Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics

1) Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Function of a human being : Every living being has a function. You have to live in accordance with your function in order to be good. The function of a human being involves the rational part of the soul (there are several parts of the soul according to Aristotle : passionate principle which brings us in the right direction and hepls us to behave/ the concupiscent principle, which brings us in the bad direction/ and the rational principle which is what we have to protect, we have to protect this part from our desires and if we do so, we will be in harmany). The function of an human being is to be rational, it has to respect the rational part. The rational part is the main part for humans being, we have to live according to this part. Virtue : There are two kinds of virtue according to Aristotle : intellectual and ethical virtue. Intelectual virtues requires esxperience, ethical virtue comes from habits. Ethical virtues are not inhate ( by nature), but they are not opposed to our nature. We can acquire them by exercising them. It is because you exercise virtue that you will become vertuous. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. We learn moral virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than through reasoning and instruction. What is very important is to practice because if we do nothing, we will never reach our potentiality. If we don’t practice we will never become what we are born for. In order to reach this potentiality, we have to exercise our rational part. It is not because we are born musician that we don’t have to train in order to become a musician. A man has virtue as a flautist, for instance, if he plays the flute well, since playing the flute is the distinctive activity of a flautist. A virtuous person is someone who performs the distinctive activity of being human well. Every individual has their unique abilities that enable them to become the fullest and happiest attainable. For example if we are a slave, we only can become the best slave as possible but we will remain a slave. Slaves have less potential as free humans being. Disposition : Virtue is a disposition. A disposition is what makes us in a good or bad way with respect to the feeling. A good disposition (= virtue) makes us perform our function ( rational part of the soul) well. Mean : Virtue is a mean between two vices. It is determined by reason. 2) Hume, enquiry concerning the principles of morals self love vs public affection The second appendix is intended to clarify the meaning of the term self-love. Does this term connote only those actions which are selfish in the narrower sense of the word, or is it possible that it includes actions which are usually called altruistic? The question arises from the fact that moral sentiments are said to have their origin in the feelings. Whose feelings are referred to in this connection? Is it the person who makes the judgment or the persons whose welfare may be affected by it? Since the feelings are necessarily private and no one would voluntarily act for the sake of the welfare of other persons unless the idea was pleasant and agreeable to himself, it would appear that what one does for others is really done for the sake of his own pleasure. This conclusion, however, does not follow from the facts. It is quite possible that one's objective may be the welfare of others, and any pleasure which he may or may not receive from it is merely incidental to the action itself. An act that is performed for the sake of others can be called a selfish act only by defining selfishness so broadly that it would be logically impossible to have an exception to it. In this case, the term would become meaningless since it would be equivalent to saying that one does what he does. For self-love, or selfishness, to be a meaningful term, it must be defined in a way that is exclusive of some actions. In other words, it must be possible to distinguish between those actions which are exclusive of the welfare of others and those which are inclusive of it. Only the former can rightly be designated as acts of self-love. General sentiments Things are moral (good) to the extent that they are useful to mankind or agreeable to us. Our sense of morals is like our sense of perspective, where things close to us (our own well-being, the well-being of our family members, etc.) register as large sentiments, and those far away from us (people we read about it in books, people we’ve never met) register as smaller sentiments. Thus, people are genuinely concerned with the well-being of others (i.e. they are altruistic), but will typically put greater weight on their own cares, unless their reason has been trained to overcome the illusion of moral perspective and realize that all people are equally important. At the outset, Hume considers the arguments that morals derive from our reason vs. the arguments that morals derive from our sentiments and concludes that the arguments on both sides are so strong that morals must derive from both, with sentiment aligning with reason in the majority of cases. The purpose of the first appendix was to clarify his stand with reference to the place and function of reason in matters pertaining to morals. Because Hume had emphasized the role of the feelings in the development of moral beliefs more than had been done by any of his predecessors, it was only natural that some of his critics would think that he had given too large a place to the feelings and had neglected to give proper credit to the reasoning faculty. To eliminate any misunderstanding on this point, he now states very clearly just what it is that he believes reason can do and what it is that it cannot do toward the development of moral beliefs. Reason, according to Hume, is competent in those areas which have to do with matters of fact, and it is likewise capable of determining the relation...