Introduction
In his writing of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the issue of pleasure and pain. Scholars have not come into agreement the reason why Aristotle used the word Nicomachean Ethics; however, most of them believe that Aristotle’s son and his father were both called Nicomachean. Aristotle’s son must have edited the book after the death of his father hence renaming the book to show that this was his edition. According to Aristotle, happiness is the greatest good, and it is the only reason why we undertake various activities. For example, when a person decides to go for grocery shopping, their end game is not to buy grocery but to eat. On the other hand, an activity may not be the end game in itself but just a mean to an end, maybe one can eat so that they become well nourished. According to Aristotle, all the activities we do are just means towards the end and not the end itself. The ultimate end upon which we undertake our activities is happiness. Happiness is a vague word, and many people do not agree on what makes them happy and gives them a good life. As a result of this, Aristotle came up with the ethical way of deciding what actually should make someone happy. According to Nicomachean, there are numerous variable which should be considered when establishing the true nature of happiness.
According to Eudoxus, pleasure is a good thing because it sees to it that all the activities undertaken by the human are towards achieving happiness. Every single choice a person makes is aimed at ensuring that they have achieved the highest level of pleasure. People can always sacrifice a given pleasure so as to achieve another pleasure that they believe to greater than the initial one. Eudoxus also believes that whatever is good for an individual should always be good to the universal humanity. Every choice that we make is not a subject of impulse activities. We consciously make our choices so that, in the end, we can achieve the amount of pleasure that we anticipated. When we add a certain degree of good to the pleasure, it becomes even more worthy of a choice.
Virtue and Vice
The highest good and the end to all our undertakings is happiness. However, most of our undertakings are just a means to an end. The only end which is not a means to another end is always happiness. However, in our endeavors to achieve pleasure, we may end up acting unethically. The only supreme pleasure is derived from undertaking rational activities which are in accordance with virtue. For example, when you are a flautist, your universal requirement is to play the flute so well. So, when you derive pleasure from playing your flute, that pleasure will only be supreme if you play in accordance with the requirements of the society. A person can be described as virtuous only if they perform their activities in a way that ensures the total well-being of others. The only way that we can distinguish human from animals and plants is by acting rationally. When a human being achieves their happiness by hurting others, they can be compared to a plant like weed which destroys other plants for their survival. The main aim of the weed is to achieve pleasure without any regard to how it affects other plants. Humans who endeavor to achieve pleasure by hurting others are no better than plants. According to Aristotle, all living organisms have souls. The only way human beings and animals are different from plants is that humans and animals have souls which are more sensitive. This is the reason why animals and humans have more advanced locomotion and are more sensitive to stimuli. Humans, again, are still above animals; this is because, in addition to having sensitive souls, they also have rational souls. With these characteristics of humans, they are expected to act distinctively with absolute rationality. By exercising rationality, the pleasure achieved by humans is expected to be of the supreme good.
According to Aristotle, moral virtue is the action by an individual which lies between the mean of excess and deficiency. Those who are acting in deficiencies or in access always lead to vices. The moral virtue is not learnt just through knowledge and reasoning, but rather, it is learnt through continuous practice. One with virtue will always be able to possess the required attitude towards pain and pleasure. For example, in the case of danger, a coward will always exercise unnecessary fear; a rush will not even care about the danger; while a courageous individual will always think of the right strategy of evading the danger. There are virtues, and there are vices. Those with excess reactions and those with deficient reactions result to vices. On the other hand, a mean of the excess and the deficiency will always be the virtue.
We are always responsible for our actions. However, we can only be held responsible if these actions were done voluntarily. In cases where we end up doing things involuntarily, which involve the physical compulsions and simple reflex actions, then we are not responsible for our actions. Such involuntary compulsions lead to what Aristotle refers to as unavoidable ignorance. The only way we can measure the morality of our activities and judgements is by considering our choices. The choices we make are always voluntary, and we always deliberate rationally before we make such choices. Generally, humans aim at achieving good. The problem is that people are always ignorant of what is good and what is bad. As a result, they end up making choices which apparently are good but, in the real sense, are vices.
Virtue Ethics
The Nicomachean Ethics can increase our understanding of Virtue Ethics. This is because Nicomachean Ethics heavily rely on virtue. The Greek interpretation of the word virtue is “arête”. This can also be translated to the word “excellence”. Something can be said to have arête only if it translates into a well-functioning end. For a horseman to be described as good, they should possess arête of handling horses better than others; for a sword to be good it has to have an arête of being sharp and strong. This, therefore, means that the moral virtue for the Greeks has no difference with any kind of excellence. According to the Greeks, there is no distinct definition of morality which is associated with duty or sanctity. According to them, moral virtue only involves doing what is right, and what results into the total well-being of the entire society. The Greeks are not motivated to do the right thing by defined rules and legislations. They do what is good so as to achieve excellence in their fields of endeavors. Just the same way an athlete trains hard to become the best. The word ethics which is derived from a Greek word “ethos” can be literally used to mean “character. Aristotle is, therefore, striving to describe the qualities of a human that can constitute to excellent characters.
The idea that, for every single virtue, there are two vices contradicts most of the philosophies of the Aristotle time. The likes of Plato believe that for every virtue, there is only one opposite vice. Another contradicting view is that for one to achieve virtue, they should always focus on the middle ground. According to philosophers such as Plato, for one to achieve excellence or virtue, they should always aim at the extreme. The biggest problem in achieving the middle ground is that the position of the middle ground is not always obvious. It is not an easy thing to locate the middle ground and use it in your decision making. For this reason, Aristotle presented a table which showed the two extremes and the middle ground. According to him, his table only represented rough approximations. Virtue may lie closer to one vice than the other, this depends on different contexts and people. Aristotle’s table is therefore not the exact rules, but rather, approximations which can be used to achieve virtues.
Moral values are arrived at as a result of continuous practice. This therefore means that there is a very limited value of studying ethical texts like the Nicomachean Ethics. The relevance of this can be seen when we consider the fact that moral virtue is not the same as other forms of excellence. For example, when we want to know how to climb mountains, we will always read books on mountain climbing. However, the knowledge derived from the book will not give us the adequate practice skills in climbing mountains. We develop such skills after climbing mountains a number of times. In the same way, it may help to read text like Nicomachean Ethics so that we can have some understanding of moral virtues. However, the only way to acquire the moral virtues is by practicing virtue ethics. The only way to be more courageous is by practicing on how to take our fears down. The only way we can be patient is by making an effort to control anger. This therefore means that for one to be virtuous, they need not to study, but rather, to practice the moral behaviors. Education is just meant to instill proper habit among us, but practice is meant to make us put the virtuous habits into use. Aristotle therefore encourages education among the youths. At the tender ages, education is paramount in that it gives individuals insight of what is good and what is bad. Education also molds the youths so that they don’t grow up to become nasty adults.
According to Aristotle, pleasure is an “activity”. This creates a distinction between our modern conception of pleasure and the Aristotle’s notion. Aristotle believes that pleasure comes from virtue. In the modern world, we tend to think of happiness as some kind of emotional state we are, and not which we do. “Happiness” can generally be translated to Eudaimonia in Greek. A literal translation of Eudaimonia can mean “flourishing” or “happiness”. Being eudemon does not mean that one is at an emotional state as when they are successful. Happiness comes as a result of living well; on the other hand, virtue represents the possibility of living well. Even when our moral virtues are excellent, we can only achieve good, but we can never be sure of achieving happiness until we put those virtues into practice.
When you are courageous but you have never gotten the opportunity exercise your courage, you will always have virtue. The only moment when you exercising your courage by taking down fear is the only moment that you will start feeling the pleasure. A good example Aristotle made was with an athlete. Being a good athlete is a virtue. However, an athlete only enjoys the pleasure after winning the Olympic Games. This therefore means that when you are a virtuous person and you are not exercising your virtue, you are no better than an athlete who sits on the sidelines only to watch. According to Aristotle, pleasure is only achieved by those who come out to seize it. This therefore gives us three categories of people: those who are not virtuous hence they will never achieve pleasure; those who are virtuous but they don’t exercise it hence they also don’t achieve pleasure; and those who are virtuous and are putting their virtue to practice, they will always achieve pleasure.
Pleasure and Pain
According to Aristotle, pleasure is an intrinsic good. For pleasure to be a part of our virtuous life, it has to be a good thing. This, therefore, means that if pain is bad then pleasure is good. Both humans and animals strive to pursue pleasure. Pleasure is not a state of an activity, but rather, a result of activities. Pleasure can only be produced by something which is naturally good. The byproduct of anything which is naturally bad can never result in pleasure. In other words, naturally good things produce pleasure while naturally bad things produce pain. Our natural state can also alter the perception of pleasure. From one to rightfully perceive pleasure, they must be in their right state of natural health. This therefore means that vicious individuals are always not in their right state of mind. Any pleasure which is derived from undertaking vicious activities is not really a pleasure. Only the malicious individuals with the poor state of mind and health will conceive such results as pleasure. In other words, what the malicious people may see as pleasure is fear in the real sense. The pleasure perceived by vicious people can be defined as incidental pleasure, not the natural pleasure. Pleasure, therefore, is not a derivative of its own stake but rather can only be desirable when its stimulated with a virtuous action.
According to Eudoxus, pain is the opposite of pleasure. As a naturally good pleasure is caused by the choice of virtuous activities, pain is caused by poor choices of activities or choice of malicious activities. The pleasure that we derive is always an object of the choices that we make. Eudoxus believes that when any good is added to pleasure, it makes it even more attractive to choose. This therefore means that will be less of a choice as compared to an additional good. Eudoxus argues that one can always achieve more pleasure if they are wiser. You need the wisdom to make wise choices which eventually result into pleasure. We can, therefore, say that something can be made even more pleasurable when added with goods. In the reverse, when we remove good from an action or activity, we get closer to pain. Pain, therefore, is a result of less good.
Conclusion
Every decision that we make, or any activity that we undertake is meant to result in some amount of pleasure. These decisions must be virtuous for the pleasure to be maximum. For one to achieve pleasure they have to practice virtue ethics. This is because pleasure is as a result of the amount of good that we do. By choosing the virtuous act, one must strive to strike a middle ground between the excess and deficit. This means that for every virtuous act, there are two vices. In other words, for every chance of achieving pleasure, there are two chances of achieving pain.
References
Kenny, A. (1978). The Aristotelian Ethics: A study of the relationship between the Eudemian and Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle.
Destrée, P. (2014). Aristotle on the Paradox of Tragic Pleasure. In Suffering Art Gladly (pp. 3-27). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
