Canadian Journal of Philosophy

The Peculiar Function of Human Beings

Author(s): Richard Kraut
Source: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 467-478
Published by: Canadian Journal of Philosophy
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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Volume IX, Number 3, September 1979

The Peculiar Function

of Human Beings

RICHARD KRAUT, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle

I. How Can Contemplation Be Peculiar?

The passage I will discuss in this paper, one of the best known in
the Aristotelian corpus, occurs in Book I chapter 7 of the
Nicomachean Ethics, and concerns the ergon, i.e. the function, of
human beings. Aristotle argues that we have a function, that our
happiness consists in fulfilling it, and that this function must be idion,
i.e. it must be peculiar to us. On this basis, he asserts that our
function cannot consist in being alive, nourishment, growth, or
perception, for these activities are common to other species.
Aristotle then arrives at his familiar conclusion that our function
consists in the excellent use of reason.
I want to raise the following question about this argument: Does it
entail that our happiness does not consist in contemplation? After all,
we share this activity with Aristotle's god, and so it is not in any
straightforward way peculiar to us. The function argument therefore

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Richard Kraut

appears to be committed to the conclusion that contemplation

cannot even be part of man's function or happiness. Is there some
way for Aristotle to avoid this result? Or is Book X repudiating the
function argument when it defends the view that happiness consists
in contemplation?
The literature on the Ethics contains surprisingly little on this.1 The
issue has been ignored even by those who discuss the relationship
between the function argument and Aristotle's defense of the
intellectual life. For example, Gauthier and Jolif tell us that in Book X
Aristotle will continue the argument of I 7 by revealing that man's
function consists solely in contemplation.2 Are they assuming that
Aristotle tacitly drops the premise that our function must be peculiar
to us, or do they think that somehow contemplation is peculiar to
human beings? They do not say. Similarly, Hardie ignores the
problem when he says that "...what is. ..peculiar (idion) to men is
rationality in a general sense, not theoretical insight, which is one
specialized way of being rational."3 He seems to forget that since
Aristotle's god is also rational in this "specialized way", the
"theoretical insight" we achieve is hardly peculiar to us.
What many commentators do point out, in their treatments of the
function argument, is the debt Aristotle owes to Book I of Plato's
Republic, where Socrates argues that since horses, eyes and knives
have functions, so too must the human soul.4 But these
commentators fail to notice that Aristotle is creating a great difficulty
for himself if he adopts without change Plato's conception of what a
function is. For Plato says that the function of a thing is what it alone
can do, or what it can do better than anything else (Rp. 352e-353a).
Aristotle can hardly agree with this and also maintain that
contemplation is at least part of man's function. He would bristle at
the idea that man alone can contemplate or that he can do a better job
of it than god.

1 There is not a word on this problem in these commentaries : R. Gauthier and

J. Jolif, L'Ethique a Nicomaque (Louvain, 1970); J. Burnet, The Ethics of
Aristotle (London, 1900); J. Stewart, Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics of
Aristotle (Oxford, 1892); A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle (London, 1874).

2 Op. cit., Tome II, p. 57.

3. W. F. R. Hardie, Aristotle's Ethical Theory (Oxford, 1968), pp. 25-26. As the

context shows, he means that Aristotle ought to consider both practical and
theoretical reason to be peculiarly human.

4 See Gauthier and Jolif, op. cit., Tome II, p. 54; Burnet, op. cit., p. 34; Stewart,
vol. f, pp. 97-98; Grant, op cit., p. 447.

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 Peculiar Function of Human Beings

II. Joachim's Interpretation

There is one commentator, however, who, in a few sentences,

recognizes and tries to solve the problem lam raising: H. H.Joachim.
He asserts that "contemplation is not in the technical sense
something proper to man",5 but he thinks that this creates no trouble
for Aristotle's defense of the contemplative life. For on his
interpretation, the function argument's search for the peculiarly
human is only meant to determine what the second best life is. In I 7
Aristotle is merely concerning himself with the best human life - and
this is not the same thing as the best life we can lead. The best human
life is one that develops peculiarly human virtues - ethical qualities
such as courage, temperance and justice - but it is only the second
best option available to us. In X 7-8 Aristotle goes beyond the function
argument, with its concern for the merely human, and he there seeks
what man has in common with god -what is therefore not idion to
man.

What is impossible to accept in Joachim's interpretat

belief that the function argument is only seeking the s
good. For Aristotle looks upon that argument as providing
of an answer to the question he has been raising throughou
the Ethics: what is the highest good we can achieve?6 He s
that contemplation is a candidate for this position, an
credentials will be considered later (1096a4-5). And he tells
begins the function argument, that his aim is to s
informatively what the highest good, to ariston, is (10

5 Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford, 1951), p. 50; see

Joachim's interpretation is accepted by Frederick Siegler. Se
Happiness, and Goodness", in J. Walsh and H. Shapiro (eds.), A
"Ethics": Issues and Interpretations (Belmont, Cal., 1967), p. 31.

6 This is the question raised in I 2 (1094a18-26) and I 4 (1095a14-17

points out (ibid., p. 50) that Book I is searching for the highest g
prakton ("achievable by action", as W. D. Ross translates the
1095a16); he also notes that according to 1098a3-4 our function
praktike (Ross: "an active life") of our rational part. And he ta
statements to mean that contemplation is not in the running in B
disqualified because it is not prakton or praktike". But as Stewart
(op. cit., vol. I, p. 99), Aristotle insists in the Politics that contem
more prakton than ethical activity (1325b16-21). Furthermore, in
Ethics Aristotle clearly indicates that those who lead and
contemplative life are giving an answer to the question Book I is ra
shows that Book I counts contemplation as a good that is prak
reading of prakton and praktike is accepted by Burnet, opcit., p. 3
and Jolif, op. cit., vol. I, p. 56; and Hardie, op. cit., p. 25.

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Richard Kraut

Furthermore, we find, when we turn to X 7, that Aristotle uses the

function argument's conclusion as the starting point in his defense of
the contemplative life (1177a12-13). If that argument can only tell us
what is second best, why does Aristotle appeal to it when he begins
his case for the intellectual life?7
So the function argument must be looked upon as an attempt to
specify what the highest good is. Nonetheless, Joachim's
interpretation has some basis in the text. For the conclusion of the
function argument reads, "...human good is an activity of the soul in
accordance with virtue..." (1098a16-17, my emphasis), and Aristotle
later tells us, in X 8, that human goods are not the best kind. Joachim
infers that since the function argument only says what human good
consists in, it does not address itself to the question of which good is
highest. If this inference is illegitimate, we should be able to say why.
I think Joachim's mistake is to have ignored the fact that "human"
(anthr&pinon) is used in two different ways in the Ethics. In X 8 it is
used in a narrow way, so that theoretical activity is not counted as a
human pursuit. But earlier, "human" is used more broadly, to cover
theoretical no less than practical activities. In this broad sense,
contemplation is considered a human good.
To see this, consider the way "human" is used in 1 13. Aristotle
says there that the only kind of virtue he will discuss in his treatise is
human virtue (11 02a1 3-15), and he goes on at the end of the chapter to
subdivide human virtue into two types: ethical and intellectual
(1103a3-10). Among the intellectual virtues he mentions is theoretical
wisdom (sophia), the quality that promotes contemplation. We are
left with the impression, then, that all intellectual virtues, including

7 To support my case further: Aristotle seems to be alluding to contemplation

when he states the conclusion of the function argument. He says
(1098a16-18) that happiness is ''an activity of the soul in accordance with
virtue, and if there are many virtues, in accordance with the best and
teleiotaten (most final or complete)". Many take "the best and teleiotaten"
virtue to be theoretical wisdom, the virtue by which we contemplate. If this
reading is correct, then Joachim cannot be right in his claim that 1 7 does not
have contemplation in mind when it looks for and finds the peculiarly
human. For a defense of this common interpretation of "best and
teleiotaten" , see J. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle
(Cambridge, Mass., 1975), pp. 99-100, esp. n. 10 on p. 100. Cooper's way of
taking the passage was earlier adopted by Cauthier and Jolif (op. cit., vol. I,
pp. 51 and 59) and Hardie (op. cit., pp. 23 and 25). Valuable criticism of this
standard view can be found in J. L. Ackrill, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia" ,
Proceedings of the British Academy (1974), pp. 15-18. I consider the issue at
length, and support the standard interpretation, in "Aristotle on the Ideal
Life".

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 Peculiar Function of Human Beings

the theoretical ones, are here counted as "human" in some broad

sense. And this impression is reinforced by Book VI, where Aristotle
more fully describes all of the virtues briefly mentioned in 1 13. The
theoretical virtues are discussed at length, with no hint that this is a
digression from the syllabus established earlier. Rather, Aristotle
explicitly says (1138b35-1139al) that he is carrying on with his
examination of the two kinds of virtue mentioned in 1 13. Book Vl's
description of theoretical wisdom therefore falls squarely within the
scope of the inquiry into human virtue initiated in Book I.
So, in Book I Aristotle uses "human" so broadly that it includes
both the practical and the theoretical interests of human beings. It is
not until later in the Ethics that "human" is used narrowly and that
contemplation is no longer classified as a human good.8 Joachim
failed to see this, and thus he misinterpreted the fact that the function
argument tells us what human good consists in. This word does not
disqualify contemplation from being part of our function, for
contemplation would be classified in Book I as a human good. Now,
since the function argument is seeking the highest good available to
us, and since in Book X Aristotle holds that this is contemplation, he
owes us an explanation of how contemplation can even be part of our
function. How can it be peculiar to us, in spite of the fact that both
human beings and Aristotle's god contemplate?

8 To spell out these two senses more fully:

a. Broad sense: sometimes when human beings value a certain good,

this reflects the fact that their nature is different from that of plants
and animals. Such goods are human goods, and in this sense of
"human", health and strength are not human goods; the ethical and
intellectual virtues are. (This is the sense of "human" in 113 and, I
think, throughout Book I.)

b. Narrow sense: sometimes when human beings value a certain good,

this reflects the fact that they have a certain emotional composition
and a need for interaction with other human beings. Such goods are
human goods, and in this sense of "human", health, strength and
theoretical wisdom are not human goods; the ethical virtues are. (This
is the sense of "human" in X 8. Note too Aristotle's remark at 1141 b3-8
that Anaxagoras and Thales did not seek human goods.)

In the broad sense, contemplation could be called the most human good.
For it, more than any other activity, reflects our difference from lower forms
of life. This fits neatly with Aristotle's claim that theoretical reason is what a
human being is most of all (1178a2-7). Contemplation is at once the most
human activity, and in a different sense, not a human activity at all.

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Richard Kraut

III. Human versus Divine Contemplation

In this section, I put forward one solution to our difficulty. I think

it is preferable to Joachim's, but it nonetheless puts Aristotle in an
intellectually awkward position, as I will argue. In the section after
this, I will propose a more satisfactory answer.
To begin, note that a property can be peculiar to humans even if
other beings have a similar property. For example, although Aristotle
believes that the ethical virtues and practical wisdom are peculiar to
human beings,9 he nonetheless grants that some of the animals have
qualities akin to human courage, temperance and practical wisdom.10
And this allows him to hold that man's contemplation is peculiar to
him even though god also contemplates. For between human and
divine contemplation, as between the virtue of men and beasts, there
is difference as well as similarity. Aristotle is very careful in X 7-8 never
to say that man's contemplation and god's are precisely the same
activity. Rather, he confines himself to the point that a similarity exists
between them:11

The activity of god, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be

contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin
(suggenestate) to this must be most of the nature of happiness. (1178b21-23)

While the whole life of the gods is blessed, and that of men too in so far as
some likeness (homoioma ti) of such activity belongs to them, none of the
other animals is happy, since they in no way share in contemplation.
(1178b25-28)

For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it
would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and
most akin (suggenestatb) to them (i.e. reason), and that they should reward
those who love and honor this most.... (1179a24-28)

And Aristotle's description of divine contemplation in Metaphysics

XII 8 confirms this:

If then god is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this
compels our wonder; and if in a better state, this compels it yet more. And
god is in a better state. (1072b24-26)

9 See De Anima 414b18-19, 429a6; NE 1145a25-27, 1178b10-23; Politics

1253a15-18.

10 See Hist An. 588a18-588b3; De Gen. An. 753a11; Met. 980b20-27; NE

1141a26-28, 1149b31-32.

11 In the four passages that follow I use W. D. Ross's translations.

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 Peculiar Function of Human Beings

This last passage makes it clear that the difference between divine
and human contemplation does not consist solely in the former's
greater duration; a difference in kind also exists, though Aristotle
does not state what that further difference is. Perhaps god's
contemplation is unlike ours in lacking a locus in corporeal substance
and in containing no movement from thought to thought.12 In any
event, Aristotle's belief that there are two different kinds of
contemplation means that although contemplation simpliciter is not
peculiar to man, human contemplation is. When we contemplate we
are doing something that qualitatively differs from every activity of
every other being.
Is this a satisfactory way for Aristotle to maintain the thesis that
contemplation is at least part of our function? I think not. For suppose
we could overcome our human limitations and engage in precisely
that kind of contemplation which Aristotle's god enjoys. Even though
that would be a better kind of contemplation, it could no longer be
even part of our function to engage in it, because it would no longer
be peculiar to us. So, Aristotle would have to counsel us not to
participate in this improved form of contemplation, in spite of its
superiority to the form we currently can enjoy. I find this position
paradoxical, and I am reluctant to believe that Aristotle is committed
to it.
There is a second defect in the interpretation under
consideration. If Aristotle thinks that contemplation is peculiar to us
because human and divine contemplation differ in kind, then he
opens himself to this objection : "In the function argument you have
set up a test to determine which good or goods happiness consists in.
Doesn't ethically virtuous activity pass that test with higher marks
than your own candidate, contemplation?13 After all, you are looking
for what sets human beings off from all other things, and the ethical
virtues do this to a greater extent than contemplation. When a human
being is just or generous or temperate, he is more unlike anything
else than when he contemplates. For the gods, properly conceived,
are totally devoid of ethical qualities. And though some animals have
traits akin to virtue and vice, these qualities differ radically from their
human counterparts; a person's virtues derive in part from reason, a

12 See the remarks of D. M. Balme in his commentary on Aristotle's De Partibus

Animalium I and De Generatione Animalium I (Oxford, 1972), p. 160.

13 Cf. Ackrill, op. cit. at n. 7 above: "Practical reason, so far from being in any
way less distinctive of man than theoretical, is really more so; for man shares
with Aristotle's god the activity of theGria" (p. 16).

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Richard Kraut

faculty animals lack. How much closer, then, are human and divine
contemplation, since both are activities of the same kind of faculty,
reason. Though the function argument and your defense of
contemplation are mutually consistent, your search for the peculiarly
human ought to have led you to make ethical activity the topmost
good."
This is certainly not a knock-down argument. Aristotle might
reply: "Whatever is not peculiar to man cannot be part of his
happiness, but that does not mean, nor have I said, that what most
sets man off from all else must be the highest good. The idion test
does not rank candidates for happiness; it just eliminates some of
them. Human contemplation is not eliminated by the test, but to
determine how it fares against other candidates that have not been
rejected, we must look to considerations other than the idion test."
But I do not find this reply satisfactory. It would be ad hoc and
suspiciously convenient for Aristotle to require that the highest good
be peculiar to human beings, and then to give no weight whatever to
degrees of peculiarity. What is it about the idion test that makes it
valid as a necessary condition, but of no further use? Aristotle cannot
answer that the idion test must be used in this limited way to ensure
that contemplation turns out to be the topmost good.

IV. Absolute and Relative Peculiarity

I come now to the interpretation I favor. On my view, the function

argument is not interested in what is strictly speaking peculiar to
human beings. Aristotle is not saying that our function must consist in
some activity that distinguishes us from all other living beings.
Rather, it consists in what sets us off from all lower form of life, i.e.
animals and plants. So, although it is true that human and divine
contemplation differ, Aristotle's defense of the intellectual life does
not require that there be such a difference.
To see this, we should observe that in Topics I 5 Aristotle
distinguishes two ways in which a property can be peculiar to a
group: absolutely (haplos), or relatively, i.e. with respect to
something (pros ti). To use his examples: it is absolutely idion to man
that he can learn grammar, since no other being has this property;
bipedness, however, is idion to man with respect to horses and dogs,
since within this class man alone is biped. Now, since "peculiar" can
be used in either of these two ways, it is important for us to ask which
is meant in I 7 of the Ethics. We cannot simply assume that Aristotle

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 Peculiar Function of Human Beings

has absolute peculiarity in mind. For he nowhere says that whenever

idion is unaccompanied by either haplGs or pros ti, the former must
be supplied. We must let the context decide.
Looking back at the function argument, then, we must ask: Does
Aristotle require that the highest good be absolutely peculiar to man,
or need it only be peculiar with respect to some group? Several points
suggest the latter.
First, the activities that Aristotle expressly rules out by means of
the idion test are nutrition, growth and sensation; and all of them are
eliminated on the grounds that they are common to animals or plants.
Aristotle does not say that the good is what man shares with neither
god nor beast, and he gives no argument that requires such an
assumption. So, if we wantto interpret/d/on no more broadly than its
context requires, we should take the peculiarity in question to be
relative.
This point is further supported when we turn from I 7 to a closely
related passage in 1 13, where Aristotle briefly describes the various
faculties of the soul. Certain irrational parts, including the powers of
growth and nutrition, are not relevant to our study, he says, since
their virtue is common (kointy and not human (anthrGpinG)." But
what does he mean by saying that the virtue of these parts is com-
mon? Surely not that it is common to all living beings, since on
Aristotle's theory god is alive but has no nutritive faculty. So he must
mean that this part of the soul is common to all plants and animals.
And this has an obvious bearing on the interpretation of idion in I 7.
"Common" and "peculiar" (koiriG I idion) are contraries, and since a
property is common if it is common to animals and plants, it is
peculiar to us if it sets us off from plants and other animals.
A further clue is provided by the De Anima. The idion test obvi-
ously relies on that treatise's doctrine of a fixed number of psycholog-
ical faculties ranging from nourishment to reason. And so it is ap-
propriate to look to that work for clarification of Aristotle's meaning
in I 7. What we find is that after Aristotle has distinguished the
different types of soul, he argues that one should separately define
each of the different types rather than merely give an account of what
all souls have in common. "It is foolish to seek both in these cases and
in others a koinon logon (common definition) which will be a defini-
tion peculiar (idios) to no actually existing thing..." (414b25-27, Ham-

14 See 1102b2-3. W. D. Ross translates: "...the excellence of this seems to be

common to all species and not specifically human/' But nothing in the Greek
corresponds to the words I have emphasized.

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Richard Kraut

lyn). Aristotle does not mean by this that there will be as many idioi
logoi as there are species of plants, animals, and so on. Rather, an
idios logos will apply to those living beings that have the same kind of
soul, thus grouping together under one definition many species. In
particular, one idios logos will apply to all rational beings, regardless
of their differences. Man and god are thus grouped together for
purposes of psychological theory, with a single logos that separates
them off from plants and animals. It is to be expected, then, that I 7
will implicitly adopt the same framework, since this chapter draws on
the technical psychology of theDe>4/7/ma. What \s idion to man in I 7
is the highest faculty of his soul which, according to the De Anima,
requires its own idios logos.
When these bits of evidence are considered together, I think they
form a good case that idion in I 7 means "peculiar relative to plants
and animals''. One advantage of this interpretation is that it allows
Aristotle to avoid the awkward philosophical position we saw him in
at the end of the preceeding section. If somehow human beings
could engage in a better form of contemplation - if we could partici-
pate in precisely that kind of contemplation that god enjoys - Aristo-
tle could counsel us to go ahead and do so. He need not affirm the
paradox that if contemplation were to become a better activity, it
would thereby be worse to pursue. Furthermore, he can allow the
idion test not only to reject proposed candidates for happiness, but
also to rank those that pass. Contemplation is not only idion to
human beings, but it is more idion than anything else,15 and Aristotle
can point to this as further support for the intellectual life.
Still, someone might protest: "Aristotle is making a suspicious
philosophical move, if his function argument is merely looking for
what is peculiar to human beings relative to plants and animals. Why
doesn't he seek what is absolutely peculiar to us? We are neither gods
nor beasts, and we should lead a life appropriate to our station, a life
that focuses on what distinguishes us from all living beings. So, by
failing to ask the proper question, Aristotle's function argument isaof
hoc after all. He construes the idion test as a test for relative peculari-
ty, and he does this only because such a test will make his own
candidate, contemplation, look good."

15 This suggests that contemplation is the greatest single ingredient of human

happiness - a conclusion Aristotle gladly accepts in Book X. Is he also
committed, at least in certain chapters, to the much stronger view that our
function and happiness consist entirely in contemplation? I take up this
question in "Aristotle on the Ideal Life".

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 Peculiar Function of Human Beings

How would Aristotle defend himself against this criticism? By

arguing that although human beings are not gods, we can nonethe-
less engage in a kind of life that is akin to the life of those superior
beings. Why should we lead a life appropriate to our intermediate
station in the scale of beings, when it is open to us to become more
like what is highest? Why should we not strive to participate in the
best activity there is, even if the same kind of activity is enjoyed by
another type of being? Merely to be different from other beings is by
itself of no value; it is only when a form of life is inferior to our own
that we should seek to distinguish ourselves from it.
So Aristotle would argue. Whatever the merits of his case, we
should recognize this central point: the function argument, with its
quest for what is idion to human beings, relies crucially on the view
that there is no value merely in being different from other kinds of
living beings. Everything depends on whether or not those other
forms of life are inferior or superior to our own. Since Aristotle thinks
we are superior to plants and animals, he searches for what is peculiar
to us relative to those lower species. But since he also thinks we are
inferior to other beings, he is not concerned with absolute peculiari-
ty. The function argument's appeal to what is relatively but not abso-
lutely idion, so far from beingaof hoc, presupposes a deep and widely
shared metaphysical outlook.
One further point: Aristotle thinks there is no need to argue that
animals and plants are inferior to us. He assumes that the usual ways
in which human beings treat these other forms of life are perfectly
appropriate, and he also assumes that such treatment would not be
appropriate unless animals and plants had a subordinate status in the
universe.16 Ethics takes it for granted that we are the legitimate mas-
ters of the earth, and it explains what makes the inferior species
inferior. A contemporary philosopher could not look at the matter in
the same way. For us, ethics cannot simply assume that the differ-
ences between ourselves and other species justify our domination
over them.

16 These assumptions are nowhere so explicit as in Politics I 8: "Plants exist for

the sake of animals and the other animals for the good of man../'
(1256b16-17). "If therefore nature makes nothing without purpose or in vain,
it follows that nature has made all the animals for the sake of men"
(1256620-22, Rachkam's translation).

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Richard Kraut

V. Conclusion

There is a good deal in the function argument that can mislead

even a thoughtful reader. Yet the literature on the subject does not
warn us against these traps:
1. Though the function argument seeks what is idion to us, and
though "peculiar to" is a correct translation of idion, Aristotle is not
saying that our function consists in an activity that is peculiar to us. He
is tacitly using a relativized sense of idion, and he is look for what is
peculiar to human beings with respect to animals and plants. In this
sense, contemplation is obviously peculiar to us.
2. Though Aristotle accepts Plato's claim in Republic Book I that
human beings have a function, he does not agree that our function
consists in what we alone can do, or what we can do better than any
other type of being. Aristotle's god is better at contemplation than we
are.

3. The conclusion of the function argument is that human

ness consists in an excellent use of reason, and Aristotle d
later that a human kind of happiness is only second best. But
using anthfUpinon ("human") in two different ways in these
In the broad sense of "human", human goods are the best kind
is, and contemplation is the most human of these goods, si
more than anything else, distinguishes us from the subhuman
4. My most important point is this: The function argument
not rely on the idea that since the world contains many di
kinds of living beings, each will flourish if it focuses on an a
specifically appropriate to it. By itself, the fact that we are a d
type of living being, different from all others, is of no ethical
tance for Aristotle. What is important is that some forms of
subordinate to us, and some superior. To be happy, we mu
phasize what distinguishes us from the former and what liken
the latter. Though contemplation is not uniquely human and t
others are better at it, these facts are irrelevant. They do noth
detract from its value.17

August 1978

17 I am grateful to J. L. Ac k rill and Myles Brand for their helpful comments on an

earlier draft.

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