Gordon says:
> >And so? Carroll was complaining, I think, about Aristotle --
> >it certainly sounded like Aristotle, someone using a spook
> >like The Good to oppress people. But bad as Aristotle may
> >be, and it's hard to think worse of Aristotle than I do, some
> >of his ideas may have some value, and the fact that he used
> >one to justify slavery doesn't mean someone else couldn't
> >put it or others to good (== what I approve of) use.
Yoshie Furuhashi:
> I think Carrol had our bete noir Plato in his mind. In contrast,
> Aristotle's conception of ethics presents an interesting alternative
> to the modern idea of morality as value judgments in light of "a
> third artificially introduced Relation" (Marx), that is, "a social
> relation [which] has become a thing in the form of a principle"
> (Ollman), be it utilitarian calculus or categorical imperative.
> According to Aristotle, "virtue" (arete) = excellence in fulfillment
> of a particular function, & "happiness" (eudaimonia) = a sense of
> well-being, resulting from achieving excellence in the fulfillment of
> one's functions, including the "species-specific" functions of reason
> (both theoretical and practical). To be virtuous, avoid the vices of
> excess & deficiency, develop good habits, & cultivate friendship --
> all while participating actively in a political community. In short,
> virtue lies in the _exercise_ of one's powers (inseparable from
> historically specific conditions), not in value judgements (according
> to a reified principle). Read (creatively) in this way, eudaimonia =
> "an association, in which the free development of each is the
> condition for the free development of all." (Recall also
> Machiavelli's reminder that the maintenance of liberty in a republic
> depends upon the citizens' exercise of virtu.)
I'm sure you're correct -- for me, it took a great deal of moral fortitude to wade through what of Plato and Aristotle I've been able to read, and my knowledge of them is mostly second- and third-hand. However I do think making out _eudaimonia_ to include the free development of all is _very_ creative, given that Aristotle was a fan of slavery (of course). _Arete_ and _eudaimonia_ seem like later aristocratic virtues to me, which by the middle of the 20th century had thinned down to advisories to boys in posh prep schools preparing to lead their fathers' insurance companies.
> It is impossible for anyone to be virtuous in Aristotle's sense in
> today's world, first of all because capitalism ("Accumulate,
> accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!") doesn't allow us to
> avoid the vices of excess & deficiency.
-- which is a good thing if we want to get rid of slavery (and, I hope, Aristotle) -- the dyanamic, progressive instabilities of capitalism-liberalism regularly contradict its own powers of organization, domination and regulation, as Marx notes so poetically in the _Manifesto_. Or at least it'll have been a good thing if capitalism doesn't completely destroy the earth before it destroys itself. There's always that possibility.