Book 1 - 1094a to 1094b
Aristotle says:
Do you agree? Is it better to ensure that all your subordinated activities that lead to an ultimate good, be just and good in themselves? Why or why not?"Every rational activity aims at some end or good. One end/activity may be subordinated to another.
Practical application of this knowledge:
Here is an exercise. Write down one of your daily activities and then work backward to determine the ultimate reason why you do it. For example if you exercise every day. Ask why? To stay in shape, look healthy and socialize? Here you can go in three different directions so you pick "to stay in shape". Why stay in shape? It gives you more energy, prevents injuries, releases natural endorphins, gives you more confidence in your abilities, etc. Now you pick “more energy”. Why desire more energy? To be able to accomplish more like interacting with your family and children leading to happiness, the end good.
Note that when you do the above analysis on your selected activity, is it not happiness that lies at the end of your analysis? Is not happiness the most important good in all our goods that we seek since it is the main reason we do anything? Please enter your results from your own version of the above exercise and comment, we would love to see what you come up with.
Do this for all your daily activities to see which ones lead to happiness and for the ones that do not lead to happiness perhaps you should stop doing those activities.
I'm not too sure that all of our rational activities do aim at an ultimate good.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, to aim our activities toward an ultimate good we must first at least have an idea of what constitutes "ultimate goodness," yet after millenia of searching no single conception of what this elusive end may be exists, despite the amount of litereature that has been written on the subject.
Secondly, even if we think we may know what the ultimate good is, how are we to know that we are not mistaken? Is the good we are seeking the essence of the ultimate good (the noble aim of moral philosophy) or it is a socio-cultural construct that is held up as the standard bearer of goodness? If it is the latter (which I would argue in many cases it is) then we may be rationally deciding to pursue good x, yet be pursuing a path that leads us away from what is really the good.