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Aristotle (384-322BC) was a Greek
philosopher,
- pupil of Plato,
- and teacher of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great,
- known best for his writings on ethics, virtue, &
natural law.
For Aristotle, the function of a thing is the
purpose for
which it is designed.
- "purpose" is distinct from "uses"
- a thing may have many uses, but these are not equal
to its purpose.
- for example, you may set your books on your chair,
- but this is not the purpose of a chair, it is a
use.
- the purpose of a chair is for you to sit in.
- Many ethical arguments involve disputes over the
purpose of a thing vs. its uses.
- for example, arguments over issues of sexuality
(abortion, birth control, homosexuality) often center on the purpose of
sex: procreation or pleasure?
- but if a thing's purpose is ignored and it is reduced
to one of its uses, then the question must be asked: Why one use over
another? (we'll return to this issue).
- So what is the function of a human?
- Aristotle defines function as "that activity which
a thing performs that no other thing can perform or no other thing can
perform as well."
- He divides living things into 3 categories:
- vegetable
- animal
- rational
- Vegetative life "includes all activities involved in
growing and taking nutrition."
- Animate life means "all activities involved in
perceiving through the senses and being guided by sense perception."
- Rational life means "all activities involved in using
reason and following its rules."
- Consider vegetative activity:
- Do humans do it? Yes.
- Are they the only living things that do? No. Plants
and animals do it just as well.
- Animate activity:
- Do humans do it? Yes.
- Are they the only living things that do? No. Animals
do it as well.
- Rational activity:
- Do humans do it? Yes.
- Are they the only living things that do? Yes.
- Thus Aristotle would say: The good of the human soul
lies in the activity of using and following reason, and the perfection
(the highest good) of the human soul lies in using reason excellently.
- The Christian might argue that the good of the human
soul is to love- but we will see that this is a conclusion derived from
our knowledge of God manifested in creation, Christ, and scripture.
- So the human capacity to love and the capacity to
reason are interconnected.
- So how do humans reason excellently?
- That which enables a thing to perform its function
excellently is virtue (sometimes more than one).
- Examples:
- The virtue of a knife is sharpness.
- The virtue of a racehorse is swiftness, stamina, etc.
- So, human virtues would be those things that help a
human to reason excellently.
- But the human soul is more than just thought-
- it is thought (reasoning), feeling (anger, fear,
etc.), and desire (hunger, thirst, sexuality).
- So not only must thought be directed by virtue, so
must feeling and desire, so that the whole soul is directed to reason
(the alternatives are emotionalism and self-interest).
- The intellectual virtues control and direct
thought.
- Examples: Theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom.
- The moral virtues control and direct feeling
and desire.
- Examples: Courage, honesty, moderation, generosity,
self-control.
- The extent to which we practice and abide by these
virtues, even (and especially) when it is difficult to do so, is the
extent to which we perfect ourselves as humans.
- The "Doctrine of the Mean"
- Do not mistakenly assume that virtues have opposites. Rather, the virtues are the means
between extremes:
- Example: A firefighter who is willing to sacrifice his
life to run into a burning building to save a child is courageous.
- We might say that a firefighter who would not do this-
considering that it is part of his job- is cowardly.
- But what of a firefighter who would run in not only to
save a child, but to save something replaceable, like a watch or expensive
piece of jewelry?
- He is certainly not a coward, but his actions lack the
discretion necessary to be seen as courageous.
- He is foolhardy- too much courage.
- Aristotle called this the "doctrine of the mean."
- In terms of morality, vice is not the opposite of
virtue, rather it is the polar extremes of virtue.
- For each moral virtue, there is a pair of vices:
| cowardice |
« |
courage |
» |
foolhardiness |
| stinginess |
« |
generosity |
» |
extravagance |
| animosity |
« |
friendliness |
» |
promiscuous |
| repressiveness |
« |
tolerance |
» |
indulgence |
- The "Unity of the Virtues"
- Aristotle also noted that "all excellences of
character are interdependent," which means that if there is a flaw in
one virtue, there must be a flaw in the others.
- Example: How does the fireman know the right amount
of courage to apply in different circumstances?
- Practical wisdom. But how does one achieve
practical wisdom?
- Courage to pursue truth, and
fear of error.
- Consider this in terms of politics: Some think
that personal character is irrelevant to politics (what a politician
does in his private life says nothing about his ability to be a good
public servant; in other words, a "bad man can be a good
statesman").
Kreeft on Virtue
-
Kreeft considers the major difference
between our world and that of most of our ancestors to be not lack of
virtue, but lack of knowledge of virtue.
-
The cause of this is a shift in the
theoretical and practical philosophies that have shaped our worldview.
-
Theoretical=Naturalism: reality is only
that which our senses can detect.
-
matter, time, space, motion; that which we
in some way "feel."
-
there is nothing more than this, and since
there appears to be no God in this, there is no God.
-
Practical: nothing rules over us, we rule
over nature.
-
morality, law, knowledge, truth, all are
man-made and therefore changeable to whatever suits us.
-
In essence, this means that reality is
subjective- existing only within us- rather than objective- existing
outside of and independent of us.
-
Consider the sentence: "Bill sees a tree."
-
Grammatically:
-
Bill= subject
-
sees= verb
-
tree= object
-
This helps to understand the difference
between objective and subjective truth.
-
Consider this question: Where does Bill
look to find the nature of (to understand) the tree?
-
There are two answers. Either:
-
In the object, or the tree itself
(objective truth).
-
In the subject, or in Bill himself
(subjective truth).
-
Realize what this means:
-
If the nature of the tree is in the tree
itself, then whether or not there is a Bill to see it has nothing to do
with whether or not it exists.
-
But if the nature of the tree is in Bill,
then whether or not there is a tree that really exists outside of Bill
has nothing to do with how he understands its nature.
-
Now consider another sentence: "Bill,
Fred, and Tom see a tree."
-
If truth is objective, when Bill, Fred,
and Tom see or come to understand the tree, they have the same
understanding- they "see" the same thing.
-
But if truth is subjective, remember the
tree itself (if there even is one) no longer matters.
-
How do Bill, Fred, and Tom know they are
looking at the same thing?
-
If they disagree on what they see, to what
standard do they appeal to determine who is right and who is wrong?
-
In this case, 2 things result:
-
Truth is relativized (it becomes relative
to the person who believes it).
-
It becomes collectivized- meaning the
opinion of what truth is that is held by the most people becomes
"truth." (majority rule)
-
Most importantly, all belief is seen as
equal ("you have your opinion and I have mine"), regardless of what it
is based upon -logic, feeling, "intuition," superstition, because no
opinion can be right or wrong.
The Basics of
Logic
From Greek "logos"
meaning "word" or "reason" or "divine plan" or "intelligibility."
- Greeks believed
that the use of logic led to the perfection of the human soul, because to
think logically was to think in accordance with the divine plan- a plan
which was intelligible, or logical.
- Aristotle
developed a formula for logical thinking, called the syllogism
(syllogistic logic). It consisted of essentially two parts, premises and
conclusions.
- A premise
is a statement in an argument presumed to be true by the person stating the
argument.
- For an argument
to be effective, all parties in the argument must share premises (meaning
they must all hold them to be true).
- Premises are used to support a
conclusion.
- A conclusion
is the judgment arrived at in an argument, which should follow logically
from the premises. Example:
-
All dogs bark. (premise)
-
Fido is a dog. (premise)
-
» Fido barks. (conclusion)
-
An argument is valid if the conclusion follows logically from the premises. The above
argument would be considered valid. The following argument is invalid. Why?
-
All dogs bark.
-
Fido barks.
-
» Fido is a dog.
- An argument is sound if it is both valid and its premises are true. Example:
-
All humans are mortal.
-
Bill is human.
-
» Bill is mortal.
- In some cases, an
argument will have a conclusion that follows logically from its premises (so
it will be valid), but it will not be sound because of a faulty premise:
-
All snakes are poisonous.
-
The Boa Constrictor is a snake.
-
» The Boa Constrictor is poisonous.
- Problems with
arguments:
- ad hominem attacks- responding a person's
argument by criticizing them personally rather than directly addressing the
logic of their argument:
- William Bennett,
author of The Book of Virtues, has recently admitted to having a gambling
problem, so he has no business telling other people how to be virtuous.
- anecdotal
evidence- trying to refute an argument by claiming that an aspect of your own
personal experience has universal application.
- None of my
friends who drink have ever been in a drunk driving accident, so I don't
think it will happen to me when I drink.
- assertion-
a statement, usually found in the premises of an argument, that is assumed
to be true with no supporting evidence. No problem when the truth of the
statement is self-evident, but a big problem when the statement is
controversial:
- All people who
are opposed to abortion want to oppress women by taking away their rights.
Therefore, most Christians are oppressors.
- "bad company"
fallacy- attacking someone's argument by pointing out other people who have
held it that are discredited. Example:
- Bob: "I believe
that adultery is wrong."
- Mike: "Yeah?
Well, so did Hitler."
- Circular
Reasoning- an argument in which the conclusion is already assumed in the
premises. Example:
-
The Bible is divinely inspired.
-
The Bible says that God exists.
-
» God exists.
- Contradiction-
claiming that a statement is both true and false (both x and non-x) at the
same time:
-
I prefer the Big Bang theory as an
explanation for the creation of the universe because religious explanations
are based on faith rather than on fact.
- Democratic
fallacy- believing something to be true because the majority says it is, or
that something cannot be true because there appears to be no majority
opinion.
-
Majorities once saw the world as flat, the
earth as the center of the universe, and slavery as acceptable.
- Emotive
language- Using value-laden language to elicit an emotional response (such as
anger or guilt) in an argument, often in place of sound logic. Example:
- Bob: "I'm not
sure that Affirmative Action is constitutional or in the best interests of
society."
- Mike: "Are you
some kind of a racist?"
- or:
- Bob: "I don't
believe that a person who is living a homosexual lifestyle should be a
bishop in my church."
- Mike: "You should
learn to be more tolerant of other lifestyles, and less homophobic. What
business is it of yours how the bishop leads his personal life?"
- False
dichotomy- misleading presentation of the alternatives to your position.
- "If you're not with me, you're against
me."
- "If you don't oppose abortion, you
support murder."
- "If you don't oppose abortion, you
support the repression of women."
- Implicit premise- an unstated
assumption in an argument that is necessary to make the argument valid.
When the premise is shared by all parties in the argument, no big deal.
But when the premise is controversial, concealing it can be a deceptive
tactic intended to hide the weakness in an argument.
- People who claim to oppose abortion
because they cherish life but then support the death penalty are
hypocrites.|
- Non sequitur
("it does not follow")- statement that does not follow logically from the
premises that precede it.
-
All planets are round.
-
All mice are small.
-
» Therefore God exists.
- Rationalizing-
concealing the real reasons for one's opinion or actions by coming up with a
plausible-sounding but untrue justification that is self-serving:
-
"Look, if I hadn't picked up that $100 bill I
saw on the ground and pocketed it, somebody else would have done it. Better
me them them."
- Red Herring-
taking an argument down a path that at first appears to have relevance but
in fact does not.
-
"You say animals cannot reason like humans-
but don't they train monkeys to speak in sign language?"
- reductio ad
absurdum- refuting an argument by showing that, if true, it would lead to absurd
or ridiculous consequences.
- Dad: "You were
told that you were not allowed to drink alcohol, but you are obviously
intoxicated. Why did you go against my rules?"
- Son: "But dad,
all my friends are doing it."
- Dad: "What if all
your friends decided to jump off of a cliff?"
- straw man-
a caricature or deliberate misrepresentation/ oversimplification of your
opponent's views set up to be easily knocked down.
-
"Fundamentalists believe the Bible is
literally true, but in the Bible Jesus calls himself the 'bread of life.'
For this to be literally true, Jesus would have to be a loaf of bread, which
he was not. So obviously fundamentalism is wrong."
- universal
expertise- assuming that because a person has knowledge or expertise in one area,
they have it in all others.
-
"Important and famous people like Richard
Gere, Eddie Vedder, and the Dixie Chicks are opposed to the war in Iraq, so
it must be wrong."
Source for this page:
"Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law" by J. Budziszewski
"The Heart of Virtue" by Peter Kreeft
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