Essay outline he provided :
Outline of an essay that would demonstrate understanding:
Begin by elaborating what Aristotle claims is the true meaning of “happiness”
1. start from Aristotle’s claim that the “nature” of a human being is what it is when fully developed
2. the “nature,” in this sense, of human being is a being able “to put into action the power of reason (1097b 24-1098a 4).”
3. this is “action” as eudaimonia, i.e., as the objectively truly “good” action in a given context
4. it is “the realization and perfect practice of virtue”
“a being-at-work of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if the virtues are more than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue”
5. virtues are of two kinds, moral and intellectual
“the best and most complete virtue” is the virtue of “justice” as the practice of “complete virtue” in relations with “one’s neighbour” Nicomachean Ethics Book V, chap. 1
its practice, therefore, is itself eudaimonia as “the realization and perfect practice of virtue”
6. provide some detail about the moral virtues such as their connection to the concepts of “hexis” and “mean” that are relevant to explaining why pleasure, honour and wealth cannot be the ultimate objects of rational desire
make use of Sachs’ “Three Little Words” here
6.1 hexis
“holding oneself in a certain way”
“one holds oneself in a stable equilibrium of the soul, in order to choose the action knowingly and for its own sake”
“in a condition from which one can’t be moved all the way over into a different condition”
“Virtue cannot, by this account, be an inflexible adherence to rules or duty or precedent.”
role of “habit” in the development of hexis
child has an inborn potential for such development
to develop the potential, the child has to be enabled to settle down out of the emotional turmoil of childhood
“habit” is the way of doing this – Sachs uses Hamlet’s advice to his mother to illustrate the idea
the key point is that “habit” creates a condition in which “hexis” in the above sense (not a habit) can develop
when developed, hexis makes virtuous action possible as action actualizing the “mean”
this is action chosen knowingly as an end it itself – i.e. it’s an action actualizing moral virtue as eudaimonia
6.2 the “mean”
the person with fully developed moral virtues, i.e. fully developed hexis, is a spoudaios, a person of moral stature
such a person is able to directly perceive, in any particular circumstances, the act that will actualize the “mean,” i.e. the act that will actualize the moral virtues as eudaimonia
fully developed hexis is required for perceiving things “as they truly are”
“This sort of perceiving contains thinking and imagining, but what it judges, it judges by perceiving it to be so.”
this enables objectively truly “good” action as the action that actualizes the “mean” – eudaimonia,
the idea of this as a “mean” divides failures to achieve it into those that involve “excess” and those that involve “deficiency,” both being failures to fully develop hexis
It is not necessary to take this into account when determining what will be “beautiful” in a given context; fully developed moral virtues, i.e. fully developed hexis makes the “beautiful” action in a context directly perceivable
7. the “virtuous soul” as a “unity”
“We sometimes think of life as a conflict between the head and the heart, but in such a situation there is no unity of the human being, but only truces, compromises, and temporary victories of parties with divergent interests. The virtuous soul, on the contrary, blends all its parts in the act of choice.
“This, I think, is the best way to understand the active state of the soul that constitutes moral virtue and forms character. It is the condition in which all the powers of the soul are at work together, making it possible for action to engage the whole human being. The work of achieving character is a process of clearing away the obstacles that stand in the way of the full efficacy of the soul. … In the sense of character of which we are speaking, the word for which is ethos, we see an outline of the human form itself. A person of character is someone you can count on, because there is a human nature in a deeper sense than that which refers to our early state of weakness. Someone with character has taken a stand in that fully mature nature, and cannot be moved all the way out of it.” Sachs “Three Little Word” p 13
“the ultimate effect of moral virtue: that the one who has it sees truly and judges rightly, since only to someone of good character do the things that are beautiful appear as they truly are (1113a 29-35), that practical wisdom depends on moral virtue to make its aim right (1144a 7-9), and that the eye of the soul that sees what is beautiful as the end or highest good of action gains its active state only with moral virtue (1144a 26-33)” Sachs “Three Little Word” p 21
8. Then explain why each of pleasure, honor and wealth cannot be the source of true “happiness”
“since every kind of knowing and every choice reach toward some good, let us say what it is that we claim politics aims at, and what, of all the goods aimed at by action, is the highest. In name, this is pretty much agreed about by the majority of people, for most people, as well as those who are more refined, say it is happiness, and assume that living well and doing well are the same thing as being happy. But about happiness— what it is— they are in dispute, and most people do not give the same account of it as the wise. Some people take it to be something visible and obvious, such as pleasure or wealth or honor”
“to review all the opinions is perhaps rather pointless, and it would be sufficient to review the ones that come most to prominence or seem to have some account to give” p. 3
8.1 explain the following passage ruling out pleasure
“Most people and the crudest people seem, not without reason, to assume from people’s lives that pleasure is the good and is happiness. For this reason they are content with a life devoted to enjoyment. … Now most people show themselves to be completely slavish by choosing a life that belongs to fatted cattle, but they happen to get listened to because most people who have power share the feeling of Sardanapalus.” p. 4
To fully explain this, you should also make use of the section in Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics on the virtue of “temperance”: Book III, chaps. 10-12 A key point is that:
“the things that are pleasant to those who are passionately devoted to what is beautiful are the things that are pleasant by nature, and of this sort are actions in accordance with virtue, so that they are pleasant both to these people and in themselves. So the life these people lead has no additional need of pleasure as a sort of appendage, but has its pleasure in itself.” 1099a 16-17 Sachs Nicomachean Ethics p. 14
8.2 explain the following passage ruling out honor
“refined and active people choose honor, for this is pretty much the goal of political life. Now this appears to be too superficial to be what is sought, for it seems to be in the ones who give honor rather than in the one who is honored, but we divine that the good is something of one’s own and hard to take away. Also, people seem to pursue honor in order to be convinced that they themselves are good. At any rate they seek to be honored by the wise and by those who know them, and for virtue; it is clear, then, that at least according to these people, virtue is something greater, and one might perhaps assume that this, rather than honor, is the end of the political life.” pp.4-5
The key points here are: 1) seeking honor means the individual does not know what eudaimonic being-at-work is, but such knowledge is a prerequisite for being able to actualize such being-at-work; and 2) if an individual’s being-at-work does actualize the perfect practice of virtue, the only individual able to know this, given what it is, would be the individual whose action it is. That individual, knowing this, would not seek or desire honour. These points need to be explained in terms of the first part of the essay explaining eudaimonia.
Explain why, though honour s “pretty much the goal of political life,” it is not the rational goal, namely. political activity as actualizing eudaimonia for its practitioner.
8.3 explain the following passage ruling out wealth
“The life of money making is a type of compulsory activity, and it is clear that wealth is not the good being sought, since it is instrumental and for the sake of something else. For this reason one might suppose that the things spoken of before are more properly ends, since they provide contentment on account of themselves, though it appears that even they are not what is sought, even though many arguments connected with them are tossed around.” p. 5
In Aristotle’s particular context, obtaining a certain amount of “money” is “compulsory” because eudaimonic being-at-work requires instrumental means that, in that context, are only available by buying them in a “market” using “money.” The relations with others this requires must be inconsistent with eudaimonic relations because they are inconsistent with the reciprocal practice of “justice” in the sense spelled out above. This explains why, in Marx’s critical appropriation of these ideas, an “ideal society” cannot involve “markets” in which relations between individuals are mediated by “money.”.
