Ethics
Lecture 12: The Premium to the Nicomachean Ethics and the Human End

Transcript
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Yeah, the one that doesn't seem to be foolish, right? And further opposed to that. So Aristotle's nuance, right, in the sense he realizes that when you say that virtue or moral virtue is a habit in the middle towards us, right, it doesn't mean the middle of the thing, it doesn't mean equidistant from the extremes, right? But it is in between two extremes, but sometimes it's closer to the excess, sometimes to the, what, defect, right? First, Shakespeare has an interesting metaphor there in the sonnets where he calls truth stingy. You know, you go to somebody's house and you praise this and that that they cooked, right? And usually more than it deserves, right, is to be polite and to be agreeable and so on and to be invited back again and so on. My brother Richard there, when he first went to eat at his in-laws, you know, when he was getting married, he, you know, he could act and he prays the meal, right? So his mother-in-law got the idea that this was his favorite meal. So every time he comes, he'd get the same meal. Limey was his own punishment of that case. But he calls truth stingy, right? Kind of interesting. So it's in likeness to stinginess. Now, there's another virtue which we mentioned, which is like liberality, except it's concerned with large sums, right, that affect the common good, right? And that virtue is called munificence, huh? So the man who might give, you know, endow a share at the university, right? Or he might, you know, pay for a huge museum or something, right? Or a collection of a museum, right? Okay? Large sums of money, right, huh? Again, you have an excess there, right? Where you see sometimes, you know, these wealthy men give their money to very foolish causes, right? Who's a guy wanting to give a lot of money to the United Nations, you know, for their moral practices and so on? But again, there could be like this Maharaj, right? Who doesn't come up to the occasion. But it's the same basic principle as that, huh? Then you have the virtue of, what, Philip Tamia. It's called in Greek, the love of honor. Actually, the one he takes up next is magnanimity and then Philip Tamia. Verses the order. Because magnanimity is concerned with great honors, Philip Tamia with the little ones. But just take magnanimity, the principle in there. It means great soul, right, huh? The magnanimous man does great things in all the virtues. A friend of mine was directing a doctoral thesis on magnanimity, right? And comparing Aristotle's, you know, account of the magnanimous man with men called magnanimous, right? Doesn't quite match up, you know? Christ seemed to be the only person who was magnanimous. But now, magnanimity or great soul is in between, what? The small-souled man, right? And then the man who's, what, proud and blown up, right? Beyond his, in glory, right, huh? So magnanimity, again, is in between two extremes, huh? Okay? The magnanimous man is a man who desires to do great things and is capable of great things, okay? While the small-souled person, right, thinks himself not capable of what he's really capable of, right? But then you have the opposite extreme where someone thinks himself capable of greater things than he is able to do, right? And so, again, magnanimity is in between two, what, places. Sometimes you also see the small-souled, don't you see that sometimes described or written as mean-spirited? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a nasty person, but spiritual looks to use now. And you have that same thing with smaller honors, right? Seeking more or less than that. Now, the next virtue Rostal takes up is mildness, right? Okay? Some people get angry too much, too often. So you might call that irascibility or something, right? Okay? But then it's just kind of a milk-toast that gets trampled on all the time, right? And doesn't stand up, right? So you can get angry when you shouldn't or more than you should, right? But it's also possible to be disposed to not, what, stand up for your rights, as they say, right? And not have anger when you should have some, right? And, of course, even our Lord, we see anger in the Gospel accounts, right? And he's dealing with the hardness of heart of the Pharisees and so on. So mildness, then, is in between two, what, places, huh? It's interesting, huh? Well, is mildness more like courage or more like moderation? Moderation. Moderation. Yeah. That's why in the Summa Theologiae, in the Secunda Secunda, when Thomas takes up the cardinal virtues there, justice and courage and temperance and so on, the other virtues he takes up attached to one of the cardinal ones because they have a sort of lightness to that, right? So he takes up mildness after he takes up moderation, okay? And we saw that in the love and friendship there, of course, there in the very wrath of love, okay? But anger, like the sexual desire and so on, love is a very strong emotion, right, that needs principally to be, what, moderated, right? Okay. Playing on Aristotle, we see, you know, gymnastic and music and the fine arts as both a part of education, but gymnastic is more related to courage, and music and the fine arts to moderating the, what, passions, huh? In the case of courage, you're apt to run away from what you should approach, right? But in the case of the matter of moderation, you're apt to go for something you shouldn't go for. Or go for it more than you should go for it, right? Okay. So in courage, you have to be kind of, what, strengthened, right? And therefore, we sometimes call courage fortitude, right? By moderation or temperance, you need to be, what, you strain, you pull back, right? Okay. The same with anger. People are more apt to go access in anger, to get angry when they shouldn't, or to get more angry than they should. I mean, it's a matter of experience, right? Now, after these virtues, Aristotle takes up those three that are concerned with, some things call them social virtues, but more daily life. And one virtue was concerned with, what, serious things, huh, friendliness. And another with the, what, the laughable, right? Another with, what, being truthful, showing yourself as you are, right? Okay. Well, now, in the matter of laughter, is there excess and defect? See? Yeah. Shakespeare talks about them, those things was lost, right? There's some who won't laugh if Nestor says the joke is funny, right? Nestor's a very, what, old and reverent man who's lived, what, three generations or three lives compared to us, right? And he thinks something is funny. It is funny. See? But then there are people who are, you know, you've got a high school class, I mean, they're laughing at everything, right? You can't hardly control them, right? They're out of hand, huh? Okay. So people, or we talk a lot of times about how maybe this joke is not suitable in mixed company or something of that sort and so on. So there's a virtue concern, right? With joking about what it's appropriate to joke. about and what's not appropriate to joke about are in these circumstances and not in those. So I come down to the wake of the immigration and me cracking jokes all the time or something that sort, right? But it might be appropriate on some other occasions for me to be cracking jokes on. There's the same thing true about friendliness. Can you be too friendly? What do you think? So you can be not friendly enough. We Americans would understand that, but can you be too friendly? Dropping in your neighbor all the time? You know, people have had this problem with a neighbor sometimes. I haven't had that, but I know people have had, you know, that neighbor who's always dropping in, you know, in a friendly way, but I mean, you know, you've got things to do and so on. How do you handle this, right? I remember my mother talking about, you know, the neighborhood, you know, where if someone was in need, people were right there to help you, right? But they're not always, you know, jumping in your door all the time. So, is that true? Sometimes you get a salesman who's over-friendly. I remember going in the store all the time to look this up with my wife, you know, and so as soon as you hear my wife's name, he says, oh, that's my wife's name. Maybe she is, maybe she isn't, but I suspect he says it to everybody, whether her name is June or Judy or Elizabeth or what? That's his wife's name, you know. I mean, going kind of, you know, out of his way to be too friendly, huh? So actually friendliness is a virtue in between two, what? Extremes, right, huh? Okay. And again, it was truthfulness, right? Truthfulness is the virtue whereby in my words and deeds, I represent myself as I am, right? I don't pretend or try to give the impression that I'm more than I am, right? Or that I'm what? Less than I am, right? Okay. So we kind of joke about Socrates, right? Because Socrates is famous for irony, right? For presenting himself as being less than maybe he is, right? Because he's always saying, I don't know this, right? But Kierkegaard wrote his master's thesis, was it? On the irony of Socrates. Was that a vice in Socrates? What does St. Teresa of Avila says? Humility is the truth, you know? There's that story about Padre Pio there and the stigmata, you know, and some nitwit psychologist is saying, you know, he's thought too much about the wounds of Christ. I don't think Padre Pio thought too much to this psychologist and his theory, you know? You know? He told him, tell him to think about the cows if he turned into a cow or something. Yeah, yeah, get horns or something. He's always thinking about, you know, how come they're growing horns, you know, if this is, they're thinking about the horns of the bull all the time or something like that. But I mean, that's not a lack of humility in the part of Padre Pio, you see? I mean, there would be false humility, and that would be pretending to be less than you are, right? I mean, he doesn't say, well, maybe I'm a nut, you know? No, he's not saying that. So you see what Aristotle's doing there, right, huh? He's defining moral virtue. He works out a definition of it, right? And then he goes through all the moral virtues in particular and shows how they're in between, what? Two extremes, right? And there's something like that, as he mentions, it makes a comparison to in the arts, right? Where the good is in between, too, huh? Now, there's something like that even in the sciences there where you're trying to know the truth, huh? Yeah. And you hear Shakespeare saying this, right? Or like, in King Lear there, Kent says, all my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so. You know, there's a false death set, right? If they say, more or less than the truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness, right? But what does it mean to say more or less than the truth? Well, if I ask you what 3 plus 4 is, you could say 6 or 8. Yeah. The answer could be greater or lesser than the truth. Yeah. But more generally, huh? There's two ways of being mistaken. Mm-hmm. One is to say that what is, is not. And the other is to say what is not, is. So when I say that what is, is not, I'm subtracting from the truth. I'm saying less than the truth. Mm-hmm. If I say that what is not, is, I'm adding to the truth, right? Okay? And so, in the courtroom, huh, this is referred to, most people don't understand that, but it is referred to, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. To the average person, those second and third phrases just seem to be repeating and emphasizing that you're going to tell the truth, right? But they're doing more than that. When I say, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth means I'm not going to depart from the truth by saying that what is, is not. And nothing but the truth. I'm not going to depart from the truth by saying what is not, is. Okay? Now, I always give a simple example. Maybe you've seen music before, but let's use it again. Suppose you want to know who was at the bar. I'm the bartender. Who was at the bar last night, right? And let's say that John and Thomas were at the bar but nobody else, right? So if I tell the truth, I will say that John and Thomas were there and nobody else, right? But if I add, let's say, Paul to this, right, then I'm departing from the truth, aren't I? I'm saying who was not there was there. Or if I say that just John was there because Tom's a good customer of the angels. Just John was there, then I'm departing from the truth too, right? See? So the truth is that John and Thomas were there. It's false to say John, Thomas, and Paul were there, right? It's false to say just John was there. See? So I started to tell the truth, the whole truth, which would be opposed to cutting the truth and nothing but the truth. Either add to the truth or subtract from the truth, right? So truth is sometimes compared to what? The moral virtue, right? The virtues of reason that are concerned of the truth, that they're in between two extremes, huh? You see that, you know, very clearly in theology, you know, where Thomas is always, let's say, contrasting, like with the Trinity, contrasting Arius with what? Sibelius, right? And Arius is saying that as there are three persons, so there are three natures. He's departing the truth there. He's saying, he's adding to the truth, right? He's adding two natures that aren't there. So Titus is saying as there's one nature, there's only one person called by different names. You see? In the same way when they get to the Trinity, right? You know, he's departing from the truth by saying, but it's just to reverse the Trinity, right? That as there's two natures, so there's two persons there. Now I'm adding to the truth, right? I'm saying what is not, the second person is. Or I can go with Eutychus and the Monophysites and say, as there's one person, there's only one nature there. The word was made by, you know, it follows up. And then I'm what? Saying what is, is not. The second nature, which is there, is not there. You see? So if the truth, I was looking at Thomas the other day there, he says, talking about even the language we use has to be very careful, right? But he says that we proceed. Temporate, he says, right? In the Tuesday of the Trinity, right? Temporate, temporarily, right? Moderately, between Arius and Cybeleus. You're talking about the Trinity there, right? And if we speak these ways, we're going to, you know, maybe fall into Arius' mistake. And if we use these ways of speaking, we might fall into Cybeleus, right? So we have to be very careful how we speak, right? But notice the word he uses, temperate, huh? Got that, Anna. So there's a likeness between saying that the good in moral virtue and in moral action is in the middle, right? And saying that in human art, whether it be the practical arts like cooking a steak or the fine arts like Titian or Mozart or somebody, or even the, what, theoretical virtues, the theoretical science and looking sciences, which are aiming at true, there's a likeness in all of them to the good being a middle between two extremes, right? Okay. That's more clear, I see, in Shakespeare's way of speaking there, right? Where a falseness says, if they say more or less than the truth, they are villains and sons of darkness. He's a big liar himself. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. This is Aristotle's premium to ethics and political philosophy, and then a little bit of his text there where he's talking about the definition of the end or purpose of that, right? I mean, let's look at this before we go on to give you wisdom, right? New technology here, new technicians, new technology. You missing somebody in there? I'll show you the next one. Okay. So what is the editorial and reference division of the Nicolmachian Ethics? Well, the editorial and reference division is into ten books. And these books are, some editions divided into chapters, right? In Thomas's commentary, they're divided into lexios or readings, right? Because sometimes you see the Becker numbers down to the verse almost of a sentence. Now, what is the logical and understandable division of the Nicolmachian Ethics? Yes, it's starting, it's asking the question what man's end is. So it starts with a slight, short discussion as to the nature of man's end. Well, a logical and understandable division is usually into two or three parts. We talk about that rule of two or three in logic sometimes, huh? In almost all of Aristotle's books, the logical and understandable division is into two. And if I can compare it to something more known, it's like the logical and understandable division of Shakespeare's Romer and Juliet. What is the logical and understandable division of Romer and Juliet by William Shakespeare? And then the prologue and then the prologue and then the prologue and then the play, right? So the logical and understandable division of Shakespeare's Romer and Juliet is into prologue and play, right? Now, the play is usually divided into two. Tying the knots and untying the knots, right? Okay. Now, almost every work of Aristotle's, and you'll see this in Thomas's commentary on them. You'll see it in his commentary on the Comachian Ethics. You'll see it in his commentary on the Metaphysics. Almost every work of Aristotle's is divided logically and understandably into two parts. The premium, as it's called in Greek, which is a Greek word meaning paving the way. And then, which you might call the main body of the work, in Latin they call that the troctatus, the drawing out. Okay? And the premium usually occupies the beginning of the first book. So you divide the beginning of the first book that contains the premium against the rest of that book and all the other books. That's the logical and understandable division. Now, if you know the prologue to Romeo and Juliet, you can see the prologue, in a way, is preparing the audience, right, for the kind of play that this is going to be. It's a little bit like the overture, right, to an opera. Gives you kind of a foretaste of what it's going to be, huh? Now, Aristotle was anticipated in this by none other than Plato himself. Now, Plato, as you know, didn't write treatises for the most part. All we have is these dialogues, which are called in Greek, the Socratic conversations. But in the work called the tomatoes, right, you're closer to a treatise like Aristotle is. And in the tomatoes, which is the work that Plato is carrying in the famous painting by Raphael that hangs in the Vatican there, right? The school of Athens, you've probably seen that painting, right, where they're coming under the arch. Aristotle is carrying the Nicomachean Ethics, and Plato is carrying the tomatoes. But in the tomatoes, tomatoes is, it's named, he does most of the talking, and Socrates listens. But tomatoes gives a premium first. And then there's a kind of a break there where Socrates praises the excellence of the premium. And then you have the main discourse of tomatoes about the universe, okay? So you'll see what I've done here, huh? I've reproduced Aristotle's premium here, which is in the editorial and reference division. It's in Book 1, Chapters 1 through 3, right? And then I've attached to that a reading, a central reading in Book 1, where Aristotle is drawing a line around the interpurpose of man, right? Okay? Now, the most important thing, usually in a premium, is what they call in Greek the skopas, which means the target, what you're aiming at, right? In Latin, they say it more abstractly, the intensio libri, the intention of the book, the aim, the goal, right? But that sometimes will involve an elaboration of the importance of what you're aiming at, right? And if it's not too difficult, maybe even something about how we're going to go about it, okay? Okay, now, one thing that's common to the premium, to the Nicomachean ethics here, which in a way is a premium to the whole of practical philosophy, because the ethics in a way contains the elements of political philosophy, and the premium to the wisdom that Aristotle will have at the beginning of the metaphysics, I have it with me too, but I'm not going to give it to you yet, that both of these premia, unlike many other premia, have an epilogue at the end, where Aristotle recounts what he's done in the premium. Now, it's interesting, when Thomas gives us the logical and understandable division of these premia, he gives a division of the premium to wisdom into two parts, but a division of the premium to practical philosophy into, what, three parts, huh? And of course, at the end of the premium to wisdom, Aristotle recounts two things he's done. And at the end of the premium to ethics or practical philosophy, he recounts the three things he's done. But in both cases, he recounts them going back in time. And here, the third thing he did, then the second thing, and then finally the first thing he did, right? In the epilogue of the premium to wisdom, he recalls the second thing he did, and then the first thing he did, right? I think I mentioned how Dei Verbum in Vatican II has a premium, right? When I first saw Dei Verbum, I saw it in an English translation, and they called it an introduction, the translator, right? And then someone gave me a copy of the Vatican II documents in Latin, which is the official text, right? And so I looked at it. Dei verbum non-latin, it doesn't say introductio, it says premium. And I'm particularly fond of that premium. It's a magnificent premium, you know, to dei verbum. It's the one on divine revelation right there in the description. But, you know, a premium is something very small compared not only to the body of the work, but to what you'd call an introduction, right? In college, you know, we have a lot of courses in different departments that call it an introduction to economics or introduction to sociology or, you know, and introduction means what? A leading in, right? You know, see? My premium is something shorter, you know, not leading you into the subject, but saying what you're aiming at and something maybe about how you're going to go about it and so on. Now, if you look at the, on page three there, that sentence on the top of page three, it's the last sentence in the premium, and that's the epilogue where Aristotle recalls, right? The third thing he's just done, and then the thing he did before that, and finally the first thing. Let this much about the hearer, who is or is not a suitable hearer of these teachings. That's the third thing he does in the premium. How it should be received, that's the second thing he does, okay? And that's touching upon how you have to proceed in ethics. But then the first thing he did, what we propose, right? The skopas, right? What we're aiming at. Let that pave the way. And therefore, he has the word premium there, pave the way. The verb form, perform yasso, I think it is. Let this pave the way, right? So, now if you look at Thomas' commentary, he'll say, he does three things in the premium, right? First he shows what he's aiming at, then how we're going to proceed, and then finally, who is or is not a suitable hearer of this teaching. Okay? Do you see that? Now, that first part, what we're aiming at, he's going to be saying, they're aiming chiefly at what? The end of man, right? The purpose of human life, huh? Into what science does this follow? Okay? He's going to lead up to that thing gradually to help us see what that is, huh? Okay? So, let's start to look at the text here now. Chapter 1. He says, Every art and every science, huh? And likewise, every action and choice seems to aim at some good. As Thomas will explain in the commentary there, he's giving a kind of induction, right? Does the art of carpentry aim at some good? Yeah. Does the art of cooking aim at some good? Does the art of the tailor aim at some good? The art of the watchmaker, right? Okay? And every science aims at some knowledge, right? And that's something good, right? And every action you do for the sake of something good, or at least it seems good to you, right? And you try to choose what is good, right? Okay? They all seem to aim at some good, right? Whence it has been well said, he says, that the good is what all desire. Okay? The good is what all want, huh? So he's kind of manifesting by an induction, that first definition, nothing good, right? Now, I've already done this for you, but if I was, you know, starting with this text, right? I might make it kind of an excursion at this point, right? And say, okay, now, is that a definition by cause or by effect, right? And we raised that question before, right? Is it good because we want it? Or do we want it because it is good, huh? And Aristella doesn't go into that question at this point, right? Although he knows the answer to it, right? But it's kind of a good, you know, excursion to make, right? But we've done that already, right? But a difference of ends, he says, is seen. For some are acts, while others are products beyond these. So if I go to the, what, art museum to see the beautiful paintings, my end is simply to see these things, right? But if I'm making, what, a chair or a table, there's something beyond the making, namely the chair or the table itself, huh? So sometimes the end is an activity like seeing. If I put on a Mozart, I'm going to make something with it, I'm just going to hear it, right? Okay? But if I get out the spaghetti, I'm going to make spaghetti. Right? Okay? Now, where there are ends in addition to the acts, when there's a product, right? In these, the products are better than the acts. So, a chair is better than, what, making a chair, right? Okay? Because the ultimate end there is not the making a chair, but the chair itself, huh? In the case of seeing the beautiful painting, or hearing the beautiful music, the end is no product, but the seeing itself, the hearing itself, right? Okay? So he's pointing out a difference, right? Between these things, huh? Now he's going to start to talk about an order among these goods or ends that the different arts and sciences aim at, right? And corresponding to that, an order among the arts or sciences. But first of all, he points out that as there are many different arts and sciences, so there are many different goods being aimed at, right? Since there are many acts in arts and sciences, there come to be many ends. And he gives some examples, right? For medicine, the end is what? Health. Of the art of shipbuilding, the end is the ship. Of the military art, victory, right? Well, Doug MacArthur would agree with that, right? MacArthur said, what? In war, there's no substitute for victory. Right. That's the right end. But now, this last example, Aristotle doesn't agree with. And Thomas will point out how subtle Aristotle is. But that's a common thought in this time. And of the household art, wealth. Aristotle will point out later on that wealth is only a means, right? It's not the end of the household art. But he gives sometimes examples that are acceptable to his audience before he's determined the truth about those matters. He does it more than once, huh? This is one of the first times I remember Thomas, or noticing Thomas, pointing this out. I'll care for Aristotle writes sometimes. Okay? But now he's going to go to the order that there is among these, what? Goods the different arts aims at. And a corresponding order among the, what? Arts or sciences. Because sometimes the end aimed at by one art or by one action, right, is for the sake of a good aimed at by some other art or some other science. In which case, one art or one science comes under the other and is commanded by it, huh? Now, when many of these come under one power, as the art of bridal making, or saddle making, right, is under horsemanship, right? And whatever other arts are about, the instruments for riding horses. And this and every other military act under the military art. Okay? We might say, you know, the example, the art of making a rifle, right, is for the sake of a rifle, right? But the rifle is for the sake of what? The soldier, right? Okay? So, the military art, in that sense, is going to command the art of making rifles, huh? And, you know, sometimes these rifles out there, they jam and so on, right? You know, when the Germans got into Russia there in the Second World War, the German guns were much more precise than the Russian ones, but it froze up. They weren't suitable for the circumstances, right? So, if you see a defect out in the field there, then they start to make their guns more like the Russian guns. Kind of funny, that's what actually happened, huh? But there are many examples of, you know, people having problems with certain guns or some other things. So, just as the gun is for the sake of the, you know, fighting, right? So, the art of making guns is, Under the art of what? Fighting military art, huh? In the same way, others come under others, right? An example I always give in class there is the art of the medical doctor and the art of the pharmacist, right? And the art of the pharmacist is aiming at a good called medicine, right? And the medical art is aiming at the good called health, right? Now, is there a connection between health and medicine? Yeah. That medicine is for the sake of health, right? Well, then the art of the pharmacist comes under the what? Medical art, right? And in fact, the medical art will command the art of the pharmacist. And what we call prescription, in a way, is an order from the man who possesses or practices the medical art to the pharmacist, right? And the pharmacist, as such, doesn't have to know why you're getting that medicine. He may happen to know, but that's not what makes him a pharmacist. What he has to know is how to make the medicine that the doctor tells him to give you, right? Okay? So, our style is saying that just as there are many arts and sciences and many different acts, right, so there are many goods or ends being aimed at by these different arts or sciences or in these different actions, right? But where one of these goods or ends are aimed at comes under another one, then the art or science that is about the one that comes under another one comes under that other art or science, huh? Okay? And in a sense, it's commanded by the other one. Makes sense, huh? Mm-hmm. And so, if I'm the great chef, right, and you work down in the kitchen there, beating the potatoes, and I tell you how I want the potatoes cut tonight, it's not yours to question why, huh? But to cut the potatoes is what I tell you, because I know what I'm making tonight. I want them cut this way tonight, you see? Okay? I made chicken piccato last night, Sam. But now you've got to, what, pound the chicken, you know, make it thin, you know, when you do that, right? You see? It's going to make a deal of scalpini. So, you prepare the raw material, right, in a different way, right? And I might tell you to do that, right? Okay, I want to cut this way, I want it hammered out or something, right? Okay? So, in that sense, the art of the potato peeler comes under the art of the, what, chef, right? My father's company made farm wagons, huh? Okay? Well, a farm wagon gets out on the, what, farm, and there's a load and so on. The farm land is not, like the highway, it's not smooth, so the farm wagon bends like that. Well, sometimes the, what, steel will snap underneath, huh? Then you have a mad farmer, you know? So, but my father would always put enough steel in there, right? But then he tells the people who produce the steel what size he wants the steel and what shape he wants it, right? And they obey him, right? And so, in that sense, you can say the steel is for the sake of the wagon, in the same way my father's company would order wood from the people who prepare lumber, right? But he wants a certain kind of lumber and a certain size and so on, right? So, if the lumber and the steel are for the sake of the wagon, then the art that makes the wagon commands the arts that prepare the wood or prepare the, what, steel, right? I dropped one more steel on my toe one time. Had to take me to the hospital and sew me up. Anyway. So, you can multiply your examples of that, right? The pharmacist coming under the medical doctor and so on. Now, he says, in all these cases, the ends of the chief arts. Now, he's calling the chief art, the art which aims at the good to which other goods are subordinated, right? In all these, the ends of the chief arts are more desirable than all those of the arts under them. So, health is more desirable than medicine, right? The grand meal is more desirable than the potatoes, right? For the latter are pursued for the sake of the former. Now, here you're getting into the idea of the second thing I was teaching. I was teaching you that the good is what all want, right? And then we went on to the question, what is better, right? And the main statement we learned about what is better in general is that the end is always better than what is for the sake of the end, right? So, if the good of one art is for the sake of the good of another art, right? And the one that aims at the non-subordinated good, right, is the chief art, right? But it's aimed at a greater good because the other one is desired for the sake of it. So, the wagon is better than the steel or the lumber. Or the house is better, right, than the wood or the lumber. For the latter are pursued for the sake of the former. And as far as this is concerned, he says, it makes no difference whether the acts themselves are the ends, right? Or the acts, or something besides these, some kind of product, right? As in the said, what, sciences, right? So, these things here are not for the sake of a product, although they are a product themselves, right? They're for the sake of the act of seeing, right? So, I can see the painting, right? But then, manufacturing a medicine is for the sake of what? Medicine, right? Now, why has he talked about all these things here, Aristotle, right? Because he wants to lead up to what we're aiming at in practical philosophy. We're aiming at a good, right? Which is not for the sake of some other good, right? But other goods are for the sake of it, right? We're seeking a knowledge, right? Therefore, that is going to be most of all the chief art. It's going to aim at that good that is not subordinate to some further good. But if there is some end, right, of what we do, that we will for itself, right? And other things for it. And we do not choose all things for the sake of something else. Okay? Now, you see, sometimes you choose one thing for the sake of something else. We choose medicine for the sake of health. And maybe I choose health for the sake of happiness or something, right? But is everything chosen for the sake of something else? Well, if this were so, it would go on without indescent, right? So that our desire would be empty and foolish, right? You'd always be pursuing something further before anything you've pursued so far is desirable. You'd always be pursuing something else to make desirable everything that you pursued up to this point. Now, we could go on and elaborate on this, you know, the difficulties of this. As we said before, if I desire, let's say, A for the sake of B, I can't even desire A unless I first desire B, right? And if I desire B also for the sake of something else, like C, I can't desire B or A until I've desired C. How would I begin to desire if everything was desired for the sake of something else? Because I could never desire anything until I desired something else. So how could I even begin to desire? So there must be something that I desire, but not for the sake of anything further. And Plato talks about this in the, what, symposium, right? Okay? And very often we name it happiness, right? Not knowing exactly what happiness is. So if there's something that we desire, I mean, it must be something we desire, not for the sake of anything else, but just for its own sake, this will be not only the good, but the, what? The best, he says, right? Because the end is always better. than what is for the sake of it, right? So if B is the, in my example here, if B is the end of A, if A is desired for the sake of B, then B is more desirable and better than A. And if B is desired for the sake of C, then C must be better than B as well as A, right? But if C is not desired for the sake of anything further, then C must be the best in this whole, okay? So that's what we're talking about, right, in this book. Would not then the knowledge of this way greatly upon life, he says? It's understatement, isn't it? It's like Thomas will talk about Aristotle, you know, being very modest in what he says. And just as arch is having a target, will we not hit more upon what is right, okay? If everything we do in life is done for the sake of something, wouldn't it knowing this have a great influence upon what we do in life? And knowing it, wouldn't we be more able to hit it? You know, if you aim at the target you might miss, you don't even aim at the target, what are your chances of what? Hitting it, yeah? Odds are greater than you have. Yeah, you might say, you know, if I don't aim it at the target, you could say, for a practical purpose, I'm going to miss it. So if you don't know the end or purpose of life, how can you aim at it? If you don't aim at it, how are you going to get it, right? So it's a very practical thing to know what the end or purpose of life is. You know, when Thomas is talking about the theological virtues, right, he says by faith we know what the end is. By hope, he says, we tend towards that end. And by charity, he says, we're already in a way united to that end. And that's why charity is greater than hope, but hope is greater than what? Faith. But you have to have the faith, right? Otherwise, you can't get the hope of the charity. So notice in that sentence, would not then the knowledge of this way greatly upon life? And just as Arch is having a target, will we not hit more upon what is right? Aristotle is kind of elaborating there upon the importance of knowing the sin of human life, huh? If this is so, then he says, right, we ought to try to get hold of and outline what this is, huh? And so he's anticipating we're going to be doing the first book, trying to draw a line around what this is. And to which of the sciences or powers is it what? It belongs, right? Okay. Now, in the last paragraph on page one, he's going to say, well, to what art or science does it belong, really, to know the end or purpose of human life? Well, he's going back and using what he's shown already, that the art or science, which is about the end, commands and directs, in some sense, the art or science, which is about the, what? Means, right? Now, is there some art or science, Aristotle says, that in a way directs us in all of the other arts or sciences? And he's going to argue that the, what, political art does this, okay? And so, you know, sometimes they close down, what, restaurants in the city here, huh? Too many cockroaches or something, right? So even the art of cooking in some way comes under the command of the city, right? The art of driving a car, huh? Got a license there issued by the state of Massachusetts, right? Can I go downtown here and set up offices there as a dentist or, you know? No. To some extent, they control who may or may not practice the medical art, right? Okay. And they may, you know, decide to draft me and say, you're going to practice the military art request for a while, okay? And even when the president of Assumption College confers the degrees upon, you know, if you listen to, you know, the graduation ceremony, in virtue of the authority invested in me by the state of Massachusetts and the board of trustees is a whole formula he uses, right? And he confers the degrees, right? So you say Assumption College is authorized to teach, you know, and to grant degrees, bachelor degrees, master degrees, you say, what if it is? You say? So all the other arts or sciences in some way come under the command of the, what? The city, right? Who may or may not practice these things, right? It would seem, then, he says, to belong to the most authoritative knowledge or science and the one that is most of all a chief art that commands other ones, right? And such is clearly, what? The political knowledge, the political art. For this sets in order which sciences are needed in cities, huh? What sort each shall learn up to what point. So all kinds of requirements as to how far you have to go in school, right? What you have to study in school somewhat, right? Requirements of different arts and so on. And we see the most honorative powers among the Greeks, right? Are under this, as a military art, right? So Aristotle must have believed in the subordination of the military to the political, but we understand that when we call President Bush there the commander and what? Chief, right? Okay. So the military art is aiming at victory, but victory is subordinated to the good of the, what? City or nation, right? So the military, the political art that aims at the good of the city or nation commands the, what? Military art, right? The household art, right? There's all kinds of laws about marriage and so on, right? And where you have to treat your children and so on, right? So even the practice of the household art in some way comes under the direction of the state, right? He mentions the art of speech because you have, what? Force and persuasion in the city, right? You can get people to do what they should do either by persuading them, that's the art of speech, or else you can force them by the military art, police art. You can't force everybody, so you've got to persuade some of them, okay? Thus, using the rest of the practical sciences and further ordaining by law what one ought to do and what stay away from, the end of this science must then embrace those of other sciences, so that this will be the good of man, right? Okay? And that's the way he's reasoning there, right? He's saying, you can reason either way, you can say, the art, there's a chief art, the art that aims at the end rather than the means, right? He's going to command the art that aims at the means, right? So if you see that medicine is for the sake of health, right? Then you can see that the art of the pharmacist is subordinated to the art of the medical doctor, right? But vice versa, if you see that the medical art, the physician commands the pharmacist, right? That's a sign that the good that the pharmacist is in yet is subordinated to the good that the medical artist is about, right? Or if we see that the political art in some way commands the practice of all the other arts and sciences, and who may practice them or not, right? He won't let me practice medical art, you know? If I set up an office downtown, say, Blaine Berkowitz dentist, right? Apart from the screams of my patients, they'll be down there pretty soon closing me up, right? Maybe hauling me off to jail, right? I'm not authorized by the state of Massachusetts to practice the art of dentistry, and I wouldn't recommend that you go to me if I try to do it. But I mean, the state's going to, you know, so you cannot practice that, right? Okay. So once you understand that, then if you see that the political art does command all the other arts and science in some way. It must be aiming at the good to which all the other goods, aimed at by the other arts and sciences, are subordinated. And that's the good that is desired not for the sake of anything further, but for its own sake, right? Okay. See what he's doing? Okay. So he's in a sense saying what this is all about, right? See? This is going to be chiefly about the end or purpose of man, of human life,