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Lesson 2.5: Make Your Self (Pt. II)
11 Plays18 days ago
Topics discussed:
- The role of external goods in Aristotelian philosophy.
- Methods for developing practical wisdom
- The method of the Golden Mean for discovering virtue.
- The role of friendship and Community in the life well-lived.
For more information, visit theluxuryofvirtue.com.
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Transcript
Aristotle's Teleological Worldview
00:00:00
Speaker
Today we are going to discuss Aristotle's ethics. If you recall from the last lesson, we sort of set this up. We talked about some of the things that maybe Aristotle taught in his school, perhaps his naturalism.
00:00:14
Speaker
a lot of biology would probably be included in his education, which of course is nothing like our biology today. And maybe the most important thing for you to remember is that Aristotle's worldview was teleological. It was all function oriented. It was all understood in terms of purposes, right? So my example that I perhaps repeated too often is that Earth has a function and it has a direction that it likes to go in towards the center of the universe.
00:00:46
Speaker
And water also serves that purpose. Air and fire move upwards. That is away from the center of the universe.
What Makes Aristotle's Ethics Unique?
00:00:54
Speaker
And ether moves in circles. And just like the elements have this function, this purpose that they fulfill,
00:01:02
Speaker
So do all of us. And so that's what we're going to get into today. You ordered the Aristotle package. It arrived. There's a bunch of components inside. We unpacked it. And now we're going to dive in. We're actually going to try to be Aristotelians.
00:01:18
Speaker
Let me begin, though, by talking about what is distinctively Aristotelian about Aristotle's ethics. And, you know, there's kind of a this is maybe a personal peeve of mine, but there's kind of this thing that happens sometimes when people talk about Aristotle's ethics Some instructors that I've had will sort of treat Aristotle's ethics as if it's equivalent to or you know synonymous with ancient ethics in general.
00:01:48
Speaker
Or when they're talking about ancient ethics, they'll just say, you know, Aristotle's ethics, right? So the other way around. That's not exactly accurate.
Eudaimonia and Ancient Ethics
00:01:57
Speaker
And in a class on ancient ethics, we should definitely get a little more precise about what it is that Aristotle was all about.
00:02:07
Speaker
So what is distinctively Aristotelian? Well, let me tell you this. It's not the focus on the disposition to act, right? and You know, this this idea of habit, because other people talked about that. Xenophon, for example, discusses that. We we did cover Xenophon.
00:02:26
Speaker
It's also not naturalism. Other ancient ethical theorists also grounded their ethics on their views of nature. So we talked about, for example, just Democritus, but you can also include in the mix Xenophanes, right? and There's some others.
00:02:44
Speaker
Is it the notion of Eudaimonia that is distinctively Aristotelian? Well, no. pretty much almost all the ancient schools of philosophy were
Virtues in Ancient Philosophy
00:02:56
Speaker
eudaimonic. That is, the focus was on reaching happiness, the highest good.
00:03:02
Speaker
There are some exceptions here. Sure, the Cyrenaics, for example, were and we're not eudaimonists, but we're not even talking about them. So, you know, for the most part, ancient ethicists were eudaimonists.
00:03:13
Speaker
They believed that happiness was the goal. Is it talking about virtues that is su distinctively Aristotelian? Well, no. Other schools of ancient ethics also stress the traditional classical virtues, prudence, courage, justice, temperance.
00:03:32
Speaker
For example, the skeptics, in their own weird way, endorsed all those traditional virtues. Now, we'll get into that when we talk about the skeptics. Of course, the Stoics also endorsed the traditional classical virtues, and they're coming up too.
00:03:49
Speaker
Is it friendship? Aristotle talked about friendship ah quite a bit. Is that what is unique to Aristotle? No, the Epicureans also emphasized friendship in the good life.
00:04:02
Speaker
In fact, it was rather important to them, to the Epicureans, that friendship be part of the good life because according to them, living well is not something we do alone.
Activities and Practical Wisdom
00:04:12
Speaker
You live well with your friends, with your family. So what is uniquely Aristotelian about Aristotle's ethics? Well, let me put it in an abstract way first. It's the role played by activities alongside certain dispositions.
00:04:31
Speaker
Sure, you have to develop the you know a certain habit of action But Aristotle really puts people in the driver's seat. You have to generate those habits through very carefully curated activities.
00:04:49
Speaker
You are always essentially shaping yourself, according to Aristotle. And where also you really see this heavy, heavy emphasis on daily application of our practical wisdom and our practical knowledge.
00:05:05
Speaker
me put it another way. Aristotle's ethics is about developing not theoretical knowledge, that's Plato, but practical knowledge, right? A knowledge for engaging in social situations competently, let's say.
Practical vs Theoretical Knowledge
00:05:21
Speaker
Let me put this another way. The pattern of activities that you engage they're at least as important, if not more, than whatever ethical and theoretical contemplations you engage in Aristotle puts it very well. He says, for we are not inquiring so as to know what virtue is, but so as to become good people.
00:05:47
Speaker
You might be able to you know give a speech on virtue, but that doesn't make you an Aristotelian. Being virtuous makes you an Aristotelian, or at least that's the way Aristotle would frame it. He, of course, believes his theory is true and the best,
Research and Self-Improvement in Ethics
00:06:03
Speaker
right? So that is something that's very distinctive about Aristotle.
00:06:09
Speaker
And let me actually you know go on a sidebar here. On the lesson on Plato, I talked about the different kinds of spiritual practices that philosophers engaged in.
00:06:21
Speaker
You might recall there was attention training. There's memorization and meditation on the dogmas of the school. There's reading the philosophies and arguments defending the dogmas.
00:06:34
Speaker
And there's training, right? Like the cynics who would train themselves to be tougher. But Xenophon also talked about that. He wrote about how hunting helps you gain more self-mastery. And then there's research and investigation.
00:06:47
Speaker
Research and investigation is all about putting theory into practice, right? So you might be, you know, in a certain social situation pretty frequently and you, you know, you're not dealing with it exactly the way you wish you could.
00:07:02
Speaker
You're not being as successful in that situation as you could be. So you start experimenting with certain behaviors. You see how they work out. You even take notes. You tweak things a bit so they turn out better next time.
00:07:15
Speaker
i mean, me put it this way. a lot of us say that we want to change something about ourselves. I don't know what it might be for you. Be nicer to your siblings. Be better about standing up to pushy relatives or maybe ah have a pushy boss.
00:07:31
Speaker
Spend less time on your devices. Whatever. We say we want to change, but we don't really do anything about it. That's where research and investigation comes in.
00:07:44
Speaker
It's about planning your interaction with your sibling, right? If that's your thing ahead of time so that you don't get into a fight, so that you don't say mean things. It's about prepping what you're going to say When someone tries to get pushy with you, right, you can actually literally prepare a script and practice it and hone it in and improve upon it.
00:08:06
Speaker
And then when someone gets pushy, you deliver it and then you take notes on it. You say, OK, well, that part went well, but they still said this. So what can I say in response to that? You're working on it.
00:08:18
Speaker
That's research and investigation. If you're trying to not spend so much time on social media platforms, you have to come up with a plan, a set of methods to make sure that your devices, either they're not you know on hand all the time, or you have some kind of software that makes sure you don't spend too much time on them or whatever, right? You need...
00:08:40
Speaker
actual techniques to apply practices to put into your life to improve your performance in these social exchanges or maybe sometimes it's just your own productivity in the case of social media platforms that's research and investigation And you gotta get serious about it, right?
00:09:00
Speaker
You should have measurable goals. You should document your progress. You should once in a while see, well, if I tweak it even further, can I get even better results? That's research and investigation.
00:09:13
Speaker
Does it have that self-help kind of vibe? Absolutely. Because ancient philosophy was a way of life, right? So it's supposed to be that you are sort of converting into a different way of living.
00:09:30
Speaker
To live the philosophical life, you actually have to let reason guide you day in and day out throughout your quotidian activities, if you want to put it that way. your day-to-day activities.
00:09:44
Speaker
And so we can see in Aristotle's Ethics this emphasis on activity, on ensuring that you perform the activities that will shape you into the kind of person that you want to be.
00:09:59
Speaker
I think it's fairly clear that this is very unlike some other schools of thought that we've covered. Plato, you know, he sort of emphasizes, if you want to read him this way, contemplating the forms, right? That's the max for him.
00:10:13
Speaker
The cynics, well, they're all about self-sufficiency and they couldn't care less about social success and, you know, material possessions. Democritus pursued ataraxia, tranquility, peace of mind.
00:10:26
Speaker
That's not really you know these patterns of behavior that will lead to forming yourself to be excellent. right So for Aristotle, clearly happiness is not a state of mind. it is rooted in virtuous activity.
00:10:41
Speaker
It is you know the skillful development of personality traits, the personality traits that will get you to thrive. And it will be measurable.
00:10:53
Speaker
You will see, ideally speaking, your degree of social success go up. So that is very Aristotelian. I do have one other thing that I i think should mention that is quite uniquely Aristotelian.
00:11:09
Speaker
I do want to say that Aristotle was kind of preoccupied with analyzing the goods, right? The sorts of goods that are available. And sure, he says the virtues, you know, those are goods.
00:11:23
Speaker
But he also lets external goods, what I called in the last lesson, external goods, play a role in the happy life, right? This is against Socrates. It's against Plato.
00:11:36
Speaker
Later, it's going to be against the Stoics. But Aristotle believes that virtue is not really enough for happiness. You can do all the right things and that's not guaranteed to take you to eudaimonia.
00:11:51
Speaker
You also need external goods. Now, maybe he's a little flip floppy about this. I think he's actually wrestling with this idea. He's not sure. Maybe he changes his mind sometimes.
00:12:03
Speaker
But in general, things like wealth, friends, good reputation, health, political power, even good looks, if you are handsome or if you are beautiful, that's a good thing. These are external goods and they're probably going to help you reach eudaimonia.
00:12:22
Speaker
Other schools of philosophy are going to say, no, you don't need those things. Aristotle says, clearly, they're going to help. So yeah, if you can get them, all the better.
00:12:53
Speaker
Okay, let's talk about reaching our full potential and acquiring eudaimonia according to Aristotle. Let me begin with some general comments here.
00:13:04
Speaker
As I mentioned last time, you get the package, right? And Aristotle's ethics is a package deal. You have to develop all these different things. to get to eudaimonyo, right? So you need to develop your practical reasoning, right? The ability to think well about social matters. We're going to talk ah a lot about that today.
00:13:22
Speaker
But also there's an intellectual development component. i mean, you have to get, you have to wisen up. You have to know more about the world because understanding the world will make you a more effective agent within it, right? So there's that.
00:13:37
Speaker
You have to train your passions, your emotions, It's not the case that you can just say the right things. You have to feel the right way about it. Actually, if you train your passions well,
00:13:50
Speaker
the right actions will more easily flow out of you. That's pretty obvious, right? If you get too angry, it's hard to say the right things. It's easy to say the wrong things. So that's another aspect of it.
00:14:02
Speaker
You have to understand your community because your success is within your social structure, right? So that's important too. You have to have a telos, something that you're aiming at. And of course, you know, the nice to have the external goods, it's it's nice to be, you know, good looking. Right. So if you have that, awesome.
00:14:20
Speaker
So we must always remember that this is a package deal. We are developing all kinds of things, all kinds of skills simultaneously. Nonetheless, what I want to focus on today is, of course, the practical reasoning.
00:14:35
Speaker
Aristotle argues that we should engage in daily, competent, deliberate decision-making, considering carefully each possible plan of action and how it will either succeed or fail.
00:14:51
Speaker
If we do this enough, we will develop practical wisdom. The Greek word is phronesis. Let's bring this down to earth a little bit. A lot of us kind of just go with emotions throughout the day.
00:15:07
Speaker
We just fall in line with ah with whatever our habitual activities are. Now, of course, Aristotle does want us to develop habits, but sometimes the habits that we have you know ingrained in us aren't the best ones. They're just good enough.
00:15:23
Speaker
That's not quite what Aristotle wants. He wants you to improve all the way up until you reach your full potential. So don't just go through the motions. You got to really try to kick some butt every day.
00:15:38
Speaker
Daily, competent, deliberate decision making. Is your morning routine optimal? When you get to work or school or whatever it is that you have to do,
00:15:51
Speaker
Is your head on straight? Are you actually running on all cylinders? Is it that you didn't sleep well? Are you hungry? you need caffeine? Do you have too much caffeine?
00:16:04
Speaker
Many of us just show up to our place of work or school, just kind of barely making it there. Maybe a little late, not prepared. This is not the Aristotelian way.
00:16:16
Speaker
How can you be primed for excellent performance, optimal performance every time you get to work or school? You see that before even 9 hits,
00:16:29
Speaker
You've already had an opportunity to engage in some decision-making, some important decision-making that might sort of shape the structure of the rest of your day.
00:16:40
Speaker
That's how much of a pusher Aristotle Every single opportunity you can find for some kind of improvement, to take it. Look for places for incremental improvement.
00:16:53
Speaker
Because only by looking for room for improvement can you actually, you know, even have any hope of achieving your full potential. Of course, there's always bad luck. Arisano does consider luck actually quite a few places.
00:17:09
Speaker
I'm thinking here of of the Udemian Ethics. He have wrote two works on ethics. And I'm thinking right now of book eight of the Udemian Ethics, where he talks about why it's important to look for places for improvement to deliberate ah about your daily activities, even when luck determines the outcome.
00:17:29
Speaker
Sure, you know, you might put in all this work to plan and then just, you know, had a run of bad luck and it didn't work out. It's okay, says Aristotle, because it is only by doing all the preparations that you engaged in that you can actually surmise how luck affected the outcome, right? So if you planned, you know, extremely carefully and then something unexpected through your plan for a loop,
00:17:56
Speaker
Because you plan so carefully, you now know how to protect yourself against that unexpected event next time, right? So because of your heavy planning, you now have a base to build off of and you can, you know, expand that plan to incorporate contingency plans in case you get more bad luck in the future.
00:18:18
Speaker
You can never really rule out the role of chance, right? Democritus tells us about this. but you can maximize the likelihood that you will be prepared for what comes your way.
00:18:31
Speaker
So to sum up my general comments, practical reasoning has to take place every day. Always look for room for improvement. And when luck just kind of messes things up for you,
00:18:45
Speaker
That's okay. Plan for unexpected events a little bit better next time. See it as an opportunity for further improving your practical reasoning.
00:18:58
Speaker
With all that said, let me tell you about the three routes to the good life that Aristotle discusses. Just like Aristotle seems to be a little unsure about the role of external goods, whether they can make you happier or not, do you need them for happiness, right? he's He's unsure, he's grappling with the idea.
00:19:20
Speaker
The same thing goes for what the best life is. Sometimes he says it's something that i would just refer to as the contemplative life. We'll talk about that in a second.
00:19:33
Speaker
Other times he says, well, think it's a tie between the contemplative life and the life of a competent and virtuous statesman or, you know, political figure.
00:19:46
Speaker
So he says maybe those are the two best kinds of life, either the the academic, the theoretical academic or the contemplative life, or the life of a very good political figure, right?
00:19:59
Speaker
A person who actually helps their community. Those are two routes to the good life. A third option, though, of course, is to just... Reach your potential, right?
00:20:10
Speaker
Choose your telos and then get as good as possible and that thing that you chose, right? So find your final cause, your purpose, your function, and then get after it.
00:20:23
Speaker
right So those are the three routes, generally speaking. Let's talk about each one now in further detail. Let's begin with the contemplative life. Sometimes people call this the life of the mind.
00:20:36
Speaker
This is sort of the life that I think I kind of live. i mean, it's closer to what I do than perhaps maybe a medical doctor or an accountant.
00:20:47
Speaker
Let me give you a quote here from ah philosopher John Cooper. i think it will give you a general feel for what the contemplative life is like. Quote, this is the life of people who have the natural talent and disposition for philosophical and related mathematical and scientific study and learning.
00:21:08
Speaker
and who have, presumably, devoted many hours when growing to adulthood and continually afterward to reading, discussing, listening to lectures, and thinking hard for themselves about the most difficult intellectual questions.
00:21:25
Speaker
I think this describes my life fairly well. i you know I spend most of my waking hours either reading or studying or learning, ah having conversations with ah people that I consider intellectuals, teaching classes, engaging with students, basically most of my waking life.
00:21:50
Speaker
is thinking about big ideas, tough intellectual problems, stuff like that. Now, am I living the full-blown Aristotelian ideal? Am I looking for rooms for improvement every single place I can?
00:22:05
Speaker
Not yet, not really, right? So, you know, you would have to imagine the contemplative life is, you know, choose your favorite professor like that, but more, right? Turn it up to 11, right?
00:22:19
Speaker
Maybe some good examples of people that are living like this are what we might call public intellectuals, people that are sort of known for grappling with big ideas and helping others to think about big ideas. The only person that really comes to mind right now is a man named Yuval Noah Harari.
00:22:41
Speaker
The reason why I mentioned him is because he is a historian, but he seems to get asked about all sorts of questions in society or and having to do with technology.
00:22:52
Speaker
And people outside of history tend to know his name. He kind of blew up with a book that he wrote called Sapiens. So you can check that out if you want. But basically, I mean, I think that he is pretty good example of someone living the life of the mind.
00:23:09
Speaker
Someone who is perhaps less famous, but I think is a good example of someone living the life of the mind. In the realm of philosophy, might be someone like Martha Nussbaum. or Edith Hall, Judith Butler, Julia Annas.
00:23:25
Speaker
These are, i think I mentioned all women. These are women who are experts in ancient ethics. So they've been grappling with all the things that we've been grappling with this entire time, right? her Their entire professional careers.
00:23:40
Speaker
Imagine living all your adult life and probably sometime before then too, grappling with questions about how it is that you should live. So they are also good examples of the life of the mind.
00:23:55
Speaker
Most relevant to this particular lesson, Edith Hall has a book called Aristotle's Way that is a good introduction to Aristotelian practical reasoning.
00:24:08
Speaker
The second route to the good life is the political route. And to understand this, let's recall that for Aristotle to be good, to be virtuous, to be flourishing, that all takes place in some sort of community, right? Some kind of social structure.
00:24:29
Speaker
And so the good life is in part to be engaged in this social structure. Now to really flourish within our community, we have to understand that community.
00:24:45
Speaker
In other words, one needs political knowledge, knowledge specific to our social order. Let me kind of put this as straightforwardly as I can.
00:24:59
Speaker
One can only know how to live well, if they know how a social group can enable its members to live well. Let me try that one more time.
00:25:12
Speaker
To reach your full potential, you have to study your community so that you can see what is you know the fullest potential within that social order.
00:25:25
Speaker
ah You have to know how far you can go within a community to know where to aim, right as high as possible, basically. And so that's why for Aristotle, one very viable route to the good life is to become a virtuous political leader. Just imagine being engaged in the community, developing good laws, finding ways to you know motivate virtue in the community, to get everyone to thrive, to make conditions such that everyone in the community can thrive as much as they
00:26:01
Speaker
you know can To work to make your community so that everyone really does have a shot at reaching their full potential, right? Insofar as as they try to do it.
00:26:12
Speaker
You know, society the way it is right now, a lot of people don't really have a fair shot. At least I would say so. It's not really an even playing field. So a virtuous political figure would try to work towards that, make it so that there's no real obstacle to reaching your full potential other than your own character, how far you are willing to push yourself.
00:26:38
Speaker
So that's one of the things that the virtuous political leader would engage in ah There's other things too, of course, for Aristotle, the the you know political leaders of the time would generate or devise the curriculum that educates the population.
00:26:55
Speaker
So you would be involved, according to Aristotle, in figuring out how to educate children so that they ah have the greatest opportunity for personal success. Nowadays, that would be considered a specialist position. not every Not every political figure has a direct say on the curriculum.
00:27:13
Speaker
But for Aristotle, you know, that would be part of the job as well. And you can see that all these activities are activities that attempt to maximize the public good, right? So Aristotle here is linking the community success to individual success. And just imagine the satisfaction. Just imagine you are at the end of a long political career,
00:27:42
Speaker
You are very well respected across you know the party divide, right? Both parties think, no, that that person right there, they're the real deal. They really try to help people.
00:27:53
Speaker
Just imagine the self-satisfaction you're going to feel. You actually help people throughout your career. You're well-respected. There's probably libraries and other things named after you.
00:28:06
Speaker
Just imagine that feeling, right? Ah, yes, that's one of the highest forms of eudaimonia, according to Aristotle. All right, so moving on to the third route to eudaimonia.
00:28:20
Speaker
This is the case where you reach your full potential in some domain other than, you know, the intellectual life or the political life, right? So in this particular route to happiness, step one is to, you know, just choose your final cause, your purpose or your function, your vocation, if you want to call it that.
00:28:43
Speaker
And this might be... you know, take your pick, right? Maybe you want to be an excellent parent or you want to choose some vocation, chef or engineer.
00:28:55
Speaker
Maybe you want to be an academic counselor or a therapist or whatever, right? you You choose something and you just say to yourself, I'm going to be the best at this that I possibly can be.
00:29:10
Speaker
Well, of course, that's easier said than done. And so step two, once you find your telos, you develop your practical wisdom. You have to engage in that daily, competent, deliberate decision making.
00:29:25
Speaker
And so you begin the long journey to making yourself excellent. Now, Aristotle does not leave you hanging. He doesn't just say, okay, go ahead, be awesome.
00:29:37
Speaker
He gives us what I'm going to call rules for deliberation. And in the aforementioned book by Edith Hall, Aristotle's Way, she summarizes these rules for deliberation.
00:29:51
Speaker
And so let's get into them right now. Number one. you know You're always looking for room for improvement, right? So here's the first rule. Don't deliberate in haste.
00:30:05
Speaker
It's okay if it takes you a while to figure out how to improve yourself or what decision you should take. Don't rush it. Take your time. As I mentioned in another lesson, maybe make your choice a couple of different times and maybe, i don't know, take the average or something like that. But don't rush it because when you do, you know, that's when you start making mistakes and and then you're really not optimizing anything. You might actually be going in the other direction. You might be making things worse.
00:30:34
Speaker
So don't deliberate in haste. Number two, verify the information you're working with, right? So there's a saying in computer science, garbage garbage out.
00:30:46
Speaker
Your decision is only going to be as good as the information that you're working with. So double check, maybe triple check your facts. You know, it's very comforting to just believe things sometimes just because they fit in with what you already believe. But that's exactly the opposite of what you want to do.
00:31:07
Speaker
If you're really working on improving yourself and getting the most social success possible, Well, then you get to work with actual facts, not things that feel good to believe, but the world as it really is, not the way you want it to be.
00:31:24
Speaker
And so this is where that intellectual development comes in too, right? You have to keep up with the science. You have to really know what the latest, most up-to-date scientific facts are.
00:31:37
Speaker
Number three, consult with impartial witnesses or when possible, experts. You know, there's so many people that might help you improve your performance at whatever it is that you're trying to improve your performance on.
00:31:52
Speaker
And you'd be surprised how often they are willing to help because if they are an expert or highly competent, in some domain, they often like to share that information.
00:32:04
Speaker
mean, they probably love their area of expertise, so they like talking about it. And so, you know, if there's someone that you can reach out to who has a little bit of experience in in whatever it is that you're dealing with, well, talk to them.
00:32:17
Speaker
You know, don't be shy. it doesn't hurt to ask. And in the very least, if you can't find an expert, well, at least find some impartial people to kind of bounce ideas off of, right? and You don't have to deliberate alone.
00:32:32
Speaker
If possible, get a second opinion and then a third, maybe a fourth, right? And look for opportunities to to meet experts or some people that are competent in whatever thing you're dealing with.
00:32:49
Speaker
Number four, try to take the perspective of all people involved, right? This will help not only in making sure that you don't step on any toes and hurt any feelings and and that kind of thing, but also if you can take the perspective of multiple people, you will get a better perspective.
00:33:11
Speaker
grip on the problem. Just as we discussed in the lesson on the sophists, sometimes people who actually have conflicting views, it's not that one of them is right and the other one's wrong.
00:33:26
Speaker
They might both be a little right. And so taking the perspective of many people that might actually get you to a higher degree of comprehension for that problem that you're dealing with.
00:33:42
Speaker
It might also even help you deal with your emotions a little bit. You might feel really angry or you know disappointed in someone, but when you take their perspective and the perspective of other people involved, maybe allowing yourself to see that from a different angle sort of softens your passions a little bit.
00:34:03
Speaker
And that might be a good thing. Sometimes if the, you know, if the emotions are running a little too hot, it's hard to do the right thing. It's hard to reason well. And so taking the perspective of, you know, all sides might be ah key to toning down the affect or mood or emotion.
00:34:26
Speaker
Number five, examine all known precedents. In other words, look for people that had been in similar situations to you. And if they were successful, what aspects of what they did, of their plan, of their strategy, can you copy?
00:34:46
Speaker
And if they were not successful, well, what can you learn from their mistakes? This reminds me of a quote, I think it's from Eleanor Roosevelt.
00:34:57
Speaker
It's something like, learn from the mistakes of others because you can't live long enough to make them all yourself. Well, yeah, you don't have to reinvent the wheel all on your own.
00:35:09
Speaker
Look at what others have done before you and take what is useful. And even their mistakes might be useful, right? So don't commit their mistakes. Certainly do copy those things that seem to help them along the way. Again, you're not alone in this.
00:35:26
Speaker
And there's plenty of exemplars and previous instances of people grappling with you know, if not the very same problem you're grappling with, but something very similar, right? So learn from them when you can.
00:35:42
Speaker
Number six, and now we're going to get a little mathematical, estimate the likelihood of each possible trajectory and prepare for each one proportionately.
00:35:55
Speaker
So this is where knowing a little bit of probability theory might come in handy, but think about all the different ways the cookie might crumble.
00:36:05
Speaker
So let's say that after your analysis, you figured out that there's four possible situations that might arise in the problem that you're dealing with. Situation a it's very likely there's a 60% chance it'll turn out that way.
00:36:21
Speaker
Situation 25% chance it'll turn out that way. Situation C, 10% and situation D, 5%. Well, which one should you prepare the most for?
00:36:35
Speaker
Obviously, A. In fact, you should more or less treat A, situation A, as what's very likely going to happen. And so that should be where the bulk of your efforts go.
00:36:48
Speaker
Of course, you should spend a little time on B as well, though. There is a one in four chance that situation B will happen. And so you should be ready for it. Situation C, maybe pay a little bit of attention to it.
00:37:02
Speaker
And d you know, have a plan, but it's not necessary to, you know, fully flesh it out and and be fully ready for it because it is so unlikely that you shouldn't spend time on that very much.
00:37:18
Speaker
Now, this might seem obvious to you, but trip out on this and, you know, you can probably relate I have spent so much time stressing about things that never happened and were always extremely unlikely to happen.
00:37:39
Speaker
What about you? How many times have you been anxious over something that was extremely implausible, right? Just very unlikely to happen.
00:37:52
Speaker
I bet you it's not zero. So what Aristotle here is recommending of us is that, you know, we be rational and say, well, what are the situations we are most likely to find ourselves in?
00:38:05
Speaker
Okay, let's rank them. Okay, let's worry the most about the most likely. It seems obvious, and yet a lot of us don't follow this piece of advice. And it's hard, right?
00:38:17
Speaker
You have to train your emotions to not focus in on that thing that most worries you, but focus in on that thing which is most plausible, most likely, most probable.
00:38:31
Speaker
Number seven, examine the role of luck. Consider what unlucky things might occur and then have an appropriate contingency plan for each.
00:38:42
Speaker
This might take the form of having a plan B and a plan C and a plan D. Or this might be, you know, just kind of framing the situation acknowledging that, hey, this might not work out.
00:38:55
Speaker
I'm ready to acknowledge that, you know, if it doesn't work out the way I initially planned, I'll try again. Right. Sometimes we have to say, I'm giving it my best shot.
00:39:07
Speaker
Something might not work out. And if it doesn't work out, I'm not going to be disillusioned. I'll just try again. Sometimes just preparing yourself like that for a possible setback makes a big difference, right? So have a couple of different contingency plans, but also prepare yourself psychologically for trying again in case it doesn't work out.
00:39:31
Speaker
Last but not least, and I really like this one, number eight, don't use intoxicants when deliberating. In our society, as well as in the ancient world, many intoxicating substances had been normalized. The Greeks were famous for drinking wine and their wine parties.
00:39:56
Speaker
Today, alcohol is legal in my home state of California. Cannabis consumption is also legal. And so, you know, there's plenty of intoxicants readily available to you.
00:40:10
Speaker
Well, for starters, you don't want to be using these substances all day long because remember, you are supposed to be engaging in, what is it, daily, competent, deliberate decision-making.
00:40:27
Speaker
And you can't do that if you're drunk or high. And you might say that you do better when you have a little bit of alcohol or a little bit of weed. Well, at least Aristotle says, no you don't.
00:40:40
Speaker
At least as a general rule, try to only engage in practical reasoning when you are in an optimal cognitive state, let's say.
00:40:52
Speaker
Now you can still reflect on your decisions when you've had a little bit of wine or if you're into cannabis, a little bit of that, but serious deliberating has to be done free of any influence.
00:41:06
Speaker
And that seems pretty important to Aristotle. Now this doesn't mean that he was a teetotaler, right? he He didn't shun all wine, for example.
00:41:18
Speaker
But he thought that you need to find a middle ground. You can't be drunk all day. You don't need to be sober all day either. Right? So engage in your work and relaxation is just as important because without managing your stress and your anxiety and relaxing a little bit, maybe in the evening,
00:41:36
Speaker
You can't really be, you know, cognitively optimal the next day. And so there's a place for drinking and and relaxing with your favorite intoxicant, but just not while deliberating, right?
00:41:50
Speaker
Because there is no formula for generating accurate, practical reasoning judgments, right? It takes lot of time a lot of concentration and a lot of effort and that's just not compatible with being intoxicated and so in some whether you are going to live the life of the mind or attempt to be ah virtuous political leader or just really be awesome at your chosen vocation and all of these routes to eudaimonia
00:42:26
Speaker
You have to really make an effort to look for areas for improvement day in and day out. And the form that this takes is in constantly making decisions about where you can do things better.
00:42:45
Speaker
Look for opportunities for growth. And then you're on the road to eudaimonia.
00:43:12
Speaker
If you're living in the way that Aristotle prescribes, always engaging in imp practical reasoning, every chance you get looking for a little bit of growth, looking for a little bit of personal development, too then over time you will develop the virtues.
00:43:29
Speaker
Now, let's take a step here and just think about the virtues in general. The virtues, the classical virtues for ancient ethicists are things like temperance and courage and justice.
00:43:43
Speaker
And we'll discuss each of those. But the main connection that I want to make here is between the virtues and eudaimonia or happiness. Basically, all the ancient ethicists included living virtuously with happiness.
00:43:59
Speaker
There is a correlation at least. Now the explanation as to why living virtuously will lead to happiness is different with different ethical theorists. But in general, living with virtue is the route to eudaimonia.
00:44:16
Speaker
And so let's talk about Aristotle's take on the virtues. For Aristotle, the virtues are habits, behavioral habits. Maybe another word for that is character traits.
00:44:28
Speaker
You actually have to develop in yourself a certain set of character traits. Those are the virtues and those character traits, you know, the the personality type, that's what takes you towards flourishing.
00:44:42
Speaker
So if you want to kind of put it all together, you have to develop within you sort of personality that will lead to thriving. You know, Aristotle is always kind of a pusher, right? He wants you to grow as a person.
00:44:56
Speaker
And that in effect basically means changing your personality sometimes. So that's what we're going to talk about now, um what character traits you ought to develop.
00:45:07
Speaker
So the first thing I'm going to talk about is, again, what i ah kind of see as an Aristotelian, maybe a preoccupation, let's call it. that Not quite an obsession, but Aristotle likes thinking about the role of certain goods on eudaimonia.
00:45:26
Speaker
For example, we've already talked about many times, but external goods, wealth, good friends, good reputation, health, good looks, political power, all of these things will obviously you know make it easier for you to thrive in the sense that Aristotle thinks of thriving.
00:45:42
Speaker
He also considers some other things that i want to share with you right now so you can kind of see and get a very good feel for the kind of happiness Aristotle wants you to have. I mean, he wants you to reach maximum human potential, right? How far can you go?
00:45:58
Speaker
And to that extent, he acknowledges, you know, early childhood education that matters. Having a good early childhood education for Aristotle means that you're gonna develop the right sorts of emotional responses to things, right? So here he's very much like his teacher Plato.
00:46:23
Speaker
you know, people have to be habituated from the time that they are maybe even infants to find pleasure and pain in the right things.
00:46:35
Speaker
Let me be a little bit more clear about this. It should be the case that you have tuned your emotions and maybe this needs to start from a childhood so that you take pleasure in doing good things and you are pained by the thought of doing bad things.
00:46:53
Speaker
That's not something that everyone feels, right? Sometimes people feel bad about missing an opportunity to do something bat Right, so that's that's the opposite. That's like, oh man, I should have stole that money when I had the chance.
00:47:09
Speaker
That's exactly not the emotional setup that Aristotle wants you to have. So we should, as early as possible, begin to have our emotions trained for virtue.
00:47:24
Speaker
This, of course, continues well into ah you know early adulthood, adolescence and early adulthood, because Aristotle believes that our actions affect our souls or our our minds.
00:47:38
Speaker
If we do good things, we become good people. If we do bad things, we become bad people. So you might recall this is a little bit like Heraclitus, what he was saying.
00:47:49
Speaker
And there really is a sense in which you can be too far gone, maybe. You know, if you didn't have the right start in life and you've taken pleasure in things that are maybe not quite depraved, but close to depraved, you know, in the and going in the vicious direction, then maybe It's too late, right? So this is something that he thinks about and it's something for us to think about.
00:48:15
Speaker
This is why he he's part of the same kind of utopian strain of thinking as Plato, Aristotle is. He thinks about how we can make society so that most can flourish. And he's starting from the beginning, right? He thinks a proper education is key.
00:48:32
Speaker
This is a lifelong project to, you know, reach eudaimonia. And if you are too far gone in the on the path of vice, well, maybe eudaimonia is not going to be within your reach.
00:48:47
Speaker
So I have here a quote from John Cooper again. Good and virtuous habits of feeling are a prerequisite before starting in practical philosophy.
00:48:58
Speaker
Without such intuitive feelings, Aristotle thinks, one is not open to grasping the reasons why the one sort of behavior is such a good thing for oneself and the other so bad.
00:49:09
Speaker
One will just not listen if someone tries to explain them or won't understand if one does. In other words, that's the end of the quote here, but my way of paraphrasing this is if you are too far gone down the path of vice,
00:49:26
Speaker
you won't be accepting of any kind of counseling back towards virtue. Or maybe it just wouldn't even make sense to you.
00:49:37
Speaker
People are going to say, you know, you probably shouldn't do those things. That's that's not good for you. That's not good for society. And they might just say, what are you talking about? You know, of course it's good for me. all right so So there is a sense in which people might be too far gone. So good early childhood education, external goods, having a good upbringing. These are key to eventually, hopefully one day reaching eudaimonia.
00:50:04
Speaker
But let's just say that you have all those things in check. You are and a position where you can engage in practical reasoning every day and you have, you know, your you're handsome, you're beautiful, you have good friends, you have good support networks that you can engage in the practice of practical philosophy. You are ready to get on the path of virtue. So what are the character traits that you are going to develop?
00:50:33
Speaker
Finally, here are the virtues. These are dispositions to act, right? Character traits. Once you have these, the right actions, the right emotions, the right thoughts will naturally flow from you.
00:50:50
Speaker
And so once you've trained for these sufficiently, you will develop these habits. How does Aristotle figure out what the virtues are? Well, there's two things. One is the main philosophical idea we'll discuss.
00:51:06
Speaker
And the other one has to do with just looking at the social structure that he was in So let's talk about the first one because that's usually what you know philosophers like to talk about.
00:51:18
Speaker
It's called typically the golden mean. And it's this idea here. He's borrowing mathematical language mean sort of like the average. But, you know, it's not really math that's going on here. But the way Aristotle thinks about this is that there is always a virtue between two vices.
00:51:40
Speaker
So i'm going to begin with actually the first virtue, courage, just to help me describe this, you know, golden mean concept. So courage is relevant in situations that induce fear of death, right? So what Aristotle wants you to have is have the right amount of fear of death, not too much, not too little.
00:52:02
Speaker
If you have that right amount, that would be the virtue of courage. If you have too much fear of death, that is actually a vice. That would be called cowardice. You are not willing to do things that are worthwhile because you're too afraid to die.
00:52:18
Speaker
And so you give in to bullies, you give in to tyrants, whatever, right? that That's not a good way to live. Let's just say, on the other hand, you have too little fear of death.
00:52:31
Speaker
such that you end up doing really dumb things right now, taking unnecessary risks. That's called rashness. And so now you can see that courage is the mean, going to say that in scare quotes because it's not really an average. It's not, you know, it's like you're adding up vices and dividing them by two.
00:52:50
Speaker
But courage is the mean between extremes when in situations that induce fear of death. So courage is in the middle. Cowardice is on one side and rashness is on the other.
00:53:05
Speaker
And so that's the idea of the golden mean. That you can find virtue at the middle point between two vices. So that's how Aristotle finds the virtues that I'm going to discuss.
00:53:19
Speaker
I am going to say one other thing here, though, that doesn't usually get brought up, I think, enough when discussing Aristotle. But clearly, Aristotle stresses the importance of the social structure. You don't become happy and successful and you don't thrive in a vacuum.
00:53:40
Speaker
You thrive within your social structure. So when Aristotle gives his lists of the virtues that you're aiming to develop, because that will mean that you are, you know, you've reached your full potential.
00:53:52
Speaker
He says things that sort of only make sense for, you know, an Athenian middle class person. This is all within the context of, you know, the Athens of Aristotle's day.
00:54:07
Speaker
So, okay, let's talk about the 11 social virtues or moral virtues, if you want to call them that. We've already discussed the first one, courage. It's between rashness and cowardice.
00:54:20
Speaker
Let's talk about moderation. Moderation is the mean disposition toward the passion for pleasure. So it's definitely the case that pleasure is ah good for Aristotle. It is worth pursuing, but you can <unk> pursue it too much or too little right if you pursue pleasure too much you might be licentious right you engage in debauchery you're always looking for the next orgy of pleasure right go on a pleasure binge that's not good
00:54:54
Speaker
The other end though, insensitivity, that's also not good. I mean, you should enjoy things to the proper degree. If you don't care, if you know people ask you, hey, how was that delicious dinner? It's okay. know You shouldn't be insensitive to the finer things in life or good things in your life.
00:55:14
Speaker
You should enjoy them to the appropriate degree. That would be moderation. that's the second virtue, moderation. Third virtue, proper ambition. This is sometimes translated as industriousness.
00:55:28
Speaker
And here's how I'll describe it. It's sort of a willingness to labor to do worthwhile things, right? So there's some things that are worth doing and they require work.
00:55:41
Speaker
And so you're willing to put in that work. The more technical definition is the mean disposition toward the acquisition of small honors. So you want some honor and you get honor by doing worthwhile things and those worthwhile things require some work.
00:56:00
Speaker
So you want to accomplish things, that's it in a nutshell. Now, if you have a little bit too much desire for small honors, Well, then you're too ambitious. You have excess ambition. and That's a vice.
00:56:17
Speaker
Some of us, however, have the opposite problems. We just don't want to put in the work, even though we recognize something is worthwhile. Maybe we're a little lazy. That would be a lack of ambition. That's also vice.
00:56:31
Speaker
So between these two vices, lack of ambition and excess ambition is proper ambition or again, industriousness. I kind of like the label proper ambition because it sort of reminds you that by putting in the adjective proper, it's, you know, not too much, not too little. Goldilocks region, right? The golden mean.
00:56:54
Speaker
The next virtue we'll discuss is gentleness. Now, there is nothing gentle about gentleness. Here is the technical definition. The mean disposition toward the passion of anger.
00:57:08
Speaker
There is a right amount of anger that you should have. Now, before I give you the vices, let's just go ahead and talk about how weird this is. Sometimes people think that anger is always bad.
00:57:22
Speaker
Certainly the Stoics, who we will be covering in a few lessons, they think that getting angry is utterly incongruous with being a rational being. So there is something a little weird here. So let me just kind of convince you of this real quick.
00:57:40
Speaker
Aristotle wants you to feel the right amount of anger for the right person for the right amount of time. You know, sometimes we get angry And we take it out on other people, people that had nothing to do with what got us angry.
00:57:59
Speaker
And it's because maybe we just need someone to blame. And that's, well, maybe understandable, but not virtuous. If you are going to get angry, if some situation calls for anger, well, then that anger must be directed at the right person.
00:58:15
Speaker
In other cases, we're angry for far too long, right? You know, some people never forgive and they just kind of live with that low level hate for years, maybe all their lives.
00:58:29
Speaker
That's also not what Aristotle wants. Some things really do require getting irked a little bit, but you have to make sure that you direct that feeling to the right person for the right amount of time.
00:58:42
Speaker
This might mean, by the way, for Aristotle, maybe even violence, right? If someone offends you or injures you, maybe you have to retaliate. And so that's something that Aristotle talks about.
00:58:54
Speaker
and doesn't have to be physical, but you shouldn't accept small jabs, right? If someone is just, some people tear others down to make themselves feel better for whatever reason, low self-esteem.
00:59:07
Speaker
Well, Aristotle says you need to get a little irked at that. I need to tell them, hey, this is not okay. and You can't be doing this. And so you sometimes doing that requires a little bit of an edge and maybe a little bit of anger gives you that edge.
00:59:25
Speaker
Okay, so now let's come back to the vices here. So you can, of course, get too angry. Some people are far too easily angered. They are irascible, in other words. So that would be one vice, irascibility.
00:59:40
Speaker
On the other end, some people are sort of, you know, maybe pushovers. They need to get angry sometimes. They are meek. So meekness is a vice here. so gentleness, gentleness.
00:59:52
Speaker
is the virtue between the vices of irascibility, getting too angry, and meekness, not getting angry even when the situation calls for anger.
01:00:06
Speaker
The next virtue is truthfulness. That's the label that is usually used. And it doesn't mean just being honest. Of course, you should be honest. But it means being honest about yourself.
01:00:20
Speaker
So this is between boastfulness and self-deprecation. Those are the vices. So if you're not honest about yourself in the sense that you stretch the truth a little bit too far in the positive direction of portraying yourself, well, then you're boastful.
01:00:39
Speaker
You, you know, maybe brag about things. You embellish some stories about yourself. In Spanish, we would say that you put too much cream on your tacos or you put too much sauce on your tacos.
01:00:54
Speaker
You try to portray yourself as... more successful than you really are. Well, that would be boastfulness. On the other end, you might stretch the truth sort of in a mock, humble way. Self-deprecation is the vice here.
01:01:10
Speaker
So you make yourself seem less successful than you really are. And that's not right. Aristotle says, hey man, you know, part of being a virtuous person is taking credit for what you've done.
01:01:25
Speaker
Let's just say you started off at a disadvantage or you started from scratch and you really made something of yourself. It doesn't help anyone, not you, not anyone else to be self-deprecating about it.
01:01:38
Speaker
You wanna say, hey, look, this is what I did. Here's how I did it and check it out. This is all I've accomplished. That's inspiring. And so it's better for yourself, being honest with yourself and society, being a good role model, that you are truthful about your own achievements.
01:01:58
Speaker
Number six, wittiness. So Aristotle doesn't think it should be boring. That's kind of interesting. um The formal definition here is pleasantness when at ease.
01:02:10
Speaker
So when you are in an informal situation, you should be nice to be around. Some people are really not that, you know, cool to be around. ah What he means here in particular though is with regards to how pleasant you are making the environment.
01:02:27
Speaker
If you're working a little too hard and you know, you're sort of bending over backwards to make people laugh, maybe you're engaging in the vice of buffoonery. You are just being too much of a clown And that's not becoming of someone that is thriving.
01:02:46
Speaker
On the other end, you might be boorish, right? That's the other extreme, the other vice. This means you're impolite, discourteous. That's definitely not pleasant to be around, right? So you want to be pleasant to be around, not unpleasant, but also not a clown that is just, you know, pursuing laughs at any cost.
01:03:08
Speaker
So be witty. That would be a nice middle ground between the vices of buffoonery and boorishness.
01:03:18
Speaker
Friendliness. I actually really like this one. You should be pleasant in your daily life, right? So wittiness has to do when you are at informal gatherings, but also just in general daily life, you should be friendly to people.
01:03:33
Speaker
And this is between two vices. You can be overly flattering, right? So some people sort of are a little too, i don't know, obsequious. They almost kind of behave a little servile towards you. They're just trying to make you happy. And it's a little weird. and look It's almost a little sycophantic, right? Like they're trying to gain something, but in ah you know kind of deceptive way by by flattering you so much that you like them.
01:03:59
Speaker
So you don't want to be that. You don't want to be overly flattering. That's a vice. But then on the other end, some people kind of, you know, are quarrelsome. That's the other extreme. They're almost looking two you know, take people off or they they're just off-putting by their demeanor, sort of aggressive. And and there's just a little bit of... um a chip on their shoulder, you know, so you don't want to be either of those. You want to be friendly, right? Don't be too friendly, but also don't be unfriendly, right? So right in the middle.
01:04:36
Speaker
Justice is the next virtue. Now, Aristotle's discussion of justice gets pretty complicated and maybe even wonky because he's working through it and it's not always clear.
01:04:48
Speaker
But if I can just kind of summarize it as the mean disposition towards the desires for taking too much and taking too little. Right. So we all have to get into exchanges with people Or sometimes we have to make judgments and these have to be just, right? So let me give you an example when it comes to money. That's probably an easy one, but you have to be fair in your exchanges, right? So if you're trading something, you don't want to get more than you deserve for it.
01:05:21
Speaker
If you're trying to figure out how much someone should get paid for a job they did, you want to pay them the right amount. Don't underpay them and don't overpay them. Here is and example of justice in the realm of maybe criminal law.
01:05:37
Speaker
Maybe someone asks you, how much time do you think this particular criminal, and this convicted criminal should serve? Well, to be just in your judgment, it has to be the right amount of punishment, the right kind and the right amount of punishment.
01:05:52
Speaker
So that's justice. There are many associated vices here. there're being you know You might be too greedy or you might be draconian. right your you Your laws are just too harsh and you know you want to cut someone's hand off for lying or something like that. It might be too extreme, too cruel or punitive.
01:06:14
Speaker
So those are some vices surrounding justice. Let's move on to the last three. And these you can really tell that they make sense primarily in the context of the Athens of Aristotle's day.
01:06:29
Speaker
so generosity is the ninth one we'll cover. The mean disposition toward the passion of benevolence. So obviously you should be generous. But you don't want to be too generous, right?
01:06:44
Speaker
You don't want to give so much to the degree that you are prodigal, right? You're just very wasteful of your resources. On the other hand, some people have a real hard time letting go of their own money or goods or time.
01:06:57
Speaker
They're a little stingy. So between prodigality and stinginess is generosity. Now, the reason why this really fits into Aristotle's Athens is because generosity was sort of a key aspect of not only Greek, but, you know, Greco-Roman ah society, right? It's sort of the case that their society only worked because of...
01:07:24
Speaker
the donations of, you know, several generous benefactors, especially we'll see that in the next virtue. But generosity, you know, it still kind of jives with us. We should help out others who need help, but not too much and not too little.
01:07:40
Speaker
The 10th virtue, this one definitely makes more sense in the context of Athens in the 4th century BCE. It's called magnificence, right?
01:07:52
Speaker
And what is the magnificent person like? Well, it has to do with giving and taking money, sure, but on a very large scale. So we spoke before of Plato, who had to, he was very rich, right? 1% level rich.
01:08:09
Speaker
And he at some point had to pay for a civic festival. This is probably a lot of money, right? So you only get to be magnificent when you engage in grand acts of generosity. Right?
01:08:24
Speaker
In the ancient world, this might take the form of equipping a trireme, which is a boat ah for war, or paying for a chorus for a a ah civic festival, right? You get your choir ready.
01:08:40
Speaker
Or maybe you're funding a feast for the city. Whatever it may be, these are pretty large-scale acts of generosity. and that's why you didn't need a different word for them, magnificence.
01:08:51
Speaker
And you can see that, you know, you can only get to this level if you are really, really, really rich. Now, you might think this is not really relevant to our modern day and age, but let's think about a contemporary example of this. And that might be something like donating enough money to a college or university such that the library is named after you.
01:09:17
Speaker
right That's what we're talking about today. Is that a virtue? Well, think about what the goal of Aristotle's ethics is. Thriving, eudaimonia, reaching your full potential.
01:09:31
Speaker
Now think of someone who was actually able to get a library named after them. If someone is able to do this, and let's just imagine they started from the bottom,
01:09:43
Speaker
they should be feeling pretty damn happy about themselves, right? I mean, in other words, for Aristotle, just being financially successful just is part of happiness,
01:09:56
Speaker
If you don't agree, maybe you're just not an Aristotelian, but a lot of people do think so. If you can get to the level where you can, you know, help fund curing malaria like Bill Gates or open up a clinic and, you know, the clinic is named after you.
01:10:13
Speaker
If you have that much money, you're doing pretty good. You are thriving, right? So this is a virtue for someone who is thriving in the sense that Aristotle is thinking about thriving.
01:10:26
Speaker
Right. So maybe you don't like it, but that's very Aristotelian. And in my experience, a lot of people do like it. I mean, a lot of people think to themselves, if that's what I'm able to do, then I'm pretty sure I'm doing pretty well for myself. I'm pretty sure I'm happy with myself.
01:10:42
Speaker
I think I'm thriving at that point. So this kind of jives with some people. And I guess I may add one more thing here. I think the people that that don't like this sort of assume that you know rich people are all snobby a-holes, right? But that's not the kind of rich person that Aristotle wants you to be.
01:11:04
Speaker
Aristotle wants you to be a a morally virtuous, kind, generous, friendly, rich person. I mean, just think about all the other virtues that we listed. That's the kind of successful person Aristotle wants you to be.
01:11:19
Speaker
temperance, justice, all the rest, right? so So it's not your cartoon picture of a, you know, really rich person with bags with a money symbol on them.
01:11:30
Speaker
It's someone who uses their wealth for the betterment of society. So all that to say, it's okay if you don't agree with Aristotle. That's um obviously it's okay.
01:11:41
Speaker
But just make sure you have the right idea of what he thinks a very rich person should be before you reject the idea. Which brings us to, this may be the most polarizing of the virtues, greatness of soul.
01:11:56
Speaker
This is the mean disposition toward the passion for great honors. So if you want great honors a little bit too much, if you want too many libraries named after you, well, that would be vanity. And that's a vice.
01:12:13
Speaker
But if you don't want any libraries named after you, well, that's smallness of soul. You don't want enough, right? You need to have the right amount of, this is actually sometimes translated as proper pride. So you want the right amount of pride.
01:12:33
Speaker
And proud people, people that are proud of what they've accomplished, they sort of think, you know, I do deserve some honors here. And again, this might help others because you'll be ah shining exemplar of what you you know what is possible to do in this life.
01:12:53
Speaker
So a certain degree of greatness of soul is necessary. So that is the virtue between vanity and smallness of soul. So those were the social virtues or the moral virtues.
01:13:08
Speaker
The list of character traits that you are trying to develop if you are to thrive. And once you get these and you've trained yourself to have the right thoughts and engage in practical wisdom and feel the right way about things and act in the right way, well then all the right actions will flow from you very naturally, right? So once you develop these character traits You are living virtuously without too much conflict within yourself.
01:13:37
Speaker
It is easier to do the right thing. Besides the social virtues, Aristotle also wants to develop intellectual virtues. Now, there's five of them. I'm not going to really use all the words that he uses for these intellectual virtues because they don't line up with the way you know we use those words now. And it's going to be confusing. So I'm going say that there's five intellectual virtues that And roughly it's something like, hey, you should develop certain skills involved in producing artifacts, right?
01:14:12
Speaker
Sometimes what really makes you stand out in a position is all these random little skills that you have. There was a Civil War general. I don't remember who it was right now, but he was actually good at being a general because he had so much experience in other vocations.
01:14:34
Speaker
So maybe he had some experience with iron smelting or laying down railroad tracks or, you know, mining for coal or whatever, right? All these different random skills ended up being very useful when engaged in warfare. Now, let me give you another example.
01:14:50
Speaker
Sometimes what makes someone a valuable member of an organization is just all these random little skills. For example, maybe being a good leader, right? requires having all those skills that the people that you're leading might need to perform their tasks well.
01:15:10
Speaker
So the fact that you know a little bit about what it is that they're supposed to do and you can help them when that comes up, if they need help, well, that makes you an even better leader. And sometimes being a good leader also just you know requires thinking the way that a craftsperson does, right? You have to design a system to coordinate and communicate and make sure everyone does what they have to do.
01:15:33
Speaker
And so the more random little skills that you have, the better it's going to be for you when you're You know, at the top of your game, you'll be even more capable. Maybe that's actually what gets you to the top of your game.
01:15:47
Speaker
ah collection of random little skills. Here's a sidebar. It seems like with the kind of but economy that we can expect for the next, i don't know, a couple of decades, it's probably better to be a jack of all trades than a master of one.
01:16:05
Speaker
And so having random little skills might actually lead to you know, a little bit more job security in and the 21st century. Another intellectual virtue, you know, the capacity for calm deliberation, right? So that is something that people train to do, right? If you are, for example, scientist, you have to be level-headed when you are presenting evidence or responding to criticisms of your work.
01:16:37
Speaker
And to a certain degree, you almost want to be disinterested, right? You want to follow the evidence wherever it takes you. And you can't do that if you're sort of overly zealous and emotional.
01:16:49
Speaker
Not to say that there haven't been green science great scientists that have been very emotional, but Aristotle sees that capacity for really looking at something calmly as incredibly valuable.
01:17:02
Speaker
Having a general knowledge of the science is also an intellectual virtue, right? So keep up with the sciences. Some people stop learning. um well, pretty early on, you should not stop learning. You should be a lifelong learner. That's important for Aristotle.
01:17:20
Speaker
And you can kind of easily see that someone that just knows a lot of stuff is going to do better because climbing up the social ladder, climbing up your corporate ladder, being successful at work, all these things require skills and knowledge and thoughtfulness.
01:17:39
Speaker
And so knowing The facts is going to be obviously useful, right? So that's another intellectual virtue. Also knowledge of what Aristotle calls universal unchanging truths.
01:17:53
Speaker
That basically just means logic, math, and And last but not least, the capacity for careful observation and making inferences from our observations. Sometimes you don't need to study psychology to learn about why people do what they do.
01:18:10
Speaker
Just watch people, you know, and observe them and try to be unbiased. And you can see, oh, I think I know what's going on here. And, you know, it might make you more empathetic, but it also helps you just deal with people.
01:18:21
Speaker
And so, you know, be willing to be your own kind of scientist and do your own examinations.
01:18:51
Speaker
Now we get to what I think is very nice part of Aristotle's reflections on ethics. and It has to do with friendship, right? So there's many things that will help you become virtuous.
01:19:05
Speaker
The external goods we've talked about, a good childhood education. But what I really like here is that your friends are also able to help you get there.
01:19:19
Speaker
And so the first thing we should begin with is that Aristotle lists several kinds of friendship. Let's kind of pick those apart first, and then we'll talk about the kinds of friendships that help you reach virtue and eudaimonia.
01:19:36
Speaker
Let's begin with friendships of utility, friends of utility. These kinds of friendships are based just on mutual gain, right? There's nothing wrong with that, but these don't often last long. And it's just because it benefits each of you to be friends or friendly at least.
01:19:59
Speaker
So the kinds of relationships that Aristotle has in mind here today might be things like work relationships or employee and customer relationships. So at work, you have a lot of people there and you want to be friendly with them and you want to be kind and nice to them.
01:20:19
Speaker
And that's because it's going to make the work experience more positive. Maybe Not only will the time go by faster because you get to hang out with a friend, but also you'll do your job better. Right. That's the kind of friendship that he wants. Not the kind of friendship where you end up doing your job worse. Right. That's that's not what he's going for.
01:20:39
Speaker
But good friends of utility are those that that help you gain. right You're both gaining from this friendship. That's one kind of friendship. There's also friendships of pleasure, right? So this is a form of gain, of course, but not necessarily financial gain. This is a sort of friendship where, you know, you just do things with your friend that are really nice to do and enjoyable to do.
01:21:07
Speaker
Maybe you have a friend that you work out with and that's all you do together, right? But they make your workouts fun. Or maybe you have a friend that all you really do with them is have drinks, you know, once a month or watch sports with them.
01:21:24
Speaker
That's cool too. You engage in pleasurable activities together and by doing it together, you make those pleasurable activities even more enjoyable. That's cool.
01:21:36
Speaker
But then there's what Aristotle calls a perfect friendship. I've seen it translated that way. And in a perfect friendship, These are the kinds of friendships where you really honestly respect and care for each other.
01:21:54
Speaker
And the respect that you have for that person actually motivates you to be a better person. You're almost seeking the admiration of your friend.
01:22:08
Speaker
And so that gets you to be virtuous. Now, there are some prerequisites for a perfect friendship. Parties involved have to actually either already be virtuous or have the potential for virtue. Now, most young people,
01:22:27
Speaker
It's probably the latter, right? You're looking for people that have potential for thriving eventually. And you become friends with these people and you sort of push each other on the path of virtue and thriving and happiness.
01:22:44
Speaker
And you keep each other in check and you say, well, that's not good for you. you shouldn't do that. That is good for you. Do more of that. That's good. Maybe they're a sounding board for you. I don't know what to do here. Help me with my practical reasoning now.
01:22:56
Speaker
And I think it's it's beautiful that Aristotle talks about this because, you know, it makes me think about my friends. And in some cases, it seems to me that I'm still friends with certain people precisely because they inspire me to be a better person and to work hard, right? I i look up to them and I say, oh man, they're really kicking butt.
01:23:19
Speaker
Very interesting that Aristotle puts such a premium on on good friends. Other comments that Aristotle makes about friendship, you know, sometimes you need to drop friends because, you know, they're not moving in a virtuous direction.
01:23:36
Speaker
Maybe initially there was a potential for virtue, for thriving, but then they're making you know some bad choices. And, you know, sometimes you need to watch out for yourself. I know some of us want to help everyone and we don't want to let go of someone.
01:23:50
Speaker
Maybe that's the best thing you can do for them. You say, i can't take party to this. you're You're doing the wrong things and I don't want to be a part of that. If you ever turn it around, come look me up. But I don't want to be involved in this. I'm sorry. Right. So sometimes you need to drop friends.
01:24:10
Speaker
And, you know, it's kind of an interesting thought from Aristotle. Those are just some of the reflections that Aristotle has had eudaimonia, on the virtues. Right. There is so much more. And I do recommend books like Edith Hall's Aristotle's Way,
01:24:30
Speaker
Martha Nussbaum also has several works on Aristotle's ethics. So there's so much more here to explore and think about and to reflect upon.
01:24:42
Speaker
So I can safely say that I have not even scratched the surface of what you can gain from studying Aristotle's ethics. going to close here with maybe a couple of quotes that are very famous of his, but that kind of show you how aspirational Aristotle's ethics are, right? You're really trying to make it, to reach for the stars, right? So there's something kind of moving and stirring about Aristotle's ethics. It incites you to action almost.
01:25:16
Speaker
Here's one quote. All knowledge should be subject to examination and reason. Right? So there, Aristotle is laying it all out. You should always be looking for opportunities to improve your epistemic state.
01:25:34
Speaker
Maybe you have a couple of beliefs that aren't true or that aren't fully true. seek those out, fix them up, examine them, see how you can improve your worldview.
01:25:50
Speaker
Here's another quote. Good habits formed at youth make all the difference. Aristotle here in his utopian trains of thought is saying, look, it clearly matters what happens to you as a child.
01:26:08
Speaker
Maybe this is a call to shape our societies so that we really focus and encourage and empower people from the earliest age possible.
01:26:21
Speaker
Another quote, education is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
01:26:28
Speaker
It's not always going to be easy. In fact, we know it's going to suck sometimes. Learning new skills is inherently not enjoyable. There's a certain degree of frustration that you must experience, say, some experts on expertise.
01:26:48
Speaker
I'm thinking here of the concept of deliberate practice, which is... A form of practice that really kind of pushes you to the limit every time, right? And you can read about this in a book by Anders Erikson called Peak Secrets from the New Science of Expertise.
01:27:09
Speaker
So psychologists today are vindicating what Aristotle said, learning things, becoming expert, becoming proficient at something, gaining competence.
01:27:21
Speaker
It kind of sucks sometimes, but it's worth it. So endeavor in worthwhile things, commit yourself to doing things that are going to make you flourish in the end.
01:27:35
Speaker
Two more quotes here. We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence then is a habit, not an action. so there it is Drill it into yourself. If you engage in competent practice and you're always diligent about engaging in practical reasoning,
01:27:56
Speaker
You will, by doing the right actions over and over and over again and feeling the right way about them over and over and over again, you will become the person that you want to be.
01:28:08
Speaker
and so I'll close with this quote by Aristotle. Happiness depends upon ourselves. That's Aristotle's way of saying, you're in the driver's seat.
01:28:24
Speaker
So where headed?