Intro to Aristotle's Ethics | Lecture 2: Aristotle's Politics and the Nature of Man

you [Music] in the second chapter but of the ethics he brings up that politics is the highest form of community and then he explains that in various places in the ethics but especially in a book that he wrote called the politics the ethics ends with a reference to politics this moral concern this concern with the good that we have is born according to Aristotle in our capacity to talk which involves seeing the good in things what a thing is talking is the same thing as thinking the Greek word for thinking and talking is the same word it's the word logos by the way which in the Gospel of John verse 1 in the beginning was the word that word is logos it's a big important word right in in in theology and in philosophy because your thinking is unique among creatures among the other creatures are not rational but you can do it out loud if you have friends or if you have spouses then one of the things you'll think is you can just tell them everything you think they can know you so what arises from this gift of reason first of all moral concern interest in the good second of all a radical kind of sociability and if you put together orality and sociability you get politics now we're gonna have the ritual that we perform at Hillsdale College in class what did we do last time and then everyone looks at his notes Ryan so last time we started off by talking about what is ethics and we decided that it's the study of how best to live and that involves character which takes time to H it takes time to develop and okay stop a minute didn't we isolate that ethics is not the study of anything it's a way to live and the study is to find out what that is what are you studying when you're studying ethics what is the answer to that character you said what that mean yet you're in grave sharing that's right something that gets in you right do this to yourself real hard right now you know right that push you push push push you know it starts to hurt that and then you'll remember that longer than if you just done that and so this character-building thing hard work and requires a lot of preparation because it's also a little bit like this too if you like tried to build your character with the chisel you'd kill yourself you have to do it you have to do it in materially right and you have to do it a lot and over and over again and we said what the purpose of ethics is didn't we well it's to form the character in accordance with the good and the purpose of that well the good is is beautiful so it's good for its own sake so everything it's in order to bring the human person into order with to direct his action with the good or towards it to be happy there we go that's all of that that you just said is summarized in the expression happiness but we're gonna get there now you'll find out by the way anybody who undertakes a serious college education will find out that much of the time and much of the benefit is contained in learning what words mean and we threw around a bunch of big words last time our inquiry choice the biggest of that series good beautiful so now we need to find out what those words mean also human human person and we're gonna define what that is right now okay so we're gonna turn to a different book by Aristotle it's called politics Gill tell us what politics our politics is I don't want to say study it ain't though politics is a communion of persons and with a common end in a state we're talking about what is good and advantageous and just okay then had all the elements but it was a little sloppy so put that in order for us Steven can you do that I would just say it's the things that have to do with the political community when we talk about those things we're talking about politics and what is the political community what is community and what makes it political well a community is a partnership and Aristotle tells us that like human beings the community aims at the good and the political community is the highest kind of community somebody reads the first sentence of chapter 1 book 1 of Aristotle's politics another very great book since we see that every city is some sort of community and that every community is constituted for the sake of some good for everyone does everything for the sake of what is held to be good it is clear that all communities aim at some good and that the community that is most authoritative of all and embraces all the others does so particularly and aims at the most authoritative good of all this is what is called the city or the political community so remember we talked about the arts and how they're arranged in a hierarchy vital making bridle horsemanship victory something beyond victory because you could be victorious and healthy we named healthy is another thing good for its own sake you could be victorious and healthy and still be miserable so what would you add to those and air sources there has to be some ultimate or else there'd be an infinite regression and I'll tell you what that means it's a practical problem right and it's one of the things that's shot through with our way of thinking today so it's an innovation of the last hundred years and that is what we think is there's different ultimate ends for different human beings and that means that because these things are so in such an integrity in the way Aristotle presents them up and down it would mean that if you started out and if the ultimate thing were this or this then when you work your way down you'd get to a different place and that means none of this would hold true so he's saying that just as he's already said that the arts and the goods are arranged in a hierarchy now he introduces the fact that communities or partnerships are also arranged in a hierarchy and then this first sentence also contains the information that if you want to know definitively what a thing is find out what it's for what today meant that's not the whole of it right but there are other causes of things that contribute to the definition of them but the authoritative one is what's it for and he says that there's lots of communities and they too are arranged in a hierarchy according to their ends the hierarchy of their ends the ones that aim at higher goods are better and the ones the payment the ultimate good are best yeah is that why he's calling it the most authoritative good of all because the political communities aiming at that good that's going to order all everything else that's right in and we mustn't lose sight of the fact that politics is authoritative in two senses one is in every political community the political community has a monopoly on force you know it it's authoritative like that give you orders shoot you if you don't follow them if you get pulled over for speeding and you refuse to get pulled up to be pulled over if it goes far far enough the military be after you and they can probably get you so it's authoritative that way but also is one just said what you're saying is then that there are some ends and other ends are ordered toward them they give those other ends their purpose and therefore they have authority over them they define what they are and this community is said to be the authoritative one now we don't have time to read it in book one today somebody sketch if you can remember it how does he layout these communities you know because remember he lays out the arts shipbuilding for ships and that for travel and navigation or transported and Bridal linking for bridles how do the communities how does he lay them out and he lists the order of them yeah right he starts with the household and the household begins with the male and female who have children and then also the master and the slave and has the household exists for the fulfillment of daily needs okay Ryan said slave and so I should make a point about that if you read the olive book one we're not gonna do it here you'll find out that Aristotle actually says that slavery is just only in the case of someone who is incapacitated and unable to direct their own lives and there are such people it's not many and slavery is common in Athens and it comes from conquest mostly when you defeat somebody you can enslave them which the Greeks did a lot and he doesn't say that it's got to be abolished overnight but he says that it's wrong except in that case it's a very important point to make and then he says a very pregnant thing in here that I'll just point out he says if the shuttle could weave or the plectrum or pick could strike of itself so in other words if you could make cloth or you could play music of themselves that means a machine that does it automatically then maybe this relationship of master and slave would not be needed in other words Aristotle foresees a world in which technology does all that stuff so about the slavery thing just remember it's a kind of attitude you have to adopt which is very contrary to the prevailing attitude today once you adopt the attitude that you're going to find out the truth about a thing important thing and the truth doesn't depend on what you think mrs. Ellis it's the truth about what you think if you're going to try to find that out and you're going to be serious about that you're going to have to be prepared to look everywhere and that means back in the past - and of course everywhere you look every single place you look will be in the past because the prison is an instant and the future is unknown and so if it's a barrier that Aristotle assumes that the household will have slaves to understanding Aristotle that's just one point to take up and figure out what that does and whether he's compromised by that and as I say I told you what he said about it I don't think Aristotle thought that there was justice in human slavery except in rare cases and so that's because you mentioned that but now let's go back to the more fundamental thing than master and slave the relationship in the household that's primary which means first is what male and female and why are they first I mean in order to survive as a unit you have to have the Union between the male and female and the propagation of mankind that comes from that marriage or to rephrase that in order to have the male in the female you're required to have the male and the female we come to be through the family and it exercises an influence on us powerful influence on us right through our lives and the Aristotle's point is everything starts with that and that gives us a really great possibility of understanding this hierarchy again because the family is primary you start with that is it sufficient no why is it not sufficient on its own it just fulfills the needs of daily life but it doesn't help one live life well it the household turns into the village when several households come together what's the village for I would say the the village is a step above that but it's not yet it's not yet the city so list some things that the family can't supply I come from Arkansas and they're jokes about it but even there it's not right to marry your sister so you need some more faith you need some more families around also families just a few and for much of the life of the family some of them are young and require defense it's not a very defensible unit it's in danger you can't really have much trade in a family and so a whole bunch of stuff spring to life and these things mark you are naturally human things that where nature comes from the a Latin word that means birth so the most natural relationship is the reproductive relationship the way human beings come to be and it's weird about by the way human beings coming to be because they take a long time to race compared to other animals and yet we have discretion of whether we do it or not one of the elements and aspects of our freedom and and yet it matters very much even to us whether we do it or not so there's that right and the family is all wrapped up in that stuff and everything starts with that stuff but then right away a whole bunch of more stuff is needed and when I'm as exchange and one of them is defense and so you get a village and then something is added to that and it airs I was not necessarily saying he can trace how one develops and the next develops than the next develops these communities are like the goods that and the arts that we examined they're arranged in a hierarchy and so the family is very important and then something is added that also in the family in the village and then finally the city what's added there the city is the partnership of villages and so the villages can come together and because of that the city can actually exist itself it's self-sufficient and what does it aim for living well happiness so the virtues right law is a moral phenomenon it's all about right and right and wrong if you just ask yourself grandly what is the good for which the United States of America aims there's an answer to that you couldn't speak intelligently about that if you didn't mention the debt course of Independence which states then right but you know the same thing is true of China what is the good for which it aims well it's ruled by a communist party that makes very authoritative statements about that you can read them here's what we're here to do and for the good of our nation and the world we few who are in control are going to do those things and those are different from America right Lincoln said every nation has a central idea from which all its minor thoughts radiate in ours it's the principle of human equality stated in the Declaration of Independence so they're not all like that though right and so when the city comes together all of a sudden there's a community that's making ultimate claims it's very important we learn in the course of this book Aristotle says that the law is generally more influential than your parents which is too bad in a way if it's true but I think it is true so it's a very powerful thing and it's adopted by a people in a community that carries the powers of life and death and that's an old story it's true in America as it was in Sparta okay so that's book 1 chapter 1 so we're going to skip ahead to chapter 2 now we're gonna find out what we mean by good and what we mean by human person so somebody read that from these things it is evident from these things that is evident them that the city belongs among the things that exist by nature and that man is by nature a political animal he who is without a city through nature rather than chance is either a mean sort or superior to man he is without clan without law without hearth like the person reproved by homer for the one who is such by nature has by this fact a desire for war as if he were an isolated piece in a game of backgammon that man is much more a political animal than any kind of be or any herd animal as clear ok stuff read that lessons again that man is much more a political animal than any kind of be or any herd animal is clear that's dramatic isn't it these are swarm animals everything is in common radical division of labor among the different ranks of the bees right everything serves the queen the queen serves everything else they do everything together in fact when they're flying they will you know you see a swarm right and they if they turn they all turn rarely leaving one behind right we are more political than that so just remember how radical that is it means that your political side of your nature is embedded in you at least equally as much as your kidneys or your heart right that's the claim ok go ahead and read for as we assert nature does nothing in vain and man alone among the animals has speech nature does nothing in vain where's that mean Julia what do you say it's essentially that in if we have a capacity such as speech then it has to be for some sort of guide or first I'm sorry yeah there's some about it right and and and man alone among the animals as speech a unique thing now the word here is logos and Greek which means both speech and reason go ahead the voice indeed indicates the painful or pleasant and hence is president other animals as well for their nature has come this far that they have a perception of the painful and pleasant and indicate these things to each other so this morning if my wife stays in bed past about 7:45 the dogs start talking to her and she knows what they're saying they're saying breakfast that's their point they want something pleasure pain right they whine if something hurts right and we all understand my wife actually carries on a dialogue all day long with the dogs and yet in a practical sense they understand her but not in another sense so go ahead but speech serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful and hence also the just and the unjust for as peculiar to man as compared to the other animals that he alone has a perception of good and bad and just and unjust and other things of this sort and partnership in these things is what makes a household and a city so do you notice the occurrence in the word of the word good in that sentence we perceive the good and that's why we can talk the claim is there's something we see all the time and everything we see that other animals don't see and that is what makes us unique and that is what makes us political speech which also means however reason makes us unique and political now you can see why speech would make us social we can talk to each other right but what are we doing when we talk that involves understanding the good oh because like we're each human being is pursuing an end like we have to talk to each other about what we're going to do yeah it's a more basic than that more than immediate more immediate yeah Julia well since speech is connected to reason we're able to like actually reason about via speech it's some sort of abstract gate that work or yeah it's some sort of bit that we are aiming for either as a community or an individual how do we uh I was blessed with a really great teacher and one of the best things he understood and could explain he knew his Ariston was how does it come to be that we use common nouns how can we do that his claim is there's a miracle in that that's parallel to the miracle of creation yeah everything's too uniform around here right so pinpin right and you get a fountain pen you've got one yeah it's pretty good so they're different right this is the Lummi Safari do you like pens I do how did Martin Gilbert wrote much of the official biography Winston Churchill was the Lummi safari really they were all over the place right is this a Mont Blanc I couldn't tell you yeah yeah it could be a knockoff yeah probably why'd you graduates didn't even have any money see they're different how do you know and yet you know you can say to somebody in another room where neither of you can see what you're instructing the person to do would you please go and get me a pin on my desk and they got no idea what the thing's gonna look like when they get there but they always find it this is light work for human beings this is automatic but and nobody ever teaches us to do it well there's about two years old we all start talking right and no other being ever does you know we have four children we didn't teach them to talk they just started talking you know and in our family the children are raised just like the dogs for the first two here's live on the floor eat the food on the floor you know handy but then they start talking and six months later they live in a richly populated world elephants bees horses know everything somehow they can do that and the dogs never do right they're still stupid that's their charm by the way so Aristotle says that's how we see good things are defined by their purpose and the point is this does this they're a little bulky these ones yeah I know and this is a fine point right yeah yeah you're very precise young man so so the point is it's it you know it it does this and this that's yours this does this and this does the same thing except it's hot that's got a little cool magnetic top on the top so so that's their purpose they're good at it they become hard to recognize if they're harmed in a way that defeats the purpose so the imaginary water bottle with the bottom cut out it's not a good one anymore it's lost the being to the good and the being Aircel rights are convertible terms where you can use one in a sentence you can use the other one good cup being a cup good book being of the book right good glasses being of the glasses the basis of all human speech is the common noun and every time we identify one we are identifying the good and the being of a thing and when it says in the first sentence of this that the good is that at which all things aim he's claiming that there's a propriety and satisfaction in each thing being fully what it is and a bad thing is only a good thing spoiled Mark Twain golf he said a good walk spoiled [Laughter] apologies to the golfers but uh but you see the thing that makes you what you are and makes you more political than horses and bees is this ability to perceive and use the common noun from which all language comes so then how does that sorry how does not relate to talking about the human good though because like you were with the examples we've been talking about they're all man-made things artificial things so it's kind of like very clear to know what their being or their purposes because we've given it to them in a sense and so then how does that relate to like perceiving of human beings because we can see that these are all human beings because they're good in some way so there's an explicit statement in the ethics about this Aristotle says you know if there's a way for the beings to be good a horse or anything else must be some way like that for a human what do you want a horse to be like well there's different kinds of good horses Secretariat probably the greatest racehorse I am - I like horses I like the fact that they I don't know much about horses now I have horses but horses love to run and they're beautiful when they run and so their ability to do that that's what's awesome right if you if you think that the word education means lead fourth watch a horse go forward and then watch it go backwards it's not very good at that well the point is if you can see that about a horse you can see it about a person and just like in the horses just like the mayor pretty she's a pretty white horse is you know gentle and all that and something really good about that right serves one of the functions of a horse even if you might be able to isolate the highest fine which this book is going to say there are many functions for a human being and many of worth but that doesn't mean that there's not one that highest and we're going to isolate what that is and living in the light of that ultimate one Aristotle is going to claim even if you can't fully participate in it will improve and ennoble your life at whatever level you live it because by the way if you're interested in fathoming and holding the good and the true and the beautiful once you start valuing that kind of thing to know what beautiful things are to appreciate and contemplate their beauty to develop wisdom which is the accumulation of knowledge about ultimate things and takes time the next thing you know is you become aware of things that really do give purpose and direction to your life you see and then Aristotle is going to say before we're done that if you practice up through these immediate and sometimes small virtues every day in a way to build your character finally you will get yourself to a place where you can hold your soul in attention and you see truly the things that are happening outside you and you are not in the way anymore your wishes and your want are not the thing now now you are looking at things as they are and seeing the truth and the beauty and the good in them which means also seeing when it's there the ugliness and the flaw in them and the falseness in them you see and to see the world as it is you actually have to cultivate these moral virtues that are the next thing in order to get yourself into a state of patience and attention where you can put your energy into doing each thing before you not just the really great moment or you get to read something or see something that's beautiful and live in harmony with it for a time but also the regular moments Chesterton draws a picture Samuel Johnson very similar of a well-ordered human soul and how it looks to others see you slows does this too actually and he says one way it looks is when you're talking with that person they seem untroubled and attentive and they're not unfriendly and yet they're judging and listening and they're looking for a chance to help to teach to learn right and that's somebody who's got their life in order and the point is that takes practice a long time I have to really commit to it but it's great to do you

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Length: 32min 37sec (1957 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2019