Essays on Plato and Aristotle part 2
Essays on Plato and Aristotle part 1
Aristotle pays a great portion of attention towards studies of human soul, working out the structure of it. The basis is made with two elements: rational and irrational. Irrational element is the one shared with animals, whereas rational belongs to human beings. It is clear that people need to eat in order to survive in adulthood and to grow in the childhood, thus vegetative faculty belongs to irrational element. Organisms, which do not experience any problems in this relation are said to have nutritional virtue. The role of the appetitive faculty is more sophisticated, it is responsible for human emotions and desires. This faculty is thus standing between rational and irrational segments; animals are able to experience emotions and desires and it makes it irrational. People in their turn are able not only to experience desires, but to control them with the help of common sense, which makes it rational as well. Exactly this ability to control desires is called morality or moral virtue. “Aristotle notes that there is a purely rational part of the soul, the calculative, which is responsible for the human ability to contemplate, reason logically, and formulate scientific principles. The mastery of these abilities is called intellectual virtue” (Ferguson, 1972). Aristotle investigated the source of the ability to control the desires and concluded that it comes from practice and learning. However, it is rather important to understand the degree of this control, because over – as well as insufficient control might become the sources of problems. The philosopher compares this process with physical training, when enough training does well to the sportsman and excess of psychical exercises would lead to physical collapse.
The virtues, which regulate the desires, according to Aristotle, do not belong to either mental faculties or emotions; rather they are the traits of a character. In practice this theory might be applied as in the following example. All people experience fear in various life situations. They should do their best to develop the corresponding response to this feeling. If this response is too little – a person becomes coward; and on the contrary – if it is developed to an extreme – the reactions of such individual would be too rash and unexpected. An important thing here is that the needed rational quantity can not be calculated mathematically. He proves it with a simple example, if to take 200 apples – eating all of them would be too much for a person, at the same time eating zero apples – would be too little, but it doesn’t mean, that eating 100 apples is ok. It is necessary to study the concrete situation in order to conclude, where the needed mean is. Finding the mean between the two extremes is the most difficult task for any individual.
The idea of morality is connected to the faculty of moral insight. “The truly good person is at the same time a person of perfect insight, and a person of perfect insight is also perfectly good. Our idea of the ultimate end of moral action is developed through habitual experience, and this gradually frames itself out of particular perceptions” (Ferguson, 1972). Moral action is not simply the process of realization of it, neither a result of simple desire, which actually narrows all objects to two groups: those bringing pleasure and those bringing pain. If we are talking about morality, it should be stimulated by desire and controlled by understanding. All the choices, either with good or bad intentions are done with free will. Only those actions might be considered involuntary, which were taken because of other person’s pressure. The views of Aristotle on the notion of morality and the moral choices of people seem to be profound and many-sided. Most of his statements seem to be generally true to life and actual for today’s society and human beings as well.
Aristotle underlined the close connection of politics and ethics, practically naming the politics the verification of ethics. Moral ideas in relation to politics were the same means for achievement of individual happiness, because human beings are in their nature social beings and exist in unions. Thus the smallest units are families, then come cities and finally states. “The state in fact is no mere local union for the prevention of wrong doing, and the convenience of exchange. It is also no mere institution for the protection of goods and property. It is a genuine moral organization for advancing the development of humans” (Ferguson, 1972). Talking about family relations, Aristotle mentioned the relations between parents and children, husbands and wives and masters and slaves. Slaves here are defined as alive property of their masters and slavery is considered by Aristotle as a kind of natural institution, with the corresponding subdivisions into slaves by nature and those, who became slaves after conquests and wars. Wealth is measured by the quantity of money, or better to say the possibilities to use it. Financial exchange between individuals started with bartering, which further developed into financial relations.
If the notions of wealth and finance are more or less acceptable till nowadays, it is necessary to note, that the attitude towards slavery has been changed immensely. Modern societies do not accept any form of slavery and there was a long history for the whole mankind to achieve this goal.
Overall, we have studied the general information about the famous philosopher and scientist – Aristotle; discussed his views upon ethics, politics, metaphysics and religion; compared his views to his teacher Plato, as well as commented on their actuality for the modern world and individuals.
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