Individual Virtues (or Happy Retorts)

It's possible that in my last post I may have misunderstood what Aristotle meant by happiness and man's relation to it, that my assertion of happiness being the ultimate goal as an impossibility is the foolish notion of a child that wanders into the middle of a movie. It's possible that I'm out of my element. Possible, but probably not. I'll try not to make this as dry as possible, but just in case grab a glass a milk if you have trouble choking this down.

Yes, it's true, we all want to be happy. Happiness is preferable to misery hands down and this pepsi challenge doesn't need a blind taste test to the note the difference between taffy and vomit. But as the Ultimate End? Aristotle described happiness in two distinct ways. What it is to be happy he references in a conversation between Solon and Croesus the king of Lydia, where C. tries to eke out a fished compliment that he, king, is the happiest man alive. Sucker.

'Croesus', replied the other, 'I see that You are wonderfully rich and are the lord of many nations, but as for your question, I have no answer to give until I hear that you have closed your life happily. For assuredly he who possesses great store of riches is no nearer happiness than he who has enough for his daily needs. For many of the wealthiest men have been unfavoured of fortune, and many whose means were moderate have had excellent luck. The wealthy man, it is true, is better able to content his desires, and bear up against sudden calamity. The man of moderate means has less ability to withstand these evils, from which, however, his good luck may keep him clear. If so, he enjoys all these following blessings: he is whole of limb, a stranger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children, and comely to look upon. If in addition to all this, he ends his life well, he is truly the man who may rightly be termed happy. Call him, however, until he die, not happy but fortunate.'

He had to see that shit coming. Never fish for compliments from wise men. They live to knock people down a peg. But the point is driven home: You can't be considered happy until you're dead. Happiness is the ultimate goal because for Aristotle it's the introspective reflection of one's entire life. He even goes so far to say at one point that children cannot be happy 'cause they haven't lived long enough. Old man logic at it's finest. This was my contention: that's bullshit.

He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life...But we must add 'in a complete life.' For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Um, no. It's completely possible for an individual to experience moments of happiness, to feel the swell in ones chest, like a sugar high, when the girl you love touches your face, or when chaos ensues and you smile because you know exactly what needs to be done, or when the silence of sunlight makes you think of nothing but the warmth on your face. You don't need to be dead to be happy because it's an emotion that is inspired, not a goal to be reached. Yes, you should be happy when you think back upon your life, but only because you think back upon times of happiness that have already happened. To accept happiness as an end goal, a goal that is truly self-sufficient, is to be as good as dead, without ambition, without any further goals. Conversely, by this line of thought, to be alive, to have goals, is to never be happy.

But this begs the question: How does one become happy? This is the more interesting point, and the reason I loved the Ethics: his ideas of virtue and the volition of man.

Aristotle describes happiness a second way, the way of becoming happy as opposed to his crappy way of being happy. By denying his way of being it would seem that happiness is on a sliding scale and that it's different for each person, that it's not solid and therefore unknowable to reason. Not so, friend, not so. His way of becoming speaks of a manner of living, of following the path of complete virtue, and acting in accordance of virtue.

Again, we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues are modes of choice or involve choice.

For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are neither called good nor bad, nor praised nor blamed, for the simple capacity of feeling the passions; again, we have the faculties by nature, but we are not made good or bad by nature; we have spoken of this before. If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor faculties, all that remains is that they should be states of character.

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

It's here that he gets down to the nitty gritty of human nature: it is choice that defines us. We as humans spend our entire lives trying to figure out who we are, how we relate to where we are, and what the fuck is going on. We identify. It is this process of identification that consumes our lives as we make choice after choice trying to assert ourselves into the world and evaluate if that choice is the right one for us.

He gets it wrong by making the leap that we choose virtues for the sake of happiness, and not that happiness may be a byproduct of being virtuous. Byproduct. What is honor, pleasure, reason? What is virtue if not the things we as individuals determine to be honorable, pleasing and reasonable. Our end goal is to define these things, these virtues, by defining our choices in relation to the world around us. Our ultimate goal is to define ourselves. I can die a happy man if I can look back upon my life and know that I lived to the best of my ability to hold to the standards of my individual nature. The same holds true while I'm still living and looking back. This is the equalizer of kings and common: individuality.

I loved the ethics on this point because his description of virtue was spot on. The idea of happiness as an end goal was such a small point of contention and seemed more as a setup for his views of virtue and individual accountability. The happiness thing was just a lead in to end the Ethics with "Philosophers are the happiest people alive by definition and should be kings. Period." Which is hilarious, but wrong.

Now he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e. reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy.

So funny. Gotta love it. But seriously, the best way to be happy, today, tomorrow, and the last day, is to know yourself. Happiness will follow. With every action, every choice, we learn more about ourselves to refine those choices to ultimately point to the idea that there is no greater goal than self-discovery. Now, how one goes about that is another question.

Let us make a beginning of our discussion.