Intro to Aristotle's Ethics | Lecture 1: The Good

[Music] [Applause] [Music] every student who's an admitted freshmen at Hillsdale College we send them a copy of Aristotle's ethics that's a frightening thing to do everybody knows that there's something a little complicated right I brought my toy Aristotle here this morning so you can see how friendly he is the reason to do it is we all have a common problem everybody has one problem how do you live well and we're in charge of that we human beings in our well-being our happiness depends upon how we do that and then I come here and ethics is the first great book written about that subject and in my belief the best book ever written Aristotle begins with a very dramatic statement and in the first sentence of the ethics he says that every action and every choice and every inquiry and every thing we make we seem to make for some good if you just start with this question what's good and how do I be that that's what the subject of ethics is about morning kiddies how you doing so this is a class about ethics what is that the study of human character what one ought to do what do we mean by character the recurrent habits of action that you follow through in your life it mean habits it's the steady state of its formed throughout habits so you have the steady state through which you'll act in a particular way because of the kind of character you have so that's something to mark down before we're done we need to figure out what we mean by a steady state and we need to figure out how you get one I argue that ethics is the study of how best to live you know what's you know what's going to dominate your careers insofar as the domination is in your power your character it'll be overwhelmingly important the credentials matter right at the beginning but then human being fully at work reveals itself and the good ones get promoted in any just situation so it matters what you are very much why is it ethics important because we're trying to figure out how to be good good good is important and that we're going to find out that it's a really commanding word it's a beautiful word we're going to learn what the word beautiful means too so ethics is ethics trying to figure out how to be good no it's becoming good being good and then being good give me another definition of that word one of ethics yeah I would say develop development of your character character big word big word lots of disputes in America today about character we're not gonna make any topical references except that one very vague illusion but character comes from a Greek word you're the one who knows Greek do you know Greek the Greek word caressing mark yeah mark H engrave tattoo you know not paint on the surface dig in right character is dug in something deep in us and I if we do our work well everybody who watches this is going to know how you do that and what you're like if you do it well it's what Steven said down there he said learning how to be good and that is the whole question we almost never asked that question today we introduced the young to learning the word education means lead forth we leave off forth and that means we introduce the young to education with an invitation for them to become whatever they want to be but you know they could become ostriches maybe but they wouldn't be very good at that and for a reason that we're going to study in this class it's the reason ethics is a big subject it is the first subject and this is the first book ever written about it and I will tell you back in the Paleolithic era when I was in graduate school in the first class I had with the great man he called this one of the greatest books ever written so somebody read the first sentence what does it say every art and every inquiry and likewise every action and choice seems to aim at some good and hence it has been beautifully said but the good is that at which all things aim now look at the nouns in that sentence and aren't they interesting they're all fundamental words what is art me technical knowledge yeah yeah a craft something bank so you said the word technical and the Greek word is Tecna that's making it means it doesn't mean like in the background is Raphael's School of Athens right that's fine art that's high art but it has in common with whoever made that glass right there that it was produced it was made it was designed and executed according to skill and with the purpose in mind and the first claim is that every time we do that we aim at some good isn't it interesting that word good we're gonna have to figure out what that means what's an inquiry just a question it says something more than a question isn't it the word is a method else in Greek and a method in other words undertake it right it's just you know heck I wonder what's going to happen tomorrow and then you go on about your life that's not an inquiry right we're going to find out what ethics is this is an inquiry and also remember we're going to encounter in book 1 Aristotle saying the reason this book is to be read is to become good this is an urgent inquiry and this inquiry like every other he says Eames it's some good action what's that word ok I don't actually know yeah praxis you don't knows Greek somebody here was spouting Greek last time yeah yeah so praxis you know what that means yeah it's like doing it yeah we get practice practical from it practice so every action we take right every time we make something every time we inquire about something every time we act and then the last is choice what's choice picking between alternatives that's right and that word is pro heresies and that's one of the most important words in the ethics in fact they're all very important words but if you had to pick one of these words that word is crucial because choice is at the center of the building of character in this word choice is found the basis of human freedom because it's not just that you're free to choose it's also that your choices matter very much and they make you what you are human beings we're going to discover faced obstacles and the virtues are the good confrontation and tackling of those are obstacles and if you do that it will change you and make you better you can become awesome start today and and it's so another thing is this is the greatest self-help book ever written so they all seemed aim at some good and we're gonna get a full definition of that word next time but what what does it mean provisionally right now well I thought it was interesting that he qualifies it as some good and not good so I guess he's introducing some ambiguity saying well there might be more than one thing that is good and we're gonna try to find out a murder in action yes every murder aims at some good that's the claim right yeah I do you think that's true at a perceived good someone thinks that committing a murder will be good in the end I think at least in the great majority of cases and a real good I'll tell you why there's a really great television news report does that sound like an oxymoron something that's a contradiction in terms it was interviews in a Texas maximum-security prison and here were their claims almost all of the claims were I didn't do it I did it because and what follows because it's always some good I needed money this person harmed me or something dear to me then ex culpa Tory factors yeah a lot of people did worse and didn't get as bad a sentence as I got see they were all talking about justice and the good it's very rare in fact it's a sign of insanity if somebody says I killed him and I did it because I'd love to kill maybe people are moved by that but they hardly ever say that this says unavoidably you're aiming for something that you claim is good yeah one so I get the distinction then is between aiming at something that's good and the action itself being good because perhaps we can say that the murder itself wasn't a good thing to do even if it was a murder sure but you know just if you just abstract from the murder from the moral implication of it somebody said a bomb with a purpose to kill Adolf Hitler right was that good or put it more directly George Patton wanted nothing more than to get to Berlin first and personally shoot Adolf Hitler that's what he thought he was made for would that be a murder yes yes I shouldn't do that you should you should yeah remember all of these four kinds of actions which describe every voluntary human action have a moral caste that is the rightness or wrongness of them is in question and do you see about this confusion that there's some good well there are many Goods and we're gonna find out they're arranged in a hierarchy these many Goods and it's a little confusing to know which one to be pursuing now if you think for a minute what's going on in your mind minute by minute day by day what must what's the big thing in most days aren't you trying to figure out what to do look young and handsome and so the joys of youth are available to you stay up all night play or study you can do it night after night and then you start looking like a scene from The Walking Dead which is what finals are like around here and but but all that calls to you because it's good and then dang it you need to read these books right and those are both good things and one of them calls louder sometimes but that doesn't mean that the relationship between the two things alters and that's a choice and the claim is every time you make a choice it places a mark on your soul and it makes you what you are and nobody makes them all perfect anybody who's determined to make them well every day and having failed some that day start again in the morning those people become good and will find out not only good also happy which is what we all want to be more than anything else and happy doesn't mean in this book we're gonna get to it it doesn't mean feel good about yourself and have a pleasant outlook on the day it doesn't mean just lifting your face up to the sunshine and seeing it warm when you're up here in Michigan and it's kind of cold it it those are those are pleasures and pleasures can be bad for you or they can be good for you it depends on your character okay now enhance somebody read from there and hence it has been beautifully said that the good is that at which all things am but a certain difference is apparent among okay no too far guilt okay feels very guilty precocious he's ready to do the whole book right now but think about that that second clause seemed aim at some good beautifully said that the good is that at which all things aim those are different aren't they if good means for a provisional explanation will use the term good to mean a thing being fully what it is that's a good glass I don't think it's a great one not to my taste anyway but it's fine it functions if you drilled a hole in the bottom of it wouldn't be a good glass any more I like to use water bottles you know the ubiquitous kind of things right because if you cut the bottom off of them then they're not a good water bottle anymore but if you turn it upside down take the top off they turn into a funnel so they had the being of the water pond and that made them a good water bottle and then they lost the being of the water bottle but in that particular case they gained the being of the funnel and they could be a good funnel I thought of that because when I'm talking there's usually a water bottle around and I'm looking for something to illustrate the point with and it turns out those are really good so beautiful what does that mean yeah that which is perfected of being yeah and see Isaac here what year you in junior he's a junior and he's precocious too so he has a philosophic turn and so he's going to use technical phrases I'm gonna make them explain what they are so being means what well that which is that which is not is not yeah that which do you write use that expression when you're right I'm an English major No so the being of a thing is just what it is right in Aristotle the being of a thing is just what it is now that makes it good by the way if it is that thing it's good if it's a soil they're broken or damaged one or distorted one it's not a good one anymore one made the very good point that he says that every action thought and everything every voluntary thing we do seems to emit some good and then it has been beautifully said that every action aims at the good right now I will tell you that in my graduate student class we spent six weeks on that sense and it was worth it now so just think of that the contrast right there's a contrast between good and beautiful and there's a contrast between some and thee and the implication is going to be that the goods are arranged in a hierarchy so somebody read on but a certain difference is apparent among ends since some are ways of being at work while others are certain kinds of works produced over and above the being at work being at work what does that mean what why does he use that this is by the way an idiosyncratic translation I like it and he uses being at work to emphasize the fact that Aristotle uses that word for being in a kind of a technical way and it means active radiating pulsing with its existence Aristotle doesn't see that that is inert that's busy being a glass right now so that's why I uses that one of the reasons why I use that so go ahead and in those cases in which there are ends of any kind beyond the actions the works produced are by nature better things than the activities okay let's stop about that but a certain difference is apparent among ends what're ends purposes right it's a very important word in Aristotle Tilos we get telescope from it something out distant that you can see right and ends are what you aim for but you're after right yeah we don't and since there are many actions and arts and kinds of knowledge the ends also turn out to be many of medical knowledge the end is health of shipbuilding skill it is about a strategic art it is victory of household management it is wealth but in as many such pursuits as are under someone capacity in the way that bridle making and all the other skills involved with implements pertaining to horses come under horsemanship well this and every action pertaining to war come under strategic art and in the same way other pursuits are under other capacities in all of them the ends of all the master arts are more worthy of choice than are the ends of the pursuits that come under them okay so let's unpack that so somebody makes a bridle why do they do it tread the horse well they want the bridle why do they want the bridle sure outdoors bridle making bridle horsemanship what's that good for in the Greek world cavalry an urgent good right you need that or you can lose everything and the ultimate thing then that this light that this chain of things aims for is victory and victory is a different kind of thing than the others because you always want it and you're always diminished without it whereas you know bridle making is often an annoyance and you can certainly have too many bridles but victory you just need that thing and he mentioned the medical art right and it's a his health health is like victory you need that thing each of these things takes its dignity from the step above it and from all the steps above it and that means the higher good that it serves even a small beginning point thing the greater the dignity it has so we're gonna find out that the things that can make you happy because that's the highest human good according to Aristotle it means to live beautifully which is the hi beautiful is the highest form of the good and that's a pagan thought but it's not entirely different from the Christian thought of beatitude see God finally and that would be seeing a complete and ultimate perfection person who put that argument together best is probably Thomas Aquinas who wrote a long commentary on this book that's very worth reading okay in the first sentence all of our actions are directed at some good and it's beautiful to say that all of them taken together aim it Z good and then it's introduced a hierarchy of the goods and you see how in that twenty lines or whatever it is you start learning to look at the universe vertically things point up and one of the things about reading this book is you have to learn to look up it's not young people today are sort of taught this way if you sort of drew a picture of how they're taught they think that there are many universes and they stand at the center of one of them CS Lewis like to make the point that back in the day when we criticize everybody for being such fools they thought the earth was the center of the universe and see as Lewis a very learned man points out in in one of his academic works the discarded image is the title of the briefest version of that academic work he points out that that's not what they thought in the ancient in the medieval world they thought we were at the bottom of the universe with that we were standing down the bottom looking up at a great height skyscrapers the bottom of the Grand Canyon and that you know that's not hubris that's reverence that reverence is contained in this sentence within the limit but this is an inquiry we're supposed to find out supposed to get to the truth of the matter that's what we're here to do [Music]

Channel: Hillsdale College

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Length: 23min 51sec (1431 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2019

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Lecture and group discussion presented by Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College.

You can find the complete series here:

https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/ethics/home/aristotles-ethics-schedule

You can read more about Aristotelian ethics here.