(NB. This is the second installment of a two part post. Post one was entitled RAND, ARISTOTLE AND WISDOM.) Rand wrote in THE OBJECTIVIST ETHICS that, “The greatest of all philosophers, Aristotle, did not regard ethics as an exact science; he based his ethical system on observations of what the noble and wise men of his time chose to do, leaving unanswered the questions of: why they chose to do it and why he evaluated them as noble and wise.”

In this post I want to focus on her claim that Aristotle never answered the question of why he evaluated certain men as noble. As with wisdom, I find it passing strange that she could write such a criticism. And this for the simple reason that Aristotle DOES tell us how he evaluated the noble man as noble.
But first a word about the Greek word that usually gets translated as “noble,” and for this I would like to quote Joe Sachs from p. xxi of the introduction to his translation of the NICOMACHEAN ETHICS.

“Aristotle says plainly and repeatedly what it is that moral virtue is for the sake of, but the translators are afraid to give it to you straight. [And Rand is not responsible for this sad fact, needless to say.] Most of them say it is the noble. One of them says it is the fine. [At a philosophy conference, one guy actually suggested “cool,” which is better than noble if you ask me.] . . .The word the translator is afraid of is TO KALON, the beautiful. Aristotle singles out as the distinguishing mark of courage, for example, that it is always “for the sake of the beautiful, for this is the end of virtue.” (1122b, 7-8)”

This translation is important if we are to understand what Aristotle states as the means by which we evaluate an action as beautiful, to wit: “the judgment is in the perceiving.” Aristotle’s answer to Rand would have been to tell her to look and see that the beautiful man is acting beautifully. When teaching the Nicomachean Ethics I tell the students that a virture like courage can be seen. If one guy staying with his fellow soldiers when they are attacked while another guys drops and weapons and run to the rear crying for his “Mommy,” then the action of the first is beautiful whereas the action of the second is not.

Fred