Vague Visions are Better than Eye Gouging

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics- Book 1 Chapter 3a

This is a rendition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for contemporary readers.
Brief & understandable pieces with a short practice to integrate the wisdom into your life.
No philosophical background necessary. 

In this piece, Aristotle will explore how the tools of inquiry-  reason and language, stand in relation to the good life.

Life is too complex to have complete precision in our discussion of how to live. The best we can do is to be reasonably accurate in our understanding of the good life. Nothing good will be good in all contexts and situations. The variability of life will not allow it. In fact, some people are so overwhelmed by the dynamics of reality that they completely deny there being any good at all. For they see that some goods  can be destructive, and courageous people suffer for their virtue. But this is wrong. Just because goods are context dependent doesn't mean they have no value.

All this is to say that you don’t need the perfect formulation. Perfect is the enemy of the good. Allow your wisdom to be as vague as necessary. Optimize for noble functionality, not accuracy.

When you verbalize something meaningful, don’t be frightened that others will challenge you, demanding full consistency across all contexts. It’s not possible and not worth the effort. They're just jealous that you can even begin to recognize the good.

Theoretical inquiry is not complete until the abstract ideas have been clothed in concrete reality. If you want this knowledge to truly influence your life, do this practice. It will serve you well.

• Consider the following maxims and find two concrete instances where each maxim would lead you to a worse life and should be ignored or violated. 

  • Look before you leap 

  • Live dangerously 

  • Give, even if you have only little 

• Notice how the maxim may still be a useful guide.

• Bonus: Choose a maxim that directs you to your version of the good life. If you don't have one of these off the cuff, then I cannot emphasize how useful these are. Write it down and place it somewhere prevalent to inspire you and reorient you when you lapse.

Additional resources: 

• Read more on the limits of precision from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The whole blog runs on this theme and if you feel like you paralyze yourself by trying to be precise- this is your therapy. It’s more fun and straightforward than Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

• In this book, Charles Taylor makes a very strong case that language itself is a tool that is necessary for any vision of the good life. He shows that language plays not only a descriptive and communicative role, but also an expressive and creative role.