What Is This Sailor Looking For?

The Quest For Inner Self What

Does it Mean?

A Presentation by Christian Allaire

To Figure

This Out

I Consulted

ARISTOTLE

Why Is Aristotle Relevant?

He developed a compelling concept of happiness

Aristotle Helps us answer crucial questions such as

Aristotle’s intellectual range is astonishing

He wrote in every field of human inquiry

What does it mean to lead a good life?

What is personal excellence, and how do I achieve it?

To what extent does personal happiness entail a relationship with a community of others?

What is true happiness?

To the Greeks true happiness is………

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia is a combination of

Human Flourishing

Happiness

Success

Putting It Together

Eudaimonia’s aim Is

Goal Oriented

Virtuous Activity

Ability to Reason

Management of Desire

Happiness=Excellence

Goal Oriented Elements Eudaimonia is not a theory aimed at understanding, but a

philosophy of action.

Oriented toward the flourishing of the individual

All activity has a goal, purpose in mind, an end point

Jefferson’s “pursuit of happiness” flows directly form Aristotle

Every action and choice, seem to aim at some good; the good therefore, has been well defined as that at which all things aim (1094a).

Aristotle

Virtuous Activity

Cultivation of good habits Virtue is the disposition to do the right thing

Virtuous activity in accordance with reason Activities that will be useful in life. Distinction between the pleasant,

the useful and the noble

Virtuous activity lies within the mean between two extremes Examples would be justice, self restraint and courage

Virtue is learned as Aristotle says “Seeing Aright”

Ability to Reason

A domestic dogs highest purpose is to love its owner. Its highest good

A humans chief good is the ability for rational thought

Aristotle places everything into a hierarchy

An oxe’s salient characteristic is its strength. This what defines its “oxeness”

Our ability to reason is our “humaness”

Excellence

In the Greek is called Arete

Disposition of striving toward one’s maximum capability

The young are not capable of excellence, occurs around midlife

Relative to the individual

Why?

Thus our aim is to fulfill our highest order human capabilities

Desire Management

All animals have appetites manifested as desire Bulls smell cows in heat and are driven by the biological

urge to mount Humans share these beastly tendencies tempered by reason

The trick is to desire the right things refined over a long period of time

Thus both sides of our nature needs to be developed• Our mind related to reason• Our character related to our passions or feelings

This can only occur after years of good habits

Eudaimonia

Virtuous Activity

Desire Managemen

t

Goal Directed

Happiness=Excellence

A Life Long Dream Gone Awry

The Situation

In 2005 I read a book on Aristotle’s ethics that changed the course of my life

I’d lost the fire in my belly for my Coast Guard career

It became clear to me that I was not living the pillars of eudaimonia

I decided to retire at age 40 and follow a life long dream to….

To Sail Around the World

Well I Didn’t Make It

• But I did cover over 5000 nautical miles in almost three years

• I did not give up easily

So What Happened?

After the first year the initial excitement was quickly fading By year two my low grade anxiety at my slow progress had

not abated

To ease my suffering I took a job as a Charter Boat Captain in the Virgin Islands for awhile

I then continued to sail the Eastern Caribbean south to Grenada

Plus there was a girl involved. That will scramble any sailors brain

By the end of the 2009 hurricane season I’d decided I’d had enough I re-crossed the Caribbean Sea to Florida and trucked my boat to San Rafael

Where I Went Wrong?

• Confused pleasure with the useful and the noble

• Was not developing my highest potential. Why?

• Sailing was no longer a challenge. I had mastered the art over many years in the Coast Guard.

• Intellectual Stagnation. I had cut myself off from the tools and institutions of society that I require to flourish

• Thus I could not achieve excellence impacting my happiness

• I did not have an end point or goal in mind other than to sail around the world. Why do that? I still can’t answer that question.

But the number one reason I lost my way was because of ISOLATION

Eudaimonia is all about the individual flourishing, but NOT for selfish reasons.

To truly be happy a person must flourish within a community of others

A gathering of losers will produce poor results

A gathering of flourishing individuals will produce outstanding results

Thus my isolation from friends and family deeply impacted my ability to live eudaimonia

SO TO FIND YOUR INNER SELF I HIGHTLY RECOMMEND CROSSING AN OCEAN ALL ALONE. YOU WILL QUICKLY FIND WHAT YOUR MADE OF

Questions?

Works Cited

Aristotle, H Rackham. The Nicomachean Ethics. The Loeb classical library. London: W. Heinemann, 1926. Print.

Kraut, Richard, "Aristotle's Ethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),

O'Toole, James. Creating the Good Life: Applying Aristotle's Wisdom to Find Meaning and Happiness. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2005.

Rand, Ayn, and Harry Binswanger. The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z. New York, N.Y.: Meridian, 1986.