
Aristotle's Ethics - nyc111
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/
======
woodandsteel
A few important points to understand about Aristotle's ethics. One is that for
him ethics and social and political philosophy are closely interlinked. That
is, you can't have a good society unless its citizens are ethical people, and
going the other way, you can't have ethical citizens unless the society is
structured to produce them.

Secondly, Aristotle followed the general classical Greek view of meaning by
ethics a set of principles for living a rewarding life. And this goes with my
first point in that Aristotle thought the rewarding life (or at least an
essential part of it) is one of productive participation in society.

Thirdly, Aristotle's approach was basically a scientific one. That is, he
observed what sorts of behaviors lead to rewarding lives, and what caused
people to behave in such ways or fail to, and it was from this that he derived
his principles of ethical behavior. And in a similar way he derived his
political philosophy.

This in turn leads to a final point. Many in the modern era criticize aspects
of his political philosophy, such as his approval of slavery and an inferior
position for women. But if you argue that these produce a less happy society,
then you are using Aristotle's empirical method to improve his ideas, rather
than starting all over and using a completely different method to derive your
ethics.

~~~
menexenus
This is not correct.

1) It is true that for Aristotle, ethics and politics are closely linked.
(Indeed, Aristotle announces in the last chapter of the _Ethics_ that the
whole book is actually the "beginning" to the _Politics_.) But it is not true,
for Aristotle, that "you can't have a good society unless its citizens are
ethical people." In Book 3, Chapter 13 of the _Politics_ , Aristotle actually
recommends _excluding_ the most ethical people from the polis.

2) This is completely wrong. Aristotle is not expounding a "set of principles
for living a rewarding life." That is the basis of the modern ethical project.
Aristotle's conception of ethics is quite different. Far from providing a set
of _principles_ to obey (à la Kant, or the deontologists), Aristotle provides
a set of _virtues_ to achieve. Living the good life, for Aristotle, is not at
all about following universal _principles_ \-- rather, it is about trying to
achieve the proper virtue in a given situation and context.

3) This is probably wrong, especially if you mean "science" in the modern
sense of the word. As Aristotle explains in Book 6, Chapter 3 of the _Ethics_
, for him science ( _episteme_ ) is actually only one of five possible ways of
"attaining the truth." (The others are art/ _techne_ , prudence/ _phronesis_ ,
wisdom/ _sophia_ , and intellect/ _nous_.) And it is not clear at all that the
approach that Aristotle himself takes is a "scientific" one, especially
considering the way that he describes the inherent limitations of his inquiry
in Book 1 of the _Ethics_. Furthermore, Aristotle does not observe and
critique the behaviors of other people so much as he does their _opinions_
(i.e., _doxa_ ).

4) Again, the idea that Aristotle had an "empirical method" that is basically
the same as the kind of argumentation that modern commentators employ is
spurious. Did Aristotle look at the world around him? Of course. Does that
make him an empiricist, as you describe? No.

~~~
woodandsteel
>In Book 3, Chapter 13 of the Politics, Aristotle actually recommends
excluding the most ethical people from the polis.

But the ones who are included in the polis still have to be far more ethical
than the worst people. Do you really believe that Aristotle was so foolish as
to believe that you could have a good society if even half its citizens were
simply bad?

>This is completely wrong. Aristotle is not expounding a "set of principles
for living a rewarding life."

Then what is eudemonia supposed to be? The difference between Aristotle and
(some) moderns is what they thought a rewarding life was.

>Far from providing a set of principles to obey (à la Kant, or the
deontologists), Aristotle provides a set of virtues to achieve. Living the
good life, for Aristotle, is not at all about following universal principles
-- rather, it is about trying to achieve the proper virtue in a given
situation and context.

I was writing for non-philosophers, and so I was using the terms as such
people generally understand them, rather than the somewhat different meanings
of academic philosophy.

And let me add that a key reason philosophy today is for most Americans seen
as valueless or dangerous is that philosophers have basically stopped writing
for the general public.

>This is probably wrong, especially if you mean "science" in the modern sense
of the word

As someone with a background in the sciences, I meant science as actually
practiced, rather than the mistaken ideas about it that some philosophers,
such as the positivists, impose on it. His politics was based on
systematically collecting data on over a hundred societies, and analysing it
for patterns. His ethics was based on a life of carefully observing people's
behavior.

>Furthermore, Aristotle does not observe and critique the behaviors of other
people so much as he does their opinions (i.e., doxa).

The reason doxa matters is that people so often act on it.

>Again, the idea that Aristotle had an "empirical method" that is basically
the same as the kind of argumentation that modern commentators employ is
spurious. Did Aristotle look at the world around him? Of course. Does that
make him an empiricist, as you describe? No.

By empirical, I simply mean extensive, systematic observation. Compare for
instance Plato's writings on ethics with Aristotle's.

More generally, as someone with a background in both science and philosophy,
this is what many philosophers don't get about Aristotle. He was far and away
the greatest observer of humans and the natural world who ever lived, and in
this I include logical thinking as a form of human behavior that can go right
or wrong.

The story that philosophers have told for a long time is that modern science
was based on a radical rejection of Aristotle is simply wrong. Aristotle's
philosophy was based on observation plus logical thinking. As such, it is
subject to correction when further observations are made.

What happened was that Aristotle established his version of the forms on the
basis of observation and reasoning, and then in the modern era scientists
making further observations and thinking things out further rejected the forms
and replaced it with modern mechanistic thinking.

