Jan 23 2014Begonia | Monteroso

| Moreno | Tan

Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi.

Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solidly and unmistakably Zhuangzi.

But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.

Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. (2, tr. Burton Watson 1968:49)

Philippa Foot– 3 October 1920 – 3 October 2010– British philosopher: one of the founders of contemporary virtue

ethics– She started her career as student and tutor at Somerville College,

Oxford– She held a position as a philosophy professor at University of California,

Los Angeles– “Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral

Philosophy” (1978), “Natural Goodness” (2001), “Moral Dilemmas: And Other Topics in Moral Philosophy” (2002)

OutlineI. Aristotlean CategoricalsII. Natural GoodnessIII. Transition to HumansBonus: • Happiness (Foot)• Limitations

I. Aristotlean categoricalsDid you know that many consider aristotle as the father of biology?

Consider the following statements:S’s are F. Rabbits are

herbivores.S’s do V. Rabbits eat grass.

S’s are F. Rabbits are herbivores.

S’s do V. Rabbits eat grass.N.N. is F. Mrs. Muff is a

rabbit.N.N. is doing V.

Mrs. Muff is eating grass.

• Logically unquantifiable: do not pertain to a single rabbit

• descriptions of individuals depend on the species to which they belong, that without this reference, ‘life activities’ such as eating or reproducing cannot even be identified in an individual

Aristotlean Categoricals • natural-history sentences (M. Thompson)• speak of the life cycle of individuals of a

given species: truth is truth about a species at a given historical time

• it is only the relative stability of at least the most general features of the different species of living things that makes these propositions possible at all.

Aristotlean Categoricals• If we have a natural history

account of a species S, and we know that: S are F.

• If one particular S is not F, from evaluative assessment, it is defective

Aristotlean Categoricals • Natural history propositions:– Teleological– Non-teleological

• Telos (Greek) – an ultimate aim or end

• Propositions should be teleological: – should be intrinsic/essential in how

a species lives out its life (i.e. eating, reproduction, etc.)

Exercise: Aristotlean Categoricals

The blue tit has a round blue patch on its head.

The male peacock has a brightly colored tail.

S S are F are F

This is the Aristotlean

Categorical: • Color of its tail is

attached to its function to reproduce; without it, it would have a defect

• On the other hand, the blue tit, if it did not have the blue spot, would just be a peculiarity

But then we must ask what we mean by ‘playing a part in the life’ of a living thing.

What counts as ‘its life’ in this context? And what is ‘playing a part’?

Aristotlean Catgoricals and Teleology?• In plants and non-human animals

these things all have to do, directly or indirectly, with self-maintenance

• This is ‘the life’ characteristic of the kind of animal with which the categoricals here have to do

• What ‘plays a part’ in this life is that which is causally and teleologically related to it

• Remember Human Flourishing?

II. Natural goodness

Natural Goodness• attributable only to living things

themselves and to their parts, characteristics, and operations

• intrinsic or ‘autonomous’ goodness in that it depends directly on the relation of an individual to the ‘life form’ of its species

• The lack of it is a defect

A good oak tree should have good deep

roots.For an oak tree should be large

and sturdy.

Secondary Goodness• Goodness predicated to living

things when they are evaluated in a relationship to members of their species other than their own

III. Transition to humans

Transition to Humans• the characteristics of humans can

be evaluated in relation to the part they play in human life, according to the schema of natural normativity that is found in the case of plants and animals

• that there is no change in the meaning of ‘good’ between the word as it appears in ‘good roots’ and as it appears in ‘good dispositions of the human will’

Transition to Humans• So we shall want to discover

not what goodness is, but rather what goodness in performance of these and other activities may have to do with the manner of living and the good of our own species.

Function and Purpose• Present when evaluating all

kinds of living things, including human beings

• Although animals and plants operate very differently, “function” means the same in both cases– Ex. Function of spreading the

peacock’s tail, and function of opening the flower in sunlight

Moral Evaluation in Humans…

• Evaluation is based on the general relation of this kind of feature to the pattern of life that is the good of creatures of this species.

• The life cycle of a plant or animal ultimately has to do with what is involved in development, self-sustenance, and reproduction.

• Are we really going to suggest that human strengths and weaknesses, and even virtues and vices, are to be identified by reference to such ‘biological’ cycles?

Human Goods vs Animal/Plant Goods?• Human good is not the same as

plant or animal good. • Plants/animals: depend on chance

(natural habitat) and its own qualities (natural or species-general strategies)– Survival (and reproduction) is an

ultimate good.• Humans: instinctual but also hopes

for an optimistic future– Survival goes beyond a reference to

survival itself.

Example: Reproduction

Human Goods• The elements that can make up

good human lives• Deprivation of human goods

are human defects, or subsequently, natural defects

Good Human Life?• The concept of a good human

life plays the same part in determining goodness of human characteristics and operations that the concept of flourishing plays in the determination of goodness in plants and animals.

Humans need virtues to achieve human ends.

Example• Industry and tenacity– To feed oneself– To have a house– To succeed in love

• Fairness and kindness– To form family ties and

friendship

Example: Mikluk0-maklay

• [H]e had with him a native who had entered into his service on the express condition of never being photographed.

• The natives, as everyone knows, consider that something is taken out of them when their likeness is taken by photography.

• One day when the native was fast asleep, Maklay, who was collecting anthropological materials, confessed that he was awfully tempted to photograph his native, the more so as he was a typical representative of his tribe and would never have known that he had been photographed.

• But he remembered his agreement and refrained.

Example: Mikluk0-maklay

• This example allows us to confront the problem of the wrongness of breaking a particular promise, cut off from thoughts about the harm that might on a particular occasion result from breaking it. Maklay would have been justified in thinking that it wouldn't do any harm if he took the photograph.

• promises belong to the area of trust and of respect for others and disrespect and untrustworthiness are bad human dispositions

• It matters in a human community that people can trust each other, and matters even more that at some basic level humans should have mutual respect

What about Happiness, Philippa?

“Tell them I have lived a wonderful life.”Ludwig WittgensteinThe example shouldteach us not to be too ready to speak of every good life as ‘a happy life’

Happiness• She argues that the common

view that happiness is a state of mind, detachable from beliefs about special objects

• Foot concludes that happiness is a protean (ever-changing) concept, appearing in many different forms

Happiness• Happiness may be thought of as

humanity's good in such a way that combining happiness with wickedness is ruled out a priori.

• close to Aristotle's eudaimonia, insofar as it means operation in conformity with the virtues

• Happiness is the enjoyment of good things, meaning the pursuit and attainment of right ends.

Conclusions• Foot concludes that although human good is

different from the good in the world of animals and plants, nevertheless there is a common conceptual structure.

• To have a good act, it must be towards the natural good of being human (through virtues)

• Acts/characteristics which lead you away from the natural good are defective

Limitations?• Similar to Aristotelian virtue

ethics:– Does not take into consideration

the consequences; focuses more on the “spirit” of the act

–What if someone has a distorted image of natural goodness?

Thank you!