Hernandez 1 Alaura Hernandez Professor Seeskin, TA Candace Philosophy 210 November 12, 2012

Question #3 The defining aspect of Aristotles ideas of human behavior is the fact that he divides virtue and the soul into different parts. As a result, he is able to paint a complex picture of human behavior. In order to understand Aristotles perception of virtue, we must first take a look at his idea of the soul. Aristotle, like Plato, believes in a soul that is divided into parts. In

Book I, Chapter 13 of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle establishes that one element in the soul is irrational and one has a rational principle (1102a28-29), that is, part of the soul functions rationally while the other does not. Furthermore, Aristotle breaks the irrational part of the soul down into two subcategories. One of these is the vegetative part of the soul, which is responsible for growth, bodily functions, and nutrition. The other is the appetitive part of the soul, which is responsible for impulses. Aristotle says that the vegetative part has nothing to do virtue, so we will ignore it. The appetitive part, however, shares in a rational principle (1102b14), as it can be described as the desiring element (1102b31) of the soul, and desires can have an affect on virtue. So, Aristotle says that the soul can be divided into the appetitive part, the rational part, and the vegetative part, though we will ignore the vegetative part when talking about

Hernandez 2 virtue, as it plays no part in it. While Plato also divides the soul in The Republic, Socrates does not distinguish parts of the soul in early dialogues. The appetitive and rational part of the soul work together to be virtuous. In order to explain this, we must look at Aristotles thoughts on virtue. He believes that some excellences, or virtues, are intellectual and others are moral. For example, he says that philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom (1103a6) are categorized as intellectual virtues while liberality and temperance are moral virtues. Intellectual virtue must be learned and is teachable, and it requires experience and time. For example, a child may struggle when trying to ride a bicycle without training wheels for the first time because they cannot balance their weight proportionally. As a result, one side of the bicycle has more weight than the other and the child cannot stay upright. After practice, through which they acquire experience and spend time, the child has learned that the correct way to ride a bicycle is to balance their weight, and they succeed in riding it. This instance is an example of practical wisdom, and therefore intellectual virtue. Moral virtue is developed through habit. For example, one must act graciously to be gracious, tactfully to be tactful, etc. Aristotle compares this with building and playing a musical instrument, saying, men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre (1103a33). Nature gives humans the potential for moral virtue to come about, but it is not found directly in nature. According to Aristotle in Book II, Chapter I of Nicomachean Ethics, none of the moral excellences arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature (19-20). To illustrate this, he talks about gravitys effect on a stone, and how, no matter how many times one throws

Hernandez 3 the stone upward in hopes of training it, it will always fall downward. Therefore, if moral virtue is developed through habit and nothing can form a habit contrary to its own nature, then moral virtue must not arise by nature. In addition, if intellectual virtue is something that must be learned, then it is not innate within us and must not be apart of nature either. It is true, then, that no virtue is found in nature. Now that the virtues and the parts of the souls have been distinguished and separated, we can begin to look at how they connect. Intellectual virtue is controlled by the rational part of the soul. The child riding a bicycle eventually realizes that if too much weight is on the left side of the bike, he will fall to his left. Likewise, if too much weight is on the right side of the bike, he will fall to his right. The rational part of the childs soul, then, will tell him that the way to ensure that he will not fall to either the left or the right is to ensure that weight is balanced in the middle, and thus he has acquired intellectual virtue in this aspect through learning. Moral virtue is a result of the appetitive and rational parts of the soul working together, in that to exhibit a moral virtue is to rationally control desires and passions. To Aristotle, this virtue is a mean of defect and excess. For example, lack of food is bad and one will starve as a result, but too much food is also bad as it is unhealthful and gluttonous. In the same way, the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, says Aristotle. And the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash (1104a20-22). The mean of these two extremes, which is courage, is the virtue in this case. Temperance, then, is preserved by the mean, or virtue, but is destroyed by the two extremes in any case. Aristotle says that by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate, and it is

Hernandez 4 when we have become so that we are most about to abstain from them (1104a33-35) so in order to be temperate, one must rationally control their desires. Therefore, in order to achieve moral virtue, one must control their passions, and when one is controlling their passions, the appetitive and rational parts of the soul are working together. But what is the point of this? Why be virtuous? Aristotle, like Socrates, believes that virtue is good. Since men want good things, those who act rightly win the noble and good things in life (1099a4-5). In the end, according to Aristotle, all men seek happiness. But, it is important to note that happiness is not a state, as pleasure is. Instead, happiness is achieved at the end of a life, encompassing that life as a whole, as one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy (1098a17-19). Now that we have a full explanation of Aristotles ideas, we can begin to compare them to those of Socrates. As earlier stated, Aristotle divides the soul into parts, while Socrates does not. By dividing the soul into parts (and, thus, giving a human the complexity that we now attribute to the brain), Aristotle is more accurately able to break down aspects of human behavior. Socrates is limited in his view of one soul, and so his arguments are more black and white. A major difference in the two philosophers ideas is that of desiring good things. According to Socrates in Meno, all men desire good things, and will act in such a way to achieve it. In the Symposium, Socrates says it is impossible to desire something without having a positive value of it first, so, in the end, you only desire what you believe is good. Therefore, if somebody desires or does something bad, they must have mistakenly believed that it was good, as bad things make people unhappy, and nobody

Hernandez 5 wants to be miserable or unhappy. So, in the end, Socrates would say that human

missteps are actually the result of failure of knowledge. Aristotle would argue that a person might know what is good, but still desire something that they know is bad for them because one part of the soul is somehow unequally exercised, such as their appetite is uncontrolled. Aristotle is able to come to this conclusion because he has distinguished parts of the soul and, as a result, can use them to describe a more multi-faceted view of human behavior than Socrates can. Another problem with Socratess assertion that human missteps are the result of failure of knowledge is that he, in effect, believes that evil acts are only committed by ignorance. If a person cannot knowingly do bad things, then how is a murderer, for instance, able to be held accountable for killing? It would be difficult to prosecute a person for murder if it is acceptable to believe that their act was only committed by ignorance. As is clear in our modern court system, involuntary manslaughter and 1st degree murder are very different. Under Socratess argument, though, they would both be the same thing, and that makes so sense. While most of Socratess views successfully rest on basis of his idea of the soul as one soul, ultimately Aristotle has a more nuanced understanding of human behavior because his distinctions of the soul, virtue, and how the two are related better describes the multi-faceted and complicated nature of human behavior.

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References Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. A New Aristotle Reader. Ed. J. L. Ackerill. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Print. Plato. Meno. Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Trans. G. M. A. Grube. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2002. Print. Plato. The Republic. 2nd ed. Trans. Desmond Lee. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1987. Plato. Symposium. Trans. Seth Benardete. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001. Print.