1. The Third (Catholic numbering)/Fourth (Protestant Numbering) Commandment says to keep “the sabbath day” holy and to abstain from work then.  In Jewish practice, the Sabbath day is Saturday.  In Christian tradition, to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus which is believed to have been on a Sunday, it is on Sunday (except for the Seventh Day Adventists)—as well as, according to specifically Catholic tradition, on other holy days like Christmas.  Orthodox Judaism is very strict about the prohibition of work: for instance, as currently interpreted, it prohibits throwing a light switch, because the electricity is seen as analogous to fire, and making fire is seen as work.  The Christian tradition has tended to be more flexible, prohibiting manual labor and commercial activity, unless it was really quite necessary.  In present times, Catholicism calls for abstinence from the kind of work that distracts one from focusing on God (unless necessary for survival, etc.), while Protestant practice varies.

• There seems to be an implicit assumption behind all of these practices: work is not the primary goal of human life and so it should not be our ultimate concern.  Thus, one needs to regularly spend time doing something else, something more important, and resting from the work.
• Of course one who thinks that work is the main goal of human life will also know that we need to rest in order to work more effectively.  But if we are resting just to work more effectively, then our rest is a form of work.  The spirit and wording of the Commandment does not seem to be one of resting just to be a more effective worker.
• But isn’t it the case that if one is resting for a reason other than that one will work more effectively, then one is lazy?  This is a question we need to look at.

2. In Nicomachean Ethics I.1-2, Aristotle—Plato’s most famous student—gives an argument for the claim that some things we desire for their own sake.  The distinction comes from considerations like these.  If I make bridles, then I do not make bridles for the sake of making bridles but for the sake of aiding in horsemanship.  Horsemanship, on the other hand, isn’t done for its own sake, Aristotle supposes, but for the sake of military victory.  All of these things, thus, are done for the sake of something else.  But if we always did each thing for the sake of something else, then we would either have a vicious circularity—a case where I do A to achieve B and B to achieve A (an absurd possibility Aristotle doesn’t even consider here)—or an infinite regress.  1094a20.  But of course there can’t be an infinite regress.  We do not in fact have infinitely many different goals.

• So there must be some things that we desire for their own sake.  Ask a volunteer why he or she is taking this class.
• In the bridle-making example, maybe we achieve military victory to keep us from being enslaved by the enemy.  So we desire military victory for the sake of freedom.  Why do we desire freedom?  Perhaps for its own sake—the chain of “for the sake of”s might end right here.  Or maybe it goes on a little more.  Maybe we desire freedom that we might express our individuality, and maybe we desire to express our individuality so as to make the universe richer.  And maybe it ends here—maybe we desire making the universe richer for its own sake, and not as a means to something else.  But maybe it goes on.  Maybe one desires to make the universe richer for the sake of glorifying God, and that’s where it ends.  But wherever it ends, it doesn’t go on forever.
• Aristotle does not say here that there is only one thing that people desire for its own sake.  As far as this argument goes, different people might desire different things for their own sake.  And one and the same person might desire several things, each for its own sake, say virtue and knowledge and pleasure.

3. The next step is to identify what it is that is worth getting for its own sake.  Suppose someone said: “I am studying in order to earn money in order to buy so much caviar that I could everyday make myself sick by eating it.  And I want to get sick from caviar for its own sake.”  We would be puzzled.  We would first probe: “Is it that you find getting sick from caviar ‘prestigious’?  Does it symbolize something to you?  Is it perhaps a sign of success?  Or are you doing this for some ascetical reason of self-mortification?”  But if the person insisted that it was the getting sick from caviar that she wanted for its own sake, we would think her irrational.  Thus, it seems, some things are not worth having for their own sake.  Throwing up is such a thing.

• What we are looking for are the ultimate goods, the things worth having for their own sake.
• Aristotle notes that there is a name that people give to the ultimate goods: “happiness” (eudaimonia, flourishing).  But this doesn’t help much, because we need to figure out what happiness consists in.  Yes, happiness is desired for its own sake.  (Would it not be strange if someone said: “I want to be happy solely in order that…”?  Well, maybe not that strange.  What if someone said: “I want to be happy solely in order that I might be more effective at helping other people”?  But in helping other people, isn’t one helping them to be happy?  And does one expect them to be happy only that they might help other people?  If so, then we get a vast circularity: Our job is to help people help people.)  But people differ on what happiness is.  Here are some options (Chapter 5):
• A common opinion is that happiness is pleasure.  But this is beastly.
• Maybe happiness is being honored by others.  But Aristotle observes that people don’t just seek to be honored just by anyone.  People want to be honored by people whose opinion they respect, by people who are better judges.  But if so, then they want the honor because they want to be assured of their own excellence.  And this suggests that what they really want is personal excellence (together with knowledge of this, I guess).
• Money-making is always done for the sake of something else.  (Marx agrees.)
• In Chapter 7, Aristotle note that the carpenter has certain distinctive activities, and these have distinctive purposes.  Likewise, so do parts of the body.  Thus, a distinctive purpose of the eye is to convey visual information to our minds.  For something to be in a good state is for it to be excellent at fulfilling its distinctive purpose.  The good lyre player is the lyre player who plays the lyre well.
• What then is the distinctive activity or function of the human being?  It is rational activity, the activity of the mind—everything else we have in common with the animals or even plants.  Thus, being excellent at acting rationally—both in terms of outward actions and intellectual activity—is what it is to be good at being human.  Moreover, it’s not just the ability to be good at this that constitutes human happiness—the person in a coma, no matter how rational she is, is not in a happy state.  The prize is not for the strongest but for those who compete and win.
• On this view, then, the ultimate good is not work as such but rational activity.  Not all work is rational activity and not all rational activity is work.  This suggests that on this view, work that is not rational activity would be seen as a mere means, as something not worthwhile in itself.  But if something is not worthwhile in itself, then resting from it may be a reasonable way of refocusing on what is truly worthwhile.  For as we go on doing something all the time, we easily start to feel about it as if it were the only thing that mattered.  This gives a philosophical argument for periodically resting.