What Aristotle talks a lot about in thisbook we are reading in class are the functions of the human race. Aristotle,to my understanding says that the function of human beings is to be “rational”and by rational I believe that he means humans should have a “soul” thatrepresents what you do in your life and if you do those functions successfully thenyou was lived well. Additionally according to Aristotle being alive is not thefunction of human beings because of the “Goods” in life which include,Externals those are the things like your friends and family you give yousupport and love, your soul which means your life actives but they have to beperform well in order to enjoy your life, and the last one is body whichbasically is your health and yourstrength.
However Perception is not a function of human because according toAristotle, Perception is motion and time because, the function of a human islive and meet those three standards of your, Externals, Soul, and Body itdoesn’t fall into that category and also according to Aristotle once you passaway that’s it, you don’t a have legacy left and that’s it for you , howevermotion and time will last forever way after you passed. Aristotle in the book I feel that mentions alot that a person has to have some motivationtp be able to life their best .Therefore, according to Aristotle what makes agood human is the functions, and by functions I mean the things a human works and/or hobbies at, andif the person is successful in meeting them.
If they succeed they would meettheir virtue for being good. The reason he believes that makes people a goodhuman being is because human just didn’t were sitting around and wasting theirlive and had a type of happiness. Happiness is a virtuethat everyone tries to have. Aristotle, however use happiness not as theemotion, he uses it to describe as the excellence in one’s life guided by thereason/rational over ones lifetime.
So to say that animals can reason just likehumans, it makes sense that they can because they need reason and rational to survive.However, if the animals can’t still full-fledged in language they still can’tfull of the same reason as a human. So what I think in this case what make ahuman a good human are; the will to function. The will to function for animals wouldbe to survive while the functions for humans are still the externals, soul, and body. However they stillhave functions which makes them human on some sort of functions because of thefunctions alone.
The reason I believe Aristotle would said that or something similarlyto that is because Aristotle said that everything that is human has to have afunction, and the animals do have a function of surviving, it might not be awell/good life but it was a functionallife.
