Philosophy
recognizes that, unlike science and technology, where chronological progress
usually, although not necessarily always, corresponds to actual progress (what
was revolutionary novelty twenty years ago is reactionary backwardness today),
in the discipline of ethics, what is good and right, as opposed
to bad and wrong, has little or no correlation to the progress of
history. We may laugh at pre-Socratic science (that is, if we are silly enough
to do that), but we cannot dismiss pre-Socratic ethics as outdated. In
fact, Christian ethics is almost two thousand years old, the Ten
Commandments and the Hammurapi ethical code are even older, and Codex
Iustinianus (or Corpus Iuris Civilis) is widely acknowledged
as the basic document of all modern civil law, despite its being laid down in
an otherwise barbaric age of pre-medieval history.
For
this reason, Aristotle’s ethics cannot be dismissed as some relic of a hoary
past, but, by the same token, Aristotle ought not to be given any slack for
having lived so long ago. His Nicomachean Ethics, which has been the
only attributed to him work on ethics (among three) which is indisputably his,
stands or falls on its own merits, and having been written so long ago is no
excuse for its shortcomings.
As
a matter of personal taste, I am not a particular lover of the philosophical
habit of formally defining the qualities of human character, such as
courage, temperance, liberality, and such, which characterizes works of Hobbes
and Spinoza, but originates with the pedantic manner of Aristotle. These
pretentious definitions teach me little if anything, and, rather than
stimulating my thought, inhibit it by annoying me not a wee bit. Frankly, I see
no philosophical value in such exhibitions of ordinary common sense bordering
on platitude, and had Aristotle written nothing but Nicomachean Ethics,
I could never have been impressed by him. But owing to the comprehensive
picture of his philosophy, the undeniable brilliance of his magnificent mind is
enough to cast a bright light even on his least admirable accomplishment, and
to make its assiduous study sufficiently worthwhile.
My
last point does not mean that I am about to engage in a painstaking analysis of
Aristotle’s ethics, from here to the end of time, but a few pointed comments
will certainly do.
By
far, the most interesting feature of Aristotle’s ethics is its concept of happiness.
While everything else is more or less commonplace, or even pedestrian, in his
treatment of happiness, Aristotle is basically unique, combining elements of totalitarian ethics with apolitical Stoicism. He disagrees with
Plato and Socrates, in whose view, happiness is the ultimate result of
acquiring superior knowledge. Aristotle believes that even knowing what is the
good, the individual can easily fail to achieve the state of happiness due
to the weakness of human will. Not unlike Plato, however, he sees no difference
between political (social, collective, etc.) and personal happiness, but not
without a twist. This twist hides in our very familiar concept of “the pursuit
of happiness,” where
everyone ought to agree that pursuit indicates a certain activity, and
what we have just said applies only to such happiness which is identified with
activity. There is, however, a happiness which reaches above activity, bringing
man closer to God, who, if we still remember, is inactive, in Aristotle, having his abode in
perfection, beyond which state there can be no pursuit. Before we get to this
pinnacle state of contemplation, however, let us go through certain aspects of
the doctrine of happiness, as it unfolds on the pages of Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics...
To
be continued tomorrow…
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