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PY2011 > Aristotle > Flashcards

Aristotle Flashcards

1
Q

What is the aim of good?

A

The good life, eudaimonia, happiness

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2
Q

What are the 3 prominent types of life and what is their aim?

A
  • life of enjoyment: pleasure is aim
  • political life: identify happiness with honour —> superficial as dependent on him who bestows honour rather than he who receives it
  • contemplative life: knowledge is aim
  • life of money making: wealth as an end not good, yet this seems like a means to get towards something else
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3
Q

How does Aristotle view moral virtue?

A
  • circumstance varies so there are no absolute rules to follow
  • right conduct is the mean between extremes of deficiency and excess
  • virtue is a disposition not a feeling, faculty or activity
  • necessary for happiness, but does not guarantee it
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4
Q

Why for Aristotle is virtue not a feeling, faculty or activity?

A
  • feelings are not subject to praise or blame as virtue and vice are
  • feelings move us to act a certain way, whereas virtues dispose us to act in a certain way
  • we feel anger and fear without choice, whereas virtues are modes of choice and involve it
  • faculties determine capacity for feeling, and virtue is equally not this
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5
Q

What are the practical rules for achieving a virtuous life?

A
  • avoid the extreme farthest from the mean
  • notice which errors we are susceptible to and avoid them
  • be wary of pleasure as it can impede judgement
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6
Q

What are the differences between virtuous people and those who accidentally behave well?

A
  • virtuous people know if they are behaving in the right way
  • virtuous people choose to behave in the right way for the sake of being virtuous
  • their behaviour is part of a fixed, virtuous disposition
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7
Q

How does Aristotle suggest we should judge moral actions?

A

He says it is dependent on whether they are voluntary, involuntary or no voluntary

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8
Q

What are borderline cases to involuntary actions and what are Aristotle’s responses to them?

A
  • when someone performs under threat it is potentially involuntary depending on level of threat
  • drunkenness - not to blame for actions done whilst drunk, but it is voluntary to get drunk so responsible
  • actions performed in ignorance are involuntary if the person does not recognise ignorance —> ignorance is not the sole cause of bad actions, just an enabling factor —> ignorance of particulars/ facts is excusable, but ignorance of universals is inexcusable
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9
Q

What does Aristotle suggest the best measure of moral goodness is?

A

Choice, as it is always made voluntarily

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10
Q

What is deliberation?

A
  • it precedes choice
  • we deliberate about things that are in our power
  • we deliberate about means not ends
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11
Q

What does choice show?

A
  • those of good character will always aim for good
  • choices show intentions, which aren’t always translated well
  • choices should be judged rather than actions themselves
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12
Q

What are the 3 states of bad character?

A

Vice, incontinence, and brutishness

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13
Q

What is licentiousness?

A

Choosing excess or deficiency

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14
Q

What are the different types of incontinence?

A
  • a person may know what is wrong but does not reflect upon this knowledge, so does wrong without thinking about it
  • a person may make a false inference due to ignorance of facts
  • a person may be emotionally excited of disturbed so unable to think clearly (impetuosity)
  • desire may cause a person to act irrationally and without restraint
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15
Q

How is incontinence qualified or unqualified?

A
  • a person who has excessive desire for pleasures of victory, honor, or wealth is incontinent with qualification - not real incontinence
  • a person with excessive desire for bodily pleasure is incontinent without qualification
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16
Q

What is brutishness?

A

An extreme form of irrational wrongdoing, where the person lacks capacity for reason altogether

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17
Q

What is the difference between incontinence and licentiousness?

A
  • licentious person acts out of choice

- incontinent person lacks such self control

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18
Q

Why is it more forgivable to be incontinent from temper than desire?

A

One with a short temper is reasonable to a point, whereas the person who gives into desire is entirely unreasonable

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19
Q

Why is incontinence better than being licentious?

A

Licentious person has made a bad choice willingly rather than being incapable of understanding virtue

20
Q

Why is a licentious person more easily reformed than an incontinent one?

A

They act from choice so can be reasoned with

21
Q

What is continence?

A

Involves conquering desires

22
Q

Why is continence preferable to endurance?

A

It involves conquering desires rather than just enduring them

23
Q

What is the opposite of endurance?

A

Softness of effeminacy: where one is unable to bear the sorts of pains most people can

24
Q

What is Aristotle’s view on pleasure?

A

Pleasure is an end and only harmful in a limited sense. Higher pleasures, such as contemplation, are beneficial as they lead to a good life.

25
Q

What are criticisms of Aristotle’s ethics?

A
  • Aristotle assumes human nature to be rationality
  • only concerns the self, not the effect on others
    —> CA: Greek idea of ethics different to modern
  • it is arbitrary as the particular virtues he mentions are a product of his environment
    —> CA: irrelevant as it is about acting in a certain way according to one’s own circumstances
  • difficult to know exactly what is virtuous- mean can fluctuate according to each person
  • circular, as Aristotle suggests looking at the virtuous man to know how to be virtuous
  • vicious circle: 1. Your character determines your apparent good 2. You act in your apparent good 3. Your actions define your character
26
Q

What is justice for Aristotle?

A
  • lawfulness and fairness
  • laws encourage people to behave virtuously, so the just person, who is by definition lawful, will necessarily be virtuous
  • justice deals with one’s relations with others
  • particular justice deals with the divisible goods of honor, money, and safety, where one persons gain results in someone else’s loss
27
Q

What are the two forms of particular justice?

A
  • Distributive justice: deals with the distribution of wealth in a community in relation to a persons merit
  • rectifacatory justice: remedies unequal distribution between two people in court by restoring a mean
28
Q

Why is metaphysics a ‘first philosophy’?

A
  • it influences all other parts of philosophy

- it is for the sake of itself

29
Q

What is the threefold account of metaphysics?

A
  • science of being qua being
  • science of the highest being
  • science of the first principles and causes
30
Q

How is metaphysics a science of being qua being?

A
  • it is looking at the most basic ground of everything

- it is not cutting up certain parts from others

31
Q

Why is metaphysics a science of the highest being?

A
  • it is a divine science
  • studies things that keep the world going
  • studies the properties of a divine being
32
Q

What branches of knowledge does metaphysics divide into?

A
  • practical
  • productive
  • theoretical
33
Q

What is the theoretical branch of knowledge divides into?

A
  • physics
  • mathematics
  • theology
34
Q

What is physics according to Aristotle’s metaphysics?

A

Science of objects existing separately but undergoing change

35
Q

What is mathematics according to Metaphysics?

A

Study of objects in so far as they do not undergo change but are not separable

36
Q

What is theology according to Metaphysics?

A

Study of objects not undergoing change and existing separately. It is prior to both physics and mathematics. Objects are eternal, so prior to changeable and temporal, and existing independently.

37
Q

How is metaphysics a science of first principles and causes?

A
  • examines first causes in first book
  • principles are those which it is impossible to be mistaken
  • most important is principle of non-contradiction
38
Q

What is the nature of knowledge for Aristotle?

A
  • experience is advantageous for the individual case, but science is superior as it knows the causes
  • person who has knowledge ties it down w reason
  • theoretical knowledge is superior to practical
  • wisdom is knowledge of principles and causes
  • knowledge is the science of a free person
  • it is not initiated by practical purpose but the desire to know and remove self from ignorance
39
Q

How do we know which principles and causes are important?

A

We look at the wise person

40
Q

What are the characteristics of the wise person?

A
  • knows all things without learning each of them in detail
  • knows what is difficult to learn
  • is more exact
  • can teach the causes
  • knows the universally order under which everything falls ( hardest to know, furthest from senses, dealing with first principles, most desirable)
41
Q

What is the role of the soul in life?

A
  • soul is origin of motion ( itself in motion and passes this onto body)
  • Soul is in the same space as the body
  • soul is essential to life
  • soul is the form of the body and body is the material that is informed by the soul
  • soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural body which has life potentially
  • soul is the first grade of actually of a natural body which is organised
42
Q

How does the body work in relation to the soul?

A
  • soul is the form of the body
  • body is matter that needs to be actualised by the soul
  • soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural body which has life potentially
  • soul is the cause for body: essence of the ensouled body so a formal cause, it is that from which movement is derived so an efficient cause, and is that for the sake of which natural bodies are, so a final cause
43
Q

What are the three types of soul?

A
  • nutritive faculty: nutrition, growth, reproduction - possessed by all living beings
  • faculty of sense perception: perceiving the external world - touch is most basic - possessed by all animals
  • faculty of reason and thought: possessed by humans
44
Q

What is the activity of perceiving?

A
  • an alteration of the sense organs
  • we receive the form, but not the matter of the perceived object
  • the sense organ is informed about the sense object and to some degree becomes like the object it perceives
45
Q

What are the properties of perceived objects?

A
  • they can be special to a single sense
  • they can be common to different senses
  • we perceive them incidentally
46
Q

What are properties of the faculty of perception?

A
  • needs external objects
  • passive faculty
  • sense organs don’t perceive themselves
47
Q

What are differences between perception and thinking?

A

Perception:

  • the faculty of perception is ready to be used at birth, but needs an external object to actualise its potentiality
  • it is a passive faculty: do not perceive themselves but perceived individuals
  • the faculty can be destroyed by excess

Thinking:

  • thinking needs development but is an active faculty that is independent of external objects
  • thinking can be self-reflective, and it is related to universals

PY2011 (5 decks)

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