Activities Shape our Personality essays

Activities Shape our Personality essays Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter 1, suggests that activities in which we participate shape the characteristics of our personality and our personality determines what we do an ongoing process of reciprocity. At the time Aristotle wrote this book, in 350 BC, he was well aware of the work of his contemporary, Hippocrates, who had been dead for 20 years. Hippocrates had more pragmatically contemplated the same problem and had divided the human personality into four general categories: [the humors of] choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine. The purpose of Aristotles intellectual investigation was to instill the ideas of personal morality and virtue and then hold others to these [presumably our] standards. While this has appeal, it belies the complexity of human behavior and the right to judge others. It also assumes one person can correct perceived flaws in another as in some grandiose Pygmalion project. While Aristotles idea has great merit when applied providing a safe and nurturing environment for a child to properly develop, it fails to address the fact that differences in the rational wants, beliefs, needs and actions between individuals are not grounds for correcting perceived flaws. The observed differences make an individual who he or she is. Attempting to change them will result in failure. Further, attempting corrective action is based on the false assumption that someone can recreate another in his own image. Perhaps, this may be marginally possible with DNA cloning, but even this seems highly unlikely. It is obvious in a modern society that some reasonable level of conformity to the laws holding the fabric together is required, but beyond modest adherence, individuality abounds as well it should. Peoples actions are governed by the basics of reproduction, survival, necessity, fear, achievement, recognition, power, ...