Modernizing Aristotle's Ethics

Book excerpt: Over 2,300 years ago, the Ancient Greeks gave us philosophy—the love of wisdom. From Socrates and Epicurus to Plato and Aristotle, they grappled with the big questions—who are we? Why are we here? What is a good life? How should we lead our life? Later, the natural sciences split away from philosophy, and then the humanities did as well, and fragmented into separate disciplines, all of which tell us something about human nature—the universal, the culture-specific, and the individuated. This ongoing process was also forwarded by supporters of Aristotle’s worldview, most notably, Thomas Aquinas and Ayn Rand, and we see much value in their neo-Aristotelian philosophies, too. In the light of all that that the new sciences and more recent philosophers tell us about human nature and ethics, is there a case for modernizing Aristotle (and thinkers like Aquinas and Rand, as well), as against starting afresh? We think so. The theme of this book is to arrive at a highly practical, “neo-Aristotelian” framework to facilitate creating a meaningful life and self-actualization (and thereby flourishing and happiness) by linking ethics (as an “ought”) with the empirical sciences (that provide the “is”). A modernized ethic can be created using current scientific knowledge, and is also made easier in application, by specifying the psychological nature of the human (the internal, or the ontology of the modern human), and delineating that which is universal, from that which can be individualized.