Aristotle
For just as the good - the doing well - of a flute-player, a sculptor or any practitioner of a skill, or generally whatever has some characteristic activity or action, is thought to lie in its characteristic activity, so the same would seem to be true of a human being, if indeed he has a characteristic activity. Well, do the carpenter and the tanne
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counter example. a galaxy has parts that seem to perform certain functions (nebulous area for creation of stars, outer arms for dying stars. and you might even say the function of a galaxy then is to produce stars which create heavy elements.) does this mean a galaxy has a purpose in the same way a person does? is it really possible that just because x system produces y effect that the PURPOSE of x is to produce y?
Arguably (a word always to be assumed when an interpretation of Aristotle is asserted), two aspects of Aristotle’s ethics set him apart from Socrates and Plato: an emphasis on virtuous activity as opposed, on the one hand, to merely possessing the virtue, and, on the other, to other candidates as components of happiness, such as pleasure. For Arist
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anyone else think pleasure not being a component of happiness is ridiculous? granted , pleasure without the capacity to appreciate it will not lead to happiness but... argh i dunno, arent they synonyms?