Ethics
Lecture 8: Practical Philosophy, the End of Man, and the Division of Human Goods

Transcript
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Well, no, no. So that's a sign again, you know, that Socrates is correct. That you can explain why the others are mistaken. Why if they were correct, if you assume that they're correct, you can't explain why Socrates should get so mixed up. No obvious explanation of that. So now, what is practical philosophy about? When you talk about any knowledge, the first thing you want to know is what it's about, right? So you say, what is practical philosophy about? You can say, chiefly, it's about the end of the man, right? Meaning, purpose of the man. Because of that, as we were trying to show before, it's about all the goods of man also, in general, right? And to make it a little more concrete, it's about the, what, division of all the goods of man, right? Into goods of the soul, goods of the body, and outside goods. And also about the order of these goods, right? Especially as which are better, right? Okay. So, the distinction and order. Of course, notice, in order there, there's as many senses as before, right? So we talked about the order of these goods in goodness, right? Which are better. And who got the gold prize, the silver prize, the bronze prize, and so on. And we also talked about the order of these goods in being, yeah. We also talked about the order of these goods in the discourse of what? Reason, in our knowledge, right? Okay. So, distinction and order of all of the goods of man. These are things that the practical philosopher is concerned with. And that follows from its being about the end of man. Because all of these goods in some way contribute to the end of man, right? They're necessary for the end of man. And I made a comparison here to wisdom, right? Wisdom is not about the end of man, but it's about the end of the whole universe. It's about the Alpha and Omega, right? And therefore, it's also, you'll find out, about all things, but only in general, right? But then, you can say that practical philosophy is, ethics in particular, is about the goods of the soul in particular. See? Okay? Ethics here, the fundamental part of practical philosophy. About the goods of the soul in particular. Now, why is it about those goods in particular, but not about the goods of the body, right? And the outside goods in particular. But because of the proximity of these, right? And that means being able to the virtues. The virtues of reason and of what partakes of reason. The moral virtues and the virtues of reason. So, the proximity of them to what? To the chief end of man. Oh, okay. I mean, to the end of man, which is what ethics should be about. So, when Shakespeare says, right? In The Taming of the Shrew, the guy who's studying philosophy, that part of philosophy that treats the... happiness by virtue especially to be achieved okay but the goods of the body you know like health and the exterior goods that mean some wealth food and so on they contribute too but in a more remote way right so especially to be achieved by the goods of the soul so you got to realize this is fundamental right because this is what's fundamental to the practical philosophy to ethics that's both the reason why he considers at least in general all the goods of man right and why he considers in particular the goods of the soul right because they seem to be most fortunate to this and to almost enter into it right because even our rough drawing a line around the end of man it was man's own act the act of reason according to virtue right throughout life so this is very much tied up with that and that's where Aristotle when he takes up the end of man in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics he as he says great perigraphe carry around roughly a line he draws a line around happiness right and then after he's gone through all the virtues in particular uh then in the tenth book he comes back and says more precisely right but happiness is that consists mainly in the act according to virtue of wisdom he must not follow those who advise so you see all those three things huh so you wouldn't say it's about just one of those things right but you see it's in order among them right it's chiefly about the end of man and that's the reason why it's about all the goods of man in general and about the goods of the soul in particular now maybe um we should talk a little bit about the virtues you know without necessarily going to the old Nicomachean Ethics you know but about the division he gives other virtues first human virtue into the two kinds right and then a little bit about the moral virtues he talks about and then the virtues of reason right okay maybe do that next time you know okay um okay so you should have a little idea you know these things huh okay get a chance to get over to school maybe i'll bring a little bit of the things in the first book there in the Nicomachean Ethics to see a little bit of the text of our style of some of the key things because in the very uh perineum to the to the uh ethics you'll meet that definition of the good is what all want there's all doesn't develop it a lot there like we're doing you know and then a little bit about what's better right and then a little bit of the text there which draws a line around the purpose of man right which i kind of expanded on in my lectures you know but then after you see that connection between that and virtue then you go to the next thing which is the distinction of human virtue into the moral virtues and into the virtues of reason and then the definition he works out of what moral virtue is and then various moral virtues he takes up and then the distinction he makes of the virtues of reason so the little idea of ethics so now you see in these other parts of philosophy you know that kind of a anticipation of wisdom a sort of likeness to wisdom um in the eight books they have natural hearing they lead up to in the seventh book in the eight books to the dependence of motion upon a mover right and of the moved movers upon an unmoved mover right and but in natural philosophy there you take up all natural things in at least a general way right so aristotle will be defining what nature is and what motion is, and what place is, and what time is, and so on, right? And studying these things, huh? And you see a little bit of yourself, but you see a wisdom, right? But as Aristotle says in the beginning of the fourth book that he takes up place, he says, the common opinion of the philosophers before me is that whatever he is must be somewhere. It isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist, right? Right? So, in the thinking of the early Greeks there, to be somewhere, to be in some place is a property of everything that is. But to be in place is really a property of bodies, right? So they can't get out the idea that all that is is bodies and what's in bodies, right? And it's only, you know, with Anaxagris in particular, and more so with Aristotle, that you begin to have some kind of reason to say there exists something besides these bodies, right? And this comes up partly when they reason out that there's an unmoved mover, and the body doesn't move without being moved itself, or when they reason out that the human soul can exist and operate without the body, right? It's only there, at the end, you might say, of natural philosophy, in the study of the soul, that they begin to realize, hey, there's something besides bodies. And therefore, the study of what is, is going to be something even more general, more universal, right? And the study of causes is something more than just the causes of natural things, right? And that's how you get this name metaphysics, which most people don't realize what it means, but it actually is a contraction of three words in Greek, meta, after, ta, the, physikal, books of natural philosophy. This is the wisdom that came after natural philosophy when they realize that in their studying of natural things, there's some evidence there's something besides these bodies, these natural things and artificial things. You know, Aristotle, when he begins the study of natural things, he says, well, the things that are, some are by nature, and some are by other causes. And, of course, the only other cause you hear about it first is art, right? So you look around, you know, and what do I see? Well, this is by nature, and this is by nature, and this is by art, right? And most of what I see, and I look around the room here, is by art, right? Now, if I went for a walk in the woods out here, most of what I see would be by nature. But it seems in the world around us, it's mainly natural and artificial things, that's it. And so he distinguishes between nature and art, right? Is that the whole picture? No, no, but he begins that, that's where we begin, right? But which is wisdom, the study of the things that are by art, or the study of the things that are by nature? Yeah, because the things that are by nature are before and are caused in some way the things that are by art. So if I could find the first cause of natural things, I'd be arriving at the first cause of all things, right? But in studying natural things, there's two or three places where they get some hint that they say, there's something besides these bodily things, huh? And the Greeks began to guess at first, right? That the mind of man was not something material, right? And they began to realize that there had to be an unmoved mover, and this couldn't be a body, right? So it's by reasoning that they came to the conclusion that there's something besides these bodies. It took them 200 years to do that, you know? I mean, as Christians, you know about God and the soul and the mortal souls and the angels and so on, right? You know, but if you didn't have the church, you're left with just reason. You'd be stuck for 200 years with the very creative minds of the Greeks, even, you know? You're thinking, whatever it is, it must be somewhere. Even somewhere, it doesn't exist, right? You know? It'd be like the Russian astronauts during the communist days when they went up there, you know? There's no God up here! They're waving back to her, there's no God here. Like, you've got to be... up there in place, in some place, right, you know, and it's very hard, you know. I told you years ago, you know, I had a, I had a, actually seminarian in class, right, and he's kind of puzzled about the angels, you know, so I told you, he asked me, you know, do angels really exist? I said, they're more real than you are. He's a seminarian, right, you know, and just say, these are material things, it's kind of hard for them to, you know. I remember one time, my cousin Dowd, you know, was a philosopher, arguing with his mother, you know, you know, that God doesn't have a body, right, and so on, you know. Oh, it doesn't make, you know, it's kind of so frustrating, you know. So, I mean, even if you had the faith, you know, it's hard to, to, to think about this, right, huh, you know. One of the earliest religious discussions, you know, my mother's saying, this is a little finger that could make the world, you know, something like that, you know. It's still kind of thinking, you know, a little bit in images, you know. As Boethius will say there in the Trinity there, that the, you talk about God, you can't try to imagine the way God is, right? Because if you try to imagine God who's not imaginable, you're going to have a false imagination, right? That's the way people are, right? It's very hard, huh, to transcend that. It's kind of marvelous, the, the difference there between, say, a work of the Summa Theologiae, which kind of presupposes, you know, a false happening in years of things, and the difference between the order in which the, the Summa Theologiae proceeds and the order in which the Bible proceeds, huh? Because, um, if you go to the, to the most important books, the greatest books of the Bible, they're the four Gospels, right? And, of course, the Gospels that emphasize more the humanity of Christ come before the Gospel of John, right? Right. And so, but also in the professions of faith, you know. I mean, the whole church is, is built on Peter's profession of faith, and Peter says what? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. So he, he ascends from the, what? Human nature of Christ, whereby he's anointed to his divine nature, right? And, you know, Christ says, you know, I am in the way, the truth, and the life. Well, as man, he's the way. As God, he's the end, the truth, and the life. But notice the order. It says, I am in the way, the truth, and the life. Same order that you have in Peter's confession of faith, huh? You know how important Peter and John are for the confession of faith, huh? And these are two apostles running to the, to the tomb there, right, and the resurrection and so on. And you see how close they are in the Gospel and in the, you know, the trial of Christ even, right? Um, but, um, John has at the end of his Gospel almost the exact confession of faith that Peter has. He says, these are written that you might believe that Christ, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, right? The same order there. You know, you go from the human nature to the divine nature, right? But that's also the order of the four Gospels, right? So, um, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, especially Matthew, if it says the human nature of Christ, and then John, you know, more the divine. They have that same order, right? But on the Summa Theologiae, uh, God and his divine nature, the existence of God and the divine nature and the Trinity and so on, all that's in the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae, right? And, and the incarnation is in the Terzia Pars, right? So the order in that sense is kind of the reverse, huh? Okay? Now, of course, it's kind of dissipated there, the order of the Summa in the Gospel of St. John, right? The Gospel of John begins with, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was towards God, and the Word was God, right? And then, a little bit later on, we're told, and the Word was made flesh, you know? So, there you're starting with the divine and descending to the, what? There's not, there's no basis for Thomas' order there, right? But, but nevertheless, the order that Thomas has is more like the order that the beginning of John's Gospel, right? But that's the last Gospel, it's, there's a reason why it's the last one, right? You know? So you've kind of, it led from the human nature to the divine nature. I think the councils did that, too. When the councils did that, too. I just wanted to make sure the heresies would stop, they said he was human, but he was divine. Do you know what he said? Do you know what he was doing? True God. True God. So the council said, anyway, you can jump in. Yeah, yeah. The council said, Calcedon. Yeah, yeah. True God. True God. Yeah. But since we kind of lived to the divine nature of Christ, who is human nature, right? That's right. So, sensible, right? I mean, that's what you have in philosophy, right? You start with the study, the sensible, right? You know, the things that are, some are by nature, and some are by other causes, and the main other cause is by art, right? You know, there's some in reference, you know, the lack of chance, and what is that? You know, that's a more obscure thing, right? But manifestly, almost everything around us seems to be either by nature or by art, and that's where we begin, right? And then later on, we'll come to God as a cause, and so on, right? It's kind of interesting, if you read Thomas' commentary there in that chapter that I was referring to earlier today, the chapter on the perfection of God, I mean, perfection, rather. And he gives these three names of perfect, you know? But then later on, he distinguished between the perfection of the creature and the perfection of God. And it's really kind of amazing. Thomas sees it, but Aristotle's doing there, right? And the difference is that the creature is perfect when he lacks nothing belonging to his kind. And God is perfect in lacking nothing. That's just perfect in his kind, right? So you could say that Homer is what? He's a perfect poet. He's not the perfect philosopher, he's not the perfect cook, but he's a perfect poet, huh? He's lacking in nothing that a poet should have, but God's lacking in nothing. You know? So he says, Thomas describes it universally perfect, huh? Like when he says to Moses, people like that sometimes, you know, follow me and I will show you every good. Thomas says, that is myself. That's kind of interesting, Aristotle saw that distinction, right? God is perfect simply without qualification. Creature is perfect in his kind. Perfect chair. Perfect painting, huh? What was the third meaning of perfect again? You had the first one that has all its parts. First meaning of perfect is what has all its parts, right? Okay, perfect or complete. Then what has all its parts, it has the whole ability of its kind, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of interesting because when they were discovering the greatness of Shakespeare, right? And John Dryden, who became a poet laureate of England, right? He describes, you know, as a young man, you'd see more plays of Fletcher and Beaumont than of Shakespeare and so on. But as you saw these plays more, you didn't realize how much greater Shakespeare was than Fletcher. And the way he described it was, he says, Fletcher was but a limb of Shakespeare. It's good to say, right? Like an arm or a leg of Shakespeare, right? But you're already to the second sense, right? That Shakespeare has the whole ability, the whole power of a poet, right? His plots, his characters, his words, right? He's got the whole power there, right? See, that's a little different than having all your parts, not missing an arm or a leg, right? See, that's the second sense of perfect, right? Then the third sense of perfect is what has reached its end, huh? Okay. So the first two meanings are like the whole is said to be perfect, but the whole and the parts it's composed of are the whole ability. Okay? So something that I simplify and say that the perfect means the whole or the end, right? To have reached, but to some extent you can say the end is more fundamental. Because in a way the whole is the end of the part. The part is for the sake of the whole, right? That's kind of the basic statement then. You could say it's a little more abstract. You could say the perfect is better than the imperfect. The complete than the incomplete. But then it's a little more concrete to say the whole is better than the part. And most people would agree. You said that, right? You better have the whole car out there than just part of the car, right? And your whole dinner, not just part of your dinner, and the whole of the ballpoint pen, not just part of the ballpoint pen, or the whole glasses, you know, and not just the part of them. And it's pretty obvious, right? But then a little more subtle, the end is also better than the... That's for the sake of the end, right? The thing is perfect when it reaches its end, its goal. The philosopher is perfect when he reaches wisdom, right? That when he has geometry, it's dark. But the thing about Aristotle, too, is, you know, let's say Aristotle is a perfect philosopher. You know, Thomas would call him the philosopher, right? But what you see in Aristotle is the whole power of the philosopher, both the practical philosopher, like we're seeing a little bit here, but also the looking philosopher. He's also called the father of logic, right? And what's kind of amazing in Aristotle, you know, I mean, you read, like, say, wisdom, where you're talking about all things in general, and it's very abstract in one sense. We're reading about logic and the syllogism, very abstract. And then you have the fifth book of the politics, which is how government's revolutions take place, and it's, you know, Aristotle has researched 150 of the Greek city-states, you know? I mean, you know, and then you have, he's doing anatomy, and you can see what a complete and balanced mind this was, huh? Plato doesn't have been that job that Aristotle has. So Aristotle, in that sense, is a complete or perfect philosopher. The first philosophers, now, you have this emphasis upon natural philosophy and geometry, and then with Socrates, you turn to ethics and political philosophy, but Aristotle brings them all together, you know, he has both of them. So he's the, he's got the whole power of the philosopher. It's kind of amazing to see that. So he's a perfect philosopher, in the second sense of perfect, just like Homer is a perfect poet, or Shakespeare is a perfect poet, or Mozart is a perfect musician, you know? Now it's going up, you know, I used to think Beethoven is, you know, the greatest, you know? But, you know, even singers say, you know, that Beethoven didn't know how to write to the human voice. But, you know, compare, you know, Mozart, you know, I mean, the opera, every particular form, Mozart does it perfectly. I mean, he adapts himself, you know, the way he writes to the piano, the way he writes to the clarinet, and he writes to the trumpet, horn, you know? Each instrument, he excels it. He knows exactly how to do it. So he's the complete, he's the perfect musician, Mozart. Like, Homer is a perfect poet. You know, Stiles is a perfect philosopher, you know? But it's like, too, you know, when Pius XII is talking about Thomas, you know, and how you can't read Thomas without knowing Thomas' commentary on the Gospel of St. John, you know? Some people might know the Summa Theologiae, right? But not know the commentary on John, you know? And if Thomas had just written works like the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Concentilis and hadn't written his commentary on Matthew or John or commentary on the Psalms or commentary on Job, right? You wouldn't see the completeness of Thomas there, you know? Both kinds, huh? Thanks. Okay? So I'll be hearing it. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. And help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen. I went to that place dedicated to St. Michael, the archangel. Do you know that place? It's not too far from where the Padre Pio was. Yeah, Cardano. Yeah, yeah. That peninsula, massive, they call it, yeah. Kind of sticks out in the Adriatic. Of course, a lot of famous people there, you know, who visited the place. Well, Padre Pio obviously visited it, but, you know, Francis de Moury, there's a placa for him. And there's saints. Okay, let's recall just a bit where we had been before. The most fundamental thing was the definition, the first definition, let's put it that way, of good, huh? And what is that first definition of good? The thing that all desire. Yeah. The good is what all want, huh? A little bit of alliteration there, so I like to use that. The good is what all desire, right? Bonum es quadonia. And that's a definition by cause or by effect. But that's connected with it being the first definition. Because we know effects before causes. And that's why we're always asking the question why, right? So the question why is a sign that we know the effect before we know the cause, usually for the most part. So it's not strange that the first definition of good should be by its, what, effect. That it arouses desire or wanting for it, huh? And you should recall somehow how we showed that, huh? And so the philosopher Aristotle will say in the sixth book of wisdom that the good is in things, chiefly. While something was called good simply because we happened to want it, it'd be more in us than in the thing. And then we took up better, huh? And again, because better means gooder, more good, we can right away exclude the possibility that something is better because you want it more. That something is better for you because you want it more. And this is better for me because I want it more. You can't say that because something is not good because you want it. And therefore it's not more good because you want it more. Just as sugar is not, what, sweet because it's white. And so something is not sweeter because it's whiter. You see all those things that tie together? And we actually had a syllogism, right, connecting the two. Remember that? And you could state the syllogism either way, right? You could say if something is not good because you want it, it's not better because you want it more. But we see that it's not good because you want it, therefore it's not better because you want it more. Or vice versa, if you want to refute someone, you know, I say, me, that something, like a typical American, that something is better for you if you want it more, right? But if that's so, then something is good because you want it. But that isn't so, therefore, right? So using the two forms of the hypothetical or conditional or if-then syllogism, now, then we want to say, well, what is better, huh? And we're talking about this in general, right? What is better? And perhaps the two most general statements would be to say that the whole is better than the part and the end or purpose is better than that which is for the sake of it. And perhaps the second statement is even more basic, huh? Because in a way, it could bring the first statement under it because the part is for the sake of the whole. So in a way, the whole is the end or purpose of the part. Then we went into discussion of the best, right? And that would have to be the last end, huh? The end of man that is not desired for the sake of another end or goal. And we saw why there had to be such an end. Because you couldn't desire something for the sake of something else. You couldn't desire some means for the sake of an end unless you first desired that end, right? So if everything was desired for the sake of something else, then what? You'd be desiring an infinite number of things. Yeah. You had to desire an infinity of other things before you could desire anything. But how could you even begin to desire something? Because to desire anything, you would be supposed to desire something already. So you couldn't begin to desire it. Thank you. Thank you. So there's some end which is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, but everything else for the sake of it. And that's what practical philosophy is chiefly about. But what is that end? Knowing it will have a great weight, Aristotle says, upon life. Knowing what the goal is. And you know how it's hard to hit the target, even if you're aiming at it, right? But if I'm not aiming at the target, you can, for all practical purposes, say that you're going to miss the target. So most men don't even aim at the target. Which is not to say that if you aim at the target, you'll hit it. But if you're not aiming at the target, don't know what the target is, you might as well, for all practical purposes, say you're going to miss the goal of life. You're going to miss what it's all about. Now how did we investigate that end or purpose of man? Well, we had to go back to the famous definition of a thing's own act. Which is given by Plato, I believe, in the first book of the Republic, one of his most famous works. And the definition of a thing's own act is what? What's the definition of a thing's own act? That which it alone does, or it does the best? It does better than other things can do it, yeah. So if you go through your house, right? Your monastery, you'll find ballpoint pins, and knives and forks and screw divers and hammers and God knows what other tools. And each tool has its own what? Act, right? Okay? Which either that tool alone can do, or it can do at least better than other things, right? So the corkscrew would take the cork out better than the carving knife or something. Even though a desperate man might use a carving knife at some point, huh? You see? And so having in mind, then, the definition of what a thing's own act is, and having in mind also the definition of what an end or purpose is. What is the definition of an end or purpose? Yeah. Or is, for that matter, right? Okay. So the chair has an end or purpose, which is sitting, right? But the chair doesn't act for that, right? So you can say an end is that for the sake of which, whether it's something, that for the sake of which something is, or that for the sake of which something is done, right? So the chair is for the sake of sitting, so sitting is the end of the chair. Taking medicine is for the sake of health, so health is the end or purpose of taking medicine. Studying is for the sake of what? Knowing, as Shakespeare tells us, huh? And that for that end, that knowing, rather, is the end of studying it. Now notice something logical we're doing here, right? Because when Thomas Aquinas introduces us to the logical works of Aristotle, who's given in the history books the title, The Father of Logic. But he divides the whole of logic according to three acts of reason. And some of you may have seen that text, huh? He does this in his premium to the posturing analytics, Aristotle's most central and greatest work, you might say, in logic, and also his premium to the perihermoneus. And what are those three acts of reason? Which is, he'll go on to say, have a certain order among them, huh? Simple. Yeah, simple grasping, right? Understanding what something is, right? And then the second act is what? Well, let's just say, understanding the true or the false. Okay? And that presupposes the first act, doesn't it? Unless I grasp... In some way, what a man is and what an animal is, I couldn't understand that man is an animal, could I? Or unless I understood in some way what a man is and what a dog is, I couldn't understand that man is not a dog, right? But sometimes the affirmative or the negative statements are not obvious to our reason, huh? Sometimes from understanding what something is or from understanding what two things are, you can see right away that no odd number is even, let's say, right? Or no dog is a tree or something of that sort, right? But sometimes the connection is not obvious, right? So even if you know what a triangle is, right? And you know what a right angle is and so on, huh? It's not obvious that the interior angles of a triangle will be equal to two right angles, is it? So you need another act, right? Two is not enough. And what's the third act that you need? Well, yeah, or more in general, reasoning, right? Okay. And you reason by some kind of argument, which may be a syllogism or induction or something like these two. And three is all you need, huh? But you do need that third act, right? So notice what we're doing in a sense here, right? We're trying to understand what a thing's own act is, right? The act which that thing alone can do, or at least which it does better than other things do, right? So it's the act that characterizes that thing. And then the definition of what an end or purpose is, that for the sake of which, right? And now we want to see a connection between those two simple things we've grasped, right? And grasped somewhat fully by a definition of both, right? But that connection is not altogether clear to us, right? So we tried to bring out the connection between a thing's own act and its end or purpose by reasoning, right? And we reasoned mainly by syllogism or by induction in this case. Induction. By induction, right? What does that mean, induction? What kind of an argument is induction? Well, I don't have to put a definition there. It's an argument from many particulars, right? To one general, right? Okay. I perhaps could say more precisely, you know, reasoning from many particular statements to one general statement, right? So this monk has two ears and one mouth, and this student has two ears and one mouth, right? And this student has two ears and one mouth. And I'm taking steps, as Albert Gray would say, towards the general statement that every student has, what, two ears and one mouth, huh? And I mentioned before how Plutarch says that's because you're supposed to listen more than talk. That's kind of a playful way he has. Again, the importance of hearing is the sense of learning from another. So we wanted to proceed by induction, right? Reasoning from many particulars to the general. And we took it, actually, a two-layered induction, right? Because we reasoned from looking at the knife and the ballpoint pen and so on. And we saw that each of the tools of man, right? In his house, in his room, and so on. Each tool has its own act, right? And that act is also the end or purpose of that tool. So the ballpoint pen has its own act, which is to write, as you can see, and to write is the end or purpose of a ballpoint pen. That's what we have them around, right? So we made an induction from many particular tools, and looking at the act of each one of them, huh, and its end or purpose, that they're really the same thing, right? And then we did the same thing with the tools that make up our body, huh? Which we are accustomed in English to call organs, right? But as I mentioned before, Or, organ comes in the Greek word organon, meaning tool. Just a common word for tool, right? So the body of a man, or the body of a dog for that matter, cat, and even a tree to some extent, the body is put together from tools. The eye is a tool for seeing. The heart is a tool for pumping blood, and so on. So each organ, you might say the body, has its own what? Act, yeah. So the teeth in front here, their own act is to bite, huh? But the teeth in back, their own act is to chew. So when you eat an apple, you bite off a piece of it, and then you chew it in the back teeth, right? Now I suppose if you were missing your back teeth, you could kind of reduce the apple some of it in your front teeth, but not as well as you can with those back teeth, which are kind of a different shape that really fits them for chewing and not for, what? Biting, right? It would be hard to bite off these apple at the back teeth, apart from getting the apple in your mouth. But if your teeth in front were shaped as the ones in the back, you wouldn't be able to bite off an apple as well, would you? So each organ of the body, you might say, has its own act, huh? And that act is also the end or purpose of that. And then you went to the occupations of man, right? And each occupation, in each occupation you're trained to do something, right? Each occupation has its own act, huh? So the cook's own act is not to play the piano, but to cook, right? And he's trained to do that, right? If you go to the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America, you won't learn how to play the piano, huh? Okay? If you go to the conservatory of music, they won't teach you how to cook. So each occupation has its own act, and that is the end or purpose of that occupation. Well, we have cooks or pianists in our thing, right? So you can say each tuho has its own act, and that act is its end or purpose. Each organ has its own act, and that act is its end or purpose. Each occupation has its own act, and that act is its end or purpose. And so you can make a second induction, right, from those three general statements to an even more general statement, right? And that everything having its own act is for the sake of that act, huh? Okay? Now, we didn't emphasize giving us syllogism or a general reason for this, but perhaps you could once you realize that ability is for the sake of act, right? So if a thing has its own act, it's got an ability for a particular act. And abilities for the sake of act. And then we applied that to what? To man, right? And Aristotle will ask the question, is man without any act? Is he naturally idle? And has no act that characterizes him? And of course, it would be strange if the parts of man, like his organs, had an end or purpose, and the occupations of man had an end or purpose, but man had no end or purpose. Because after all, the organs are parts of the man, and they're for the sake of the man, right? So if they would be for the sake of something that has no end or purpose, would make them kind of purposeless, huh? Well, if you know that a little bit about, if you understand a bit what man is, you can kind of figure out what his own act is, huh? So if man is the animal that has, what, reason, right? Then the act which is going to characterize man will be an act that has reason involved in it, huh? First of all, those acts are the acts of reason itself, like understanding and reasoning. But also those acts that can be measured and directed and ordered by reason. So even love or even anger, right, in a more context, proximate sense, and even walking, right? Or by drinking this water, right? It's maybe reasonable for me to drink some water here, keep my voice lubricated, huh? So that the word of the voice might signify the word of the heart, as Thomas says, huh? Okay? Verbum voces, verbum cordis. So this is the act which either man alone has, if you define reason in a strict sense, or if you're a little bit fuzzy as to exactly what reason is, that man has more than anything else, right? And notice how this understanding that the end is always better, right, than what is for the sake of the end, which shows that the good is fundamentally the same thing as the end or purpose, right? And now you see how the end is tied up with things own act, right? And a things own act, like we just saw in the case of man, is tied with what a man is. And you can see how true is what the philosopher says in the sixth book of wisdom, that the good is in things, huh? Chiefly, right? And my heart is good or bad, because it wills the good or it wills the bad, right? But the good and the bad are primarily in things. They're tied to what a thing is. So there's nothing arbitrary or relative in the modern sense about the good, huh? Okay? But notice that people get kind of confused about that, right? Because as we saw, the very first definition of the good is by desire, right? And since people don't always desire the same things, or some people desire some things more than other things and vice versa for other people, right? And they don't stop and think about the good, and that you're defining it by desire, but you're defining it by its effect, right? They get mixed up, right? And they think that, well, we just call something good or better because you want it or you want it more than something else, right? So if I say Mozart's music is better than Beethoven's music or somebody else's or better than rock and roll, and they'll say, well, you just say that, Mr. Perkus, because you like that music more. And I say, no, no, you got it all backwards. I like it more because it is better. It's not better because I like it more. But you see, you have to stop and think about what good is first, and then better, and then eventually come to talk about the end of man, right? So we can take the result of our induction and then looking at what man is and seeing what man's own act is, right? And put the two together. When you put two and two together here, the conclusion you get is that man's, that the act with reason is man's what? In their purpose. Now, if you want to be a little more precise, you can go back over this whole thing again, right? And see that the purpose of the ballpoint pen is not only to write, but to write well, right? And not to skip letters like some of these do, right? And the purpose of the knife is not just to cut, but to cut well. And the purpose of the eye is not just to see, but to what? To see well, right? So if my eyes, if their inner purpose was merely to see, would they give me these funny looking things? Huh? Were you? Would you? But if I wasn't hearing right or hearing well, then they'd give me something analogous to this, right? Okay? And so we say more precisely that man's inner purpose is the act with reason done well, right? Just as the purpose of the knife is not just to write, but to write the knife, yeah, to cut, or to cut well, right? Or the knife. Not just to write, but to write well, right? The purpose of the cook is not just to cook, but to cook well, right? Pianist, to play well, right? Okay? Looking at the newspaper there just coming back, and they had a picture of Condoleezza Rice there playing the piano with Yo-Yo Maul, playing the cello. Oh, wow. He's actually, you know, one of our possibilities is to be a concert pianist. Wow. So he's, you know, quite talented that way, huh? Mm-hmm. But not talents. But the person, the pianist, is to play the piano well, right? And I've known people who played instruments, even in a high school orchestra or band, you know, but eventually gave it up because they just don't have the ability to play well, and they recognize that they're not playing what they would consider to be playing well, huh? So it's not the occupation for them in life. Okay, but anyway, in seeing how the good is most of all the end, that's the connection that Aristotle saw. You see that clearly when you study Aristotle's distinction of four kinds of causes, right? When he comes to talk about the end, you'll see that connection between the end and the good, but you'll also see the connection between the end and the kind of thing it is, right? See? It's not arbitrary. If we had a carving knife here and the ballpoint pen and the screwdriver and the corkscrew, right, you can see that their purpose is tied to what they are, to the way they're very structured, right? And so if the good is primarily the same thing as the end, and the end is tied to what the thing is, and vice versa, the thing is the way it is because of its end, then you see the good is in things. It's not this arbitrary, how I feel the day in, you know, that kind of thing, okay? Now, you could add perhaps a third thing, as Aristotle does, to the first drawing, a line around, as he says, the paragraph, the end of man, that one swallow doesn't make a summer, he says, and therefore it's the act with reason done well throughout life, just as my eyes to really achieve fully their purpose for me, is for me to see, well, not only today, but tomorrow and throughout my life, huh? Now, how does Aristotle make a transition from that perigraphe, that drawing the line around the inner purpose of man, to this long, long consideration of human virtue? What's the connection between a thing, so an act, done well, and something called virtue? Are they the same thing? Well, unfortunately, we tend, especially in the modern world, to have a very narrow view of virtue and even of morals, right? You know, they're talking about morals as one of the factors in the election, right? And war and economy is something else, right? And social security, taking care of the poor is something else, but all these things involve morals, huh? You know, we talk about being so broad-minded, you know, and they're extremely narrow-minded, right? And as a great teacher, the teacher of Plato, and they're the teacher, the teacher, the teacher, the teacher of Aristotle, and the teacher of Thomas, Heraclitus said, right, those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, as much as a city is strong in its law, he said, and even more so, because all the laws of the city, he said, are fed by one divine law, which is more than sufficient for all of them. So you can see that, right? There's a divine law, though, shalt not take innocent life, right? And how many laws is that?