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soul / mind
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This chapter will focus on three
key concepts in Aristotle’s philosophy, firstly his views on the human soul or
‘psyche’, secondly an explanation of his views on ethics and the meaning of
life, and thirdly, his view that human beings are naturally political or social
animals.
Aristotle on the ‘soul’
Aristotle’s analysis of human
nature is based around observations of human beings and a comparison with
plants and animals. Aristotle divides
the human soul in to three parts, but in reality using the word ‘soul’ is
deceptive because he is not talking about anything spiritual that lasts forever.
The Greek word that Aristotle used was
‘psyche’ which is better translated as ‘mind’ and is where we get our word
‘psychology’ from. What Aristotle is
actually talking about is the functions and activities that living beings
perform, for example, he says that the soul of the eye would be sight, and he
adds that when a living being no longer functions it is like a broken machine
and it no longer has a soul or mind:
Suppose that
the eye were an animal – sight would have been its soul, for
sight is the substance or essence of the eye… the eye being
merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed the eye is
no longer an eye, except in name – it is no more a real eye than
the eye of a statue or of a painted figure.
Aristotle,
De Anima [1]
In modern terms an analogy can be
made with a computer: the body is the hardware and the soul is the programmes
it is running; when the hardware is broken the programmes stop running and it
is ‘dead’; it is effectively no longer a computer because it no longer performs
the function of computation. Aristotle begins his analysis by defining life,
which he sees in terms of being able to move yourself in some fashion, which
includes growth; in order for growth and movement to take place it is necessary
for a living being to nourish itself:
Living… may
mean thinking or perception or local movement and rest, or
movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth. Hence we think
of plants also as living, for they are observed to possess in themselves an originative power through which they increase or decrease in
all spatial directions; they grow up and down, and everything
that grows increases its bulk alike in both directions or
indeed in all, and continues to live so long as it can absorb
nutriment.
Aristotle, On The Soul [2]
Aristotle points out that all
living things, whether they are plants, animals, or human beings, must operate
functions which maintain their life; in modern biology we would describe this
in terms of the seven life processes such as nutrition, excretion, respiration,
reproduction, and growth. This set of
functions he describes as the Vegetative
Soul or Nutritive Soul and it is
something found in all living beings including plants. This demonstrates that when Aristotle is
talking about the ‘soul’ he is not talking about something spiritual which is
only found in human beings; for Aristotle even plants have a ‘soul’ and the ‘soul’
is something which dies with the body when it stops functioning. With plants, however, this Vegetative Soul is
the only function they possess, whilst animals and humans have additional
functions:
This power of
self-nutrition can be isolated from the other powers mentioned,
but not they from it – in mortal beings at least. The fact is obvious
in plants; for it is the only psychic power they possess. This
is the originative power the possession of which leads us to
speak of things as living at all, but it is the possession of sensation that leads us for the first time to speak of living things as
animals; for even those beings which possess no power of local
movement but do possess the power of sensation we call animals
and not merely living things.
Aristotle, On The Soul [3]
Aristotle argues that what
separates plants from animals is that animals can experience sensations, which
makes them sentient; they have perceptions of their environment. Being able to
experience sensations brings with it the ability to experience pleasure and
pain, and therefore it creates appetites or desires such as thirst and hunger –
animals have appetites for things which give them pleasure and help them to
survive, and they have aversions to pain and things that are a threat to
them. Because of these desires the
majority of animals have the ability to move (locomotion) in order to attain
what they desire and avoid what they are averse to. What we have here is actually three functions
of the soul, the sensory, the appetitive, and the locomotive, but they are
closely linked and together are what could be described as the Animal Soul.
The Vegetative and Animal Souls
are both found in human beings too, but what humans possess and animals lack is
a third and final factor: the Rational
Soul – the power of thinking. In part thinking involves imagining things,
and animals are also capable of this to some extent as they must imagine what
they desire and imagine ways of getting it, but proper thinking is more than
this, it involves the reasoning abilities necessary to make judgements, to
calculate the best ways of achieving goals and to decide which ends are best
and which are not. Only human beings
have ‘logos’ (which translates as both ‘speech’ and ‘reason’), and this gives
us the ability to distinguish between what is good and bad:
That
perceiving and practical thinking are not identical is therefore obvious;
for the former is universal in the animal world, the latter is found
in only a small division of it… Thinking
is different from perceiving and is held to be in part imagination,
in part judgement.
Aristotle, On The soul [4]
Nature, as we
often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she [nature]
has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is
but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found
in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of
pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and
no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust.
Aristotle, Politics [5]
This may seem very similar to
Plato’s distinction between reason and emotions but there are significant
differences; firstly, Aristotle is less antagonistic towards the emotions believing
that pleasure is an essential part of a good life. The emotions are to be
harnessed to help achieve the goals that reason dictates rather than being overcome
and controlled; we should aim to feel the right emotions rather than to suppress
them, for example, instead of saying that anger is wrong he would say that
sometimes it is appropriate and useful, whilst at other times it is not. Secondly, Aristotle believes that it is
impossible to act without a desire, so that appetite would therefore be part of
all three parts of Plato’s soul: “if the soul is tripartite appetite will be
found in all three parts.”[6] What Reason does is it tells us which of our
desires is most worthy of following, and it reminds us to think about our long
term good rather than our short term desires.
Aristotle’s Ethics and The Meaning of Life
Aristotle uses his thesis about
the nature of the human soul or ‘psyche’ to support his ethical ideas on what
constitutes a good and meaningful human life.
For Aristotle a thing’s function is vitally important and is connected
to its purpose; Aristotle thinks that purpose is written in to the nature of
things, and that things exist to fulfil purposes and achieve their true nature,
for example it is the purpose of an egg to become a chicken, and it is the
purpose of a tadpole to become a frog, and it is the purpose of the sun to
sustain life on Earth, and it is the purpose of a tree to produce fruit. The
tadpole’s only purpose is to become a frog, it is a potential frog which is
aiming to become an actual frog. Similarly, Aristotle thinks that human beings
ought to develop themselves by taking their potential abilities (e.g. for
wisdom and knowledge) and actualising these into genuine talents, thus becoming
fully human so to speak. This is a ‘teleological’ perspective on nature, which
comes from the Greek word ‘telos’ which means ‘goal’ or ‘end’, and we can see
Aristotle’s teleological reasoning when he says things such as “nature, as we
often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal
whom she has endowed with the gift of speech.”[7] In
making statements like this he is indicating that nature is not blind, but is
planned in some way and has tasks or goals to achieve, a perspective that we
would generally associate with religion and the view that our world has been
constructed purposefully for a reason. Many
philosophers in modern times reject the notion of there being any purpose or
goals written in to nature, and instead see things in term of their efficient
causes (the preceding events which caused them) and they instead teach that
nature is blind and without purpose: nature has not put the sun in place to
produce life, the sun just happened to be there and this just happened to allow
for life.
None the less, for Aristotle a
thing’s purpose is connected to the function it happens to perform, because to
be alive is to function, so to live a good life is to function well; here Aristotle
is meaning ‘good’ in term of quality rather than ‘good’ in any specifically
moral way. The function (in Greek
‘ergon’) of a pair of scissors is to cut and we can tell the difference between
a pair of scissors that cuts well and one that does not. Similarly, the function of a flautist is to
play the flute, and we can tell the difference between a person who plays the
flute well and one who does not. Because
we are aware of the function and purpose of a thing we are able to judge how
well it fulfils this function, and for Aristotle this is the way we can tell
the difference between a good plant and a bad one, and indeed a good animal and
a bad one.
So now we turn to the function or
purpose of mankind. To function fully
and have a good life as a human being is what Aristotle called ‘eudaimonia’
which is often translated as ‘happiness’ but this is a poor translation. The world ‘eudaimonia’ literally means
‘having good demons (spirits)’ which is to say that the gods are watching over
you and ensuring that you are having a lucky and blessed life. Many modern commentators frame eudaimonia in
terms of having a flourishing life or achieving success. For Aristotle eudaimonia is the natural goal
of human beings, but it also happens to be what we all desire, and therefore it
is ‘the good’ for human beings:
Every pursuit
aims at some good… there is very general agreement; for both the general run of
men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness,
and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but
with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do
not give the same account as the wise.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics [8]
Aristotle notes that there is
disagreement about the nature of eudaimonia, for the common man sees happiness
as being a life of pleasure, whilst the ‘wise’ (such as Aristotle) believe it
is not. So what is Aristotle’s
conception of a flourishing successful human life? Firstly a person must be healthy and should
have children, which fulfils the Vegetative functions. Secondly they must have a fair deal of
pleasure in their lives and attain the things they desire, a good life should
include pleasure, comfort and wealth, things that all or most of us do indeed
desire, however, for Aristotle this is not the be-all and end-all of human
existence, to crave only pleasure is what he describes as a ‘bovine’ existence,
a life fit for animals:
To judge from
the lives that men lead, most men, and men of the most vulgar
type, seem (not without some ground) to identify the good, or
happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the life
of enjoyment… Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their
tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts.
Human beings, alone amongst the
animals, possess Reason and knowledge, and therefore, Aristotle concludes that
to be a fully functioning human being you must be knowledgeable and
intelligent. There are also indications that flourishing human beings should
take an interest in artistic creativity and culture. This means that you must
aim for something higher than mere pleasure.
This perspective was echoed by JS
Mill who made a distinction between what he called ‘higher pleasures’ and
‘lower pleasures.’ Higher pleasures are
those which are related to the mind, like science, art, literature, philosophy,
politics, and culture; meanwhile, lower pleasures are related to the body such
as the taste of food, the warmth of a fire, the idleness of relaxation, and the
excitement of sports, gambling, sex, and drunkenness. Mill famously said “it is
better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”[10] Imagine a man who has won the lottery and
spends his life on holiday, watching sports, and enjoying food and drink; we
might say that he has a happy life, but both Mill and Aristotle would say that
his life was deficient. Similarly,
someone with a mental disability may be happy, but Mill and Aristotle would say
that the person does not have a good or desirable life. For Mill and Aristotle ignorance is not bliss
but quite the opposite, proper human happiness and success has to include cerebral
challenges and knowledge; those who can be considered to have lived the best
lives are not those who have had the most pleasure, but instead are those who
understand their world, especially those who have made scientific discoveries
or artistic creations through their hard work.
There is, however, another factor
of human existence that Aristotle also took in to consideration when concluding
about the true nature of humanity, and that is that we are social beings who
are naturally members of a community.
This means that to have a good life must also include good social
relations with our fellow citizens, either in the form of friendships or in the
form of doing duties to society and receiving honour and respect from our
peers; here Aristotle is largely thinking in terms of politics and government,
and also defending your nation if necessary, but the conception could be
broadened to include numerous social roles such as being a doctor or teacher,
and generally serving the needs of others to strengthen the community. However,
many philosophers disagree with Aristotle’s perspective here and instead put
forward the view that we are not social beings with duties to others, but
instead we are individuals whose first and only duty is to ourselves.
So in summary, for Aristotle the
goal of life is not merely survival or hedonism, it is eudaimonia or
‘flourishing’ and that means to make the best of your potential and function
well, and it includes all of the following elements: being healthy; having
children; having wealth and pleasure; achieving knowledge and understanding the
world around you; artistic creativity and culture; friendship and social duty.
The degree to which people achieve this goal is different from person to
person, but most people do not achieve eudaimonia to the full extent, none the
less, its attainment should still be our goal in life.
In order to achieve eudaimonia certain skills or virtues are required, and Aristotle divides these in to two kinds; firstly there are the Moral Virtues which regulate our emotions, desires, and conduct, and allow us to achieve our goals, for example there is courage, temperance, and charity; secondly there are the Intellectual Virtues which allow us to reason and contemplate well. In many ways having these virtues is itself to function well and thus to be virtuous is itself to have eudaimonia, not just a means to a good life.
The Moral Virtues allow you to
control your character and control your actions so that you are a well
functioning individual who is capable of doing the right thing at the right
time. Aristotle does not give too many
rules about what actions should be done and which should not, because he
accepts that different situations require different actions, and he also
accepts that different societies have different codes of conduct. By and large
doing the right thing involves acting in the way your society expects of you,
but none the less there are virtues that any human being will need in order to do
well in life. Temperance is the ability
to control your appetite for pleasure; Aristotle believes that it is good to
have pleasure in your life, but that too much hedonism means you will not be
able to do your social duties or practice reasoning and gain knowledge. Courage is also a virtue that every person
will need, because it is a virtue which regulates confidence; too little
confidence and you will not be able to carry out important tasks such as
fighting in a battle, or standing in front of a crowd and speaking too them, or
reporting a crime to the police; too much confidence and your actions will be
foolish and reckless, which can lead to disaster. All of the Moral Virtues
exist within a balance, they are a mean between vices of deficiency and excess:
Sphere of
action
|
Deficiency (Vice)
|
Mean
(Virtue)
|
Excess
(Vice)
|
Fear
& confidence
|
Cowardice
|
Courage
|
Rashness
|
Pleasure & pain
|
Insensibility
|
Temperance
|
Licentiousness
|
Anger
|
Lack of spirit
|
Patience
|
Irascibility
(too quick to anger)
|
Self-expression
|
Understatement
|
Truthfulness
|
Boastfulness
|
Conversation
|
Boorishness (being dull)
|
Wittiness
(being entertaining)
|
Buffoonery
(being a fool)
|
Social conduct
|
Cantankerousness (being unhelpful)
|
Friendliness
|
Obsequiousness
(too eager to please)
|
Shame
|
Shamelessness
|
Modesty
|
Shyness
|
Indignation
|
Malicious
enjoyment
|
Righteous indignation
|
Envy
|
Getting
and spending (minor)
|
Illiberality (meanness)
|
Liberality (generosity)
|
Prodigality (wastefulness)
|
Getting
and spending (major)
|
Pettiness (being small)
|
Magnificence (being large)
|
Vulgarity (showing off)
|
Honour
and dishonour (major)
|
Pusillanimity (timidity)
|
Magnanimity (being forgiving)
|
Vanity (vindictiveness)
|
Honour
and dishonour (minor)
|
Unambitiousness
|
Proper ambition
|
Ambition
|
When it comes to the Intellectual
Virtues there is no doctrine of the mean, the more intelligent you are the
better. Aristotle lists the following as Intellectual Virtues:
- Technical skill – e.g. knowing how to build a house.
- Scientific knowledge – knowing facts about biology, geography, etc.
- Prudence – knowing how to balance your needs with those of others.
- Intelligence – mathematical abilities and the like.
- Wisdom – this is gained through long years of experience and helps you to make judgements about what to do.
- Resourcefulness – knowing how and where to get the best information from.
- Understanding – this goes beyond knowing facts, but sees the whole issue and all the complex difficulties associated with decision making.
- Judgement – for a judgement to be good it has to take in to account what is right and good for all concerned.
- Cleverness – this is important as it helps you to work out how to get what you want, but on its own without good judgement it can be unscrupulous, for example many criminals are very clever in their machinations.
Man as a Naturally Political Animal
Aristotle classifies man as a ‘zoon politikon’, that is, a political animal, and his classification of man as such is of central importance to Aristotle’s political theories about how societies should function. In the Greece of Aristotle’s times nations were small, generally consisting of a polis (city-state) and the countryside around it. Aristotle took the view that human beings are naturally social beings which means that we are not true individuals but are actually by nature members of a society, be it a country, a city, or just a clan. Without society you are incomplete because without other people it would be impossible for you to survive or develop your potential and achieve any kind of good life for yourself. A society is in many senses like a huge family or club that nurtures and protects its members, and without the group the individual is nothing, as Aristotle puts it in his Politics, a human being who is not part of a society is either a god or an animal – either he is magnificent and self-sufficient, or he is lacking in humanity and reason, things which are only possible through being raised in a society. All of this entails certain duties to society and that you should often put the needs of your community before your own needs, as Aristotle himself puts it “man is born for citizenship.”[12]
Today this view is known as Communitarianism or Collectivism and it is the
sentiment that lies behind John Donne’s famous assertion “no man is an island
entire of itself.”[13] Donne also uses an analogy with a book; each
of us is a page but a page by itself makes no sense without the whole. Modern
Communitarians such as FH Bradley would
argue that your society is not some alien entity outside of you, but it is
actually part of your very own identity, your society is part of what you are,
and therefore that you should help others, serve your society, and celebrate
its culture and traditions. There is, of course, the possibility of taking this
position to the extreme and concluding that individuals ought to be totally subservient
to society just as bees are to their hive and ants are to their colony; this
can lead us to totalitarianism all too easily.
In contrast to Communitarianism
there is Atomism according to which
each person is an individual, complete in his own right and master of his own
self. From an Atomist perspective the individual is primary in importance and society
or the state is seen as an imposition on the individual’s natural freedom;
moreover there are no natural duties to other people. This view is perhaps best
summed up in Margaret Thatcher’s famous aphorism “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and
women, and there are families.”[14] This was the view taken by Social
Contract philosophers such as Hobbes who imagined man in his natural state as
an individual who could do whatever he desired whenever he desired without any
concern for others. Hobbes believed that having to live with others, help them,
take their needs in to consideration, and do what you are told to by rulers,
was unnatural and that societies could only exercise authority over an
individual if he had personally agreed to be a member of that society and abide
by its rules via a social contract. This can also be seen as morally
problematic as it seems to encourage selfishness and indifference towards the
needs of others.
In Aristotle’s own time there
were philosophers such as Lycophron who took an Atomist point of view and
therefore argued that people should be selfish if they could get away with it,
and that the government of the polis had no right to order people what to do. Aristotle wanted to show that this was not the
case: society is natural and has existed as long as human beings have existed,
we are citizens by nature, part of a greater whole that we must recognise is
greater than us. Therefore in Aristotle’s view society has a natural right to
control its members and impose laws on them, and we individuals have
obligations to our communities.
Aristotle’s classification of man as a ‘political animal’
In The History of Animals, one of his biological treatises, Aristotle
sets down the following classification of mankind as political animals. Firstly, Aristotle defines man as an animal, although it is important to note that man alone amongst the animals has ‘logos’ (speech, reason, or thought) which elevates us above the beasts. Animals can be gregarious or solitary; human beings are gregarious;
Gregarious animals can be political or non-political; human beings are political;
Political animals can be leader-led or anarchic; human beings are leader-led.
Gregarious animals are those who
live in herds or communities of some form (i.e. social animals) and solitary
animals are those who do not. Tigers are solitary, with males and females only
interacting for reproduction, and mothers only staying with their children
until they are old enough to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, animals like cattle,
lions, and rabbits exist in groups, as do primates; these animals are social.
Among the social animals we find
those who are non-political and live for their own ends, and those who are what
Aristotle describes as ‘political.’ Political animals are those who work
together for a single aim. Cows mill around together and eat grass, but they do
not work together to achieve goals.
Meanwhile, creatures such as ants work together to build nests, protect
the colony, and forage for food.
Amongst the political animals we
have those who do as they wish as individuals and so are anarchical, and those
who act under the instruction of commanders. Ants are directed by a queen, but
something like a colony of penguins has no leader; penguins huddle together for
warmth and those on the outside will freeze if they stay there long enough,
which will eventually lead to the deaths of all, so everyone takes a turn, they
all shuffle round. There is no leader that organises them, they just get it
done, so this may be described as anarchical.
Aristotle sees mankind as leader
led, political, gregarious animals. But
was he right to do so? It takes no
genius to see that this is the way humans are currently arranged, but there is
a difference between how things are and how they ought to be, or how they are
naturally. According to Hobbes society
and social living are not natural, it is natural for us to be individuals and
society is a synthetic creation, something we have chosen to form for the sake
of self-preservation. Meanwhile, to
Aristotle a man who lives outside of a society is like a fish out of water and
anyone who lives outside of a society must be either a god or an animal.
The household, village, and city-state (polis)
In order to defend his view that
mankind naturally lives in societies Aristotle looks at our most basic needs
and drives and states that these can only be satisfied by living with others,
and therefore that living in communities is natural, it is the way we are meant
to live:
In the first
place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each
other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this
is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in
common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves), and of natural ruler
and subject, that both may be preserved.[15]
[note: many translations use ‘master and slave’] Aristotle,
Politics
Aristotle begins his analysis of
the polis (city-state) by breaking it down into what he perceives as its
smallest constituent parts and justifying the existence of these. He argues
that the most basic constituent of the polis is the household (oikia). The
household is constituted by persons who share two relations; that between a man
and woman who come together to procreate (which gives us the further
relationship of parent and child); and that between a master and his slaves
whereby they cater for his daily needs, such as food, shelter, and warmth.
These are our most basic needs and they can only even begin to be satisfied by
living with other people in small communities. Remember that no one is born a
self-sufficient adult, it takes years to raise children, so we are all
naturally members of at least one small community, a household or family.
Many people would agree that the
needs for material provisions and procreation do indeed mean that it is natural
to live in groups in this way, however, what people often find problematic is
the idea of a natural relationship between master and slave. Aristotle’s Politics gives an argument in favour of slavery, and he himself
actually owned slaves. Aristotle rejects equality and takes the view that some
people are better than others and are worth more; those who are capable of
virtue, civil duty, and philosophical knowledge, are better quality human
beings than those who are not, and therefore they have the right to rule over
and direct those beneath them in precisely the same way that the human race
rules over animals. Many modern philosophers find this morally repugnant, and
others try to excuse it by saying that Aristotle was a product of his times and
culture, like all of us; they also point out that Greek slavery was far more
liberal than that of later times and slaves were generally well treated.
Some philosophers argue that we
can reinterpret Aristotle in a more acceptable light and see him as simply
pointing out the distinction between bosses and employees which is common to
most human endeavours: there are architects and then there are builders; there
are doctors and then there are nurses to assist them; there is the engineer who
designs a new car, and then there are the machinists who build the parts and
assemble it. Satisfying material needs requires teamwork, but we all have
different talents; where one person has the brains to design a cathedral others
without those brains will have the physical ability to build it. Perhaps we
might like to say that all human beings have equal dignity, but we cannot in
truth claim that all human beings are equally skilled and useful. Human
endeavours require leadership, and necessarily include relationships of
subordination with one person directing the efforts of others. There is
evidence for this more liberal interpretation of Aristotle in his text, because
Aristotle specifically said that the relationship between master and slave
existed for mutual benefit, and that where there was no mutual benefit then
slavery was not justified:
That which can
foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord
and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such
foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and
slave have the same interest...[16]
where the relation of master and slave between them is natural
they are friends and have a common interest, but where it rests
merely on law and force the reverse is true.[17]
Aristotle, Politics
Aristotle added that the slave of
the poor man was an ox, and also that if machines could operate themselves
there would be little need for slaves. Essentially Aristotle saw large amounts
of humanity as being like children who needed direction from those with more
intelligence, something which may have seemed true in a time when most people
were not educated. If we can reinterpret Aristotle in this ‘teamwork is
required but teams require leaders’ manner then the idea of living and working
together and having leaders being natural becomes far more palatable and easy
to agree with.
Aristotle continues by stating that
the need for self-sufficiency leads to the village, that is, a collection of
households, often originally constituted from extended families (grandparents,
children, grandchildren etc). By forming in to small communities we can protect
ourselves better and be more productive. Think of the difference between a
corner shop and a supermarket; in a corner shop there might be four or five
employees each fulfilling many tasks, but in a supermarket there are many
workers, each of which can focus on one task, which they can specialise in and
get better at, which is more efficient and productive. All supermarket chains
started out as individual stores, and it can be said that the large store is
just a natural expansion of the small store. So it is with the household and
the village or town, and just like a household, a village will require some
form of leadership.
Finally we have the polis which
is a set of villages united as a city-state; a complete entity with
self-sufficiency that caters for all a man’s needs, a place where our basic
needs can be fulfilled, and also where eudaimonia is fully possible:
When several
villages are united in a single complete community, large enough
to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence,
originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for
the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the
nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully
developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man,
a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a
thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the
best. Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of
nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. Aristotle, Politics [18]
Bringing Aristotle’s teleological
perspective in to the equation, Aristotle would argue that just as it is the
goal and purpose of an acorn to become an oak tree, so too is it the purpose of
a household to become a village and for a village to develop in to a nation,
and for him this makes it right and good to live in societies. Not only this,
but it is through the existence of the state that human beings are able to grow
and develop as nature intended. Living in a fully developed civil society
allows our nascent potential to be brought to life; human beings have a need
for art, virtue, and knowledge, and it is only in the polis that these can
flourish. Large societies such as city states or countries are therefore our
natural home, not a synthetic creation; human beings need society and cannot
have good lives without it. For Aristotle the government is not some alien
agency interfering unjustly with your life, it is a collection of the best and
wisest people in society who have got together to help make life better for us
all by making sure we are safe, that we have access to necessities, and that it
is possible for people to actualise their potential and flourish. Of course, Aristotle
was an elitist and for him it was only the rich aristocratic elite who were
capable of achieving eudaimonia, but modern philosophers such as Richard Norman argue that we should try
to reinterpret his philosophy as an encouragement to help all human beings
actualise their personal potential via education.[19] For
Aristotle, living with others in a society is natural and this requires laws
and that we take others in to account with our actions. Living with others in a society requires the
existence of a government that we are obliged to obey because the leadership of
the government is just a natural progression on the leadership of a man over
his household, as stated above, “if the earlier forms of society are natural,
so is the state”[20] and
therefore we are social animals by nature: “man is born for citizenship.”[21]
Language and the social nature of mankind
For Aristotle what is natural is
therefore right and good. Many people would disagree with this and argue, for
example, that violence and greed are natural in human beings but that this does
not make them good things, instead they ought to be fought against and
controlled. None the less, Aristotle
provides three further arguments to the effect that it is natural for us to
live in societies.
Firstly, Aristotle points out
that most of us crave the company of others, stating in his Nicomachean Ethics that nobody would
choose to live without friends even if he had all the other good things in
life. Strictly speaking this is not true as some people have chosen riches
above friendship, but it is also certain that many would not; if we were not
social animals then it seems odd that so many of us should crave human contact.
Secondly, when Aristotle states
that those who live outside of society are animals it may be interpreted to
mean that without socialisation and interaction with other people we would lack
humanity, after all, Aristotle believes that virtue is only possible in society.
In modern times there have been numerous instances of so called ‘feral
children’ who, like Mowgli or Tarzan, have grown up outside of human society
and instead in association with animals. In many cases these children act like
animals, for example walking on all fours, eating raw meat, and biting other
people. Most show no interest in sex or money, and most show no ability to
learn language or moral rules, especially when they are older. Some have even
been unable to recognise their own reflections in a mirror.[22]
What this seems to suggest is that being nurtured by a human community is
thoroughly necessary to make us in to the adults we become, we need
socialisation to unlock or develop various aspects of our humanity, and
therefore that we are little or nothing without our society. Remember that we
are not born as self-conscious and independent adults, we must first go through
many years of being cared for by others.
The third argument is from
speech. If we are not meant to live
together, why are we so highly capable of conversation? Why not just growl to make our presence known
as many other animals do? Aristotle
argues that nature provides each species with what they need to survive and
achieve their best possible lives, and so since we have speech it is a good
indication that we are meant to speak and converse with each other, that we are
meant to learn from each other, and that we are meant to cooperate. This argument is flawed because it once again
depends on the teleological notion that nature has designed us with some kind
of purpose in mind, but a similar argument can be constructed through looking
at evolutionary biology. Human beings are capable of language because of our
highly developed brains and vocal chords; these are things which have evolved
over time due to necessities and our situation.
Human brains are more complicated versions of the simpler brains
possessed by primate species, the main difference being the possession of the
neo-cortex which extends our ability to reason, remember things, and learn and
predict behaviours. In large colonies of primates we find a greater degree of
social interaction, and what scientists find is that these primates have larger
brains, greater use of tools, better problem solving abilities, better
memories, and more complex language forms than those in small colonies. The
conclusion seems to be that social interaction is responsible for the evolution
of language and intelligence because these are necessary for social creatures
to interact and succeed in the competition for food, power, and mates. Human
beings are only so smart and linguistically talented as we are because our
ancestors lived in social groups, so it seems that in evolutionary terms we
were social even before we became human, and that we only have the physical and
mental nature that we do because of our sociability, hence, we are social by
nature.
An analysis of Aristotle’s views on human nature
These criticisms have been mentioned or hinted at above, this is merely a summary.
1) Aristotle relies too
heavily on teleology
Aristotle took it for granted
that the world has inbuilt purposes which have been established somehow by
nature or perhaps by God: he believed that there are things that we exist in
order to do and achieve. He used phrases such as “nature makes nothing in vain”
which present us with the view that nature has designed things with a
particular role in mind, which these things then ought to achieve. But this
view is rejected by our modern scientific paradigm of cause and effect in the
universe, a chain of events which is cold, indifferent, and thoroughly unplanned.
For example, it is not the case that the sun has been put there by nature to
provide us with life, the sun just happens by chance to be there and to provide
the conditions for life to emerge. Aristotle utilises his teleological
perspective to justify normative conclusions about how human beings ought to
live, what they should try to achieve, and so on, but if we reject his
teleology then these conclusions seem to lose their force. Instead of saying
that humans ought to live in societies and obey their leaders we can only say
that most humans happen to live in societies. If we reject Aristotle’s
teleology it becomes impossible to say that the purpose of our lives is to gain
knowledge or serve society, all we can say is that these are things that some
people wish to do. Without Aristotle’s teleological notions we cannot make any
conclusions as to the purpose of life, nor can we say that a life of knowledge
is better than a life of pleasure, or that a life of social duty is better than
a solitary or self-serving existence.The nature of the human mind is an important part of the debate about what human beings are and Aristotle gives an interesting perspective on this issue: the mind is the functions that are being carried out by the body, like nutrition, respiration, perception, emotions, and reasoning; there is no eternal soul, when we die these functions stop and the mind no longer exists. Aristotle’s analysis has some similarities with modern scientific theories, for example, the Vegetative Soul seems to bear a large similarity to the idea of there being certain hallmarks of life such as respiration, excretion, and growth. However, it could be said that the processes that are going on within the variety of living beings in the world are far more varied and complex than Aristotle realises. For example, Aristotle draws a clear line between human beings and animals saying that only humans can reason and animals do not, but it seems clear from studying animals that many other animals have basic languages and the ability to reason in order to select the best course of action for their goals.
Aristotle reaches normative
conclusions based on his psychological treatise, for he believes that since
only humans can reason this means that it is our special purpose in life to
reason and gain knowledge, and that this is more important than lower things
such as pleasure or even personal survival. However, if animals can reason too
then this does not seem to be a special purpose for us anymore, it is not a
distinctive feature of humanity. Also,
why not take the view that reason exists simply to help us have more success in
achieving survival and pleasure? Why assume that reasoning and knowledge are
the end rather than the means? According
to Hobbes reason and knowledge exist to serve the body’s survival, whereas
Aristotle seems to say that the body is there in order to allow us to reason
and have knowledge. From an evolutionary perspective where we are taking in to
account notions of ‘survival of the fittest’ it seems that Hobbes is closer to
the truth than Aristotle.
3) Aristotle says very little
about the character of man
Aristotle says a lot about how a
human being should be, but not much about what we are actually like, for
example, Hobbes says that all human beings are selfish and inclined to use
violence and manipulation to get what they want, but we do not seem to get
blanket statements like this from Aristotle. On the other hand, perhaps this is
a strength, for it seems that Aristotle is aware of the fact that different
people act in different ways. If we look
at the table of virtues and vices we can see that there is a broad range of
different ways people can act, and surely we would be able to point out people
who act in all of these ways. Some people are mean and do not share their
wealth with others, whilst others are generous, and some are too generous giving
away more than they can sensibly afford, or are wasteful. There seems to be a
recognition in Aristotle’s writing that people act in different ways, and that
they have different jobs to do in life. What he is saying is that there are
certain character traits that it would benefit everyone to develop; what
Aristotle gives us is not a description of what people are actually like, but
rather, a picture of what they ought to be in order to have what he sees as a happy
and successful life.
4) Problems with Aristotle’s
notions of happiness
Aristotle takes it for granted
that all of us want to be happy and he takes the view that every action we
perform aims at attaining happiness. He then describes three different points
of view on what it means to be happy: to have pleasure; to have knowledge; to have
friends or serve the community and have the respect of others. He rules out a
life of pleasure as being the kind of life that only an animal desires, and
belittles those who desire such a life. He then lays down rules for how to
achieve knowledge and perform social duties well. In many ways this is a good
approach as he is saying “people want happiness, this is how to get it.” However,
it might be argued that happiness is not really the only thing we aim at, for
example some people seem to go out of their way to make their own lives
miserable, or they lack the motivation to make simple changes that would
benefit their lives. Moreover, it could be said that happiness is a very vague
concept because we are all made happy by different things; for some happiness
comes from helping others, whereas for others it comes from hurting or bullying
people. For some happiness comes from fitness and exercise, whilst for others
it comes from being a couch potato, so how can Aristotle really say that
happiness consists only in a particular lifestyle, a lifestyle which happens to
be his own? Moreover, is Aristotle
really correct to rule out a life of pleasure as the goal that we should all
seek? After all, surely the reason why he himself was a philosopher was because
he enjoyed the hunt for knowledge? According to Jeremy Bentham all pleasures are of equal worth and a simple game
such as push-pin is just as good as poetry. On the other hand,
neo-Aristotelians such as Rosalind
Hursthouse would say that the beauty of Aristotle’s point of view is that
it says there is more to life than material wealth and hedonism; a truly good
life can be lived through having friends and family, helping others, and trying
to be a decent and benevolent human being who is respected by other people for
their many good qualities.[23]
5) Criticisms of Aristotle’s
theory of virtues
Immanuel Kant believed that virtue theories were incomplete as
moral theories because all of the different virtues could be abused, for
example, intelligence can be used to plan robberies and courage can be used to
go out and do them. For Kant what was required was a set of rules and a
willingness to follow those rules, but Aristotle’s virtue ethics does not
provide us with rules to live by.
Suppose that a teenage girl finds herself pregnant and is considering an
abortion; telling her to do the courageous thing doesn’t really help, what is
more courageous, facing the difficulties of motherhood or facing the
difficulties of terminating the pregnancy?
However, Aristotle believes that these rules can largely be filled in by
nature or society; firstly, in order for any society to function at all certain
rules have to be followed such as having restrictions on stealing, violence, and
killing; secondly, in order to get on well with our peers traits such as
honesty and helpfulness are required so it becomes morally correct to tell the
truth and help others where we can; thirdly, nature can suggest various moral
truths, for example, that wives should not be treated like slaves because they
are capable of reasoning and knowledge just as men are (although Aristotle by
no means believed in gender equality); lastly, Aristotle accepts Cultural Relativism and believed that
in general you should follow local moral customs and traditions. Some find this
problematic as they believe that the practices of many cultures are morally
repugnant and that these should be a universal code of right and wrong meaning
that things such as torture or honour killings should not happen anywhere, but
for Aristotle Cultural Relativism was a fact of life clear to plain observation
of other cultures.
6) Aristotle’s elitism and
advocation of slavery
Another criticism is that
Aristotle is an elitist and that the virtues he highlights are those which were
needed to be a successful Greek noble in his own times, for example, by
declaring intelligence and generosity with money are virtues he automatically
precludes those who are poor or less intelligent from being virtuous. On the other hand it could be argued that all
people are capable of developing a broad range of the virtues to one degree or
another, even if they cannot have all of the virtues, for example a person may
be poor but they can still be generous by spending their time to help others,
and everyone could benefit from temperance.
However, what is more troublesome
is Aristotle’s view that because of their lack of virtues and intelligence some
people are low quality human beings whose lives are less important and valuable.
He takes the view that some people are so lacking in intelligence and virtue
that they are little better than animals, and therefore are naturally suited to
slavery. To modern moral perspectives this is an unacceptable view, however,
Aristotle himself did state that slavery would be unnecessary if machines could
operate themselves and this is now indeed the case. Additionally, he thought of
slavery as being something for the mutual benefit of both slave and master: some
people are incapable of governing themselves and so that they need to be ruled
by others, for their own benefit and survival. What we must remember is that in
Aristotle’s times very few people were educated, so this may have seemed true,
but thanks to universal education in the West we can see that all or most
people are capable of becoming rational self-governing agents. Perhaps then, we
should take Aristotle’s notions of eudaimonia as an inspiration to create a
society where as many people as possible can achieve good lives with knowledge
and virtue, that we should recognise our shared humanity and try to bring the
best out in people? Where Aristotle does
seem to have a good point is in the notion that working relationships require
some people to be higher than others, and we should be stationed according to
our abilities, like the relationship between an architect and his builders. However, according to philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Aristotle was
exactly right to reject equality, some people are just better, more useful, and
more valuable and important than others and we should just accept this and
reject the myth that we all have equal worth.
7) Man is not a completely
social animal
Aristotle gives compelling
evidence that it is natural for us to live in communities of some form, after
all, without communal living infants would never be able to become sentient and
intelligent adults, and without communal living language would not exist at all.
Modern evolutionary evidence of which Aristotle had no knowledge appears to
support Aristotle’s view in this matter. Aristotle is also correct to suggest
that our basic needs can only be fully met within a community, however, is it
not too simple to just classify man is a social animal? Human beings are not like ants whose entire
existence appears to be a blind subservience to the colony, and very few of us
would wish to live this way, we often strive for our personal freedom and
autonomy. Is it not more realistic to say that human beings have a mixed
nature, being part social, part individual?
From an early age we depend on
other people such as our parents, and we pick up their opinions and habits, but
at the same time we always have our own minds and ideas. In various cases we find that we cannot be
happy without others, but at the same time we often find that “hell is other
people”[24]
to quote Jean-Paul Sartre. Each of us seems to be a mixture of the
social and the individual, so that neither view is completely correct, and some
people are more social than others whilst others are more independent than
others. Moreover, it appears that as we grow up and mature we often become
increasingly independent; perhaps we are social animals as children, but in
time many of us become the kind of independent individuals that Atomists such
as Hobbes took all mankind to be?
Aristotle used his thesis that we
are social and political animals to argue for the idea that we should serve
society and follow the commands of its governors, but taken to its extreme this
would lead to a totalitarian state such as Stalin’s Russia ,
Hitler’s Germany
Conclusion
Aristotle provides us with vivid
ideas about what the human soul or psyche consists in, and presents an
excellent case for the notion that human beings are social beings. However, he
seems to overstate his case because human beings appear to be part social, part
individual. Aristotle also provides us with challenging ideas about what makes
a good and meaningful human life and what kind of person we should attempt to
be. Though many objections can be directed
towards his views he does indeed provide us with a remarkable picture of what
human beings can become and achieve. Perhaps
what is most difficult in Aristotle is his rejection of equality, however we
must not presume that Aristotle is wrong, for if we wish to argue that all
human beings are equal in worth and dignity despite their many differences in
talent and ability we will need to provide strong reasons for why this is so.
Suggested Further Reading
Aristotle, Ethics, books 1 and 2.Aristotle, Politics, book 1.
Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction,
Richard Kraut, Aristotle’s Ethics, presented in The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy: http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/aristotle-ethics/ (accessed on 12/08/11).
Wolfgang Kullmann, Man as a Political Animal in Aristotle, presented in David Keyt and Fred Miller (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics, Blackwell Publishers (1991).
Richard Norman, The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction To Ethics, OUP (1998).
Bibliography / References
[1] Aristotle, De
Anima (On The Soul), translated by JA Smith, Book II, part 1, available
online at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/soul.1.i.html
(accessed 25/05/11).
[2] Aristotle, De
Anima (On The Soul), Book II, part 2.
[3] Aristotle, De
Anima (On The Soul), Book II, part 2.
[4] Aristotle, De
Anima (On The Soul), Book III, part 3.
[5] Aristotle, Politics,
translated by Benjemin Jowett, Book I, part 2, available online at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html
(accessed 04/05/11).
[6] Aristotle, De
Anima (On The Soul), Book III,
part 9.
[7] Aristotle, Politics, Book I, part 2.
[8] Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, part 4.
[9] Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, part 5.
[10] JS Mill, Utilitarianism. Chapter 2.
[11] Will Durrant, The Story of Philosophy:
The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers (1926).
[12] Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, translated by WD
Ross, Book 1, Chapter 7.
[13] John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII.
[14] Margaret
Thatcher, available at: http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Phrases-and-Sayings/Question164326.html
(accessed 21/05/11).
[15] Aristotle, Politics,
Book 1, part 2.
[16] Aristotle, Politics,
Book 1, part 2.
[17] Aristotle, Politics,
Book 1, part 6.
[18] Aristotle, Politics, Book 1, part 2.
[19] cf. Richard
Norman, The Moral Philosophers: An
Introduction To Ethics, Oxford
University
[20] Aristotle, Politics, Book 1, part 2.
[21] Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, translated by WD
Ross, Book 1, Chapter 7.
[22] Source:
unnamed author, Feral Children, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A269840/
(accessed 11/08/11).
[23]
cf. Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives,
Blackwell Publishers (1987), pp. 218-37.
[24] Jean-Paul Sartre, No
Exit.
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