Basics of Ancient World Cosmology
Before getting into
Aristotle and his understanding of the virtuous person, it is important to
understand the cosmology of the ancient world. Many ancient cultures (including
the Babylonians, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Indians, the Greeks, the
Romans, the Chinese, and even the Hawaiians) have a very similar cosmology.
Cosmology is the term used to cover the ancient understanding of the world, which
included physics, psychology, biology, medicine, philosophy, religion and most
areas of study all together as a single study by the educated and the wise.
The world was thought to
be shaped like a big person (making the individual person a microcosm or
mini-cosmos within the larger cosmos or world). The elements, including fire,
air, earth and water stacked from lightest on the top (fire and air) to
heaviest on the bottom (earth and water). This was not only observed in nature
(fire above, winds next, then earth above water) but also in humans (the mind
is fire and visions of light, which heats and activates the breath in speech
like orders and commands, and the water in the lower regions and functions of
the body which often was identified with chaos). Order and reason were
identified with the higher elements (fire and air, mind and breath) and chaos
and desire were identified with the lower elements (earth and water, flesh and
fluid). When the stack of elements is in order the cosmos and the individual
are in order, and when the stack of elements are out of order the cosmos and
individual are out of order. The higher elements were believed to be eternal
just as the cosmos itself and Being are eternal, and the lower elements were
believed to be temporary like the individuals and beings are temporary.
One can find in religion
and philosophy in ancient cultures (including Christianity, Buddhism, Indian
Philosophy, Greek Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy) the same message repeated
again and again: reason and the mind must be placed above and in charge of
desire and the body. The eternal way of things is to be placed above the
temporary ways and wants. This gains the individual wisdom, reason and insight
into the workings of the cosmos. When the lower elements are in charge, there
is ignorance and destruction. This framework is important for understanding
each individual system of ancient thought as well as their overall similarities
and differences.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Plato’s student and the
tutor of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy, Aristotle is one of the most famous
and influential of Greek philosophers. He was primarily interested in biology
and speciation, but his works on the soul (mind, self), Logic, Ethics and
politics became more important than his works on the animal kingdom. He was a
central influence on the origins of Christianity, Islamic thought and European
thought in the middle ages. While he is sometimes called the first scientist
and the first logician, his views on these subjects expanded ancient world
cosmology and were not the birth of these subjects. Aristotle has been claimed
by the West as a founder, but the Islamic world also considers him one of their
own and he is depicted in different ways depending on who does the illustrating
(see the beautiful Islamic image in the Wikipedia article that portrays him as
a very dark skinned holy sage for an interesting counter to Renaissance
paintings).
Aristotle’s conception
of virtue and human purpose is entirely in line with ancient world cosmology.
He believes that everything has a single purpose for which it is intended. It
is as if the cosmos, Being itself, is a big mind that creates things for
particular uses, and individual beings thrive if they are serving their
purposes (ergon in the Greek, or “work”, “job”). We are reasonable to the
degree that we see the purposes of things, serve our own natural purpose and
use things in accord with their natural purposes. This is known as the
teleological view, as the study of purpose is called teleology. Notice that
teleology is very big with more traditional people today (including evangelical
Christians) but modern Philosophy and Science have broken from this view and
find it quite antiquated.
For Aristotle, having
oneself in the proper stack and order is being in accord with one’s nature, and
this means putting theory and soul/intellect on top and putting each lower
element of our minds and bodies in the service of the highest part of the mind,
the intellect, which corresponds to the highest good of the cosmos itself. Just
as the intellect should be pursued because it is the best and highest part, the
good itself should be pursued simply in itself and for no other purpose. This
is similar to Kant and Moral theory, but absolutely at odds with Mill and
consequentialism which believe that good is the end of things but would not say
that intellect should be pursued in itself without regards to the consequences
and practical ends. Aristotle does believe that the human individual will
naturally flourish and be happy if they are stacked up right and in accord with
the human purpose of intellectual activity, but this is secondary and the
byproduct of serving ones purpose.
Similarly, in matters of
politics, Aristotle believes that the city is not primarily a living
arrangement but rather for producing the elite and the virtuous. Thus, the city
is not for making people happy but having each individual do their natural job.
Just like his teacher Plato argues in his Republic, Aristotle argues that each person
must have one thing they do best and it is therefore best for them to do that
thing and that one thing only. Unfortunately, both Plato and Aristotle argued
that slaves and peasants are meant to serve the aristocracy and women are
clearly meant to serve men (Mill will strongly criticize these views, one of
the first and few outspoken critics of the subjugation of slaves and women).
Consider the example of
lying. The moralist would say that lying is wrong in and of itself, like Kant
argues that lying goes against our reason by categorical necessity. The
consequentialist would say that lying has bad consequences and results in pain
and unhappiness. The virtue theorist, however, would argue that the purpose of
the mind and human being is truth in and of itself and so lying is not in
accord with righteous and proper human nature.
Modern Virtue Theory
While Aristotle’s virtue
ethics and teleological theory were popular in the middle ages in Europe, there
was a decline during the 1700s and 1800s as science rose to prominence and
questioned teleology. Kant’s laws and Mill’s consequences became the dueling
positions of ethics. Recently, however, there has been a revival of virtue
theory that rose along with increasing individualism and criticism of conceptions
of science. If we become critical of the idea that there are simple laws that
can be known, it opens a space for a return to the idea of the virtuous person
beyond airtight moral laws or the complete calculation of consequences.
However, if we do not
believe that things have simple and singular purposes just as we have grown
critical of laws and calculation, virtue ethics has a problem: what virtues
should the virtuous person have? Often these virtues are mental: intellect,
wisdom, reason, and understanding. This has been neglectful of the physical
body (the home of the physical brain, of course). Another issue that has come
to light is the interpersonal aspect of virtue. Virtue has typically been
described as personal, but the individual is naturally social (curiously
Aristotle argues this when justifying his political views of the city and its
proper organization). Confucius, one of the great moral geniuses of the world,
has a very interpersonal view of ethics and thus we will consider his views next
under the concept of balance (such as the balance of self and other).
As a final note,
consider Jain (the ancient Indian forerunner of Buddhism) anti-merit theory:
In Hinduism and
Buddhism, karma can be positive (merit and blessing) or negative (demerit and
sin). Thus, karma can either help you up or drag you down. For Jains, karma is
ALWAYS NEGATIVE, always weight that keeps you down, always division or blockage
between you and the ALL. Thus, one tries best to avoid accumulating karma and
to destroy the karma one has already accumulated. Jains are famous for their
doctrine of the negativity of karma and the radical nonviolence that follows
from this principle. Jains wear masks to prevent insects from flying in their
mouths, sweep the ground to avoid killing insects (even though the killing
would be unintentional, it would still be an accumulation of karma), influenced
other Indian thought in promoting vegetarianism, and even don’t eat root
vegetables as it kills (up-roots) the whole plant rather than that plucked from
the plant. Thus, any accumulation of virtue or merit is distinguishing and
distancing oneself from the whole. Sharing much with ancient cosmology and
Aristotle, Jains would argue that the purpose of the individual is to join the
whole without distinction and therefore we should work to LOSE merit and karma,
not gain it.
Kant, Principles &
Morals
Kant (1724-1804) was the
European philosopher who argued for always following morals and laws
universally. His position is opposed by Mill, who believed that morals are only
in the service of getting good consequences. This is one of the biggest
oppositions of perspectives in ethics. Should we create morals and laws and
always stick to them, or should we do whatever results in the best
consequences?
As Europe rose in the
1600s and 1700s, science had begun discovering many new truths about the world.
This created an opposition between rationalists who believed that the world has
absolute laws that we can know certainly by reason and empiricists who believed
that we can only assume what we know and that the rules our reason finds could
be wrong. One of the most famous empiricists was Hume, who argued that one can
only assume that one billiard ball causes the other billiard ball to move.
Kant was "awoken
from his dogmatic slumbers" by Hume. Kant wanted to balance empiricism
with rationalism, but he comes down on the rationalist side. In all knowledge,
including ethics, Kant believed we must use our reason to figure out the universal
laws of our rational and ordered universe. Notice that Kant, as a rationalist,
trusts that the world and the mind are reasonable and that there are universal
laws out there for us to grasp.
The central example we
will consider is the moral "Do Not Lie". Kant believed that one
should never lie, and our reason can show us this with certainty. He argued
that one is seeking unconditional and universal laws in ethics (as well as
every area of human knowledge), which Kant also calls categorical imperatives, and
so one should only act in a way that one could expect everyone to always act
everywhere at any time. If everyone lied all the time, then society would
collapse. Therefore, Kant argued, it is one's duty to not lie and hold to this
moral and law.
Consider the "guy
with the butcher knife" thought experiment. Let us say you are at home,
and the doorbell rings. You answer it, and your friend runs in looking afraid.
A minute later the doorbell rings again, you answer it, and a scary guy with a
butcher knife asks you where your friend is. Kant would allow one to shut the
door and say nothing, but Kant would argue that it is wrong to lie to the scary
guy and say you don't know or that your friend took off down the street the
other way. Even though we can assume that if you lie it would improve your
friend's chances of living, Kant would argue that this would be wrong. We can
contrast this with the position of Mill and utilitarianism, which would argue
that in some circumstances the lie is the lesser of two evils and one should
behave in accord with the ends of one’s actions rather than stick rigidly to
morals and laws.
An interesting issue
here is that rationalists and positivists like Kant believe that one should
anchor ethics in good beginnings while empiricists and skeptics believe one
should anchor ethics in good ends. Kant believes that one must start with good
intentions and principles no matter the consequences, while Mill believes that
one should aim at the best consequences no matter the principles or intentions
one has. As usual, both sides agree that one should have good intentions,
principles and consequences, but they come down on opposite sides when arguing
for what is really the essence or importance of the matter.
Lecture on Mill and
Utilitarianism
The last class focused
on ethical concepts that focus on the beginning or cause of an action rather
than the end or consequence (with the possible exception of balance, which
suggests a medium of the two). Today, we focus on consequentialism and
its foremost school, Utilitarianism. Thus, I had you read the first two
chapters of John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism. In this work, Mill argues
that we should always look at our actions and ask if the consequences are
ethical (do good/make people happy and reduce harm/pain). He specifically
mentions Kant as wrong about principle and mentions virtue ethics as well,
claiming that these two conceptions ignore how we use principle and virtue for
happiness and reduction of harm by taking each as a good in itself out of
context.
Mill notes: if you call
it Utilitarianism, people think it is dry and boring.
If you call it Principle
of Happiness or Pleasure first, people think its decadent.
This is why people
called Epicurus decadent.
Brief Tradition of
Consequentialism (included in Mill’s own
text)
Epicurus (340-270 BCE)
Greek philosopher who
believed that happiness was the most important thing, and all virtues, purposes
and ends are subordinate to it. From him we get the word ‘Epicurean’
as in ‘Gourmet’, one who appreciates the finer more pleasant tastes of things.
As Mill notes, Epicurus was attacked as a glutton in his time, but he
actually had a taste for thought, civilization, and what Mill calls the ‘higher
virtues’, mental pleasures in giving to others rather than physical selfish
pleasures of drinking every night. Mill argues that Epicurus took the
long view just as he did, so his opponents are wrong to call happy principle
people “swine”.
Jeremy Bentham
(1750-1830 CE)
The first to come up
with Utilitarianism, but Mill gave it the name.
Bentham believed in max
happiness, while Mill complemented this with min pain.
Bentham also believed
that simple and common pleasures are just as good as sophisticated, saying the
common plays are just as good as fine opera.
Mill rejected this,
believing that fine society was of a higher happiness than common culture, as
mental pleasure is superior to physical, as selfless pleasures (giving to
others) makes one happier than selfish pleasures (receiving from others).
John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873 CE)
Born in London, Mill was
influenced by Ancient Greek, French, and liberal thought.
His father wrote a
history of India, and Mill was for a time involved with his father in the
British East India company, the corporation that helped Britain maintain their
hold over India. Mill’s family was friends with the Bentham family, from
whom Mill took up his consequentialist, ‘happy principle’ thought.
However, it was Mill who found the name ‘utilitarian’ in a Christian text
talking about how evil it was to fall into it rather than believe in the
principle as good, and he added the name and developed the thinking, becoming
its famous spokesman.
Mill is a central
thinker in Logic, Economics and Ethics.
His liberal social
thought is his most famous. He argued for equal rights for all, the end
to the subjugation of women and slavery.
Mill’s text:
Utilitarianism
Mill’s harm principle as
the principle to end principles, putting all focus on harmful consequences.
This is not simply ease or expediency in limited personal
vision, but the long view over time of what makes people happy and saves them
from pain.
Notice: Mill completely
agrees with Kant, we need a test for principles and an overall principle to
serve as this text. For Kant, this test is ‘can it always be followed?’, while
for Mill the test is ‘does following the principle make people happy as a
consequence?’. Both come up with a supreme principle. Thus, for
Kant, one should never lie because the principle is most important as beginning
or all good action, while for Mill, one should never lie as long as this has
good consequences because this is the most important as end of all good action.
Kant says: Always follow
principle, and you will likely be happy.
Mill says: Always follow
happiness (self and others), and you will likely be principled.
Both also come up with a
pure ‘good in itself’: Kant’s is intention (the good-in-itself beginning of an
act) and Mill’s is happiness (the good-in-itself end of an act). Both say
that it is impossible to argue for this good-in-itself, but it simply shows
itself in us.
We can see two sides to
the Utilitarian Principle, maximizing positive and minimizing negative.
Bentham says: Always act to maximize happiness. Mill agrees, but
says the MOST important thing is to minimize the negative (at least, this is
what scholars concur in reading his writings and comparing them to Bentham’s
today). Thus, we see the whole principle is ‘max happy and min pain’, but
one can lean either way on it. There are times when maximum happiness can
cause much pain (majority over the minority, which Mill speaks about vs.
Bentham), and there are times when minimum pain hurts maximum happiness
(overprotective parenting, insurance issues, have to break some eggs etc).
Mill admits that there
will be continuous problems whichever way we use the principle, but we are
evolving in a positive direction slowly and we should stick to the Utilitarian
view even when there are problems if we truly (and he thinks we do)
desire good consequences basically as human beings.
Attacks on
Utilitarianism:
Mill addresses many of
these directly in the text.
Interesting
Paradox/Problem for Utilitarianism: the Good of the Bad as Example
Mill notes this, as do
other modern writers on Utilitarianism noting as Mill does that this is a common
attack against the Utilitarian principle as ethical conception/system.
COMPARE: PBS documentaries all the time on slavery and the US overcoming
slavery as freedom and our view as Americans of the type of place South Africa
is. COMPARE: Prosecuting Attorney arguing that someone is a habitual
criminal so latest normal behavior is prime for relapse vs. Defense Attorney
pointing at the same evidence as reform and pulling one’s life together as
normal from bad upbringing and environment. Dennett uses three mile
island as ex: this caused good nuclear standards to follow, so we could say as
a utilitarian that the catastrophe was just as good as people simply coming up
with the standards without the disaster. Consider that we love villains
who go from good to bad and heroes who go from bad to good. We can very
easily see bad as good and good as bad. The attack on Utilitarianism says
that it is prone to confusing bad with good especially compared to systems of
principles or rights that are given, not based on their consequences.
Marx attacks
Utilitarianism with a common argument today: guess who are the ones to tell you
what is useful or makes us happy? Yes: the upper class, who use the lower
class as labor. Obviously, it is the task master or overseer and not the
worker who gets to say who is useful in their place and how happy the system is
overall.
Mill in fact approves of
war to advance civilization, and he approves of colonialism as improving the
uncivilized. Marx and us could criticize him for this short sightedness.
HOWEVER, Mill was a
champion against the enslavement of Black people and the second class status of
women. He was an early champion of both, so this is mixed.
He writes, in 1850 on
‘The Negro Question’ words I love:
“It is curious, withal,
that the earliest known civilization was, we have the strongest reason to
believe, a negro civilization. The original Egyptians are inferred, from
the evidence of their sculptures, to have been a negro race: it was from
negroes, therefore, that the Greeks learnt their first lessons in civilization;
and to the records and traditions of these negroes did the Greek Philosophers
to the very end of their career resort (I do not say with much fruit) as a
treasury of mysterious wisdom.”
Defense against
anti-environment challenge:
Many could say that
‘use’ and ‘happy’ can easily lead to how we abuse the environment.
More relevant today,
Mill loved deep forests and argued that wilderness was necessary in the long
view of use and happiness. We will read on wilderness for environmental
week. This poses us an interesting question: when utilitarianism asks us
to take the long view, how long a view can we take? If we pollute the
earth and ignore it for hundreds of years, our long view can still be too
short.
