Aristotle – How to live a good life

[harimau777]

It seems to me that this either underemphasizes the importance of happiness or assumes that happiness will be an inevitable byproduct of virtue; even if we define happiness very broadly to include things like "satisfaction" or a "sense of purpose".

Part of me suspects that may be because Aristotle was likely upper class and therefore already had success and/or wealth. I'm not sure that I think his arguments work for people who are suffering or struggling to get by.

[dcre]

The article says directly: “One might even suffer greatly and still live a virtuous—that is: a good—life. When Aristotle speaks of a “happy” life, he means a fulfilled or flourishing life rather than a pleasurable one.”

Suffering certainly does make it harder to be virtuous, but you can interpret that not as disregarding the poor but as giving even more justification for orienting society toward satisfying everyone’s basic needs.

[voiceblue]

> I'm not sure that I think his arguments work for people who are suffering or struggling to get by.

    Here lies Epictetus,
    a slave maimed in body, 
    the ultimate in poverty,
    and the favored of the gods.

I see that someone has already mentioned him in this thread, but his epitaph is a direct address to your doubt.

[Asymo]

Yes, Aristotle was born into a more privileged family, but I'm not sure if it's accurate to say that he was rich. However, his financial conditions and the fame that his life's work brought him seem to have had the opposite effect of what you suggested. There is a painting by Rembrandt that represents exactly this. The painting depicts Aristotle with one hand holding a chain of gold and the other hand resting on a bust of Homer. This represents his internal struggle between embracing his eternal legacy, like Homer, or embracing momentary pleasures and riches.

[seneca]

Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher and proponent of Aristotelian virtue ethics, was literally a slave. Some ideas, particularly the best ones, aren't subject to class politics.

[pnut]

Happiness and sadness are emotions - inherently transient.

I have actually thought that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was aan error, and should have been "life, liberty, and the pursuit of fulfilment"

[tivert]

> It seems to me that this either underemphasizes the importance of happiness or assumes that happiness

Isn't it understood that focusing on trying to make yourself happy will actually make you miserable, and in any case "happiness" tends to revert to the mean fairly quickly?

[phyzix5761]

Happiness is not the goal. You can't control when the mind will be happy, how long that happiness lasts, or even the intensity of the happiness. Instead, the goal should be something we do have more control over. Our reactions to experiences. We can train ourselves to be non reactive no matter what emotions or experiences arise. Non reaction here means mindful observation without being moved to act. That way action becomes a choice rather than an automatic response.

[w10-1]

It's good to try to boil Aristotle down to some topological order, because it is latent there.

But to get the order right, this presentation needs some background in the Greek terms Aristotle is using. E.g., focus on the first few lines of the Nichomachean Ethics, about all beings having a good for themselves; that pulls in his metaphysics, some logic, and orients you to the argument structure.

(Personally, I'm not fond of the moving images.)

[rubymamis]

> We cannot study rules for proper behaviour. Instead, we must train our character through habituation to find the right mean appropriate to the circumstances.

> Are we born with those virtues?

> No.

Well, Aristotle also speaks about "starting points" and claims there's a great weight for "habituation" as much as those "starting points" (your genetics, your talents, your environment growing up). So that's important also to say.

"People like that [with the right upbringing] either already have, or can easily grasp, [the right] principles. If neither of those applies to you... well, Hesiod says it best:

Best of them all is a man

                 who relies on his own understanding.

Next best, someone who knows

                 how to take good advice when he hears it.

So, if you're clueless yourself,

                 and unwilling to listen to others,

taking to heart what they say -

                 then, sorry, you're pretty much hopeless."

- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapter 4, 1095b

[GTP]

Maybe the first category needs some explanation. I have a realtive that relies on his own understanding... Way too much, to the point that he assumes to be right too often and so is mostly unable to listen to advice. Does he fall in the first or in the last category? I would put him in the last, but note that the heart of the problem is relying to one own understanding without considering the possibility of being wrong sometimes.

[samirillian]

I just really liked this.

There’s a lot of wisdom in Aristotle even if you don’t accept his entire system.

For example, in his politics he says mechanics are not capable of practicing virtue. An interesting claim!

[geye1234]

He may well mean a mechanic qua mechanic is not capable or practising virtue -- not a mechanic qua human being.

The ancients tended to predicate formally where we predicate materially. When they said 'a mechanic can't practise virtue', they didn't mean every man who is a mechanic, which is what we would mean. They meant every mechanic in so far as he is a mechanic. At least this is the tendency -- I don't know if it applies to this particular case.

In this case, it would mean he can't practise virtue, at least not complete virtue, through being a mechanic, but he could in other areas of his life.

Jacques Maritain's Introduction to Philosophy explains this helpfully.

[ivl]

I'm actually very much in agreement with that point.

The world is what it is. A factual observation is just that! But I think it would be better said that while practicing mechanics one should not be trying to practice virtue.

A moral position will push out a factually accurate one if you aren't willing to ignore your views when assessing something.

[HKH2]

> For example, in his politics he says mechanics are not capable of practicing virtue. An interesting claim!

Well, people often find it very difficult to separate explanations from justifications.

[HPsquared]

Mechanics?

[pmzy]

I've never seen anything like this article. True, simple art. Really well executed.

I can't say that I agree fully with it, but knowing the virtues you want to abide to is a good idea.

[tbirdny]

Just looking at the page and all the animation is fun. It looks nice, but trying to read it with all the distraction is very difficult for me.

[mistercheph]

Don't read blog post that completely misrepresents Aristotle, just read Aristotle:

https://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Nicomachean-Ethics-Philoso...

[hasbot]

> Aristotle says that humans have a capacity to be good, but it is up to us to develop our character. This is best achieved through study and habit.

Cool. So, then I just draw the rest of the owl? I have no idea where to begin to develop my character.

[resource_waste]

I read nicomachean ethics, can I skip the article?

My criticism of Aristotle: Living the golden mean, like a happy person isnt going to help when your country is invaded.

This is my number 1 criticism of Temperance as a virtue. There is a reason we grind in college so hard, there is a reason why at some points in our career we work absurd hours and gain weight/become unhealthy.

Aristotle's golden mean (or Temperance) does not account for this.

"But Wisdom would say that this is acceptable to sacrifice health at points"

Does it? How do you weight these virtues as one better than another? Calling for some perfect Platonic form that answers all these questions correctly is a bit of a cop-out.

[cauliflower99]

Great article. Anybody know how can I make graphics like this?

[garyclarke27]

Nice Article, always good to be reminded of the fundamentals - Love the Graphics

[theusus]

It's pretty congruent to Stoic principles.

[quonn]

> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function.

Like a nuclear weapon?

[pvinis]

OK but the animations are amazing!!

[Ahmed_rza]

it feels good when reading but it's not easy when applies to real life

[eleveriven]

That’s a common experience

[moose44]

This was a great read.

[lo_zamoyski]

One thing you have to notice is the centrality of the nature of a thing, which is to say its telos, or end. Fulfillment is, after all, defined by our nature; it is a matter of proceeding from potential to actuality, as determined by our nature. What is good advances a person according to one's nature (in our case, human nature), what is bad acts against it. Telos, or finality, also gives morality its proper and objective ground: what is morally right or wrong follows, ultimately, from one's nature. Since we are humans, we are therefore persons, which is to say animals who can understand their actions and choose between apprehended alternatives, and therefore moral agents. We must therefore choose to act in accord with our nature as free and rational agents, which is to say according to right reason. Our rationality allows us to tackle the question of what it means to be human and to therefore determine what is good.

A tragedy of the crudeness of materialism is that it obliterates telos, and in doing so, destroys the only possible objective ground for morality and the good. Married to philosophical liberalism, morality becomes a mystery cult rooted in desire that evades explanation. Yyou cannot square the existence of desires--which can be good or bad, in accord with reason, or deviant or depraved--with a purely materialist universe; even Descartes had to tack on the disembodied ghost of the Cartesian mind to account for all sorts of phenomena. So you end up with an irrational gnosticism as a result.

But the fact of the matter is that even the most mundane varieties of efficient causality presuppose telos, as telos is not the same as conscious intent (which is a particular variety), but fundamentally, the ordering of a cause toward an effect. The only reason efficient causality is intelligible at all is because the relation between cause is ordered toward an effect by virtue of the nature of the thing, and not arbitrarily related. Striking a match predictably results in fire, not nothing, nor the appearance of the Titanic or whatever.

We are seeing an increased, if modest interest in broadly Aristotelian thought (which some refer to as "Neo-Aristotelian"), however. As the materialist dinosaurs pass from this earth, fresh blood is willing to reexamine the nihilistic, dehumanizing, materialist dogmas of the last two or three centuries. It was never the case that materialism overthrew the prior intellectual tradition by discrediting it. Rather, it began with the perilous decision to "start from scratch". Putting aside the dubiousness of the notion, what we can expect from starting from scratch is a repetition of the same errors. There are eerie similarities between modern ideas and the pre-Socratic philosophers, for example, of which Aristotle was very much aware and to which he was responding.

[nathan_compton]

I am not compelled by this. To the best of my ability to understand the world in which I find myself, it seems unfortunately to be the case that there are no human beings as such, no persons, no moral agents. What I see around me are assemblages of interacting quantum fields which share no fundamental nature with one another except that they happen to be arranged in similar (but not remotely identical or fundamentally related) shapes. Given that there are no human beings there cannot be a single human nature and thus I can say nothing about whether a person's behavior is good or bad in reference to such.

I admit this is a daunting state of affairs which is not pleasant to contemplate, but I don't adopt beliefs on the basis of what is pleasant or unpleasant or easy or not easy. I adopt them, as far as I have the agency to do so, on the basis of what seems plausible and, given how I understand the universe, your account seems highly implausible.

[petsfed]

One of my core criticisms to Plato and later Aristotle is not a criticism of Aristotle qua Aristotle, but in the way people give this almost religious reverence to the particular words they use. As if by saying that

>Telos, or finality, also gives morality its proper and objective ground: what is morally right or wrong follows, ultimately, from one's nature.

I have some intuitive understanding of what telos is and why it matters. If I'm understanding you correctly, morality is defined by outcome, but the "tragedy of the crudeness of materialism" is that we can't know the final outcome of anything. Then what good is knowing about telos anyway?

I'd argue that Scholasticism, that is, the marriage of Middle-Ages Christianity to the truthy-sounding gobbledygook of Aristotle, set the case for the moral authority of the church back a thousand years.

[z3t4]

My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points:

    * Have low expectations
    * Enjoy simple things
    * Don't care too much

[xelxebar]

Is a happy life a good life? I'm really not sure, but pursuit of the former is more of a modern conception of value as far as I can tell.

Living a happy life and living a meaningful life aren't entirely the same thing. Not that you claimed they were, but I personally find it fruitful to cognate on the different lifestyles implied by optimizing for different values and how they fit together.

In particular, as we get older I think we also get more skillful at handling our own internal and external conditions to create a comfortable-like happiness. However, one of those skills is filtering out potentials for discomfort from unexpected events. Well made plans and expertly crafted systems of comfort also function as barriers between you and the larger world in a sense. Is that desirable?

In my experience, negative-valence emotions like non-panic fear, confusion, dissatisfaction, et al necessarily invoke an associated underlying value, providing a creative and productive impetus to produce said value(s). How desirable is that?

</musings>

[jajko]

I would add optional 4) for those who like some improvement in life (and who doesn't) - recognize those few important moments/periods when situation comes around that can change rest of your life, or walk towards it and create one yourself. Work hard with it, achieve what you desire to, and come back to more, even better chill.

It can have many forms - which job you take, where you decide to move/settle, partners, family decisions etc.

One random example - I know tons of people from ie high school that could permanently improve their lives if they properly (re)learned a given foreign language. They have plenty of time. But they are too much in their 'comfort' zone to even try, even though they are rarely actually long term happy. Sometimes the effort would be couple of months, sometimes one long afternoon.

Another personal one - moving to a better country. Few challenging months of looking for job on site (which also gave tons of personal growth and mental resilience), accommodation, understanding and adapting to different society etc. and riding the resulting improved situation for rest of my life. Nobody too chill is ever going to wade through that.

One mistake is to start effort and just keep pushing for next challenges and achievements. Eventually everybody hits the wall, physical or mental. It may look great from outside, but thats about it. And a lot of damage in life can be already done at that point.

[autonomousErwin]

I think it's fundamentally important to care deeply about some things e.g. your craft. As you tend to find joy when you're deep in flow state.I'd also add:

* Don't argue with people on the internet

You'd be inherently happier, also:

* Enjoy irony when you can

[agumonkey]

I'm trying to find how to maintain passion, drive and fun. The 'low expectations' philosophy always feel gray to me.

[0xbadcafebee]

Almost; you're missing gratitude. It's the "one weird trick" to happiness.

[incognito124]

Not caring much is such a slippery slope, because it's so easy to turn it to a default.

[jddj]

Unfortunately, you can fit most of the field of philosophy inside the nuances of item 3.

[eleveriven]

These points suggest a mindset that values contentment over constant pursuit of more

[mrtransient]

Can reduce these to:

- Convert your personal Needs to your Wants/Wishes.

[timacles]

Happy simple people maybe.

You have to take into account the difference of each mind's disposition between people. There are people who would just read those 3 bullet points and be disgusted. Some people need an empty pointless life and are "happy". Some people need struggle, challenge and difficulty, otherwise they cant be happy.

People and minds are extremely complicated. To me, having low expectations and not caring too much is a sign of a defeated person with no spirit. That is sad

[cynicalsecurity]

This is a horrible way to live a life.

[GeoAtreides]

Forgot the most important one:

* have money