Notes on Aristotle

Reading Aristotle

Students have told me that they find Aristotle a lot harder to read and understand than Plato. There are several reasons for that.

Plato is considered, not only one of the great philosophers, but also a great literary writer. He is also studied in literature courses. Not many philosophers write as well as he did.

Now, according to ancient authorities (such as Cicero), Aristotle's published works were also written in a lucid and beautiful style (a la Plato — Aristotle studied with Plato for 20 years). However, as a result of political turmoil in Greece in the later 4th century BC, all of Aristotle's published (i.e., finished and polished) writings were lost and/or destroyed. What survived were his unfinished manuscripts, his research notebooks, his lecture notes, and notes on his lectures taken down by his students. These materials were edited into their present shape by editors (perhaps as late as 60 BC) after Aristotle's death (322 BC). In other words, the surviving "Collected Works of Aristotle" are not finished works by the author, but rather the result of the process described above.

Thus, we must struggle to grasp the philosophy of Aristotle (which most would consider worth the struggle).

Aristotle’s general perspective in the Nicomachean Ethics

The following is a brief summary of Aristotle's view of the good life (as he expresses it in the Nicomachean Ethics):

· Everyone wants to be happy.

· Many do not do what is necessary in order to become happy (or happier and happier).

· To succeed in the pursuit of happiness, you must be a functional (not dysfunctional) human being.

· To be a functional (rather than dysfunctional) human being, you must pursue excellence (arete, virtue) in accordance with your nature (human nature).

· Moral excellence or virtue is (generally speaking) following the mean, i.e., avoiding the extremes of excess (too much) and deficiency (too little). In some cases, re: absolute goods (e.g., pursuing wisdom) and absolute evils (e.g., murdering people), the mean does not apply — or perhaps we should say that there is no excess but only deficiency with regard to absolute goods (e.g., you can't have "too much wisdom") and no deficiency but only excess with regard to absolute evils (e.g., you can't commit "too few" murders — even one is too many). If you don't pursue the good and avoid extremes and absolute evils, your life will become disorderly, self-destructive, dysfunctional, and unhappy.

· Intellectual excellence or virtue is the exercise of the intellect in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. It is good to become more knowledgeable and more wise; it is bad to wallow in ignorance and foolishness.

· You are free to pursue moral and intellectual excellence or not. It is in your own best interest to pursue it because, in pursuing moral and intellectual excellence, you will become more excellent, more functional, and more happy. If, in addition to becoming morally excellent, you also make intellectual excellence your chief goal in life, you will become even happier (because the intellect is what is most important about human nature), and the gods will love and bless you because you will be doing what they do (thinking, reasoning, contemplating, etc.).

· To be happy, you must be a fully-functional (morally and intellectually excellent) human being. Some dysfunctional (un-excellent) people may think they are happy, but they're not (not really). They are deluded. They are living contrary to their own nature and thus cannot find self-fulfillment or peace of mind. They smoke, they drink, they abuse drugs, they abuse sex, they bite their nails, they are subject to road-rage, they disrespect and break the law (even when the law is just) — in general, they go to extremes (too much here, too little there) and ruin themselves. (Aristotle does not actually say all that, but I think it fits what he is getting at.)

· In addition to virtue (moral and intellectual excellence) and physiological well-being (e.g., health), which are "internal goods" (i.e., they exist in the self), the successful pursuit of happiness also requires such "external goods" as friends, wealth, political power, and security – i.e., what Aristotle calls "external prosperity." External prosperity and physiological well-being depend to some extent on good fortune, which means that one's happiness can be undermined, at least to some extent, by ill fortune.

Aristotle’s distinction between real and apparent goods

Following Socrates and Plato, Aristotle makes a distinction between real goods and apparent goods. He considers both real and apparent goods to be objects of desire and, with regard to desire, he distinguishes between "right desires" and "wrong desires" as well as between "natural desires" and "acquired desires." Natural desires are inherent in human nature and, as such, are part of the innate endowment of all human beings. The objects of natural desires are things we need, i.e., things without which we cannot live or without which we cannot live reasonably well. Acquired desires are not inherent in human nature but (in the words of Mortimer Adler, a modern Aristotelian) "are the desires that each individual acquires in the course of his or her life, each as the result of his or her own individual experience, conditioned by his or her individual temperament and by the circumstances of his or her individual life." Thus, acquired desires are not the same for all human beings; rather, they vary "from individual to individual, as individuals differ in their temperaments, experiences, and the circumstances of their lives" (Adler). The objects of acquired desires are things we want, not things we need. We can live and live reasonably well without the things we want.

On the foregoing basis, Aristotle's understanding of real and apparent goods and of right and wrong desires may be characterized as follows: What we need (naturally desire) is always really good for us; we cannot be wrong in desiring what we need; desire for what we need is always right desire. What we want (as the object of acquired desire) is always apparently good but not always really good for us. Some of the things we want we also need (e.g., food); such objects of want are therefore not just apparently but also really good. Other objects of want may not meet any need but also may do us no harm and may add to the satisfaction we achieve in our lives. Still other objects of want may be actually bad for us because they do us harm. Thus, some of our acquired desires may be right because they lead us to meet some of our needs or because their objects enhance our lives with satisfactions above and beyond what we need. Other acquired desires are at least acceptable in that they are not directed toward objects that undermine our well-being. However, there are also acquired desires that are wrong because they cause us to act in ways that do us harm and detract from our well-being.

For example: Human beings need food in order to survive. They do not need but may want some particular kind of food – say, broiled flounder – which may do them no harm and may well enhance the dining experience. However, someone may want to eat something that is really unhealthy (raw oysters? rare hamburger? potato chips?); and yet another (also moved by want) may eat otherwise good food to excess and become ill and/or obese and unhealthy. Food is a real good because it meets a fundamental human need; broiled flounder, an apparent good, is also a real good for those who enjoy it, not because they need it but because it increases their satisfaction in life and does them no harm; unhealthy food is (to some) an apparent good that is really bad because it is harmful; and eating good food (a real good) to excess is (again, to some) apparently good but actually bad.

Thus, what we need is always really good, and the desire for it is right desire. It cannot be wrong to desire what we need. What we want – the apparent good – is (1) sometimes really good (when it meets a need or, without being needed, enhances one's satisfaction in living) and (2) sometimes really bad (harmful to oneself or to others). Desire for (1) is either right desire or at least permissible desire; whereas desire for (2) is wrong desire. According to Adler, the apparent goods that are the objects of wrong desire are really bad because they "displace or attenuate [reduce] our desires for the real goods we ought to want; or they come into conflict with such desires and interfere with our wanting the real goods we need."

In addition to such physiological needs as the need for food, human beings have a variety of social, psychological, intellectual, and (perhaps) spiritual needs. Aristotle does not enumerate all of the human needs. However, the modern psychologist, Abraham Maslow – who has often been compared to Aristotle – lists eight categories of human needs: (1) physiological needs (for food, drink, shelter, bodily comfort, physical pleasure, etc.); (2) the need for safety, security, protection from danger; (3) social needs (to be accepted, to belong, to be loved, etc.); (4) the need for self-esteem (to achieve, to be competent, to gain approval and recognition); (5) intellectual needs (to inquire, to know, to understand); (6) aesthetic needs (for symmetry, for order, for beauty); (7) the need for self-actualization (i.e., actualization of one's potential); and (8) the need for self-transcendence (to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential). Perhaps Aristotle would agree with Maslow's taxonomy of human needs, but whatever the various human needs may be, Aristotle's view is that happiness is the satisfaction of our needs and legitimate wants throughout our lives. Happiness results from the acquisition, throughout a lifetime, "of all the real goods that every human being needs" (Adler) and of all the non-needed goods that an individual human being may want, so long as the pursuit of such wanted goods does not interfere with the satisfaction of needs. It is the meeting of needs and legitimate wants, not the satisfaction of all wants, that makes for a successful pursuit of happiness; and to "have what it takes" to persist in that pursuit, a person must be virtuous, both morally and intellectually. Quite often, one must say "no" to what one wants in order to say "yes" to what one needs. This is sometimes true even of legitimate wants. For example, one may want to party (which, in and of itself, is OK) when one needs to study. Saying "no" to our wants in order to say "yes" to our needs requires virtue.

Does Aristotle think that the goal of life – happiness (eudaimonia) – is the same for all human beings? The answer is "both yes and no." Happiness is the lifelong acquisition and accumulation "of all the real goods that every human being needs" and of the non-necessary goods we legitimately want. That is true for everybody. Also, human needs are rooted in human nature itself and are therefore the same for all human beings. Therefore, the "meeting of needs" part of happiness is the same for everybody. However, as we have seen, wants vary from person to person. The part of happiness that consists in the satisfaction of legitimate wants for non-necessary goods is relative to the individual. In that sense, happiness is not the same for everybody. (Note: Adler holds that an object of want is legitimate "if our wanting it or the degree to which we want it does not prevent or seriously impede our attaining one or more of the real goods we need.")

Aristotle and his followers make this analysis the basis of natural rights and moral obligations. All humans have the same needs (natural desires); they do not all have the same wants (acquired desires). Since needs are natural, part of human nature itself, everyone has a natural right to pursue happiness by seeking whatever is really good for a human being, namely, that which meets human needs. If one does not exercise that right but rather lives a life in pursuit of the apparent goods that one wants instead of the real goods that one needs, then one is doing wrong to oneself. The chief moral obligation is to do no wrong. Thus, one has a moral obligation to oneself to pursue happiness by seeking the real goods that one needs and, if necessary, foregoing the apparent and non-necessary goods that one wants. Since everyone, not only a single individual, has a natural right to pursue happiness in this way, the individual also has a moral obligation to others not to wrong them by violating their natural rights, i.e., an obligation not to interfere with or frustrate their search for the real goods they need (or even the non-necessary goods they legitimately want). Every human being has a right and an obligation to pursue her/his own happiness; and every human being also has a right to demand that others (including organized society as a whole) respect and not violate her/his right to the pursuit of happiness. Citizens of an organized society may also have a right to have society (through its laws, policies, and institutions) support their pursuit of happiness by protecting their natural right to seek the real goods they need, which will include assistance to individual citizens as they seek the real goods that they "cannot obtain solely by their own efforts" (Adler).