The Foundations of Aristotle's Thought

Creating the Good Life :Applying Aristotle's Wisdom to Find Meaning and Happiness
by James O'Toole

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Aristotle begins his own philosophical inquiries by taking the world as it is and humans as they are: in both cases, imperfect. He asks how these imperfect people can make their social and political institutions better and how they can individually lead better lives. He observes a rather nasty world in which men struggle for wealth and power, but he has no illusions that human nature can be changed or that it is desirable for government to try to enforce virtuous behavior. Aristotle is no utopian.

In this he differs greatly from his own esteemed teacher. In perhaps the most influential secular book ever written, The Republic, Plato imagines a brave new world led by a few virtuous "guardians" who create conditions under which the less-than-virtuous masses of humankind are made as happy as pigs in slop. Plato premises his utopia on the assumption that almost all humans are material boys and girls content only when their purses are filled with gold, their stomachs are stuffed with fattening goodies, and their possessions include the equivalent of a mortgage-free second house on Maui. To make such materialistic folk happy, Plato invents a class of paternalistic guardians who rule a well-ordered economic and political system. Because the guardians manage society so effectively, their followers are able to concentrate fully on trying to satiate their insatiable desires for wealth and sensual pleasure. In Plato's utopia, the masses are happy because they are not burdened by political, moral, and philosopical concerns that get in the way of enjoying gluttony, avarice, lust, and other sources of pleasure.

Were Plato alive today, it is clear what advice he would give us as we struggle with how to live a good life: "Kick back and relax," he would console us, "because only a few extremely smart and virtuous people can understand what the good life really entails. So have a glass of chardonnay, and leave philosophizing to your moral and intellectual betters." Over the millennia, Platonism has been extremely popular with people who measure their lives by the goods they possess and, even more, with those in power who believe the masses are incapable of governing their own animal impulses and, by logical extension, incapable of participating in government.

From his many frustrating and futile debates with Plato, Aristotle came to understand that how one thinks about happiness depends on the assumptions one makes about human nature. The more he thought about Plato's assumptions, the more he questioned whether it was true that people care only about satisfying their animal instincts. Further, he wondered if benevolent dictators can, in fact, create utopia by satisfying their subjects' desires for bread and circuses. Ultimately, Aristotle came to reject both his mentor's premise and his conclusion. He then set out to refute Plato's views about human nature, the structure of a good society, and the wellsprings of individual happiness in his Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. Rejecting utopianism, he turned to empirical observation as his starting point.

Hierarchies and More Hierarchies

Aristotle begins with the basics: Observing the human species in all its physical, intellectual, and moral variety, he concludes that its most salient characteristic is its diversity, the manifest and multifold differences found among its members. For example, there are tall people, short people, and lots of people in between. If all adults in the world stand in rank order according to height, the tallest at one end and the shortest at the other, the entire spectrum will be covered, ranging from some 8 feet to less than 4 feet, with the largest concentration around the middle. Most striking, there will be a hierarchy from shortest at the bottom to tallest at the top, covering in rank order humanity's incredible range of heights. Hence, Aristotle chooses hierarchy as his master organizing principle, except he doesn't use height to exemplify the main idea he is trying to convey. What he has to say is more controversial and more relevant to the issue of happiness.

To Aristotle, height matters only for giraffes. He believes that everything in nature has a purpose, and nothing is created in vain. The single purpose of any animal species is the thing that most distinguishes it from all other species, the thing it does "best." For example, more than any other mammal, the neck of a giraffe allows it to reach soft, nutritious shoots at the tops of tall trees. Ergo, giraffes are built for height. Although all giraffes are tall relative to other animals, there are marked differences among the heights of individual giraffes. So it is better to be a taller giraffe than a shorter one because the taller ones get the best shoots. As Darwin noted in The Origin of Species, Aristotle anticipated the theory of natural selection.

To the Ancient, the tallest giraffe is atop the hierarchy of giraffes because it has the salient characteristic of "giraffeness"–height–more fully developed than in any other giraffe. Similarly, he concludes that horses are created for speed because they run faster than other animals (Aristotle had never heard of cheetahs). Hence, the fastest horse is atop the hierarchy of horses because it has the most developed "horseness." Because oxen are the strongest bovines Aristotle knows about, he says strength is the salient characteristic of an ox; thus, the strongest ox is the "best" ox because it has the most fully developed "oxness."

Perhaps you have anticipated where Aristotle is headed: To him, the distinguishing characteristic of the human species is not height, speed, or strength. What most clearly distinguishes humans from other species, what we do best, is reasoning. Aristotle's precision of observation is strikingly scientific. He doesn't say that some humans aren't tall, fast, or strong, or that other animals can't think or don't have feelings. Instead, he says what truly distinguishes humans from other animals is the species' unique ability to engage in abstract thought and to put words to those thoughts. In sum, humanness is reasoning.

Yet, though all humans can reason, not all humans have the same capacity for reasoning. As there is a hierarchy among animal species and all things in nature, Aristotle argues that there is a natural hierarchy among humans, at the top of which are people with the greatest and most fully developed capacity to reason, that is, to engage in abstract thought. He believes that newborn humans are like empty vessels of various sizes, each with a different potential for reasoning. If we liken that capacity to empty milk cartons, some are born with a half-pint capacity and a few with half-gallon potential, but most are clustered around the quart mark. Moreover, the nature of individual capacities differs as well: John may have a large capacity for learning music but a small capacity for physics; Mary may have a large capacity for mathematics but a small capacity for the law. Nonetheless, all healthy humans possess at least some capacity for learning, reasoning, and speculative and moral thought.

Aristotle asks us to consider why we possess this higher-level human capacity. He concludes that there can be no other purpose in having it than to use it; therefore, we each fulfill our humanness by developing our naturally given potential. To him, it is a sign of wisdom to seek out the natural flow of things and then to go in that direction, as it is a sign of foolishness to fight Mother Nature. Hence, he says those who pursue "the good life" aim at fulfilling their highest-order human capabilities. The alternative, to choose to act like an animal, is absurd, irrational, and unhuman.

© 2005 by James O'Toole. All rights reserved. No Part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

About the Author

James O'Toole, is research professor in the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California and Mortimer J. Adler Senior Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He has written 14 books, the most recent being Leadership A-Z.