Ethics #

All handout series

Thomas Aquinas, Proemium to Practical Philosophy (beginning of his laying out of the 1st Bk of Nicomachean Ethics) #

reading · AquinasCommentary Proemium to Practical Philosophy · 3 pages · PDF · 01-Aquinass_Proemium_to_Practical_Philosophy.pdf

Covers: Translation of Aquinas’s proemium to his Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics: wisdom orders; the twofold order (of parts to each other, and to an end); four ways order relates to reason (natural, logical, moral, and productive/artistic); and the division of moral philosophy into monastic (ethics), domestic (economics) and political.

Read from in:

• Prima Secundae — 1. Thomas’s Premium to the Ethics: Wisdom, Order and the Parts of Moral Philosophy; Aristotle’s Opening — the Good Is What All Want (from 20:37) · p. 2

Note on Thomas’ Proemium to Practical Philosophy #

note · NicomacheanEthics 02 · 3 pages · PDF · 02-Note_on_Aquinass_Proemium.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on Aquinas’s Proemium to his commentary on the Ethics: the division of philosophy into looking (theoretical) and practical by their ends, the threefold division of each (natural, mathematical, first philosophy; ethics, domestics, politics), and the division of the orders known by reason, with remarks on rhetoric and modern science as offshoots.

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Proemium #

reading · NicomacheanEthics Reading 1 · 1 pages · PDF · 03-Aristotle_Reading_One.pdf

Covers: Opening of the Nicomachean Ethics: every art, science, action and choice aims at some good; the diversity of ends, with acts or products as ends; the ends of chief arts are more desirable than those of subordinate arts.

Read from in:

• Ethics — 10. Aristotle’s Proemium to the Ethics: The Highest End, Method and Fit Hearers (from 13:05) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 1. Thomas’s Premium to the Ethics: Wisdom, Order and the Parts of Moral Philosophy; Aristotle’s Opening — the Good Is What All Want (from 40:05) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 2. Is It Good Because We Want It? The Order of Ends and Arts, the Chief Good, and Political Science (from 20:39) · p. 1

Aristotle, Proemium, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Reading 2 #

reading · NicomacheanEthics Reading 2 · 1 pages · PDF · 04-Aristotle_Reading_Two.pdf

Covers: Translation of the argument that there must be a highest end, desired for itself, and that knowledge of it belongs to political science, the most authoritative art, whose end embraces the ends of the other sciences and is the good of man and of the city.

Read from in:

• Ethics — 10. Aristotle’s Proemium to the Ethics: The Highest End, Method and Fit Hearers (from 27:33) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 2. Is It Good Because We Want It? The Order of Ends and Arts, the Chief Good, and Political Science (from 45:44) · p. 1

Proemium: the certitude proper to political knowledge, and the proper hearer #

reading · NicomacheanEthics Reading 3 · 2 pages · PDF · 05-Aristotle_Reading_Three.pdf

Covers: Translation of Nicomachean Ethics I.3. Certitude should match the subject matter. Political matters are variable, so rough outline is enough. The educated man seeks only as much certitude as the subject admits. The young, whether in age or in character, are not proper hearers of political knowledge, since they lack experience and follow their emotions.

Read from in:

• Ethics — 10. Aristotle’s Proemium to the Ethics: The Highest End, Method and Fit Hearers (from 45:22) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 3. Aristotle’s Ethics I: The Good, the Last End, Certitude in Ethics, and Man’s Own Act (from 13:57) · p. 1

Note on Aristotle’s Proemium to Nicomachean Ethics #

note · NicomacheanEthics Note on Aristotle’s Proemium · 1 pages · PDF · 06-Note_on_Aristotles_Proemium.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on the Proemium of the Nicomachean Ethics: what a Proemium should do, its comparison with the Proemium to the Metaphysics (Looking Philosophy) and to the Ethics (Practical Philosophy), and the epilogue Aristotle gives to each.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

A Note on Practical Philosophy #

note · NicomacheanEthics 07 · 10 pages · PDF · 07-Note_on_Practical_Philosophy.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s essay on the end and matter of practical philosophy: doing what is good or better for oneself, family, city. It covers the general notion of good and better (tied to the Proemium of the Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a), Socratic definition versus examples, and the ordering of goods (outside goods, goods of the body, goods of the soul).

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 42. The Dialectician’s Tools: Probable Premises, Senses of Words, and Differences (from 16:20) · p. 9
• Natural Hearing — 30. Becoming, the General Before the Particular, and Why the End Is Better Than the Means (from 34:35) · p. 9
• Natural Hearing — 65. The Continuous and Its Basic Role: Beginning, End, and the Point Without a Limit (from 37:18) · p. 9
• Natural Hearing — 82. Wisely and Slow: Friar Lawrence, Shakespeare, and Seven Places Where the Wise Man Proceeds Slowly (from 55:46) · p. 9
• De Anima — 55. Knowing in Some Way, Choosing the Apparent Good, and the Deliberative Imagination (from 39:42) · p. 9
• De Anima — 95. Before and After: Senses of Priority and Why Breathing Isn’t Better than Philosophizing (ST I q.77 a.7, Part 1) (from 32:09) · p. 8
• Ethics — 1. What Is Good? The First Definition and the Socratic Question of Cause vs. Effect (from 35:32) · p. 2
• Ethics — 3. The Good, the Better, and the Three Kinds of Human Goods (from 28:24) · p. 9
• Ethics — 4. The End of Man: Own Act, Virtue, and the Act with Reason Done Well (from 1:53) · p. 10
• Ethics — 5. The Good, the Better and the End of Man: Own Act, Virtue and Proportion (from 7:11) · pp. 7–9
• Ethics — 6. Goods of the Soul, Body and Exterior: Socrates vs. the Athenians, and the Scope of Practical Philosophy (from 4:00) · p. 9
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 19. Prior and Posterior: The Order of Thomas’s Proofs, and Aristotle’s Physics on Reason’s Look Before and After (from 39:51) · p. 10
• Prima Pars — 25. Summa I, Q.5, A.4: Why We Want the Good, and the Good as Final Cause (from 7:26) · p. 4
• Prima Pars — 83. Part 2: Whether God always loves the better more, and the justice of God (Q.20, a.4 – Q.21, a.1) (from 14:50) · p. 9

What Is Good & What Is Better - The Order of the Discourse #

paper · NicomacheanEthics 08 · 5 pages · PDF · 08-On_Good_and_Better.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s essay on the order to follow in coming to know what is good and what is better, following Plato and Aristotle and contrasting Kant. It starts from examples of good things and the distinction between examples and definition. It ends by arguing that the whole is better than the part and the end is better than what is for its sake.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Natural Hearing — 31. Heisenberg on Natural Language, Number and One, and Student Questions on Nature and Motion (from 30:15) · p. 4
• De Anima — 156. Q88 a1–a3: Knowing immaterial substances through material things, and whether God is the first thing we know (from 38:22) · p. 4
• De Anima — 157. Summa I, Q.88–89 a.1: God Is Not the First Thing We Know; Why the Soul Is Joined to the Body (Brevity, the Square, and Teaching Weaker Minds) · p. 4
• Ethics — 3. The Good, the Better, and the Three Kinds of Human Goods (from 42:08) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2005) — 17. Why Truth Belongs to the Wise Man: Wisdom, Truth, and the Balance of Hope and Fear (Metaphysics II, Reading 2) (from 18:36) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2005) — 53. Metaphysics IX, Reading 9: Eternal and Corruptible Things, Necessary and Impossible, Pure Act, and What Is More Knowable to Us (from 1:21) · p. 4
• Prima Secundae — 3. Aristotle’s Ethics I: The Good, the Last End, Certitude in Ethics, and Man’s Own Act (from 5:17) · p. 4

Drawing a Line Around the End of Man #

reading · NicomacheanEthics Reading Ten · 2 pages · PDF · 09-Aristotle_Reading_Ten.pdf

Covers: Aristotle’s function argument: the proper work of man is the activity of the soul in accord with reason. The human good is activity of soul according to virtue, the best and most complete virtue, in a complete life. This ends with the good outlined.

Read from in:

• Ethics — 11. Nicomachean Ethics I.7: Drawing a Line Around the End of Man—Reason as Man’s Proper Function (from 0:56) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 3. Aristotle’s Ethics I: The Good, the Last End, Certitude in Ethics, and Man’s Own Act (from 52:33) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 4. Happiness as Activity by Virtue: The General Meaning of Virtue, Moral Virtue and Choice, and Shakespeare on Reason (from 0:47) · p. 1

Foreword to Consideration of Love and Friendship #

foreword · NicomacheanEthics 1 · 13 pages · PDF · 1-forewordlove_and_friendship.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s introduction to the study of love and friendship: why they matter, and why love is treated before friendship. It ends with appended quotations on music and love, including Mozart’s Don Juan, Pope Paul VI and St. Augustine on singing.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Prima Secundae — 11. Felicitas as Fruit, Boethius on False Happiness, and Why Happiness Is Not Honor or Glory (ST I-II q.2 aa.1-3) (from 6:54) · p. 6

Note on End or Purpose of Man #

note · NicomacheanEthics 10 · 6 pages · PDF · 10-Note_on_the_End_of_Man.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s own note on how the end of man is reasoned out by syllogism and compound syllogisms (if-then, either-or). It uses an induction from a thing’s own act (tool, organ, occupation) to establish the major premise that a thing’s own act is its end.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 32. Form and Matter of the Syllogism: Either-Or and If-Then Syllogisms, Right Opinion, and Proportion (from 1:03:51) · p. 4
• Ethics — 4. The End of Man: Own Act, Virtue, and the Act with Reason Done Well (from 19:41) · pp. 1–3
• Ethics — 5. The Good, the Better and the End of Man: Own Act, Virtue and Proportion (from 18:03) · pp. 1–4
• Ethics — 7. Good, Better, and the End of Man: Review and the Two Kinds of Human Virtue (from 25:32) · p. 3
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 15. Act Cannot Be Defined: Induction by Proportion, Descartes and Locke, and the Love of Wisdom (from 5:24) · pp. 2–4

Nature and Kinds of Love #

note · NicomacheanEthics 2 · 27 pages · PDF · 2-nature_and_kinds_of_love.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on love, drawing on Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 26, Art. 1 (whether love is in the concupiscible appetite), with the nature of love as an emotion of the concupiscible power and its kinds. Filed under Ethics, presumably in connection with the Nicomachean Ethics treatment of friendship.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• De Anima — 7. Are the Passions of the Soul Bodily? Emotions, the Will, and Immortality (De Anima I, Proemium) (from 28:59) · p. 18
• De Anima — 74. Averroes’ Mistakes, the Soul Not Wholly Immersed in the Body, and St. Teresa, Mother of Spiritual People (from 21:32) · p. 23
• De Anima — 97. Powers of the Separated Soul: Article 8, Love and Emotion, and Mozart’s Music (from 5:07) · p. 18
• Love & Friendship — 1. Loving as Giving and as Undergoing: Shakespeare, Teresa and Thérèse on the Wound of Love (from 5:51) · pp. 3–18
• Love & Friendship — 2. Why Love Is Undergoing Yet Called Giving: Aristotle on Truth and Good, and Love in the Concupiscible Appetite (from 0:33) · pp. 1–15
• Love & Friendship — 3. Love as an Undergoing: Conformity of the Heart, and Sense Love in Shakespeare (from 6:22) · pp. 9–20
• Love & Friendship — 4. Amor and Dilectio, the Love of Wishing Well and the Love of Wanting (from 0:13) · pp. 18–24
• Prima Pars — 127. The Holy Spirit as Love and as Gift (ST I, q.37 a.2 replies; q.38) and the Order of the Treatise on the Trinity (from 8:23) · p. 18
• Prima Secundae — 68. The Four Principal Passions, Comedy and Hope, and the Start of the Treatise on Love (ST I-II q.25 a.4; q.26 a.1) (from 36:44) · p. 2
• Prima Secundae — 69. Aquinas on Love (ST I-II q.26, aa.2-3): Love as a Passion, and Amor vs. Dilectio (from 13:35) · pp. 10–20
• Prima Secundae — 70. Aquinas on Love (ST I-II q.26 a.4, q.27 aa.1-2): Love of Friendship vs. Love of Wanting, and the Good, Beauty and Knowledge as Causes of Love (from 14:52) · p. 24
• Prima Secundae — 106. Aquinas on Fear, Part 2: Fear of Fear, Sudden and Irremediable Evils, and the Causes of Fear (Summa I-II Q.42 a.4–6, Q.43) (from 23:39) · p. 23
• Prima Secundae — 199. Antonomasia in Scripture: ‘The Evil One’ and ‘The Good’; Summa I-II q.85 aa.2-3: Can Sin Destroy Nature’s Good, and the Four Wounds of Nature (from 50:59) · p. 18
• Prima Secundae — 257. Aquinas on the Old Law’s Judicial Precepts (I-II q.105 a.1-2): Rulers and the Best Mixed Government, Sharing Goods, Inheritance, the Jubilee and Loans (from 37:32) · p. 23

Causes of Love #

paper · Other 3 · 38 pages · PDF · 3-causes_of_love.pdf

Covers: Essay on the causes of love (first cause: something good), illustrated with Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice, All’s Well That Ends Well) and Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles IV, c. 54), Augustine and St. Catherine; ends with why being loved moves us to love in return.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 39. Syllogism Figures, Wisely and Slow, and the Eight Recurring Forms of Argument (from 30:58) · p. 6
• Love & Friendship — 4. Amor and Dilectio, the Love of Wishing Well and the Love of Wanting · p. 1
• Love & Friendship — 5. The Good as Cause of Love: Shakespeare and Aquinas ST I-II q.27 a.1, and Knowledge as Cause of Love in Shakespeare (from 1:09) · pp. 1–9
• Love & Friendship — 6. Knowledge as Cause of Love (q.27 a.2) and Likeness as the Third Cause of Love (from 1:00) · pp. 9–20
• Love & Friendship — 7. Likeness as a Cause of Love: Aquinas on Why Like Attracts Like, and Why Rivals Clash (from 2:41) · pp. 20–31
• Love & Friendship — 8. Hope, Desire and Being Loved: Other Causes of Love, and Whether Love’s Capacity Has a Limit (from 1:51) · pp. 32–37
• Love & Friendship — 16. Self-Love, Likeness, Time and Rootedness in Friendship: Shakespeare, Johnson and Irving (from 33:32) · pp. 19–21
• Wisdom (2005) — 3. Metaphysics I.1 (end): Why Knowing the Cause Is Wiser Than Experience (from 57:45) · p. 2
• Wisdom (2005) — 28. Wisdom as the Knowledge of Being as Being: ‘Through Itself’, the First Cause, and Words Equivocal by Reason (from 31:47) · p. 2
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 1. Why ‘Metaphysics’ Is the Wrong Name: Wisdom, Reason and Shakespeare’s Definition of Reason (from 26:27) · p. 2
• Prima Pars — 74. Aquinas on Life (ST I q.18 a.1–3): Moving Oneself, Life as Being, and the Grades of Life up to God (from 27:44) · p. 18
• Prima Secundae — 12. Why Happiness Is Not Power, Bodily Goods, or Pleasure (ST I-II q.2 aa.4-6) (from 33:57) · p. 2
• Prima Secundae — 22. Replies on the Separated Soul; Does Beatitude Need a Perfect Body or Outside Goods? (I-II, Q.4, aa.5–7) (from 50:24) · p. 2
• Prima Secundae — 70. Aquinas on Love (ST I-II q.26 a.4, q.27 aa.1-2): Love of Friendship vs. Love of Wanting, and the Good, Beauty and Knowledge as Causes of Love (from 29:27) · pp. 5–18
• Prima Secundae — 71. Aquinas on the Causes of Love: Likeness and the Other Passions (ST I-II q.27 a.3-4) (from 3:22) · pp. 25–32
• Prima Secundae — 196. Infected Powers, Avarice as the Root and Pride as the Beginning of Sin (ST I-II q.83 a.4; q.84 a.1–2) (from 1:32) · p. 32
• Prima Secundae — 210. Wood, Hay and Straw, Venial Sin in the State of Innocence, and Why Angels Cannot Sin Venially (Aquinas, Question 89, Articles 2-4) (from 39:48) · p. 32
• Tertia Pars — 16. Summa III, Q.4, Arts. 4–6: Not Abstract Human Nature, Not All Individuals, but from Adam’s Stock (with a Digression on Universal Cause vs. Universal Predication) (from 17:16) · p. 2
• Tertia Pars — 41. Aquinas on Christ’s Emotions: Sadness and Fear (Summa III, Q.15, Arts. 6–7) (from 5:44) · p. 2
• Tertia Pars — 84. The Creed’s Articles on Christ’s Humanity; John’s Baptism: Why It Continued and Why Its Recipients Were Baptized Again (from 6:06) · p. 2
• Tertia Pars — 98. God Became Man: ‘Standing For’, the Fallacy of Accident, and the Senses of ‘Necessary’ – Introduction to the Passion (ST III q.46) (from 41:16) · p. 2

Effects of Love #

note · Shakespeare 4 · 32 pages · PDF · 4-effects_of_love.pdf

Covers: Effects of love, beginning with the first effect, union, illustrated through Shakespeare passages (As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well). Filed under Ethics but the text is a set of Shakespeare illustrations of love’s effects.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• De Anima — 22. Sensing as Undergoing: Empedocles, Potency and Act (De Anima II.5, Part 1) (from 53:26) · p. 25
• Love & Friendship — 9. Aquinas on Love: Review of the Treatise’s Divisions and Union as the First Effect of Love (from 17:19) · pp. 1–6
• Love & Friendship — 10. Mutual Indwelling, Ecstasy and Zeal: Aquinas and Shakespeare on the Effects of Love (from 0:41) · pp. 6–20
• Love & Friendship — 11. Aquinas on Love: Review, and Jealousy and Zeal as an Effect of Love (from 24:05) · pp. 18–22
• Love & Friendship — 12. Does Love Make the Lover Better or Worse? Love’s Effect on the Lover (Aquinas ST I-II q.28 a.5) (from 2:06) · pp. 22–29
• Love & Friendship — 13. Is Love the Cause of All That the Lover Does? Love as the Root of All Passions (from 0:31) · pp. 29–31
• Love & Friendship — 14. Aristotle’s Six Reasons to Study Friendship, and Friendship in Shakespeare: Its Excellence, Concord, and Return of Love (from 0:00) · p. 31
• Love & Friendship — 16. Self-Love, Likeness, Time and Rootedness in Friendship: Shakespeare, Johnson and Irving (from 58:36) · pp. 8–10
• Love & Friendship — 17. Number and Freedom in Friendship, then Aristotle’s Ethics: What Is Friendship? The Three Lovables and Perfect Friendship · p. 10
• Prima Secundae — 67. Aquinas on the Order of the Passions: Love First Among the Concupiscible, Hope First Among the Irascible (ST I-II q.25 a.2-3) (from 33:38) · p. 4
• Prima Secundae — 72. The Effects of Love: Union and Mutual Indwelling (ST I-II q.28 a.1-2) (from 20:39) · pp. 5–13
• Prima Secundae — 73. Aquinas on the Effects of Love: Ecstasy, Zeal, and Whether Love Harms the Lover (ST I-II q.28 aa.3-5) (from 2:32) · pp. 16–28
• Prima Secundae — 216. Summa I-II q.91 aa.5–6 and q.92 a.1: The old law and the new law, the ’law of hot blood’, and whether law makes men good (from 28:12) · p. 14
• Prima Secundae — 222. Aquinas on Law, Part 2: The Precepts of the Natural Law, Virtuous Acts, and Whether the Natural Law Is the Same for Everyone (Q94 a2–4) (from 50:20) · p. 14
• Prima Secundae — 224. Natural Law II and Human Law: Replies on Grace and Unjust Laws; Why Human Laws Are Needed and How They Derive from Natural Law (from 2:35) · p. 14
• Prima Secundae — 262. Hope in Shakespeare’s All’s Well and the Theological Virtues; New Law vs. Old Law (ST I-II q.107, aa.1-2) (from 6:51) · p. 2
• Tertia Pars — 120. Christ Ascends by His Own Power, Above All the Heavens and All Spiritual Creatures; How the Ascension Causes Our Salvation (from 33:44) · p. 17