Good, Better, and the End of Man: Review and the Two Kinds of Human Virtue

Orientation #

He opens by recalling “just a bit where we had been before”: the first definition of good, better, the best (last end), and the end of man, and says that “before I left you” they tied together what practical philosophy is about. He announces that he is now going to say “something more particular about the goods of the soul, meaning the human virtues,” starting from the end of Book I, and leaves open whether Aristotle’s or Thomas’s division of the virtues of reason is correct. The previous class treated the threefold division of human goods and the order among them; the next takes up the two ways of dividing the intellectual virtues and the order of the moral virtues.

The class, in order #

1. Recall: the first definition of good is by its effect (“the good is what all desire”) #

Point: the good is defined first by its effect (arousing desire), because we know effects before causes.

• Bonum est quod omnia appetunt — “what all want.” It is a definition by effect, not by cause.
• Why first: we know effects before causes; the question “why” is a sign of this. So the first definition of good is by the effect of arousing desire.
• Aristotle, “sixth book of wisdom”: the good is in things chiefly. If something were good because we happened to want it, good would be more in us than in the thing.
• Aside: he has just returned from Italy; visited the shrine of St Michael on the Gargano peninsula near Padre Pio’s place; prayer to the guardian angels and St Thomas at the start.

2. Better means “more good”; the syllogism against relativism (“sugar is not sweet because it’s white”) #

Point: since a thing is not good because you want it, it is not better because you want it more.

1. Something is not good because you want it (from the definition above).
2. Therefore it is not more good (better) because you want it more.

• Comparison: sugar is not sweet because it is white, so it is not sweeter because it is whiter.
• The two forms of the hypothetical (if-then) syllogism: (a) if not good-because-wanted, then not better-because-wanted-more; but the antecedent holds; so the consequent. (b) To refute “the typical American”: if better-because-wanted-more, then good-because-wanted; but that is not so; therefore not.

3. What is better in general; the best as last end (“you couldn’t begin to desire”) #

Point: two most general rules of “better,” and the argument that there must be a last end.

• Whole better than part; end better than what is for its sake. The second is more basic: the part is for the sake of the whole, so the whole is in a way the end of the part.
• The best: the last end, desired for its own sake and not for another. Argument: you cannot desire a means unless you first desire the end; if everything were for something else, you would have to desire an infinity of things before desiring anything; but then you could never begin to desire. So there is an end desired for itself, and everything else for it. This is what practical philosophy is chiefly about.
• Aristotle: knowing it has great weight upon life — the target. If you aim, you may still miss; if you do not aim, “for all practical purposes” you will miss. “Most men don’t even aim at the target.”

4. A thing’s own act, and the definition of end (“that which it alone does, or it does the best”) #

Point: the two definitions that must be connected to find man’s end.

• A thing’s own act (Plato, Republic Book I): what it alone does, or does better than other things. Tools in the monastery: corkscrew takes the cork out better than a carving knife, “even though a desperate man might use a carving knife.”
• End or purpose: that for the sake of which something is or is done. Chair is for sitting (though the chair does not act); medicine is for health; studying is for knowing (“as Shakespeare tells us”).

5. Logical digression: three acts of reason and induction (“two ears and one mouth”) #

Point: connecting the two definitions requires the third act of reason.

• Thomas, Proemium to the Posterior Analytics (Aristotle’s “most central and greatest work” in logic) and Proemium to the Peri Hermeneias: logic divided by three acts of reason, ordered. (1) Simple grasping: understanding what something is. (2) Understanding the true or false — presupposes the first (cannot see man is an animal without grasping man and animal). (3) Reasoning, by syllogism or induction “or something like these two”; needed because some connections are not obvious (odd/even, dog/tree are obvious; triangle’s angles equal to two right angles is not). “Three is all you need, huh? But you do need that third act.”
• Here we grasped “own act” and “end” by definitions; the connection is not clear; so we reason — by induction.
• Induction defined (correcting a student’s “to a specific definition”): reasoning from many particular statements to one general statement. This monk, this student, this student have two ears and one mouth… “taking steps, as Albert would say” toward “every student has two ears and one mouth.” Plutarch: because you should listen more than talk — hearing as the sense of learning from another.

6. The two-layered induction and man’s own act (“Is man without any act?”) #

Point: everything with its own act is for the sake of that act; so man’s end is the act with reason, done well, throughout life.

• First layer, three inductions: (a) tools — ballpoint pen’s own act is to write, and writing is its end; (b) organs (Greek organon = tool; the body is put together from tools: eye for seeing, heart for pumping blood) — front teeth bite, back teeth chew, each shaped for its own act, and that act is its end; (c) occupations — cook’s act is to cook, not play piano; the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) will not teach piano, the conservatory will not teach cooking.
• Second layer: from those three general statements to “everything having its own act is for the sake of that act.” He adds a possible syllogism not emphasised before: ability is for the sake of act; a thing with its own act has an ability for that act.
• Applied to man. Aristotle asks whether man is naturally idle. Reply: strange if the organs (parts, for the sake of the man) and the occupations had an end but man had none — the organs would be for something purposeless.
• From what man is (the animal with reason): his own act is act with reason — first the acts of reason itself (understanding, reasoning), then acts measured, directed, ordered by reason: love, anger, even walking or drinking water (“so that the word of the voice might signify the word of the heart, as Thomas says” — verbum vocis, verbum cordis). Man alone has it (reason strictly) or has it more than anything (reason loosely).
• Chain he stresses: end is better than what is for it, so the good is fundamentally the end; the end is tied to a thing’s own act; the own act is tied to what the thing is. Hence the good is in things, “nothing arbitrary or relative in the modern sense.” My heart is good or bad because it wills good or bad, but good is primarily in things.
• Why people get confused: the first definition is by desire; people desire differently; they forget it is a definition by effect. Mozart vs. rock and roll: “you just say that, Mr Berquist, because you like it more” — “no, you got it all backwards. I like it more because it is better.”
• Precision 1, “done well”: pen is to write well, not skip letters; knife to cut well; eye to see well — otherwise “would they give me these funny looking things?” (his glasses); hearing aid analogously. Pianist to play well; people who quit an instrument because they cannot play well. Aside: newspaper photo of Condoleezza Rice playing piano with Yo-Yo Ma.
• Precision 2, “throughout life”: Aristotle’s “one swallow doesn’t make a summer”; the eye fulfils its purpose by seeing well today, tomorrow and through life. He calls this Aristotle’s “drawing a line around” (perigraphe) the end of man.
• The connection of end and good is seen in Aristotle’s four causes; the end is tied to a thing’s very structure (carving knife, pen, screwdriver, corkscrew).

7. From the end to virtue: virtue in general (“the dullness is the knife’s own vice”) #

Point: virtue is what enables a thing to do its own act well, so the end of man is restated through human virtue.

• Modern view of virtue and morals is narrow: “morals” listed as one election issue beside war, economy, social security — but all involve morals; “so broad-minded… and they’re extremely narrow-minded.”
• Heraclitus (teacher of the teachers of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas): those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, as a city in its law — and more, since all the city’s laws are fed by one divine law. Example: “thou shalt not take innocent life” feeds seatbelt laws, driving licences, laws for every new invention.
• So: to understand human virtue, first virtue in general; human virtue is to the act with reason done well as virtue in general is to a thing’s own act done well.
• Definition of virtue in general (Aristotle, NE): what makes a thing good and its own act good; the quality or disposition or condition enabling it to do its own act well, hence a good thing of that kind. A good knife cuts well; its virtue is found by knowing its act and then the condition of the blade that does it well — sharpness. Steak-knife companies “restore them to virtue.” Dullness is the knife’s vice. An out-of-tune piano is “a vicious piano” — the master pianist complains.
• Own act and own virtue are not the same but connected: virtue enables the act done well, vice results in it done badly. Same knowledge of opposites: human virtue and human vice.
• A third question: how to give a thing its virtue — differs (piano tuner vs. knife sharpener).
• Restated end of man: the act with reason according to human virtue, throughout life. Hence the need to study human virtue.

8. The plan of the Nicomachean Ethics, Books I–X (“one swallow doesn’t make a summer”) #

Point: how the whole work unfolds from and returns to the end of man.

• End of Book I: human virtue divided into moral virtue and the virtues of reason (“intellectual”). Books II–V moral virtue; VI virtues of reason.
• Book VII, “the completeness of Aristotle”: subhuman (bestial) vice — Scythians, cannibals — and suprahuman, heroic virtue. A hero in Greek myth has one human and one divine parent (Achilles: human father, goddess mother; Hercules: Zeus and a mortal woman), so heroic virtue partakes of the divine, above the human mode. Thomas recalls this when treating the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which operate above human virtue.
• Books VIII–IX friendship. Fullest friendship is tied to virtue: a friend is someone you can trust — can you trust a coward on the battlefield, Don Giovanni with your wife or daughter, an avaricious thief with your money, a glutton with the cake, a drunkard with the bottle? So the trustworthy person is courageous, moderate, etc. Ancients’ interest in friendship, missing in moderns; in the Middle Ages charity seen as a kind of friendship — Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship.
• Book V is the only book on one virtue (justice); two books on friendship. Aristotle: friendship is in a sense better than justice — friends will be just, but justice is not enough. “The two best things in life are wisdom and friendship… wisdom shared with friends” — anticipating the Church and heaven.
• Book X: after all the virtues, he returns to the definition (perigraphe) to ask whether the end consists more in some virtues than others — not answered until then. So the Ethics begins and ends with the end of man.
• Aside (Padre Pio, Gospel of Matthew): Christ calls two pairs of brothers (Peter and Andrew, James and John) as Moses and Aaron were one pair — the New Testament higher, but spiritual brotherhood built on natural; harmony of nature and grace, as matrimony presupposes natural friendship and raises it to a sign of Christ and the Church. Padre Pio’s near-last words, “I see two mothers.” No word yet on what he said to the future Pope.

9. What practical philosophy is about (“that treats of happiness”) #

Point: three objects, plus the two preliminaries, make five things to grasp.

• Chiefly the end of man (Aristotle’s proemium). But (Plato’s Apology; Politics VII) the moral and political philosopher speaks in general of all goods of man — goods of soul, body, exterior — and their order, because all contribute, more or less proximately, to the end.
• Proportion: wisdom is about the end of the whole universe, hence about all things in general, as ethics is about all man’s goods in general.
• Plato’s Laws (his last work): the lawgiver makes laws about justice (soul), health (body), economics (exterior), but calls on the doctor or carpenter for details.
• In particular, the goods of the soul, the virtues, most closely connected to the end. Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew: “that part of philosophy that treats of happiness, especially by virtue to be achieved.”
• Five things: good, better, the end of man, division and order of all goods in general, the goods of the soul (virtues) in particular.

10. Dividing human virtue; two ways of dividing the virtues of reason (“the rule of two or three”) #

Point: human virtue divides into virtues of reason and virtues of what partakes of reason; the five virtues of reason are divided 3-and-2 differently by Aristotle and Thomas.

• Act with reason includes acts of reason and acts that partake of reason. Closest to reason without being reason: will and emotions, which can be measured by reason (how angry to be; some things one should not laugh at — “laughter doesn’t know where it should laugh”) and directed by reason, seen most clearly in choice; exterior acts follow from will and emotion. Aristotle: reason is one part or power of the soul; other parts listen to reason, can be “tamed” by it.
• He refuses “intellectual virtues” (“I’m not an intellectual myself. That’s a pejorative word now”): virtues of reason vs. virtues of what partakes of reason (= moral).
• Book VI divides the virtues of reason into five; “the human mind cannot understand the division into five,” so two groups, three and two. Thomas (Prima Secundae; the whole second part is “moral theology”) also gives five, also three and two, “but not the same three and two.” Is one right, or do both bring something out? Left open.
• Illustration that two divisions can both be true: the Our Father in Matthew 6 (seven petitions; Luke has five). Divided four (about the good) and three (about the bad) — easiest; or, as Augustine sometimes does, three (fulfilled only in heaven — “on earth as it is in heaven” belongs to all three) and four (needs of this life; daily bread even as Eucharist, and no Eucharist or temptations in heaven). The fourth petition falls in the first group on one division and the second on the other — showing exactly where it belongs, in the middle: about the good like the first three, about this life like the last four.
• Aside: he writes big letters at the start and small at the end of the board — “I have a little foresight.”

His words #

• good: “what all want / what all desire,” bonum est quod omnia appetunt; definition by effect.
• “sixth book of wisdom”: Aristotle on the good being in things [ed.: Metaphysics VI].
• better: “gooder, more good.”
• best: the last end, desired for its own sake.
• a thing’s own act: what it alone does or does better than others (Plato).
• end or purpose: that for the sake of which something is or is done.
• simple grasping: understanding what something is [ed.: simple apprehension]; second act: understanding the true or false [ed.: judgment]; third: reasoning.
• induction: reasoning from many particular statements to one general statement.
• organ / organon: the Greek common word for tool.
• ability: [ed.: potency], “ability is for the sake of act.”
• act with reason: acts of reason and acts measured/directed by reason.
• verbum vocis, verbum cordis: word of the voice signifying the word of the heart (Thomas).
• perigraphe: “drawing a line around” the end of man (Aristotle).
• virtue in general: the quality, disposition or condition enabling a thing to do its own act well, making it a good thing of its kind; vice: what makes it do its act badly (dullness, out of tune).
• hero: one human and one divine parent; heroic virtue partakes of the divine.
• virtues of reason vs. virtues of what partakes of reason [ed.: intellectual vs. moral virtues].
• “the rule of two or three”: five divided into three and two.

Texts #

Read in class (recalled, quoted or commented):

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I (definition of good, target, own act, “one swallow,” definition of virtue, division of virtue at the end); survey of Books II–X.
• Heraclitus, fragment on the divine law and the laws of the city (quoted).
• Matthew 6, the seven petitions of the Our Father (commented, with Augustine’s divisions).
• Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, line on philosophy and happiness by virtue (quoted).

Mentioned:

• Aristotle, “sixth book of wisdom” (Metaphysics) — good is in things.
• Plato, Republic Book I (own act); Apology; Laws.
• Aristotle, Politics Book VII; Aristotle’s four causes.
• Thomas Aquinas, Proemium to the Posterior Analytics; Proemium to the Peri Hermeneias; Prima Secundae (virtues of reason; gifts of the Holy Spirit); “as Thomas says,” verbum vocis/cordis; commentary on Matthew (calling of the brothers).
• Plutarch on hearing; Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship; Luke’s version of the Our Father.

His questions #

• What is the first definition of good, and is it by cause or by effect? What all desire; by effect, since we know effects before causes.
• What is the definition of a thing’s own act? What it alone does, or does better than other things.
• What is the definition of an end or purpose? That for the sake of which something is or is done.
• What are the three acts of reason, and what is the third for? Grasping what a thing is, understanding true or false, reasoning; needed where the connection is not obvious.
• What kind of argument is induction? From many particular statements to one general statement.
• Is man without any act, naturally idle? No; his organs and occupations have ends, and his own act is the act with reason.
• What is the connection between virtue in general and a thing’s own act done well? Virtue is what enables a thing to do its own act well.
• Is Aristotle’s or Thomas’s three-and-two division of the virtues of reason correct, or do both bring something out? Left open (illustrated by the two divisions of the Our Father).