Happiness in accordance with pleasure.

I liked how after everything was said and done, Aristotle thought it wise to wrap up the argument on justice brought up in the beginning of Book I. In line 1177a30, Aristotle says "...we believe the pleasure must be mixed in with happiness." This is a little hard for me to believe. Although I do agree with this statement, it is hard for me to believe because I believe that most people in this world are not physically able to do certain things that are good with pleasure. In other words, I am saying that it is almost impossible for anyone to be fully virtuous in one's life. No matter what area it may be, someone will always have to be at the level of self-restraint for one's entire life. Being bound by the flesh, that is subject to our bodies that decipher both pleasure and pain, we are always going to have to do things that the flesh does not usually find pleasureful. For instance, one might want to go and eat some food, when there is a homeless person on the side of the street begging for something to eat. It will not be pleasureful to the body to not eat. Likewise, it might be pleasing to the body to look at pornography, but to abstain from it, requires a level of self-restraint. Me, being a man, am tempted with lust and pornography daily, and though my flesh would love to divulge in the lie, I restrain myself for a reason bigger than myself. I do not believe I will ever be free from these temptations, because I live in the flesh, however, I am able to restrain myself from them, and though it may not be pleasureful, it is what is right.

The correlation between pleasure and excellence

Around 1175a, line 30, an interesting claim is made by aristotle. "...since the appropriate pleasure contributes to the growth of the activity. For those who are at-work with pleasure discern each sort of thing better and are more precise about it..." Aristotle is claiming that people who take pleasure in a certain activity, are automatically better at it then those who do not.

In my opinion, this statement is wrong in many cases. The most notably would be athletic achievement, an area that would very much be in effect in Aristotle's time. There are people on this planet that are more skilled at certain activities, naturally, then others. Most people are trained to find something that they are good at and do it for the rest of their life. This is even a very general way of wording Aristotle's philosophy. The issue that Aristotle is not addressing is that fact that these individuals might not find pleasure in the action that they excel at. It is true that people who pursue something with passion and pleasure work harder to attain excellence. The issue is that hard work is sometimes not enough to surpass someone of greater talent.

A Disagreement On Contemplation

1177b -- "And contemplation seems to be the only activity loved for its own sake, for nothing comes from it beyond the contemplating, while from things involving action we gain something for ourselves, to a greater or lesser extent, beyond the action."

I disagree with Aristotle here. When looking at contemplation in class, we discussed how contemplation was a constant, deep thinking of the divine and things that cannot be controlled by our own will. These are things that are not in our control, yet can be thought about. They are intangible with our hands, but not with our brains. And with this, I agree. But, I do not agree with the above excerpt because I believe that there is something to gain from contemplation. The act of contemplation is not an act that one would perform in hopes to gain something, but something is most definitely gained. If one is contemplating the divine, the mystic, or the unknown, there is no way of knowing the absolute truth. But, the more one thinks about and contemplates such things, a personal opinion/conclusion can be drawn from one's discoveries through contemplation. Things can be learned about one's own self by looking at the divine, and questions can sometimes be answered personally. Therefore, what is to be gained from contemplation is a more mature understanding of what others have not thought about. If one man does not contemplate, the man who does contemplate has matured further than the other and is more at work than the other. Contemplation can lead to the truth revealed in part or full, depending on the beliefs of the individual. A religious person who believes in God can contemplate things he does not know and through God can be revealed truths that he can handle in his own capacity. Someone who does not contemplate may have a smaller capacity for an understanding of the truth than someone who contemplates. A non religious person can make sense of somethings through logic or feelings or other realizations that come about through contemplation. If contemplating the universe (stars, etc.), one can come to a conclusion that a higher power, a designer, must have created such a thing as the universe, or come to the conclusion that science has made sense of it, or that their incapability to understand its complexity is as far as it goes. But, someone who does not contemplate will never have an understanding of any of this and will have never given any of it any thought at all. Therefore, one who contemplates has gained much more in the pursuit of virtue and in their own understanding of life than the one who does not contemplate. Moreover, contemplating the divine and the unknowable can affect one's way of life and daily choices. If one holds the belief that God exists, he will act on it in such a way that it will appeal to God. If one does not believe in an after life, one will determine life's choices through a lens that does not concern anything but the here and now and what is virtuous or not. And one can also begin to know the unknowable through faith. This is not the same way of knowing something definitely, but actually knowing something through confidence and conviction after contemplation.

There is much to gain from contemplation. But I would revise my previous statement that I disagree with Aristotle and say that I disagree in part. I agree that contemplation is loved for its own sake by the individual, because when contemplating, it does not seem that one's intentions would be to gain something but because one is seeking answers, as most are. But, I do believe there is much to gain from contemplating, which is where I disagree with Aristotle.

Friendship and Love

From the onset of Book IX, Aristotle is saying that friendship and love are synonymous. When we discussed this in class, I found myself in disagreement. Love seems to be such a personal emotion, reserved only for special people that you have grown together with for an extended period of a time, a person that you can share deep, dark secrets with without fear of them judging you. Some inadvertent responsibility comes with the condition of being loved. When you tell someone that, you are now saddling them with the duties that you would never think to put onto someone you DON'T love.

Now, having said all that, I find it very hard to feel this way towards every person that I call a friend. Forget Facebook's definition of a friend, but even my own is different. I meet someone and within minutes we can become friends. Our relationship continues to blossom and grow as we get to know each other, but love is a long way down the road. Yet we have been friends for a long time. Perhaps Aristotle's definition of friendship was more personal than my own. It says, "any association of people who spend time and do things together, share in pains and pleasures, and wish for each other's good." I can see the discrepancy. There are many people with whom I share pleasures -- we have a common interest and we celebrate it together. But we are nowhere near close enough to share in the pains, that is more personal.

Even then I have a hard time saying that I love every person I am friends with. And by the same token, I don't want to deny the title of "friend" to all the people I care about but do not love. In this instance, I feel that the term love is being used out of place.

Book 9: Friends and Fortune

In Book 9, Chapter 11, Aristotle makes the claim that we need different sorts of friends in different circumstances. When one has stumbled upon misfortune, one needs useful friends who help them to escape from their current situation. Upon experiencing good fortune, one needs good men to be their friends because it is more beneficial. I can’t help but consider how my friendships have been dictated in the past according to my own circumstances. Sometimes it can be difficult for us to know whether we are experiencing good or bad fortune because the transition between the two are so gradual. During a gradual shift between good and bad fortune, is it possible to see a friendship gradually failing? If we experience good fortune for an extended period but drastically and suddenly fall into misfortune, our “good” friends that complimented us so well in good fortune may not be useful to us anymore, no matter how close we were. It is easier to visualize one shedding friends who were present during misfortune, because these friends are not required to be good. Is there a sudden moment, a point of realization that alerts us to our friends shortcomings? It seems to me that we try to cling to those old friendships, no matter how useless they are to us know, because they still offer an illusion of security

Thoughts on Friendship 2

As we have learned from Book XIII, there are three types of friendship: friendship based on utility, friendship based on pleasure, and friendship based on the goodness of character.

Originally, when Aristotle made the argument that one must love the self more than one's friend, I had an uneasy feeling inside. If one had friend, who was not virtuous, and who had friendships based on pleasure, self-love would be bad indeed. However, in a friendship based on the goodness of character and an active action for the sake of the good, self-love does not turn out to be so bad.

Mr. Miller made an interesting observation in his blog, and was also something I was going to talk about in mine. Are friendships healthy when two people are at different levels of virtue? (i.e. one person is at the level of virtue, while someone else is at the level of self-restraint). I believe these relationship are not necessary, but definitely help one who is not as mature and virtuous become better faster. A lot of times, when one sees and example laid before them, it gives the lesser person the desire to be better and persevere when obstacles come in the way.

As far as the best friendships go however, I believe the two people must be on the same level of virtue. If the two are on different levels, one will not grow and continue to be pressed to be better, and the other will be dragged from behind. In a perfectly healthy friendship, the two people of equal virtue will be able to encourage one another and thus strengthen each others relationship for the sake of the beautiful.

Friendship and Absence

"Distance does not dissolve the friendship without qualification, but only its activity. But if the absence is long, it also seems to cause the friendship to be forgotten." - Book VIII, Chapter IV

After reading this quote I began to think about how true and unfortunate this statement really is. I'm sure almost everyone can think back to their childhood or even high school friends and realize just how distant many of those relationships have grown. However, with the connections our generation has grown accustomed to, could it be possible that we have the ability to nurture our long-distant friendships more successfully than those of the past? As long as the individual is willing to put forth the effort, cell phones and facebook seem to make that task relatively simple. Now I do not mean to say that either of these alternative means of communication could ever replace the value of real quality time, but they can work as a useful tool in keeping the relationship active. Is this a good change? Maybe the purpose of separation is to keep our friendships limited to a small, more intimate number as oppose to everyone desperately trying to grasp a hold of their past. Regardless, separation seems to be an inevitable part of life and I think the relationships that pass us by are falling more into our own hands and less in the hands of time and distance.