Aristotle's view of happiness seems to be entirely dependent upon the belief of a non-rational and a rational soul; he defines a human strictly by the fact that our soul allows for reason and thought, and we discussed in class that happiness is the best way do exercise the soul. Because of this, a Christian belief of the soul which doesn't allow for a soul to die--as it transforms to the afterlife--wouldn't support this viewpoint of a soul being able to change and to mutate in such a way as to support happiness. Thus if we don't belief that a soul can change and that it is deeply connected to happiness, then we don't have similar views as Aristotle. In his terms, happiness is a perfection, and from a Christian standpoint of the soul, at least, perfection is not in happiness, but arguably a dedication to God because of the end result of heaven. Aristotle's lack of Christian thought in his ideology makes his theory disconnect with the views of Christian souls and thus can be said to create a different concept of happiness. --Amanda Eliades
I agree with Amanda. I think that Aristotle’s view of happiness is entirely dependent on his other observations about the different levels of the soul. I think that the certain things to make you happy, and do not just give you a short lived pleasure. Aristotle thinks that happiness can only be achieved, or realized that it is achieved, until the end of life. I think that his ideas make sense, and that people should be living for the virtues. However, I think that in doing so people would not appreciate things in life that make you happy. According to Aristotle, these small things in life would not make you truly happy, based on his views on the souls.
Aristotle believes that the soul dies with every human at their time of death, the non-rational and rational parts. Since I and other humans believe the soul to be a Christian soul, that is the soul is the single object that holds our identity, I believe that we can not have the same concept of happiness that Aristotle has. The concept of the soul is something that is believed and not seen, similar to the way that we believe in happiness and very rarely see it. We physically cannot see happiness; yes we see people smiling and hear people laughing but that sometimes does not represent happiness. We have to categorize happiness in some way, and laughter and smiling fall into the category. But with the amount of fake laughter and the actual thoughts behind the fake smiles we see everyday, it is hard to believe we can have a similar concept of happiness to Aristotle.
I agree with the comments above. The majority of people, along with myself, believe the soul to be Christian, therefore I believe it continues after death. Therefore, it would support the claim that one can be happy before one's death because the soul never dies and doesn't require that reflection of life to determine if we are truly happy. There are multiple examples of things that make all of us happy during our lives and continue to make us happy until we die. I characterize this as true happiness rather than waiting until the end of one's physical life to determine happiness. If we wait until the end of life, we will observe that we weren't truly happy because we were waiting all the time instead of working to become happy. Based off these concepts of the workings of the soul, it is difficult to have the same concept of happiness as Aristotle. -PJ Succi
Amanda, I think you've stated pretty well one part of this account. But the other would be to see if Aristotle's picture corresponds to our life (although it wouldn't with the Christian soul, admittedly (p.p.s, see Aquinas for a defense of Aristotle on these issues)). As I tried to indicate in class, we have the nutritive soul, we have a desiring part, we have a spirited part, and we have a rational part. We may call them "soul" or something else, but the constitution of the "psychic life" of the person is similar, if not the same. Hannah, I wonder if Aristotle would disagree about small things, because it seems to me he would say that they are actually part of what happiness is.
In response to Hannah's comment on the small things that constitute happiness, I would say that it depends how you define "small things." I think that in one sense, Aristotle would agree that the little things in life do help generate man's overall happiness; however, these little things would have to be actions that stem from the Rational Soul, and not the Irrational Soul. He would be referring to the satisfaction that comes from doing small, virtuous acts (for example: getting a good grade on a test that you studied all week for). In contrast, I think that many people would agree that happiness from the little things can definitely stem from the irrational part of the soul, as well. For example, some of the best times I had my freshmen year of college was when I was acting completely irrationally; my friends and I would sometimes pull all nighters for no reason at all except to hang out and talk, just because we could. Of course, in the morning we always regretted these decisions, but in the long run, this irrationality is what bonded us as friends and helped create happy memories. Overall, Aristotle seems to downplay the importance of the Irrational Soul in respect to one's happiness, whereas I am more inclined to think that the Irrational Soul plays just as crucial of a role as the Rational Soul; the former allows one to better appreciate the latter. To answer the question at hand, I think that this standpoint on the two souls creates an entirely different concept of happiness, one which better acknowledges the fact that impulses and desires actually are a part of natural, human happiness (even if they aren’t always necessarily virtuous).
In class last Friday we talked a lot about the "natural" capacities of humans - and they all seemed to be exemplified in a physical sense (such as Prof. Vaught's controversial claim that we are not natural runners). This got me thinking about what natural capacities we have mentally rather than physically, and how that relates to our happiness.
Last year I took a course called Science and Religion, and essentially the course took a direction that said religious thinking is natural, or a kind of default state of human beings to accept the presence of some kind of "God". This seems to imply that humans are naturally guided by some moral code or sense of greater good - perhaps related to the highest achievement of happiness.
This sort of loops back around with our readings on Machievelli and contrasting his outtake on human cruelty as a norm with Aristotle's view of a virtuous (good) being as a norm. What do others think some of our natural capacities are? To have reason? Logic? Identity with others?
Lastly, I was also thinking about a comment that was made in class with regard to when we are kind to one another... Ex. Holding the door doesn't inconvenience us as much as waiting in traffic behind someone who is particularly slow. Aristotle claims, "we must take someone's pleasure or pain following on his actions to be a sign of his state". This "state" implies something about your character, which I think we all hope would be considered to be virtuous and moral. However, if we only do things to be thanked or recognized or if they are convenient for us, are we really moral and good? Aristotle seems to think not.
It seems even more challenging to do the right thing in this sense. It is not so simple as checking off good deeds from some sort of list that simply make us feel accomplished or self-righteous. We actually have to ENJOY it and "find pleasure in the right things" (pg. 21).
Aristotle's view of happiness seems to be entirely dependent upon the belief of a non-rational and a rational soul; he defines a human strictly by the fact that our soul allows for reason and thought, and we discussed in class that happiness is the best way do exercise the soul. Because of this, a Christian belief of the soul which doesn't allow for a soul to die--as it transforms to the afterlife--wouldn't support this viewpoint of a soul being able to change and to mutate in such a way as to support happiness. Thus if we don't belief that a soul can change and that it is deeply connected to happiness, then we don't have similar views as Aristotle. In his terms, happiness is a perfection, and from a Christian standpoint of the soul, at least, perfection is not in happiness, but arguably a dedication to God because of the end result of heaven. Aristotle's lack of Christian thought in his ideology makes his theory disconnect with the views of Christian souls and thus can be said to create a different concept of happiness.
ReplyDelete--Amanda Eliades
I agree with Amanda. I think that Aristotle’s view of happiness is entirely dependent on his other observations about the different levels of the soul. I think that the certain things to make you happy, and do not just give you a short lived pleasure. Aristotle thinks that happiness can only be achieved, or realized that it is achieved, until the end of life. I think that his ideas make sense, and that people should be living for the virtues. However, I think that in doing so people would not appreciate things in life that make you happy. According to Aristotle, these small things in life would not make you truly happy, based on his views on the souls.
ReplyDeleteAristotle believes that the soul dies with every human at their time of death, the non-rational and rational parts. Since I and other humans believe the soul to be a Christian soul, that is the soul is the single object that holds our identity, I believe that we can not have the same concept of happiness that Aristotle has. The concept of the soul is something that is believed and not seen, similar to the way that we believe in happiness and very rarely see it. We physically cannot see happiness; yes we see people smiling and hear people laughing but that sometimes does not represent happiness. We have to categorize happiness in some way, and laughter and smiling fall into the category. But with the amount of fake laughter and the actual thoughts behind the fake smiles we see everyday, it is hard to believe we can have a similar concept of happiness to Aristotle.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comments above. The majority of people, along with myself, believe the soul to be Christian, therefore I believe it continues after death. Therefore, it would support the claim that one can be happy before one's death because the soul never dies and doesn't require that reflection of life to determine if we are truly happy. There are multiple examples of things that make all of us happy during our lives and continue to make us happy until we die. I characterize this as true happiness rather than waiting until the end of one's physical life to determine happiness. If we wait until the end of life, we will observe that we weren't truly happy because we were waiting all the time instead of working to become happy. Based off these concepts of the workings of the soul, it is difficult to have the same concept of happiness as Aristotle.
ReplyDelete-PJ Succi
Amanda, I think you've stated pretty well one part of this account. But the other would be to see if Aristotle's picture corresponds to our life (although it wouldn't with the Christian soul, admittedly (p.p.s, see Aquinas for a defense of Aristotle on these issues)). As I tried to indicate in class, we have the nutritive soul, we have a desiring part, we have a spirited part, and we have a rational part. We may call them "soul" or something else, but the constitution of the "psychic life" of the person is similar, if not the same. Hannah, I wonder if Aristotle would disagree about small things, because it seems to me he would say that they are actually part of what happiness is.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Hannah's comment on the small things that constitute happiness, I would say that it depends how you define "small things." I think that in one sense, Aristotle would agree that the little things in life do help generate man's overall happiness; however, these little things would have to be actions that stem from the Rational Soul, and not the Irrational Soul. He would be referring to the satisfaction that comes from doing small, virtuous acts (for example: getting a good grade on a test that you studied all week for). In contrast, I think that many people would agree that happiness from the little things can definitely stem from the irrational part of the soul, as well. For example, some of the best times I had my freshmen year of college was when I was acting completely irrationally; my friends and I would sometimes pull all nighters for no reason at all except to hang out and talk, just because we could. Of course, in the morning we always regretted these decisions, but in the long run, this irrationality is what bonded us as friends and helped create happy memories. Overall, Aristotle seems to downplay the importance of the Irrational Soul in respect to one's happiness, whereas I am more inclined to think that the Irrational Soul plays just as crucial of a role as the Rational Soul; the former allows one to better appreciate the latter. To answer the question at hand, I think that this standpoint on the two souls creates an entirely different concept of happiness, one which better acknowledges the fact that impulses and desires actually are a part of natural, human happiness (even if they aren’t always necessarily virtuous).
ReplyDeleteIn class last Friday we talked a lot about the "natural" capacities of humans - and they all seemed to be exemplified in a physical sense (such as Prof. Vaught's controversial claim that we are not natural runners). This got me thinking about what natural capacities we have mentally rather than physically, and how that relates to our happiness.
ReplyDeleteLast year I took a course called Science and Religion, and essentially the course took a direction that said religious thinking is natural, or a kind of default state of human beings to accept the presence of some kind of "God". This seems to imply that humans are naturally guided by some moral code or sense of greater good - perhaps related to the highest achievement of happiness.
This sort of loops back around with our readings on Machievelli and contrasting his outtake on human cruelty as a norm with Aristotle's view of a virtuous (good) being as a norm. What do others think some of our natural capacities are? To have reason? Logic? Identity with others?
Lastly, I was also thinking about a comment that was made in class with regard to when we are kind to one another... Ex. Holding the door doesn't inconvenience us as much as waiting in traffic behind someone who is particularly slow. Aristotle claims, "we must take someone's pleasure or pain following on his actions to be a sign of his state". This "state" implies something about your character, which I think we all hope would be considered to be virtuous and moral. However, if we only do things to be thanked or recognized or if they are convenient for us, are we really moral and good? Aristotle seems to think not.
It seems even more challenging to do the right thing in this sense. It is not so simple as checking off good deeds from some sort of list that simply make us feel accomplished or self-righteous. We actually have to ENJOY it and "find pleasure in the right things" (pg. 21).