ARISTOTLE ON THE GOOD LIFE A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Guelph by ROOPEN MAJ-ITHIA In partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January, 1999 @ Roopen Majithia, 1999 National Library Bibliotneque nationale 1+1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OttawaON KIAON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada Your lire Vmre rebrmca Our tlk Notre reference The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pernettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent Etre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autotisation. ABSTRACT ANSTOTLE ON THE GOOD LIFE Roopen Navin Majithia Advisor: University of Guelph, 1999 Professor Kenneth Dorter In the 70s and 80s, scholars were convinced that the Nicornachean Ethics was inconsistent because it seemed to them that while Aristotle emphasized both practical and theoretical virtues in his conception of happiness in much of the NE, in Book X he emphasized only one -contemplation. The problem was that it was hard to imagine how happiness could consist in the satisfaction of a single desire as opposed to the satisfaction of many desiderata. But the gathering consensus in the late 80s and 90s was that there is an implicit assumption that cleared up this difficulty; the activity of happiness was the6ria whereas the life of happiness consisted in the satisfaction of several desires both practical and theoretical. Yet this has Ieft many scholars dissatisfied for 2 reasons: (a) because the notion of contemplating a completed picture of knowledge seems odd and boring and hardly the sort of thing one would need to express with the ecstatic Augustinian sentiments that Aristotle uses. (b) and because whatever one may say about their consistency, it is clear that in Book I the hero is a less unfortunate Prim or a Pericles and therefore consists of a discussion of the political Iife, whereas the hero in Book X is an Anaxagoras and therefore is a discussion of the philosophical life. What I suggest is that (b) there are indeed 2 different lives being talked about here and that contrary to what has been thought ail along, the practical life can also culminate in theoria just as the philosophical one. This is seen with the help of a better understanding of (a). For thedria is ultimately a religious experience, one that is accomplished when we turn our minds to God, the Active Intellect, and in a sense become him since the mind works by becoming one with the object thought. How this is accompIished is different for the different lives; in the practical life it has to do with acting virtuousIy and fdfilling our function, as well as with the relation of the practical kalorz to the divine one. In the theoretical, it has to do with an explicit ascent to the first principle of knowledge and Being s outlined in the Metaphysics. Acknowledgements This work is dedicated to my parents for the unfailing love and support that I received from them all these years, even though I have not always been the ideal son, and without whom none of this would have been possible. To them I owe a debt of gratitude inestimable. I would also like to thank all my teachers over the years for all that they have done for me: Jerry Gustafson, for kindling a passion for ideas, Scott Crom for inculcating the ideals of good scholarship, James King for introducing me to the treasures of the . Nicomachean Ethics, Ken Dorter for his patience and confidence in me, as well as for helping me keep a clear view of the forest, Brian Calvert for making sure that I didn't miss any of the trees, Paddy O'Cleirigh for all those enjoyable hours we spent studying Aristotle's Greek together, and last but not least, Ranjan Roy for teaching me understanding. Finally, I would like to thank the Department of Philosophy at the University of Gueiph not only for the extensive financial support that I received from them in my time at Gueiph, but also for making the environment so congenial for research. Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. On the Relation of Books I and X of the Nicomachean Ethics 19 Chapter 3. The The6riu-Prarir Relation in Aristotle's Ethics 73 Chapter 4. On the Impossibility of an Immoral Contemplator in Aristotle's Ethics 142 Chapter 5. On the Relation of Divine Thinking to Human Thought in Aristotle 174 Chapter 6. ArchZand Nous in Aristotle's Ethics 220 Bibliography of Works Cited 250 Chapter 1 Introduction In Book X.6-8 of the Nicornnchean Ethics (henceforth NE)' Aristotle seems explicitly to equate man's' final good or happiness (e~dairnonia)~with the activity of contemplation (the6ria). This equation I Book and chapter number references to the NE are in Roman and Arabic numerals respectively. Thus X.7 refers to Book X chapter 7. Additional references (e-g., 1074a30) to the page and line numbers are based on the Bekker edition of 1831. References to other works of Aristotle are in similar format except that the book and chapter number are preceded by the title of the text (e-g., Metaphysics XII.2). All quotations from the NE and other works of Aristotle are from the Revised Oxford Translation (1995) unIess otherwise indicated. The exceptions are quotes from the Eudemian Ethics (henceforth EE) for which I have used the revised translation of Woods (1992), and the revised Hamlyn (1993) translation of the De Anima. ' I have adopted the ancient usage of 'man' throughout the thesis rather than the less sexist language of 'human being' to be consistent with Aristotle's own usage, even though, unlike Aristotle, I take it to refer to both men and women. No offence is intended to anyone and I hope none is taken. 3 I am aware that 'eudaimonia' and 'happiness' are overlapping rather than equivalent terms but think that 'happiness' is the best available English word has generated a great deal of schoiarly controversy for a number of reasons: la) It seems odd to suggest that human happiness is centered around the satisfaction of a single desire - contemplation - in what has come to be called the exclusive view of happiness, rather than the satisfaction of many important ones, or the inclusive view (Hardie 1967). lb) Moreover, if happiness is essentially contemplation, why does Aristotle spend so much time discussing ethical and political virtue (aret~?)~in the NE, and only a small part of one book (X.6-8) on contemplation? In other words, the general tenor of the text suggests that happiness must include both practical and contemplative virtues whereas only a small part of the text suggests otherwise. In addition, the treatments of self-sufficiency, completeness and function in Book I, on some readings, suggests that happiness must be inclusive whereas the Book X discussions on these very subjects seem decidedly exclusive. lc) Aristotle's treatment of external goods in Book X seems also to contradict what he says on the same issues elsewhere in the text. For -- --- - rather than, say, Cooper's (1975) 'flourishing.' For a defense of translating 'eudairnonia' as 'happiness' see Kraut (1979) and Dybikowski ( 198 1). 4 I translate 'arete" indifferently as 'virtue' or 'excellence'. instance, Book I suggests that man needs a full complement of external goods (i.e., power, wealth, good friends, children, beauty and good fortune in general) to be happy whereas Book X says that the contemplator requires only the bare necessities of life. These kinds of anomalies have led scholars to different conclusions, from declaring the latter part of X to be a leftover from Aristotle's early Platonism (Jaeger 1948) to suggesting that it is an end of the semester joke that Aristotle plays on his students (Moline 1983)! 2) The equation of happiness with the6rin downgrades the ethical and political life discussed in much of the NE to a mere means to, and not a part of, eudaimonia. That is, it implies that right action is right only because it makes contemplation possible, in which case it is hard to see how ethical activity can have intrinsic value as Aristotle repeatedly claims it does. If, instead, ethical activity were to be a part of eudairnonia, then why it has intrinsic value is clear: for just as putting is for the sake of the final end of golfing and yet is part of golfing, ethical activity is for the sake of the final end of happiness and yet is part of happiness as well. Thus virtue is not a mere means to happiness though it is undertaken for the sake of happiness and is in fact a part of it (Ackrill 1980). If the final end for man or happiness consists of contemplation, and since it is the ethically good man who, because of his practical wisdom (phron&is), sees this, why is it that all good men do not become philosophers since only philosophers can be contemplators? To put it differently, in X.8 Aristotle calls the life of practical virtue the life of secondary happiness but since he tells us in VI.12 that it is the practically wise man who sees the final good for man, why would he not want to live the iife of primary happiness? One suggestion is that sometimes the circumstances in a good man's life do not allow him to become a philosopher and hence a contemplator, as he has duties and obligations to his family and state (Kraut 1989).