BY: CHRISTOPHER MEGONE Aristotles function argument
Presented in Nicomahean Ethics introduces it as a resource to
clarify what constitutes as Eudaimonia. If we can determine the function or purpouse of a thing then we can derermine the good of a thing of that kind! To determine whether a musician, sculptor or any other artist is good at his activity one needs to know the purpouse or function of each of their skills. This depends on knowing the nature of a good musician or sculptor. Thus, it is tied to knowing the function of each skill. Human function is realized in an active life of the element that has a rational principle. Human species as a natural kind Natural Kinds they make up the key subjects of change to be comprehended in this effort to make the natural changing world intelligible. Here he approaches it investigating how they differ from the artifacts. He claims that a member of a natural kind have a nature, it being an inner source of change and staying unchanged. Thus humans have a nature! Some things are due to nature; for others there are other causes. An oak tree! Aristotle distinguishes 4 different kinds of explanatary mode (formal,material, bringing-about and teleological) Changes explained as an inner source of change - teleological Aristotles account of mental illness
It vindicates the concept of mental illness by developing the view
that the distinctively human good life is a life of reason. It may occur that some illnesses will involve failures in the development in those complex mental capacities that are necessary, but not sufficient for a life of reason. According to Aristotle these failures should be seen as functional failures as well. Key aspect of the rational life is the life of rational action or intentional action. Coopers objections to Megones Aristotelian account According to Cooper Megone advances an overly inclusive account of mental illness. It could classify something that is not an illness as an illness. Someone who decides to stay in bed all day, just because.... Is not ill, he/she is quite lazy. Megone defends his example by stating that incapacitating failure is nothing like a decision not to act. Cooper throws a counterargument that there are people who are quite ugly and unintelligent, but they are not ill. Alongside that, there could be bad states within a person that undermine his flourishment (social and educational)