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This is Philosophy with me

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Nigel Warburton and me David

0:06

Edmunds. If you enjoy philosophy Bites,

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please support us. We're currently

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unfunded, and all donations would be gratefully

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received. The details go to

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WWW dot Philosophy

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dot com. Here's

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a minor question. How should you live

0:21

your life? In other words,

0:23

how should you behave? What should you value?

0:26

Not easy to answer, but Aristotle had

0:28

a few ideas about this as the classicist

0:30

and Aristotle scholar Edith Hall

0:32

explains. Edithill,

0:34

welcome to Bites. Hi.

0:36

It's great to be here, Nigel. The topic we're

0:38

gonna talk about today is Aristotle's

0:41

way. Well, we

0:42

know who Aristotle is, but what's

0:44

his way? Aristotle was philosopher

0:46

who included amongst the things he was

0:48

interested in ethics, which

0:51

is question how should we live. So

0:53

it's a way of life. It's a way of

0:55

dealing with moral questions. making

0:57

decisions and trying

0:59

to find the way to be the happiest human

1:01

we can. So the way is

1:04

a kind of method of living. Yes. He did

1:06

actually use metaphors from roads and and

1:08

traveling, and he was a parrobotetic.

1:11

That means he was a guy who liked to do philosophy

1:13

while walking and dialogue

1:16

with his students. But it's more that he

1:18

saw life as a journey. In

1:20

fact, he had sometimes use a metaphor of an odyssey

1:23

where you have set goals that you have set

1:25

yourself, things you want to achieve, and

1:27

then practical methods of

1:29

dealing with decision making and handling

1:31

your emotions and your relationships. In

1:34

practice, this is practical moral philosophy,

1:36

not abstract or sort of cerebral

1:39

metaphysics about life and death and

1:41

the gods. This is about how I live,

1:43

i as in vigil, make my decisions. And

1:46

what am I, in Aristotle's what

1:48

kind of a thing? You are,

1:50

I am. We are both. animals.

1:53

He famously said that man is a

1:55

political animal and that's commonly

1:57

misunderstood is that we're all quite devious

1:59

or machiavellian

1:59

or something. He didn't mean that

2:02

at all. He meant we're just a zoe on which was

2:04

the word for any old animal. The

2:06

difference is that we live in a polis

2:08

which is in a city state in a community with each

2:10

other by voice, whereas other

2:12

animals live in kinship tribes.

2:15

So we have got different problems because

2:17

we make these relationships with

2:19

other people in our That is what he

2:21

meant. He's very, very interested.

2:23

He's the founder of zoology. And

2:26

in his great zoological works, he

2:28

draws up lists of what we share with

2:30

all the other animals and what makes

2:32

us specifically a human animal

2:35

and what makes us specifically human animal are

2:37

things like the ability to deliberate, to

2:39

abstract our self in time and place, that is

2:41

think about the past or the future, to

2:44

laugh. He thinks only humans have a sense

2:46

of humor to have a certain

2:48

kind of highly abstract language, which

2:50

allows us to talk about things like

2:52

not just a good action, what

2:55

is goodness. He thinks

2:57

this is what makes humans different

2:59

and he would say superior to

3:01

all other animals. That's fascinating.

3:03

We're part of the animal kingdom, but

3:05

we have these qualities that sets us apart, and

3:07

that's a very common belief now, actually.

3:10

Dial when thought Aristotle was

3:12

the god, really, of intellectual

3:15

history because this exactly fitted what he

3:17

was saying. Aristotle doesn't think

3:19

as most other ancient philosophical

3:21

schools did that there's anything wrong with

3:24

our bodies or our emotions or

3:26

our physical needs. He just thought they

3:28

were a fact of life. We were animals. We had to

3:30

fulfill them. The question is to

3:32

channel them, to get the best out of them, use

3:34

them in practical, ways that induce

3:36

to happiness understand

3:39

ourselves as a strange fusion

3:41

of this specifically human intellectual

3:43

ability and our physical bodies.

3:45

That makes them sound really attractive. So there's

3:48

a sense that we are part of nature

3:50

there are things that we'll make our lives go better

3:52

if we can recognize that. Well, it's just very attractive

3:54

and I think sort of it became much more

3:56

possible to recuperate Harris Dottleneck

3:58

the twenty seventh century as

4:00

strict rules of religion have become

4:03

much less attractive and

4:05

as embracing our Freudian

4:07

instincts and learning to understand

4:09

them through psychotherapeutic models

4:12

has become standard. It's actually normal.

4:14

Most of us are now encouraged, I

4:16

hope,

4:17

not think that sex is a bad

4:19

thing

4:19

or that appetite for good food

4:21

is a bad thing. These are not in themselves

4:23

sins or vices at all. they're just

4:25

facts of life. It's a matter of how we

4:27

deal with them. So at the

4:29

heart of his philosophy is this concept

4:31

of eudaimonia, which is something

4:34

which people grapple with a bit

4:36

sometimes translated as happiness. Could you say a

4:38

bit about that? It's a very difficult

4:40

word to translate. I think the main thing is

4:42

to think about is a verb, not a

4:44

noun. Happiness implies

4:46

a sort of absolute state that you can

4:48

achieve and retain forever or

4:50

a very instantaneous ecstasy,

4:53

a sort of keeps seeing a sudden

4:55

moment of bliss. He doesn't think he

4:57

got it all. He's something you do. It is

4:59

the way of life. so it's

5:01

about your attitude. He thinks

5:03

that to do things that

5:05

we'll produce to you, pneumonia, means

5:08

actually trying to be the best person

5:10

of yourself. Actually trying to be a

5:12

good person that is important. It

5:14

is virtue, sounds a bit prissy,

5:16

but actually trying to do the right

5:18

thing, be that right person,

5:21

take the best decision for yourselves and others

5:23

whenever you can. So I see it as a practice

5:25

rather than a state.

5:27

So very different from the

5:29

simple pursuit of pleasure. So

5:31

when people talk about wanting to

5:33

be happy, they're often talking about

5:35

how they feel at a particular moment.

5:37

They're satisfied at a particular moment.

5:39

But that's not what he means at all.

5:41

No. I mean, I think you pneumonia is about

5:43

deathbed I think it's about when you're lying

5:45

on your deathbed, you feel that

5:47

you did the best possible job you

5:49

could. In the circumstances, you don't

5:51

have a huge amount of guilt about

5:53

anything nor other things

5:55

that you've left undone that you

5:57

should have tried but weren't brave enough.

5:59

It's about every day being able to

6:01

yourself in the mirror at night and know that

6:03

you didn't do anything really beastly to

6:06

anyone. And that does give you a

6:08

very great sense of peace, but it

6:10

also requires actually thinking an

6:12

awful lot. You have to think hard

6:14

about positions. You have to

6:16

reflect on what has happened and what you can

6:18

learn from it. You have to plan. So

6:20

you need some alone time. I've

6:22

talked to mothers of of young children

6:25

about doing this and they say, I do not

6:27

have time to go into my

6:29

self like that and think about things. And

6:31

it's absolutely true, and Aristotle saw that.

6:33

You saw absolutely that people who have to work

6:35

very, very hard for a living, for example. it

6:37

was much less likely they could give themselves

6:40

this amount of thought, but he genuinely

6:42

believed that it would make you a much happier person

6:44

on your death What about wealth?

6:47

Don't you need a bit of wealth to have time to

6:49

reflect? So you don't have to go out to

6:51

work quite so hard. Aristotle's

6:53

completely acknowledged that he's absolutely

6:55

not assuming that everyone's

6:57

got the means to be

6:59

able to sort of do practical philosophy like

7:02

this. And he's very sorry for them. And he

7:04

says, in an ideal world, we could all

7:06

have all our physical needs supplied. And

7:08

Philosophy of us and think about

7:11

how to live. He's completely open

7:14

about that. He's also completely

7:16

open to the fact that a lot of people are

7:18

born with such bad luck into

7:20

either poverty or he ugliness,

7:22

I think we could now add to say disability,

7:25

that it's harder for them.

7:27

and material goods, insufficiency,

7:30

say but not excess, sufficient

7:32

material goods that you don't have to worry

7:35

is absolutely a precondition happiness.

7:37

However, having those is no guarantee

7:39

of happiness. He has seen, I

7:41

think, because he spent many years in the

7:43

court of the hyper rich

7:45

and unbelievably wicked and

7:47

immoral father of Macedon. He

7:50

saw how miserable a lot of very

7:52

rich and powerful what people are, and he knew that

7:54

just riches and power were absolutely

7:56

no way of guaranteeing you pneumonia. So

7:59

you've talked about a reflection, the need for a reflection.

8:02

Are there any guides that we get from

8:04

him about how we do that? Because I can stop

8:06

and think about how I should live my life, but it doesn't guarantee

8:08

that I'm gonna make a good choice to

8:10

myself. There are three or four of just

8:12

very practical things that you can

8:14

do. The first thing to do

8:16

is in his uveen ethic, he

8:18

actually gives a list of all

8:20

human characteristics, and he asks you to

8:22

almost do a questionnaire on yourself, and you have to

8:24

be very, very honest. And that was

8:26

say anger, or revenge

8:30

or greed. Let's just take those three.

8:32

So you've got to decide whether you'll get

8:34

too angry or not angry

8:36

enough. you've got to aim at if you're Aristotle's

8:39

not getting rid of emotions and passions,

8:41

but getting them at the right time and in

8:43

the right amount. So I

8:46

did this question here on myself when I was about

8:48

twenty three. I thought it was amazing. And I

8:50

realized that the thing I had to work on

8:52

was vindictiveness. I am extremely

8:54

vengeful person. I think

8:56

about revenge. I think about revenge

8:58

when people have done me wrong. I

9:00

dwell on it. and it

9:02

consumes me and I have got

9:04

very great temporary pleasure out

9:06

of getting one back on people.

9:09

Okay. That did not make me happy. What

9:11

has made me happy is looking

9:13

up straight in the face and

9:15

seeing when revenge is a good thing that

9:17

you can channel if somebody knocks

9:19

my child over in their

9:21

car because they're drunk, revenge

9:23

will get me into court. to

9:26

get their money because they have to use

9:28

a wheelchair for the rest of the life. If she's

9:30

good to want that revenge, it's a matter of

9:32

what you do with it. Dwelling

9:34

for as every minute of every day because of

9:36

some personal slide, getting

9:38

your own back. It will wreck your life. The best

9:41

revenge actually is living well being

9:43

happy. So you mentioned there are two or three

9:45

guidelines. There are some mothers. Oh, he's got about

9:47

fourteen attitude to money,

9:49

for example. He actually says there are

9:51

people who are incredibly careless

9:53

with money and for over generous because

9:56

they do not husband money properly, in the

9:58

proper word, of husbanding your

10:00

resources to look after themselves and their

10:02

dependents. If I give all my money away to people in

10:04

the street, I will end up on the streets.

10:06

It's as simple as that. However,

10:08

are people who are pathologically mean with money

10:11

and do not use it properly. They are un

10:13

generous and that will not make them

10:15

happy. you'll get the right degree if you

10:17

husband your resources and look after yourself

10:19

independence, add it quickly and then give all the rest

10:21

away. See, that fits very much with his model

10:23

of what a virtue two is. There's lying between

10:25

two extremes. Exactly. And

10:27

this is totally revolutionary because

10:30

almost all other ancient schools

10:32

just divided the human soul into

10:34

two. So it's reason on one

10:36

side, emotion, passion, sex instinct

10:38

on the other side. And that was all

10:40

bad. And for the stoic

10:42

of a Plato, the proper wise

10:44

man, the good man, will

10:46

completely learn to repress all of that.

10:49

not at all because we are animals.

10:52

We have to acknowledge all

10:54

these things, see how they actually

10:56

useful that anger at the right time is

10:58

necessary to a moral agent.

11:00

And there's nothing wrong with them. And I actually think this is

11:02

one reason why he's very attractive to women.

11:05

despite being an ancient patriarch and all the

11:07

rest of it because of his

11:09

embracing the body and the instinct and

11:11

the emotions, he

11:13

doesn't look down on women as of physical

11:15

creatures of menstruation and

11:17

breastfeeding and emotion and empathy

11:19

the way that the stoics and Plato

11:21

Edith. I feel that his philosophy is

11:24

practical for me as a

11:26

sexual mother who likes

11:28

cooking. This is absolutely

11:30

fine if you're an artist Aristotle's

11:32

is often described as teleological. Could

11:35

you explain a bit what that means? A

11:37

Telos in Greek is a goal or

11:39

aim or end or fulfillment.

11:42

thought that everything in the universe, it

11:44

was in motion and movement and

11:46

development including organic things

11:48

like human beings and plants. An

11:51

acorn, for example, has

11:53

got a telos, a goal and

11:55

objective if it is properly watered so

11:57

on. It will grow into magnificent oak tree.

11:59

Then it that reaches its potential,

12:01

which is another word, dunamis. It's

12:03

actually the word that dynamite

12:06

comes from misleadingly. Your

12:08

dynamite your dynamite is

12:10

as a human to become the best

12:13

possible adult versus of yourself.

12:16

So a little egg or a little fetus or

12:18

a little baby is evolving

12:20

into an adult. Now you can

12:22

stunt it say that you don't

12:24

reach your goal Edith by not setting

12:26

one, so just drifting and not

12:28

thinking about what you want to be or

12:30

by deprivation. If a child is not

12:32

fed, cuddled, and educated. It

12:34

is impossible for it to become the best

12:36

person. It can't be.

12:38

So the tell us is the

12:40

endpoint. I mean, in a sense, everybody end point is

12:42

Edith. Mhmm. Is it then for Aristotle

12:45

point at which you've achieved your

12:47

telos? For

12:48

Aristotle, in a way you achieve

12:51

your tell us sort of organically. Possibly, he

12:53

says forty seven. Actually, it's the age

12:55

that he happens to pick. He

12:57

thinks that you still got all your physical

12:59

capacities that have

13:01

accrued a very great deal of Fronus'

13:03

practical wisdom. So organically, you

13:05

may be going downhill after that. But

13:07

actually, he would also say that you

13:09

have to carry on working on yourself

13:11

psychologically and mentally intellectually till

13:13

you die. So from

13:15

the point of view of your soul, it

13:17

will be your deathbed. It's interesting this

13:19

whole way of describing our our status

13:21

ethics makes him seem almost

13:23

like a a self help guru in the

13:25

sense he's telling you how to

13:27

live your life better. I think

13:29

he would absolutely have embraced

13:31

that. He at the light seeing him gave

13:33

public lectures. He wrote all sorts

13:35

of handy accessible treatises that might

13:37

be like public blogs today.

13:39

And he says more than months

13:41

that everybody can do

13:43

this. He says, they may not be able to do it as

13:45

well as philosophers with lots of

13:47

leisure, but he said everybody,

13:49

if they do what I'm

13:51

talking about, is going to be a happier

13:53

person than if they didn't. And I think

13:55

he did have quite a mission real about

13:57

it. One

13:58

of the really attractive features of that

13:59

is that it's not one size fits all.

14:02

There's a sense in which you adapt to your own

14:04

personal circumstances. What the

14:06

basic givens are for your life, you

14:08

don't have some framework

14:10

that is off the peg for everyone.

14:12

Not at all, and the unique ness

14:14

of every individual is something that

14:16

fascinates him. In the zoological words,

14:18

he wrestled with what is it that we get,

14:20

what we would call by DNA as

14:22

a human that we've all got. The thing that make us

14:24

a human being physiologically. And

14:26

what is it that we get as a unique

14:29

individual? He talks extensively,

14:31

he's a parent, about

14:34

forcing a child who really hates

14:36

maths to do it, or

14:38

how if you make someone learn to

14:40

be a musician, play the pipes. If

14:42

they have no talent for it, they're not going to be

14:44

happy. He saw that doing

14:46

what you your good usually is the

14:48

same as what makes you happy. So

14:50

this means that in a society that can

14:52

afford it, investing huge

14:55

numbers of hours in talking to our

14:57

young about what they really

14:59

like doing will allow us to help

15:01

them identify their

15:03

own potential and go down

15:05

the right career path. And I I feel this

15:07

incredibly passionately. I tried to bring my own

15:09

children up in ways that explore

15:11

different experiences. you've

15:14

talked very enthusiastically about our

15:16

struggles ethics. Is his approach to life?

15:18

All attractive is everything about

15:20

his ethics appealing to

15:22

you. There are several ways in

15:24

which Aristotle is problematically a

15:26

man of his time. He

15:28

is from the fourth century BCE. He's

15:30

in a patriarchal society which

15:33

owns slaves. And there are times

15:35

when you just don't agree him

15:37

on his attitudes to the slave

15:39

class or to women. But

15:41

I would say about that that

15:43

he also says in his politics that

15:45

all the conditions in society must

15:47

be constantly open to

15:49

revision renewal and if necessary

15:51

actually jettisoning policies. He

15:54

actually says, in the olden days,

15:56

we all used to carry weapons

15:58

to the assembly

15:59

BItes

15:59

we learned that that wasn't a good idea

16:02

because for a cart came out and if you've

16:04

actually got a sword, so we stopped

16:06

bearing arms as citizens. He actually

16:08

says that. He also says that

16:10

we used to buy our women off

16:12

their fathers. We don't do that

16:14

anymore. He said that is inhumane. They must be given a

16:16

dowry to protect them, that they've got their own

16:18

money coming into the marriage. And

16:20

he says, all societies that

16:23

stop evolving response

16:25

to one of two things, either new data

16:27

or a good argument are doomed to be

16:29

collectively unhappy. I

16:32

hear conservatives who just work don't want

16:34

to change things because

16:36

they've always been like that. I get very

16:38

frustrated. So I think I could present him

16:40

with absolute evidence and good

16:42

arguments that women were just as

16:44

intellectually capable as men,

16:46

and indeed that slavery was country

16:48

to human nature. And I

16:50

believe that he would be totally responsive to the

16:52

data we now have. Edith who?

16:54

Thank you very much. Thanks, Nigel. I

16:56

really enjoyed it.

17:00

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