>
> Have you guys ever actually read Aristotle? In contrast to his
> logical works, his actual philosophizing is not foundationalistic at
> all. Half the arguments seem to be appeals to doxa. That's why
> Heidegger liked him so much and modelled his work after his.
>
You're confusing what Aristotle appeals to as "foundations" for the ethical claims he makes with the ethical claims themselves. The latter assume there are "foundations" on which to base a distinction between thinking, feeling and acting "rightly" and thinking, feeling and acting "wrongly".
This distinction underpins his definition of a "man".
“What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance are in desire; so that since moral virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, and choice is deliberate desire, therefore both the reasoning must be true and the desire right, if the choice is to be good, and the latter must pursue just what the former asserts, Now this kind of intellect and of truth is practical; of the intellect which is contemplative, not practical nor productive, the good and the bad state are truth and falsity respectively (for this is the work of everything intellectual); while of the part which is practical and intellectual the good state is truth in agreement with right desire.
“The origin of action—its efficient, not its final cause—is choice, and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end, This is why choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect or without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist without a combination of intellect and character, Intellect itself, however, moves nothing, but only the intellect which aims at an end and is practical; for this rules the productive intellect, as well, since every one who makes makes for an end, and that which is made is not an end in the unqualified sense (but only an end in a particular relation, and the end of a particular operation)—only that which is done is that; for good action is an end, and desire aims at this, Hence choice is either desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire, and such an origin of action is a man.” <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.6.vi.html>
As I recently pointed out in connection with Keynes's notion of rational "confidence", Aristotle elaborates the "brave" man as the "man ... who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and from the right time, and who feels confidence under the corresponding conditions".
“The man, then, who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and from the right time, and who feels confidence under the corresponding conditions, is brave; for the brave man feels and acts according to the merits of the case and in whatever way the rule directs. Now the end of every activity is conformity to the corresponding state of character. This is true, therefore, of the brave man as well as of others. But courage is noble. Therefore the end also is noble; for each thing is defined by its end. Therefore it is for a noble end that the brave man endures and acts as courage directs.” <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.3.iii.html>
Similarly, in relation to "friendship" which "is a virtue or implies virtue" and is "most necessary with a view to living", he claims there are foundations on which to base a conception of "true friendship", of "perfect friendship".
“Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing.” <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html>
You and Heidegger may believe that there are no rational grounds on which to judge individuals engaged in ritual murder and cannibalism or in sadistic torture and lynching as thinking and feeling "wrongly", but you aren't, in this, modeling your ideas on Aristotle's.
By the way, in relation to Carrol's original point, the "Little Red Book" is a book, a book attempting to inculcate thinking, feeling and acting "rightly" through a method inconsistent with Aristotle's and Marx's understanding of the "educational" process required to develop the "virtue" required for such feeling, thinking and acting.
It is, however, a method which Marx, sublating Kant, identifies as "despotic" and claims is "caused" by the dominance, in the social context where it's found, of an "individuality" characterized by significant "superstition" and "prejudice".
Ted