An issue for reflection HOW CAN I BE A BETTER PERSON?
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I want to be a better person.
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What you mean by “a better person”?
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What’s there to explain? There is a better car, and a better pen, and a better swimmer, and a better driver. The same with a “better person.”
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But is it really the same? A better car functions better for the purpose of driving, and a better pen functions better for writing. A better swimmer or better driver functions better for swimming, or for safe driving.
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So a better person functions better for… for something, I guess.
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Really? Is it a matter of function? Is a better person a better instrument?
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Well, perhaps not. The words are the same, but the meaning is different. You philosophers like to complicate everything!
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Human existence is complex.
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Let me think. I guess that a better person has certain personality traits that lead to better behaviors. But what kind of personality traits?
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Whatever they are, let’s call them “virtues.” So our question is: What are the characteristics that make you a better person? What, in other words, should count as virtues?
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December Week 1 quotation
ARISTOTLE
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Moral Virtue is the Middle Way Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) was one of the most important philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. He was born in Macedonia, was a pupil of Plato, and later was a tutor of Alexander the Great. His writings are systematic, covering most aspects of reality and life. They exerted a tremendous influence on the history of Western philosophy. The following text is adapted from Book 2 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (350 B.C.E). In this classical text, Aristotle discusses moral virtues (as opposed to intellectual virtues, like wisdom, which he discusses elsewhere). Although, as he says, there are no exact rules for ethics and behavior, nevertheless a general guideline can be given: A virtue is a tendency to feel or act in the middle between too extremes. Too much or too little do not come from virtue. From Book II, Chapter 2 The first point to notice is that in the matters we are now considering, both too little and too much would be fatal. It is like in questions of health and strength. […] Too much and too little gymnastic exercising is fatal to strength. Similarly, too much or too little food or drink is fatal to health, whereas an appropriate amount produces it and increases it and preserves it. It is the same with temperance, courage, and other virtues. A person who runs away from everything and is afraid of everything and faces nothing becomes a coward. A person who is not afraid of anything and is ready to face anything becomes reckless. Similarly, a person who enjoys every pleasure and avoids none becomes self-indulgent, while a person who avoids every pleasure becomes insensible. So temperance and courage are destroyed by too much or too little, and they are preserved by the mean [middle]. From Chapter 4 Actions are according to virtue not simply because they have in themselves a certain character. In addition, the person who does them must be in a certain condition: First, he must know what he is doing. Second, he must do it out of choice and choose it for its own sakes. And third, he must do it as part of his own stable and unchangeable character. […] Thus, actions are called just and temperate when they are what the just or the temperate person would do. And a just and temperate person is not just somebody who does those acts, but somebody who does them in the just and temperate spirit. It is nicely said that a just person becomes just by doing what is just, and a temperate person becomes temperate by doing what is temperate. Without this, he would not have a chance to become good.
But most people, instead of acting, take refuge in theorizing. They imagine that they are philosophers, and that philosophy will make them virtuous. In fact, they behave like people who listen carefully to their doctors, but never do anything that their doctors tell them to do. From Chapter 5 Virtue aims at the mean. Thus, it is possible to go too far, or not far enough, in fear, pride, desire, anger, pity, and pleasure and pain in general. And the excess and deficiency are similarly wrong. But to feel those emotions at the right times, for the right objects, towards the right persons, for the right motives, and in the right manner, is the mean of the best good, which signifies virtue. Similarly, in acts, too, there may be excess, deficiency, or the mean. Virtue is concerned both with emotions and actions. But it is possible to go wrong in many different ways, because evil is by nature infinite (as the Pythagoreans said), but good is finite, and there is only one possible way of going right. So the first is easy, and the second is difficult. It is easy to miss the mark, but difficult to hit it.
From Chapter 9 This is why it is so hard to be good. Because it is always hard to find the middle in everything […] Anybody can get angry – that is easy – and anybody can give or spend money. But to give it to the right person, to give the right amount, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not what anybody can do, and it is not easy. This is why goodness is rare and praiseworthy and noble. So we must consider the things which easily carry us away. Because some of us tend to one thing, some to another thing, and this will be recognizable from the pleasure and the pain we feel. We must drag ourselves away towards the opposite extreme. Because by pulling ourselves as far as possible from what is wrong, we will arrive at the mean, as we do when we pull a crooked stick straight.
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December Week 2 quotation
JOHN DEWEY
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Giving my entire self to the social good John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American thinker who is known especially for his work in philosophy of education. He grew up in Vermont, and later received his doctorate at John Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland). He taught philosophy at the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Columbia University, and elsewhere. He published hundreds of articles and dozens of books on a variety of topics – society, education, psychology, art, ethics, journalism, religion, logic, science, epistemology, etc. His approach to society revolves around the values of democracy, freedom, and rational thought. In philosophy of education he developed the so-called progressive (or liberal) education, whose influence on modern education has been considerable. He was also a major pioneer of pragmatism – a philosophical approach that developed in 19th century America, which regards knowledge as a pragmatic tool for dealing with the world (as opposed to an abstract representation of reality). He died at the age of 92. The following text is adapted (some sentences simplified) from Dewey’s book Ethics (1908). For Dewey, virtues are tools that enable us to promote the good of society. They require us to invest in them our entire self.
Several points are worth noting here. First, Dewey rejects an individualist understanding of ethics: We cannot appreciate the virtues of an isolated person. Goodness is always in relation to the good of society – it is what helps society flourish. Second, for this reason ethical values (such as virtues) are not abstract or absolute principles. They depend on the specific conditions of society, and they may change when society changes. Third, this is part of Dewey’s general “pragmatist” philosophy. For pragmatism, to say that ideas and values are right or wrong is to say that they are (or are not) useful tools for the specific goals that we now have. Fourth, however, although Dewey gives a non-traditional interpretation of the meaning of virtues, nevertheless he wants to show that the traditional “cardinal virtues” are consistent with his pragmatist approach. From Part II, chapter 19: The Virtues The burden is on the individual to maintain and extend the values which make life reasonable and good. The value of science, of art, of industry, of relationship of man and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, friend and friend, citizen and State – these values exist only if there are people who are consistently interested in such goods. Therefore, any character trait which promotes these goods is esteemed – it is given positive value. Any personal disposition which has a contrary tendency is condemned – it has negative value. The habits of character which preserve and spread the rational or common good are “virtues.” The traits of character which have the opposite effect are “vices.” […] Every natural capacity, every talent or ability, whether of the inquiring mind, of gentle affection or of executive skill, becomes a virtue when it supports or extends the fabric of social values. And when it is not utilized in this way, it becomes, if not a vice then at least delinquency. […] It follows that the meaning or content of virtues changes from time to time. […] When institutions and customs change and natural abilities are differently stimulated and evoked, goals change, and habits of character are valued differently […] No social group could be maintained without patriotism and chastity, but the actual meaning of chastity and patriotism is very different in contemporary society from what it was in savage tribes, or from what we may expect it to be five hundred years from now. Courage in one society may consist almost entirely in willingness to face physical danger and death in devotion to the community. In another society, it may be willingness to support an unpopular cause in the face of ridicule.
[…] Any virtue has certain main traits, and this will help us review and summarize our analysis of the moral life: I. The Interest Must be Entire or Whole-hearted: The whole self, without division or reservation, must go out into the proposed goal and find satisfaction in it. Virtue is integrity; vice is duplicity. Goodness is straight, right; badness is crooked, indirect. Interest that is incomplete is not interest, but indifference and disregard. This totality of interest we call affection, love; and love is the fulfillment of the law. A grudging virtue is almost like no virtue at all. Complete enthusiasm even for a bad cause arouses admiration, while half-heartedness in any direction is always despised as meaning lack of character. Surrendering oneself, giving one’s entire self, is essential to identifying oneself with a goal. […] Keeping in mind that we are not attempting to classify various acts or habits, but only to indicate traits that are essential to all morality, we have the “cardinal virtues” of moral theory. Any habit or attitude of character that is whole-hearted, that shows complete interest, involves justice and love. When it is persistently active, it is courage, fortitude, or vigor. When it is unmixed and single, it is temperance (in its classic sense). And since no habitual interest can be integral, enduring, or sincere, unless it is reasonable […] therefore interest in the good is also wisdom or conscientiousness. It is interest in the discovery of the true good of the situation. Without this interest, all our interest is likely to be perverted and misleading, something to regret.
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December Week 3 quotation
SHAFTESBURY
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The joy of virtues Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), was a relatively important English philosopher, known to his contemporaries as a remarkably kind and amiable man of pure mind and high character. As a teenager of a noble family, he was interested in classical education as well as in politics. In his twenties he became a parliament member, but left his position because of poor health, especially asthma. In his late thirties he moved to the Netherlands, and in the free intellectual atmosphere there he interacted with prominent thinkers. There he wrote his book Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit which is quoted below. He returned to England and became the Third Earl of Shaftesbury after his father’s death, and once again became involved in politics. He then fell ill with consumption and started spending most of his time reading and writing. He moved to Italy because of the warmer climate, where he died at the age of 42. His only son, the Fourth Earl of Shaftesbury, wrote about his father’s life. The following text is adapted (some sentences simplified) from Shaftesbury’s book Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit (1699). Here Shaftesbury tries to show that virtue is not opposed to self-interest. On the contrary, being virtuous is in your best interest, because it brings you the greatest joy possible. Note, however, that in the first paragraph below Shaftesbury defines virtue in terms of relationships to others. This means that the joy of virtue is really the joy of benevolence and love towards your fellow human beings.
From Book 2, Part 1, Section 1: "The obligation to virtue" We have found that in order to deserve the name “good” or “virtuous,” a person must have all his inclinations and affections, all his tendencies and temper, agreeing with the good of the group to which he belongs. To be motivated in this way, and to have one’s affection right and whole, not only towards oneself but towards society and the public – this is rectitude, integrity, or virtue. And to lack any of these, or to have their opposites, is depravity, corruption, and vice. […] This we know for certain, that all social love, friendship, gratitude, or whatever else is of this generous kind, […] draws us out of ourselves, and makes us disregard our own convenience and safety. So according to a known way of reasoning, what is social in us should be abolished. Thus, kindness of every sort, indulgence, tenderness, compassion, and in short – all natural affection, should be suppressed, and the stupidity and weakness of nature must be resisted and overcome. […] Now I will try to demonstrate that this is in reality false. That to be inclined toward the public interest and toward one’s own interest is not only consistent, but inseparable. And that moral virtue must be the advantage of every person.
From Part 2, Book 1, Section 1: "The natural affections" To explain how much the natural affections are the highest pleasures and enjoyments – I think that there is little need to prove this to any human who has ever known the condition of the mind under a lively affection of love, gratitude, generosity, pity, assistance, or whatever else is of a social or friendly sort. Anybody who has little knowledge of human nature knows what pleasure the mind feels when it is touched in this generous way. The difference we find between solitude and company, between a common company and company of friends, the fact that almost all our pleasures involve mutual converse, and the dependence of these pleasures on society either present or imagined – all these are sufficient proofs. How much the social pleasures are superior to any other pleasure may be known by visible examples and effects. The outward features, the marks and signs which accompany this sort of joy, express a more intense, clear, and undisturbed pleasure than the pleasures that come with the satisfaction of thirst, hunger, and other strong appetites. […] Whoever judges both kinds of pleasure will always give the preference to the former. […] But the immoral person can by no means be regarded a good judge of social pleasure, to which he is a mere stranger by his nature. […] From all this we may easily conclude how much our happiness depends on natural and good affection. Because if the main happiness comes from the mental pleasures which we have described, and they are based on natural affection, it follows: That to have the natural affections is to have the main means and power of self-enjoyment, the highest possession and happiness in life. From the "Conclusion" Thus […] virtue, which is the main and nicest of the excellences and beauties, which is the basis and ornament of human affairs, which sustains communities, maintains union, friendship, and correspondence among people, with which countries and families flourish and are happy, and without which everything beautiful, great, worthy, must perish and go to ruin – that single quality, so beneficial to all society, and to humankind in general, is both a happiness and a good for every person. Through it alone human beings can be happy, and without it they must be miserable. And thus, virtue is the good for everyone, and vice is the ill of everyone.
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December Week 4 quotation
BLAISE PASCAL
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Too much virtue is bad for you Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a major French philosopher and an important scientist and mathematician. His interest in science and mathematics started in childhood. He later contributed to the foundation of Probability Theory and to the principles of hydraulics, conducted important scientific experiments, and made several inventions in areas such as hydraulics, mechanics, and the phenomenon of vacuum. In 1654, on November 23 between 10:30 and 12:30 at night, he had a deep religious experience, which he mentioned in his notebook but did not describe. This influenced him deeply and strengthened his religion convictions. He then wrote his important philosophical and religious texts, but also continued his scientific work. He died at the age of 39 from an unknown illness. The following passages are adapted from Pascal’s important book Pensées, which is a collection of fragments, many of them about religious topics. Since he never finished it, it is unclear how he intended to put them together into a book. It was published after his death in the year 1670. In the selected fragments below, Pascal makes the surprising claim that too much virtue is not good, and may even be impossible. Any virtue needs to be balanced with other virtues, and even with vices. This view is consistent with Pascal's negative opinion about human nature. His book gives the impression that humans are weak, confused, subject to temptations and distractions, dishonest with themselves. No wonder that perfection is not an option for most of us.
352 The strength of a person’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.
353 I do not admire the excess of a virtue such as courage, except if I see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in the case of Epaminondas [a Greek general and politician from Thebes, 4th century BC] who had the greatest courage and the greatest kindness. Otherwise it does not rise, it falls. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but by touching both extremes at once, and filling all the space in between. But perhaps this is only a sudden movement of the soul from one extreme to the other extreme, even though it is in fact always at one point only. Let it be so, but at least this indicates the soul’s agility, if not its greatness. 354 A person’s nature is not always to advance. It has its advances and its retreats. Fever has its cold times and hot times; and the cold proves, just like the hot, the greatness of the fire of fever. The discoveries of men from age to age turn out the same. The kindness and the malice of the world are generally the same. Plerumque gratae principibus vices. [“Changes almost always please the great,” Horace, Odes.]
355 Eloquence that is continuous makes you tired. Princes and kings sometimes play. They are not always on their thrones. They get tired there. Greatness must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm. Nature acts by progress itus et reditus [going and returning]. It goes and returns, then advances further, then twice as much backwards, then more forward than ever, etc. The tide of the sea behaves in the same manner; and so apparently does the sun in its course.
357 When we follow virtues to their extremes on either side, vices appear, and they appear there automatically, in their automatic journey towards the infinitely little. And vices appear in a crowd towards the infinitely great, so that we lose ourselves in them, and no longer see virtues. We find fault with perfection itself.
358 A human being is neither an angel nor a brute, and unfortunately a person who acts the angel acts the brute.
359 We do not sustain ourselves in virtue by our own strength, but by balancing two opposed vices, just as we remain upright between two contrary winds. Remove one of the vices, and we fall into the other.
360 What the Stoics propose is so difficult and foolish! The Stoics assert that all those who are not at the high degree of wisdom are foolish and vicious to an equal degree, like those who are two inches under water. [The Stoics say that it does not matter if you are two inches under water or two meters under water – in both cases you drown.] 502 The righteous man takes for himself nothing of the world, nor the admiration of the world, but only for his passions, which he uses as their master, saying to the one, "Go," and to another, "Come." The passions that are subdued like this are virtues. […] We must employ them like slaves, give them their food, and prevent the soul from taking any of it. Because when they become masters, they are vices; and they give their food to the soul, and the soul nourishes itself upon it, and is poisoned.
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December Week 5 quotation
BENEDICT DE SPINOZA
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Virtue is the power to be your rational self Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677) was an important Jewish Dutch philosopher. His family escaped from Portugal after its Jews were expelled in 1498, and Spinoza’s father (who had arrived as a child) became active in the Jewish community of Amsterdam, where Spinoza was born. He received Jewish education, but left it to work in the family’s business. After reading books of free thinkers, such as Descartes, he gradually broke away from traditional Judaism and started to doubt the validity of the Bible. He began to devote himself to the study of philosophy, until in 1656, when he was 23 years old, the Jewish community excommunicated him for his heretic opinions. In the years that followed he lived in relative isolation, wrote several essays, as well as his major book Ethics, and corresponded with important thinkers such as Leibnitz. He earned his living by making optical lenses and instruments. Although he was offered a position at the University of Heidelberg he refused, preferring to continue his quiet, solitary life. He died at the age of 44 from a lung disease, apparently as a result breathing glass dust. The following passages are taken from Part 4 of Spinoza’s important book Ethics (1677). This ambitious work presents an entire system of metaphysics, ethics, and psychology, written like a mathematical system – like a perfect logical system made of axioms, proofs, and propositions. The world is seen here as a deterministic system where everything happens by necessity, without chance or freedom. Even God is not outside this system – “God is nature.” Humans, too, are part of this deterministic reality, and all our actions come from necessary causes. Yet, you can be free in a limited sense, in the sense that your actions may come from causes that are inside you. In other words, you are free if your actions come from your inner essence – which is your rational power of understanding – as opposed to emotions, ignorance, etc. This is the ideal to which humans should aspire: to develop the ability to act from our inner rational nature. This is therefore virtue, which allows us to have a rational understanding of reality, and therefore of God. Rational understanding tells us to care for our own rational being, but this also implies caring for the rational being of others.
DEFINITION 8: By virtue and power I mean the same thing. In other words, virtue (in relation to a person) is a person’s nature or essence, to the extent that he has the power to do things, and this power can be understood only by the laws of his own nature. Note to Proposition 18: […] Since reason does not demand anything that is contrary to nature, reason demands that every person should love himself, and that he should seek what is useful to him, and should desire everything that really brings him to greater perfection, and should try (each one for himself) to preserve his own being as much as he can. This is necessarily true just as it is necessarily true that a whole is greater than its part. Again, since virtue is nothing other than action according to the laws of one's own nature, and since everybody who attempts to preserve his own being does so according to the laws of his own nature, it follows: First, that the foundation of virtue is the attempt to preserve one's own being, and that happiness consists of a person’s power to preserve his own being. Second, that virtue should be desired for its own sake, and that there is nothing more excellent or more useful to us, which could be our reason to desire virtue.
PROPOSITION 20. The more a person is trying and is able to seek what is useful to him – in other words, to preserve his own being – the more virtue he has. And conversely, the more a person neglects to seek what is useful to him – that is, to preserve his own being – the more power he lacks.
PROPOSITION 23: A person, if he is determined to act in a certain way because of inadequate ideas, cannot absolutely be described as acting in obedience to virtue. He can be described this way only if he is determined to act because he understands.
PROPOSITION 24: To act absolutely in obedience to virtue is the same thing as to act, to live, or to preserve one's being (these three terms are identical in meaning) according to dictates of reason, while seeking what is useful to oneself. Proof: To act absolutely in obedience to virtue is nothing other than to act according to the laws of one's own nature. But we only act as far as we understand. Therefore, to act in obedience to virtue is nothing other than to act, to live, or to preserve our being in obedience to reason, and to do this on the basis of seeking what is useful for us. Q.E.D.
PROPOSITION 37: The good which every person who seeks virtue desires for himself, he will also desire for other people […] Another Proof: The good which a person desires for himself, and which he loves, he will love more constantly if he sees that others love it too. He will therefore try that others would love it too. And since this good is common to everybody and everybody can rejoice in it, he will try, for the same reason, to make everybody rejoice in it, and he will do so in proportion to his own degree of joy.
PROPOSITION 56: Extreme pride or humiliation indicates extreme sickness of spirit. Proof: The first foundation of virtue is self-preservation under the guidance of reason. Therefore, somebody who is ignorant of himself is ignorant of the foundation of all virtues, and consequently of all virtues. Again, to act virtuously is just to act under the guidance of reason. Now, somebody who acts under the guidance of reason must necessarily know that this is how he acts. Therefore, somebody who is extremely ignorant of himself, and consequently of all the virtues, acts very little in obedience to virtue. In other words, he is very sick of spirit. Thus, extreme pride or humiliation indicates extreme sickness of spirit. Q.E.D.
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