alright guys welcome back today we're gonna be covering Nick Maki and ethics book 2 by Aristotle and we're gonna be able to get a good understanding of what Aristotle's ethical framework is now it's important to note because we'll be referring back to this a little bit whenever we cover virtue ethics because either Aristotle is sort of the founder of virtue ethics or considered like one of the main fathers of virtue ethics we might say and so we're gonna see a lot of virtue ethics coming up here but with a particularly err sitive Aristotelian Flair they don't necessarily see in modern virtue ethics but I mean that's not going to be for a few weeks just keep that in mind that what you're gonna see here is essentially the precursor to most modern virtue ethics well let's begin so he starts off by saying virtue then being of two kinds intellectual and moral intellectual virtue in the menos both its birth and its growth to teaching for which reason it it requires experience in time while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit hint also its name Etha the key the key is one that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos habit from this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature so a couple things to begin here again he's gonna be focusing on the virtues intellectual virtues we could just kind of say more is more of like knowledge oftentimes knowledge of like a particular skill or trade that someone is undertaking so as a professor we might say I have or I'm at least pursuing the intellectual virtue of teaching you know something of that nature but what he's focusing on particularly here in book 2 is moral virtue so this is like to be a good person and he says its form by habit and also that it's not in our nature we're not by nature mmm good or bad because we have the capacity for both can't go against our nature so instead maybe our nature is to have the capacity to be good or bad um but by definition we are neither good nor bad by our nature instead were formed through our habit so moving down to page 21 he starts off right here by saying neither by nature then nor contrary to nature through the virtues arise in us rather we're adapted by nature to receive them and are made perfect by habit practice makes perfect right there we go then right here he says but the virtues we get by first exercising them as also happens in the case of the arts as well for the things that we have to learn before we can do them we learn by doing them an example a man becomes builder men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre so - we become just by doing just acts temperate by doing temperate acts brave by doing brave acts and a lot of what uh you know the habit building of Aristotelian ethics really comes down to it's almost this fake it till you make it you know how do you become a courageous person well you start by doing courageous acts you're Indian of yourself at the beginning are not necessarily courageous but by doing courageous acts it becomes a part of like your second nature not to say you're in nature but your second nature and so it becomes easier for you to become more and more courageous to do more and more courageous acts until you actually become a courageous individual but it's all through practice this then is the the case with the virtues also by doing the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become just or unjust and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of danger and being habituated to feel fear of confidence we become brave or cowardly and at the bottom of page twenty-one he says it makes no small difference then whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth it makes a very great difference or rather all the difference so habit formation makes all of the difference here for Aristotelian ethics let's see with book let's begin here first then let us consider this that is the nature of such things be destroyed by defect in excess as we see in the case of strength and of health for the game light on things and perceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things both excessive and effective exercise destroys the strength and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroy as the health all that which is a proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it so too it is then in the case of temperance and courage in the other virtues for the man who flies from fear front flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward but the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash and similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent while the man who shuns every pleasure as Bors do becomes in a way insensible temperance encouraged then are destroyed by excess and defect and preserved by the mean so this is where we first start to see uh Aristotle's virtue as the golden means so this is called the golden means that all virtues are somewhere in the means are in the middle between excess and defect so the example we give is like maybe actually can I draw here yeah that's cool so let's say we have this line here is the defect meaning having none of it here is the excess meaning having too much of it and here's the golden mean so let's say that this is courage well what if we have absolutely no courage well then we become cowardly which I guess is also see that's going to be confusing you can also tell I'm very artistic with the way that I'm drawing but also if you have way too much courage you become rash and so what he's saying here is that you know it wouldn't be great for us to judge go headlong into every like challenging and harrowing circumstance right um but instead we should be wise about what we do to be courageous is sometimes to know when to back down so an example might be someone who goes up to a bodybuilder and just you know just starts to pick a fight with him you know that's not being courageous that's being rash that's being an idiot right um but when you know someone really tests you and challenges something that you hold core to what you believe and you just back down and you don't defend it and you go on agreeing with him well that's being a coward so between being a coward and being rash that's where courage is and in fact a lot of people say you know courage is not the absence of fear rather it's having fear but still acting anyways and so the rash person would be someone that has absolutely no fear right the courageous person is someone that has fear but does not allow fear to impede them from doing the right thing and so courage here is a virtue as a golden means it's a means between excess and efficiency so I hope that that you know kind of helps paint the picture for you a little bit all right now how do we get out of this that's that's there we go oh that's gonna be annoying probably should have tested this out before I started doing it oh well all right let's go back alright so he ends a section to by saying so - it is with the virtues by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them and similarly to in the case of courage for a for by being habituated to despise things that are terrible and a standard round against them we become brave it is when we have become so that we shall be most able to stand our ground against them so he's talking about how you know the strong person is someone who you know does a good amount of exercise and eats the right amount of food and we know so that's doing something that is you know what the strongman does but by doing that you become stronger and so that you can start to do more things that strong men can do and so then he's saying it's the same thing with the virtues that let's say courage getting for example maybe we can be courageous by telling a friend hey I don't appreciate what you just said you know you it might be a little fearful because like you don't want to upset your friend but you know it's still relatively low-risk and then you can build off of that to become more and more courageous whereas you know maybe standing up to someone of extreme power that you know can hold your life and death in your hands or in their hands oh that's gonna be a lot more difficult but by building up this bravery and this courage you can then become able to do more and more brave and courageous things so it's like working on a muscle essentially is the analogy that he gives here let's see the only thing I really want to talk about with section three is at the very end he says the virtue then is concerned with pleasures and pains and that by the fact from which it arises it is increases it is both increased and if they're done differently destroyed and that the acts from which it arose are those in which it actual eise's itself let this be taken us said it's all of the part three is he's really arguing why virtue then is concerned with pleasures and pains and so then this is his way of wrapping up that section you know after he has successfully argued for it all right part four starting right here the agent also must be in certain condition when he does him in the first place he must have knowledge secondly he must choose the acts and choose them for their own sakes and thirdly his actions must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character these are not reckoned in a in as conditions of the possession of the arts except the bare knowledge but as condition of the possession of the virtues knowledge has little or no weight while the other conditions comfort a little but for every not for a little bit for everything the very conditions which result a form from often doing just in temperent acts actions in are called just intemperate when they are such as the just or the temperate man would do but it's not the man who does these that it that is just in temperate so again like you can do a just act but that doesn't mean that you yourself are just it just means that your action was just and so this is the way that you know this is going against the argument that well don't I have to have courage in order to do courageous actions and this is what he's saying here like no you don't have to be just to do just actions but it's not the man who does these that is just intemperate but the man who also does them as just intemperate men do them it is well said then that is by doing just acts that the just man is produced and by doing temperate acts at the temperate men um without doing these things no one would have even a prospect of becoming good but most people do not do these things but take refuge in theory and think that they are being philosophers and will become good in this way behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors but do none of the things they are ordered to do as a letter will not be made well embodied by such a course of treatment the former will not be made well in sold by such a course of philosophy so he says that it's something that you have to practice and live out no it's also important to note here on is this idea that again just because you do it just act doesn't mean that you're a just person you know it's also your intentions in the way in which you do things and make you just and so this is the way that he allows for us to start to grow into becoming you know a just person or a temporary person or a courageous person even though we're not just tempered or courageous when we begin it's by doing these actions and then we start to adopt these actions in the right way and then for the right reasons you know et cetera et cetera and again it's something important to note that this is not just armchair thinking that instead it's something that you have to practice and live out all right at the end of five he says if then we the virtues are neither passions when faculties all that remains is that they should be states of character thus we have stated that what virtue is in respective its genus so he's also really big on categorizing everything and so that's why you see genus and species and such a lot of times throughout Aristotle he was really big in taxonomy and arguably like one of the first taxonomy which is kind of interesting but uh nonetheless he begins chapter 5 by you know saying it's either virtues of passion of faculty or state of character and then argues why can be a passion or a faculty so it must then be state of character which leads us to part six we must however not only describe virtue as a state of character but also say what sort of state it is we may remark then that every virtue or excellence both brings in a good condition the thing of which it is an excellence it makes a work of that thing be done well example the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and its work good for is by the excellence of the eye that we see well similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its Rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy therefore if this is true in every case the virtue of man will also be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well so it's important to understand that this is Aristotle's definition of virtue it's what makes it's a state of character mmm that makes us good mmm and which makes us do our work well and also the way that he says good is that we I mean I guess in a sense it's the moral like right and wrong but it's more so the way in which you know the same way for a horse to be good is that it does horse things well so for a man to be good it does man things well and so what separates humans from other animals Aristotle believes is that you know we are rational so part of what it means to be a good person is to mean that you are exercising shonali and reason such just an important distinction that I think should be made here all right on 27 let's see here we go thus a master of any arts avoids excess and effect but seeks the intermediate and chooses this intermediate not in the object but relatively to us it is us then that every art does its work well by looking to the intermediate and judging I believe Jud I think that's supposed to be judging its work by this standard so that we often say of good works of art that is not possible either to take away or to add anything implying the that excess and defect destroy the goodness of works of art while the mean preserves it and good artists as we say look to this in their work and a further virtue is more exact and better than any art as nature also is then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate again the golden means I mean moral virtue for does this that I for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions and in these there is excess defect in the intermediate for instance both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little and in both cases not well but to feel them at the right times with references to the right objects towards the right people with the right motive and in the right way is what is both intermediate and best and this is characteristic of virtue so it's again important to feel a you know the virtues or whatever are not just display the virtues but to feel these emotions and these feelings and act upon the virtues at the right time with reference to the right objects to the right people with the right motives and in the right way so again that's kind of going back to what we're saying about you could do a just act without being just because maybe you do a just act but you know you don't have the right motives and it's not directed towards the right people or with reference to the right object um so you're not doing it in the right way or in the just way and so therefore you can do it just without yourself being just but it's through practicing these shacks that we can become just similarly with regard to actions there's also excess defect in the intermediate now virtue is concerned of passions and actions and which excess is a form of failure and so is defect while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success and being praised and being successful or both characteristics of virtue therefore therefore virtue is a kind of mean since as we have seen it aims at what is intermediate so again the golden mean alright so in part 7 starting about right here with regard to feelings of fear and confidence Courage's the mean of the people who exceed he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name many of the stage have no name well the man who exceeds in confidence is rash and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward so again courage is between being a rash individual and a coward towards the bottom of page 29 with regard to anger also there is an excess a deficiency and a mean so he's going through and giving a bunch of different examples like with money you know all these different things but I thought this was an important one to point out because a lot of people and my last semester had questions about this but without regard to anger there's an excess and a deficiency in a mean and a lot of people think that like how can you have a deficiency of anger although they can scarcely be said to have names yet since we call the intermediate person good tempered let us call the mean good temper are the persons at the extreme with the one who exceeds be called you're a scible so this is someone who's way too angry and his vice your ass ability and the man who falls short a an inter a suppose sort of person this is a person that does feel doesn't feel anger enough and the deficiency and irritability so I mean just like to give an example of how you can not have enough anger this is something that like for a while I actually struggled with because and I guess in a sense I still do for the most part like you know I just will let things roll by um and so because of that I was never and never felt angry like it was very hard and still is very hard for me to move to action you know anger could be something that is good toward to move you to action if you've seen injustice you know having this sort of anger at this injustice right can help you act in order to UM you know quell the issue or to right or wrong but oftentimes like I found in my case like I'm just like oh why will father what's a point that kind of thing and so like I mean that's a way in which like I am NOT a virtuous person like I don't feel enough anger oh yeah so like that is like an actual thing and if you think about you know all these other examples that he's giving you can make a case for why you know you would want to have a mean here and in fact I think that would be like a great exercise so starting right here and top apart aid for the extremes are contrary to both the intermediate state and to each other and the intermediate to the extremes as the equal is greater relatively to the less less relatively to the greater so the middle states are excessively relative excessive relatively to the deficiencies deficient relativity relatively to the obsesses both impassion Zanden actions for the brave man so there's a lot of definitions here but here's this example that he gives to spell out what he's saying for the brave man appears rash relatively to the coward so a coward would look at a brave person and think that they're acting rashly and similarly cowardly relatively to the rash man so a rash person will look at a brave individual and say they're just a coward and similarly to the temperate man appears self-indulgent relatively to the insensible man so someone who extends from every you know sort of pleasure the temperate person looks self-indulgent because they are partaking in pleasure and the liberal man prodigal relatively to the mean man so this is someone you know who like if you are way too indulgent then you look like you are you know insensible or you're prodigal right I mean relatively to the prodigal hence also the people at the extremes push the intermediate man each out over to the other so the coward would say that the brave man is rash the rash man would say that the brave man is coward so these extremes are always saying no they're not a part of us they're a part of them right that kind of thing I mean not that there's collective individuals doing this but in each individual's mind that coward would say the brave men is rash brave man is called rash for the coward cleverly put the rash man and correspondingly to the other cases all right so sorry in here to the main in some cases the deficiency and some the excess is more opposed example does not rashness which is an excess but cowardice which is a deficiency that is more opposed to courage and not in sensibility which is a deficiency but self-indulgence which is an excess that is more opposed to temperance this happens for two reasons one being drawn from the thing itself so he's saying although you know these excesses or deficiencies are both wrong one second sorry I just got a phone call uh while you know they're both wrong um he's saying that like one is actually worse than the other and this is the reason he's giving so this happens for two reasons one being drawn from the thing itself or because one extreme is near and like earth to the intermediate we oppose not this but rather it's contrary to the intermediate example since rashness is thought like err and nearer to courage and cowardice more unlike we oppose rather the latter to courage for things that are further from the intermediate or thought more contrary to it so we're saying that's why we think the opposite of courage is a cowardice when in reality it's both cowardice and rashness this one is one cause strong from the thing itself another is drawn from ourselves for the thing to which we ourselves more naturally tend to see more contrary to the intermediate for instance we ourselves tend more naturally to pleasures and hints uh sorry and hints are more easily carried away towards self-indulgence then towards propriety we describe as contrary to the mean then rather the directions in which we more often go to great lengths and therefore self-indulgent which is an excess is a more contrary to temperance so saying it's also because very few people are gonna be someone who completely abstained from any sort of pleasure um and lives completely modestly and so because of that therefore we're gonna say that self-indulgence is the opposite of temperance when in reality it's both self-indulgence and you know um I can't remember the word he gave for it blinking right both but the idea is that because we have to be more cautious and wary of self-indulgence maybe it's not even a bad thing that we considered the opposite because um we're not want to fall into complete self-denial you know that kind of thing so part 9 but we must consider the things towards which we ourselves are also are easily carried away for some of us tend to one thing some to another and this will be recognizable from the pleasure in the pain we feel we must drag ourselves away to the contrary extreme for you we shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error as people do in straightening sticks that are bent so if you are someone who is a complete coward then you should actually start trying to behave rashly um even though rash is also advised because you're a coward and you if you were trying to go to the opposite extreme you'll actually end up somewhere in the middle which is courage and that's a good thing right so that's what he's saying here anyways yeah that is Aristotelian ethics again virtue ethics know what the virtues are the state of character and how they behave how we can acquire them know the importance of habit um and also understand the golden mean but other than that that's it for today and I will see y'all next time