A Short and Brief Discussion of Plato's and Aristotle's Conceptions of
Fundamental Ethics
It is quite difficult, if almost impossible, to discuss both the ethical
“systems” of Plato and Aristotle without taking into account their entire
philosophical worldviews, respectively. I would like to first, very
briefly and superficially, discuss both of their philosophical outlooks,
or how they generally conceived of what they were each doing when “doing”
philosophy. For both, obviously, philosophy was not a differentiated,
separated discipline that was entered into, discussed, and used according
to situations. Their entire projects could be said to be “philosophy”,
in its etymological meaning—“love of wisdom”—because each were attempting
to place answers down for specific sets of questions that seem to fall under
the rubric of “philosophy:” what is the self? How do we know what we know?
What is real? What is good? Etc. Plato never really “had” a philosophy
of his own, especially in his youth. His main viewpoints and positions come
from his main character in many of his dialogues, Socrates. Whether
Plato interpreted Socrates’ words and ideas, or if Socrates was just a literary
character that pronounced Plato’s own philosophical ideas is subject to much
debate and cannot be taken up here. I will then discuss Aristotle’s
viewpoint on ethics and try to show some comparisons and contrasts with Plato’s,
who was Aristotle’s teacher for roughly twenty years. Aristotle had
a much more specific, systematic discussion of ethics in his work entitled
the Nicomachean Ethics. This text, though meant to be lecture
notes for his students (as all of Aristotle’s surviving texts are), is considered
to the first extended discussion of ethics. Plato, on the other hand,
wrote all of his texts as dialogues between people. One character was
usually always Socrates (at least in his early dialogues), his main protagonist
in his dialogues, and the others were always people who were used as specific
demonstrative examples of the idea or concept that Socrates was trying to
get across. Plato, as far as we know, basically just wrote down the
words of Socrates (until Socrates’ death) so that there was a record of this
philosopher, since Socrates did not write anything down himself.
To begin discussing ethics, I think it is wise to at least have a working
definition of what ethics is. The word ethics derives from the Greek
word ethos which can be translated as “character.” We could say that
ethics is basically the study of the concepts involved in practical reasoning:
good, right, duty, obligation, virtue, freedom, rationality, choice.
The problem that arises here is that all of these words and many more also
extend themselves to further discussion and themselves become problematic.
Thus we see that ethics can actually involve discussions about basically
how one should be, or how one should act. This brings in a whole environment
of problems concerning political freedom, self-determination, how we know
what we know, etc., which then, again, leads us back to the main definition
of ethics: study of how we practically reason. Ethics is usually connected
with the idea of morality which comes up as a specific system of doctrines
in the work of Kant, who viewed ethics and morality to be essentially the
same. The differentiations begin to arise when one sees Aristotle as
say “doing ethics,” while Kant is proposing a system of morality that is
universal to all humans. Aristotle was merely trying to catalogue the
various ways in which ethics play into human life, how we practically reason
on a daily basis. This differentiation is important for a serious scholar
of ethical theories and their connection with morality, but I think for the
limited scope of this paper, we should just consider ethics and morality
as two sides of the same coin, namely: how should one act and be?
Plato, in his early, youthful writings about the interactions of Socrates,
the recurrent theme is the search for the good life. And from Socrates’
discussions with his fellow Greeks, it is evident that this was not at all
a new question, but one about which virtually everyone had very strong opinions.
Socrates tried, most of the time in vain, to get people to act towards and
within the scope of ideas that would foster and cultivate a truly good life.
But already there is a problem with trying to live a fully and totalizing
good life: hedonism. This word basically means that the good life involves
getting as much pleasure out of life as you possibly can. Hedonism
is an attractive candidate for the good life, but as Socrates and people
ever since have seen that it has certain limitations. You might notice
that people talk a lot more about hedonism than they actually practice it.
Compared with the average dog, for example, we are masters of self-denial.
We put off meals (most of us) when we are hungry because we have work to
do, or because we are on diets. We suppress our sexual impulses (most
of us) because it would be awkward or embarrassing to act on them, say, in
the middle of Alan’s philosophy class. Many people argue that the reason
they deny themselves pleasures now is in order to get more pleasure later.
But, if that is so, then most people are surely fooling themselves, for we
all know that work and responsibility breed more work and more responsibility.
Social respect and manners constantly require more respectable behavior and
more manners, and the idea that we are simply denying pleasure is usually
disproved by our own actions. People have argued and do argue that
the work itself, or the respect, or the success, is what gives them pleasure,
what leads to the good life, but philosophers (especially Aristotle and Kant)
have pointed out a crucial distinction—between acting for the sake of pleasure
and acting for some other goal whose achievement gives pleasure. Hedonism
is the first, not the second.
Socrates was forever preoccupied with the idea that the good life could be
found, that the good life could be attained in practice, through temperance,
and that the good life could be a feasible goal for all people. But
two very important points should be addressed with this issue: first, that
all people are rational, reasonable creatures that work through and towards
a wholly rationed existence through the life of the mind. Second, that to
live the good life, one must live in a good community (or society, culture,
nation, etc). Plato believed utmost in rationality, in the ability
of man to argue logically and thoroughly through specific problems and questions
and come to the correct, right, and rational answer through man’s distinct
faculty (as Kant would later call it) of reason. Plato thought, as
did Aristotle after him, that reason and rationality was the highest good
that one could achieve in living the good life. Reason/rationality
were equal to truth, correctness, and the good. All of these are wrapped
up in the second consideration that to live the good life, the true life,
the rational life, one must be within a good community. As Aristotle
said two thousand years ago, “man is a rational animal,” and as such, must
act toward being rational as the highest goal of thought. Thus a good
community—one in which people respected one another and obeyed rules, one
that flourished and was not overwhelmed with problems of crime and poverty,
one in which the happiness of one person was not to be gained at the expense
of others. There seems to be no doubt about it: for almost all of us
the good life presupposes living in a good place to live with other people,
and out ability to be a good person (ethical and moral) depends at least
in part upon those with whom we share our world and the society in which
we live. Plato’s Republic, the classic example of a harmonious community,
was a figment of his imagination—a utopia. Though loosely based on
the Greek polis of his time, it was still quite a dream to many, and as we
see today, is still far away from attainment by the majority of people in
the world. Obviously, twenty-five hundred years ago, Plato was describing
a city. Today, we associate with the planet—much larger in scale and
scope and much more complex than anything Plato had dreamed of. Thus
the fact that Socrates’ aim was to live the good life meant that he had to
search for it before he could live it. I would assume that many of
us are still trying to answer Socrates’ question of the good life, but as
we all know, this search is usually life consuming and leads to further questions
rather than definite answers and conclusions.
“In view of the fact that all knowledge and every
pursuit aims at some good, what is the
highest of all good achievable by
action? Verbally there is very general agreement; for
both the general run of men and
people of superior refinement it is happiness; they
identify living well [the good life]
and doing well with being happy.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle examined the different one-sided conceptions of the good life and
rejected them in favor of a single conception with which most of us are probably
in agreement—happiness. Happiness is the good life, although, for Aristotle,
happiness is not a single activity but the result of a great many activities.
Aristotle took personal development or self-realization as his goal (i.e.
acorn to oak, potentiality to actuality). In the Nicomachean Ethics,
Aristotle examined two one-sided conceptions of the good life—pleasure and
success (which meant political success)—and rejected them; yet he also insisted
that one cannot possibly lead a good life without them. But they themselves
are not the good life, only necessary conditions for it. The good life
is happiness, which he defined as that which is wanted “for its own sake”
and “not for the sake of anything else.” Happiness included a large
number of advantages and virtues, including wealth, power, community status
as well as military courage, the ability to drink wine without getting too
obnoxious (something I do not do well), a sense of justice, good friends,
and a good sense of humor. “Happiness,” in other words, was not a sense
of well-being, as it is for us today; “happiness” for Aristotle meant the
good life as a whole, an integrated life with all the virtues and good fortune
and the philosophical wisdom to appreciate it. Happiness is nothing
less than an entirely good life, with all of its parts in balance (indeed,
for Aristotle, as the whole of reality was). A person can be called
happy only on the basis of his or her entire lifetime. For Aristotle,
“happiness” requires a lifetime of good living. Aristotle used the
word eudaimonia as his exemplar of happiness, which means basically “well-being”
or “doing well.” Aristotle conceives of it as the active exercise
of the powers of the virtuous soul in conformity, in balance with reason.
Aristotle further stated that this idea if perfect, complete and self-sufficient,
to be attained, as stated earlier, “for no other end than itself.”
So it includes all other ends that are pursued for themselves. It therefore
includes pleasure, but goes beyond it.
For Aristotle, and for Greek society as a whole, the good life was a public,
social, objective life of achievement and good fortune; it had little to
do with, as we think it today, inner feelings of the self. We on the
other hand, tend to think of happiness if he or she is satisfied with what
life has provided, whatever others may think—even if other may think one
to be unfortunate. I don’t think Aristotle nor his Greek friends would
have understood our modern conception of happiness as an inward turning feeling
or emotion. More than likely, they would have seen it as a rather corrupted
idea of being, which for the Greeks, was always being-with-others: the good
community. For Aristotle, the happy life meant always for the well-being
of the entire community. Aristotle thought that the individual was
not as important as the community in which one lived. He simply assumed
that the ultimate advantage of the individual would be identical to the well-being
of the community. All of Aristotle’s virtues—courage, temperance, liberality,
magnificence, pride, good temper, friendliness, truthfulness, wittiness,
shame, and justice—were aimed at strengthening and protecting the community
as well as adding tot he status and happiness of the individual. And,
above all, Aristotle said that the life of the philosopher was essentially
the good life. This corresponds with Plato’s leaders in his Republic
, which he deemed would be philosopher kings—those men with the power, authority
of kings, and yet possess the wisdom and rationality of philosophers.
We might see a problem with this today considering that many philosophers,
looking back over history, might not have been the best leaders (Nietzsche,
Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Foucault).
We can see that both Plato and Aristotle had similar views to what the good
life should be and towards what end the individual should act in accordance
with their ideas of the good life. But many problems do arise in that
the world, and the human experience is much more complex and various than
both set it our to be. The problems arise when humans face complex
decisions that fall outside of the categories presented by Aristotle or the
narratives presented by Plato. As we have seen in the Twentieth Century
alone, human rationality might not be all that it is cracked up to be, and
that possibly, human evil might have a stronger hold on individual actions
and collective decisions much more so than any worldview geared towards happiness.
4 April 1997