Philosophers

Do you think that either Plato or Aristotle are able to show that there is a human function, that in order to be happy we need to fullfil this function and that being virtuous will help us do so? Thank you.

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There are a lot of excellent questions here, and each one of them -- being excellent -- deserves a longer answer than I can give. But let me skip over the first part and move on to the rest.

First of all, it's not that being virtuous will help us fulfill the human function, in the way that eating broccoli will help us be nourished. On both Plato's and Aristotle's views, if there is a human function, then human virtue simply consists in the fulfillment of that function. The function of a knife is to cut, and sharpness enables the knife to cut well, so sharpness is the knife's virtue. Sharpness does not help the knife cut well; rather, the cutting well is constituted by the virtue of sharpness.

The happiness is trickier. It is true that for both Plato and Aristotle happiness requires the fulfillment of the human function. What a lot of philosophers debate is exactly how these philosophers think the connection works. Is happiness simply equivalent to performing the human function? Or does the human function order the soul in some way that creates the condition of happiness? The connection is more clear and explicit in Plato (especially the Republic), but also often more implausible. How exactly Aristotle takes the arrival at happiness to work is harder to say, and more frequently disputed, even if it seems more believable than Plato would have it.

Above all there is your first question. Is there a human function? Modern thought veers decisively away from this idea. Of course there are things that all human beings do: walk, talk, play games, digest food, sleep, reproduce ... Those could all be called human functions. But as a knife has a specific function, that which it does best and which nothing else does as well, so too "function" in the sense that matters to ethical reasoning has to be something specific to the human. What is it that we do that no other animals do? That question already is remarkably hard to answer. Biology and anthropology have accumulated evidence making almost all generalizations shaky.

For most philosophers who argue from the human function, the first step is the human faculty of reason. There are things we can do mentally that no other species seems able to do; or, when some very bright dolphins and chimpanzees to achieve a version of what we do, they perform that task (compared to human beings) very imperfectly. But in the first place, what exactly human reasoning is, how it works, has not been thoroughly understood by psychologists and other researchers.

And a second objection is more telling. Both Plato and Aristotle come close to implying that intellectual expertise correlates with virtue. Plato especially intellectualizes virtue (equating it with the practice of philosophy) to such a degree as to make it more plausible that the animal that reasons most must also be the most virtuous. Most people by this date in history have seen too many counter-examples to trust that intelligence will also lift the person into virtue. Cognitive ability is just too far off from the kind of thinking that goes into ethical behavior.

This is probably too bad. Speaking for myself, I find something hopeful in Plato's and Aristotle's quest for a human function that grounds virtue. In most general terms, they are saying: let's find out what kind of animal the human is, and then we'll know how to live. If I am a good watchdog I will practice barking at the arrival of strangers; a good parrot will be one that repeats what humans say to it; and likewise a good human being will perform the acts that define the human essence. This is the opposite of the view expressed in the movie "Babe," in which a pig dreams of being a dog and doing a dog's shepherding work. Both Plato and Aristotle would take offense at that film. "A pig should live a pig's life. Let the dog be the dog!" We don't think people ought to live like rats or be shy as mice. Humans should lead human lives. It's an uplifting slogan, and if we could say in terms that everyone agreed to what a human life is, then the study of the human could give us the basis of ethical principles.

Unfortunately the history of philosophy is littered with unsuccessful attempts to spell out the human essence. It is not likely that anyone any time soon will state the defining human function in uncontroversial terms. In this sense it's clearest that no, neither Plato nor Aristotle could show that there is a human function.

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