Ethics
8. The Virtues of Reason and the Moral Virtues in Aristotle and Thomas
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[0:00] Now, you'll find sometimes that the great minds there they would divide the same thing in more than one way, and sometimes even the same author would divide them in more than one way. So when Thomas is commenting on the sixth book, he'll explain Aristotle's division, right?

[0:18] But then uses another division in the in the prima secundae. Now, I think the one in the prima secundae in some ways is maybe easier to understand at first, huh? Because

[0:42] what's the reason's own act, right? What is reason supposed to do, right? Well, everybody can see that we have reason both to know things, right?

[0:58] And then to direct us in what we do or make, right? So Thomas will divide in the prima secundae. you'll divide the virtues that perfect reason simply in regard to knowing perfect reason simply in regard to knowing. The virtues, you might say, of what?

[1:19] Yeah, of the speculative intellect, or to speak English, looking reason, right? Okay. And then the virtues of what? Practical reason. Okay. Now, the virtues of practical reason. Now Thomas goes back to the distinction that Aristotle emphasizes between making and doing, right?

[1:57] And making goes a product, right? Okay. So you have right reason about doing. In Latin, that's called what? Prudentia Prudence, in Greek, is phronesis. English word is foresight. So, since we're speaking English, all use English, right? So, the virtue about doing is call it foresight. Some people call it practical wisdom, right? But foresight is the word that the Western Church and other people who know how to write English would use.

[2:42] So, beautiful word, foresight. That's about doing, and then about making, you have art. Okay. Now, you will find out as you go on that foresight and art are two kinds of virtues of practical reason. But there is more than one kind of what art in particular, and there is actually one kind of foresight. And Thomas later on when he talks about foresight and the secunda secundae and so on.

[3:29] He'll distinguish the foresight of the individual man, right, Whereby you're directing your life. Foresight, whereby Socrates is directed in the life of Socrates, right? And then the foresight of the father, right, of a family, and then the foresight of a king, and the foresight of a general. Distinguishes those main kinds of foresight,

[3:56] and the art can distinguish the art of cooking and the art of carpentry, and so on, right? Okay. But you have two kinds of virtue here in practical reason: foresight and art. And you know, if you get the plumber out to the house, he knows his job. You'll get it done much better than you will. And the cook, you know. will. Do much better. He knows exactly what to do, right?

[4:19] Okay. So, these are two virtues of practical reason. Now, the virtues of looking reason, there Thomas will distinguish three, right? And one you could call natural understanding,

[4:52] the things we understand or come to understand without having to reason them out, right? Now, in Greek, that's something called understanding, nous, in the Greek text. In Latin, they'll call it something intellectus, right? We could in English call it simply understanding, but I like to call it natural understanding because of my way of naming the second virtue. The second virtue is called scientia in Latin, right? Or episteme in Greek, but in English I call it a reasoned-out understanding or reasoned-out knowledge.

[5:43] Natural understanding, reasoned-out understanding. I'm not writing very clearly, but I think you know the words. Okay, It's an N-E there. Kind of funny, professors, because you know sometimes I don't realize I'm writing. It's kind of sopping the board, and it's really really nice, you know, clear. And then finally, so I go, what's that right there? And? It's like you know, as a professor, you see the words, yeah, you don't even do it, huh?

[6:15] But then the funniest thing I find is you know they would describe Niels Bohr. you know, he, was quite an intense man, huh? A great scientist, and sometimes he'd be making pictures in his mind and forget about the audience, and then go on, right? Didn't realize he hadn't explained what he was thinking or had not said it to the audience. That's kind of funny. People knowing more, you know, because he was he was a very influential man, but he was he was sometimes a little bit distracted like that.

[6:45] So. intense. Or sometimes you know he tends to speak too fast or something and run the words together, huh? Okay. And then, like Aristotle, he'll distinguish wisdom,

[7:07] which in a way combines something of both of these, because you will find, for example, that the things we naturally understand, like the whole is more than a part. You have men called sophists who go around denying these things and giving reasons for them that the average Joe can't see his way out. And I mentioned, you know, sometimes I'll give them a specious argument to show that the whole is not more than the part, always.

[7:40] And the students are convinced by it. And I have to stop and explain, right? Huh? So it's a duty. We'll find out when we get to wisdom of the wise man to what refute those arguments against the axioms, huh? And to understand another thing you find out about the axioms is that all the words, the key words in the axioms, are all equivocal by reason. And so, to fully understand the axioms, like the whole is more than a part, you have to see the different meanings of whole and part.

[8:15] And so the wise man does those things, huh? We'll see the reason for that in the fourth book of wisdom. Now, wisdom could be considered a form of reasoned out understanding, but it's a very special one, right? Because reasoned out understanding is perfected by knowing the cause, but wisdom doesn't know just any cause; it knows the very what first cause that is God. So it has something that separates it from all other forms of reasoned out understanding, and therefore it gets a new name: wisdom.

[8:57] You see that? So Aristotle will sometimes call wisdom reasoned out understanding because, in a way, it is a form of reasoned out understanding. But because it's so unique a form, right? It gets its own name, and because it embraces both of these, huh? So it's The head of all understanding, Aristotle says, it perfects both natural understanding and reasoned out understanding, because it knows the cause of the cause, and knows the axioms better than natural understanding knows them.

[9:29] So wisdom is really something. So you could say natural understanding is the beginning of our understanding. We have no relation to making or doing, right? And wisdom is the culmination of it all, right? And reasoned out understanding, of course, there are many forms—geometry, arithmetic, natural philosophy, and so on—is the middle, right? We have a beginning, middle, and end. huh? Now notice what Thomas is doing here, right?

[10:08] He's dividing the five into two, right? And subdividing one of them into two, and the other into three, right? So he's following the rule of two or three, right? And that's the way to understand these five, right?

[10:33] Now, how does Aristotle divide them? Is it time to make it a little break? Sure. You'll see Aristotle. does that, right? Now, I think this division of Thomas makes a lot of sense. It's easy to understand, insofar as you could say that it belongs to reason not only to understand but also to direct us in what we do. And so it seems kind of natural, right, to say that the virtues of reason either perfect us simply in looking or in understanding, right?

[11:15] And that's why these names, the way I name them you can see, direction of understanding, or directing us in what we do. And then you can divide doing into doing and making. Making gets a new name because there's a product there, right? And you can subdivide those.

[11:37] Now, what other way could you possibly divide it? That would make some sense, right? It would not be opposed to this, right? But that would bring out something

[11:54] that this division or way of dividing doesn't bring out, right? I think this way of dividing brings out more the connection between virtue and the thing's own act, right? And it's divided into those two different things. A lot of times, I go back and I say to people, you know, why do you have eyes? Why do you have ears? Right? You see. And you don't fully understand why you have eyes or ears—if you don't listen to Mozart or look at the beautiful sunset, right?

[12:29] At the end of this trip, there up in—you ever been up to Assisi You know, And you're up in the—you know, Assisi's up in the hills there. You look out over the whole valley, right? And it was fortunately we had good sunny days there at the end. And you're looking out over the whole valley. How beautiful! Everybody's remarking how beautiful it was. So we have eyes to see beautiful things, and that's like what this here, right?

[12:56] Just to see it. You're not going to make something or do something with that beautiful view from the top of the Assisi huh? But you also have the eyes to direct us in walking and making dinner and and doing everything else, right? The same way hearing, right? We want to hear Handel's Messiah or something, the music, the beautiful music, just for the sake of hearing it. Now we also want to hear somebody saying "Watch out!"

[13:27] It might save your life. And and you know you go into the gas filling station. How do you get there? You know, and you listen carefully to what the guy says. You turn right, you know, go down two blocks. Not because he's got a beautiful voice, because it's Pavarotti there in the in the filling station, but because he's going to direct you to where you want to go, right?

[13:45] You see. So I think it's not too hard to see that the purpose of the eye is both just just to see, right, and especially beautiful things, therefore, and to direct us in what we do, right? And likewise the purpose of the ear, right? And so you have the same two purposes, the same two operations, you might say, of reason, right? Simply to understand things that are wonderful, right? And then to direct us in what, we So you can see the basis for this, right?

[14:23] So reason's own act, you could say, is twofold. To understand and to direct us in our what actions? Actions, yeah. That's kind of anticipated what we saw in the eye and the ear. Now, is there some other way of dividing these five? And I'll give you a hand it's in the three and two,

[14:51] but that illuminates these five in some other way. That way, I think, which is more difficult to see at first. Well, what Aristotle does

[15:20] is to divide these three against these two. And the the basis of the division he gives is that these two natural understanding of wisdom are about beginnings.

[15:43] And these three reason, out understanding, foresight, and art are about what is from the beginnings. You see. Now, that's illuminating in itself, but it also seems to correspond to what is more known and less known to us.

[16:11] And you will find out that people have the vaguest notion of what wisdom is. But is even such a thing, right? As the great Heraclitus said, you know, they think that wisdom is a heap of knowledge, huh? And if my heap of knowledge is bigger than your heap of, then I'm wiser than you are. That's what wisdom. is. Wisdom is one thing. It's know the mind that steers all things of all things.

[16:35] He says, "It's no god." So they hardly know at all what wisdom is. Even the so-called philosophers most of them don't know what it is They've got a slight idea of what it really is.

[16:50] And natural understanding. I mean, there's some things we naturally understand. but moderns would simply what deny that, right? Everything is up for grabs. Everything's an hypothesis to be tested by its consequences. So natural understanding and wisdom. Are much less known to us than these other three, huh? That there's an art of carpentry, an art of cooking. Oh yeah, everybody knows those things exist, right?

[17:29] I was waiting in the airport there to get my flight back from Rome to to London, and see all these cookbooks here, Italian. For me, I have some basic food in Italy. There, you know, but that's not going to do any good unless it's in English.

[17:45] Everybody knows the art cooking exists, right? You go to each store. There's all kinds. You go into Borders. You know, they got all these cookbooks out there. Thai cooking, you know, Chinese cooking, French cooking, you know. And then they have these variations. Beautiful Italian, you know, beautiful scenes of Italy, beautiful scenes of China, beautiful scenes, you know, interspersed with with recipes. So everybody knows that exists the art of carpentry.

[18:08] You can go to any place and find books of carpentry, right? Auto mechanics, all this sort of stuff, right? So everybody knows about art, right? And you know the guy, you know, who possesses the art of plumbing or the art of carpentry. He can do these things much better than you and I can do them. He had my brother-in-law, when he had a little bit of carpentry in high school, you know.

[18:30] because I look at my work in the basement there. Why'd you do it this way? That's the way you do it. You recognize how far away? this is supposed to be and all this stuff.

[18:47] Um. And everybody knows that there exists at least geometry, right? Things that are without understanding like that, okay. And then they recognize people, you know, like Churchill, you know, or Washington, or something like that. Who had foresight, right? And who led his country, of Pericles, and so on, right? These men are admired, right, for their foresight, huh? Or the foresight of generals, right? Napoleon and so on, right?

[19:15] So. These three that I've checked: are reasoned out understanding, which is called scientium Latin, or episteme in Greek; foresight, prudentia in Latin, prudence, or phronesis in Greek, or art, technē in Greek, ars in Latin. Right? Everybody knows and kind of aware of those. Wisdom? Because I don't know what that is, right? A natural understanding. Now, the distinction between natural understanding and wisdom that Aristotle gives in the Nicomachean Ethics is that natural understanding is about the beginnings of our knowledge, like the whole is more than a part.

[20:00] Nothing is before or after itself, right? Ah, something can't both be and not be, and so on. nothing is divided from itself, and so. wisdom is about the beginnings of all things, about the first causes.

[20:23] What they have in common is that they're about beginnings. It's kind of interesting, huh? When we speak, you know, of the statements known by natural understanding, for example, and those known by episteme or reasoned out understanding,

[20:44] we speak of statements known through other statements. nor of these other statements that are known by natural understanding, but there are statements that are known not through other statements. That's what I'm doing there. I'm defining the statements we know first by the negation of the condition under which the other ones are known. Now, sometimes I'll say natural understanding is about statements known to themselves, right? But that's probably a misleading way, a little bit, to some people, of saying affirmatively what is negative in meaning, right?

[21:22] Okay. Just like when we speak of of the good as being desired for its own sake, what does that mean? It's desired, but not for the sake of anything else. It's really an affirmative way of saying something that is perhaps negative in meaning, huh? See? Now we understand the idea that something can be desired for the sake of something else, right? But if something is desired but not for the sake of something else, that's a little strange to us, isn't it?

[21:54] But that's what's first desired. What's desired but not for the sake of something else? is what's first desired. Oh, yeah, I guess it is. It

[22:03] seems kind of what something we don't notice, huh? Or take another way of manifesting this a bit. If you had a class in geometry in high school or something like that, or if you picked up Euclid, you're aware at the time you begin to study geometry and learn geometry, right? But when did you learn that a whole is more than a part?

[22:30] It seems like you always—I always knew that. I don't remember even my mother saying to me, "Now, Duane, get this down. if it's gonna help you in your life." Is it? It's like I always knew that, right? And so, some people have actually, you know, thought that that we're born knowing these things, right? Okay.

[22:55] But we come to— but if we're not born knowing them, we come to know them so naturally, we're not aware of how we came to know them. You see? Why we're making an effort to learn geometry, we're aware of that effort. You see that?

[23:12] I can remember first maybe studying Latin in high school. You know, when my kids were studying Latin in high school, they come home and they say, "Dad, what was the greatest accomplishment of the Romans?" You know, the answer these kids give. You know, I'm sitting there and trying to, you know, think what was the greatest accomplishment of the Romans? You know, the Roman Empire and so Roman law and all that sort of stuff.

[23:36] And the answer is, they spoke Latin. How can anybody speak this kind of a funny language? And I remember a kid in taking French for the first time in high school. You know, just your French. This kid was so frustrated trying to learn French and finally one day he heard on class, Don't do, the French kids ever learn this. It was probably some French kids saying the same thing about English.

[24:06] huh? Apparently, it's harder for them to learn English than for us to learn French. They say so. But no, the way you learn English was what. You kind of unaware of it, right? You see, and that comes up in the dialogue sometimes, huh? Where you can't point to your teacher of your native language, huh? Because it was part of your mother, part of your father, part of your older brothers or sisters, if you had them, or uncles or aunts, it was around the house, right?

[24:38] And you picked up English without being, by osmosis it seems, right? But not in the way you maybe begin your study of French, and you say, "This is who my French teacher was." This is who my, you know. But you can't say this is my teacher of English or whatever your native language happens to be. You see, so some of those first things we pick up without even what being aware of them, huh?

[25:04] And the so it's a way in which natural understanding, even before it's wisdom, are less known to us, right? Aristotle takes them up last, right? And talks about the more obvious ones first. That's not opposed to Thomas, right? But it's a little different thing, right? And the distinction is really between the more known to us and the less known to us. The more known to us, the ones that are from the beginnings.

[25:39] The ones that are less known, the ones that are about the beginnings. The two different kinds of beginnings. Kind of funny, you know, with the eyes sometimes, huh? With this eye here, I could read better with my right eye, but you're blurred down at the end of the table. See, now with my left eye, you're not so blurred; you're much more clear. But I can't read with this left eye.

[26:15] I mean, you know, without glasses, huh? So I'm laying in bed at night, just I take the glasses off, I can read with the right eye and still read my little book or something, huh? But it seems kind of funny to say, you know, that I can see better something further away. I can see you better than the printed page in front of me. You see, it's kind of strange, isn't it?

[26:39] When something like that, the mind, right? The things that are up close to our mind, right? The things that natural understanding knows, we're not hardly aware of the fact that we what do know them, right?

[26:56] Make them explicit, huh? And things I notice even over the years in reading Aristotle or Thomas or Plato, or you know, you hardly ever have more than just you know a handful of the axioms are identified. Here's an axiom, right? This is important, right? The whole is more than a part. Is a common example they always give us an axiom, right? And then Aristotle devotes a great deal of time to the axioms about being and non-being, right?

[27:25] But apart from that, and a very short list that Euclid gives, right? You know, but there are all kinds of axioms that do not really work. Nothing is the beginning of itself beginning of itself. That's an axiom. Nothing is before after itself.

[27:46] Nothing is divided from itself. But they're not recognized to be axioms, right? And as I say, it's reflected in the definitions. A conclusion is a statement known through other statements, right? Now, what's the beginning?

[28:23] Yeah, but if you define it that way, a statement known not through other statements, right? You seem to be negating part of the definition of what a conclusion is, right? But since you knew the conclusion to the beginnings,

[28:42] the beginnings must have been more known to you, right? When you define them, you define them, right? By this negation. Strange, right? Yeah. You see, medicine is desired for the sake of health, and health is desired for the sake of happiness, right? Happiness is desired for the sake of.

[29:15] Yeah. Not desired for the sake of anything, but sometimes well, you know, avoid that, for instance, it's desired for its own sake. But what does that mean for its own sake? Desiring happiness for the sake of happiness, Or is there health for the sake of medicine, Or, medicine for the sake of health. No, couldn't desire happiness for the sake of happiness, could you?

[29:42] Because then your desiring happiness would be the cause of your desiring happiness. It doesn't make any sense. So the fact that you tend to use a negation like that is kind of a sign that the that the first things, right, are in a way less known. And Thomas, you know, will touch upon that way of knowing the first things, but things that come afterwards. When he discusses that definition of the good, the good is what all want, right?

[30:14] You're defining it by what comes after it. Its effect, right? Interesting. But if you define the principle, you know the first premises, huh? As a statement known, not the other statements, in a way you're you're defining it by the negation of the way in which a conclusion is known. huh? You know what comes before. you're discussing what comes before in terms of what comes after. Just like the good is defined in terms of what comes after it, its effect.

[30:51] The good arouses desire in it, huh? Desire in us for it, I mean. Okay. Now we have too much time left. Let's talk a little bit. We go to what time? Four three. Four three. Okay, let's talk a little bit here about now the moral virtues, huh? But I'm going to erase this so I can have a little more room. So I'm going to subdivide this first one.

[31:44] Now, in this secunda secunda of the Summa Theologiae, how does Thomas divide the moral virtues? Has anybody looked at that? Four. In terms of the four. Yeah, yeah. In terms of the four cardinal virtues, right? So in a way, the secunda secundae takes up faith, hope, and charity, which would be part of theology, right? But then prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, huh? And other virtues, other moral virtues, are taken up by their likeness to justice or fortitude or temperance or, or courage, yeah.

[32:32] Okay, yeah. I mean prudence, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's the way Aristotle does it. Okay, because prudence, as he says, taken up in book six among the virtues of reason, right? Okay,

[32:52] and Thomas takes up justice before what? Fortitude, right? And fortitude before temperance. There in the secundae. Aristotle takes up fortitude or courage, and temperance or moderation before justice. Justice is the last thing he takes up. The order is reversed, huh?

[33:22] And notice that in Nicomachean Ethics, he takes up courage and moderation. Those are words I like to use: fortitude and temperance. In book three, he takes up justice in book five, prudence or foresight in book six. Thomas takes up foresight first, then justice, and then fortitude and temperance. Huh?

[33:53] Two greatest minds here proceeding in contrary directions, right? How do you explain that? Is Aristotle is Aristotle going from appetite to appetite? So he's working from the sense appetites first, yeah, and then justice goes into the will, and then finally it's the. intellectual. appetite or the uh intellect itself Mhm Prudence Mhm One thing to remember is that Thomas, in the Secundus Secundae is in theology, he's not in philosophy anymore.

[34:32] And of the cardinal virtues, right? Which one is least like God? Of the four cardinal virtues. Temperance, yeah, yeah. In fact, temperance is so unlike God that we don't even metaphorically say that God is chaste or God is, you know, sober and so on, right? Now, sometimes metaphorically we say God is is is strong, right? Fortitude, like that. Yeah, yeah. But God is has understanding and will, and therefore he can have foresight, but not the defects of our foresight, right?

[35:18] And we speak of justice very much in God, right? See? Oh yeah. I? See, in theology, all things are considered in comparison to God. Yeah. So faith, hope, and, charity, which have God as their object, are considered first, and then prudence and justice, which are like God's intellect and will, right? And then fortitude, which is, you know, metaphorically more like God, then temperance, temperance last, right? But that's the what theological order, right?

[35:53] And you know, if you look at theology as a whole, in comparison to philosophy, as Thomas explains in the in the beginning of the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, the order is just contrary to philosophy, because in theology you consider God first of all, and then creatures in comparison to God. But in philosophy, you reason from the creatures that you know through your senses to God.

[36:24] So God is the last thing we know, right? That Aristotle considers God in the last, God fully in the last part of the last part of philosophy. Okay. So you have logic, and then geometry, and arithmetic, and natural philosophy, and ethics, and political philosophy, and finally wisdom, and in the last part of wisdom, you learn about God, right? But that's because you're in philosophy, and you're starting from what you naturally know through your senses, and you're reasoning your way ultimately to God.

[36:56] So God is the last thing we know, right? But in theology, it's based on faith, right? And believing God, and God knows primarily himself, and by knowing himself, knows other things. So we even take God's way of knowing in theology a bit, and that we know God primarily, and other things in comparison to what to God, okay. If you have something like that in that order of the virtues, in the Secundae Secundae, right?

[37:29] Okay. So Aristotle doesn't talk about faith, hope, and charity or theological virtues at all. But those are the virtues that have God as their object and they're closest in that sense to God, and then he talks about prudence and justice and fortitude, temperance. But in that order, right? Okay. But you've got to forget that order and not mix it up with the order in in philosophy.

[37:58] So, in the second book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is going to work out a definition of moral virtue, and he will manifest that in a general way in all the virtues in that second book. And then he takes up in the third book, in the second part, he takes up first courage, okay, and then he takes up temperance or moderation, and that's in book three.

[38:39] Now, in book five, he'll take up justice. This is book three now. This is in book five, and in between these, he takes up a number of lesser little virtues, huh? Okay. Of which there's about eight he takes up. Okay. Now,

[39:07] why does he begin with courage? huh? It must be more most known to us in some way. Yeah, yeah. And we're coming to the end of the first book of Nicomachean Ethics. He speaks of virtue there as a praiseworthy quality, right? An honorable quality, right?

[39:36] Well, what virtue is the most praised in practice? Well, in the United States of America, there's something called the Medal of Honor. Some people call it the Congressional Medal of Honor, but the military calls it the Medal of Honor, and that's given for courage, right? Right. And I can be moderate in my eating and drinking all my life, and they'll never give me a Medal of Honor.

[40:02] I can be just all my life and pay what I owe, and so on, right? They'll never give me a Medal of Honor, right? But for one glorious afternoon there on the battlefield, I can receive the Medal of what honor, right? Okay, that's one side, one hint that stands out, right? What's the greatest work of Greek fiction? The Iliad, huh? Okay, and celebrating this virtue, right?

[40:30] There's also a hint at this being known from the word virtue itself, right? Oh yeah. And you see, in Greek, the word would be Arete, which is related to Ares, the god of Mars, right? That word is Virtus, which is related to the word Vir, right? What's the English word, the native English word for virtue?

[40:54] That's close, yeah. But there's a word very close to virtue. Fortitude. No. What about this? Manliness. Manhood. Manhood. You see, manhood is kind of the most, the closest English equivalent to the etymologically to the word virtus, and because as man, in the sense of the masculine, right, it would be the soldier, right, the virtue of a man, right. Yes. And you see that somewhat in our proverbs.

[41:27] You a man or a mouse? What does that mean? See, it's not talking about temperance, It's talking about courage in that. Okay. And if you look in Shakespeare, the use of the word manhood, right? Usually, the word manhood in Shakespeare will refer to what courage. Okay. But you can see sometimes he'll move the word manhood to cover any human virtue, right? Okay. So in a sense, what you've done is take the name of a particular virtue, and you kind of used it to cover the whole, right?

[42:02] Okay. So that virtue of courage would seem to stand out. Plato has a dialogue called the Laches. L a c h e s, where Socrates talks to an old general named Laches about what courage is, right? Okay.

[42:25] Now, what do courage and moderation have in common? That makes it kind of appropriate to talk about those two together in the third book, right? Before he gets to the virtues he takes up in the fourth book, what do courage and moderation have? in common? In a sense, with courage, you're actually moderating your fear, natural fear. Okay. Okay. You go to emotions are concerned with, right? In courage, you're concerned with the emotions of fear, right?

[43:06] And boldness, right? Okay. And notice, quite in moderation, you're concerned more with the what desire, right? For for for pleasure, right? But for bodily pleasure, right? Then, okay. So, moderation, food and drink and and sex and so on comes under this, right? Okay. But notice, in justice, you're concerned with the will, right? So these virtues being concerned with emotions are perhaps more known to us than the ones concerned with the will.

[43:42] We saw that in our study of love and friendship. Remember that? That the word love can name an emotion, or it can name an act of the will, right? And so,

[43:59] the the love of God, let's say, or the love of wisdom, the love of justice, that love is in the will, huh? Okay. But your love of this music, maybe, or your love of this woman, or something like that, could be an emotion, right? Now, if you ever have a opportunity to teach a love and friendship course to, you know, young students there in college, and you ask them what is love, you know, the first first day of class, they all come out and say it's emotion, right?

[44:32] Okay. And I say, well, there is a love that is an emotion. I say, yeah, but maybe a love that is not an emotion too. But love is not the only emotion, anyway. Which notice the love that is an emotion is more known to us than the love that is a what act of the will, and most people have a very hard time seeing that distinction. Right.

[45:00] So if the virtues are concerned with emotions, and these are concerned with emotions, are very strong, right? This fear of death, you know, you know, and this desire for what is pleasing to the body, right? These are very strong emotions, right? And so the virtues concerned with those very strong emotions are perhaps more known to us than the virtue concerned with the act of the will, right?

[45:24] Okay. But now another thing about these here for putting courage and moderation together, not just in terms of the how fundamental these emotions are, but something they have in common. Then the way they're both concerned with our what body, okay?

[45:49] Its courage, in a way, is about things that threaten the very survival of our body, right? Okay. And moderation is concerned with things that preserve our body, right? Huh? Preserve the species, and that are very pleasing to the body, and so on, right? Huh? So something very fundamental about these ones. He begins with those two, courage and moderation.

[46:16] Now, the next group of emotions that are the first five, you might say, among the eight ones he takes up here in book four here of the Nicomachean Ethics. The first five five ones are concerned about our own body, with what threatens our own body or what preserves our own body, like food, right? Huh. But with exterior good or bad things, huh? Okay. And the first ones Aristotle gives are the ones concerned with our possessions, right?

[46:55] And they call this first virtue liberality or generosity, right? Okay. And this is concerned now with money and things that are measured by money, okay? Liberality, generosity. Interesting, huh?

[47:20] We praise someone who's generous with their money right? And Aristotle distinguishes between liberality or generosity, which, whose act all of us can have, and then one that's concerned with large sums, which could be called munificence. It's

[47:44] a man that you know funds a hospital, right? Went down to this one of the places on this tour we went. It was down to Pompeii. That man has recently been, I guess, was it a long time ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that's what he did, right? He set up hospitals and schools and took care of the street children and so on, right? Okay. But anyway, a man who, and he married a countess, right?

[48:13] So, but munificence, right? Spending large sums of money, right? Okay. It's interesting. but both of these are concerned with money and things that are measured by money, right?

[48:36] I notice that has a certain connection there with the body, right? Because you need money to get food and you know a house and cars and things that sort, right? Okay. And I notice how when people spend a lot of money on a car, something you know it's going to cost you an arm and a leg. But but notice that that way of speaking reminds a little bit of courage of these things, right?

[49:02] You know, people come back with an arm and a leg from war, right? And you know, you make a big down payment on a car or a house. You know, you feel like you've kind of lost a limb or, you know, You see. So these two virtues are both concerned with exterior, but things, right? And then he has magnanimity, huh? And they make a coin of word in Greek, philotimia, love of honor, but two virtues concerned with honor, doing things that honorable.

[49:50] So you have magnanimity and philotimia. taking any size of the Greek word there, but magnanimity and philotimia differ like magnificence and liberality do, right? Magnanimity is concerned with great honors, right? And philotimia with with small honors, right?

[50:21] And I'm putting in this order because that's the order the Aristotle takes them up. He takes up liberality before magnificence, magnanimity before philotimia. I think there are very subtle reasons why he does this, but I won't try to explain those fully.

[50:39] Of course, for the the common understanding, there I mean, Achilles and Agamemnon; these are magnanimous men, right? They're seeking great honors, huh? But the great soldiers are related as what? What's the motto of West Point? Duty, honor, country, right? Nothing in there about money, right? If you're getting an MBA, you're more concerned with money, right? But some of these men, you know, have virtues with their money because they use their money well, right?

[51:05] Some don't. They don't, you know. That's very too much in the difference between these two, but on the what basic object here, right? These are concerned with exterior, what good things, right? And they're basically two kinds: the material ones, and then your honor, right?

[51:37] Yes, Your Honor. Some people think that the end of the civil life was honor, right? You know. So we think there's something magnanimous about, let's say Winston Churchill, let's say, right? Okay, or maybe Charles de Gaulle, right? Or George Washington, or something like that, huh? Or Douglas MacArthur, or something like this, huh? Okay. I'm not self

[52:18] enough room here. We create justice down here. It's because we're missing foresight. What? It's because there's no foresight on the board. Rightly, more than that. Then comes mildness, right? Which I don't call meekness, but I think mildness is a better word to use. Mildness, which is concerned with the emotion of what? Anger, right?

[53:01] If you study the emotions, you can see how these relate to the emotions. Courage, concerned with fear and boldness, also. Moderation, more with desire, you know, pleasure. And somewhat liberality, somewhat too. These, more with hope, right? And despair, right? And mildness with what anger, right? But mild anger is aroused usually by insult or something of this sort, right? Which is the opposite of honor, but an exterior evil, right?

[53:34] Okay. So concerned with insult and things of that sort, that rouse your anger, right? So does Achilles have that virtue, right? No, Achilles never done right. Their anger in the beginning.

[54:02] But notice the order in which the Aristotle is proceeding here. The first two virtues he takes up are concerned with the own body, right? Okay. And the emotions that are aroused because something threatens the very survival of your Body, right? A bullet or a fire, a burning building, whatever it is, right? Shark, or something that is what preserves your body, right? Or the species, right? Food and drink and so on, reproduction, and things that are very pleasant to the body, right?

[54:33] Okay. And then these ones are concerned, and that's fundamental, because they're concerned with exterior goods. And basically, there's two exterior goods: money and the things that are measured by money, possessions, right? And then what? Honor, right? Okay. And then exterior evil: the insult, the slight, other things that arouse our anger, right? Okay. Now, as you start to approach justice, you're more concerned with doing or action, right?

[55:14] And the next virtue Aristotle takes up, and there's three of them. They're concerned with, you might call them, some of you want to call them like the social virtues, right? But there are three of them, huh?

[55:29] And one is called friendliness, huh? Okay. And this should not be confused with friendship, right? Okay. Somebody get on the airplane and engage in a friendly conversation with my neighbor, right? And I don't try to be disagreeable, right? You know, airplanes are, you know, they're kind of packed in there tight, right? And somebody may be up against the window, right? And he's got to go to the bathroom, so this person next to him and the person next to that person have got to get up to get the guy out, right?

[56:09] So there's always a little bit of banter going on. The guy says, "I know sometimes you have to, you know," and so we're friendly joking about these things, see? But you know, we try to be agreeable, right? Huh? With people that we every day, they're not really your friends in the strict sense, right? Okay. But Aristotle regards as a very important virtue in life, friendliness, huh? Okay.

[56:41] And that's concerned with serious things. I mean, you know, maybe your car won't start, right? Huh? But I've got a battery cable, right? Huh? So I help you out, right? Or you probably see somebody trying to get out,

[57:00] and so two or three guys come along. We just, you know, get the guy pushed. We'll push him out, right? We don't even know who the guy is, maybe, huh? See? But that's something friendly to do, isn't it? See? And we hope that he would do the same thing, right? If he'd be the same person to do that, right? Okay. Okay. So Aristotle considers that to be a virtue, right?

[57:20] Huh? Friendliness, huh? That's one of these virtues, sir. Another one is called what? Truthfulness, veracity, Veritas, whereby a man shows himself in what he says and does as he really is, huh? Okay.

[57:45] And then you have what other virtue? Is this where he fits for citing? No, that's a virtue of reason, right? That'd be down book six, right? Oh yeah, sure. He has one called in Greek. It's called eutrapelia which means, learning Greek, easily turning, right? And the man can take what you say and turn it in a way that's amusing, huh? Okay. So there's a lot of exercises of eutrapelia there on the bus.

[58:21] You know, people got a two-hour ride on the bus, right? So someone is telling something or turning what somebody says, right? Um. And that way that it's named in Greek is interesting, huh? And if you look at Love's Labour's Lost by Shakespeare, Byron is described as having this virtue, huh? And Shakespeare uses those words, easily turning, huh? Okay. But always with becoming mirth huh? Proper mirth huh?

[58:52] Bishop Wright has got a eutrapelia right? But but there are jokes that are appropriate for Bishop to make, and ones that are maybe inappropriate for Bishop to make, right? So there's a difference in what's virtuous and vicious to to what make a joke of, huh? This one with Bishop Bradley, I've heard him tell more other times too, but you've heard the. Story, you know, where on the airplane and the captain announces we have trouble with one of our engines, but don't worry, we, you know, we got engines, you know, for the condition, right?

[59:32] And we got four bishops on the airplane, you know. And some customer says, "I'd rather have four engines and three bishops. So it can be virtuous to tell a joke at the right time and so on, right? And about the right things, huh? Yeah. But there maybe there's some things you shouldn't make a joke about, should we say, right? And some some kind of jokes might not be appropriate in mixed company, as we say, right?

[1:00:09] And some jokes might not be appropriate for you as an individual to make because of your position, right? But not for someone else it might be appropriate, huh? I told you the one with with John Paul II there, and President Hagen. I told you that one. I think it's very funny. It came out of some Hagen was like a gentleman waiting, whatever they call it, to the Pope, right?

[1:00:31] And he presented Clinton to the Pope and you know all kinds of American officials. And they came out one of these meetings that was kind of tight, you know, and out of the blue, Hagen now was President of Assumption College at the time, right? And out of the blue, the Pope says, "Do you tell Polish jokes at your school?" Because

[1:00:52] you know, out of the blue, what do you do? I mean, you're a college president. First, you have to say, "Oh no!" So the Pope is kind of enjoying this temporary, you know. And and then the Pope, he says, "You don't tell them around here very much you worry, either." You see, you know, that's a virtue of the Pope, eutrapelia right? And

[1:01:21] so, I mean, we have a good name for it in English. I mean, we speak of a sense of humor, you know, but but does that name a virtue? Maybe it does, you know. But eutrapelia is the name given in the Greek, huh? So you have truthfulness,

[1:01:40] which again, this is referring now to the truth of geometry or the truth of you know natural philosophy, but it means showing yourself in your words and deeds as you are, right? Not trying to give the impression that you're more than you are, right? Or the impression that you are less than you are, right? Okay. To be

[1:02:06] neither boastful, right, huh? Nor kind of what we call a false humility, right? What does Saint Teresa of Avila says? Humility is the truth. Do you say?

[1:02:24] So truthfulness is is one of these virtues. Another one is friendliness, right? And the third is this eutrapelia. But these three virtues are are spoken of as being more about acts or doings. While the ones up to this point are more about the emotions, right? Courage being with fear and boldness, moderation with sense, desire, right? Liberality, a little bit like that, because you have attachment, right? To your goods, a little bit like your attachment to your own body, huh?

[1:03:13] Because it's by these material possessions that you support yourself, your body, huh? It's interesting we call a wealthy man a man of substance, right? Even though his money is not really a substance, right? His substance is up here in his body and his soul, right? But we do use that expression, right? A man of substance, huh? A man of substantial beings, right? Okay.

[1:03:39] And somebody was describing to me when he was about to get engaged, I suppose, or was engaged, and the father was concerned, "How you going to support his his daughter, right? " And he was gave kind of the father a cavalier example, you know. Well, if we have to eat on crates, you know, and the father got so upset, he just left the room, you know. So very serious guy, apparently, you know.

[1:04:08] He wanted to know exactly how he got to support his daughter in some way, you know. That wasn't good enough answer for. for uh This guy just called me the other day. it was kind of funny, you know. to See, um, yeah.

[1:04:26] So, you're kind of, your guiding virtues are more like justice, which is concerned with what you do, right? More than the question of virtue, right? Okay. No, it's not a matter of justice so much. Um, am I sad or joyful when I pay what I owe? Right. But did I do it right? Huh? Well, here it's more concerning with my being attached to my possessions too much or too little, right?

[1:04:59] Okay. So these are the the moral virtues that Aristotle takes up in it. And they're complete, right? Now, when Thomas takes up the virtue of humility, huh, in the Summa Theologiae, and of course, you know, he'll ask first of all, is humility a virtue, right? And one of the objections given, right, is well, it's not one of the virtues that Aristotle takes up the Nicomachean Ethics. And Thomas says, well,

[1:05:40] Aristotle there is taking up the virtues whereby one lives well in the city, huh? Ethics is oriented to political philosophy, ultimately, huh? And you can see that all these virtues are very necessary for life in the city. I mean, how can you have a city without justice, right? That's, the chaos, right? How can you defend the city without courage, right? Um, how can you live well in the city without you know moderation in eating and drinking?

[1:06:10] People are always getting in trouble because they drink too much or they're, you know, attacking somebody's woman or wife or something, you know. Okay, but you know, magnificence is very necessary in the city, right? Liberality is necessary. And how do you want to live in the city without people being friendly or having no sense of humor or, you know, never, you know, showing themselves as they are, right?

[1:06:31] All these virtues are very necessary for life in the city. But he says humility is primarily putting yourself under God, right? And then others in reference to God, right? So humility is more appropriately talked about in theology than in philosophy. In other words, though, he does talk about humility, huh? He's talking about the truth, right? And how men are deceived by pride. And he attributes it to to the first species of pride, boastfulness, right?

[1:07:06] That there begins, huh? Um, but that's more you thinking now about God, his truth itself, right? And when Aristotle is talking in that passage I referred to in the first book, I got to stop you in a second. That to prefer your human friends to truth itself would be impious, he says, right? And and Thomas coming to himself, why does he say impious? Right? Because he'd be opposed to God, who's truth itself.

[1:07:36] So Aristotle was more apt to talk a little bit about humility when he's pursuing truth, right, in philosophy, right? But the Nicomachean Ethics, as you'll see when we look eventually at the proemium, this is in a way the elements of political philosophy, and he's emphasizing the virtues primarily here for by one is disposed well towards life in the city without the human beings. And that's why humility is not here.

[1:08:09] because That's primarily with respect to God, right? So by humility, I place myself under God, and then under other men, but in reference to God, right?

[1:08:23] So you place yourself under the abbot or your you know, you're you're your natural father when you're a child, right? Because they, in some way, representing God for you, right?