This OP is about Aristotle's Eudemian and Nichomachean Ethics; not his Metaphysics, Politics, or Physics.

If anything in those books is relevant to the discussion, then please feel free to bring it to my attention. As far as I am aware, Aristotle does not deal with what is good in his Metaphysics (but I could be wrong). I am currently reading the Metaphysics.

With respect to your critique about the conflation of the map with the territory: this critique applies to all philosophies, including your own. We always talk about the territory by way of the map. This doesn't seem to negate the validity of talking about essences. By your reasoning, we are stuck in a cartesian style dualism between the map and the territory such that we cannot know anything about the latter.

That's fair; but I mean a species that inflicts torture, suffering, etc. on other species for the sake of their own well-being; which is generally understood by humans to be immoral. I am not talking about a species that merely kills animals to nourish themselves, or something akin to that.

Generally, yes. But would it be morally intuitive to say that a social species that maintains their society by torturing another social species as doing something 'good'? That's what is implied by Aristotelian ethics if the social species requires it to fulfill their nature.

But would it be morally intuitive to say that a social species that maintains their society by torturing another social species as doing something 'good'? That's what is implied by Aristotelian ethics if the social species requires it to fulfill their nature. — Bob Ross

What is it to be a member of this species? Is it to torture other species? By saying they do so to maintain their society implies that it is a means to an end and not an end in itself. If there were no external threats from another social species would they continue to torture other species? In a
Aristotle's terms, is the energeia and entelecheia of this species to torture other species? Does it cease to be when it is not torturing other species?

Yes, but whatever we use "to speak of the territory" (including "essences") is not the territory itself.

A map is something used to know territories themselves, no? It is "that through which we know," not "what we know," (or at least not "all that we know.) It would be strange for a chemist to say: "I know a lot about words, language games, diagrams, theories, and models," and then to leave it at that.

The idea of "essence" might be explained quite differently from how Aristotle goes about it, but the idea that there are different kinds of plant and animal and that they each thrive in manner that is, in part, determined by "what they are," seems pretty unobjectionable. Even on a view that "species aren't real," something very much like species must still exist; the evidence for it is everywhere.

This OP is about Aristotle's Eudemian and Nichomachean Ethics; not his Metaphysics, Politics, or Physics. — Bob Ross

And yet you begin with his metaphysical terms "purpose" "telos" "final causes" & "essence". :roll:

A map is something used to know territories themselves, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. Maps are used to facilitate taking paths through a simplified abstraction derived from specific types of aspects of a (factual/formal/fictional) territory.

The idea of "essence" might be explained quite differently from how Aristotle goes about it ...

Yet the OP concerns only Aristotle's notion of "essence".

And yet you begin with his metaphysical terms "purpose" "telos" "final causes" & "essence". :roll:

Of course. All branches of philosophy are interrelated; but we tend to focus on one or the other for the sake of the conversation. Ethics presupposes metaphysical commitments, no doubt.

Generally, yes. But would it be morally intuitive to say that a social species that maintains their society by torturing another social species as doing something 'good'? That's what is implied by Aristotelian ethics if the social species requires it to fulfill their nature. — Bob Ross

How could you maintain your society by torturing others? Unless you are talking about something like torturing slaves to keep them in line? If so, you are again talking about humanity, not other animals.

You are missing the point. Yes, this "devil species" and the some unjust acts that humans have committed will overlap.

The notion of a "devil species" seems entirely incoherent to me, so I'm not seeing that there is a point to be missed.

It is a species that, as per its nature, can only achieve a deep and persistent sense of happiness, flourishing, and well-being by committing egregious acts on other species (e.g., torture, abuse, mass genocide, etc.).

Is it a human-level intelligent species?

What do you mean? Are you asking if they have the intelligence at par with human beings? Sure. Equal or more.

It is a species that, as per its nature, can only achieve a deep and persistent sense of happiness, flourishing, and well-being by committing egregious acts on other species (e.g., torture, abuse, mass genocide, etc.). — Bob Ross

This is contrary to Aristotle's understanding of nature. Since the thread is based on your claim that:

Aristotle is avoiding this glaring issue — Bob Ross

you should not be avoiding what he says about nature and telos. for when they are taken into account there is no glaring issue that he is avoiding. For Aristotle the nature and telos of a species is in accord with the whole of nature.

Are you asking if they have the intelligence at par with human beings? Sure. Equal or more. — Bob Ross

torture, abuse, mass genocide — Bob Ross

OK, humans torture, abuse, commit genocide, but it is arguably on account of aberrant social conditioning. Other social animals don't have symbolic language, and thus being free of the potential for ideology based aberrant social conditioning, they are generally good to their own species.

So, what is it that causes this "devil species" to torture, abuse and commit genocide? Do they do these things to their own species, or only to other species? If they do it to other species, what is the explanation for why they do it?

The reason I say it is incoherent is because I can't imagine such a species, more intelligent than we are and in possession of symbolic language, not being bedeviled by ideologies, just as we are, which would mean such aberrant behavior would not be universal among them, just as it is not universal with us.

This is contrary to Aristotle's understanding of nature

How so?

you should not be avoiding what he says about nature and telos. for when they are taken into account there is no glaring issue that he is avoiding. For Aristotle the nature and telos of a species is in accord with the whole of nature.

I don’t see how a devil species, as outlined, would be contrary to nature anymore than lions eating their prey, diseases killing people slowly & painfully, etc.

So, what is it that causes this "devil species" to torture, abuse and commit genocide? Do they do these things to their own species, or only to other species? If they do it to other species, what is the explanation for why they do it?

To keep things simple, I was saying they do it to other species; and this is how they are biologically wired to do in order to achieve their own well-being. If it helps, you can think of an entire species of the equivalent of the most brutal of psychopathic humans. Arguably, the particular nature of some human beings is such that they cannot achieve the richest sense of well-being without torturing other people.

The reason I say it is incoherent is because I can't imagine such a species, more intelligent than we are and in possession of symbolic language, not being bedeviled by ideologies, just as we are, which would mean such aberrant behavior would not be universal among them, just as it is not universal with us

I was trying to avoid using humans because Aristotle is going to say that the general nature of humans is such that it is antithetical to the occasional freak-accident psychopath that pops up. To object properly, I have to rise the “evil” to the level of the species, and not any particular member.

This is contrary to Aristotle's understanding of nature

How so? — Bob Ross

The whole of nature and each organism in the hierarchical order of species works toward maintaining that order according to its nature. But it is not just any order, it has as its end, according to Aristotle, the good. A species whose sole purpose is to cause harm can play no role in this well ordered whole.

:up:

It makes no sense from a naturalized view either. Predators don't benefit from the suffering of their prey, nor from their deaths; at least not in any direct sense. What the predator benefits from is calories, energy stored in the prey; any suffering is ancillary. Indeed, predators who over reproduce end up facing starvation (and the same is true of prey who over reproduce in the absence of predators). In either case, the population collapses due to it outrunning its food supply. The good of the predator and prey are linked.

Even if a species was oriented towards thwarting human ends, it would nonetheless need humans around to fulfill its ends. But nature would never create such a straightforward negation. Creatures might be in competition but there is no way for them to evolve such that "whatever is bad for x is good for y."

There is no 'the good' in Aristotelian ethics and, consequently, there is no universal good which all species are geared towards. So I don't think Fooloso4's account is actually Aristotelian at all. What they have done is supposed that all the natures of each species are united insofar as they work towards some ultimate good, which is something Aristotle adamantly denies. Good simpliciter does not exist in Aristotelian ethics; and what is 'good' for a thing is for that thing to fulfill its nature: there is no room in Arisotle's ethics, thusly, for a separate 'good' which fulfilling one's nature works towards. By definition, what is 'good' is just for a thing to fulfill its nature.

Perhaps there's a 'good' for nature under his view? But this would not negate the fact that the devils species' 'good' would be to fulfill their nature, even if they are bad for nature. This is what happens when 'goodness' is relativistic like Aristotle claims.

If it is true that 'good' simpliciter simply does not exist (viz., 'the good' does not exist) and 'good' is relativistic to the nature of a being such that a being is good iff it fulfills its nature, then this 'devils species' fits fine into the moral hierarchy. What are the odds of such a species coming into being naturallistically? Not likely at all, which is what I think @Count Timothy von Icarus's response was getting at.

There is no 'the good' in Aristotelian ethics and, consequently, there is no universal good which all species are geared towards. — Bob Ross

I will defer to Joe Sachs, a leading scholar and translator of Aristotle:

Aristotle asks about the way the various meanings of the good are organized, but he immediately drops the question, as being more at home in another sort of philosophic inquiry. (1096b, 26-32) It is widely claimed that Aristotle says there is no good itself, or any other form at all of the sort spoken of in Plato's dialogues. This is a misreading of any text of Aristotle to which it is referred. Here in the study of ethics it is a failure to see that the idea of the good is not rejected simply, but only held off as a question that does not arise as first for us. Aristotle praises Plato for understanding that philosophy does not argue from first principles but toward them.(1095a, 31-3)

("Three Little Words")

What Aristotle says in the passage cited from Nicomachean Ethics is:

Perhaps however this question must be dismissed for the present, since a detailed investigation of it belongs more properly to another branch of philosophy. And likewise with the Idea of the Good; for even if the goodness predicated of various in common really is a unity or something existing separately and absolute, it clearly will not be practicable or attainable by man; but the Good which we are now seeking is a good within human reach.

As previous pointed out and regarded by you as not relevant is that ethics is about the human good. The good for nature as a whole transcends the human good or the good of any other species. Its energeia and entelecheia, its "being at work" and "being at work staying itself" are for the sake of itself. It is its own arche and telos. Its own source or beginning and its own end or purpose. Whatever aims for some end or purpose aims for some good.

Aristotle thought that what is 'good' is a thing fulfilling its end (i.e., purpose: final cause); and, so, a 'good' human is a human which is properly fulfilling their Telos. It seems like Aristotle thinks that the nature of the human species is such that we should care about each other and seek to be just, but what about a devil species? Since Aristotle is attaching the 'goodness' or 'badness' of a thing relative to its nature, wouldn't it follow that a rational species, S, which had a nature completely anti-thetical to justice and altruism be a 'good' S IFF it was unjust and egoistic?

I am having a hard time fathoming how Aristotle is avoiding this glaring issue, even after reading his Eudemian and Nichomachean Ethics. Does anyone understand how Aristotle avoids or deals with this issue? Does anyone have any solutions to this problem?

At first I thought maybe tying the nature of rationality, in the case of a rational species, would dictate one should be just (to fulfill that nature); but I am failing at coming up with a good argument for that. — Bob Ross

I see three basic answers, and at least the first two have already been given:

1. Aristotle was writing about humans. If he had known of a devil species, perhaps he would have written about it. (Cf. @Fooloso4)

2. Humans are social animals, and require cooperation and social virtue for their flourishing. (Cf. @Janus)

3. Departing a bit from Aristotelianism per se, presumably any rational species would be interested in optimizing flourishing via cooperation, and this would involve moral/social virtues.

Aristotle was writing about humans. If he had known of a devil species, perhaps he would have written about it. — Leontiskos

Aristotle is not simply writing about humans. He wants to teach them. Would he be able to teach a devil species? I assume such a species would not care or pay any attention to ethics, except perhaps to attempt to undermine it.

“the object for which a thing exists, its end, is its chief good”

Aristot. Pol. 1.1252b

He applies this to horses, a household, the state, as much as human beings.

If the object for which a thing exists, its end, is its chief good, it follows that if its end is evil, that is its chief good.

If the object for which a thing exists, its end, is its chief good, it follows that if its end is evil, that is its chief good. — NOS4A2

Who are these people who seek what is good for themselves at the expense of the good itself?

I've been reading through Aristotle's "Metaphysics", and I think I understand Aristotle's points enough to start tackling this post you made.

Your problem seems to come up because you are thinking of the good as defined primarily in terms of an organisms' form. This is correct, but then we have to ask "from whence and why this form? You seem to be presupposing a sort of indeterminacy lies prior to form. The form of an organisms just is what it is.

This is exactly where I begin to have my doubts with Arisotle’s ethics: if what is good is just a thing realizing its form, then there cannot be a further question of “why is it good for a thing to realize its form?”. It seems like Aristotle is deploying ‘good’ twofold: a thing fulfilling its nature and its nature being determined by an omnibenevolent God. The problem is that this seems, under an Aristotelian view of ‘good’ qua formal fulfillment, like a nonsensical and internally incoherent question to ask, let alone to answer it with ~”God is omnibenevolent, and is the cause of the form which is good for a being to realize”: if ‘goodness’ is just ‘the fulfillment of one’s form’, then whence is God omnibenevolent other than ‘good’ insofar as God fufills their own form?

It seems like a consistent account would be to say that God is good insofar as God realizes God’s potential; and since God has no potential (being an pure actualization), God necessarily is absolutely realized qua God—but what is good for God, which is to be God, does not entail that whatever form God has for a given being is good for that being, nor the rest of nature, other than that that being, analyzed relative to themselves, is good when it realizes its own potential. You seem to be saying that God being a good God, and being so absolutely and necessarily, somehow adds something morally relevant to the good, e.g., human being: I am failing utterly to see that connection being made there.

The form which is the reality of anything is its limited, imperfect share of what the Unmoved Mover is purely and perfectly, that is, idea.

I’ve never understood why this pure actualizer would have an intellect; nor why it being essentially the ultimate substrate of existing things would make those things imperfect images of itself. Can you explain that further?

If the divine is hostile to what lies outside of it then it will be determined by those things; it will exist in response to them.

This is an interesting thought: if God is affected by, e.g., us, then God is not purely actualized; since, e.g., we have caused God to actualize a potential in themselves. Good point.

Likewise, if the divine is merely indifferent to that which lies outside of it, the divine is nonetheless still defined by "what it is not."

Wouldn’t the first actualizer have to be distinguishable from what is being ‘held up’ by it, though? If not, then everything is the pure actualizer, which undermines the whole argument, doesn’t it?

It seems like this is asymmetrical to the previous quote (above) because God can lack potentials without losing their ability to be purely actual—e.g., God can lack the potential to be me, not be me, and still be purely actual.

All goodness for organisms is filtered through their forms, but the forms themselves are not ordered to nothing at all, but to being itself

Again, by Arisotle’s concept of ‘good’, the goodness of God does not imply any significance to the goodness of an organism even if God is the one that ordered the forms in a particular way; exactly because what is good for one being is not necessarily good for another: so what is good for God is not necessarily good for, e.g., a squirrel.

Let me know what you think.

I've been reading through Aristotle's "Metaphysics", and I think I understand Aristotle's points enough to start tackling this post you made. — Bob Ross

The fact that you think you understand Aristotle's points is probable evidence that you do not. See Book ll.

if what is good is just a thing realizing its form, then there cannot be a further question of “why is it good for a thing to realize its form?”. — Bob Ross

These are two parts of the same question, that is, what is for a thing to be what it? What is the good that each thing seeks? This is a question, not an answer to the question of being . What does it mean for a man to realize his nature? What does this look like? With this last question we begin to get closer to the original sense of eidos, which has been buried under centuries of divergent sedimented meaning.

Nothing you said addressed anything I said...at all.

Nothing you said addressed anything I said...at all. — Bob Ross

You said:

if what is good is just a thing realizing its form, then there cannot be a further question of “why is it good for a thing to realize its form?”. — Bob Ross

You take what is for Aristotle the question of the Metaphysics, the question of being, and treat it as an answer. Things do not realize their form as if it is something they do not already have, something that they are not already. It's form or eidos is not something that comes after it already is.

Added: This posted before I was done. I continue below.

You take what is for Aristotle the question of the Metaphysics, the question of being, and treat it as an answer. Things do not realize their form as if it is something they do not already have, something that they are not already. It's form or eidos is not something that comes after it already is.

The form of a thing is its nature (i.e., its essence), and its nature is not fully realized upon beginning to exist nor arguably ever. The form is its design in terms of its essence, and this design can be realized to different degrees. E.g., not every man has realized their nature to the same degree--some are more excellent at being a human being than others.