Arete

The great philosopher Aristotle introduced to me the meme of Arete from his book the Nicomachean ethics. Aristotle taught that Arete which means moral virtue and also means effectiveness or excellence of any kind.. The virtue of a knife would be how well it cuts. The virtue of a car is how effectively it gets you to work for its cost. For Aristotle the virtue of a person would be how effectively does he employ his reason to the world. He saw humanity as being distinguished by its capacity to use reason. We know however nature selected for our reason because better quality decisions made us better parents and better parents pass on more genes.So I would add to Aristotle, and say that the arete of a human is how effective of a parent are we. We use reason to be good parents. The good parent is one who raises children to be smarter, healthier and more resilient than themselves. This is what nature has bred us to do. We are the means the end is the health and resilience of our children. When it comes to our children we should be Machiavellians. What good is a prince without heirs?

Consider this moral dilemma.  Their is a fork on a train track. Down one side of the fork the best man at your wedding. Down the otherside of of the fork is your 4 year old daughter. The train is going toward your daughter and to save her you have to activate the switch and change the track. The thing is the train will now kill your best man instead of your daughter. This is quite a dilemma. Murder your best man to save your daughter. On one hand you've known you best man longer, and his loyalty and friendship is valued. On the other hand you love your daughter in a way you could not love a friend. From a gene's eye view the obvious choice would be your own children. Even if you are punished for murder everyone would understand maybe not from the gene's eye view, but emotional reasoning would make it very hard for you not to save your daughter. Your spouse and family would be happy and you know what, I think the family of your best man may even accept your reasoning. When it comes to our children the ends justify the means.

You're stranded on a life raft. Help is on its way, but it will take 7 days. You have enough water for 7 days, but there is you and your child. You both will surely die, unless one of you takes their own life or one murders the other. We all know what most parents would choose.

How could morality have ever evolved if it didn't make us better parents?

What good is your happiness if it burdens your kids?

What truer love is their than that of a parent towards their child?

What good is government that can’t finance its “just society” without borrowing money from those who are yet to be born?

Why should equality and diversity be a bigger priority than passing on every advantage you can to your children?

My mission in life is to raise children that are healthier, smarter and more resilient than myself. Your either with me or your distracting me.