Welcome back to the new thinkery. My name is David Barr with me as always is my good friend Alex pre-warry. Oh, it's you gates? W'd I don't speak the language of the hunt.
So how are you are you? I'm fine that work. Are you my good friend? You've killed a couple of crowds in your day, huh?
Just on top of a hot dog. Okay, this is gonna be another rare of an episode. What are we talking about? We're tired to be just recorded episode on the big Lebowski a real barn burner with their account.
Oh, barn barn barn. There are animals in there. No texture there are chariest possessions of one third of the spy guys. No, no great the way that you interact with the animals is yeah virtuous Alternative way of so but ethical no that's good.
We're talking about the ethics again tonight I don't even know what we're talking about well We're talking about the beginning of book three which is on voluntary versus involuntary action and and what you can be praised for or blamed for and one of the consistent things that Aristotle harps on is that people tend to say those actions aren't voluntary Which they could be blamed for and those actions are voluntary which they could be praised for as I've seen Greg in a matter of hours go from hanging out with his yoko buddies bracket about how cute the pig was that he just Stumped and then when he's at a conference down the street He's like no no no no that pig that pig that was you know moving sexy. I had no control not my I was not in control of my desire Right and so in the way Aristotle here promises to help us unlock regs. So is that not right? Yeah, I was gonna pig move sexy Go on I just stepped away from my first I just stepped away from my first I was talking about Oh good, then I everything you said I'm sure is fine.
I told you know, we were worse than potty going air, so let's let's talk Let me let me let me catch us up the speed we've done a lot of stuff on air So we've done parts of book one if we don't know what book one we do all book two Yeah, so this is the beginning of a three and what follows this is the discussion of courage. So we're slowly working out We didn't episode on courage. Yeah already to yeah, so we're slowly working our way to a complete account of air stalls ethics for your listening pleasure so air start opens up by raising the question of the good and secondarily the human good the question of the best life and he comes to The conclusion at the end of book one that he's gonna look into virtue as look the good things in life That we want family home sexy pigs those things are all subject to chance It can be taken away from us and if you want to restore those things when they take away from you What you really need is a virtue the virtue when everything's gone to rebuild your house and find a new pig Right so then I was just saying any splits virtue into two right so and book two intellectual and moral version and I'm sorry Yeah, much like your pinky splits it into two one is more over to you the other is intellectual virtue and it looks two Five he's really concerned with more virtue Never to pick that was interested with more over to you, but okay, no, it's like for two I've seen smart pigs. I just know how you swear You know like him that's my idea.
Yeah, yeah, you like some gobble Belly G Greg you said you said you got a sigh with apple cores and it just sit down next to me old best this one heard It none what are you doing? It's not how pigs talk like for everyone Greg read Sophocles Ajax and Ajax goes mad and he does all those things to those animals and it's ten people are really upset But Greg he doesn't to pray. He's wasn't upset at all by that scene. He's like this is a Friday night No, you're confusing.
He saw that he killed all those Sheep, right and he's like this is the worst tragedy known to man all these beautiful sheep in the bloom of their youth Alright, anyways, so book two goes into home. We're talking about a virtue and happiness Aristotle Okay, so I'm a little loopy from the big one about So book two Aristotle goes into his more general account of the nature of moral virtue This is the very famous and familiar account that if we all feel passions and desires We'll feel fear for example and the proper disposition to fears You want to fear the right amount given the circumstances given who you are given given the situation that you're faced with you fear too much You're coward if you fear too little your reckless This is the general structure and at the end of book two and this is I think related because we're talking about the beginning of Book three the end of book two he talks about the difficulty of hitting the mean that really it seems like what you're trying to do Is to be skillful at aiming at the me and to be skillful aiming at the me means to try to avoid the worst of two evils And try to tend towards the safer of the evils But also to reflect on yourself and all these issues are raised about how do you know whether to praise or blame an action a cowardly people Right if you live in a more cowardly regime that doesn't emphasize courage the courageous person is gonna look reckless in a very militaristic Society a courageous person might see cowardly if they're a bit more restrained in all these ways There's problems appraising blame and then in book three he really raises the question of When a an action is voluntary or involuntary related to your Sort of natural disposition let's say are you're sort of pre-existing this position because it could have something to do with your Operating that's a question I think we should talk about if you do have to pull against your You know excessive fear in the direction of courage How culpable are you if you miss the mark is one way to think about how the end of book two connects to the beginning of book three And so I don't think they connect well at all for it's worth. Okay, I mean like you know I keep him begins I mean so we're talking about book three chapters one through five which form a kind of coherent unit Maybe it's about Voluntaryness and choice and deliberation and things you desire and what you wish for and he says I mean here's the opening paragraph of book three chapter one and I'm reading the Bartlett Collins I know the folks at home earlier interested in what translation we're using the Bartlett College University of Chicago He begins in the following way says since virtue concerns passions as well as actions and voluntary actions elicit praise and blame Whereas involuntary ones elicit forgiveness and sometimes even pity it is perhaps necessary for those who are examining virtue to find the voluntary and the involuntary Doing so is useful also for law givers with a view to both honors and punishments So I'll just say this seems like a long unnecessary detour to me now of course It's relevant of course is related, but I'll just as we go through this episode tonight I think that these chapters form a pretty serious challenge to what aerosol has been doing thus far in the book And I think that the problem is not adequately disposed of it's set aside And then he begins to elaborate the moral virtues and then as he transitions to the intellectual virtues the problems that are raised or anticipated here Come roaring back. So I think it's a problem for the moral man I think that morality rests upon or assumes Volition it assumes that you're somehow culpable and he says this he keeps on back to law giving is being the political community assumes this And he keeps coming back to common opinion to buttress this notion, but common opinion could be wrong Anyway, I'm sure we'll get into it, but yeah I think what you've just pointed out pretty well is that there's a kind of double perspective operating here one is a political Which is runs throughout the ethics right the whole thing is Empowerment to instruct a law giver who then at the end of the ethics he was on to politics and that's that's getting down to how the regime could cultivate This sort of education be lost There's on the one hand the log on the other hand the philosophic perspective for those who are examining Richard and there's no reason to believe that the philosophic perspective will fully support The law can be respected now He does come to a kind of quote-unquote happy Resolution of the two where you're sort of culpable for your own character development But I think there's real problems you are raised with that ultimately, but that is a kind of tension That being said I do think there is a real connection here with the law.
Yes, of course Which is that well, let's just say this at the end of book two There is this kind of worry that if your nature inclines you away from virtue simply you're trying to call get out How can you ever be responsible for not having a virtue? How can you be praised and blame? So the philosophic question here intrudes on the political and he has to find a way to square this circle, right? He needs to find a way to reconcile the philosophic account Which you might say you're far less culpable than the regime or the city would like you to be and the political regime Which rests on being able to praise and blame and incarcerate ostracize all sorts of stuff.
I always found this part of the ethics You know, but for the link it's a semi complex, but I always wondered why he didn't it's basically about how one makes assessments And I don't know what it doesn't begin sooner in the ethics is that is that makes sense of all? Yeah, I could see the proper starting point actually because he's talking about how to assign plays praise or blame But at its heart it seems like this sec this section is also about how do you assess them? Or how do you talk about ethical standards, right? Like how do you judge if something is he says praise or blame good or bad?
I mean, why doesn't this kind of framing begin much sooner in the book? I think it's a work that I'm starting one. Yeah, go ahead. I guess what that right after at the end of what we're reading He says let's go through all the virtues in Particular which really if you go back to book two I mean he goes through all the particular virtues there that summarizes the account Why doesn't he then just say okay now?
Let's go to so there's a weird kind of interruption Which in there's all this happens for example in book three of the politics In book four he goes into the regimes book three is about the city and the citizen But then somehow he's kind of drawn in his discussion of the excellent citizen into a discussion of kingship That kind of intrudes and that's I think really important understanding ourselves in tension So I think one way to sort of refine your point is if you can come up with a reason here I think you'd have a real grass one aerosol's intention in the world I think Greg's has started us on that path already. I don't know if you want to elaborate No, I think the minute it'll come out as we go through the text more But I think you're right David this could be a proper starting point I mean the way that he comes to it here I do think that there's a pretty intentional rhetoric and a very intentional pedagogical thing that's going on the ethics and so I mean that I don't have to say in the very beginning Alex are rightly points out that it's about this the end so the human ends What's the good but it really holds out this hope of human happiness? And so I think aerosol's trying to rouse our hopes for human happiness to be getting even though he shows how it's problematic And so here if we're really one of the things that this is leading to is if you know our happiness depends on our virtue Okay, fine There are virtue must be up to us otherwise our prospects were happiness are also pretty pretty damn And so I think that this problem is elude to later because it it doesn't cast as much a shadow and problem of happiness Although to be fair, I think there's plenty of issues raised with problem of happiness and but one itself Yeah, no book one starts off on a semi-dower Chances and here immediately like wolf is right right now. That's right.
No, I mean Yeah, I think that sometimes people can gloss over that very quickly But yeah, you're right the problem chances there like you might get hit by a truck or something like this and your prospects What happens are significantly reduced I would say or even in chapter two of book one where he holds out the alternative Which is like a beige or two alternative which is that our long after another yes is one after another that's No, only in death and it's pretty clear I think that's really important because it shows that what he's what he's engaged in here is in an attempt to seek out the good Life above and beyond that now if virtue is not up to us if we are not responsible for a character Then all that's left is our pre-existing desires which may or may not look down to our overall benefit might lead to our death But it's just kind of this kind of ceaseless one after another until it's difficult for me to see how our desires are up to us I mean, I think we like to praise and blame people for indulging our desires or having the right desires or you're a good boy You need all those donuts or you know, you didn't do all that morphine that we gave you the job But the desires themselves where do they come from? I mean that seems to be more problematic. He'll get to that actually here in books Three book three chapters one two five Maybe the first thing to do is to talk about so there's this problem is virtue up to us Right, so he begins by talking about the voluntary they move to choice They need to deliveration and wish so he begins by being very precise and one of the things you can say is I think Ersel does have an account of how humans act voluntarily if you accept his definition of voluntary But his definition of voluntary kind of restricts things such that it raises problems that then get pushed back to chapter two on choice And then choice has problems with it push back to this question of liberation And I think the the problems come to a head in chapter five and we'll build there But voleterriness is somehow easy not it's actually it's not easy. I suppose none it's easy, but it does seem persuade to me The aerosol since you guys are so fascinated with pig activities air cell holds up a prospect of animals Non-rational animals can act voluntarily They can't do that but the animals other animals cannot make choices So that's an interesting like children connect voluntarily, but they don't really make choices right and so you can sort of like they can't deliberate they can't think about things they can't choose one option over another they can but they're not but they're not They're not forced to do things So they can there is some animating principle the origin of which is in them where there's no external force making them do it And it's not the result of ignorance And so I mean that wasn't very neat But aerosol when he defines what a voluntary action is it has to do with external force and ignorance and of course there are problems built in there Even as well, we can look at some of this right so he gives these examples.
This is still in chapter one He says something comparable occurs This is a bottom page 42 something comparable occurs also when it comes to casting off cargo in storms for in an unqualified sense No one voluntarily just since cargo and that's important by the way that the voluntary and the unqualified sense But when one's preservation and that of the rest are at issue everyone who has sense or intellect news would do it So if you're caught in a storm and you realize you need to cast cargo over you're gonna die You cast it over course and that's voluntary in a sense Although it's not unqualifiedly voluntary because the storm didn't arise on your own volition so he continues So these sorts of actions growing cargo over during a storm. He says are mixed Mixed voluntary and involuntary Though they are more voluntary than involuntary for their choice worthy at the time they are done and the end of the action Of course was opportunity the moment and if I were pressing this So he's talking about the voluntary and involuntary and it seems like there are these external circumstances that are impinging upon the Voluntaryness of the action that would seem to cover I mean show me a case where that's not at play and all of human action It seems like there are always external factors acting as sort of compulsory elements that you're responding to in some way I mean he wants to talk about the origin of a voluntary action being in yourself You're the origin, but this really is setting aside the interior life of man is somehow completely Lee I think he's trying to appeal into the reader's notion strong desire to believe that we are independent and autonomous When in reality there are a lot of things happening external class that are acting a stimuli So this is go back to Alex's point that is this where the political project kicks in that uh to think about this too hard is Greg is saying You don't want people to think about it too deeply because it in a way you can go down the road where things become absolved Yeah, the one self right like I didn't So you think he's Playing up or down playing one way or another. I think he's giving I think he's giving the most coherent That's not coherent by that the best word. I think he's giving the best account of the political opinion that we all believe in Relent that we all believe in more responsibility.
He's giving the best case for it That's possible, but it still has these problems and he recognizing that political communities stand or fall by Responsibility we can't have a political community that subscribe to the famous theocratic dictum that no one voluntarily does wrong because then they would almost become Censeless to punish people and so I think he's nodding to the gentlemanly opinion that I am independent autonomous I can't pull myself up by my bootstraps and you didn't and that's how I blame worthy or culpable Let me throw another angle on this which is that one of the problems here is also with philosophic reasoning Which wants to see natural necessity This comes up at one point wants to see natural necessity and so that it can give an account of them Right and the problem is is that if you give an account that this occurred by necessity then more responsibility seems to go out the window So you can read this as a kind of philosophic argument saying that You know politics rests on this notion of responsibility is philosophically questionable if not untenable the other side Which is at one point it's it's pointed out that well really this comes with deliberation You only deliberate about things that you that are kind of unclear right uncertain where art and science don't really apply or incomplete Right once our science is complete. It's supposed to operate by necessity in your there's no deliberation There's no question of responsibility really that's gonna come so presupposes a kind of In your so one one argument you can make is that the philosophic account by trying to find necessity where we maybe have incomplete knowledge Ends up being subversive and perhaps not rightly so right so another way this comes up on page 44 He says it is laughable to attribute to external things the cause of what's being easily ensnared by such things like plus I know such things are pleasant noble things. Yeah Rather than to attribute the cause to oneself as is attributing the cause of noble things to oneself But that of shameful words to pleasures, right? So when you're overcome by by shame you say oh well it was the pleasure was overwhelming my desires It wasn't me.
I didn't choose it. It just so when you do something noble even if it's like a gut instinctual reaction You'll say yeah, I really am a good person, but it's laughable, but maybe not wrong Maybe not right, but then it appears on the other side turns out to be so on page 50 There's an discussion of deliberation. He says each person ceases investigating how he will act When he traces the origin of the action back to himself and to what is in himself that leads the way since this is what chooses This is clear also from the ancient regimes which Homer portrayed the kings used to announce to the people what they had chosen So the problem is is that the whole Logic of moral responsibility is overlaid with trying to escape punishment and trying to accrue honors by those Authority and so people are inclined to want to claim the people are inclined to want to take credit when they've done something good But to shoot credit when they don't something bad exactly and this and this is true both of subjects escaping praise and blame and also A ruler is trying to accrue praise for the good things they've done And so then the question is is I guess the question I would want to ask is Philosophy undermines this but if philosophy is incomplete right if it doesn't attain the level of science Does it really undermine moral responsibility? Does that make sense?
Yeah, great sense. I meant what I said when I think aerosol is putting the best version of moral responsibility forward because it's like what he does here He gives a better account of this than someone who actually believes in this So for example, his the way that he narrowly circumscribes Voluntary is in makes it persuasive to me even though ultimately I think it's a problem So he says he just draws a line he's like look if if so if you were physically forced to do it You're not voluntary But we're not gonna call compulsion in voluntary compulsion. Sorry We're not gonna he just he just omits that from the discussion because I think he recognizes that the beautiful and the pleasant are sources of compulsion But he's like look we're gonna just define the voluntary is that which is free from external force We're gonna we're gonna bracket this thornier philosophical problem with compulsion, right? Because I think he's he's perfectly aware that actually that beautiful pig can tempt you and it's you know You can't you can't help yourself when that sort of thing arises and so by defining it so strictly he's able actually to call it Okay, we can't speak about you being voluntary if by voluntary we mean no one had a gun to your head Okay, if that's what we mean no one had a gun to my head then yes, it's voluntary But it still has these more thorny philosophical problems.
Okay, what about choice? Okay, but now choice is something that um there's this timeline component where it's voluntary seems to be immediate in the moment Whereas choice is something that you can sit and reflect upon and that's different but choice again I mean these things just keep getting back kickback, right? So well choice is something you've chosen but choice implies a prior deliberation I've thought about the alternatives and chosen one and so then that leads us into the third chapter on deliberation Yeah, so I mean one way to one way to put the sort of arc of these chapters as you're sort of intimidating Greg is that the The city turns on moral responsibility and for more responsibility it asks whether the action came from within or without Right. Did you choose it or was it the rest of party from without?
The problem is is that the soul seems to be composite And so then you have to go within and say what's doing the action and so the problem is you can always kick it down And so as he begins from of course in the person itself Uh, he starts thinking further and further within the choice and then he concludes at the end of my chapter two in the discussion of choice that Is it therefore it's at the bottom of 47? He says what are what sort of thing is choice then since it is none of these things Mentioned that is it is not desire is not spirit. It's not wish or opinion He says it indeed appears to be something voluntary, but not everything voluntary is an object of choice But is it therefore at least so it's a kind of minimal account at least an object of prior deliberation So it leads naturally to the point about deliberation because minimally if you're going to choose something you have to Dwell on it to think about it for a certain extent so it gets kicked back even so it goes back within it says Okay, what's within us all these things spiritedness desire? Etc opinion and they say okay Well, if we want to find a place where you could have gone one way or the other the liberation has to occur Right, so it keeps you're right keeps getting kicked back to a psychologically more subtle way And then I guess the question is do you ever have a complete account of the soul such that you can side this?
If you're not then it seems like it's a necessary problem, right? Right, right? And even if you want to just read it appears choice appears to be something voluntary The name appears to signify this right so there's there's all these constant hedgings and I think we talked about poor How we read Aristotle's ethics is constantly employing conditional statements qualifications and all that kind of stuff It appears from what perspective there are things we don't put a perspective. Yeah, very good.
Yeah, that's extremely right So then so now choice implies it seems to imply or be bound up with some prior deliberation And so that brings us to chapter three what are the kinds of things that we deliberate about? We don't deliberate about math problems you already alluded to this out Why not well because it's like well should two or two two two plus two before it should have equal something else? No, there's no should there. There's no deliberation.
That's a different kind of investigation So deliberation is a kind of investigation, but it's a kind of investigation that involves alternative That's why we don't deliberate about science. We don't deliberate about ends The ends which by the way we get kicked down to the next chapter The ends are given somehow and what we deliberate about is a the future would be the best means to arrive at a given end I would like to get uh skinny. How do I make that happen? I deliberate about what I should eat or how I should exercise And this is somewhat obvious right this does not seem it's again We're building to the bigger problem, but like okay, if you're responsible for your or Virtue while your your choices need to get you okay.
Well, my choices are the product of my deliberation Okay, what do I deliberate about well? I don't deliberate about virtue apparently because virtue is an end I'll I deliberate about means So if I want to become courageous, how do I become courageous if I want to become moderate? How do they come moderate? But what about the choice itself to be moderate or to be Uh courageous and I guess one could think about those as means to happiness Perhaps but then okay fine.
Now I'm gonna deliver about half of this but we don't deliver it Air cells fight. That's what he says, but I think there's something tricky here What he says a doctor does not deliberate about whether he is to make someone healthy But order about whether he is to persuade or a politician whether he is to produce A good order the last one is probably the best example But if you're a doctor and like Adolf Hitler comes into your office He's ill all of a sudden your end as a doctor And your end is a good citizen as a more person or they're coming to conflict And there you will have to deliberate about the ends now You don't choose the ultimate ends which seems to be the good right and that's where chapter four comes in Which is about what we all wish or want which is uh the good Before move to chatter before can I read something from chat if you're planning to move on to every something No, I'm not trying to move on Point here is that it seems like even the question of deliberation in relation to ends touches on this this problem Right, which is that the ends seem to come from without you're supposed to have this right the role in the community And yet when you're wrestling with morality, you might actually wrestle with what end is appropriate your end as an artist and your end is a good citizen So where the ends come from right? But then he says right here this on the bottom page 49 just about 11 13 a it seems them as has been said that human being is an origin of his actions And that's a curious so it seems like it's internal to us We are what that's what we are we are the origin of our actions But I'm sorry not the and origin we might have multiple origins But he's continues deliberations concerned with actions that happen through one's own doing and the actions are for the sake of something else For not the end but rather the things conducive to the end would be the object of deliberation So you were saying that we do investigate the ends which I agree with but it seems like if again like we might disagree over what's voluntary involuntary But if we accept his definition then we would say okay voluntary doesn't apply to cases were force supplied If we if we accept his account of deliberation It seems like the investigation of ends would be a different word for our style I'm not I don't think he's just making semantic or technological arguments. I really think he's trying to understand He's saying okay.
We do think about ways to achieve a goal that we call deliberating But what do you call that investigation of goals in a way loosely speaking you and I would call that deliberation as well But it seems like aerosol would say that's something else would be philosophy for kind of investigation. Well, of course. Yeah, that's what I think Well, yeah, it would be maybe a branch of philosophy Human philosophy. Yeah, for example, should we start moving to transition or wish?
Sure. Yeah, this is chapter four. So voluntary choice Deliberation now wish. Can you do the Greek terms for these things?
Does that matter? Um, yeah, so earlier on in chapter two, he says just to connect this wish may be for things that are impossible for example, immortality Um, and wishes also concerned with things that could come about through one's own doing wish has more to do with the end Whereas choice has to do with things conducive to that. So you might wish something impossible for like eternal life Right in the afterlife, but you can't choose that But you can choose are possible things that you believe to be conducive to that end So burning thigh bones to zoo saw the altars will he also says you can't choose happiness Yeah, it's just a give it end right because it's not up to you. It's not up to also.
That's such a serious. Yeah, I mean You read out. I don't know how you overcome and this are saying things like that Very difficult to overcome like that kind of dark turn. I I think yeah, I agree So happiness is the thing you wish for where immortality is the thing you wish for and you try to choose ways to achieve that See, yeah, you wish for immortality thinking that's happiness Right, right.
You're wishing so in that sense Here's where it gets slippery, right? If you wish for happiness and you wish for immortality thinking it's happiness Isn't that really your wish or is that a choice this comes up into wish Discussion, right? He says there's kind of two opinions end of chapter three on deliberation says what is chosen is a certain longing marked by deliberation Or something that is up to us since that's the case choice would in fact be a deliberative longing for things that are up to us Right. So he says he says let's uh, that's good enough.
I think it was not chapter four But that's good enough for an outline again the signal to like okay. He has not been precise here. No, not at all Of course But so then my question would be in lay the immortality thing is uh, yeah Okay, uh, we wish for immortality thing it's happiness That might not be that might so that might be a longing And that longing might be up to us It might not be deliberative If we deliberate about if you realize that it doesn't make sense that it's impossible So I guess one thing we could ask is do you ever chew your if you're a fleck on it? Yeah, so do you ever choose impossible things thinking they're possible there?
There's a whole so the question is I think he kind of gets to the nub of it in chapter four where he says I think I could choose I think you could choose something that would lead to something you could choose something on the On the basis of believing that leads you to something that's actually not possible The choice itself is impossible impossible. Like I could choose to drink this cup water thinking it's gonna make me happy But it's in fact radiator fluid Well, let's see something like so Let's take something really like crazy or somebody who's just really talented right and they say I choose To fly unaided after they start flapping their arms, right They're so they didn't choose something impossible right like they chose to I think that's good And their mind they're choosing to fly right from our perspective. You might say they're choosing to flop their arms thinking it'll make them fly There's something difficult. No, I don't think so if aerosol says the choice is something the choice is something that you've deliberated about that is up to us I mean, it's not a test to fly It's not we can't do it, but if you're really deluded you're in your mind choosing on why right so now you can push So this is it comes up in four right he says that wish is concerned with the end has been stated But in the opinion of some people wish is for the good in the opinions of others.
It is for what appears good Right. Yeah, yeah for those who say the object of wish is the good. It turns out that if someone chooses incorrectly Right an apparent good for real good than what he wishes for is not actually an object of wish So how does immortality fit into this you think like I wish to fly so I make a choice and it's important with that wish but the wish was the thing that's not possible But he's saying here if wishes for the good, okay, then the apparent goods become a matter of choice It seems like well, he does say like there's some people who think that Well, he does say that some people say wishes wishing is for the good and others say it's for the apparent good So he'd have to I mean does he sufficiently even arbitrary the debate between these two groups isn't this the rub of the problem that the good appears differently The different people okay. Yeah, so there's an apparent Yeah, so I think the incentive to move to wishes for the apparent good is in a way to save this problem, right?
If someone chooses incorrectly knitting wishes for what is not actually an object of wish in mortality, right? So you would be choosing an incorrect wish so I'll put it like this if Wish and choice seem to be a clear line in Aristotle and wish is towards the ends and choices towards the means toward the ends When you start trying to arbitrate ends you start thrusting apparent false ends or or bad ends onto choice Which creates certain problems or you make everything apparent and then you lose the good among the appearance. Does that make sense? Think so.
Yeah, yeah, you just get lost in the confusions people make choices all the time Based on what they believe it will lead to and they're mistaken about that Yeah, but the real problem or responsibility right this gets a sovereignty thing, right? If you really knew what was good I mean do you wish for the good or the apparent good if you really could choose you would choose to choose for the real good And therefore your choice isn't away unfree because you've been deluded by what's good I mean like right you don't actually you're not actually choosing the good but your own shoes Yeah, yeah, it's exactly it's your ignorance of the good that's the problem And since we can never quite figure out what that is But that's the problem He says when he talks about those who say that the apparent good is the object of which he says It turns out that there is no object of wish by nature But only what seems to be good to each so you fall back into the kind of nihilistic obhesion Respectable is just an appearance or a fancy and it's just dependent on your desires as an individual so on the one hand if you want to um Have like a concrete object you've got to have this this good And then it seems like you might be responsible for choosing and correctly or choosing impossible things It's very difficult wish is is is related to the end but the ends are heterogeneous and confused And then the question is where does responsibility you say philosophic responsibility for your own knowledge or ignorance come in there Does that make sense? But this economy that he makes in the beginning of chapter four between wishing for the good and wishing for the apparent good You're right he says look these people wrong these people wrong but then in the next paragraph He says but maybe this dichotomy is unsatisfactory And what must be declared that he raises a question is that the object of which in the unqualified sense and the true sense is the good But that for each person it is what appears to him to be the good This is a way of I think making more sense of the because this this actually what makes sense to you right everyone everyone actually wishes for the good I think that's right But the problem is what this means in effect or practically is what appears to be good to them Yeah, because no one would voluntarily be wrong about the good They would not if they knew that they're good that they were pursuing only apparent and mistaken They wouldn't pursue it. Yeah, so he ends up making a distinction between types of people between the serious person right Who seems always just get it right which is kind of nuts like always knows what's good and everybody else Right.
This is maybe we can move to chapter five where this comes up again Where he talks about the difference the law givers again by the way. Yeah here in chapter five So it's like this if we do treat this unit one through five as a whole It's bookended by reference to the law givers amplifying the political character of this investigation Chapter five seems to me about where where do we get ends from? Okay, so we act voluntarily fine, but voluntary is not really the rob we want to have a choice The question will be deliberate about we deliberate about means not ends We wish for certain ends, but where those wishes come from If we really are voluntary if we really are more responsible it would seem that our ends would have to be self-chosen Otherwise if the end is external to you and imposed upon you Everything else that falls from that would you be you would have to be responsible for? And so then the question ultimately becomes are you responsible for the way that the good appears to you?
And here he says yes, but it seems like elsewhere. He says yes, no, right? Because so in a way the kind of simple answer that he gives like simple version is you are responsible for your own excellence You do have a choice once you have a bad character that's not up to you, right? And you're just you're just stuck being a garbage human being, right?
That's just What's gonna be for you? But if you go back to book two Chapter two the very no chapter one the very end he says and we must make our activities be of a certain quality We have we have responsibility to make our activities We have a sort of one for the characteristics correspond to the differences among the activity So you make yourself act a certain way engage a certain activities and a character merces from that And that's who you are it makes no small difference then whether one is habituated in this or that way straight from childhood But a very great difference or rather the whole difference So you have to raise yourself As a child. I mean, where does that come from the book ends by saying the laws the ethics ends by saying the laws So on the one hand so to get to the law givers law givers Yeah, the law giver says you are responsible And the air style says there's no mother. You're responsible.
You made these you put in path laws, right? So like this is like when you see these like born-again Christians or like these people who are like David will know what I mean by this who are reformed hoes, right? These people who have been become dissolute under our like dissolute regime They then will point and point the finger at the car down the way right the culture is to blame The laws are to blame the regime is to blame not me yet for the purpose of the regimes How the law giver needs to hide his own activity and point the finger at you right for being a bad Person does that make sense like you want to be responsible for your own development, but that's like saying you're responsible for your own childhood That doesn't make sense. Yeah you know what the psychological impact of Understanding this cluster of chapters and such a clear-sided way She can really give you a kind of peace of mind as you navigate me like the Like the moral questions in life.
So where one might have been oppressed and overcome by guilt like he'll air someone What's the burden? Psychological burden from individuals on how we are That makes sense. I think so He doesn't want you to take away from this like oh, I'm gums Scott free my parents thought so I can do all the blowout one Like no, no, I guess what I'm trying to connect is uh his comment on the good citizen versus the good man, right? Or the philosopher in the city like if you're a philosopher reading this it's not like you're gonna go ahead and act with impunity But suddenly a little um transgression of the laws doesn't doesn't become so right the burdensome to you It's like another thing that you can lift from your mind.
Uh, just I don't know this thing can more liberate it Exactly, but I think of course it does I think that makes great sense, but I think one of the things that like a person look I think the primary audience for this text. There's probably two right there the philosophically minded Because I was like there's just the morally serious human being I think that morally serious human being will read this and latch on to the this is as I've mentioned I think one of the best cribbed or compressed defenses of moral responsibility and I'm like, yeah, this is what we mean But it's problematic and and I mean I think you're right the philosophic type might latch on to some problems And they might press the notion that wait a minute. You know, I'm not My childhood. I'm not responsible for how I was right He's my parents did that I'm not responsible for the laws that forms me the cave that I inhabit And I'm not really responsible for the way that the good appears to me and he evokes this nameless objector This is in book three chapter five right at 1114b This is this is the passage for me to bring it home because this is where he sort of clenches the argument moves on Bam finished you are responsible moving on and here's how he disposed of the argument He says now some of might say that while all people aim at what appears good to them They do not have control over that very appearance so people don't have any control over what appears to be good to them Now what kind of a person might say this this sounds an awful lot like something like Socrates might say that the good You don't you're not responsible for how the good appears to continue with our thought Rather the end appears to each person to whatever sort of person he is so like the end just appears to you Then a conditional if then each person is somehow a cause of his own characteristic He will somehow be a cause of the appearance of the good Like it just has to be the case although notice all the conditional's and qualifiers Otherwise then no one's the cause of any of his bad actions And I think he's relying on the moral person like no we can't accept that conclusion So therefore we have to have more responsibility and he continues rather It's not a kind of a person's ignorance at the end that he performs these bad actions because he supposes that Through them what is best will be his and in this case his aiming at the end is not self-chosen here He hits on the rub the end has to be self-chosen for there to be real moral responsibility Instead he continues one must simply be born as someone who has as it were the vision by which he will judge nobly and take hold of the truth And he's of a good nature to whom this noble capacity belongs by nature For when it comes to the greatest and noblest thing which is not possible either to get or to learn from another but rather One simply such by birth is to have this to have been born so well and totally in this respect would constitute natural goodness in the complete Intrussent so this nameless objectors like it's completely up to chance You just have to be born with like good vision or you don't have it here's aerosol response So by the way, this guy has just said no one's responsible for how to do appears to them No one's responsible for the bad things no one's responsible for the good things.
It's just luck his response If these things are true how then will virtue be any more voluntary than vice his response is a rhetorical question Now our nameless objector would respond it's not It's not more voluntary than vice they're both just you either have it or you don't So air cell continues for the both alike to both the good person in the bad the end appears and is set down by nature or in whatever way And by referring to this they do all else in whatever way they do it Whether then the end of whatever sort it may be does not appear to each person by nature But in some respect is dependent on the person himself or whether granting that the end is indeed natural Yet because the serious person does all these all else voluntarily his virtue to is a voluntary thing In either case vice two would be no less voluntary than virtue cause vice would be no less voluntary than virtue This nameless objector has just said they're both involuntary in Timingon. I'll skip here to the end If then a conditional statement just as is said the virtues are voluntary if the virtues are voluntary than so are the vices That's his conclusion And you believe that virtue is voluntary therefore vice is voluntary Now as we mentioned a few moments ago, Alex the moral person and just it's a natural human psychological thing So I want to take credit for the good things one does and want to disavile credit for the bad things you've done So aerosol here his argument that vice's voluntary is well, you'd have to admit voluntary is also not voluntary You won't do that therefore you do have choice like He has not met the charge of the nameless injector in my view because I think the nameless objector would say yeah Sorry, go ahead. No keep fishing point or else Well, I just that was kind of the point I mean that like he's like he's moved from well breach chapter one to chapter five Right voluntary choice deliberation wish and then finally he's like a chapter five and he's here Here he is here's the climax and he's like now someone might object to all this a philosopher and they might say it's none of its voluntary Oh, yeah, well, you know, if you if voluntary if you do good things voluntarily then you do bad things He's like he's relying on the person assuming that they do good voluntarily He's he's relying on this human psychological no one wants to let go of the credit They think it's owed to them for good things they've done and the entire argument hinges the climax of the argument hinges on that I think Yeah, so we'll answer this right the the I think this socratic Contradictor or sort of critic here and it's definitely a socratic. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah traces out a problem Which is that? Right, so to take the problem I was raising earlier because these are I think really deeply related if you are responsible for a character It's like being responsible for your own uppercut right the socratic says no because you really don't have a choice over that So it's really just about the lottery of nature and then you're just either good right I think the the only way to respond to this is to Assert something like the need to investigate after you've received an education the manner in which the laws have informed your desires and that He doesn't he doesn't do that. It doesn't do that here. Which is what you'd expect Yeah, the only I'll say that in response.
I'll just I figure absolutely right answer is of course the philosophical investigation ends But here's my only response to that That's luck too Like all these people who've done philosophy in any capacity. It's so common. How did you end up in this? It's all luck Yeah, so even the choice she speak loosely to begin to philosophize about and you know investigate the human ends Look for me in my own case The only time I started doing this was when someone gobsmacked me and made me see that something that I thought was good was wrong It wasn't me it was an external thing that showed me that I had some dumb opinion This is going back to the next Great talks about not being responsible for his errant desires But I think I don't know tell me if this is wrong, but let me try to keep let me try to give aerosols conclusion a bit of credit Which is that right okay?
The Socratic position forces us to read to notice that either everything is up to nature and chance or there is a Specifically in regard to birth nature you're born with or It's sorry everything's up to nature that you're born or there are certain things are left to chance and that has to do with the laws and the regime Right. So in a way it might be that you're responsible for your virtue and you're responsible for your advice In so far as you are capable of deliberating on the ends of your actions Right now the question you raised rightly Greg is that don't you have to have that nature and also the chance encounter of the right person to Wait, I found myself. I was just teaching Hobbes and aerosol and the republic and I found myself saying to students those guys with republic alics. She's the least you need to have your card above What's often is to play us?
It's all in the republic but I felt like so saying when I read the Leviathan It often feels like he's got his air cell open right next to him And then I found myself when I was teaching air cell being like if feels like sometimes he has his plate open right next to him And then when I was talking about Plato, I was like yeah, I think he's just a genius Socrates He's just got the best nature. I was like yeah, maybe Socrates, but it's just like I don't know It's not just the joke here of course is Plato did have Socrates and what to Socrates attribute his own philosophical term divine dispensation luck Yeah, something like that. Yeah, maybe his time onion. Yeah.
Yeah. And so yeah, so Plato points to his own suck. Yeah, so there's a kind of uh, there's a kind of ineffable source of all this sort of thing that And I wonder whether uh ultimately Yeah, I don't know it's it's so hard to teach this. I wonder whether ultimately the question of moral Responsibility obfuscates the question of what is the good Maybe the wrong question to ask is whether you're responsible for your erroneous opinions And the right question to ask is what is the good right?
You're caught in praise of blood So he starts with the philosophical perspective We want to talk about praise and blame but there's also the law giver But maybe even the philosophic perspective as presented there in complete chapter one is already too Overlated with the question of war responsibility That the real philosopher wouldn't ultimately come to terms with not caring about his ability or not He's still just like to have the right opinion of what's good Yeah, or maybe if they are concerned with the culpability it might be the culpability of ignorance Um, but it's really impossible to sign praise or blame for that. So the question is just what is what is the good? How are you to live? Who's responsible for how awesome this podcast is?
That's a good one. Let me just read this one quote Which I think really sums up the problem really well Greg using the barlin Collins translation I'm using the translation by Greg's girlfriend on a page 47. He says Is it okay better say don't forget folks like rate subscribe sin bacon so yeah great You definitely have to try this argument before the judge next time Listen, I have Your honor your honor look at her. Yeah, listen to the podcast.
We explain it. That's right. Don't forget likely subscribe That's it send pics of your pollockers. Oh jeez