IS ETHICS A MATTER OF TRAINING BY WALLACE H. PROVOST JR.

The problem of training versus knowledge as a means of becoming an ethical person is not a simple problem. It is complex, which means that the two methods are not mutually exclusive. Training the minds of his fellow Athenians was the underlying motivation of Socrates. Though, as we just discussed, Plato believed that virtue was knowledge. He still understood that such knowledge was not available to the untrained mind. This idea, as well as much of his theory of knowledge, was developed as much from Parmenides as it was from Socrates. A clue to this development can be seen from the description of Parmenides poem that was developed by Martin Heidegger. He developed his view through a phenomenological exegesis. This use of phenomenological language brought out new facts concerning the meaning behind Parmenides words. Parmenides was a philosopher who was somewhat older than Socrates. He lived in Elea, in Italy. He developed a description of knowledge that was completely logical, yet seemed paradoxical to most people. He said that what is could never not be. What is not cannot even be talked about because it is nothing. Since what is cannot be derived from nothing or could never become nothing, it could never move or change. He also implied that there could never be more than one because if there was then these would have to be separated and this separation would necessarily not be and that is absurd. He called ordinary men "two-headed" because they believed that what is not could at the same time be. His doctrine was told in an epic poem. Hiedegger, by translating the poem into phenomenological language, developed some insight into the implications of Parmenides thought. In our case implications needed to understand Plato's use of training as a path to knowledge. "The path," Heidegger said, "now indicated is that of doxa in the sense of appearance." Sliding back and forth from one opinion to another, men lose themselves entirely. But, the poem also made it necessary to know this path "...in order", as Heidegger said, "that being may disclose itself in appearance and against appearance." While all three paths are necessary for a complete understanding of truth, each by itself has its own shortcoming. Heidegger thus concludes that; A truly sapient man is therefore not one who blindly pursues the truth, but only one who is always cognizant of all three paths, that of being, that of nonbeing, and that of appearance. Superior knowledge--and all knowledge is superiority--is given only to the man who has known the buoyant storm on the path of being, who has known the dread of the second path to the abyss of nothing, but who has taken upon himself the third way, the arduous path of appearance. The world of coming to be and of passing away never is, yet in order to become cognizant of what is, of the unchanging, one must first acquaint himself of the sensual world of the coming to be. Plato included the Eleatic what is and cannot not be in his changing world of the ideal forms. These, because they were unchanging were and could not not be. The world of the senses were constantly coming to be and therefore could never be. But he too saw the problem of Parmenides, that to understand the unchanging one must come to terms with the changing. If we examine Plato's theories of knowledge more closely we find that like Parmenides he too saw that knowledge of the unchanging was only possible through the world of the coming to be. Remember, the Platonic mechanism responsible for gaining knowledge of the unchanging was recollection, or being reminded of the unchanging forms by experiencing things in the sensual world. Thus, even in this pure idealistic approach, learning can only be from experience. Of course Plato's language doesn't always reflect this attitude. But consider this statement from the Republic. When its gaze is fixed upon an object irradiated by truth and reality, the soul gains understanding and knowledge and is manifestly in possession of intelligence. But when it looks towards that twilight world of things that come into existence and pass away, its sight is dim and it has only opinions and beliefs which shift to and fro, and now it seems like a thing that has no intelligence. It would seem, then, that experience far from being the source of all learning is an insurmountable barrier. And it would be, if it were not possible to train the mind to see in the sensual experience of the unchanging recollections of the changing. Much of Plato's Republic was involved in the procedures required to develop ideal guardians therefore he was forced to face the problem of training. In the allegory of the cave Plato said that the escapee had to be forced to look into the fire and to experience for himself the real objects that had caused the shadows he had taken for real. When he returned to the cave and attempted to convince his fellows there they castigated him and would not listen to what he was saying. Their minds had not been trained to see the reality behind the shadows. In Book VI of the Republic Plato described four stages of cognition each stage having a higher degree of reality. The term he used for the lowest form was eikasia. Cornford felt that the term "imagining" was the closest translation. It is the "wholly unenlightened state of mind which takes sensible appearances and current moral notions at their face value." It is the condition of the prisoners in the cave who have experienced only the shadows. The second stage pistis or belief, is the stage of belief in the reality of visible and tangible things. Also the stage of correct moral beliefs without knowledge. This would be the stage at the beginning of the training of the guardians because at this point they would be trained to hold true beliefs which were sufficient as guides to action but were not secure since they were not based on real knowledge. By training the intellects of the guardians first in mathematics and then in moral philosophy, they would be brought to the level of dianoia or thinking. In this stage the mind has arrived at a level of understanding but falls short of perfect knowledge. The highest stage is called episteme, or knowledge. This stage is reached only through dialectic, which for Plato means a "technique of philosophical conversation (dialogue) carried on by question and answer and seeking to render or to receive from a respondent and account (logos) of some ideal Form. This would usually be a moral Form, in the Republic it was justice." Once the mind has risen to this stage then it has the ability to descend through deduction to confirm the entire structure of moral and mathematical knowledge. So you see that in Plato's theory of knowledge, the mind first must be trained to the point that it can assimilate the unchanging that lies behind the changing. Once in that state knowledge is possible and not before. Plato's most mature thought on the subject came in his seventh epistle, written in the last years of his life. For every real being, there are three things that are necessary if knowledge of it is to be acquired; first, the name; second, the definition; third, the image; knowledge comes fourth, and in the fifth place we must put the object itself, the knowable and truly real being. To understand what this means, take a particular example, and think of all other objects as analogous to it. There is something called a circle, and its name is this very word we have just used. Second, there is its definition, composed of nouns and verbs. "The figure whose extremities are everywhere equally distant from its center" is the definition of precisely that to which the names "round," circumference," and "circle" apply. Third is what we draw or rub out, what is turned or destroyed; but the circle itself to which they all refer remains unaffected, because it is different from them. In the fourth place are knowledge, reason, and right opinion (which are in our minds, not in words or bodily shapes, and therefore must be taken together as something distinct both from the circle itself and from the three things previously mentioned); of these, reason is the nearest the fifth in kinship and likeness, while the others are further away. The same thing is true of the straight-lined as well as the circular figures; of color; of the good, the beautiful, the just; of body in general whether artificial or natural; of fire, water, and all the elements; of all living beings and qualities of souls; of all actions and affections. for in each case, whoever does not somehow grasp the four things mentioned will never fully attain knowledge of the fifth. This letter was written partly to explain why he was not successful in converting Dionysus, the tyrant of Syracuse, and partly to explain why the book on philosophy written by the tyrant could not possibly be philosophical. Dionysus had only engaged Plato in a single philosophical dialogue. There was no way that his mind could be trained to the level where he could understand the highest level on knowledge in a single conversation. Thus you can see that training, that is the direction of the actions of the mind, is a separate sphere from learning, or the cognition of pure Forms. The former relates to the development of a special kind of interaction between the mind and the images produced by imagination of the sensual world. The second relates to the cognition of the pure and necessary knowledge of the forms. Aristotle, on the other hand, said that the soul of a person was what is was to be that person. He called it the form of the person. This made it an integral part of what the person is. The mind, he said, was necessarily disconnected from the body because it does not share in the discomforts of the body. But, since a person's mind is part what a person is, it is also a part of his soul. Sometimes he referred to it as the "intellectual soul". However, experience was a process he considered to be a bodily function. The imagination, which he determined was an attribute of the senses and therefore of the body was an imaging mechanism of the senses but one that the mind made use of. Anyone who derives knowledge from experience must answer the question how does one gain knowledge of a world that includes both the past and the future from experience which entails neither. a difference between the changing and the unchanging requires a past and a future. Change cannot happen except over time. We do not experience time sensually, only mentally. But more important to our present quest is the problem of training and learning. Aristotle was a student of Plato's and understood the problems that Plato was trying to solve. And for his answer to those we must turn not to de Anima, but to The Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is not a book of ethical theory. It is a handbook for becoming a virtuous man. The term "virtue" as used by the Greeks is the extent to which whatever is referred to achieves the purpose (fourth or final cause) of its existence. For man, that is a rational life. For this reason Aristotle divided the virtues into two kinds, intellectual and moral. The difference between the two lies in the way they are developed. Intellectual virtue is developed through teaching, and moral virtue by habit. This makes both the result of training. The first through the aid of a teacher. The second through active exercise of the virtues themselves. He said that a person becomes a good builder by building well and he becomes a just man by doing just acts. If ethics is a matter of training then ethical concepts are passed on by previous generations and are developed by a creative experience. Plato's theory of knowledge required a separate world where ideal forms of everything existed. The soul of every person lived in this world before entering the body at birth. Learning was a matter of recollecting what was forgotten at birth. But the basic idea that there exists a set of ideal entities which must be learned through dialectical argument, or through any use of rational thought requires some space where these ideal concepts reside. Aristotle rejected the theory of forms because he couldn't accept the idea of a separate world where they must exist. His theory of knowledge led to the idea that we develop the forms of things directly from experience through inductive logic. In Plato's ethical approach the person who acts ethically through understanding the pure forms would have a happy life. But happiness itself is not the highest ideal. That would be the "Good" because it is what directs the mind to act ethically. But in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle provided a new definition of the "Good" with the following quote. Every art or science and every systematic investigation, and similarly every action and choice seems to aim at some good; the good, therefore, has been well defined as that at which all things ai This definition of the good was not originated by Aristotle, it dates back before Plato. Ostwald suggested to the fourth century mathematician Eudoxus. It is a definition that Aristotle accepted and is fundamental to his view of ethics. It makes the study of ethics a study of actions, those that lead toward the good, or that at which one aims. But it also implies that everything that exists does so for a purpose and that purpose had to exist before the thing came into existence. This is Aristotle's concept of final cause. An understanding of the relationship between individual actions and politics requires some understanding of Aristotle's teleological approach. The Nicomachean Ethics is not a discussion of ethical theory, it is a discussion of ethical actions. Therefore the existence of an ethical structure in society is simply assumed. The nature or the origination of that structure is not plumbed. It is the role of a man to increase his own virtue and it is the role of the polis to provide an atmosphere conducive to moral development among the citizens. a study of theoretical ethics would necessarily require an explanation of the source or ground for an ethical system and would be forced to choose between rival systems, or at the very least acknowledge their differences. For Aristotle man is a member of an essentially just system and it is his duty to improve his own virtue through virtuous action while improving the system through political action. This is typical of the "training" approach to ethics. Training is the development of neural structures that have the simple responsibility of recognizing specific patterns in the environment picked up by the senses. Unlike knowledge approaches, training does not require rational thought. a dog or a parrot can be trained. Modern computer scientists working with neural computers and neural simulations in serial computers have developed a few of these kinds of structures. They are used, for example, by the post office for reading hand-written zip codes on letters. We need not assume that the number of types of these structures is small. With the billions of neural connections in the brain the possibility of a large number of different kinds of structures is possible. The prime purpose of training is to develop these structures. The prime purpose of the structures is to reduce the amount of variety in the environment to a manageable level. When G. E. Moore said that concepts like yellow, and the "Good" are simple and undefinable, he was trying to say, almost a century before the existence of these neural structures was developed, that they are learned through training. These structures predate language. And they are a necessary prerequisite for language. When we say that ethics is a matter of training we are saying that we develop neural structures in our brain which make us ethical people. Aristotle's approach to ethics is not as a theorist, but as a trainer. His Nichomachean Ethics therefore, is not a textbook on ethics, it is a handbook for the ethical man. Plato's idea of the Good, what he considered the highest form, was what illuminated what was good in the same way that the sun illuminates what is visible. Aristotle searched for a concept of the ideal Good as the ideal end for any action. And he developed this directly from experience. He asked, does there exist in the realm of action an end which men desire for its own sake, one which determines all of our desires. If there is such an end, he said, then the knowledge of this end would be in the province of politics, the queen of the sciences. Though it might seem strange considering our modern view that politics could be considered the highest science, consider that the ancient Greeks were extremely proud of their city states. Aristotle saw that it is politics that determines which kinds of sciences should exist in a state and which of its citizens should learn which sciences. In the Politics he set out the end of the ideal state in clear language But the end of the state is not mere life; it is a good quality of life. [If mere life were the end], there might be a state of slaves, or even of animals; But in the world as we know it any such state is impossible, because slaves and animals do not share in true felicity and free choice [i.e. the attributes of a good quality of life In Aristotle's thought everything that exists does so for a reason or purpose. that reason or purpose is part of what a thing is. It is also the final cause for its being and for Aristotle the most important. The greatest advantage of this approach is that it is the only mode of explanation that recognizes that any entity that obtains its structure through the activities of relatively free individuals will have the property that to some extent that structure is an emergent property of the actions themselves. One factor in emergence, however, is that it is something that occurs later in time to the actions out of which it appears. Thus according to this approach the reason for the emergence of a structure must exist prior to the emergence of the structure. This, of course, is illogical and has caused many to reject this kind of explanation. However, if we set this problem aside unresolved, perhaps to be solved in other ways at another time, then this approach begins to make a kind of logical sense. Of course I am not insinuating that Aristotle solved that problem. The structure of the polis, in Aristotle's view, was the repository of both the limits of valid action and the conditions under which actions would be performed. a structure that responds to the actions of the individuals who made up the polis. This made politics the reigning monarch over the ethical actions of citizens. The aim of politics, he said, is the highest good attainable by action. That good which is sought for its own sake and never as a means to something else is the highest good. Aristotle said that good was happiness. For example we seek honor, pleasure and intelligence for their own sake but we also seek them to make us happy. On the other hand we never use happiness to bring about honor pleasure or intelligence. Happiness is self-sufficient, it is never counted as one among many other goods but always considered on its own. But Aristotle meant happiness in a very special way. He said that man attains his happiness through a life of virtue. Thus a happy man will never be miserable through adversity since his virtue will always shine through. However, since the virtue of anything in a Greek sense is the measure of its fitness to its purpose. In other words the virtue of an axe, as he put it, is how well it cuts wood. To understand the virtue of a man we must know the purpose of the man, his reason for being, or as Aristotle put it, the final cause for his having been created. a man is happiest, he said, when he is actively accomplishing his own personal function, and doing it well. a harpist is happiest when playing the harp well, a carpenter when building well. But man is more than a harpist, a carpenter, or a soldier, he is also a rational being. The proper function of man as a species of animal is a life determined by rational action. But there is only one kind of rational action that leads to happiness. It is a kind of action that is particular to each individual man because every person has a rational function in life. This is best explained with Aristotle's concept of soul. From long-standing Greek tradition soul is incorporeal, it does not include body. Yet it is, that is it exists in the sense that we can talk about it. Also, it is attributed to an existing thing yet is not an attribute, it does not modify what the thing is. It is thus equivalent to having knowledge rather than exercising knowledge. It also applies only to a specific entity. This entity must have life. Consider Aristotle's four causes and the implication, particularly of the final. In this case the implications they have on what a thing is that is capable of movement on its own? What defines such a thing is complex. It must involve more than a fixed and singular purpose such as the ability to cut wood of an axe. It is a more complex Form which Aristotle called the soul that included the quality by which it is capable of self-movement. Thus in such a body, soul is its form and as such is its actuality, but only in the sense that it is what it is and not in the sense that it is. Now the word actuality has two senses corresponding respectively to the possession of knowledge and the actual exercise of knowledge. It is obvious that the soul is actuality in the first sense, viz, that of knowledge being possessed, for both sleeping and waking presuppose the existence of soul, and of these waking corresponds to actual knowing, sleeping to knowledge possessed but not employed, and, in the history of the individual, knowledge comes before its employment or exercise. When Aristotle discussed forms of soul in living things he was referring to such things as senses, the powers of thought and appetition. These are the kinds of activities that the living thing partakes of through the action of soul. Keep in mind that the concept of potentiality is the classical method of overcoming the problem of teleological reasoning. In his words; If we take the proper function of man to be a certain kind of life, and if this kind of life is an activity of the soul and consists in actions performed in conjunction with a rational element, and if a man of high standards is he who performs these actions well and properly, and if a function is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the excellence appropriate to it; we reach the conclusion that the good of man is an activity of the soul in conformity with excellence or virtue, and if there are several virtues, in conformity with the best and most complete If we use the crude approximation of Aristotle's concept of virtue as the measure of the fitness of something to its purpose, then this measurement would be part of what it is to be something. If we include in our essential whatness of an individual his purpose for having been created, then this measurement would be part of that essence, or whatness. It is part of what makes a certain person that person rather than another. In this case you can see that any activity which resulted in a modification to this measurement would be affecting what Aristotle called the soul. These kinds of activities are the kinds that we list under the term training. This does not make them irrational. It only deals with the method by which they are developed. In this case by developing neural structures in the brain for performing specific operations. Undoubtedly, the brain structure that produces a Picasso is highly complex and training in the manipulation of colors and forms may seem only incidental to the artistic talent that produces the works, but it is also indispensable. The difference between an artist and a dabbler includes both the discipline developed through training and the artistic talent that lies below that training. Aristotle taught that the development of moral virtue too was accomplished through training. Moral excellence, he said, is concerned with the proper attitudes toward pleasure and pain. a man who enjoys abstaining from bodily pleasures is self-controlled. One who does not is self-indulgent. Should he endure danger without pain then he is courageous, with pain he is a coward. Since it is pleasure that leads to base actions and pain that prevents us from doing noble actions, men must be brought up from childhood to feel pleasure and pain with the proper things. Thus, moral virtue has to do with actions and emotions, and either pleasure or pain will be the consequence of every emotion and every action. Therefore pain inflicted as punishment is a form of medical treatment for the soul. Since only voluntary acts have an effect on virtue, and thus ultimately on happiness, and since an act is voluntary only when it is chosen, he developed a detailed description of what he meant by choice. He said that it is determined by Three factors, the noble, the beneficial, and the pleasurable. There are also three factors that determine avoidance, the base, the harmful, and the painful. Pleasure always accompanies choice and pain always accompanies avoidance. Therefore only the good man will feel pleasure and pain in the right way. At the same time, one property of virtue is that continued virtuous acts result in an increase in the virtue of the person acting. Because virtue is a median between excess and deficiency, a virtuous person is a person who can maintain a middle road. However, since Aristotle always deals with particular things rather than generalizations, his idea of the middle road is different from most others. Given the specific occasion of any moral action, the contents of that action will lie somewhere on a continuous line between excess and deficiency. But exactly where on that line will be determined by the specific instances of the action itself. The, he said was determined by prudence, or practical wisdom. So you can see that it makes a difference in Aristotle's moral theory whether Actions are voluntary or involuntary. a man performs an act voluntarily when he is aware that he is performing it, knows the virtue of the act, whether it be evil or virtuous, and has the power and opportunity to do otherwise. Performing virtuous acts involuntarily does not make a man virtuous. Nor does performing involuntary evil acts make him and evil man. If the acts are not committed fully voluntarily we may say that a man performed a virtuous or an evil act but we cannot call him virtuous or evil as a result of those acts only. Since to be a voluntary act, the person must commit it with complete knowledge of what he is doing, an act committed in the state of ignorance is involuntary. However, there is a difference between an act committed due to ignorance and one committed in ignorance. a person can commit an act being ignorant of the consequences of the act. for such an act the person would be acting involuntarily. However, a drunk, a man of weak morals, or an evil man could be said to be acting in ignorance but they could not be said to be acting involuntarily. Only through the teleological approach to the development of man's soul can we make sense out of Aristotle's theory of deliberate action. For, we might agree on the principle or that everyone's choice of actions is dependent on his own idea of the good, or that everyone seeks what appears good to them, then either way we seem to be committed to the conclusion that if everyone is responsible for his own characteristics, then he is responsible for what appears to him to be good and thus not responsible for his own wrongdoing. On the other hand, we might begin with the principle that if the end we take is determined not by the individual himself but by a natural gift of vision which enables him to choose what is good and to make the right decisions, then in either case how will virtue be any more voluntary than vice? Acceptance or rejection of these statements may depend on your acceptance or rejection of Aristotle's teleological point of view. It is one logical consequence of taking the view at face value. However, it doesn't ring true with Aristotle's general ethical thought and he took time to counter that approach. What he said in response is that a man's virtue is the result of a man's actions, not of his reasoning, a statement that makes sense only when we consider his teleological theory of the development of soul and its relationship to virtue. These descriptions of soul are not brought out in the "Nicomachean Ethics" but they serve to give us a better understanding concerning what does. Soul has two parts, the rational and the irrational. The irrational itself has two parts, the vegetative and the appetitive. The first has reason of its own. The second listens to reason. With this in mind we can go on to look closer at Aristotle's conception of virtue. Aristotle defined virtue as a median between excess and deficiency. We can find this particularly well illustrated in his approach to generosity. In this case, extravagance represents excessive actions, stinginess deficient, and generosity itself the median between the two. Excellence, he said, consists of doing good, not in having good done to one. Therefore a generous man is characterized by his giving to the right persons, not from his abstaining from taking from the wrong. Virtuous actions are performed because they are noble so a generous man will give the right amount at the right time. It will give him pleasure to do so. Generosity is relative not to the amount given but to the characteristics of the giver. If a generous man gives to the wrong people or at the wrong time his actions are not dictated by generosity. An extravagant man has the qualities requisite for a generous man. He gives, he does not take. However, he does not perform these acts well or rightly. Most extravagant men take from the wrong sources. They take because they want to spend and thus their sources are soon exhausted. These people are not giving because it is noble to give, they are not giving in the right way. For stinginess, on the other hand, there are two important aspects. The first is a deficiency in giving. The second is an excess in taking. The mean, Aristotle said, is not just a midway point between the excessive and the deficient, it is a point that most people would agree is best. Magnificence is another virtue that is concerned with material goods, but magnificence is concerned only with spending. Aristotle called it suitable spending on a grand scale. What is suitable, he said, is relative to the person, the circumstances, and the subject. a magnificent man is generous but a generous man may not be magnificent. It always involves spending on worship or on public enterprise. There are two senses which Aristotle applied to justice. In the full sense justice is synonymous with virtue, all virtuous acts being just and all just acts being virtuous. The difference between the two lies in the point of view. Virtue is the state of an individual, while universal justice is the same state seen in relationship to society. The second sense he called the partial sense. This applies only to acts which are considered to be just or unjust. For justice and injustice, he said, are not opposites, they are characteristics. Justice is the characteristic that makes an act just and injustice the characteristic that makes an act unjust. An example of justice in a partial sense would be lawful and unlawful acts. In every case the former acts would always be just, the latter unjust. Aristotle's conception of justice in this partial sense implies a sense of fairness. An unjust man, he said, is one who takes more than his share. As a result he is concerned with those things that are involved with good and bad fortune. These are also the kind of things that men pray for. He suggested that instead they should choose what is good and pray that they are good for them. The art of legislation lies in knowing when a law leads toward securing the common good for all and for the good of those who hold their place in power due to their excellence. This is what makes a lawbreaker unjust and a law-abiding man just. This kind of justice is complete virtue or excellence in relation to your fellow men. Aristotle said that the worst man is he who practices wickedness toward himself as well as his friends. The best man, however, is not one who practices virtue toward himself but one who practices virtue toward others. This being a hard thing to achieve makes justice the highest virtue and the opposite to the whole of vice. He used the following analogy to illustrate another example of justice in the partial sense. Consider one man who committed adultery for a profit and thereby made money, and another who committed adultery at the prompting of appetite and thereby spent money. The first he would call unjust, the second self-indulgent. The former man has made an unjust profit, he has received more than his fair share. The latter does not involve himself in unfairness, he has not offended society, his act is immoral, not unjust. This method of explaining justice allows us to consider the qualities that make a specific act just. The first of these qualities is fairness. An unjust act and an unjust man are unfair and unequal. Fairness is the median between the extremes of inequality. Every case of equality involves four terms, there are always two persons involved and there are always two shares involved. If the persons are not equal their just shares would not be equal. Everyone agrees that the just share must be determined on the basis of what one deserves, but not everyone is agreed on the criterion for deserving. However, whatever the criterion the just is a proportion and whatever violates that proportion is unjust. When that proportion has been violated, however, then we find a different criterion for justice. When we are considering recriminations, or the resolution of a prior unjust act we no longer consider the virtues of the individuals involved but only of the unjust act performed. The problem here is to restore a proportion that has been violated. It makes no difference whether the one violated is the more evil of the two, for it is only the act and its severity that is to be considered. For this purpose we turn to judges whose action is to restore the balance to where it properly lies. In all associations that are based on mutual respect the just is the bond that holds them together. The same problem of the equality of proportions applies to the economics of the state. The money value of every transaction must be consistent and must bring about a fair distribution of goods. The just in political matters requires the following; 1. The just can only be found among men who share a common life in order to assure self-sufficiency. 2. The just can only occur among men who are free and equal, even though that equality might be proportionate or arithmetical. 3. The just exists only where the mutual relationships among men are regulated by law. It is legal judgement that decides what is just and what is unjust. Therefore It is the rule of reason and not the rule of man that brings about a just society. What is just for the master of a slave or for a father is similar to what is politically just. However, a piece of property like a slave or a child, are part of the person, at least until the child reaches legal age. Since a person cannot act unjustly toward himself there can be no injustice between a master and a slave or between a father and a child. What is just by nature, Aristotle said, has the same force everywhere. What is just by convention, although it makes no difference whether it is fixed one way or another, once it is fixed then it has the same force as what is just by nature. Consider too that Aristotle said that a man cannot be blamed for committing an unjust act unless it can be shown that he committed it voluntarily, nor can he be praised for a just act performed involuntarily. By a voluntary act he meant one performed by the agent in full knowledge without ignorance either of the person acted on, of the instrument used, and of the result intended by his action. Thus acts done in anger are not considered to be committed with malice aforethought. In this case the initiative lies not with the man who acted in anger but with the person who provoked the anger. Acts too committed in ignorance and actually due to that ignorance are pardonable. However, if they are done in ignorance but not due to that ignorance, the examples Aristotle used before were the man acting in drunkenness or the morally weak man, are not pardonable. Aristotle said that just and equitable are members of the same genus. The equitable is just but is morally better than just. The difference is that equitable is not just in the legal sense of "just" but as a corrective of what is legally just. the problem is that laws must be universal and there are some things about which it is impossible to speak in universal terms correctly. The law generalizes. This does not make it incorrect, because it must apply to the majority of cases. The problem lies in the nature of specific cases. Thus equitable is just yet it is better than just in some specific use of the term. An equitable man is one who acts justly in this sense, he is not a stickler for justice in the bad sense. He is satisfied with less than his share even when he has the law on his side. What we have been discussing up to now has been Aristotle's view of moral virtue, virtues of character. There is another side to virtue, the virtues of thought or intellectual virtue This involves the rational part of the soul. He said that it has two distinct parts. The first apprehends things which do not admit being other than they are, the other things which do. He called the first the scientific element, the second the calculative element. Thus knowing the characteristics of each will lead us to understand its excellence or virtue. Since intellectual virtue has to do with truth and action and since those elements in the soul involved with truth and action are sense perception, intelligence, and desire, he concluded the following; Therefore, since moral virtue is a characteristic involving choice, and since choice is deliberate desire, it follows that, if the choice is to be good, the reasoning must be true and the desire correct; that is, reasoning must confirm what desire pursue Choice may be the starting point of action, the source of motion, its starting point, however, is desire combined with reasoning directed toward a specific end. Thus there cannot be choice without intelligence. Neither good nor bad actions are possible without thought. But only thought that is directed toward some end and concerned with action can initiate motion and production. While whoever produces something produces it for an end, the ultimate end is the good life and desire is directed toward that. There are five faculties by which the soul may express truth by way of affirmation or denial: art, science, practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, and intelligence. Conviction or opinion, on the other hand, may be true or may be false. Scientific knowledge, he said, cannot be otherwise than it is therefore scientific knowledge exists of necessity and so is eternal. Of those things that could be different than they are, things that are produced involve a different set of characteristics. Productions differs from action, it is a trained ability of rationally producing. Since rational production is art, that makes good art production under the guidance of true reason . Art deals with production and not with action. In fact, production without art is a matter of producing under the guidance of false reason. The capacity to deliberate well about what is good and advantageous is a characteristic of a man of practical wisdom. It is not pure science because it deals with matters that could be different than they are. It is not an art or applied science because it is not involved in production. Practical wisdom is a truthful characteristic of acting rationally in matters good and bad. Pericles, he said, had practical wisdom. He had the capacity of seeing what was good for himself and for mankind. Self-control preserves practical wisdom while vice tends to destroy it. Since scientific knowledge cannot be other than it is, it is known demonstratively from fundamental principles. Scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, and theoretical wisdom are the faculties by which we attain truth. However, the starting point for any of these three is not contained within them since the fundamental principles are not objects of scientific knowledge, Practical wisdom, or theoretical wisdom. The faculty that recognizes fundamental principles is intelligence. In the arts we attribute wisdom to the most perfect masters. therefore wisdom must be the most precise and perfect form of knowledge. a wise man must not only understand what follows from fundamental principles, but must as well understand the principles themselves. Thus theoretical wisdom must include both scientific knowledge and intelligence. He said that men like Anaxagorus and Thales were masters of theoretical wisdom but not of practical wisdom. We admit that they know extraordinary, wonderful, even super-human things. But we call their knowledge useless because the good they are seeking is not human. Practical wisdom is concerned with human affairs and matters about which deliberation is possible. It deals with particulars as well as universals There are two kinds of wisdom concerning the state. One is the art of legislation and the other is politics. The first is a kind of comprehensive practical wisdom, the second is a matter of actions for men who engage in politics do things. Young men, Aristotle said, may attain theoretical wisdom, but practical wisdom is concerned with particulars and thus comes from the experience that comes with age. In the same vein practical wisdom involves excellence in deliberation. One does not deliberate concerning scientific knowledge which cannot be other than it is. Deliberation takes time otherwise it is nothing but shrewd guessing. Excellence in deliberation will lead to a correct assessment of what is most conducive to an end concerning which practical wisdom gives a true conviction. Understanding deals with matters concerning which doubt and deliberation are possible. Practical wisdom issues commands, understanding passes judgement. It is neither the possession nor the acquisition of practical wisdom. Good understanding implies that the judgements are right. When we say a man has a good sense we mean that he has practical wisdom and understanding. Understanding and good sense deal with matters of action. Intelligence, on the other hand, deals with ultimates. It grasps the unchangeable primary terms and concepts for demonstration. But these are the starting points for demonstration. Therefore understanding and good sense imply the existence of intelligence. Theoretical wisdom would seem to have nothing to do with what makes a man happy. For, though practical wisdom deals with what is just, noble, and good for man, our performance of any such action is not enhanced by knowing about them. Even if we were to say that practical wisdom dealt with how to become just, noble, and good, it still would seem to be of no use to a good man. Finally, if it were practical wisdom that ruled and directed man's actions it would surpass theoretical wisdom even though it is inferior. Aristotle had an answer to these problems. He said that both practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom are necessarily desirable in themselves. Each represents a virtue of a different part of the soul. He said that the possession of theoretical wisdom alone will make a man happy. In addition man fulfills his proper function only by way of practical wisdom. "Virtue,"" he said, "makes us aim at the right target and practical wisdom makes us use the right means." Finally, people can and do perform just acts without being just. People who are just perform these acts through choice and for themselves, not in ignorance, and not for ulterior motives. It is cleverness that is the power to perform those steps which are conducive to any goal we have set for ourselves. However, when that goal is noble then cleverness deserves praise, but when it is base then cleverness is knavery. There are two kinds of quality in that part of us which is moral, natural virtue and virtue in the full sense. Virtue in the full sense cannot be attained without practical wisdom. virtue is not just a characteristic guided by right reason, it is virtue united with right reason. "Virtue determines the end and practical wisdom makes us do what is conducive to that end." Aristotle spoke of friendship, but when he did he included all of those interactions that bind men together. Rich and powerful men require friends, he said, for what good would their prosperity do them without friends to share it with. The poor and the unfortunate need friends to help them through their misfortune. Friends help the young to avoid error and the elderly as their powers begin to fail. Friendship even holds states together. "When people are friends", he said, "they have no need of justice, but when they are just they need friendship in addition." We praise those who love their friends, consider friendship noble as well as necessary, and we believe of our friends that they are good men. We can understand what friendship means better if we understand what it means to be an object of affection. Aristotle gave as the three reasons for something being lovable, when it is good, when it is pleasant, and when it is useful. When the reason for friendship is usefulness the partners do not feel affection for one another, only for what is useful to them. By the same token one may enjoy anthers company because he is pleasant. However, when the external conditions for the affection dissipate there is no friendship left. The perfect form of friendship, Aristotle said, is between two people alike in excellence and virtue whose affection for one another is unqualified for though affection may resemble emotion, this kind of friendship becomes a lasting characteristic. Aristotle's arguments against Eudoxus' view of pleasure as the good foreshadow many of the ethical arguments that pervaded western thought for the next two millennia. Eudoxus' first statement was that all things, rational or irrational, strive for pleasure, that in all cases what is good is desirable. Since everything that strives for that same goal, it follows that pleasure, being that goal, is the best for all. His second argument was that pain is the opposite of pleasure and it is avoided by all. This, he claimed, supported his argument that pleasure is the good. Eudoxus' third argument was that all agree that pleasure is in itself desirable, and that the addition of pleasure to any good thing at all makes it more desirable. Since what is good can be increased only by another good thing, it must be that pleasure is the good. Aristotle argued that while Eudoxus showed that pleasure is a good, since any good added to another good results in an increase in good, it doesn't prove that it is the good. Not only that but if it is only a good when it is added to another good then it cannot be the good itself. The argument that pleasure is the opposite of pain fails also because just being the opposite of pain doesn't make it good, it could be another evil, or it could be something that is neither evil nor good. The character of pleasure is like that act of vision, it is complete at any given moment. there is never a case where a pleasure is more complete if it lasts longer. therefore it is not a motion like building or walking. All sense perception is likewise a complete activity. In any sense perception that activity is best whose organ is in the best condition and whose object is the best within its range. When this occurs the activity is most pleasant. In his conclusion Aristotle returned to the concept of happiness as the good. Happiness, he said is not a characteristic. If it were then a person who passed his entire life asleep or vegetating could possess it. Happiness is therefore an activity, an activity that is desirable in itself and not for the sake of something else. Activities which are desirable in themselves are those from which we seek nothing but the exercise of that activity. Actions in conformity with virtue constitute such actions and the performance of noble and good deeds is something desirable for their own sake.

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