Prima Secundae
2. Is It Good Because We Want It? The Order of Ends and Arts, the Chief Good, and Political Science
Class of 2011-01-27
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/002-is-it-good-because-we-want-it-the-order-of-ends-and-arts/

[0:00] Well, the question that Socrates teaches us to ask here, Heisenberg says that now the Greeks taught us how to ask the right question. So Socrates says to Euthyphro, "Is it pious because the gods approve of it, or do they approve of it because it is pious?

[0:29] Is murder bad because God doesn't approve of it, or doesn't God approve of it because it is bad? So, what question could you ask? Socrates asked about this, huh? Did

[0:51] you all want it because it's good, or was it good because you all wanted it? Yeah. Yep. Is it good because we want it,

[1:08] or do we want it because it is good? Now, if you know the meanings of before and after, right? In the fifth, in the fifth I think was it twelfth chapter of the Categories. One sense of before and after is the cause is before the effect, right? So this is a question about before and after. Is wanting the cause of something being good? Is this goodness an effect of its being wanted, or is the goodness of the thing the cause of our wanting in it?

[2:01] So wanting is an effect of the goodness of the thing, right? It's a key question about order here. You can state the question another way by saying, "Is wanting the cause or the effect of the good, right? "

[2:34] It's really the same question I'm asking, right? Now, there's a very simple dialectic you can go through to try to answer this question, right?

[3:02] In dialectic, you don't have to be altogether certain, right? But you have to have probability, right? Well, if wanting was the cause of something being good,

[3:20] then the fact that you want something would have made it good for you. But everybody has this experience in life that something they wanted, right? Was not what good for them, right? And it's not someone else simply saying it's not good for you, but they themselves came to recognize that this was not good for them, right? I just take the simple example of the man who's at the party, right?

[3:52] And someone says, "Do you want another drink?" And yeah, yeah, no, yeah, sounds like a good idea, right? And then he feels nauseated now he's gonna get after this other drink, right? And I wish I hadn't had the other drink. Now, you know,

[4:12] Yet he wanted, it, right? Or let's take the example, you know, simple example of the kid who drives his car too fast, right? And ends up around a tree and so on, and his car's all smashed up and he's in traction or some kind of uncomfortable position in the hospital. And even to himself, he might admit it was not good for him to drive his car that fast, right?

[4:41] Remember one of these slippery winters, where the road was icy. and my wife was driving, you know, carefully, right? The guy behind me gets, you know, impatient, you know, and she's driving so slowly, so he speeds up and passes her. He goes off the road and into a tree. My wife says she's trying to make sure he wasn't hurt. You know, but the thing that she was going to say wrong.

[5:03] Speak one, drive your car, right? And you know, on the first day of ice, you know, people are having more accidents maybe than they have later on, right? And so they want to drive their car at the usual speed, but as my father used to say, when winter comes, you have to learn how to drive again. He'd say that was his principle. So

[5:34] you can find all kinds of examples then, right? Of people who wanted something, and they themselves now admit it was not good for them, right? Okay. So

[5:51] that's kind of the obvious argument against saying that something is good because you want to want it, right? now, what about the reverse? If you say then maybe because of this, it's the other way around that we want it because it is what good, right? Huh? Well, then you could use the same examples to say, well, if good is the cause of wanting, then how could it be that you wanted something that was what was bad, right?

[6:23] And. Furthermore, if good is the cause of wanting, then bad should be the cause of the opposite of wanting, which should be turning away from something, right? So, if it is true what you say that good is the cause of wanting, then people should always turn away from the bad because that's the opposite, right?

[6:53] And sometimes people don't want what's good for them, right? It takes a while, you know, for them, if at all, to to realize it's good for them, right? So, how can you be the cause and not the what? Effect, right? So these are the ways you can reason, kind of simply, first on one side, then the other side, right? As Aristotle explains in logic when he talks about dialectical reasoning, if you want to define it, you could say it's reasoning from probable what?

[7:27] Opinions, right? Even to contradictory what? Yeah, even to contradictory to opposed conclusions. Now, now you got to do two things here. One, you got to reason out the truth here, and then secondly, you have to what? Answer the objection or the argument on the opposite side, right? Okay. Now, how would you

[8:10] reason out the truth in this matter, right? Well, probably the most appropriate way would be like Aristotle does, an inductive argument, right? Now, the way I used to do it, though, was to take what people recognize as kind of the natural good, right?

[8:43] So you take, let's say, water or food, right? Or take air, right? And pretty hard to deny that air is good for us, right?

[9:01] And water is good for us, right? And food is good for us, right? Okay. And reproduction is good for us, right? Keeps us in existence. Take that one. I used to love the example of money, right? Okay. So you go through these basic things, and you say, "Well, now is it the desire to breathe that makes air good for us, or can you see apart from our wanting to breathe

[9:38] that air is good for us, right? " And people would see that, right? Okay. And how about sleep, right? You see that sleep is good for you. You know how the communists used to, you know, brainwash you, you know, by keeping you awake, you get actually crazy, I guess, huh? And so eventually you die, I suppose, but you go crazy first, and so sleep is good for you apart from your wanting to sleep, right?

[10:12] And everybody has the experience, you know, of little children being sent to bed by their parents, you know, because mommy and daddy know that they can't be awake at school tomorrow if they don't get to sleep, right? So even in the case where the child doesn't want to sleep, right, mommy and daddy see that it is what good for him, right, huh? Okay.

[10:36] And is money useful in our society for all kinds of things because you want it, or do you want it because it's useful for getting all kinds of things?

[10:48] Because it's useful to buy all kinds of things, right? Okay. You see, it's good for reproduction. Yeah, keeps this type of animal right in existence, right. So do you want to reproduce or not, right? You can see a good in it, right? Okay. So if you go through, and how about knowledge, right? Show me the way home, right? Yes. Good job.

[11:19] It's good to know the way home, right? Know where to park the car. Something like this, right? And it's good to know, you know, that some mushrooms are poisonous, right? All kinds of things good to know, right? Um. So you can see something good in knowledge apart from your what wanting it, right? Huh? So that's how I would kind of show by induction from the natural goods, almost not enough money, but mainly for the natural goods like food and water and and sleep and knowledge and so on that we can see in the case of each one of these something that makes the thing good, right, for us apart from our wanting it, right?

[12:05] Okay. And therefore we want it because it's good for us, right? That's kind of the way I would kind of approach the answer or defend the answer that something is wanted because it is good, right? Huh? Now you got the objections on this side, right? Then why don't people always want what is good for them? How can it be the cause without the effect? In other words, right?

[12:31] And how is it possible that they could sometimes want the bad, right? Because if good is the cause of wanting, the contrary of good, the bad, should be the cause of the contrary of wanting, right? Contrary effects: cold makes ice, and the warmth makes melts the ice. Well, again, you have to look before and after, right? And something comes what after the good or the bad, and before wanting it or not wanting it, right?

[13:07] And that is what. Knowing. Yeah. And maybe you could be a little less precise because knowing might imply that you something true there, but some act of the senses or reason, right? And can the senses or reason be deceived? Yeah. So they can think that something good is bad or something bad is good, right? So delicious poison, right, huh? But do you drink delicious poison because it's poison?

[13:40] No, because it tastes what? Yeah. Okay. So you could make a mistake, right, huh? And so because of what comes between the good and the bad, and

[13:58] wanting or turning away from something, right? There has to be some act of the senses or reason or both, and both the senses and reason can be deceived, right? Especially by likeness, huh?

[14:20] So the good can resemble the bad, and the bad can what resemble the what good, huh? So I think it's sometimes good to stop in this first paragraph of Aristotle, right?

[14:37] And here's a very good induction there to show this, right, huh? But also to recall in the Socratic fashion, right? If you go to the boy, huh, who's closer to the starting point in our knowledge, right? And you ask the boy what is good, and he will give examples of things that he wants, right? But when he comes to saying why are these all called good by him, he might come to recognize that he calls them all good because he wants all them, right?

[15:14] And therefore you kind of see that the goodness we all want is the beginning of our knowledge of the good, right? Not the end, but it's the beginning, right? You can't despise that beginning or neglect that beginning because that's what's more known to us. And you say you're defining it here, the good by its effect, right?

[15:41] And does that fit in with it being the way we first know it? Do we know causes or effects first, right? Yeah. Now later on,

[16:00] especially in the second book of of wisdom, huh? But also in the ethics, Aristotle will bring out the connection between the good and one of the four kinds of cause, which is the end or purpose, huh? And there you see more what the good really is, huh? And although we do speak of the means as being good, but the it's in a kind of secondary sense, huh?

[16:27] Because the medicine is good because health is good, right, huh? And the book is good because knowledge is good, right? Okay, and the printing press is good because books are good, right? Books are good because knowledge is good, right? And

[16:47] so then you begin to see more what the good is, right? And then when you look at Aristotle's drawing a line around the inner purpose of man, you see that there is a connection between what a thing is and its inner purpose, huh? And of course, that's brought out in Shakespeare's *Hamlet* too, right? Because it begins with the words, "What is a man? If his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed, a beast no more, right?

[17:28] If his inner purpose was just to sleep and feed, then man wouldn't be what man is; he'd be just a beast, huh? Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused huh? So we'll see, you know, this connection between the good and the end, but also the connection between what a thing is and its inner purpose, huh?

[18:03] Between what a chair is and its inner purpose, huh? Even these things, huh? Or? What a knife is and the inner purpose of a knife, or what a ballpoint pen is, right? What its composing parts are, and so on, right? And its inner purpose, huh?

[18:24] My brother-in-law was over to the house there with all his carpenter's tools, and he can put a whole new thing there. You see, but those, you know, it's good to have the right tools, right? You do things, huh? I only know simple tools like corkscrews and ballpoint.

[18:47] Domestic tools help man out well, but you know it's very frustrating. I remember one time my brother in-law and I were going to have a little picnic out there and the thing, and we forgot the corkscrew. Ah,

[18:59] it's very frustrating to have a bottle, of wine Not a tool, yeah. It's a story that the French Foreign Legion has this chateau somewhere where where the retired guys go because a lot of them have a bad life, so they have no place to go. So anyhow, they have this custom where the way they drink wine, they open the wine bottles is the guy pulls out his saber and he pops it off the top.

[19:36] You can drink that way, but you drink well because you might get a little glass in there, you know? Imagine it must it must be bad to get the glass inside your stomach in your, in your in in things like that. So it's knocking off the top. Yeah, you got to clean the top a little bit. That's right. So when Aristotle says, "Whence it has been well said," right?

[20:00] You know, he's. I'm sure he's gone through something like I went through. You know, but but he sees that this is the starting point. Right. It's kind of marvelous that he he does this right. Puts that first, huh?

[20:20] Then he points out a difference of ends, huh? But a difference of ends is seen. Notice, they're already thinking of the good and the end being the same thing, right?

[20:35] So he's almost going to use them interchangeably. But a difference of ends is seen, for some are acts, while others are products beyond these, huh? So I was listening to the Mozart Haydn quartets the other day, and does my ear, the activity of hearing, produce anything? No.

[21:03] There the end is simply to hear Mozart's Haydn quartets. That was the occasion, you know, where Haydn said to Mozart's father, "Your son is the greatest composer known to me." Right. You know, he has taste in the most. You know, he's very impressed with Mozart.

[21:31] So he says a difference of ends is seen, for some are acts, huh? Like hearing Mozart, while others are products beyond these. There's some product, huh? Where there are ends in addition to the acts, in these the products are better than the acts, huh? So making a chair, which is better, making a chair or a chair. The chair, yeah. So in that case, the end is the chair itself.

[22:00] In the case of hearing the music of Mozart, the end is the hearing itself. That's it. I was I was reading Thomas there in the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, in the chapters 39 there through 45, where he's talking about the distinction order of creatures, right? And what's the cause of this, huh? And this definition of the good is what all desire comes in there.

[22:36] Uses it as a premise, right, to reason out some things. To realize how that goes all the way through philosophy is starting definition, right? A little beginning, but it's something what great in its power, right? Okay.

[22:56] Now he says, since there are many acts in arts and sciences, he's looking back upon that first paragraph again, right? He says every art and every science and so on, every act is for the sake of some good, right? Okay. But now he's going to make another point. Since there are many acts in arts and sciences, there come to be many ends, huh, or many goods, right?

[23:20] For medicine, the end would be what health, right? Of the art of shipbuilding, the ship. Of the military art, what? Yeah. So why did MacArthur say in war there's no substitute for victory? It's the end, That's the end yeah. But you could say that in medicine there's no substitute for health, right?

[23:49] And of the household art, huh? Wealth, right? Now Thomas says if you read Aristotle in the first book of the Politics, where he talks about the family, huh? Before he gets into talking about the city, he will say that's not so. That's not the end of the household art. But this is what the Greeks would probably say, right? So Aristotle often uses examples very acceptable to his audience, right?

[24:19] Even though he doesn't maybe agree with that particular example, but he what? He uses it, right? Until the time comes to show its falsehood, right? Especially in logic, he does that, right?

[24:36] What does he say is the end? What be the children, right? Yeah, okay, yeah. So he he says that. Now what he's going to develop next is used by Thomas a lot in talking about the universe. When many of these come under one power, as the art of bridle making is under horsemanship, and whatever other arts are about the instruments for riding horses. In this and every other military act, under the military art, in the same way others under others.

[25:24] In all these, the ends of the chief arts are more desirable than all those of the arts under them, for the latter are pursued for the sake of the former. And in this conclusion, it makes no difference whether the acts themselves are the ends, right, of the acts or something beside these, as in the said sciences, right? Okay. Now stop and see what Aristotle's saying here.

[26:00] He's pointing out something very interesting. That not only are there many arts or sciences and actions, right, aiming at different what ends or goods, right? But when we examine either the arts or sciences themselves or the goods, right, we find an order sometimes, right? Now in the case of the arts, the sciences. The order is seen when one art or the man of one art commands another art, and the what?

[26:40] The man practicing that art. Sometimes you see on the other side that the goods that these different arts aim at, one is for the sake of the other, right? So take, get a Aristotle's example. or any example on the table. Let's say the

[27:07] medical art, the art of the the doctor, right? The good that that aims at is health, right? Then suppose you have, I don't know, a pharmacist. To maybe what? That's not the proper word to use, but the man who makes the medicine, right? Okay. Let's call it the pharmacist.

[27:35] The art of the pharmacist. Well, he doesn't make it probably the whole medicine nowadays, right? Okay. Let's say he makes the medicine. Well, there's a proportion here. You could say health is to the medical art as medicine is to the art of the pharmacist, right? Okay. Different arts and different goods aiming at, right? But what's your? In addition to that, you'll see that one art commands another art.

[28:13] So my doctor gives me a what? Prescription, right? And I take to the pharmacist, and he's supposed to obey the doctor and give me the medicine that the doctor ordered for me, right? Okay. But if we look at the goods, we might also see order, right? That medicine is for the sake of what? Health, right? Okay.

[28:40] So depending upon your knowledge, you could reason from one to the other, right? If you see that in fact this art or this artist commands that artist, right? Then the end that this commanding artist is aiming at is going to be the end of the good that the one he commands is aiming at, huh? Okay. You see that?

[29:12] So you could argue from one to the other, right? If this good is subordinate to that good, then the art that aims at the lower good, right, is going to be subordinate to the art that aims at the higher good, right? Okay.

[29:29] So. What about the art of making violins? What's that for? For making music. Well, ultimately, but the immediate art is the immediate end of the art of making a violin. Stradivarius, whoever had this art, right, is this good violin, right? Okay. But the violin is for the sake of what? Playing the height of Mozart, right? Okay.

[30:06] And it's not the keys of Chopin and so on, right? Okay. That's for the sake of the music, right? Huh? So you say, okay, I can see that. The violin might be kind of nice to look at, but it's for the sake of this violin music, right? Violin, piano, Schnauser, Mozart, right?

[30:39] Now, here you got the violinist, huh? Okay, the Italian violinist, the man plays the violin well, right? And he might discover in playing it that there's some defect in the violin, right? And so he would command the violinist, right? I mean, the violin maker to to change a little bit, right? So that sense, he would command, the violinist, right? That's because his end must be the end of this one, right?

[31:20] So notice Aristotle's example here, right? If you take me to the cavalry there in the in the army, right? Huh? Used to be at West Point there. They don't. So the earlier pictures of West Point, they're all they're practicing the horses, right? On the horses, yeah. Okay. So the art of making the saddle, let's say, right, is for the sake of what? Riding the on the horse, right?

[31:50] But riding the horses for the sake of what? Was it Pickens? Pickens charging horses in Gettysburg? Or just where the grass is foot? Foot? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, looked like a cavalry brigade. Yeah, yeah.

[32:07] There's not the question why. There's the do and die. Yeah, yeah. So in sense, if you see this art commanding that art, right, you can what guess that this end of the one will be subordinate to the other, right? And vice versa.

[32:31] Now, if the the American government, there, right? The president is the command in chief, right? So we say that the military is under the political art, right?

[32:45] Help us out. So, so you have to say that the that the good that the MacArthur aims at, which is victory, right, is ordered to the good of the what? City, right? The preservation of the city, right? MacArthur tells the the students at West Point there this last speech there. You know, if you were to fear the nation goes down, right? Okay. So victory is ordered to the good of the city, right?

[33:16] So, therefore, the political art should command the what? Military art, right? Okay. But the military art might command the what? The art of those who make the weapons that they fight with, huh?

[33:32] I guess when the Germans. got involved in Russia, right? Huh? They found that some of the Russian weapons were better for the cold weather than their own ones. They had to they had to redesign their what? Their their weapons and their even their tanks, I guess. And to okay, so if in the use of the of the tool or or the instrument or whatever it is, you see a defect, then you go back to your command.

[34:00] You say now you got to change this, right? My father's engineer. You know, he'd say to me, you know, got an interesting idea here, you know. And now we're going to make something according to his idea, and then they go out and they had an experimental farm where they tested these things, right? And then you discover the what defect, right? Huh? So I guess if you don't have enough steel on your wagons, farm wagons, they the steel snaps, and then the farmer is mad as hell.

[34:31] Yeah. So my father always put more steel on his wagons. You know, the best wagons, grain king was it was trading my father's wagons, grain king, impressive. But I mean, the engineer was saying, huh? In the sense, in in the use of it, right? By the farmer on the farm, right? Huh? You might discover defects in the construction of it, right? And therefore, they go back and change it.

[35:00] So you follow history, you know. They mention the airplane, all these funny pictures, you know, kind of tragic in a sense. But the first attempts to fly, you know, and then they had to go back and redesign the thing, right? And they had to do this many times before they finally got something that worked, right? The same with these rockets, right?

[35:28] So Aristotle was pointing out then an order among the goods that the arts aim at in some case, and corresponding to that an order among the what? The arts, right? And you could argue from what? Either one, if it's known to you, to the opposite, right? And Aristotle will argue later on here

[35:54] that because the the political art seems to command all the rest, right? That therefore the political art must be aiming at the good of man, right? The ultimate end. If it commands all the other ones, right? Because he's going to raise the question here: to what art or science belongs the consideration of the what chief good of man, the end or purpose of man, right? He's going to argue he's going to have to be the art that commands all the rest.

[36:28] What art is that? I always say to students, you know, if you ever go to graduation at Assumption College, right, and and when he confers the degrees, you know, in a formal way upon the students, right, you know, there's a formula they'll use. See, in virtue of the, you know, authority or whatever is invested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, da da da da da, and the Board of Trustees, you know, but in other words, in a sense,

[36:59] the Commonwealth allows Assumption College, right, or commissions that you might say, to practice the art of teaching, right, and so on, right. And and they might come in and say, you know, we don't think you're going to be practicing the art of teaching for a while. Mr. Burke's going to be practicing the military art because we need somebody like you in the military, right? You know, remember my my was my algebra teacher in freshman high school, right?

[37:22] He got yanked out for some military service, right? Huh? So you no longer practice for a while the art of algebra, whatever it is. You're going to practice the what? Military art, right? Huh? See, but I mean, even to practice the, you see, the medical art, right? You have what? You know, you see, you see this on the wall, the doctors like that, right? If you believe the thing, what you see there.

[37:49] But in a sense, he's commissioned to what? Practice, you know. You know, so in some sense, he's and they could tell him to stop practicing. Sometimes they take away from a doctor because of malpractice of some sort, right? He can no longer practice this art, or he's not he's not considered suitable or competent to practice that art, right? And even you know to practice the art of baking or cooking, you know, sometimes they go down to see the cockroaches when you're.

[38:21] I used to work at the bakery store there, next door at the bakery, right? But every few months they'd be coming in to spray for the cockroaches. I know what's going on inside there. Remember one restaurant that was kind of good in in Worcester there, and you get like a prime rib, you know, and if you want a second one on the house, it was, you know, it was on the house, second one, and so that's kind of a good deal.

[38:47] I felt, and they're they're pretty tasty those prime ribs, and I had a good appetite in those days, you know, but all of a sudden the you know this restaurant got closed down for some kind of violation. I don't know what they do. One of the best restaurants, but but

[39:02] but in a sense, even the art of baking or cooking, you know, comes in some sense under the what government, right? It doesn't always, you know. And in a sense, the art of teaching does too, right? And for sure the military art and so on. And I can't, you know, I practice this art of driving a car, and even then I'm licensed by the state of Massachusetts, you know, to to operate this.

[39:31] This pedestrian killing, flying coffin. Yeah. So Aristotle is going to argue, on the basis of what he's developing right now, right, that when one art commands another art, its end is above the ends of those other arts, and the ends of the other arts are subordinated or means to, in some way, or ordered to, the end of the commanding art, right? So he can argue from the fact that the political art seems to command all the other arts, right?

[40:12] Some way you can only practice the other arts with the permission or you know according to the rules set down by the government, right? Even a college has to be authorized, you know, to grant degrees and so on, right? That the end that the political art aims at must be superior to the end other arts aim at, and their ends or goods must be for the sake of this, right?

[40:38] And since he's going to bring out, you know, that this thing we call happiness in English is the end of man, right, the chief good, then political art must be about that chief right, right? And so Thomas says in the commentary, then Aristotle is saying in a way that ethics here is the elements of what political philosophy, right? So our politicians should should know Nicomachean Ethics. They should know what the end or purpose of man is, right?

[41:05] So they can direct us towards that, right? And it's kind of interesting because it's kind of a, you know, per se notum, you know that that the government is supposed to encourage virtue and discourage vice, you know, and they'll be kind of shocked today to say that to the, to the. You'd be discriminating. Yeah, yeah. Limiting people's freedom. Yeah. And

[41:38] now, of course, of course, the reason why he went to something bigger than the city, right, was for economic and military reasons, huh? So kind of lost sight of what this was about, huh? But you see the way Aristotle is going to reason that it belongs to. Remember how you know I had the especially the class of adults and they're kind of shocked, you know, the first event is being asked about political art because obviously these politicians didn't know what they were they were doing their own personal lives or what the purpose of man was or the incised idea, you know.

[42:13] But often, factually, they have these these large debates there, you know, with the political candidates for the presidency or something like that, you know. Well, what is the purpose of man? See what they would say. They'll say it's above my pay grade. Yeah.

[42:33] Okay. Can we take a little break? Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Now, in the next paragraph here, he's going to be talking about: Is there some end which is

[42:53] supreme, right, for man, right? That everything else is subordinate to that, something that is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, right? That's interesting. If you talk to the man in the street, as you should do, he'll ask about everything. What's it good for? Is if everything is good for the sake of something else, right? Now, if everything was good for the sake of something else, would anything really be good?

[43:27] In other words, if A is desired for the sake of B, and B is desired for the sake of C, and C is desired for the sake of D,

[43:43] and everything is desired for the sake of something else, you never come to something that is desired for its own sake, not for the sake of anything further, and everything else for the sake of it. This never comes to an end. Everything would be in vain, right? Because A would not be desirable unless you achieve B, but B would not be desirable until you achieve C. So neither A nor B would be worthwhile until you got to C, and C would not be worthwhile until you got to D.

[44:13] But is this even possible? That this could go on forever, right? Because if I desire A for the sake of B, I have to desire B before I desire what? A. If I desire B for the sake of C, I have to desire C before I can desire either B or A. So if everything is desired for the sake of something else, I'd always have to desire something else before I could desire anything.

[44:42] In which case, I would never what? I would never, I would never desire anything. You're getting out of bed. Yeah. But I would always be. It's like somebody, you know, I'm going to count to ten. Why? So I can count to twenty.

[45:00] Well, you never accomplish anything. It'd be in vain be in vain, right? But you could also argue that there must be something that you desire for its own sake and not for the sake of something else. Otherwise, you cannot desire anything in this whole what series.

[45:15] If I desire medicine for the sake of health, before I can desire medicine, I have to desire what? Health. Health. Yeah. If I desire a CD for the sake of hearing Mozart, right? I've got to desire to hear Mozart before I desire that CD, right?

[45:41] So, very simply, Aristotle says, if there is some end of what we do that we will for itself, and other things for it, right? And we do not choose all things to say to something else, for thus it would go on without end, right? So that the desire would be empty and foolish, right? In the second book of wisdom, Aristotle argues, you know, that, you know, from the good being the same thing as the end, right?

[46:12] That if everything was desired for the sake of something else, nothing would be really desired as an end. Everything would be desired as a means. But does it make any sense to desire a means without desiring the end? Well, in this case, there'd be no end, right? Yeah. Clearly, this will be the good, right, and kind of by antonomasia, right, and the best, right. This is kind of the first approach that there's some good that is the good, right?

[46:44] There's some good that is the best, right? Because it's not desired for the sake of anything else, but everything else is desired for the sake of it. Now, you're learning here, in a sense, also in this discourse, the main reason for saying this is better than that. If this is the end of that, this must be better than what? That. If you desire medicine for the sake of health, health must be better than what?

[47:15] Medicine. Okay. And so, when we look at this other text here, you know, later on, just look at the first beginning of it here, the one where he he finally draws a line around it.

[47:32] But to say that happiness is the best seems to be agreed upon, right? And it is desired that what it is be said more distinctly. And then he starts to draw a line around it, right? Okay. But he won't say fully what it is until he gets to the tenth book of his of the Nicomachean Ethics.

[47:51] But here he's he's talking about clearly this will be the good and the best, right? And now he's talking a little bit about the importance of this knowledge then, right? Would not then the knowledge of this weigh greatly upon life? If there's some good that is really the end of everything else we do, wouldn't the knowledge of what that is have a great what?

[48:18] Yeah. Yeah. Weigh greatly upon our life and the direction our life would take, huh? Pondus meum amor meus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And notice a bit of comparison there. And just as arches having a target, will we not hit more upon what is right? If you don't know what the what the end is, how can you aim at it? The guy's going to shoot the arrow, you know, without aiming.

[48:49] What are his chances of hitting the target? And if you aim at the target, you might miss. But if you just shoot your arrow at random, you know, what are the chances of hitting you or whatever the target is? You know,

[49:04] it's very concrete the way Aristotle speaks there, you know. And and yet to get that into English to see what he's saying, but it's very.

[49:15] And they speak of that as philosophical modesty. And just as archers having a target, will we not hit more upon what is right? Damn right. But it's stronger than that, all right. Is if you're going to, you know, miss out on the end or purpose of life if you don't aim at it, right? Maybe hard to hit it, but for all practical purposes, or all practical conclusions, you won't hit it at all if you don't what aim at it, right?

[49:55] If this is so, then he says we ought to try to get hold of an outline what this is, right? And to which of the sciences or powers it belongs, right? Okay.

[50:10] Now he's going in the second reading. We'll be doing. Drawing a line in the Greek, he says perigraphe, right? You know, he's going to draw a line around what's best, right? Okay. And then he's going to fill that outline out finally in the tenth book after he's gone through all the virtues. Okay, but you don't even know what virtues got to do with it yet. Okay. But at this point, he's going to touch upon to which of the sciences or powers it belongs.

[50:45] Now he's going to reason from the thing he saw in the middle of this page, right? That the art that aims at the what higher end, right? The end to which other ones are subordinated will be will command the arts that aim at the means. And the we're talking about the end of the whole human life, right? The good that is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, or anything else for the sake of it.

[51:16] That must be the art that seems to command all the other arts, right? So he says it would seem then to belong to the most authoritative knowledge, right? The one that commands most, or science, and the one that is most of all a chief art, huh? That's where architect comes from, chief art, huh? Okay. And such is clearly what he says, political knowledge, right? Huh? For this sets in order which sciences are needed in the cities.

[51:50] What sort each should learn, and up to what point, right? Now, in a feeble way, you know that you know you see in the the statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you know, you got to go to you know sophomore high school, I guess at least, and you also take you know get so much American history and so much this and that, you know, kind of a feeble.

[52:12] too. But but you're spelling out, right? Huh? Which sciences are needed in the cities, right? They're all talking now about you know the president is you know math, get more math, you know this stuff, you know, and or falling behind, you know, you know the Chinese boys know more math, more science and so on, right? You know

[52:35] Now whether the Political knowledge is possessed to any extent, but you can see even in in this corrupt government we see it that we do say got to study certain things and you know got to know how to read you know more or less okay

[52:55] and then he says and we see the most honored of powers under this huh and that's what he gives us the most honored ones here part of this is truth part of this is what the Greeks would think. the military art right huh okay and that was held in very high respect right huh and we hold these military men sometimes very highly to our generals right we elect Grant as president other generals right Eisenhower and so on okay and the household art right huh okay lots of rules or laws about about marriage right okay Now there's kind of crazy things going on

[53:38] but I mean down through history you could say that there's much law about who can marry whom and at what age and so on right

[53:48] and blood tests of people before they get married and so on right okay and the art of speech there huh what is Augustine he was a rhetorician, wasn't he before his conversion right but that was held very highly right huh okay now of course the military art and the art of speech are kind of tools you might say of the political art right because you use partly persuasion and partly what force right so you need these two arts the military art and the art of persuasion right huh so Churchill was kind of a good speaker I mean I mean he did a good voice naturally but he was a good speaker right and so you know if you study his speeches and Parliament and so

[54:49] on they're they're effective right huh and he would move the you know the English people too by his his speeches huh and so those are two arts though but they're they're both subordinate you've got to some extent persuade most of the citizens and force some of the other ones right you're gonna you're going to boot camp you know you're going to be drafted right huh you know and so

[55:26] and then the household art is for a different reason but but you know when Thomas talks about marriage there he says that it's partly ruled by nature right. So it's a natural inclination for a man and woman to come together, and this is you know to preserve the race, right? That's something natural, right? And then he says it comes under the regulation to some extent of by the city, because this is the way you what get citizens, eventually soldiers, he says, but city citizens, right?

[56:05] And unless you have new citizens in France or Germany or Italy or whatever it is, it's going to disappear, right? As the air disappears now, and so that they should regulate these things, right? And so now these feeble attempts, you know, to give a bounty for having more children, you know, and so on, and it also comes under regulation of the church, right? Because this is the way that new members of the mystical body are are brought, right?

[56:34] So the the reason why why why marriage, in a sense, is should be ruled by nature, right? That's why it should be a man and a woman, all nonsense. But also why why the government, you know, has some right to make some rules about who can and not be married and certain things like that, right? And even the old the old law about the bans of marriage being being published, yeah.

[57:02] And there's a reason for that, right? Because some form of liaison that was not known to the people or some people getting into the marriage, right? And so

[57:17] you heard about I remember reading about the guy who's going to prepare one of these terrible practical jokes, you know. And so the guy, the minister says, if anybody has reason for they should not be joined, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. So he comes running in, yeah. You know, he gives him a shock out of the body. You know, he runs up there.

[57:38] He says, "Oh, wrong couple. " A terrible, a terrible thing. Maybe there's a reason why why this was, you know, you know the bans, right? And I was reading there about Shakespeare, I guess, that they needed to get married, you know, very soon. And so so in England at that time, you could get away from from bans, but you had to have certain witnesses that would testify, right?

[58:15] And would be you know like bonds, you know, financial and so on, that they would be responsible if this was not up and up this this wedding, right? So you had to make a special application, you know, to to get married in a hurry without the bans, right? And so.

[58:39] So there are there are rules in about you couldn't get married without the bands or without some other things and if you if you wanted to get married without the bands there was all kinds of things where your uncle was was financially and your your daddy or somebody were legally responsible in in ways that that they would not want to be unless they knew what the situation was.

[59:12] So it's not by chance that he he emphasizes those three right? But I think the military art and the art of speech are more for the the two arms the art of persuasion the art of the military.

[59:28] Something like that in the household too right? I mean partly the parents should persuade the kids to do this and partly they should use a little bit of military power too, huh?

[59:43] Yeah, but if they're not you know as as he says they're Miss Thomas said right? You know if the kid gets too hard out of hand and then then the government will step in step in you know and that's what he says in the second part of the Summa is about why naturally a man and a woman are necessary because a woman alone can't correct children. Yeah yeah.

[1:00:12] I guess you know now a little bit because my father was not around the house all the time to be working so wait till your father comes home you know and so you know my father told me to sit in that seat you know and I would sit there and I wouldn't get out or move until you allow me to. My mother would kind of be amazed at this this this you know this authority that he had right you know.

[1:00:38] I watch sometimes the little miles little little boys you know and the way they their fathers you know tells them the you know the rules of the household they kind of look up at them they're sort of you know very attentive to him you know in a way that you know or that their mother is with you all day mixed up with you kind of you know so.

[1:00:57] Me is very good though too at discipline too. My father said me I got my first credit card and co-signed on it and when he signed it he says you pay your bills. That was enough. I knew.

[1:01:15] Thus using the rest of the practical sciences right? So you know you know carpenters you know like I say my brother-in-law is a carpenter and he was not practicing now full time but he's doing other things but he still does carpenting on the side and so on but there's all these rules that that they have about you know. Size of pipes and the size of wood and all kinds of things, and so they they do say you know you cannot make a house out of paper, but all the things are even more precise than that, right?

[1:01:48] About the kind of wood you can use and you know how deep the poles have to be and all that sort of stuff. That's all. So they do interfere with the operation, or they do command something about the operation, right? And you know you you got to be you know registered kind of as a carpenter, so. Thus, using the rest of the practical sciences and further ordaining by law what one ought to do and what to stay away from, right?

[1:02:15] The end of this science must embrace, right, must be superior to right those other sciences, so that this will be the good of what man, right?

[1:02:26] As we get to the politics, Aristotle of course will you know speak of you have to talk about what government is. the best, right? It's a government that would be aiming at the end or purpose of man, right? Then what government is the best for most men, given the amount of virtue that most men are apt to have? And even what is the best for this people, which may not even be the best for most men, right?

[1:02:55] So it's all the way down, down to that, right? Okay. The fear is I'm not naive about these things, right? In the in the rhetoric when he's talking about the emotions, there he's talking about fear, right? What is to be feared? One thing to be feared, he says, is to be in the power of another man. The reason he gives is that because as a rule men do evil whenever they can.

[1:03:41] So. So he's not. That's a rule. Yeah. He has a moral certitude based on his experience. I remember when I was first teaching, I was seeing Mary's, you know, there's still a little bit of easing allowed there, you know, by upperclassmen, right, now. And so I ran into a sophomore there that I'd had in class as a freshman, right? He had a freshman there carrying his books around for him, right?

[1:04:08] And so I cut him off, and he said, "Oh all power corrupts kind of laughed And he said well all power corrupts," you know.

[1:04:16] It's a little bit of power he had that freshman, you know. You know, you can see how he's kind of abusing it, you know. But he can imagine he had an absolute power in this poor guy, you know. But he's worse because he's making excuses for his sins though. Yeah.

[1:04:31] what time do you have to stop? Four thirty. Okay, let's just finish it up. to you in this first part here, right? Okay. For if it be the same for one man in the city, right? The end, right? Nevertheless, it is better and more perfect to achieve and preserve that of the city, for it is worthy of love when done for one man only, right? It's worthy of love that if I teach one man what the purpose of man is and how it is to be achieved, I've done something what worthy of love, right?

[1:05:06] Huh? But it's more beautiful, he says, and godlike when done for a nation and the cities, right? So Thomas will point out in the commentary, God acts for the good of the whole universe. We can't do that, right? But when we act for the good of the whole city, we're more godlike than we act for just the good, let's say, of our family, right? And we act for the good of the family, we're better than we just act for the good of of oneself, right?

[1:05:31] Huh? Okay. But he says it's lovable even to show one man what the purpose of life is and how it is to be achieved, right? Huh? But it's more godlike to achieve this for the good of the the city, right? Huh? So who is it? Who's that great king of England, Alfred the Great? Right? You know, he was quite a man, you know. But he was, you can see him acting for the good of his country, right?

[1:05:56] And also, but you know, all the way down to Boethius, right? You know, Boethius being translated into the vernacular and so on, right? Great king, you know, huh? But Thomas often goes back to this starting point, you know, that the common good is better than the private good, huh? Because the common good is the good of the whole, private good is the good of the part, and the whole is obviously better than the part, right?

[1:06:23] So when he argues, you know, that God is a sumum bonum in the summa contra gentiles and so on, one of the arguments will be that God is the common good of the whole universe. The common good is greater, therefore, God must be the sumum bonum, right? You know, he's the good of the whole universe, right? It's a very style saying, right? It is better and more perfect to achieve and preserve the city city if you can make your city a happy place, right?

[1:06:53] Huh? You know, for it's worthy of love when done for one man only. If you succeed in bringing happiness to one man, that's good and lovable, right? But it's more beautiful and godlike when done for a nation and the cities, right?

[1:07:10] So Pope has got quite a responsibility, right? He's yeah, yeah. The knowledge then aims at these things being something political, right? So that's the end of the first of the three things you're going to do in the prima, right? So we'll look at the other two things next time, and as time allows, we'll start to see how Aristotle draws a line around the end of man, right?

[1:07:36] And then we go to the prima secunda, you know.