what gives life its character, no happy man can become miserable; for he will never do the acts that are hateful and mean.

Here's one reason to prefer virtue to viciousness. 

For the man who is truly good and wise, we think, bears all the chances life becomingly and always makes the best of circumstances, as a good general makes the best military use of the army at his command and a good shoemaker makes the best shoes out of the hides that are given him; and so with all other craftsmen. And if this is the case, the happy man can never become miserable; though he will not reach blessedness, if he meet with fortunes like those of Priam.

So here this isn't inherent, as AVI's data suggests; it is instead a product of having become wise and good. Aristotle thinks this hardens you against misfortune.

Nor, again, is he many-coloured and changeable; for neither will he be moved from his happy state easily or by any ordinary misadventures, but only by many great ones, nor, if he has had many great misadventures, will he recover his happiness in a short time, but if at all, only in a long and complete one in which he has attained many splendid successes.

When then should we not say that he is happy who is active in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life? Or must we add 'and who is destined to live thus and die as befits his life'? Certainly the future is obscure to us, while happiness, we claim, is an end and something in every way final. If so, we shall call happy those among living men in whom these conditions are, and are to be, fulfilled- but happy men. So much for these questions.

Emphasis added. That may be surprising, since how could happiness be both an 'activity' and an 'end'? Well, all activities aim at ends, so it's not a crazy thing to say: you exercise to have the ability to perform, so that performance is both the activity of exercise and the end of it. 

Happiness is an activity, then, but also the end being sought by the activity: it is an end in itself. 

Horsemanship

So horses aren't actually great for riot control because they tend to panic. Police like to use them when they want to push crowds around with the weight of the animals, but it's kind of a terrible idea unless you're a real horseman. 

Having the infantry covering the cavalry worked well in Iraq, where the cavalry was tank crews providing fire support and the dismounted infantry could keep them from getting surrounded and beaten up with Molotov cocktails or worse. Having 'infantry' police covering the cavalry police entirely defeats the purpose of having brought the horses at all. If the guys on foot are pushing protesters around to protect the horses, what were the horses even for? 

I'm rarely impressed with police efforts, but this is silly and dangerous to the animals. If you're not going to use them, take them back to the barn where they won't get hurt.

Happy Father's Day

To all of you who are or have fathers, may you have a happy day. For those of you who are fathers, may it be completely happy in Aristotle's sense from the post just below.

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.

Emphasis added. Happy children in our more usual sense of the term in natural English aren't what Aristotle means; one hopes that children will be happy in that sense as often as they can be. What he's talking about here is how a boy isn't capable of being 'a happy man,' with his children gathered about him and his accomplishments, perhaps a wife he has joined with in a long and happy marriage, good friends of the kind we were just discussing. That's the kind of completeness that he is describing here. 

An Actual Effect on Immigration

The Washington Post today admits that there might be a net negative change in immigration this year, "economists warn." That's not the only dodgy phrasing in the article. Check out this chart:

"...under President Biden's liberal immigration policies" is a strange way of phrasing what happened over the last four years. One might instead have phrased it "under President Biden's flat refusal to keep his oath of office and enforce the laws of the United States on the subject of immigration." 

I don't get the sense that people on the political left actually realize that this crisis we are having now is predicated on their own lawbreaking. When their side's President refuses to enforce a law, and indeed actively undermines the enforcement of it, that's "policy." When their opponent's President doesn't cross every t and dot every i of the law, such as when this President called out the National Guard in California without either involving the governor or invoking the Insurrection Act, suddenly they start talking about the importance of "the rule of law" and the "lawlessness" of their opponents. 

The only reason we're here at all is those titanic spikes over the last four years. Those were illegal. Does that matter? 

Perhaps not really. I notice the same effect when they violate the 2nd Amendment. It's not that they're cognizant of behaving in a blatantly unconstitutional manner; it's that they just can't see that it really is part of the constitution and has to be treated with respect. 

It has been amazing to see left-wing judges citing the 10th Amendment, though. That one is one of my favorites, and it's been treated like an absolutely dead letter for a century. Of course, the judges only apply it to the President -- not to themselves. Of course a Federal judge can tell everyone in every state how to behave, just not the Federal executive. 

To return to the economics for a moment, the Post focuses on heartbreak and rising costs -- but they also admit that this will mean rising wages for American workers. That's always been the big thing driving the mass illegal immigration: corporations' desire for an easily exploited class of cheaper labor that can't turn to the courts for protection because they lack legal status. They don't want to pay Americans market rates, and they don't want to have to deal with OSHA or other worker protections. Even President Trump is backing off for that reason, but see what the Post quietly allows to slip in:

“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.”

So, she is planning to start paying higher wages to American workers instead. Duly noted.

UPDATE: The NY Post says the number of people who have self-deported already is about one million.

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.

Two parts of this seal stand out symbolically for me. First, the banner reading "This We'll Defend" is held in the mouth of a rattlesnake. The rattlesnake was distinctive for three reasons and appeared on several Revolutionary War flags used by the military. One, it is an animal native to North America and so was a good representative of the colonies. Two, it only attacks to defend itself. Three, it has a rattle; it issues a warning before it attacks. (Now, like most such symbols, we can quibble with this. Surely, to a mouse, a rattlesnake is a fearsome aggressor. But we are not mice. In any case, as Grim likes to point out, all analogies fail if you push them far enough. That's no reason to throw out the intended symbolism.)

Second, the Phrygian cap resting on the sword tip first began to symbolize liberty in the American Revolution and was picked up by others, such as French revolutionaries, after. It's placement on the sword reminds me of Civil War movies where infantry officers leading their units into combat would put their hats on their swords and raise them up. I always assumed that was for visibility, but really have no idea.

Altogether, the symbols imply the Army's role is to defend liberty and the United States.

It is also Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of the national flag on June 14, 1777.

Male Friendship

Unlike most people writing about this, which the NYT published a thoughtful piece today, I don’t have this problem. I also lost many friends after marriage and serial moves for career. Others moved away from me for the same reasons. Some of my best friends I met in Iraq, and in the rare moments when we see each other it’s like we were never apart; but they are very rare. 

Male friendship needs a purpose. Join the Volunteer Fire Department, and you’ll have great friends. You’ll see them often, both at meetings and when called out to help. They’ll be good people, virtuous people, the kind who get out of bed to help strangers at night just because they’re needed. They’re better than me; I’m improving a bit by knowing them. 

It’s a very solvable problem, this loneliness. Just get out of your comfort zone a little and find a purpose to serve. That’s where you will make new friends. 

Cornwallis' Sword

The sword thought to have been the one surrendered by General Cornwallis at the British surrender in the Revolutionary War is going to be on display at the US Army's museum. 

Jimbo on the Israel/Iran War

My old friend Jim Hanson currently is the editor for the Middle East Forum, an Israel-aligned think tank. If you're interested in his opinion on the current war started by the strikes last night, here it is.

My own opinion is that we should do anything we can to keep out of this one. The Secretary of State seems to have that opinion also.

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.  

I’m very suspicious of these wars now. I remember Anthony Zinni, general officer of the USMC, expressing his doubts that any US war in his career had been worth the lives spent on it. For years I thought that he was wrong. Watching what was done with the victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, and realizing now that Vietnam was also intentionally thrown away by Congress because it was politically hostile to success, I see that he was right. Our government is too corrupt to deserve sacrifices so costly.

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

Days of riots in Ireland follow a reported rape attempt by Romanian immigrants. There are reports that the Ulster Volunteer Force and its allies are working together with the Irish Republican Army and its allies to fight the police attempting to stop the riots. 

Interesting times. We've heard a lot about LA, but few have mentioned Ballymena in County Antrim. 

Looks like War Again

The IAEA has formally declared that Iran is violating its nuclear obligations; and that is of course true and always was true, but it is shocking to see a UN agency admit it. The Pentagon Pizza Index is through the roof. (Also MacDill AFB, home of CENTCOM and SOCOM.)

Let us hope that the geniuses in these command centers have at least learned the lesson not to commit ground forces to these things. If we land a MEU(SOC) or a Ranger battalion on one of these facilities, it's going to be another sad decade.

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.

Emphasis added. This is a restatement of I.3, which is of fundamental importance to understanding what follows.

That Woman

It's the same song, sort of. It's not, though.