Too many commentators explain the first page of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics with an illustration involving a chain of desires, like this one from Christopher Shields, who asks us to imagine that a philosophical friend has asked us why we are buying milk:
If we answer seriously and honestly that we want to buy milk for our morning porridge, and he presses on, wanting to know why we intend to eat porridge in the morning, then we may well answer that we find porridge healthy and delicious, especially with milk, which we may then excuse ourselves to buy. Insensible of our lack of interest, the philosopher may persist, wanting to know why we desire to eat delicious and healthy food. Again, we may respond, that it is because we enjoy delicious food, that eating brings us pleasure, and that we desire health for the obvious reason that health is good—and, lest it be asked, we all desire good things for ourselves. If we have not by now slipped away, we may hear the philosopher posing the same question, earnestly let us allow, ad nauseam, or at least until such time as we say, with exasperation, that we do all these things we do for the sake of happiness.
This sort of account seems cogent. I don't think I could give a more complete justification of milk-buying (except that I don't eat "porridge"). The problem is that it doesn't look anything like Aristotle's illustration of a hierarchy of purposes. The connection between bridle-making and horsemanship has nothing to do with what the bridle-maker wants. It can only be explained in terms of purpose. The purpose of bridle-making is to enable excellence in horsemanship—regardless of whether some individual bridle-maker wants to do so.
This idea of purpose only makes sense in terms of an order that goes beyond the individual. Bridle-making advances the good of a political community, regardless of how it affects the bridle-maker.
But for all that, it is still not clear how a human being can in making a bridle be doing something for a purpose. Sure enough, he is performing an action; sure enough, the action has a purpose, because the bridle is of use, but since this use belongs to the larger community, how can the purpose belong to the individual's action?
Doesn't your observation reveal a tension inherent in the action of an individual--the individual is certainly the agent of his own action, however, aspects of certain of his acts originate or belong to someone else, e.g., the community? While certain actions are their own end (art?), any and all of an individuals actions emerge in a context which is already given as contingent upon or related to others so that some part of his action belongs to another. In like manner he lends purpose to the actions of others--in the case of the bridle maker, presumably he did not fashion his own tools or perhaps tan the leather used in the bridle...
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, are you not reading a bit much into telos to speak of purpose rather than end? In your linked text for chapter one the translation speaks of ends and particularly of the subordination of ends such as they are related to the Good--that at which every action etc. aims.
I too am left scratching my head as I think I understand your observation, yet I am left questioning the relatedness of your question to the text you are analyzing.
(A helpful side by side translation: http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/aristotle/nicom1a.htm )
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI don't see that it makes a difference whether we talk about ends or purposes. The point is that the ends or purposes Aristotle is talking about belong to a political community.
Amos, I'm glad to see that you're blogging again.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the person performs two actions who performs one action but doesn't desire to perform it. The person who makes a bridle but doesn't desire to enable excellence in horsemanship is performing two actions, making a bridle and some other action. Those two actions have two purposes, enabling excellence in horsemanship and some other purpose.
One action can refer to another, however, so they're not necessarily parallel to one another. Also, a person may have very little knowledge of what he or she is doing, much less what purposes the actions have.
Your post brings to light the difference between what purpose a person might suppose that his or her action has and what purpose it actually has, that is to say, what purpose it politically has. The political purpose needn't be a conventional one, that is to say, one that is not natural. It is curious, though, that a bridle, an artificial object, should have in the act of making it a natural purpose.