Justice

One of my college visits to Baylor presented me with the opportunity to apply for a faculty scholarship. The application included a essay responding to the prompt “what question would you like to answer during your time at Baylor?” In what I still consider the essay of which I am most proud, I responded that I would seek to answer the question: “What is true justice?” For this reason I have always loved the fifth chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle offers many important contributions to the concept of justice, but one that I would like to focus on in particular is the concept of arithmetic vs. proportional justice. There must be, argues Aristotle, a balance between the amount of goods and honor that each individual in the polis receives. However, Aristotle goes beyond the simple notion that each individual should receive the same amount of these two critical goods—that being arithmetic equality. Rather, Aristotle suggests that this mundane form of equality is similarly unpalatable as some people receiving more than they deserve. A better solution is referred to as proportional justice, one where each individual receives an amount of goods and honor proportional to their inherent contributions to society. I appreciate that Aristotle recognizes this subtlety within the concept of justice. It is not just for each person to receive the same amount of honor. Rather justice mandates, in my opinion, that those who work for others receive proportionately more honor; it also mandates that those who produce more for society should receive proportionately more goods. This concept of justice lends itself to the free market system that is prevalent in today’s modernized societies and our own country. As a final note, it is imperative to consider that proportional justice requires a balance that people receive some meaningful amount of goods and honor, even if it is proportionately less than the amount received by others.

Impactual Ethics

The first time I read the Nicomachean Ethics—fall semester of my sophomore year—it changed my life. I had never really found a compelling set of ethical doctrines outside of my Christian upbringing. This is not to say that Christian ethics are incomplete, rather Aristotle provides a rational depth to my goal of living for Christ. In some ways, I am sympathetic toward Thomist viewpoints on ethics. Among the beginning of the Ethics most impactful points are Aristotle’s suggestions on how to find the mean and his function argument. Once Aristotle has established the principle of the golden mean, he suggests that one should err toward deficiency or excess based on one’s own tendencies. If I am prone to vanity, then I should err on the side of being small-souled in my search for becoming magnanimous. I find this articulation helpful in my own life (the previous example being accurate to my own tendencies.) Another example is that I work very proactively to give away as much money as I can because I fear that I may become greedy or money loving someday. I have come to gain pleasure from generosity more-and-more over time as giving has become habituated. Aristotle also very clearly states his function argument in the first couple books of the Ethics. I like to take mankind’s function a step further by saying that man’s primary, and unique, function is its ability to honor God. Thus, honoring God becomes man’s primary function and the ultimate objective in life.

Diotima's Speech and Aristotle's Ethics

I actually had already read books one and two of Aristotle’s Ethics and begun crafting my blog response when I saw the update on blackboard that I was, in fact, reading the wrong thing! However, refreshing my memory of Aristotle actually made the latter half of the Symposium a much more interesting read. I had only ever read the Ethics as a stand-alone piece; Aristotle’s reliance on Plato was clear from today’s readings. First off, in Socrates’ retelling of Diotima’s speech there is a clear assumption that living and acting well, Eudaimonia, is the only appropriate underlying good in life. Through the development of the five speeches leading up to Socrates’ speech, we have been able to trace the fact that love leads to all of the other virtues. In other words, love is the center of the living and acting well. We love, explains Diotima, things that are lovable. There is always an object of our affections. As we find this object—something beautiful—we should “[behold] beauty with the eye of the mind.” This is directly comparable to Aristotle’s life of contemplation that he describes at length in his Ethics. In fact, Another relationship between the two texts can be seen when Socrates/Diotima describes the nature of beauty. Socrates originally asserts to Diotima that if something is not fair it must necessarily be foul. Diotima refutes that assertion and claims that love can be a mean between good and evil, foul and fair. In order for a mean to exist, there must be a “gray area,” or a gradient between two opposite ideas. This clearly expresses a basis for Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean.

The five love speeches

Plato’s Symposium centrally features a series of solilioquies about the nature of love. All five of the men speaking recognize the importance of love, sing its praises, and attempt to relate it to human experiences. However, each of the men takes a unique approach to the definition. In the end, the men all build upon one another’s words do touch on many of the components of love in ancient Greece. The first speech is given by Phaedrus who immediately relates love to a god. He says that love is among the first of the gods and, consequently, not as much is known of his history. However, the god of love can still inspire and be seen in the lover/beloved relationship. Speaking next, Pausanias distinguishes between two types of love: that of Aphrodite and that of Dione. Where Phaedrus only recognized the love from the soul—that of Aphrodite—a bodily love is also present in human beings. Eryximachus speaks third. He talks about the inseparable nature of the two types of love and how they are often applied to the same objects, music for example. Aristophanes carries this concept even further saying that we (humans) are only half of what we were created to be and that love seeks to reunite us with our other halves. Although the love of Aphrodite is more important in this process, both loves are necessary. In this way, Aristophanes expands the definition to include love as an end for mankind. Finally, Agathon builds off of all four of the previous speeches. He says that if love is a bimodal and can serve as an end then it is something we should seek to praise before we think of ourselves. For the man who has mastered love, says Agathon, will be happy. Furthermore, he suggests that all of the other virtues flow from love—that love is the most central virtue.

A Matrix Reloaded and Philosophy

The Matrix Reloaded Blog A few weeks back the movie The Matrix Reloaded came up during our class discussion of Democritus. The opportunity was given to watch the movie and write a blog post about it. I actually found it to be a very interesting movie—ill defined fighting parameters and decade-old special effects aside. There were some clear tie-ins to Democritus, but also some very interesting revalations from a character called the Oracle on free will. In the matrix, people’s senses grossly deceive them as to the underlying nature of reality. They feel that they are living in the late 90’s in America, whereas they are really being fed out of test tubes years and years later. Consistent with Democritus, sensory perception gives very little indication of the true state of reality. However, the movie allows the person to step quite readily outside of the matrix (take the blue pill style). I do not feel that Democritus saw in humans such ability. Not only can humans come outside and know the matrix, but near the end of this second movie Neo, the protagonist, finds the source of the matrix. In other words he finds the fundamental nature of the world. I find this also inconsistent the Democritus. At one point, a character called the oracle tells the main character that she knows a decision that he will make. Nero responds with an answer that effectively asks if he is then making a decision at all. She responds that he has already made the decision. This leads to a number of interesting observations. One, this could lead to a system where everyone truly makes all decisions before they play out. Thus they have really made a decision and someone—namely God—could still know what they have chosen before they act out that decision. Also, the oracle says that the point of living out the decision is to find out why you made that decision, not to make the decision itself. This could lend an interesting answer to a free-will advocate.

Protagoras Reading II Taylor Hoogendoorn 3.6.14 Plato’s Protagoras pits Socrates against the sophist Protagoras in a series of debates. Today’s reading dealt with the debate over whether or not virtue can be taught, but resolved itself into a bit of a meta-analysis on how arguments should be structured. Protagoras initially asserts that one of the primary points of value in the sophists’ work is their ability to teach virtue and citizenship throughout their work. Socrates disagrees. He winds Protagoras through an argument in which Socrates draws distinctions and contradictions between the fulfillments of a number of different virtues in an effort to make them appear un-teachable. In my prior coursework, I have found virtues to not be strictly teachable. However, the best way to learn virtue is to replicate the actions of another person. So although there is no “teaching” required for a student to become virtuous, the teacher can serve as an example of virtuous living. Additionally, I agree with Protagoras’ argument that one can provide a series of punishments and incentives that push a person toward a virtuous life. I, again, would not consider this to be a strict form of teaching, as there is no direct knowledge being conferred, but it is certainly a way that one person can make another a better, more virtuous citizen. At the end of the discussion, Socrates becomes frustrated with how long Protagoras’ arguments have become. He says that one must speak louder when talking to a deaf man, so one must also speak in shorter speeches to a forgetful man. The ultimate point, which I espouse, is that one has to adapt the form of one’s arguments to the audience.