Nicomachean Ethics

Soul is divided into two parts, so is virtue.

Intellectual Virtue (It is essential in our living well.)

For example:

- Prudence

- Wisdom

Moral Virtue (It is essential in achieving higher happiness.)

For example:

- Temperance

- Cautious

Aristotle's potentiality and actuality.

"Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good has been aptly described as that at which everything aims."

*Intermediate aims make the achievement of higher aims possible.

Politics is the most authoritative or highest aim.

Since politics govern people's living, therefore is a more sacred good than human good.

Ethics - personal happiness

Politics - happiness for the whole community.

Politics lead to eudaimonia and "living-well".

2. Friendship based on pleasure

2. Your friend became far superior to you in virtue.

A Great disparity Impossible to treat he/she as a friend

Different interests and different likes and dislikes

different feelings about each other

e.g. one remains a child in intelligence, the other is a man of outstanding ability

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References

Bostock, David (2000). Aristotle’s Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Broadie, Sarah (1991). Ethics with Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press.

Burger, Ronna (2008). Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics. University of Chicago Press.

Cooper, John M. (1975). Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Hardie, W.F.R. (1968). Aristotle's Ethical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hughes, Gerald J. (2001). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle on Ethics. London: Routledge.

Kraut, Richard (1989). Aristotle on the Human Good. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kraut, ed., Richard (2006). The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.

May, Hope (2010). Aristotle's Ethics Moral Development and Human Nature. London: Continuum.

Pakaluk, Michael (2005). Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rorty, ed., Amelie (1980). Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Reeve, C.D.C. (1992). Practices of Reason: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pangle, Lorraine (2003). Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sherman, ed., Nancy (1999). Aristotle’s Ethics: Critical Essays. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Urmson, J.O. (1988). Aristotle’s Ethics. New York: Blackwell.

Warne, Christopher (2007). Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: Reader's Guide. London: Continuum.

"Our feelings toward friends reflect our feelings to ourselves"

N. Ethics VS Confucian Beliefs

Eudaimonia & Friendships

• People define a friend as - one who wishes and effects the good, also wishes for the existence and preservation of his friend for the friend's sake.

• In real friendship - a person thinks himself is good, he wants his friend to be good also.

How many friends should one have?

Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle

1. Aristotle - defines the best type of friendship is based on good character.

孔子曰：「益者三友，損者三友。友直，友諒，友多聞，益矣！友便辟，友善柔，友便佞，損矣！」

孔子說：「忠告而善道之；不可則止，毋自辱焉！」

2. Aristotle - few friends with strong friendship is enough to pursue happiness

「人生得一知己，死而無憾﹗」

• Some said “The best is to have more and more friends as possible.”

The truth is not too many nor none.

1. Too many : we cannot make friends with too many people because we

cannot “love” many people at the same time.

2. Friendless : too lonely , we can’t live without friends because we cannot

share out feelings to someone else.

• There is no one correct number but anything between certain limits. Strong friendship too is felt only towards a few. A few friends for amusement are quite enough, like a pinch of seasoning in food.

- Quality > Quantity!!!!

Aristotle - happiness is a public affair, not a private one, so with whom we share this happiness is of great significance

Politics - collective happiness (community)

Sharing of happiness is the fundamental factor to build up a eudaimonia community.

Friends may not be necessary for happiness, but it is a contributing factor of eudaimonia.

Since eudaimonia is a kind of individual well being, therefore in order to do so, we have to get knowing of ourselves, and thus it is a process of making friend with ourselves.

Friendly Intercourse

- Good friends always share their time to share their joy and make lives worth living. E.g. some drink together, hang out together.

- Bad man always share their time together doing bad things therefore the friendship will have bad influence to both of them

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Break up of friendships

- Frequently between the young ( they are regulated by their feelings , interested in own pleasure)

- Easy to make/break

- Spend the day together -> realize the object of their friendship

Break up of friendship

Changes/Misconceptions in friendship :

1. Your friend being worse than you thought

 Accepted a person as a friend due to his

“goodness” but turn out he is a bad person

surely not loving him anymore

friendship broke

But if the depravity is curable, friendship may be restored.

3. Friendship based on goodness

- Friendship based on utility and pleasure is less enduring although friendship for the sake of pleasure/utility have a resemblance to perfect friendship.

To create friendship!

- Aristotle states that it's the “PERFECT” one : Perfect in duration/all other respects

- goodness is long-lasting -> this friendship aroused because of goodness -> friendship is long-lasting

- Rare, Men of this kind are few.

- Need time and intimacy

- “Men cannot know each other until they have eaten salt together.”- Aristotle

- Pleasure and Utility friendship is possible between good/bad men.

- Even two bad/one bad one good, or no character because bad people can take pleasure in each other only when there are some benefits.

- Good friendship only possible between good men

- Good men can take pleasure in each other and appreciate each other's good.

Cheung Hoi Long, Bosco 1155055734

Wong Hoi Lam, Karen 1155063522

Yu Cheuk Yin, Victor 1155063638

Leung Tsz Hang, Gary 115063635

Pleasure & Utility Friendship is easier to break

There is a proportion that secures equality

and preserves in these friendships like

trade , exchange.

When they no longer have their attributes (utility, pleasure)

feel no affection then underlay their

friendship

the friendship is OVER!!!!

Love VS being loved

- Most people want to be loved more than to love due to the desire for honour.

BUT!!!!!!!!!!

“In friendship loving is more important than being loved”

Loving is the distinctive virtue of friends.

When love is given in accordance with merit. People remain friends friendships endures!

1. Friendship based on utility

The 3 characteristics of loveable things

1. Good

2. Pleasant

3. Useful

Three kinds of friendship

How friendships are recognized?

Utility : e.g. money, power

impermanent - change according to circumstance

- Frequently between elderly ( they want utility but not pleasure)

Don't spend time much together,

even NOT LIKE ONE ANOTHER!

Don't speak of friendship in the case of our affection for inanimate objects because no returns of affection, no wish for the good of the object

- well disposed towards each other

- wishing each other's good

- not to hide your real feeling.

Since people love things due to 3 reasons, therefore the affections and friendships that they arouse are also different in kind :

1. Based on utility

2. Based on pleasure

3. Based on goodness

N. Ethics VS Confucian Beliefs

What's friendship?

N. Ethics VS Confucian Beliefs

- Kind of Virtue

- Necessary for living.

Nobody would choose to live

without friends even he if he had

all the other good things.

- The bond holds communities

together

1. Unique function of human beings - virtues

Aristotle - distinct human beings from all other life forms

Confucian - 人禽之辨 (人本具仁義之性)

2. Internality of virtues

Aristotle - the supreme good is for own sake and self-sufficient

Confucian - the consideration of virtues prioritizes when doing any act

- the pursuit of any external good is standardized by inner good (virtues) which are humanity and justice

3. Practical Wisdom

Aristotle - virtue can be learned only through constant practice (experience)

no set rules we can learn and then obey

exercise of rational power (interllectual virtues) but priorities exist when it comes to different situations

Confucian - 中庸之道

Doing the right thing at the right time and not just blindly following the rules

孟子說「大人者，言不必信，行不必果，惟義所在。」

in special cases - need to consider 義

The Nicomachean Ethics

Synopsis of Chapter One

Chapter One

By Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher.

It is believed to be Aristotle's lecture notes at Lyceum.

Edited by and dedicated to Aristotle's son - Nicomachus.

Defined the Aristotellian Ethics.

Ethics - practical rather than theoretical

Means and End

Aristotle divided good into three different kinds.

- To distinguish the aim of the activity.

1.) External goods

2.) Goods of the soul

3.) Goods of the body

These goods are mutually inclusive.

1. The End is apart from the means.

- End could be better than means.

E.g. building or learning

2. The End = Means

- The activity is at the same time the end

E.g. seeing or thinking

Hierarchy of Ends - some ends are superior than the other ends

supreme good - ultimate end (complete and self-sufficient)

E.g. 釣勝於魚

Chapter One

Eudaimonia (happiness or human flourishing) is the highest aim of all human practical thinking.

Happiness is an activity according to virtue.

Compare three different ways of life to understand and achieve eudaimonia.

1.) The slavish way of pleasure - the mainstream understanding of happiness.

2.) The refined and active way of politics - the aim of honor.

3.) The way of contemplation - to think and reflect oneself.

External Goods

- Wealth

- Fame

- Honor

- Power

- Friends

- Luck

Slavish way of pleasure - happiness in pleasure.

(The bestial life)

- Generally, human are slavish.

- Human are satisfied with the bestial life style.

- Pleasure is part of the good life, but not the ultimate end.

- It is the commonest way of happiness.

Goods of the body

- Life

- Health

- Good looks

- Physical strength

- Dexterity

Aristotle - happiness = living well and doing well

Eudaimonia

- to live well because protected by a guardian spirit

- lifelong activity that act accordingly to your soul, leading to "well being" of individual

Happiest life - contemplative life

Unique function of man - virtuous activity of a soul happiness

Golden Mean = balance between deficieny and excess of the virtues

The refined and active way of politics. (The political life)

- Honor as the aim of life.

- Honored because of virtue, and

- Virtue is not eudaimonia, but a quality, a mean to higher aim.

- It is a better way of living comparing to the slavish way.

Goods of the soul

- Virtue

- Life-projects

- Knowledge and education

- Creativity and appreciation

- Recreation

- Friendship

The contemplative life.

- Pleasure with respect to every faculty,

- through thoughts and contemplations,

- and the activities corresponding to the best part of men.

- The activity of intellect is the best human activity.

- It is self-sufficient.

- It is the best, the most pleasant and the happiest way of living.

- The activities that are closest to gods' are the happiest, since they are contemplative.