Aristotle and Relationship at Work - Essay Example

14 October 2008 Paper on Aristotle and relationship at work In his works, Aristotle describes and examines the concepts of happiness, friendship and justice, relationships between men and their relations at work, Aristotle proposes a unique approach to these concepts influenced by his social and political views, historical and philosophical traditions of his time. For Aristotle, men are marked off from other animals by possessing reason and the power of thought. Men 'contain something divine -- what we call the intellect is divine', and our intellect is 'the divine within us'. Indeed, 'each of us actually is intellect, since this is our sovereign and best element'. The excellences most properly human, then, are the intellectual excellences, and happiness consists primarily in activity in accordance with those excellences -- it is a form of intellectual activity Aristotle sees happiness as one of the main issues in life of human beings. In his works, happiness is referred as "eudaimonia". To say that happiness concerns the soul or the animator is to say that human flourishing requires the exercise of certain of the faculties by which life is defined; in particular, a person cannot be said to flourish as a human being unless he is exercising distinctively human faculties. "Happiness is an activity 'in accordance with excellence" (Kraut 83). To flourish is to do certain things excellently or well. A man who exercises his faculties but does so inefficiently or badly cannot be said to be making a success of his life. Then what are the excellences in accordance with which we must act if we are to make a success of things Aristotle distinguishes between excellences of character and excellences of intellect. The former include both what we think of as moral virtues -- courage, generosity, fairmindedness, and so on, and also such dispositions as a proper self-respect, an appropriate degree of ostentation, and wit; the latter include such things as knowledge, good judgment, 'practical wisdom'. In addition, Aristotle spends some time in discussing the quasi-excellence of friendship (Chang 64). According to Pangle: For the pursuit of this highest good must begin precisely by questioning the goodness of what is one's own, the goodness of the reigning pieties of those among whom one is born, and the likelihood that simple fellowship with kindred souls can ever be the core of happiness, as bewitchingly desirable as it may seem" (35). Thus any choice or possession of the natural goods, goods of the body, wealth, friends, or any other good, which will best produce contemplation by the god [that is to say, by our intellect, the god within us], is best and is the finest standard; and any which, either because of deficiency or because of excess, prevents us from cultivating the god and from contemplating, is bad.' To flourish, to make a success of life, requires engagement in intellectual pursuits. Aristotle thought that such pursuits were immensely enjoyable, and that the intellectual life offered an unparalleled happiness Chang 64). Friendship is seen by Aristotle as a desired goals of human relations, but he accepts friendship between equals only. Aristotle lists some defining characteristics of friendship. A friend wishes and does what is good for the sake of his friend, wishes for the sake of his friend that his friend should exist and live, lives with his friend, has the same preferences, grieves and rejoices with him (Kraut 54). Pangle explains: Aristotle turns to friendships between unequals, such as father and son, elder and youth, husband and wife, or ruler and subject. Not only do these unequal friendships differ as a class from those discussed previously, but each of them also has its own peculiar character and problems, and indeed each contains within it, as it were, two different friendships (57). Similarly the good man is of one mind with himself, is single-minded in his desires, wishes and does what is good for himself for his own sake, wishes himself to live and to be preserved and wishes to live with himself, grieves and rejoices with himself, and finds the same things pleasant and painful at all times. In short, the good man is related to himself in the ways in which he is related to his friend. Conventional morality is not determined by convention, in the sense in which the rule of the road, or the right ransom for a prisoner, is determined by convention. Aristotle says of the producers, as well as of their products, that they must be 'equated' but the equation of the producers is only the equation of the products over again. In order to answer the question how many pairs of shoes are equal to a house it is necessary, Aristotle says, that there should be one measure for all goods. In other words, houses and shoes and beds are equated in the market where experience and experiment show at what prices they can be sold. How can we proceed from the equating of the products to the equating of the producers It will not do to say that one builder is worth a hundred shoemakers because the price of one house is the price of a hundred shoes (Kraut 22). Conventional morality is not determined by convention, in the sense in which the rule of the road, or the right ransom for a prisoner, is determined by convention. Aristotle points out that actions which are in accordance with justice and injustice may be done involuntarily and, if so, are not strictly acts of justice and injustice (Kraut 42). Within actions which are voluntary Aristotle distinguishes those which are chosen after deliberation and those which are not. In distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary Aristotle is interested in the conditions under which, when a man is the cause of injury to another, we acquit him of responsibility. He is here interested also in the way in which we distinguish degrees of wrongdoing according as an action is or is not premeditated. His interest is that of a moralist in the correlation, or lack of correlation, between the rightness and wrongness of actions and the good or bad characters of the men who do them Chang 64). Speaking about justice, Aristotle distinguishes two concepts: justice and injustice. Injustice in one sense involves a tendency to take for oneself too large a share of divisible goods. Aristotle underline that if justice is a mean between two vices, there should be an opposite form of injustice involving a tendency to take for oneself too small a share of divisible goods. The man who takes too much is unfair to someone else; the man who takes too little is unfair to himself. Thus Aristotle's negative answer to the question whether a man can treat himself unfairly seems to make it impossible for him to hold that justice is a mean in the sense of being intermediate between two vices, two opposite ways of failing to be just. Universal justice, then, is manifested in obedience to law. About the laws of a state Aristotle here makes two assertions Chang 121). The second is that they prescribe conduct in accordance with the virtues, courage and moderation and good temper, or "forbid conduct which is vicious; the rightly framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived one less well" (Aristotle 1129 b19-25) . Aristotle's meaning here is unclear. Most virtues and vices are manifested in actions which affect, and often are in their nature intended to affect, others; liberality, for example. Perhaps what Aristotle has in mind is that, "when we say that an act is injurious or wrong, we are not merely saying that it manifests an ethical fault; we are saying that it is an offence or transgression against a fellow citizen of a kind which can lead to prosecution in the courts" (Miller 54). In the Politics as in the Ethics Aristotle dwells on the biological and instinctive basis of the tendency in human beings to seek each other's company. A state is a 'community of families' and 'can be established only among those who live in the same place and intermarry'. 'Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together; these are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. Aristotle's assertion that friendship 'is a virtue or implies virtue' is not to be taken as referring to the friendliness which appears in the list of ethical virtues Chang 76). Human relationships at works are determined by their social position, family position and the state. Intellectual activity is not enough (Kraut 82). Men are not isolated individuals, and the human excellences cannot be practiced by hermits. Aristotle underlines: "Men are by nature political animals" (Aristotle 1116). This remark is no casual aphorism, but a piece of biological theory. "Political animals are those which have some single activity common to them all (which is not true of all gregarious animals); such are men, bees, wasps, ants, cranes." (Aristotle 11223). For Aristotle, human relationships have a great value as they influence community life and prosperity of individuals. The 'good life', which is the goal of the State, is identified with happiness, which is the goal of individuals. States are natural entities, and like other natural objects they have a goal or end. Teleology is a feature of Aristotle's political theory no less than of his biology. One form of liberty is to rule and be ruled turn and turn about. Another form is to live as one wishes;" for men say that this is the aim of liberty, since to live not as one wishes is the mark of a slave" (Miller 87). Liberty at home is complemented by a pacific external policy; for Aristotelian States, although armed for defense, will have no imperialist ambitions. But these generous sentiments are forgotten or suppressed when Aristotle turns from generalities to particular political arrangements (Chang 133). The citizens own slaves, and they own other forms of property. But his notion of property is a restricted one:"Evidently it is better that property should be private -- but men should make it common in use.' And he immediately adds that 'it is the task of the legislator to see that the citizens behave like this" (Kraut 66). The State will not own the means of production, nor will it direct the economy; but the legislature will ensure that the citizens' economic behaviour is properly governed. The voice of the State, muted in economic affairs, is strident in social matters. In the last books of the Politics Aristotle begins to describe his Utopia or ideal State. "The State intervenes before birth: 'since the legislator must from the start consider how the children who are reared are to have the best physique, he must first pay attention to sexual union, determining when and between what sort of people marital relations may exist" Chang 72). Aristotle describes in considerable detail the various ways in which the State should regulate the lives of its citizens. Each regulation, however benevolent in purpose, is a curtailment of liberty; and in Aristotle's claim that the citizens 'all belong to the State' the reader will detect the infant voice of totalitarianism. If Aristotle loved liberty, he did not love it enough. His State is highly authoritarian. What has gone wrong Some may suspect that Aristotle erred at the very first step (Kraut 72). He confidently assigns a positive function to the State, supposing that its goal is the promotion of the good life. Given that, it is easy to imagine that the State, eager to ameliorate the human condition, may properly intervene in any aspect of human life and may compel its subjects to do whatever will make them happy. Those who see the State as a promoter of Good end up as advocates of repression (Pangle 34). Detachment and externality are proper to an observer, and it may be difficult for a man to combine acting and watching himself act. But to say this is not to deny that there are things about our own actions and thoughts which, as self-conscious beings, we know directly but can only take for granted or guess about the actions and thoughts of others. If it is obvious that there is a sense in which people can be aware of the activities, including the thoughts, of others more easily than we can be aware of our own, it is no less obvious that there is a sense in which our own activities and thoughts are the only activities and thoughts of which people can be aware at all. In the elaboration of his argument Aristotle ignores the difference between a man's awareness of his own thoughts and his awareness of the thoughts of his friend. He does not consider the obvious comment that, unless there were a difference, the thoughts of his friends would have to be literally his own thoughts (Pangle 23). The weak link in the argument lies in the claim that a friend is an alter ego in the sense that we can be aware of his thoughts as we can be aware of our own (Miller 192). Thus Aristotle does not make clear his reason for the remark that the action chosen is chosen in preference to other alternatives. Perhaps he means merely that, since choice involves thought, it is appropriate that the word for it should suggest the thoughtful discrimination of alternatives. The deliberation of the agent is indeed addressed to the question, not whether to seek a certain end, but how to achieve it. But, as one acting with care and deliberation, he will be aware that, in adopting the means to his desired end, he is rejecting other steps which would lead to other ends (Pangle 65). It is important to note here what has so far been said and what has not been said. It is in a man's own power to do or not to do good or bad actions. If the assassin wills the movement of his finger, it will move; if not, not. If a man chooses to write a cheque for a charity, the cheque will be written; if not, not. It is in Caesar's power to stay at home; the cause is in his will. Nothing has been said so far which need raise the question whether a man's willing or choosing as he does can be traced to antecedents which make it certain or necessary that he should thus will or choose (Miller 12). It may be thought that we need not, at least at this stage, raise such further questions in order to understand the scope and efficacy of moral exhortation and encouragement, and of the rewards and penalties prescribed by laws. These influences cause men to behave better, and this is their justification. It is enough for Aristotle's argument so far that what a man wills can be affected by what is said to him and can affect what happens in the world. Praise and blame can be justified by their consequences. Whether the whole system of ideas in which praise and blame have their place is itself valid and reasonable is a further question (Kraut 82). The agent is a moving principle and the author of his acts. He knows what he is doing and there is no constraint. Perhaps the underlying thought, not rejected by Aristotle, is that, since the action is determined by his character, the agent's activity, although a moving principle, is not an original or spontaneous principle of movement. Having tacitly conceded this ground to the objector, Aristotle suggests that a stand can be made on the distinction between the actions which express a well or badly formed character and the actions which formed it well or badly. (Pangle 37). In sum, Aristotle proposes a unique vision on such issues as friendship, justice and happiness which are closely linked and connected with human relations at work. Aristotle perhaps draws back from closing with the conditional interpretation and suggests that choice is open in an unconditional sense, that a man is not merely the cause but the uncaused cause of his actions. But this move, as Aristotle here makes it, is unsatisfactory. The idea that a man is a responsible agent cannot be defended by pushing back his responsibility to a time when his character was unformed. For the objector will reply that, if the earlier actions cannot be traced to character, they can be traced to the joint efficacy of natural innate tendencies and environmental influences. Works Cited Aristotle. Complete Works. Ed, J. Bernes. Princeton University Press. Chang, L. Aristotle on Happiness. VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K, 2003. Kraut, R. Aristotle's Politics: Critical Essays (Critical Essays on the Classics). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005. Miller, F. D. Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics. Oxford University Press, USA, 1997. Pangle, L. S. Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Read More