PHL100Y1 Study Guide - Nicomachean Ethics
Document Summary
Aristotle"s argument that there must be a highest good (1. 2): (1) we do not choose everything for the sake of something else. Therefore: there is a highest good [from (3), (4), (5)]. Aristotle proposes that we could find out what happiness" is if we grasp the characteristic activity (function") of a human being . First, note that we use evaluative terms of things other than human beings and their actions. In particular, plants, animals, and artifacts are often called good and better or worse off. we speak of good horses, or of a plant doing well, or of one knife as better than another. Second, notice that such judgments are largely independent of preferences. Both of ours and of the things thus evaluated (and most artifacts do not have preferences at all). Hence these judgments are in a cerain way objective, rather than subjective.
