advantages and disadvantages of both black-and-white thinking

Discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of both black-and-white thinking and thinking that sees everything in shades of gray. If you choose, let the other students know where you come down on the debate. (1/2 a page: well developed paragraph/paragraphs). 2. So, think about the perfect form of any object (an object is not a person, plant or animal but something made by humans). Does the perfect form exist in reality or in the imagination? If you think it exists in reality name one or two things that have been manufactured that can’t be improved upon. If in the imagination, share your vision of some perfect object (be specific). Is science fiction one way of imagining perfect forms yet to be constructed? (1/2 a page: well developed paragraph/paragraphs). 3. OK, time to generate some excitement. Lets jump into the field of politics. Plato said the great mass of people prefer the things of sense; meaning sensory experiences of taste, touch, etc. He also felt that the masses of people were incapable of knowing what is best for everyone as well as tempering our own material desires. Therefore, government was best left in the hands of the trained few. So, lets take the U.S. today. Drive (or even better walk or bicycle) around your community. What kind of stores and buildings dominate your community? Do they appeal more to the mind or the senses? Look at your local paper or TV station. Are advertisements aimed more at the pleasures of the senses or an appeal to the stimulation of the mind? Do you agree that most Americans aren’t interested in the big issues of the day and are more interested in what pleases their senses? If so, should we be governed by an “enlightened minority”? (1/2 a page: well developed paragraph/paragraphs). 4. Using the Guide Notes below as a guide only, take a situation you have experienced, and that you’re comfortable sharing, and describe possible responses to it; what are the extremes, and what is the golden mean? This can be either what you did or said, or now wished you did or said. (1/2 a page: well developed paragraph/paragraphs). GUIDE NOTES Aristotle looks at ethics, or the virtues, very differently from Plato and Socrates. Aristotle is not interested in true or perfect justice or goodness the perfect form of justice or goodness as Plato would say. Thus, Aristotle did not seek to describe virtue but rather to tell how human beings can become more virtuous. Socrates would not be happy that Aristotle does not want to find the meaning of true justice, but for Aristotle what is most important is to discover how an individual human being can be just or good in any given situation. Aristotle approaches the human being in the same way that he approaches material objects. He begins by asking, as he would by looking at a letter-opener or a knife, what is the ergon of the human being? In other words, what is the essential work or function of the human being? We start with the form of the human being who has a body, a mind, a personality, and a soul. How does the human being organize all these components to function virtuously? Aristotles major writing on this subject is Nicomachean Ethics. He does admit that the intellectual virtues are of a higher order than the emotional virtues. He believed the greatest happiness was to use reason to acquire scientific knowledge, then to apply that knowledge to practical problems through technology or engineering, and finally to respect human intuition and apply that intuition in philosophic wisdom. But we are not walking heads. We are people with bodies and emotions too which complicate the human being (to say the least!), so Aristotle devotes much more of his writing to the moral virtues than the intellectual virtues. The goal of human life is to achieve happiness or eudaimonia. This is the human beings calling or arte. We function best when we can achieve happiness. This may sound a bit Platonic, this talk of ultimate virtue, but then Aristotle goes back to how this applies practically to the individual human. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines virtue as a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to ourselves, determined by a rational principle and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it (Quoted in Guthrie, p. 154; in Roochnik, p. 207). The practical human makes rational choices (as opposed to irrational choices which would be acting on pure desire, or non-rational choices which might be on mere whim) which lie in a mean between an opposite end of extremes. This is what many have called the golden mean and others have called the proiaresis (reasoned choice) that is always in sophrosyne(moderation). Roochnik, in Chapter 4, provides one of Aristotles more famous examples of the golden mean by describing courage as the middle ground between foolhardiness and cowardice. Note that moderation, or the golden mean, is not settling for mediocrity. It is not a mean between good and bad. It is the good or best choice between opposite extremes which are poorer choices. Note that the golden mean is relative to ourselves. It is not a rigid cookbook approach but differs for each person, in each specific situation, and will differ throughout life. The context of the situation is always important in determining the golden mean. Lets go to the Presentation for this lesson. Hopefully, you can see that finding the golden mean has endless applications in life. There are few situations that we cant imagine handling better, or more virtuously, as Aristotle would say. As we ethically mature, some of the extremes are eliminated as non-options (like pulverizing!), and our golden mean constantly gets refined as we develop better skills at communication or handling difficult situations. Note how Aristotles solution is in itself a golden mean between the Sophists and Plato. It doesnt say that there is no right choice as the Sophists would say, nor that there is a perfect choice as Plato would say. Aristotle opts for the practical, reasoned choice relative to the individual and the situation. But no matter how close to the golden mean our choice is in any individual situation, Aristotle would say that one, simple good choice does not make one virtuous. Virtue is more a state of being, and doing virtuous acts must come naturally to the virtuous human. Arriving at the golden mean becomes more commonplace with practice or is saved for exceptional situations. Aristotle believes that we attain the virtuous state by forming habits. We discipline ourselves to do the right thing, and continually doing the right thing will induce the habit and allow us to become virtuous and be happy. (In 12-step recovery language, it is called Fake it till you make it!). But some people would argue against saying that carrying out habits is virtuous. Aristotle would counter by saying that it is the original reasoned choice to develop the habit where virtue lies. Character is the name Aristotle gave to the whole settled pattern, or structure, of a mans habits. What a man does in the long run reveals his character: a courageous man will, in the long run, act differently from a cowardly man (Jones, p. 276). References Guthrie, W. K. C. (1950). The Greek philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Jones, W. T. (1970). The classical mind: A history of Western philosophy. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. NOTE: You may use the above references preferably to other references. Thank you!