Corey Miller - In Search of the Good Life: Through the Eyes of Aristotle, Maimonides, and Aquinas

Through the Eyes of Aristotle, Maimonides, and Aquinas

Corey Miller

T his project is a comparative exploration of the good life from the standpoint of two of the greatest medieval philosophers. As Moses Maimonides ( 1135 / 1204 ) is the greatest Jewish philosopher of the medieval period, so Thomas Aquinas ( 1225 ) is the greatest Christian philosopher of that period. Yet it has been said that Maimonides without Aristotle is unthinkable, These statements convey the enormous influence Aristotle has had on the two medievalists and continues to have on their respective traditions through their writings, such that the views of these latter thinkers come to light best when understood in light of their historical sources of influence.

Given that Aristotle was the major (though certainly not the only) philosophical influence on these two thinkers, it makes sense to begin this exploration by attending to his views, which are germane for shaping some of the background of their respective positions on important issues. While noting the common structure that the medieval thinkers share with their ancient philosophical forebear, indeed with much of the classical tradition altogether, my central concern in this research will be to identify certain important features that seem to be lacking in Aristotle but are accounted for in either Maimonides or Aquinas or both and which do philosophical work throughout their respective projects. These features serve to distinctly illuminate the common Maimonidean and Thomistic accounts on the nature of the good life over the Aristotelian account, as understood through an exploration of the three respective views on the fallen human condition and human perfectibility. In the same spirit, a comparative approach of all three gives us greater clarity of the significant points of interest than we would have without the comparison. While there are other works comparing Aristotle and Maimonides,

Chapter provides a broadly characterized Aristotelian view of the good life to set the philosophical background of the problem(s) in our exploration. Chapters and provide the respective Maimonidean and Thomistic accounts, revealing their indebtedness to, but also their significant departure from, Aristotle on the good life by exploring their philosophical and religious accounts of the fallen human condition and human perfectibility. Chapter explores the important differences between the medievalists respective positions by direct comparison in a sort of dialogue, the implications each has for one another relative to the good life, and an extended discussion of Aquinass view of spiritual formation.

T he purpose of this chapter is to set up the philosophical background and problems in Aristotle that Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas endeavor to resolve or improve on by suitably adapting Aristotelian thinking for their purposes. To do this, I will provide a plausible and broadly characterized Aristotelian view of the good lifean account of Aristotles understanding of human perfectibility roughly shared or taken for granted by both thinkers.

First, I will trace the basic Aristotelian structure of the human good by considering raw human nature, its ultimate end, and how to get from man as he is in the raw to man as he could become. Second, I will address certain problems the account raises that have the effect of rendering the human end elusive for most people to obtain given certain preconditions necessary for the good life. That is, on this account, there are certain things that disqualify most people from ever reaching the prize, the good life. Third, I will look at the narrow gate through which a few might pass to experience the good life; finding that, even while elusive for most, it becomes elusive even for the best of men as a mere human idealistic faade or else quite rare and episodically unsustainable. In essence, I will show that Aristotles eudaimonistic view of human perfectibility ends with a whimper rather than a bang as one cannot be optimistic about the attainability of the good life. The Aristotelian account lacks certain necessary features of the best life for man, even the best of men (much worse for the worst of them), which is where the medievalists will make their advance.

In addition to observing the structure, problems, and a possible way through to attaining the good life, we will see Aristotle setting the stage for the Aristotelian move made by the two medievalists. Most interesting, as Aristotles view on human perfection is developed and understood by an individuals philosophical speculation and relevant activity, it reveals a striking two-tier notion of moral virtue (a necessary precondition to the ultimate perfect life of intellectual virtue).

Ironically, the moral bifurcation Aristotle makes between fully virtuous acts and merely virtuous acts winds up itself being just one part of the additional bifurcation that both Maimonides and Aquinas are committed to in their respective philosophies, given a certain nexus that without which the virtues are less than virtuous and virtue itself is less accessible than even Aristotles scheme supposed. This nexus of key features becomes all the more important to obtaining the good life. Indeed, without it, to use Aristotelian idiom, the virtues become like matter without form. As Aristotles perfect life is found lacking (i.e., an exhibit of Aristotelian privation), it is here where the medievalists seek to supply the form, and where the Maimonidean and Thomistic man (given their richer ontology) will always be in an advanced state relative to the good life over the Aristotelian man.

The Basic Structure of the Human Good

Aristotles vision of the human good is eudaimonistic, teleological, and intellectualist. Eudaimonism is the view that happiness is the ultimate justification of morality.

On a fundamental level we see a stark contrast between man as he actually is in his raw, uncut, and otherwise untutored form, and man as he could become if he only realized his potential that is grounded in the essence of human nature. Accordingly, then, ethics is the field of thought that informs man on how to make the transition from one state to the next via practical reason. It presupposes some account of potentiality and actuality as elaborated by Aristotle: man as he is in the raw (human nature), and man as he may become if he understood his human telos , a term often translated end, goal, or purpose. This teleological structure of Aristotles view of human nature is a microcosm of his view of all of nature, which is likewise teleological.

In short, ethics informs us as to what one ought to do, ethically, if one is to attain the good life. We thus have the threefold and interrelated schema: raw and untutored human nature with attending capacities, principles of rational ethics prescribing how humans ought to live to attain the good life, and the fully developed human in the form of the good life. To say what one ought to do according to this view is to say what will in fact lead to ones eudaimonia , ones flourishing, according to the natural kind of thing it is.