The Function Argument

Aristotle’s quest to determine what eudaimonia or “happiness” is in the Nicomachean ethics leads him to the question of the function of human beings. This question is especially difficult because of the change in the general meaning of certain terms such as “function” since the text was written. The best translation given by the professor of the human function was his/her “characteristic work”. What is the action that defines a human being?

Aristotle’s argument follows the following path (at least as I understood it):

  1. To determine what eudaimonia is, we appeal to the human function.
    1. General Structure
      1. The good depends on its function
      2. Performing a function well expresses virtue (or excellence)
      3. If humans have a function, a good human would perform the function well.
      4. The human function is the soul’s rational activity
  2. Proof of premise 3
    1. Each profession has a function
    2. Each part of the human body has a function
    3. Analogically, a human being must have a function
  3. Proof of Premise 4
    1. Human function must be a kind of life
    2. Life types are:
      1. Life of nutrition and growth
      2. Life of sensory perception
      3. Life of a rational being
    3. Human function is exclusive
      1. Life of nutrition is seen in plants and animals
      2. Life of sensory perception is seen in animals
      3. Life of a rational being is seen only in humans
    4. Therefore, the human function must be rationality

For a master logician, Aristotle makes fairly weak arguments for premises three and four.

Suggesting that humans have a function simply because their consisting parts have functions is ludicrous. A pile of machinery from different sources would not assume a unified function even if each part has a specific function. It seems very possible that humans could have no ultimate function and live their lives following learned functions.

Also, the exclusionary argument of premise four leaves a great deal unexplained (whether or not this is a result of me not reading the explanation is beside the point).

As Mahangu noted on An Unexamined Life, most people are content to go through their entire lives without questioning their existence and that seems to indicate a life without the function that Aristotle describes. I don’t believe that the function Aristotle is describing is about basic rationality of simple decisions, rather it is a much bigger “rationality of the soul” due to its relationship with the end of happiness. Not all humans have the function, but those who do can recognize that there exists a path to happiness through this function.

5 Comments

  1. Aaron Blohowiak

    Feb 2, 08:11 AM

    It is not merely that the component pieces have functions that the organism as a collection of systems has a function; it is that the effort (action? and therefore the function?) of the organism can be united in the pursuit of a singular objective that gives the organism as a whole at least the capability to have “A” function.

    That the alignment of the systems is greatly influenced by one in particular (the neural) is of significance. That our ability to cognate – for our purposes here, manipulate symbols mentally – is human alone is a fallacy. Some of the other primates infrequently display insight that implies such an action. If anything, Aristotle’s argument for a human function could much more easily be made for that of non-literal communication…

    however, this could easily digress into a chicken-egg discussion involving higher order reasoning and language (and the validity of the sapir-wharf hypothesis.) I do agree, however, that his support for (3) and (4) is weak. I also posit that merely because an organism may have a function, that it does not exclude the organism from having other functions. As a means to achieve happiness, well that is a very sticky wicket. We’d first have to codify what happiness is, and is not.

    The contentment of a Compassionate Buddha would not, i suppose, be sufficient pleasure for many Americans to consider it a state of happiness. The confusion of thrills for happiness is a digression, I’ll admit. If the application of the human function – meaningful symbol manipulation – is to lead to happiness, then surely it is exclusively through applying rational doubt to ones own assumptions (a la Descarte) to come to intuit Maya.

    In lore, eating from the tree of knowledge is what forced adam and eve from the garden of eden—knowing seperates one from enjoying the work of the universe.

    Likewise, it is the process of symbol manipulation and the requisit abstraction – our method of understanding – which prevents us from intuiting our experience directly.

    Is it so that to be human is to lose reality so that we may be more effective at survival, and the peak experience in survival is to escape that craft and intuit the nature of things directly? Or to realize the illusory nature of our existences themselves?

    However, this argument is (somewhat) based upon the mechanism which it is claiming to understand. If we look at our function most objectively, our function becomes quite clear:

    We are self-perpetuating poop factories!

  2. Thame

    Feb 2, 08:16 PM

    First, thank you for a very well thought-out comment. It is contributions like yours that make the site exciting.

    “That the alignment of the systems is greatly influenced by one in particular (the neural) is of significance. That our ability to cognate – for our purposes here, manipulate symbols mentally – is human alone is a fallacy.”

    Yes, it seemed like a dubious point at best.

    “I also posit that merely because an organism may have a function, that it does not exclude the organism from having other functions.”

    That is true, although I believe that Aristotle was interested in finding the singular end and function of humans.

    “If the application of the human function – meaningful symbol manipulation – is to lead to happiness, then surely it is exclusively through applying rational doubt to ones own assumptions…”

    Meaningful symbol manipulation implies something similar to the knowledge-seeking that Socrates apparently felt was the end, and that seems more plausible to me.

    “We are self-perpetuating poop factories!”

    That’s it! Our problems are solved :D

  3. Aaron Blohowiak

    Feb 3, 07:37 AM

    Cheers!

    Now, if we were to combine the realization that knowledge is an Important (if not exclusive) function of the mind, and that an ancillary, if not patently obvious, function of humans is the manufacture of waste, then perhaps sanitation is the paramount function of man! Applying both cognition and poo, it is a unifying skill by which the goodness of a man can be judged.

  4. Thame

    Feb 3, 07:58 PM

    Haha, that made my day (or what’s left of it)!
    Thanks

  5. Spencer

    Sep 10, 09:00 PM

    What goodness is… I would say it is an oppinion held by the person judging it. For If a person views another person as “Evil” for leaving excrement at their doorstep, however, a porto-potty cleaner may simply view it a s a call to duty and clean it up as a sighn of devotion to his job.

    -More of a double ontondra then an oppinion of mine

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