Objections to Aristotle's Argument

       When your assignment in a philosophy paper is to analyze an argument, you'll be expected both to explicate the argument (that is, to identify its premises and conclusion and to determine whether it is valid) and to evaluate it critically (that is, consider whether its premises are true by examining and evaluating reasons for thinking that at least some of them are false).  Here we have concentrated only on the prior task of explicating an argument:  it is prior because if you don't know what the conclusion of the argument is or what premises support it, you'll be hard pressed to find good objections.  And, once again, things are not always quite as easy as they seem:  you'll find, for example, that sometimes you need to consider the truth or the plausibility of the premises in order to reconstruct an argument well.  Here we'll only mention a few points that might give rise to reasonable objections to Aristotle's argument.  We could only see how powerful these objections are by spelling them out more fully and considering what Aristotle’s response would be.

Objections to Aristotle Argument, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Ch. 5

1. Note premise (1).  It states that there are only three kinds of things found in the soul.  Can we think of anything else that is found in the soul but does not fit into one of these categories?  What about activity?  One example of activity is thought.  Thought is not included in Aristotle’s breakdown of the types of things in the soul.  This could affect other aspects of Aristotle’s argument, such as premise (5).  We are not called good or bad on the grounds of our passions, but what abut our thoughts?

2. Note premises (8) and (9).  These premises draw a distinction between virtues and passions based on what we are praised or blamed for.  However, couldn’t we just be mistaken in what we do?  Perhaps, for example, we should be praised or blamed for our passions.  If so, then the distinction between passions and virtues cannot be made in this way.

3. Note premise (8).  It states that we are neither praised nor blamed on the grounds of our passions.  But is this really true?  Aren’t there any passions for which we are praised or blamed?  What about envy and jealousy?  People are blamed for envy and jealousy.  Therefore, the argument in (8) and (9) won’t hold.

Reconstruction from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book 5

Sample Paper on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book 5