(Aristotle 4) Limits of Aristotelian Virtue (and Reason)

It’s like I have two souls, one Aristotelian and one Platonic-Christian. I think Aristotle was right in the big picture (though not on all his details, which are bound to his place and time). I think life would be a poor thing with no opportunities to develop the qualities of mind and spirit necessary to master any genuine discipline (i.e. become the kind of person that can thrive in a community practice). I even believe him when he tells us that a person who is not a part of an active political community – and MAGA is a Satanic parody of a genuine political community – falls short of living the best kind of human life. In capitalist mass societies, real politics – where your words and deeds matter, where you are taken seriously for what you say and do – are not really possible for the vast majority of people. (If I were a German citizen, I might join a party and see whether something like political life happens in such a party.) We can at best experience a kind of attenuated political life – for example, my department at the university is largely self-governing and in principle we all have a say in how the department is run. Disagreements are part of this. I am also mistrustful of a self that is nothing but a private self, unacquainted with the life of a real practice or discipline that includes some need to share a community with others.

     At the same time, I am moved by a picture of human life that doesn’t necessarily contradict this Aristotelian picture but is just very different and is often in tension with it. I will try to illustrate what I mean first.

   Ever since the boys started school I have occasionally encountered a particular beggar, sitting on the ground with his cup out. When I give him a little something, he always says “Merci” and “Alles Gute der Familie.” Now he is outside all those practices with their communities that enrich human life, which from Aristotle’s perspective makes human life worth living in the sense that we can only become fully human as part of them. [You can be a better or worse beggar, more or less effective. There is perhaps some skill and knowledge involved. But it is not a practice or a community in the relevant sense.] So for Aristotle the ground for respecting – honoring – that man does not exist. In justice I owe him nothing, not even the most basic form of acknowledgement. He belongs to the species homo sapiens but is not fully human – as for Aristotle neither were slaves, women, or children – or anybody else who was either deprived through no fault of their own or not capable of community, competence, or reason (which you develop within a practice or above all in a political community: recall for Aristotle you become courageous by doing courageous things, honest by telling the truth over and over, just by practicing justice, etc.; you need the political community for that). Aristotle could justify slavery and assigning women and children subordinate social roles for this reason without violating justice.

     It is easy for us to condemn Aristotle for these attitudes. But that is too shallow. The truth is that I cannot eliminate a residue of condescension in my charity to the beggar, and I don’t think I am alone. At my best I can pity him, can say to myself “there but for the grace of God go I.” But I don’t believe it. Part of me says: rather kill myself than humiliate myself like that. At best I can see the man as a person deprived by accidents of fate from becoming the kind of person who can lead a kind of life worth living. I cannot in my heart of hearts consider him my moral equal. A sign of this is that were I to learn that he died I might be sad but I would not feel like I felt when I heard this week that Bill Walton died of cancer at age 71, not just a great basketball player and someone who cared greatly about social justice, but a man with a zest for life that was always infectious. I didn’t even know Walton personally, but his death occasioned a kind of grief, like part of my world had also died. Because, as I am here just assuming that because I consider his life unworthy, thus consider him unworthy, I cannot consider his death an occasion for grief. So a bit of Aristotle is in me, in most of us perhaps. But the difference is: I don’t like it. I consider it a fault. Aristotle could only think that attitude was sentimental.

   Why do I feel like this? I will go on with this later.  

(Aristotle 3) What it is to be Human and Live a Meaningful Life - for Aristotle 

What I feel does not depend on a desire that originates in the isolation of my own subjective life. If I see my children are thriving I am happy as a father. If I see my students learning, I am happy as a teacher. If someone tried to damage my reputation – say, because I am a “white man” and they were resentful – then I would be indignant not only as an individual but as a teacher, as a member of the teaching practice. What I feel as a member of a community – a family is the primal community –  is never just as an individual.

. . .

I want at some point to think of how Aristotle would respond to Tolstoy’s story The Death of Ivan Ilych. Ivan was a judge in 19^th century Tsarist Russia. He is a conformist. His values, desires, and behavior are wholly determined by the opinions and expectations of his social superiors. He chooses his friends based upon their social standing. He decides to marry because it is considered the right thing to do. Ivan's life is terrible and empty as he realizes when he becomes mortally ill.

   Aristotle could not recognize the society to which Ivan conformed as a corruption of something necessary for any human being to thrive.  Corrupt because its members saw it only as a means to the end of personal wealth and status – individual goods that can theoretically be had in other ways in different circumstances. No community exists, but rather a social game with rules for advancement. The game itself has no other value than to allow the winners to shine. So of course Aristotle would agree with Ivan’s assessment after his illness that his life had been fake and empty:

It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death. (chapter 9)

   The life devoted to so-called external goods – prestige and comfort – leads to meaninglessness for Aristotle, though that is a modern way of putting it: Aristotle might have said it is contrary to nature and thus reason or that it prevented a human being from becoming what a human being ought to be. The distinction between “internal” and “external” goods – and the right attitude towards each – is crucial for a meaningful life.

  Internal goods are benefits or outcomes that are intrinsic to a particular practice, activity, or community. These goods are directly related to the nature and purpose of the practice itself and are achieved through engagement and excellence within that practice. They are valued not just for what they enable but for their own sake, contributing to the fulfillment and integrity of the activity. Here are the essential, defining features of intrinsic goods.

·        Internal goods are valued for their inherent qualities and contributions to the practice. They are inherently good and desirable within the context of the activity.

·        Achieving internal goods typically requires a high level of skill, competence, and commitment to the standards of excellence specific to the practice. They often result from sustained effort and dedication.

·        Internal goods are unique to the particular activity or community. For example, the sense of artistic achievement in music, the development of strategic thinking in chess, or the pursuit of truth in scientific inquiry.

·        Engaging in practices that yield internal goods contributes to developing of virtues and personal growth. It shapes character and fosters qualities like discipline, integrity, and creativity. To be a part of any community a person needs to learn to be just and to acquire a degree of commonsense wisdom pertaining to life in that community.

·        Internal goods often have a communal aspect, where the benefits are not just individual but shared among those who participate in the practice. This can include mutual respect among practitioners.

 

For example, I asked ChatGPT to list some internal good of playing an instrument - amazingly, I couldn't have done it much better myself.

 

·        Musical Skill and Mastery: Developing technical proficiency and expressive capabilities on an instrument is a primary internal good. This includes understanding music theory, improving finger dexterity, and mastering techniques specific to the instrument.

 

·        Aesthetic Appreciation and Creativity: The ability to appreciate and create beautiful music is an internal good. This involves interpreting and performing pieces with emotional depth and creativity, contributing to the artistic value of the music.

 

·        Personal Fulfillment and Joy: The sense of personal satisfaction, enjoyment, and fulfillment that comes from playing music is an internal good. This intrinsic pleasure is derived from engaging deeply with the music and the instrument.

 

·        Discipline and Focus: The development of discipline, concentration, and focus through regular practice and dedication is an internal good. These qualities are essential for improving as a musician and are cultivated through the practice itself.

 

·        Expressive Communication: The ability to communicate emotions and ideas through music is an internal good. Musicians can express themselves and connect with others on an emotional level through their performance.

 

·        Sense of Achievement: The accomplishment of mastering a difficult piece or improving one’s skills provides a sense of achievement and pride, which is an internal good.

 

·        Cognitive and Emotional Growth: Playing an instrument enhances cognitive abilities, such as memory and problem-solving skills, and emotional intelligence, as musicians learn to express and manage their emotions through music.

 

·        Community and Collaboration: Engaging in musical activities often involves collaboration with others, such as playing in a band or orchestra. The sense of community, teamwork, and shared purpose are internal goods that enrich the musical experience.

 

And here are some internal goods you only get from participating in the political life; I had to modify these:

 

·        Politics fosters the key virtues of justice (towards individuals and the common good of the community), practical wisdom, self-restraint, and courage – virtues essential to becoming a good human being for Aristotle.

·        Politics encourages individuals to analyze information critically, evaluate arguments, and assess the validity of different perspectives. This ability is essential for making informed decisions and navigating complex political issues.

·        Participation in politics involves persuading others, building coalitions, and negotiating compromises to advance one's goals and interests. Developing a competence in rhetoric fosters effective communication and consensus-building.

·        Politics provides opportunities for individuals to take on leadership roles, inspire others, and mobilize support for collective action. Effective leadership in politics requires vision, integrity, and the ability to motivate and empower others.

·        Politics requires strategic planning, goal setting, and tactical execution to achieve desired outcomes. Developing strategic thinking skills helps individuals anticipate challenges, identify opportunities, and plan effective strategies.

·        Real politics fosters empathy and understanding by exposing individuals to diverse perspectives, experiences, and viewpoints. Engaging with different communities and hearing their concerns helps cultivate compassion and solidarity.

 

·        Politics often involves managing conflicts, resolving disputes, and finding common ground among conflicting interests. Developing conflict resolution skills helps individuals navigate disagreements constructively and promote reconciliation. Genuine politics forces you to develop a sense of proportion.

·        Politics raises ethical questions and dilemmas that require individuals to consider the moral implications of their actions and decisions. Cultivating ethical awareness and integrity is essential for responsible political engagement. Without integrity, a politician will become corrupt.

·        Politics can be challenging and demanding, requiring individuals to withstand criticism, setbacks, and obstacles. Developing resilience and perseverance enables individuals to stay committed to their principles and goals despite adversity.

·        Political landscapes are dynamic and constantly evolving, requiring individuals to adapt to changing circumstances, unexpected events, and new challenges. Cultivating adaptability and flexibility enhances individuals' ability to navigate uncertainty and respond effectively to changing political environments.

·        Engaging in politics instills a sense of civic responsibility and duty to participate in the democratic process, uphold democratic values, and contribute to the welfare of society. Embracing civic responsibility is essential.

 

In political life, we realize our full humanity for Aristotle. [The political life for Aristotle is synonymous with democratic politics, defined as equal dignity among free (i.e. not economically a serf/peasant) native-born men.] The highest virtues are courage, justice, self-restraint (or moderation, a sense of proportion), and practical wisdom (an intimate familiarity with one’s community and the ability to understand priorities and reflect on the best means to achieve them). These are the preeminent human virtues. In politics everything is at stake. If your chess club or baseball league is dissolved, that impoverishes your life; if Alexander the (so-called) Great dissolves your political community, the world ends, the very possibility of a certain kind of human being – for Aristotle the best – ends. Human nature, to flourish, requires the best kind of political community. To this extent, democratic politics is the natural form of political association. Still, to the extent they depend on a community tradition, private practices like chess and sports require their members to cease being a purely private self. In chess communities, justice takes the form of fair play, respectful behavior, etc.

     It requires a near-total transformation: it is no longer what I want or what is good for me as a private individual; it is about what is good for the political community as a whole. To the extent you experience a conflict between purely private and public interests, you have not completed this transformation and are a pre-political, private self – a lesser self for Aristotle. This experience is hardly possible for us given the way our political life is structured. But in sports or the military we can understand it. Some of us still criticize players for ‘selling out’ as opposed to being loyal to a team and the community that supports it. (I recall the hostility of University of Kentucky basketball fans when their beloved coach agreed to become coach of their arch-rivals.) Many soldiers have a hard time even thinking of personal honor as opposed to the honor of the regiment.

   Essential is this: the self as transformed by community practice is richer, more human than the purely private self that weighs everything by purely private gain, that is purely transactional in the way a Trump is. It is more human. You are more human as a basketball player on the University of Kentucky’s 1978 championship basketball team than Donald Trump because you are good at something (complex as it is to ‘be good’ at something) either by being minimally competent or by exceptional achievements. And you are able to be a member of a team or club or practice, either in a minimally competent or exceptional way (I hear the late Bill Walton was an exceptional teammate – which is to say he excelled at those virtues needed to bond with others.)

 

   The purely private self, the un-bonded self, of course, cannot understand or value internal goods or virtues, since they stand on the outside of any form of community practice or community life. They are like dogs watching TV. Like Trump here:

In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

You can only understand the distinction between internal and external goods, and the value of each, from a position inside a community practice, just like you can only understand and appreciate a game of chess between two masters if you are already quite proficient yourself; or understand and appreciate a Bach fugue only if you already have a highly educated ‘ear.’ You might still ‘like’ a chess match between masters or a Bach fugue without this background, but not for the same reasons, not for intrinsic reasons.

   The purely private, unsublimated self knows only external goods. For the private self, value is a function of desire, and desire is disconnected from anything beyond it – or rather, what is beyond it only has value relative to the self. If is hard to imagine, say, a basketball player who has the discipline to spend the time and effort needed to achieve excellence in the game, but for whom the game meant nothing but a means to get money, fame, and beautiful women; who when he could get those things without basketball, he would do it. In our system it is much easier to image a politician who is in it only for the wealth, fame, and power. A usurer makes the pursuit of an external good – money – his life’s purpose.

    Usury is not a practice like basketball or teaching, though it does make sense to say a person is a better or worse usurer. The key distinction between practices that have internal or intrinsic goods valued in themselves and practices like mafia money-making or usurious banking lies in the nature of the goods pursued and the ethical framework within which the practices are conducted. In humanly enriching practices, internal goods are inherently valuable and contribute to human flourishing. Examples include truth in science, justice in law, and artistic expression in the arts. The purpose of engaging in virtuous practices is to realize and embody the intrinsic goods they offer. For example, a scientist seeks to discover truth, a musician aims to create beauty, and a judge strives for justice.  These goods are pursued for their own sake and are aligned with the development of virtues and personal growth. Practices with true internal goods operate within a moral and ethical framework that promotes the well-being of individuals and communities. They aim to cultivate virtues such as honesty, fairness, and sometimes even compassion. Indeed, virtuous practices are generally recognized and esteemed by society: even if I can’t appreciate certain sports, say, I can still recognize their value. Achieving excellence in such practices is socially rewarded and admired because it aligns with collective values and contributes to the common good. Engaging in practices with internal goods fosters the development of virtues such as wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. These virtues contribute to a richer life, and are thus honorable in themselves.

     In stark contrast, practices like mafia money-making or usurious banking seek purely instrumental-external goods (e.g., wealth, power) that leave the purely private self – the fat, relentless ego – as covetous as ever. They may well involve actions that are harmful, exploitative, or unjust. In such practices, the primary motivation is often extrinsic, such as acquiring money, power, or control, rather than realizing intrinsic goods. The practice serves as a means to an end rather than being valuable in itself. Group activities driven by getting money, power, or purely physical pleasure foster vices like greed, dishonesty, and ruthlessness. These are corrosive of character and corrupt our better natures.

    The purely private self treats all practices as means-to-ends. For Aristotle, the extent to which people resemble the purely private self is like a rose bush that has been poisoned and can bring forth only sick, ugly blossoms. Or a poisoned fruit tree whose fruit cannot be enjoyed.

  [In my uncompletely dissertation, I connected this Aristotelian line of thought to Marx’ thoughts on alienation. A very concise summary: Capitalist work and business is premised on maximizing the acquisition of external goods (money above all). Efficiency replaces the pursuit of internal goods. Whereas the traditional craftsman was part of a community practice in every sense – with its own set of internal goods – factory labor reduced the worker to a commodity and a tool. That is a paradigm for all kinds of capitalist work and leisure. Thus capitalist economics and the social and ideological forms that are in tune with it deprive most of us of the opportunity to realize our full humanity. Deprived also of the chance to transcend our pre-political, private self (the fat, relentless ego) and blossom into something closer to real humanity. It is not impossible in capitalist society, but it is almost only through a difficult rebellion against capitalist norms that a person moves in the direction of real humanity in Aristotle’s sense. Thus capitalist society is “unnatural” – hostile to human nature, though not as much so as, say, Stalinism or Naziism. Some space remains for humanity, though that space is getting smaller with every generation. This goes some way in explaining the fact that so many moderns cannot experience their lives as meaningful. ]

. . .

The worth of a member has two aspects: each member is owed respect as a member, which means as someone who has acquired the basic abilities to be in that community / practice and who shares with others a genuine love or devotion for it. Thus every member of a basketball team (or the Athenian polis) is owed respect. Secondly, a person is valued for their achievements in the community / practice. Thus Michael Jordan or Magnus Carleson have a degree of honor over and above that due to those who just belong to the basketball or chess community.

    This points to the limit of Aristotelian ethical-political thought. Respect, self-worth is a function of a certain kind of community. I played American football, so I will use that experience as an analogy. Every member of the team I respected. We all went through the difficult practices. We all had to have a certain kind of courage: to be hit hard, for example, or endure significant physical distress. Thus there was a gap between someone on the team who was owed this respect, and those who were not on the team, who weren’t. Perhaps these others were owed respect for belonging to other valuable practices: those who were academically strong, those who were musically competent and played in the school band, etc. But what about those on the outside of all such practices? The – relative to the school community – purely private selves? The ones who thus achieved nothing, or nothing the community recognized as valuable? The ones in my school who took to dealing in drugs perhaps? How would Aristotle think of them? Well the answer is clear: not much. He would consider them lesser human beings or lesser worth. They have impoverished lives, underdeveloped potentials (or by nature gift-less); are therefore lesser human beings. They have no ‘honor.’ Nothing intrinsic to mere humanity confers value on them. It would thus be no violation of their reality to treat them with a certain indifference, or even subordinate them in a way that they would at least be useful to the community.

   I guess you – like me – do not feel entirely comfortable with this implication of Aristotle’s thought. I also suppose you recognize it as a way we do feel about such people, and at some level about ourselves to the extent we fit the description. 

   Tolstoy points to another light in which to see humanity in The Death of Ivan Ilych. I want to think about that soon.

(Aristotle 2)   Aristotle and the Concern with One’s Honor

    I have been trying to formulate the limits to Aristotelian-style ethics in a thesis. Well, here it is: Aristotelian-style virtue-in-a-just-community-as-our-nature ethics is a necessary but not sufficient condition of our full humanity. It falls short of what we think of as “morality.” It doesn’t get us to a common humanity. It leaves no conceptual space for the absoluteness of Good and Evil. It is ultimately grounded in a high understanding of honor but falls short of love. It blocks out the light breaking in from a dimension beyond our interpreted everyday world, without which we must remain rather shallow than ever profound. (Something like this was the thesis of my long-abandoned doctoral dissertation, but I have never been able to stop thinking about it.

   [We cannot completely share Aristotle’s Greek idea of a community, and thus aspects of his picture of a virtuous man and even his understanding of certain virtues. But his basic approach has been translated into terms befitting a certain kind of Christian community by Aquinas and developed into something extremely insightful by Alasdair MacIntyre.]

 

  We all think that a person who does what he does, who lives as he does, just for the sake of appearances and the effects on other people is superficial. Aristotle agreed.

    In the movie Patton, we see General Patton disobeying orders and making his own battle plan to get to Messina before the British Field Marshall Montgomery. In his own mind, his was the better battle plan. Although his army suffered heavy casualties, he was convinced the casualties would have been higher had he just followed orders. But as portrayed, his main motivation was the fame and glory that would go to Montgomery and not him. He would not have wanted the fame had he not been convinced he deserved it. The fame was not an end in itself. But neither would just being a good general have satisfied him, without the fame. The desire for fame was so great we are at least invited to wonder whether it didn’t distort some of his decisions. I think Aristotle would have been critical of Patton’s desire for fame (as depicted in the movie).

    Much worse than Patton was Hitler’s taking the credit and thus the glory for Germany’s victory in the Battle of France (1940). True, Hitler was not happy with the new-and-supposedly-improved Schlieffen Plan; true, Hitler was open to and ultimately approved the actual battle plan. He deserved credit for that. But he took credit for the actual plan itself – which was made by General Erich von Manstein and his staff – so that he could present himself as the second coming of Frederick the Great to the world. He was worse than Patton because – rather like the narcissist Trump – he cared only for appearance without bothering about the substance. [As a teen, I was susceptible to this. On a camping trip with two buddies from high school, I pretended to other boys we met to be a college football player, just to bask in the “honor” of being seen as someone I believed better than myself, a kind of living out of a compensatory daydream. One of the more shameful episodes of my life, if not the most consequential. Utterly trivial compared with Hitler and Patton, but the same underlying structure: a concern for how you appear before others as a primary motive for acts and how you live.]

   In different degrees, both Patton and Hitler cared about how they appeared before others as something worthy in itself, as the highest value. Fame, glory, and honor – taken as ends-in-themselves, as a reason for living and acting – are “a bit too superficial” to be the goal of a good (ethical) life for Aristotle and us.

   Aristotle has been criticized for the importance he places on ‘proper pride’ or the concern about how others perceive you. I don’t think the criticism is justified, not all of it. Some part of ‘proper pride’ or ‘self-respect’ for Aristotle is connected to his immediate culture. But much of what he says about the right attitude towards how others perceive you is right on. In a genuine community, it matters. Honor, respect, and good reputation are the “greatest of all the external goods.” It is something that – as a member of a community (and it is our natural form of being, to be in a political community).

   We see this most clearly in communities in which life and death are at stake: in the army. I have listened to many stories told by veterans of many wars. It is always the same. When, for example, one soldier cannot leave another behind even though nothing of military significance depends on bringing him back and one must risk one’s life, it is never the case that the main motivation for doing so was glory – say, to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. Soldiers don’t risk their lives to save their comrades or brothers as a means to the end of getting a medal and so basking in the glory of being a hero. [If we knew one for whom this was the motive, there would be no honor in it: it would be self-defeating.] Not to leave someone behind is a matter of honor. It expresses a form of love between soldiers (who may not even like each other personally, who may not even be decent human beings in all respects). The lives of every combat soldier depend on the bravery and competence of every other soldier. If one fails, they could all be wiped out. This grounds a mutual respect (love) that transcends everyday morality. It is like an unconditional duty not to leave anyone behind (all things being equal).

    So imagine someone who doesn’t abandon his brothers and at great risk to his own life brings them back. Imagine he is awarded the Medal of Honor. Winning the medal wasn’t any part of his motivation, but a recognition of the significance of what he did. What should his attitude be towards the medal? Toward the honor? Such soldiers have different attitudes towards it. Some don’t place any great value on it because they experience it as so external to what matters to them: the group of soldiers they served with. Some see it as an impersonal honor, given to one individual who sees himself as nothing but a representative of his unit. It is an honor for his unit of which he is arbitrarily the steward. For others, it means a great deal as a proper recognition for what he suffered and did on behalf of others, though getting a medal was no part of his reason for so acting. He did what he had to do.  

   In no case, however, would such a soldier be indifferent to how others treated him. He may well eschew any hero worship. He may well downplay the heroism of his action before others. But if someone treated him as Trump did John McCain, in effect demeaning the significance of his suffering and his bravery, he would not be indifferent. And we – his community – would not be either. That would be treated as a grave insult to him and the community: both at the same time; you can’t separate the individual from the community in this, which was precisely Aristotle’s point. [Trump is not part of the community, not part of any community. He is incapable of community.] There is no prescribed way to react to such demeaning trash. (Had I been McCain, I would have shot the bastard. But McCain had more dignity and sense.) But we know how unbearable it is to witness an honorable person demeaned and humiliated by outsiders.

   I once met my friend’s father, who I knew was a veteran of Korea and Vietnam. He had a photograph on his wall of the President awarding him a medal. Now it didn’t matter that I thought the Vietnam War was a strategic and moral disaster. It didn’t matter what kind of a man my friend’s father otherwise was (how he was as a father, what his politics were, etc.). I spontaneously felt a kind of deep respect because I knew he had experienced something terrible, something that might have broken my courage or most men’s courage, and he had done something noble in the face of extreme danger. That deserves honor. I feel the same in the presence of such soldiers from other countries than my own. [Only war crimes would negate this feeling. If fact, a soldier is deserving of honor partly because they are in a situation in which the line between crime and non-crime is so blurred, a situation in which keeping your decency is a high achievement in itself.] It would be a violation of the meaning of what my friend’s father had suffered and done to have acted towards him as though he were a criminal or a servant or even a person who had never been in such a situation.

      And he would have a real reason to feel demeaned or insulted had I done so. There is such a thing as an appropriate response to the meaning (the reality) of people and their lives. That is what Aristotle meant by proper pride. And this only makes sense in a community. (Again, Trump as the counter-example: everything for him is transactional. There is no honor. The men who died in combat in the service of their country are to him “suckers and losers.” Where there is no possible community, that is in fact an intelligible response. Trump represents the apotheosis of individualism.)

  I used examples from the military because that is what Aristotle himself believed best exemplified what he was getting at. But it applies any area where there is a community. I once witnessed a history teacher remove a disrespectful student from his class. He was a good teacher, always prepared, who cared about his subject. The open disrespect of this student demeaned not only the teacher as an individual, but teachers in general and the subject of history. The teacher’s anger was justified not primarily because the disrespectful student disrespected him as an individual. As a history teacher, the teacher represented the community of teachers in general and historians in particular. Many people can overlook purely personal insults but cannot overlook disrespect to their community. As a representative of that community and its genuine value, the teacher was justified in his anger. Not to have cared would have signaled that he, the teacher, did not care or did not care enough. That would indeed be a defect of the teacher’s character.

  And it is not superficial to care about one’s reputation as a teacher for the same reasons. This proper care – a care that has nothing to do with egotism or narcissism – is not superficial. It is a response to the meaning of, in this example, the teaching of history, perhaps even the love of teaching and history. Love often implies a protective attitude about what you love, and concern with reputation can be part of that. Individualism is blind to such things.

  I could multiply examples from sports, medicine, law enforcement and justice, politics, and so on. This is not alien to us even today. The difference between us and Aristotle is that this community-being structured the best kind of human life for Aristotle. We experience it, if at all, only as soldiers, teachers, doctors, athletes, etc. – i.e. in fragments of our lives. Most of our lives are determined by mass society in capitalism, with its consumerism, subjectivism, radical individualism, narcissism. The marketplace of products or personalities knows no honor – Trump may be taken as a pure example of a capitalist personality, undiluted by any older community ethos (which many of us still have some experience of). And our moral ideas, such as they are, stem from religion, not from Aristotle, a thoroughly worldly philosopher.

    There is an inside-outside dynamic here. Whether a regiment, a basketball team, a profession (e.g. historians, judges, physicians, etc. - any community devoted to any worthy purpose) or what: there are skills, understanding, and virtues required to be a functioning member - beyond that which is required just to be a human being in a sense. Members owe each other respect on that basis alone. And for those who do exceptional things, an added kind of respect of due. The individual is never just an individual here but a member. Outsiders' perceptions - while they may be due - have a different quality than insider perceptions. I suppose for the hero, the probably quiet acknowledgement of his brothers matters most; for the teacher, the acknowledgement of fellow teachers and students matters most; for the judge the acknowledge of fellow judges as well as legal scholars and lawyers matter most; for the basketball player, the acknowledgement of fellow players and coaches, etc. Honor from the outside community is a function of the significance of the practice for the community at large. The honor is grounded in virtue, and exceptional instances of virtue.

     I am still marking out areas of agreement with Aristotle. Now I can go on not so much as to criticize his thought but to argue that it is not the whole story. And also give Plato his due.

Evil and Understanding: Some Thoughts on Raskolnikov and Macbeth 

                                              Jon Finch as Macbeth in Roman Polanski's film

Understanding Macbeth and understanding an act of mine. if we truly understood that an action was evil, we couldn't do it. That counter-intuitive thought becomes more plausible in the light of remorse.  Of course, we could say to ourselves that murder is evil, and still commit murder, as Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov does in Crime and Punishment.   But a man like Raskolnikov doesn't really know the evil he contemplates until he suffers from the pained recognition of guilt – remorse. “Oh my God, what have I done!” uttered in horrified recognition shows that the remorseful person has understood the evil done; and with such an understanding he never would have been able to do the evil in the first place. His understanding of what he has done comes with an understanding of the reality of human beings as creatures who can be wronged in such ways. To understand the meaning of an act is always to understand something about reality. Through the pain of a lucid remorse a deep aspect of the real world and the human spirit is revealed.

      Macbeth's remorse, however, had a different character due to the clarity and honesty of his foreknowledge of the evil he contemplated. Unlike Raskolnikov, for example, Macbeth renounced pseudo-philosophical justifications or rationalizations. He possessed an understanding of what was involved before his crime that is usually only granted to the evil-doer after the crime if he suffers remorse. Macbeth's murder of Duncan is “premeditated” in the deepest sense possible: He cannot say “Oh my God, what have I done!” in horrified recognition: his courage and truthfulness ensured that he did (terrifyingly) understand precisely what he proposed to do. To understand the evil of murder is just to recoil in horror over the temptation to do it – or to suffer remorse after having done it.  Macbeth does both.

      What further makes Macbeth tragic is that – in a grand way – his fall into the worst evil at the same time precludes final condemnation on our part. To be possessed by deep desires and tempted to realize such desires through evil is a common human fate.  Macbeth's deep desire to be King as well as to overcome the limitations of the human condition (cf. Lear) in fulfilling it reflects his high social standing, his exceptional valor, and his sublime imagination. But this very combination destroys the distance between temptation and action that characterizes Hamlet, for example, and I suppose most of us as well.         

        The sense in which Macbeth was indeed blind and acted in ignorance is so universal that few of us can resist the attraction to identify with him in spite of the hideousness of his crimes.  Macbeth knew he was losing his soul for the sake of his deep desires; he knew the horror of this loss, knew that, when the time came, the horror would be beyond what he could imagine, even if he trusted his courage to endure it.  But what he did mistakenly hope was that the moment, that present at least, when his deep desires were fulfilled, would be glorious.  The glorious present of fulfillment was to be the prize for which damnation is the price – a price only the most valorous could contemplate. That was his trap.

       But the prize and the price are not incommensurable – the Good (or morality) is absolute and can't be weighed against other goods. “Damnation” just means evil can never be a price for anything desired.  The very idea that there is a prize (deep desires) to be traded for Macbeth's “precious jewel” turns out to be an illusion that Macbeth only sees in the end, in utter despair.  Through his sublime imagination Macbeth tries to seal off the present moment of fulfillment – always deferred until after the next crime: as though he could imagine that only the present were real and enjoyable, not care about the past evil or the future despair. But the present cannot be isolated from the past or the future in the play's moral universe. Only gradually does it dawn on him that the prize was a chimera. Having grasped finally the emptiness of the prize, Macbeth “heroically” accepted the final despair that was always the inevitable consequence of evil done. Not only his insight into the evil he did but, at the end, the illusory nature of the enjoyment of the desires for which it was done (here the point of the witches equivocation) complete the revelation of truth. – In a purely private, middle-class way, this is the story of a betrayal of mine: understanding life through literature; understanding literature through life.

 

 

Macbeth cannot pray. I cannot imagine Macbeth praying given the irreversible nature of what he did. Repentance seems impossible. It is as though he married Hell while still in earthly life. Having grasped finally the emptiness of the prize, Macbeth “heroically” accepted the despair that was always the inevitable consequence of evil done. Not only his insight into the evil he did but, at the end, the illusory nature of the enjoyment of the desires for which it was done (here the point of the witches’ equivocation) complete the revelation of truth. Yet even in the face of Hell (the final meaningless of the “sound and fury” soliloquy), Macbeth refuses to repent due not just to the very “courage” that stood in such tension with his conscience, but because the essence of the act, its sublimity, is just that it precluded repentance. Having committed himself in full knowledge of the evil, he would seem false and cowardly in his own eyes to wish all undone at the point when he must pay the price. Or rather: to repent would be to concede that his act lacked all heroic or tragic stature – ‘oh, sorry, I didn’t really mean it’; that his understanding of his act did not manifest who he was, did not disclose a man whose courage put him beyond good and evil, but merely an ambitious man driven shabby justification for a power grab, spurred on by the supernatural assurance of success.

        Compare me: to deny the sublime dimension to my Eros for woman A would mean my betrayal of woman B was just a piece of shabbiness for the sake of all-too-human but reprehensible lust of an aging man for a younger (unstable) woman. There is a structural similarity to Macbeth’s inability to repent. I can repent almost everything, but I cannot think my Eros for A was less than real and profound (as it indeed felt) without at the same time the judgment being forced upon me – ‘you are utterly contemptible’. Contemptible means: better not to have existed, a drag on the universe. 

     There seem to be two Hells: one for those who wish they had never been born; another for those who, to become what they mistakenly imagine they really are, violate the meaning of their lives, of human life. I do believe deep wishes, even deep needs are sometimes in conflict with the real meaning of our lives, and that there is something tragic in this – but that might be a piece of opportunism. Macbeth is a sacred text because it has the power to reveal the depths of the human spirit.

. . .

The sound and fury soliloquy is still the best statement of what Hell is that I have read, the clearest revelation of Hell as final meaningless, as the utter absence of love. It is the end goal of all evil. It is what every evil deed tends towards and embodies, though outside of Shakespeare hardly anyone can look at this truth so clearly (why did Tolstoy hate Shakespeare?). This comes as a response to the news of Lady Macbeth's death and his inability to register any grief at all:

                            Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

                            Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

                            To the last syllable of recorded time;

                            And all our yesterdays have lighted fools       

                            The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!         

                            Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

                            That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

                            And then is heard no more. It is a tale

                            Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

                            Signifying nothing.

I have no idea how to think about Heaven and Hell ontologically. But I do know they are symbols of the human spirit, Heaven at one end, signifying affirmation, love, joy, love of beauty, creative joy, quiet appreciate of the goodness that is at least part of life; at the other end Hell, final despair, the loss of the capacity, even the desire to love and be loved, the inability to care about anything, utter meaninglessness projected from the emptiness and cold of the lost soul onto all of Creation.  Nihilists don't undertake an impartial metaphysical investigation of existence and rationally conclude on the basis of evidence that existence is meaningless, human life a mistake. Rather they carry that meaningless around with them and project it onto existence, make any investigation prove this felt thesis that reflects the state of their souls.

 

 

Judging People from the Past and Very Different Cultures (again)

I will go on with Aristotle when I have finished my reading. Just a short thought today.

 I have written about struggling with making moral judgments about people from the past: how to think about people socialized into the slavery or apartheid culture of the American South; how to think about the people who intensified the bombing (firebombing) of German and Japanese cities, especially when it was clear they were defeated; how to think about individuals such as Robert E. Lee or Winston Churchill, great people in a way but people with deeply flawed characters and moral belief systems.

    One problem: in a sense, I don’t believe in making moral judgments at all, if that means something like deciding whether a person deserves Hell or is radically evil. Human beings lack the wisdom and goodness to make such judgments. Take it as a metaphor if you want, but only God – and absolute Goodness, Justice, and Mercy – could make such judgments. I take Jesus literally: I cannot easily even think of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Trump in Hell, though I can imagine an unimaginably painful Purgatory.  (Of course, I don’t equate Trump with the other three in terms of the blood he has on his hands. He does have blood on his hands though.) A scene from Ellis Peter’s Cadfael, a monk in the 10^th and 11^th centuries – the BBC television version, expresses my attitude toward moral condemnation. A woman had committed murder and Cadfael and his friend Sheriff Hugh Beringar:

 

Cadfael: Whatever was in her might have been best if it had not been maimed. She was much wronged.

 

Beringar: Old friend, I doubt if even you can get Susanne among the fold among the lambs. Now she chose her way and it had taken her far out of the reach of man’s mercy. Oh, and now I suppose you’ll tell me that God’s reach is longer than man’s…

 

Cadfael: It had better be. Otherwise, we are all lost.

 

[I don’t believe we are born guilty. Babies are innocent. The symbolism of babies in Hell (Limbo) in Dante is the perfect picture of the perverse essence of that thought. Knowing the Cadfael character, I think he would agree. “Suffer the children to come unto me.” Children are innocent. But which of us is entirely free of guilt after an adult life in the world? There is a solidarity in this – let he who is without guilt cast the first stone! This is what I take Cadfael to be expressing here, and not the dreadful doctrine of original sin.]

 

...

 

     Secondly, most of us feel uncomfortable blaming someone morally who grew up in a different world and acted under the pressure of terrible circumstances. When I strongly criticize the aerial bombing of German and Japanese cities, even at a stage of the war when its effectiveness in shortening the war was uncertain (it had no effect, as we know now), I don’t wish to blame Churchill, say, in the sense that I would have been righteous and done better in the same circumstances. I do wish to point out an ethical limitation of that culture, however, a kind of meaning blindness. It was morally imperative, imperative in every sense, that Hitler’s Germany be defeated – also for the sake of Germany. If it was rationally plausible that bombing cities (killing children, etc.) only way to do this, it would still be evil but perhaps justifiable. At the very latest, after the establishment of a 2^nd front (or 3^rd front, counting Italy), no reasonable person could believe bombing cities was necessary: Germany was beaten. But in that context it was almost taken for granted that killing enemy civilians and destroying infrastructure was a part of war; it could have, perhaps, shortened the war. The hundreds of thousands of dead children, women, old people – part of war. 

   (Still is for Putin and Netanyahu’s government. Even when you don't intentionally target civilians, you still end up killing them in masses - every individual killed unimaginable unless you are there - as the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan showed: an estimated 432,093 civilians died direct violent deaths according The Watson Institute for International Affairs, at Brown University. Add to this the maimings, the hunger, the dislocation, etc. How can you kill that many people as "collateral damage." I suppose you have to have some understanding for those Israeli's who accuse the US of having a double standard when it comes to their slaughter of civilians in Gaza. I have no words for any of this. There must be a better way to respond to terrorism.) 

     By criticizing that I am criticizing a cultural meaning blindness, a culturally transmitted ethical limitation more than judging the souls of the people in that culture. (Our culture is no doubt also meaning blind in many ways.) Not only the meaning of the civilian lives destroyed but the lives of the bomber crews sent on extremely dangerous missions to kill civilians: I have never been inclined to judge them. (I have talked to two bomber pilots. One a vet from WWII who said his main memory was fear and grief at the loss of so many fellows. One a young air force officer in the 80's - probably had never been in combat - who told me you have to think of the people you bomb as ants.)

 

    Thirdly and most importantly, to condemn past actions and practices does not imply self-righteously, moralistically blaming people from different times and places, from a safe outside point of view. It can also express a need to orient myself (to orient ourselves) to deeds, people, and forms of life we are somehow connected to. This includes defining my moral starting point, my context. It influences how I would respond today to what my government does, for example, or how I need to comport myself to African Americans.

 

   Not every moral criticism is a moralistic judgment. 

. . .

What cultures that disturb me most were / are generally blind to is the meaning of a human life, the meaning of destroying a human life. Blind to the evil involved. To the meaning of grieving loved ones. To the kind of searing remorse people would experience if they did understand the meaning of what they did. Here is some reporting about Robert E. Lee:

On June 24, 1859, the New York Tribune published an anonymous letter to the editor describing how Lee ordered the whipping of three enslaved people as punishment for running away. The New York Tribune was a well-known abolitionist paper in the years preceding the Civil War. They often published sensationalized stories about slavery to build public outcry against the inhumanity of slavery and gain support for the abolitionist movement. This article described how after George Washington Parke Custis had died, his son-in-law, Robert E. Lee, proved to be a strict slaveholder, which prompted the three enslaved people to run away. The letter then describes how the overseer took them “into a barn, stripped, and the men received thirty and nine lashes each, from the hands of the slave-whipper, when he refused to whip the girl, and Mr. Lee himself administered the thirty and nine lashes to her.” 

Another anonymous letter also published in the Tribune claimed “Col. Lee ordered them whipped. They were two men and one woman. The officer whipped the two men, and said he would not whip the woman, and Col. Lee stripped her and whipped her himself.” 

Lee never publicly responded or denied these claims but wrote to his son George Washington Custis Lee in July that “The N. Y. Tribune has attacked me for my treatment of your grandfather's slaves, but I shall not reply. He has left me an unpleasant legacy.” The Lees did not make any further comments about the event until after the Civil War.

I am pretty sure Robert E. Lee never lost any sleep over any of this. If he did, the scales might have been removed from his eyes that prevented him from seeing the true nature of what he did - which is easier for us to see that people of that time and culture.

To talk about the meaning of a person's life is a way of talking about their reality.

 Thoughts on Aristotle - (Aristotle 1)

   I am rereading Aristotle’s Nichomachaen Ethics – in a new translation that 1) really lets Aristotle’s voice come through (or one possible voice of Aristotle), and 2) translates the Greek into a modern English idiom. When I was studying Greek (1978-1982), I read Plato (The Apology, The Republic, The Phaedrus, and fragments of other works) but never read Aristotle and never wanted to.  Aristotle wrote dialogs that were said to be masterpieces of writing. But all have been lost, in events like the fire that burned the great library at Alexandria, first by Christian fanatics and then by Muslim fanatics – a rare area where Christians and Muslims agreed:

 

The second, more famous, burning of the library came at the hands of Theophilus who was Patriarch of Alexandria from 385 to 412 CE. He turned the Temple of Serapis into a Christian church. It is likely that the collection was destroyed by the Christians who moved in. Some sources say nearly 10 percent of the library’s collection was housed in the Temple of Serapis. In the following years, the Christian attack against the library escalated, and the last great pagan philosopher and librarian, Hypatia, was tortured and killed.

 

The final blow came in 640 CE when Alexandria came under Muslim rule. The Muslim ruler, Caliph Omar, asserted that the library’s contents would “either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous.” The contents of the library were then supposedly used as tinder for the city’s bathhouses. Even then, it is said that it took six months for all the materials to burn. Practically nothing of the library remains today.

 

In any case, it is the first time I have ever enjoyed reading Aristotle, thanks be to the translator. (It is the Penguin edition.)

 

  I have always been attracted to certain aspects of Aristotle’s ethical thought. Developing good character traits like honesty, courage, a sense of justice, having the self-restraint necessary to handle the desires for food, sex, and money, and training your understanding to know your priorities and the right thing to do. An essential goal of education and upbringing is making these “virtues” into predispositions and, in the end, into spiritual demeanors. Having fallen short of true virtue in my life, I am in a good position to know how important this is.

   You do this by practicing. “We can only learn to love by loving,” wrote Iris Murdoch. That is an Aristotelian thought. It applies to all the virtues. You can only learn to be honest by telling the truth. Paul James lied about brushing his teeth when he was young. He was just too lazy to brush. I caught him, he was ashamed and promised to do better. So when the temptation to lie about such things arises, he controls them with the thought that it is bad to lie – your words will come to mean nothing, you damage your relationship with others who are close to you and upon whom you depend, you feed other vices like laziness, in the end you might forget how to distinguish between truth and lie altogether and become a Trump (a form of being in Hell). Perhaps he understands all that now. In the beginning it was perhaps mostly shame that motivated him to overcome such temptations and tell the truth. That is a paradigm of how one learns to be virtuous for Aristotle.

    This is interesting because you don’t become a good person by studying philosophy for Aristotle. Virtue was knowledge for Plato (and Socrates I suppose) but whatever that means, it does not mean we can take a philosophy course on virtue and thereby become virtuous. We take on these habits, if we are lucky, long before we can intellectually speculate about them. Emotions are essential – shame in the example I just mentioned. I guess some people will think: this is just behavioral conditioning. Aristotle was deeper. He believed it was our ‘natural’ human state to live in political community with others (actually, if you happen to be a man, but I will let that slide for now), and that only virtuous people can function and thrive in a political community. Thus he also believed it was natural to feel pleasure when you overcome a temptation to lie and tell the truth. It is natural to feel pleasure when your family or community acknowledges your honesty and defines you as an honest person. It is natural in a sense to feel disgusted when confronted with a lying scoundrel like Trump. This is healthy in a sense, just as it is healthy and natural to feel pleasure when in the presence of something beautiful. Emotions are like thoughts: they are responses to reality, and can be ‘true’ or ‘false’ to that reality.

    As a parent or teacher, you want your children or pupils to feel the right things. Only then will they be able to understand what it is to be human at a later stage in their development. Compare this response of Trump:

 

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

 

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. (Jeffery Goldberg, The Atlantic)

 

Most of us feel reverence in the presence of the graves of those who sacrificed their lives for a greater good. For Trump, a pathological narcissist if there ever was one, it is unintelligible that anyone would die for a greater good, which is connected to his inability to feel reverence, which is to say, is connected to his feeling of contempt for the soldiers who fell in combat. A person incapable of life in a political community is what defines a tyrant (Cicero). This is because he never learned that any community has any meaning, value, or reality. In contrast, Paul James’ comparatively insignificant lesson in honesty contained in itself a valuing of his father and his family. His own good is bound to his being an honest person, and honesty only makes sense if relationships, community are real and valuable. Aristotle believed that apart from community you were either a god or a beast, but not human. Trump – not a god – never learned that community mattered, and thus no virtue much less a hard one like physical courage makes sense to him. Perhaps he could be brought intellectually to understand this – or could have been brought while his brain still worked. But unless he can feel reverence at a soldier's cemetery, he won’t understand courage. The emotions are the bridges to understanding. The understanding is contained in the emotions – or not.

 

    One more thing I like about Aristotle. We can only be fully human in a political community. Virtues like courage and justice have their point in the community. They can become fully actualized only in a community. It would be like learning to play the piano from a book without a piano otherwise. Without such a community, one’s words and actions don’t mean anything; they don’t matter. And for Aristotle, the political community that made the highest form of humanity possible was democratic, where

 

Every man had his public duties to perform, at least in the democratic communities, as politician and soldier. The Greeks had a word for those who avoided these duties: the word was 'idiot.' (Aubrey De Sélincourt)

 

Including in politician was being a member of a jury, which the whole assembly was. If that is going to work at all, a high degree of truthfulness, justice, practical wisdom (common sense), and courage must be present. (Contrast the pitiful state of the GOP in Congress now.) These are constantly exercised, just like Paul James having the opportunity to tell the truth about brushing his teeth. What is good for an individual is not something apart from what is good for the polis – the Greek word for the political community that can’t be translated because we have nothing analogous in our world.

     And it is only in a political community that you can reveal who you are, through your words and acts, words and acts that matter to other people, that are taken seriously, that have consequences, that you have to own (contrast to social media today for the opposite). And a big part of who you are is the character you reveal. We can see this in our own experience. Republicans like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger have revealed through their words and actions that they are loyal, that they are people of courage and integrity; people like Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and J.D. Vance have revealed themselves to be sycophantic cowards incapable of having an authentic voice, of being taken seriously. Responsibility for the community develops, tests, and reveals character.

       If you are not part of a polis, you don’t have to chance to be “a someone” in the full sense for Aristotle – this is getting out of the Ethics into the Politics, but they are one line of thought. The polis was what made Greek culture different. Their geography made large political and economic entities extremely difficult. Greeks thus developed small political units in which at least every male citizen could have a voice in political and legal affairs – and of course also fought as soldiers in times of war. The polis was “the focus of a man’s moral, intellectual, aesthetic, social, and practical life” (Kitto, The Greeks) in a way a modern nation-state cannot be for its citizens. The polis was “the means by which the Greek consciously strove to make the life of both the community and the individual more excellent than it was before.”

    The size of the polis was not accidental. Aristotle said that a polis of 10 citizens could not work because it could not be self-sufficient but a polis of 100,000 would be absurd because it could not govern itself.  Size is important if all citizens are to have an active voice, to see and be seen. A difference in quantity at some point becomes a difference in quality. The Persian Empire could not be a social or political form that could bring out our true humanity for Aristotle – and neither could the modern national state. Aristotle wrote: “man is a creature who lives in a polis” [the more literal translation of “man is a political animal”]. The thesis of the thought contained in the Politics: “the polis is the only framework within which man can fully realize his spiritual, moral, and intellectual capacities (Kitto).”

      That living in a polis is not practical today is not a refutation of that argument. It became "impractical" when a student of Aristotle, Alexander of Macedonia (so-called the "great" though not great in my mind) put the nail in the coffin of the polis, and thus the virtues in the fullest sense. For Aristotle that must have been equivalent to The Fall of Man. 

    In any case, the loss of meaning, the feeling of impotence, the absence of a community (outside the family) where your words and deeds matter – I guess most of us can relate to that.

 

I have written about what I like about Aristotle. Tomorrow comes my criticism.