Better Being Soft than Being Hound-Dog/Slutty -- Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
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October 12 - We are reading the middle of chapter 7 of NE VII, which elaborates on self-control and steadfastness. Self-control (whether having or lacking) and steadfastness (whether holding or losing) have to do with, respectively, pleasure and pain. In proportion, how are they compared and contrasted with the virtue moderation and its twin vices of being appetite-lacking and being gluttonous-and-lecherous?
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For example, when a person has acknowledged firmly to himself that he should no longer spend time on one-night-stand hookups but who in the next evening does the very thing affirmed to avoid, then he is the person who has a weakness of will--or lacking self-control--according to Aristotle.
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If that is a lack of self-control, under what scenario should we identify someone as being soft-pampered {malakia}? And under what scenario is someone to be considered as being endurant-steadfast {karteria}? Let's follow Aristotle's train of thought.
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We will read multiple translations starting at 1150a16.
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We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
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The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
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1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
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The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows.