Have Respect

We have discussed in the past that a virtue is using a part of our character to its fullest potential. The ultimate potential that everything converges on is happiness. Material things are important since without them we can be inhibited and uncomfortable. The ultimate happiness comes from our soul. Our soul gets its greatest satisfaction from friendships. There are necessary friendships such as co-workers and contractors and there are friendships for external pleasure such as those we party with. The rare and lasting ones are those that come from common goodness; when we love someone for who they are. When our affections have an object, the word we use is love. If the object can reciprocate the affection it is far better. A pet can bring more joy than a painting.
We would like to claim we are islands, but in reality, for humans to be happy, they need others. We form friendships doing the things we love and there are certain people we love doing things with. The word love is used in a broad context for the things we desire and the people we enjoy being around. Ethics is a study on how to keep friendships. We should understand, treat well and be friendly to everyone. But what we love is inherent, something within ourselves. There are varying degrees of love that have different objectives too; we have more passion toward some things more than others. Our preferences can change over time. Sometimes there is buyers remorse when it wasn't what we expected and sometimes we mature and it is a slow change. When two people have an extreme amount of love that wants no more than to be with a certain person because of who they are, we call it falling in love. Saying "I love you" is assumed to mean this particular kind of love. Unless there is an extreme personality change, this kind of love doesn't change.  
All pleasures have the potential to take away from the rest of our life. Love can be one of those. A person might stay in an abusive relationships due to it. To stay happy within ourselves, we have to take control of our passions at times to make sure other valuable things aren't taken for granted. A person can become obsessed with their job, music, art, food or a number of other things. The more the passion there is, the more difficult it is; so we shouldn't judge others. But we aim for the mean; enjoying what we love without causing damage to what we care about.
Next we will look at why we need friendships. A friendly person wishes everyone well even though they don't know them and have no idea if they would love them. Love is for a person we know and friendship is for both those we interact with incidentally and those we don't know. We can be friendly to a coworker while belonging to a country means we are all friends in a certain respect. It is expected that Representatives use ethics and treat each other with respect and have good character. That is what it means to be a friend.
      

Looking Good

We are into book 8 of Ethics By Aristotle. It addresses the purpose for having ethics. If we want a strong community and people that cooperate with each other, it would follow that being friendly toward each other would be the foundation. We could call this a relationship study, but one that addresses why people like each other in a broad sense. Relationships would include good and bad. This is a study of what is good so we use the word friendship to cover all good relationships. These studies are meant to be examined, questioned and expanded on by those who read them. You can call them foundations for inquiry.

Patriotism has to do with a sense of proclaiming one’s pride to associate with people on a national level. It is possible to like people that we don’t know but of course that kind of friendship is the most superficial. These friendships are necessary though, in order to have a good society. A closer friendship comes to fruition when the person is known and it can be reciprocated. Everyone needs friends, rich or poor. There are different kinds of friendships and the scope can change through the years. Children will become a different kind of a friend to a parent as they mature.

There are arguments on what causes people to become close friends. Some say it is commonalities and others say opposites attract.  What is the attraction? Aristotle believed that love is an emotion since it can also be applied toward inanimate objects. When applied toward a certain objects, it can invoke strong desires. There isn't much choice involved since it belongs to our passionate side. We do choose our friends however. Love has different manifestations that are similar to that of friendships. Why do we desire certain things or persons? It may give a pleasure; sometimes helpful to us or may be, for no reason at all, we like it because it seems good to us.  The first two are focused on the benefits. Utility and pleasure based relationships change when the benefits stop. Children become independent and the parental relationship will become based on something other than upbringing. We also want out of relationships that aren’t fun anymore if the person becomes bitter or angry and the pleasure ends. But when we love because of who the person is and it is reciprocated, it becomes a deep and strong relationship. This seems to be based on two people recognizing the good in each other.  They look on the other person as an extension of the good within themselves and care about their well being.  

Friendship and love work hand and hand together. Love is the emotion that recognizes what is pleasant to us. And being in love is an extreme form of it between two people according to Aristotle. Youth tend to lean toward the amorous side of relationships. Others are looking for physical or emotional support in different areas. There is nothing wrong with that as long as both are satisfied with what they are getting out of it. But as we mature, we tend to love more for who a person is. The more we interact with a person and get to know their heart; we see things that we perceive as good. This intensifies the love for that person. The focus becomes less on what can be gained and more on the other person’s well being. Joy is found by just being in the person’s presence regardless what is going on. The amorous part may become less of a focus with time, needs may also change but if both people remain mutually good and pleasant to each other, strong relationships are apt to continue on long after youth.

Friendships have an element of choice in them. A parent may have needed to cut off an abusive child; women may have to leave abusive relationships. But in both cases, the love continues on. Choices on whether interaction is harmful or beneficial are made by the friendship part of a person’s character. Decisions that result in good actions are based in good character.  But love is a constant; a passion that doesn't process such things. It loves good character but doesn't always want to obey it. The object is more important than the logic. This can drive mothers of prodigal children crazy and subject others to abuse. But like all passions, love applied in the right way, at the right time, brings us the greatest pleasure…   

What a Relief!

Pleasure is the foundation that ethics is built on. It is the currency between individuals and is the purpose for most of the things we do. Everyone avoids the other extreme 'Pain'. It is impossible to do an exhaustive study on the subject but we will do what we can.

We have examined the subject previously and see that pleasure is an important part of happiness. There are different degrees of pleasure and duration. Short lived but the most intense pleasure is physical.We have to do things to spice things up. There is a pleasure that has to do with happiness that is based more in the soul. It can include physical but also has a degree of satisfaction, comfort, acceptance and commonality. To have everything one desires doesn't always make a person happy.  For a person who has turmoil in their soul, it is hard to be happy regardless what pleasure is experienced.

Over use of our appetites can cause us pain and we feel the most guilt about them afterward. Pleasures of the soul such as love, honor and care are hard to overuse. It is possible to be obsessed with being known and to care so much that it hurts your own life. But excesses in these areas only require adjustment and isn't considered bad. Trouble with appetites occurs when a person is focused on getting a pleasure for the sake of itself at the expense of other good things. This is what it means to be self indulgent.

When things are done to relieve pain, they are more prone to become a vice. A person who is excitable is more apt do things to relieve a natural anxiety. This can make them appear self indulgent. But not like a person doing something bad for the thrill of it. They try to satisfy a sort of pain that is a part of their nature. An extreme would be those who are alcoholics or drug abusers. They get drunk or high as a way to relieve pain and not for the pleasure in it.

Pleasure that comes from the stationary part of our soul seems to stay the longest. Although goods and accomplishments are necessary for happiness, only a satisfaction of the soul makes them worthwhile. We still have our own unique appetites and drive that give us enjoyment if we manage them well. They become difficult if the pursuit replaces peace in one's soul.  Aristotle believed that the restful pleasures are closest to Gods nature. The part that enjoys life for life's sake, reads for the enjoyment of reading and studies for the enjoyment of knowledge. And of course to have friends, not for what they can do for us but because we enjoy being around them.

Relationships will be our next subject.

What is Easier?

When we are discussing the subject of self restraint, we see that it has to do with how one handles pleasures. A temperate person may lack passion or may have acquired good habits of thought because of upbringing and so he may or may not be using much restraint. We only see the actions. A lack of self restraint can be due to laziness, rashness, habits, or strong passions. It can be like someone who gets drunk easy on just a couple drinks. A lack of self restraint with remorse means there is hope for change but without it the behavior will continue. We see this in how sentencing is given to criminals and how effective  reform can be. If the object of their offense was pleasure from hurting others (malice) it is a problem with their nature and giving them a mere penalty is less likely to help. The principles don't change over the centuries. On a scale of who is easiest to cure, the rash and passionate person lead since there was little deliberation involved and they just need to use their head the next time. It is harder for those who have made it a habit and the more it becomes a part of the person's nature the more a complete change has to occur. An epiphany is needed more than a bit of self-discipline.

This means that it takes a certain amount of endurance that is unique to each person to have self-control. At the same time it takes a certain amount of apathy for one to lose self-control. This is according to what the individual is like. The appearance of temperance or indulgence can be deceiving so we can't say one person has more endurance or apathy than another. There are those who use these terms broadly to judge others. But those of us who know better shouldn't even judge ourselves that way. We use the knowledge and get to know ourselves better for improvement rather than getting stuck in the rut of self pity.

The area of one's soul that we make or break continence is that of pleasure. And it is my pleasure to go into the subject. We have to confine the study to what is pleasurable for humans and interestingly that is a part of political philosophy. Should we live according to "if it feels good do it"? If happiness involves pleasure, why isn't it that simple? Since some pleasures lead to more pain than they are worth, it is a good idea to look at the nature of pleasure and pain.

Similarities

We have been examining character traits by looking at them as persons. The incontinent person is one who lacks self restraint yet wants to do what is right. Those who are naturally temperate don't have to use as much self restraint. That is why we shouldn't judge others; we all have areas of difficulty that we need to work on. We will look at this even closer but first lets look at characteristics that are sometimes confused with each other.

A person who is stubborn has similarities to someone who is temperate and has self control. The difference is the objective. A hard headed person gets pleasure by being right. It doesn't matter if they are or not. This person will feel humiliated and can't imagine being wrong. You can try to debate them, but finding truth isn't as pleasurable to them as being deemed the authority and having others submit to it. This is also similar to wisdom and they want to appear wise. They want to look that way but use the shortcut of arrogance rather than honest debate. This kind of attitude can permeate a life so much that it is hard to be around them. They try to get their own way at the expense of good ideas and practices and this makes them poor managers. So in reality they lack self-restraint even though they appear firm.

We can look at other character traits that have similarities but one is good and the other bad. A liberal person gives of his own substance to help others and isn't interested in recognition. But a sacrifice can only be made out of what one owns. A prodigal wants to be admired in the same way but is too envious to actually be liberal. He gets his resources for giving by using other people's money or takes more than what he is due in transactions. A prodigal tends to overvalue himself. To the recipients, they both look the same, but one is generous and the other a thief since he takes credit for other people's generosity. A confident person and a rash person look similar at times but the confident person has given preparation and thought to actions while the rash person wants to appear confident to everyone but without preparation or forethought.

High Energy

We need to establish what part of us causes a lack of self-restraint. Someone can love sweets and know that too much is bad for them yet still overeat. The issue isn't knowledge since there is a definite grip on the facts. It isn't upbringing; although habits are formed that way. It is possible to despise one’s upbringing and go in an opposite direction. There are definite rules that we see outside our opinions and living a long healthy life is the right rule. But still we disobey them. A self-indulgent person has given up on restraining himself and so is a person given to vice. Both the indulgent and those given to vice have justified the bad behavior within them and are very hard to convince otherwise.

A person who wants to do right but lacks restraint errs in two areas. We see that those who are passionate struggle in this area the most. But if a passionate person is also energetic, it makes it even harder. Passion tends to override reason causing trouble for this person. But a person who is high energy has the issue of time added. Having high energy causes a person to make rash decisions due to impatience. Reason is only considered afterward. But in both cases, an incontinent person feels bad about it afterward and wants to fix things. It is a tough to be a high energy, passionate person who also cares and few people understand them. They tend to be under judgment and deal with guilt which is self- judgment; with a high degree of anxiety. But as they learn to understand themselves and work through things, there are a lot of benefits and enjoyment to this kind of personality. People tend to confuse them with the self-indulgent. A person given to self-indulgence tends to ignore the ramifications and feels the pleasure is due him. The focus is on getting the pleasure and ignoring the consequences. This kind of person almost impossible to help. These are the states of those who lack restraint and they vary in degrees. But passions and making rash decisions are things that cause people to err who want to do otherwise. We all deal with this in different areas of our lives.

There are interesting observations we can make toward those who have strong self-control and we will address it next time.