Read Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book II. 1. Explain Aristotle’s theory (make sure you quote from the text) and then apply it to the following contemporary ethical issue:2. In Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations last year he stated, “We [Americans] are guided by outcomes, not ideology.” Read the full text in the attached Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article. What would Aristotle say about this? Would he agree with Trump? Challenge Trump? How does Aristotle’s ethic “line-up” with what Trump is advocating? Again, make sure you quote from both sources, Aristotle and the WSJ, in giving your answer.3. What are your own thoughts on the matter? Explain and defend them.Trump Returns U.S. to Realpolitik in World Affairs – WSJ
9/21/17, 6)25 PM
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-returns-u-s-to-realpolitik-in-world-affairs-1505851115
POLITICS | CAPITAL JOURNAL
Trump Returns U.S. to Realpolitik in
World Affairs
President’s United Nations address marks return of U.S. foreign policy to practical
considerations rather than moral calculations
By Gerald F. Seib
Sept. 19, 2017 3:58 p.m. ET
Early in his maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday,
President Donald Trump offered fellow world leaders the best, most concise summary
he’s ever provided of his approach to world affairs: “We are guided by outcomes, not
ideology,” he declared.
Having signaled that his listeners should be prepared for some blunt, hard-nosed
pragmatism, Mr. Trump proceeded to deliver just that. In many ways, in fact, Mr.
Trump’s address marked the return of American foreign policy to realpolitik: a set of
principles and precepts based on practical considerations rather than philosophical or
moral calculations.
And while his predecessors might have cloaked their threats and grievances in a
rhetorical velvet glove while at the U.N., Mr. Trump took off that glove while delivering
the most important and most revealing speech of his young presidency.
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
He declared that if the U.S. is forced to defend against North Korea’s nuclear weapons
and ballistic missiles, “we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” In the
president’s terminology, Kim Jong Un wasn’t the leader of North Korea, but rather the
“Rocket Man…on a suicide mission.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-returns-u-s-to-realpolitik-in-world-affairs-1505851115
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Trump Returns U.S. to Realpolitik in World Affairs – WSJ
9/21/17, 6)25 PM
Iran, a country his predecessor spent years seeking to engage, was in Mr. Trump’s
description a nation engaged in the “pursuit of death and destruction.” As for the
nuclear deal with Iran that President Barack Obama’s team labored for years to
negotiate, Mr. Trump branded it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the
United States has ever entered into” and “an embarrassment.”
Mr. Trump also warned that the U.S. is prepared to take further, undefined steps to
change the course of Venezuela’s socialist regime. And, while he offered words of
thanks to China and Russia for help on other matters, he indirectly called them out for
their aggressive behavior in their neighborhoods:
“We must reject threats to sovereignty, from the Ukraine to the South China Sea. We
must uphold respect for law, respect for borders and respect for culture, and the
peaceful engagement these allow.”
Both the stark nature of Mr. Trump’s messages and his willingness to deliver them from
the U.N. podium were unprecedented for an American president. The U.N. audience got
Trumpism in its pure, unvarnished form.
In one of the most intriguing sections of the speech, Mr. Trump attempted to define
what his “America First” approach to the presidency really means, in terms specifically
designed to appeal to fellow world leaders nervous about the concept:
“As president of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the
leaders of your countries, will always and should always put your countries first. All
responsible leaders have an obligation to serve their own citizens, and the nation-state
remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition.”
That final line represented a dig at the notion that a global economy, instantaneous
world-wide communications and the free flow of goods and people are making
traditional national identities obsolete. The Trump message is the opposite: Nations
and borders matter no less in the era of globalization.
Afterward, some said they found the president’s bluntness refreshing, others alarming.
But all who listened came away understanding that the Trump Doctrine is the doctrine
of transactions: I am not disengaging from the world, he seemed to be saying, but rather
engaging with it on my terms, and purely in pursuit of American interests.
The address had some broader strokes as well. In fact, it was almost two speeches backto-back.
The first segment offered some of the more traditional odes to American ideals and
leadership: “In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather
to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch,” Mr. Trump declared. “In America
the people govern, the people rule and the people are sovereign.”
From there, he moved into the second section, marked by direct messages to American
foes. His barbed warnings to North Korea will get the most attention, and raise the
question of whether such threats are more likely to scare North Korea away from
nuclear weapons or deepen its belief they are needed for protection.
Yet the most dramatic departure from the approach of the Obama administration
actually came elsewhere, in his discussion of Iran. Mr. Obama saw Iran as a country to
be engaged and slowly pulled away from its revolutionary moorings and into the
international mainstream.
Mr. Trump suggested no patience for such a course. Instead, he virtually called for
Iranians to effect a regime change:
“Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the people will
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Trump Returns U.S. to Realpolitik in World Affairs – WSJ
9/21/17, 6)25 PM
face a choice: Will they continue down the path of poverty, bloodshed and terror, or will
the Iranian people return to the nation’s proud roots as a center of civilization, culture
and wealth, where their people can be happy and prosperous once again?”
Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
Appeared in the September 20, 2017, print edition as ‘Trump Signals U.S.’s Return to
Realpolitik.’
Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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CHAPTER 2
ARISTOTLE
Socrates was Plato's teacher and in turn Aristotle was the student of Plato. There will
never be a more astonishing triumvirate. Taken together, these three thinkers form
the cornerstone of Western philosophy.
The youngest of three children, Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagira, a town
about 150 miles north of Athens. His father, Nicomachus, was a physician to Amyntas
III, the king of Macedonia. At the time, the physician's art was a craft that was usually
passed from one generation to the next. In all likelihood, Aristotle was trained in
medicine and it is often suggested that his empirical bent and attention to detail have
something to do with his being the son of a physician.
When Aristotle was eighteen he traveled to Athens to study with Plato at the Acad-
emy. He remained there doing research and teaching for the next two decades. Aristo-
tle left the Academy after Plato's death in 347 B.C. and for several years moved among
the Greek islands and city states teaching and collecting marine specimens.
In 342 B.C., Philip of Macedonia summoned Aristotle to tutor his thirteen-year-old
son, Alexander (later known as Alexander the Great). For a time, the man who was
arguably the most brilliant philosopher of them all was occupied teaching a teenager
who was soon to become one of the greatest military minds in the annals of history.
Homer's Iliad was an important part of the curriculum that Aristotle used with his
charge and there is good reason to think that the fierce warrior king may have found a
role model in the character of Achilles.
After Philip's death, Alexander became heir to the throne and thus began his world
conquests. Though little is known about the relationship between Alexander and
Aristotle, history has it that when Alexander was on his far-reaching military expedi-
tions, he would have biological samples sent back to his former teacher.
Aristotle returned to Athens and in 335 B.C. established the Lyceum, a school
attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceus. This very well equipped center of learning
boasted an enormous library and became known as the Peripatetic School because
Aristotle and his pupils were fond of walking as they talked.
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In 323 B.C., Alexander the Great died and a wave of anti-Macedonian sentiment
swept over Athens. Like Socrates, Aristotle was soon brought up on charges of impi-
ety. As Aristotle was said to have put it, “I would not let the Athenians make the same
mistake twice.” Rather than go to trial, he fled to Chalais and died from a stomach ail-
ment a few months later (322 B.C.). He was sixty-two.
There are three ruling paradigms in ethics: deontological, consequentialism, and
virtue ethics. Termed for the Greek word for duty, deon, deontological ethics is
anchored in the concept of duty. According to this account, the consequences of an
action are out of our control and, as such, are morally insignificant. In contrast, conse-
quentialist theories hold that the results of an action determine moral worth. The
view espoused by Aristotle is the prototype of what is today classified as “virtue
ethics.” This is a school of thought that takes moral excellence or virtue to be the
proper focus of reflection on ethics. For adherents of this position, rules for action are
derivative of the virtues.
A few years back, many devout Christians were sporting green bracelets embla-
zoned with the letters WWJD, an acronym for “what would Jesus do.” In other words,
when in doubt, act as you believe Jesus would have acted. This approach to the moral
life is a perfect example of virtue ethics, which instructs: Follow the model of the vir-
tuous person. There is, of course, the profound problem: How do we know who the
virtuous person is?
The following selection is from Books I, II, and III of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a
text dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus, and widely believed to be comprised
from the lecture notes of his students.
In this offering, Aristotle argues that happiness (eudaimonia) is the final end of all
human action. Since happiness is the bull's-eye of our endeavors, Aristotle believes
that we would be well served by the effort to define our target. He considers and
rejects the likely candidates of riches, honor, and health, but resolves that happiness is
“an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue and if there is more than one form of
virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.”
Aristotle maintains that there are two kinds of virtue: intellectual and moral. While
the former amounts to excellence in reasoning, moral virtue or what we might term
“character” is a stable disposition to act and feel in appropriate ways. Aristotle rea-
sons that virtue is that which aids proper functioning. By his reckoning, excess and
deficiency destroy function. Thus, virtue must be the mean in human action and feel-
ing. For instance, the virtue of courage is a mean between cowardliness and rashness.
Aristotle teaches that pleasures and pains are mirrors of our soul. That which
comes naturally to us is experienced as pleasurable and that which goes against our
grain is felt to be painful. Accordingly, when virtue becomes a habit or second nature,
its exercise will be experienced as pleasure. And so, the just individual will enjoy
doing just deeds, whereas someone who is in the process but has not yet acquired a
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