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Nicomachean Ethics

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Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#131

Post by SkyBelow »

pyuser583 wrote: post #69
aestetix wrote: post #18

As an aside, I strongly recommend reading Thucydides. Once you know the story of the Peloponnesian War, everything that Socrates and Aristotle talked about will have a much deeper meaning.

Yes! Socrates and Aristotle both sound very anti-democratic. Thucydides explains why.

To what extent is democracy just re-branding of the concept of letting the popularity contest winner run things? Though at face value the unpopularity of winners (and near winners) makes this seem counter intuitive, but that may be explained by the extent that our sense of popularity can be and is being manipulated.

As such, democracy would seem a very unpalatable outcome. Better than the alternatives they had, but lacking enough that they would have distaste for it and seek something better.

Similar the Churchill quote (which itself is rephrasing an earlier quote.

>Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#132

Post by libraryofbabel »

guerrilla wrote: post #9
soufron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe you were too young ;) And maybe such complex problems don't come with very clear solutions. Re-read it :D

Aristotle is notoriously a terrible writer. A lot of these books are thought to just be lecture notes and things like that pieced together. Compare that to something like Plato's and it's a big difference. I imagine nobody will ever beat Kant in the terrible writing department though.

Oh, Hegel is surely an even more terrible writer than Kant: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/302

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#133

Post by sealthedeal »

My favorite course in college. An entire semester dedicated to Nicomachaen Ethics. Helped me think so much about what "happiness" truly is, and what type of a "virtuous" life one should lead to achieve maximum happiness.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#134

Post by JangoSteve »

sealthedeal wrote: post #133

My favorite course in college. An entire semester dedicated to Nicomachaen Ethics. Helped me think so much about what "happiness" truly is, and what type of a "virtuous" life one should lead to achieve maximum happiness.

Well don't leave us hanging. What's the answer?

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#135

Post by aesyondu »

JangoSteve wrote: post #134
sealthedeal wrote: post #133

My favorite course in college. An entire semester dedicated to Nicomachaen Ethics. Helped me think so much about what "happiness" truly is, and what type of a "virtuous" life one should lead to achieve maximum happiness.

Well don't leave us hanging. What's the answer?

Eat when hungry, sleep when tired

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#136

Post by dcre »

skat20phys wrote: post #32

It's been awhile since I've read this. Rereading about it now, it seems like a conceptual mess. I also have this sense, hard to put into words, that it is written from a perspective of socioeconomic privilege and implicitly assumes a certain freedom, or has as its focus certain concerns that reflect that. It comes across to me now as narrow-minded and lacking in understanding of the broader human condition and divers…

This is a very perceptive reading. It is true that Aristotle believes you can't live a good life without certain conditions obtaining, conditions which are outside of individual control. Sometimes this is called "moral luck" in contemporary writing. It is true that in every society we know of, certain people or certain classes of people are much better positioned to live well.

But just because the Ethics alone doesn't fully address the social issues you rightly raise (about helping others be free) doesn't mean it implies that they are irrelevant to individual ethics. They are just out of scope for the book. The Politics is more about what kind of society creates the conditions for people to achieve the good life described in the Ethics. There are, however, parts of the Ethics that do bear directly on this question — the parts on generosity, friendship, and education.

Your last question — how to decide between different virtues if they conflict — is also a good one. The best answer I can come up with is that virtue ethics is based on the idea that open-ended judgment is going to be exercised in any ethically significant situation, and it does not attempt to give a rigid framework for decision-making. I would suggest that any framework that does try to do that is brittle, and trading flexibility for false clarity.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#138

Post by wahern »

menexenus wrote: post #115

Aristotle's Ethics is indeed a foundational text. To simplify things greatly, there is basically only one alternative to it: Nietzsche. As Alasdair MacIntyre explains (the erstwhile Marxist, now Catholic, who helped revive virtue ethics with his book After Virtue ), "the underlying structure of [Nietzsche's] argument is as follows: if there is nothing to morality but expressions of will, my morality can only be what…

From an evolutionary perspective there are some objective morals, the most obvious being incest (simple genetics) and cold-blooded murder (mix of genetics and whatever dynamics give rise to human altruism, which is at the root of our specie's survival fitness).

Unfortunately, the universe defies simple, categorical distinctions. Kant's categorical imperative superficially comes closest to capturing the above examples, but not really, because Aristotle, Kant, and Nietzsche, all seem to side-step the question of free will, at least as it relates to the meaning of morality. Free will itself of course also defies simple distinctions. The problem in all these explorations of morality is that the number of implied assumptions is enormous, and it's the character of those assumptions which matters far more than the effectively trite observations about human behavior these philosophers often make.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#139

Post by heavenlyblue »

josinalvo wrote: post #67
TeMPOraL wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point 2. reminds me of some old Eliezer's posts, like "Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately"[0]. It argues that if you're clear and honest about your intent, you'll be more efficient. Using an example of helping others, if you seek both the "warm fuzzy feeling" and actual effect on the world, then the best approach would be to get them separately - e.g. buy the feeling cheaply (e.g. do something directly for someo…

My personal solution is to not buy utilions at all. Fuzzies are good. They are useful. They connect me to people around me, and bring gratitude. Fuzzies are the reason I have a moral feeling at all. And utilions are just a virus, that infects my moral system, trying to highjack it, so that it becomes useless to me. So that I do charity without getting gratitude and potencial help in the future. Purchase "moral useful…

Here's my opposite take on it:

The most efficient use of your own superior intellect is to help those who are the most helpless, because by doing the easiest things for you, you can scale those things to a much greater extent.

You may think that fuzzies are easy. But they make the greatest different to a much higher amount of people around you.

Re: Nicomachean Ethics

#140

Post by heavenlyblue »

josinalvo wrote: post #68
josinalvo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal solution is to not buy utilions at all. Fuzzies are good. They are useful. They connect me to people around me, and bring gratitude. Fuzzies are the reason I have a moral feeling at all. And utilions are just a virus, that infects my moral system, trying to highjack it, so that it becomes useless to me. So that I do charity without getting gratitude and potencial help in the future. Purchase "moral useful…

The reason I write this is fuzzies, btw. I want to help other people find moral fulfillment, and hopefully some will be grateful and return with some other insight

Hacker News is not a comfort space though - it is primarily utilitarian (The Economist-liberalist, if you would like) in nature.
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