- [Chris] I'm Chris Surprenant,
and I teach in the department of philosophy
at the University of New Orleans.
This video is part of my series on
human wellbeing and the good life,
and it examines Aristotle's account of wellbeing
as presented in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics.
At the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics,
Aristotle aims to identify
the highest good for human beings.
While most people believe that the highest good
is the acquisition of material wealth,
pursuit of honor, or satisfaction of bodily pleasure,
Aristotle argues that all of these goods are deficient
as the highest good in some way.
Material wealth is always acquired
for the purpose of attaining something else.
Pursuing honor is not connected
to any characteristic of the person himself
but how others perceive him.
And satisfying bodily pleasures is not a good
peculiar to human beings.
Here, Aristotle gives us insight
into an important component of the highest good.
It must be something that is consistent
with the maximization of our faculties as human beings.
What separates human beings from non-human animals
is our capacity for reason
and a life that aims only at satisfying bodily pleasures
is one Aristotle claims is not fit for human beings
but for cattle.
And so, he argues that a good life for a human being
would focus to a significant extent
on contemplation and learning
or acquiring the intellectual virtues.
Aristotle associates the intellectual virtues
with what we might identify as scientific knowledge.
Here, there are two kinds of knowledge,
knowledge of first principles
or fundamental truths of nature
and knowledge that comes from inference or demonstration
or what comes about as the result of
applying these principles.
But spending your life in contemplation alone is not enough.
Aristotle claims the person who lives a good life
also acts rightly and develops
the appropriate state of character
from which to perform those right actions.
While the intellectual virtues are acquired
as a result of learning, these character virtues,
such as courage, temperance, and generosity,
are acquired as the result
of habituation and life experience.
These virtues occupy a middle ground
between the vices of excess and deficiency,
relative to each person.
So, for example, the virtue of courage
occupies a middle ground between being cowardly
and being overly rash.
Acquisition of both the intellectual virtues
and these virtues of character
make up Aristotle's highest good,
which he identifies with the Greek word Eudaimonia,
which in translations of Aristotle
often is translated as the word happiness.
While a person achieves Eudaimonia
when he possesses all of the virtues,
acquiring some of these virtues requires more than studying
or the right amount of habituation.
Certain external conditions must be present
for their cultivation,
external conditions that are often
beyond the control of individuals.
Perhaps the most important is that
an individual is born into the right type of state.
Aristotle argues that the state exists
not for the purpose of allowing people to live,
but for the purpose of allowing them to live well.
And he also claims that one aim of the legislators
is to make use of the laws
to help improve the character of individuals.
Individual character develops along a spectrum
of worst to better,
a spectrum that ranges from vicious to virtuous,
with incontinent and continent falling in between.
What connects all of these character states
is that these individuals possess reason
and know the difference between good and bad behavior.
The vicious man is the worst.
He derives pleasure from acting badly.
The incontinent man is next.
He is inclined to act wrongly
and gives in to these inclinations out of weakness.
And so, while he has satisfied his desires,
he is dissatisfied with himself
in the same way that we are dissatisfied with ourselves
when we look back on our own moments of weakness.
The continent man possesses strength of will
and, unlike the incontinent man,
acts rightly even though he was inclined
to do what was wrong.
But he is not fully satisfied either
because he was not able to satisfy his inclinations.
Aristotle's virtuous man is able to satisfy
both his inclinations and his rational desires
because these two things are aligned.
He wants to do what is right and does it
and as a result derives pleasure from good behavior.
Aristotle argues that one function of the well-ordered state
is to help individuals make this progression
from worst to better.
Laws are able to habituate people
to perform the correct actions.
And so, doing what is right becomes habit over time,
and individuals acquire an affinity
for this kind of good behavior.
It is for this reason that Aristotle argues
that a legislator must possess
the intellectual virtue of Phronesis,
which is connected to understanding
what constitutes virtuous and vicious behavior
and knowing how to direct people to do what is right.
So, for Aristotle, a human lives well
when he acts rightly and possesses all of the virtues,
both intellectual and those relating to good character.
But some elements of a good life
are not completely within a person's control.
While Aristotle's observations here may be correct,
they also allow us to raise issues
in the area of social justice
and ask what obligations we have to people
who are less fortunate in order to help them live
as well as possible.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community