{"id":3874,"date":"2021-08-28T15:40:33","date_gmt":"2021-08-28T15:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/?page_id=3874"},"modified":"2025-02-01T15:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T15:12:07","slug":"desire-exercises-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/introductory-unit\/desire-exercises-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Desire Exercises 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Desire Exercises, Part 3:<\/b>
Final Ends<\/b><\/h5>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Desire Exercises *<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Background<\/b><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In previous exercises, you have listed your desires and then mapped means-ends relationships between them. You<\/span>\u2019<\/span>ve also indicated which things you desire for their own sake, as opposed to only to get to some further goal.<\/span><\/p>

In the Nicomachean Ethics<\/i>, which we<\/span>\u2019<\/span>ll discuss\u00a0in more detail later in this course, Aristotle goes on to pose the question of whether there is something that is desired only<\/i> for its own sake, and never<\/i> for some further purpose. If so, he claims, this would be a \u201cfinal end,\u201d at least if all our other desires were ultimately aimed at it. <\/span>Aristotle argues that there is such a final end, which he calls <\/span>eudaimonia<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 often translated as \u201chappiness,\u201d though he understands the term in a much wider sense than we do today.<\/span><\/p>

Plato develops a similar idea in the\u00a0Symposium<\/i>, which we<\/span>\u2019<\/span>re not reading in this course, where Socrates narrates how he was questioned by a priestess, Diotima, about the nature of desire and its relation to the final good:<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201c\u2018The lover of beautiful things has a desire; what does he desire?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>

\u201cThat they become his own,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

\u201cBut that answer calls for still another question, that is, \u2018What will this
man have, when the beautiful things he wants have become his own?\u2019<\/span><\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>

I said there was no way I could give a ready answer to that question.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

Then she said, \u201cSuppose someone changes the question, putting \u2018good\u2019 in place of \u2018beautiful,\u2019 and asks you this: \u2018Tell me, Socrates, a lover of good things has a desire; what does he desire?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>

\u201cThat they become his own,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

\u201cAnd what will he have, when the good things he wants have become
his own?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>

\u201cThis time it\u2019s easier to come up with the answer,\u201d I said. \u201cHe\u2019ll have happiness (<\/span>eudaimonia).\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>

\u2013\u00a0Plato, <\/span>Symposium\u00a0204d\u2013e<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Even Callicles in the Gorgias<\/i>\u00a0appears to accept the notion of a final end in his extreme hedonism:<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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[T]<\/span>he truth of it, Socrates \u2014 the thing you claim to pursue \u2014 is like this: wantonness, lack of discipline, and freedom, if available in good supply, are excellence and happiness (<\/span>eudaimonia<\/span>).<\/span><\/p>

\u2013\u00a0Plato, <\/span>Gorgias\u00a0492c<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Callicles, Plato, and Aristotle each seem to be claiming that there is some one end that everything we do is aimed at: for Callicles, maximal pleasure; for Plato and Aristotle, eudaimonia<\/em>. This might be taken as an empirical claim, one that we can test against people\u2019s experience.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Exercise<\/b><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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For the last couple of weeks you have been tracing means-ends relationships between your own desires. Now ask yourself the following questions:<\/span><\/p>

  1. Does your map point to a single \u201cfinal end\u201d that everything else aims at? Or were there several separate ultimate ends, or even a motley of disconnected wants?<\/span><\/li>
  2. If your map doesn’t have a single final end, when you look at it now, could you realistically unite it by putting some final end on it (e.g., happiness or pleasure or some other ultimate goal) and linking your desires to it?<\/span><\/li><\/ol>

    * Designed and adapted for this course by Prof. Steven Horst<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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    \n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBack to Introductory Unit<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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    <\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Desire Exercises, Part 3:Final Ends Desire Exercises * Background In previous exercises, you have listed your desires and then mapped means-ends relationships between them. You\u2019ve also indicated which things you desire for their own sake, as opposed to only to get to some further goal. In the Nicomachean Ethics, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3240,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3874","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3874"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7834,"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3874\/revisions\/7834"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingagoodlife.com\/spring2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}