Conclusion:
Proper, not alien, pleasures make us more capable of
performing corresponding activities.
Premises:
1.
The human person aims at pleasure (1175a18).
a.
Pleasure completes their activities, and hence
completes life, which they desire (1175a16).
2.
Each pleasure is proper to the activity that it
completes (1175a30).
3.
Each activity has its own proper pleasure
(1175b27).
4.
The proper pleasure increases or promotes the
activity (1175a31).
a.
Makes an activity more exact, longer, and better
(1175b15-16).
b.
Ex: If we enjoy doing geometry, we become better
geometers, and understand each question better (1175a33-34).
c.
Consequently, we improve our proper function
(1175a35).
5.
The virtuous person or “complete and blessedly
happy man” must be taken as the measure of each thing (1176a29).
a.
Just
as each animal is thought to have a proper function, it also has a proper
pleasure, which corresponds to the activity of that function (1176a3-4).
b.
(i)
Even though humans are of the same species, people have different proper
functions and the human function determines the proper pleasure.
c.
(i) The
good person performs his function well in alignment with reason.
i. “What appear pleasures to him will also
really be pleasures, and what is pleasant will be what he enjoys” (1176a18-19).
ii. (i) He does not choose the activity purely
for the sake of pleasure; pleasure arises from the activity in itself.
d.
His
pleasures complete the activities that are proper to a human being, thus he is
taken as the standard (1176a28).
6.
(i) Alien pleasures are the opposite of proper pleasures;
therefore, they have the opposite impact on an activity.
a.
An alien pleasure impedes an activity/damages it
(1175b15).
b.
Ex: If writing or rational calculation has no pleasure
and is in fact painful for us, we do not write or calculate, since the activity
is painful (1175b19-20).
c.
Ex: When we engage in two activities
simultaneously, the more pleasing activity will consume our attention until we
are no longer involved in the less pleasing activity (1175b10).
d.
These examples demonstrate that alien pleasures
make humans less capable of performing corresponding activities than proper
pleasures.
I agree with your first couple of premises about proper pleasures being pleasures that help complete an activity but am a bit confused about your last premise. When you say that "an alien pleasure impedes an activity/damages it" do you mean to say that the alien pleasure comes from not doing an activity or from doing another activity in its stead? If an alien pleasure comes from doing another activity then doesn't that mean that all activities can lead to alien pleasures?
ReplyDeleteI liked the argument outline, I thought it was very thorough. However, one detail in the reading that I thought was particularly important that maybe could have been included in the beginning was pleasures related to the temperate person. The text states that the temperate person avoids pleasures, and the prudent person pursues what is painless, not what is necessarily pleasurable (1152b). The reasoning behind this statement is that pleasure impedes prudent thinking (1152b). I thought this was an important and interesting point that tied into what we discussed last week about temperance, and I thought many people would have different view points on the matter as well because it is a different view point when thinking about pleasure.
ReplyDeleteI liked this argument outline a lot; I thought it was clear and concise. However, I found an interesting point in this reading that I thought could have been used well when talking about pleasure and activity. It reads, "The form of pleasure, by contrast, is complete at any time. Clearly, then, it is different from a process, and is something whole and complete. This also seems true because a process must take time, but being pleased need not; for what is present in an instant is a whole" (1174b 7-10). This statement really helped me understand and solidify the thoughts on pleasure and activity.
ReplyDeleteGood job. I felt as though some of the premises could have been expanded upon to help support your conclusion more, maybe with the inclusion of more examples. An example of where this could have been done is in the first three premises. Aristotle spoke earlier in the reading about why we pleasure is important to our kind, the example he gave was that we use pleasure and pain to educate children (1172a-20). He also spoke of pleasure's relationship to the happy life ("pleasure and pain extend through the whole of our lives, and are of great importance for virtue and the happy life"1172a-25), which might have been nice to include when writing why the human aims for pleasure. Especially because you later mention happiness with the "blessedly happy man", why would we follow him if happiness wasn't of importance? I thought that you supported your point about the "complete and blessedly happy man" was the best supported.
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