We Can Still Learn From Aristotle | Nancy Sherman | Big Think

We Can Still Learn From Aristotle

New videos DAILY

Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What the philosopher can still teach us about grief versus stoicism and “the role of emotions in the good life.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nancy Sherman:

Nancy Sherman is a Distinguished University Professor in the Philosophy Department of Georgetown University. She received her BA from Bryn Mawr College, her PhD from Harvard, and her MLitt from the University of Edinburgh. From 1997 to 1999 Sherman served as the first Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the US Naval Academy. She has taught at Yale, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland, and has trained in psychoanalysis at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. Since 1995 she has consulted for the U.S. Armed Forces on issues of ethics, resilience, and post-traumatic stress, lecturing at the Uniformed Services University, Walter Reed Army Hospital, the National Defense University, and elsewhere. In October 2005, Sherman visited Guantanamo Bay Detention Center as part of an independent observer team, assessing the medical and mental health care of detainees. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.

Sherman's books include "Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays on the Classics," "Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind," and her most recent, "The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers," published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2010.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What canrnAristotle teach us about ethics?

Nancy Sherman:rnAristotle is one of my heroes, as you say, so who’s a lifetime companionrn forrnyou? Sure, it’s my husband and my sonrnand daughter, but it’s also Aristotle, he’s with me all the time. And we have kind of imbibed hisrnlessons, as you say, but we’ve also—he sort of teaches us that, well onernthing he teaches us is in contrast to the Stoics. I’vern also written—the last book was called "The StoicrnWarriors," about the Stoic ethos of the military. Andrn they say no place for anger, no place for grief, nornplace for the kinds of feelings that make you vulnerable; detached, rndetached,rndetach so that you can become strong and self-sufficient. rn And so you know what’s in your powerrnand if those things are not in your power, let them go, leave them rnalone.

And that’s great news for a soldier because there’srn so muchrnthat is not in your power. Whenrnyou’re coming home, when are you going to redeploy, will your wife stillrn lovernyou? Will your boyfriend be therernwhen you come home? All of thosernare so risky. So being in chargernis an amazing thing. Suck it up,rnsuck it up, suck it up was the mantra of the Naval Academy when I was rnthere,rnand always is. But Aristotle isrnthe counter-voice and he’ll say, “It’s important to grieve because you rnare, byrnnature, a social creature, and you’re attached to other people and you rnare... you know, virtue is in your capacity... in the matter of your rneffort and in thernmatter of your resolve, but a lot of whether you’re going to do well in rnthisrnworld has to do with luck and has to do with people that are outside rnyou. So, Aristotle reminds us of that. He reminds us also that anger is a goodrnthing because... the right kind of anger. rnBecause if you never felt righteous indignation, you would never rnrecordrnthe injuries and indignities that people suffer. Yourn would be indifferent to them. So, you should rnfeel some anger, the right anger, the rightrntime, toward the right people.

Similarly, don’t feel anger so much that it makes rnyournservile that you are a slave to your own anger, but in a right way. So he’s very sensitive to the role ofrnemotions in the good life. Andrncertainly I think and have been arguing in the past 10, 15 years throughrn my work thatrnthe role of emotions in a soldier’s life can’t be emphasized enough. They need to grieve; they need tornrecognize that they may feel betrayal, and that they have to reconnect rnwithrntheir families when they come home. rnOne of my soldiers said, “No one ever told me how hard the war rnafter thernwar would be.” Meaning, the innerrnbattles he has to face.

Read the full transcript at