Questions.

(Arranged in the order of the text)

Q: What do people call ‘the highest of all goods achievable by action? (1095a16) [p. 365]

Q: What are the three prominent types of life, distinguished by the good they pursue? (1095b17) [p. 366]

Q: What does Aristotle say to devalue a life spent in the pursuit of pleasure? What does he say in order to devalue a life that pursues wealth as its highest good? (1095b16 & 20; 1096a6-10) [p. 366, 367]

Q: Aristotle points to the variety of things we call ‘good’ and seems to think that the reasons for which we call them ‘good’ vary. Run through his different objects and examples, and think about a respect, in which we call them ‘good’ (examples: God, reason, a useful item, etc.) (1096a23-32) [p. 367]

Q: Certain goods seem to "be good in themselves." Identify Aristotle’s examples (1096b18). [p. 368] Then ask yourselves what it means to pursue those goods as ‘goods in themselves.’ (Also look at 1097b2). [p. 370]

Q: Aristotle’s pragmatic orientation could be seen when he said, in his Rhetoric, that rhetoric was the art of seeing the available means of persuasion in each case. He is pragmatic in his ethics, too. Read 1096b35-1097a2) [pp. 368-69] and then say in your own words how that pragmatism articulates itself in that passage.

Q: Which of the four types of analysis we have discussed in connection with his Physics does Aristotle use when he examines the meaning of "good"? After you have identified the type of analysis, ask: How does this analysis work? (1097a15-23; also compare 1097b22-32) [pp. 369 and 370]

Q: What is it for a good to be "complete without qualification?" (1097a30-36) [pp. 369-70]

Q: What is it for a good to be self-sufficient? (1097b15) [p. 370]

Q: Does man have a function or purpose? What is it? (1097b22-1098a19; see Study Question # 2 below) [pp. 370-371]

Q: How does Aristotle argue towards the conclusion ‘excellent actions are in themselves pleasant?’ (1099a21) [p. 373] Look for steps in this argument in the passages from 1098b30-1099a21. [pp. 372-73]

Q: What is Aristotle’s distinction between internal and external goods? (1098b19; 1099a32-1099b8). [pp.372-73] Find examples for each.

Q: The happiness tied to the pursuit of excellence is happiness of our soul. It is also tied to the rational principle of our souls (1102a16 7 17) [p. 374]. See Study question # 3 below.

Q: How does moral excellence come about? (Book II. Chapter I. The whole chapter)

Q: Aristotle distinguishes passions, faculties and states – all belonging to our soul. (1105b19 ff.) [p. 381] What distinguishes these three?

Q: What is the object of moral evaluation – evaluation from the point of view of excellence – as regards the passions? (1105b28-1106a12) [p. 381]

Q: What is the ‘job’ of an excellence? (1106a15-17). [p. 382](see Study question # 2 below).

Q: How do we determine what counts as excellent? (1106b15) [p. 382] Look through Book II, Chapters 6 & 7 for examples. Draw a list of extremes that are the opposite of excellence, and the type of excellence that is an intermediate relative to these extremes.

Q: Why is it important for all the feelings, passions and appetites "to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and in the right way?" (1106b20) [p. 383]

Q: Read Theophrastus’ "The Insincere Man" and "The Show-Off" carefully [in HCC Reader]. See Study questions ## 6 & 7 below.

# 1

Q: The form of a ‘highest good’ and of the highest good, according to Aristotle? Note that this study question concerns a formal or structural element, and that it will later be supplemented by a ‘material’ element. This study question is concerned merely with the structure of the highest good. It spells out conditions a good must fulfill if it is to count as ‘highest.’ (1095a14-28; 1097a15-23; 1097a30-36.) [p.. 365, 369, 369-70]

# 2.

Q: What is an excellence/virtue/aretē? (Book I, Chapter 7=1098a7-17, Book II. Chapter 5=1105b19-1106a13; Book II, Chapter 6=1106a14-24 & 1106b-107a1.)

# 3.

Q: What is the function or purpose of man? (1097b22-1098a19) [pp. 370-71]

# 4.

Read 1102a26-1103a5 with a view to Aristotle’s discussion of different elements of the soul, now from a practical and evaluative point of view: the vegetative soul; the appetitive and desiring element (pay attention to its ambivalent character: on the one hand it belongs to is an irrational element that ‘shares in reason insofar as it listens and obeys to it; the rational element, divided up into theoretical excellence and moral excellence. Each of them regarded under the aspect: What does it contribute to the pursuit of excellence, and how does it contribute to that pursuit? [pp. 374-5]

# 5.

Q: What is the role of the intermediate in the conduct of a ‘good life?’ What is the conceptual model of the intermediate? How does the intermediate function when we try to lead the best lives we can lead? (Book II, Chapters 6 & 7) [pp. 382-86]

# 6.

Q: Read Theophrastus’ "The Insincere Man" carefully. Stop at each of the situations where Theophrastus seems to think that that situation represents a case of insincerity or is typical of a person who has built insincerity into one of his character traits. About what is that person insincere in each case? What would it be for the character to be sincere, again in each case? What, if any, is the potential in the agent, which that agent loses through his insincerity? In which way would someone who is or did the opposite not necessarily be practicing the excellence of honesty? Think of the problems you may discover in terms of excess if you imagine the man to be unconditionally sincere. Then try to imagine an intermediate that would enact the excellence of truthfulness or honesty.

# 7.

Q: Do the same for the "Show-Off." Again: Run through the occasions and comportments that allegedly represent ‘showing off.’ Determine, in which way they are (or perhaps are not) cases of showing off, each time trying to say what it is the ‘show-off’ is showing off about. Then ask: Would this person not be insincere if he were to not show what he is showing? If you think, that this would not be insincere, try to say why this concrete reticence to‘show off’ would not be insincerity. How can one show what might impress others, without ‘showing-off?’ Use the formula ‘at the right time, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and in the right way" to think of constellations where the same person would show without showing off. How does one affirm oneself and manifest one’s qualities and goods without being a ‘show-off?’