I really do love how Aristotle handles chance and fortune. I'd echo and agree with Dr. Davis' comment that Aristotle manages to encsonce these terms into his existing framework without having to make any serious changes. I say all of this because I'm about to get pedantic.
If chance and fortunate are differentiated by a capacity to "make choices" (a rock versus a human), I have to wonder about situations where choice making beings (like said humans) temporarily lose the ability to make choices. It seems like a situation where you are being forced to do something against your will requires an explanation of its own. The weirdness can possibly be unpacked in this analogy/question:
If a man puts a gun in your hand and forces you to play Russian Roulette, is your subsequent death by chance, misfortune, or nature?
It seems that this example is really not all that different from misfortune. "Fortune is necessarily concerned with actions..." (II.6.197b); therefore, seeing as how both people have the capability of action through the means of choice, this must be misfortune. It'll be more plain, potentially, to compare this scenario to Aristotle's example of running into someone who owes you money at the market:
ReplyDelete1) Person A owes Person B money.
2) Person A decides to go to the market for eggs.
3) Person B decides to go to the market for eggs.
4) Person B sees Person A.
5) Person B requests repayment.
6) Person A, if having the money, is now short some cash.
Likewise:
1) Person A really hates Person B.
2) Person A decides to go downtown for ice cream.
3) Person B decides to go downtown for ice cream.
4) Person A sees Person B.
5) Person A pulls Person B into an alley and demands Person B to play Russian Roulette.
6) If Person B happens upon the bullet when he pulls the trigger, his life has been shortened.
I guess the obvious objection to this parallel is the "choice" involved, but I presume you'd have as much of a choice to not pay someone back as you did to throw the gun at the person who handed it to you. Even if choice was completely eliminated, there had to be some sort of choice leading up to the situation that put you in it, such as pissing the person off, or deciding to go to the grocery store at the wrong time. I don't see immediately how you could get around the fact that choices were made to cause the situation in some way at some point. In the case of insanity, or something similar that legitimately affects the capability of choice, it would seem to be by chance that your death occurred according to Aristotle: "...whenever they happen not for the sake of what turned out, of which the cause was external, we then say that they are from chance" (II.6.197b.20).
I this example/question needs more details for us to be able to answer it, like where did these two people come across one another and what was there purposes for going to that place where they met. Tucker's explanation is fine if person A is going downtown for ice cream. However, what if person A went downtown to the ice cream shop for the purpose of running into person B because he knew person B would be there? Does that change things? In the marketplace example, both person A and B are going to the market for food. Their decisions are similar. In the last situation I described of Russian roulette, the decisions of person A and person B are different.
ReplyDeleteI do not think it was by nature because we determined the final cause of human beings is something like eudaimonia/happiness/flourishing. Being forced to potentially end your life and forcing someone to potentially end his life both do not work towards actualizing our human potency/potencies.
-Mackenzie
Well, I think we're "splitting hairs" here... but Aristotle really started it, so what the heck. When chance occurs, by definition it doesn't have any being-for-the-sake-of-which tied up with the occurrence. This is why Aristotle references another phrase we use: "in vain" (197b20.6). An occurrence that does not have a "final cause" is a chance event. But since every natural thing has a final cause of some sort, and chance events are subordinate to natural events (as he explains in II.4) chance can only be the intersection of two "natural" lines of causation. The commentary puts it very well, I think: "[e]ach thing must first be something and act in accordance with what it is, before it can interact by chance with anything else."
ReplyDeleteTherefore, in a way, it is by chance, misfortune, and nature--all three!--that you come to be killed. Chance because two lines of causality crossed incidentally, bringing your natural progression toward your final being-at-work to an end prematurely, misfortune because that's just what we call chance that hurts humans, and nature because everything that happens is according to nature. Now, Aristotle might say that nature, in this instance, "missed the mark" (199b), but it was still by nature that you died.
It seems as if, in this case, to say chance and fortune would be incorrect. Because, in the Russian roulette example, the question pertains to whether or not the person had a choice, it would be wrong to say that it was both chance and misfortune distinctly. However, I would agree with Tucker. It seems that this is a bad case of misfortune. You did not choose to play Russian Roulette, but this outcome is almost certainly incidental to a decision that you did make.
ReplyDeleteYour death would have been a result of his choice to make you kill yourself. It's not really chance or fortune.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with Matt and Tucker. It definitely seems like this is a bad case of misfortune. However, I feel like this example needs more details for us to provide a more accurate answer. I don't think we can give a definite answer until we know more about the situation and the intentions of the people involved.
ReplyDelete