Relationships and Friendships

Personally, all I think about while discussing Aristotle's views on friendship is how he is mainly just describing relationships in my opinion. This had me thinking-is there really a difference between relationships and friendships? Because I have many relationships with people that I would categorize more as being casual and less habitual than those that I consider friendships. What I would define as having a true friendship is someone who I trust and spend a lot of time with and share the same values with. Aristotle thinks the three forms of friendship include all three: by utility, by pleasure, and be goodness. The friendship I described is most like the friendship by goodness that Aristotle describes. At the end of class, someone asked the question of whether the only friendships that fail are those of utility and pleasure. I think that most the time this is probably true but it certainly not mean that friendships by goodness cannot fail at all-they just usually fail and then later get repaired.

The Stone: The Reign of ‘Terror’ http://t.co/tXHkeIdwKJ via @nytopinionator

— Ashley U. V. (@ProfVaught) October 20, 2014

Positive and negative freedom and nihilism

I have alway thought of nihilism as a type of choosing in which all options are equally valid, ... which would mean that nihilism is a form of negative freedom.  And yet it has also seemed to me that there must be some distinction between nihilism and negative freedom.

Negative freedom is the concept sustaining basic libertarianism, in which all human action is promoted insofar as it does not interfere with others, but libertarianism does not mean all choices are equal.  In fact, it merely establishes that law should work to protect all action, while society will approve or disapprove of human actions (and by the latter, distinguish values).  It seems a good model for comprehending historical change.

And yet, positive freedom implies a correct path, action, idea, against which our approximation is a measure of our freedom.  Who clings more closely to the idea, is more free.  The most prudent person  is the most free person.

Whereas, nihilism seems to impair choice, such that the action of choosing is pointless.  In that respect, it would be separate from negative freedom?  Negative freedom celebrates choice, without affirming any particular choice over another?

I had one question after last friday's class on freedom.  We heard the argument that we do not have physical freedom because our actions are merely based on what causes them.  Thus, our lives are merely the effects we act out based on the causes from the environment.  My question was if this simplification of life would be detrimental to this argument, in that one of anything does not exist in nature.  I think we talked about this when we discussed trying out one's new sword.  If you break down an atom, there are sub atomic particles.  So if this idea holds true, would that counter attack professor Vaught's argument on physical freedom?  Having one action being caused by one external stimulus from our environment?

Confused about nihilism ...

After today's discussion I am still a bit confused about Nihilism. According to Nihilism one cannot believe in anything, but if you are a nihilist aren't you believing in Nihilism itself ?Therefore, I find it hard to believe that true nihilists exist and I believe that true Nihilism is unattainable. I was curious to see if anyone had any substantial examples, or had any other opinions on this.

Capitalism and Freedom

On page 32 of Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman says that "Every act of government intervention limits the areas of individual freedom directly and threatens the preservation of freedom indirectly..." Since we didn't get to cover this today in class, I was curious to see what everyone thought of this quote. Would we be better off without government? Where would we be without government?
   - Amanda Alcamo

Augustine and what is eternal

"On the Free Choice of Will" discusses the concern with evil and the possibility that evil must be something that is learned. Can everything be learned? Augustine says that this obviously is not true because evil is not a thing, and is instead the absence of a thing. There is nothing to learn because there is an absence of reason. If everything could be learned then things like desire could be learned, which is a natural thing. We desire things that can be taken away from us. Desire is not a material thing so can it be taken away from us? What can you get that you cannot lose? There are still things that you could lose that are not material, like trust, as we talked about in class. But things that do not change and things that are categorized as being "eternal" stay the same even if they have different symbols, like numbers (reference in class). There is no real difference between objects in a way because how can you categorize things when there are so many exceptions, like what is eternal and what is not and what is material and what is not. Is there any way we can say something is truly "eternal?"