Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics - Essay Example

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle viewed ethical theory as a discipline distinct from the theoretical sciences. Its methodology must be in line with its subject matter or good action. It is significant to note that people study ethics in order to upgrade and improve their lives; therefore, its major concern is about the nature of human well being. In his ethics, Aristotle follows Plato and Socrates in emphasizing the importance of virtues in human life. Just like Plato, Aristotle accepts ethical virtues such as courage, justice, and temperance as intricate rational, social, and emotional skills. However, he opposes Plato’s notion that training in metaphysics and sciences is necessary condition for full comprehension or understanding of human good. He asserts that what we require, in order to live well, is maximum appreciation of the manner in which such goods as pleasure, friendship, virtue, wealth, and honor match together as a whole. In order to apply that general comprehension to particular situations, we must acquire, through significant habits and upbringing, the ability to view each occasion, which course of behavior or action is best backed by reason. Thus, practical wisdom and knowledge as Aristotle understands it, cannot be acquired by solely learning general rules. Human beings must acquire them through practice, social and emotional skills that ensure that we put our general comprehension of well being into practice in manners that are suitable to each occasion or situation. In his book 9 chapter eight, Aristotle explores the necessity of friendship in life of human beings. He argues that some people believe that when fortune is kind to them, they do not see the need of having friends, which according to Aristotle is irrational thinking that expresses human selfishness. It is a disputed case whether a happy man requires friends or not. It is argued that those who are supremely self-sufficient and happy have no need of having friends for they posses things that are good and therefore being happy and self sufficient they need nothing further. On the other hand, a friend is another self which man is unable to provide by his own efforts. Aristotle argued that it seems weird when one gives all good things to a happy and self-sufficient man, not to give friends, who are viewed as the greatest of external goods. And if it is more plausible of a friend to do well by another person or man than to be well done by, and to bestow rewards is a characteristic of the good man and of virtue and it is rational and nobler to do well by friends than by unknown individuals or strangers. Therefore, the good man will need people for them to prosper and do well in their lives. This situation propels us to ask whether we need, friends in adversity or for success/prosperity, on the assumption that a man in adversity requires people to give rewards on him, and those who are successful need people to be more successful than they are. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics tries to explain the system of principles contained in men and how they affect the society. A dynamic debate arises with a question of whether a man has a duty to love oneself most or someone else. People criticizes those who are most lovers of themselves by calling them self-lovers and tend to consider good men who act for honor’s sake, friend’s sake and endures his own interest. But facts conflicts with these arguments where it is said by men that, one should love best one’s best friend of which man in this case, is his own best friend and ought to love himself more. It is suggested that, possibly if those self-lover would act justly and temperately in assigning themselves the great share of wealth, bodily pleasures and integrity, then no one would blame them. Such people would therefore differentiate themselves from other self-lovers by striving towards what is noble and straining to do noblest deeds. This suggestion therefore, shows that a good man ought to be a lover of self. A complex question is moved to a higher level whether a man ought to love himself most. According to many people, they reproach those who love oneself most, and their anger towards them is portrayed where they nickname them as self-lovers. This epithet is used to bring them into shame of their bad behavior and considers them as bad men seeming to perform anything just for own sake, the more this person progresses with the behavior, the more he becomes wicked. Therefore, people criticize this person by refusing to associate and rendering any form of help to him. They prefer good men capable of acting for honor’s sake, friend’s sake, and good in sacrificing his own interests for the benefits of his friends. These arguments lead to a great conflict with the real facts due to the suggestion of men ideology that someone ought to show the best tenderness to his best friend and that man’s best companion is one wishing success to the object of his desire for his sake. We see that these attributes are found mostly in a man’s opinion towards himself together with many other attributes that define a friend. Therefore, it is the friendship characteristics that have lead to uncovering of the relationship that exists in man. This have been further supported by proverbs such as ‘a single soul’, ‘friendship is equality’, charity start from home’. All these scripts truly convince that man is his own excellent companion and who should therefore love himself best than anyone else. Though the two opinions are much plausible, they result into bringing up a reasonable question that clearly defines a choice to be followed by people. The right way of dealing with these choices, is by separating them from each other and determining how extreme and in what respects is each view the exact one. If one was to take hold of the sense in which each discipline uses the turn of phrase ‘lover of self’, the result would be a great discovery. Those disciplines that uses this term as one of criticism, attribute self-love to people who allocate themselves to a greater portion of wealth, bodily pleasures, and honors. It is the nature of most men for this yearning, and can do anything that it takes to gratify their appetites, general feelings and their unreasonable elements of the soul hence becoming competitive objects. This reviews that, people were not wrong for using the epithet to describe self-lovers because it brought out a clear meaning of their bad behaviors. In this case, lovers of self-interests were to do a number of approaches for them to be capable of tarnishing the negative attitude of their societies, the people around them, which contributed to them being reproached, blamed and given all sought of epithets. They were to strive in securing themselves for honorable course, and access their wealth considering that they did it justly, temperately and in agreement with the moral quality of any person in the society. However, such men could do their very best to seem more important than other lovers of self. In all occasions, they assigned themselves the things that were noblest and perfect, and satisfied themselves of the most authoritative building block, so the man who loved and gratified this was considered a lover of self. It is logic that men have or do not have self control just like according to reason where he might have the control over it or fail to on the supposition that he is himself. The things that men have prepared on a coherent principle are considered mostly as their own acts and deliberate acts, reviewing that it is man himself who is more than anything else and that the perfect man loves the most part of himself. It is therefore put forward that a man is truly the most lover of self that is very different from what people understand that lead them into making force judgment. Lover of self is also seen as being different according to the two terms; living according to a reasonable principle is different from living as enthusiasm dictates and yearning what is noble light from what is looking as if it is very advantageous. Therefore, those who are fully active with noble action in an exceptional degree are appreciated and praised by others. However, if all people were to make every effort towards what is taken into account as noble and sprain every nerve to perform the noblest deeds, then everything would be like the common, expectations and wellness of every person. Therefore, everyone involved would secure for himself the valuable and greatest goods since high moral principles are the enormous of goods. However, the point remains that good man ought to be a lover of self because he will profit himself by doing dignified acts, and will lead to the benefits of his fellow. Another fact is that, wicked man ought not due to the irreversible consequences of his evil passion for himself as well as his neighbors. It is true that, for the depraved man, his actions clashes with what he intends to do, and that for the good man he exactly does what he ought to do by choosing and obeying the best motive in each of its possessors. A good man also does a variety of acts for his friends and country’s sake; he would prefer getting led of both wealth and honor, especially the goods that result to competition hence gaining himself nobility. For instance, he would prefer a stunted period of extreme pleasure to an extensive one of mild gratification, a twelvemonth of dignified life to many years of routine existence, and lastly one immense and noble accomplishment to many trivial ones. It is therefore possible for all this results to be attainable by those who will to die for other, because it is a great reward that they prefer for themselves. They would consequently throw away properties on condition that it is their friends who acquire the benefits; in real sense if a man’s friend acquires wealth, then he himself accomplishes nobility and he is dispensed with greater good to himself. A good man will also sacrifice true honor and office to his friends becoming more noble and creditable to himself and subsequently, he will be thought to be good for choosing nobility before anything else. Furthermore, he may give up accomplishments to his friends and therefore becoming nobler, all actions that he is praised for is seen as assigning himself the largest share in what is noble. In conclusion, Aristotle’ Nicomachean ethics analysis the subject matter-good action-and how it is reviewed by different characters. It teaches how to improve one’s life concentrating much on the nature of human well being. The major emphasis is that, people need to properly appreciate the integration of such goods as companionship, pleasure, moral principles, honor, and wealth. On the other hand, in order to pertain that general understanding to particular situation, people must acquire, through correct upbringing and habits. Work Cited Aristotle. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011. Print. Read More