Today's soundtrack is Ensiferum: Two Paths. I'm reading chapter 5 of book 1 of Aristotle's Ethics today. We can tell by the way a man lives what he considers to be the good. The majority of people - those who of are low standards and have poor taste - only look for pleasure, partying, a "good time" (p. 30). Men whose life is a pursuit of pleasure are no different from the cattle who seek only grass and water; they have no higher aim than their own immediate satisfaction. Men who are more sophisticated than the masses find their actions led by the pursuit of honour. But even honour is fleeting and meaningless in the grand scheme of history; additionally, honour depends more on the whims of bestowing the honour than the actual actions and intent of those who receive honour. So honour cannot be the greatest good, because honour is not intrinsically entwined with its possessor. Since virtue is what leads to honour, is virtue that which brings happiness and thus is The Good? No, says Aristotle. Virtue can be undone by catastrophes and hard circumstances. And even if a man has virtue, he will not always act on it. And even if he does act on it, its benefits can be negated by his environment, so that even with virtue he is not happy. So virtue cannot be the greatest good. The last good that the common man seeks is wealth. But of course wealth cannot be The Good, for wealth is simply a way of acquiring something else. It is a means, not an end. So it is the lowest kind of pursuit, for the pursuit of wealth is never an honest one. Those who pursue wealth in actuality pursue power, or honour, or revenge, or any of the other things mentioned before.
