Aristotle's Practical Philosophy (part 1)
Part 1: Ethics
The previous two posts were originally written for audiences that were familiar with Aristotle’s writings on ethics and politics. For the benefit of readers who are less familiar with Aristotle, here is a summary of Aristotle’s work on these topics.
In his ethical and political writings, Aristotle’s analyses of individual characteristics and social arrangements are complementary aspects of a single line of inquiry. The goal of this integrated practical philosophy is to discover a way of life that allows individuals to exercise their highest faculties and to enable communities to make this way of life possible for their citizens. Aristotle’s word for this way of life is eudaimonia, which has been translated as “happiness”, “the good life”, and “human flourishing”. This is the ultimate end to which other activities are the means. The key components of eudaimonia are virtue, love, and the contemplative life
1.1 Aretē (“virtue” or “excellence”)
Aristotle’s preliminary definition of happiness is “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue [aretē]”.
Aretē (plural aretai) refers to whatever it is that distinguishes superior members of a class from inferior members of that same class. For example, the virtue or excellence of a knife is sharpness, of an eye, accurate vision. For human beings, Greek thinkers prior to Aristotle proposed that human excellence consisted of the four cardinal virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom.
Aristotle notes that virtue or excellence is connected with function or inherent purpose (telos). An excellent knife cuts well, an excellent eye sees well, etc. So in order to identify human aretē, it is necessary to identify human telos. Aristotle proposes that, since reason is what differentiates human beings from other things, human telos is the exercise of reason, and that therefore human aretē will involve reason.
Aristotle distinguishes between moral and intellectual virtues. Intellectual virtues pertain to the exercise of reason; the moral virtues pertain to the operation of desires, appetites, and emotions, which in the virtuous person are guided by reason, but which are not in themselves instances of the exercise of reason. In the person who lacks virtue, such tendencies may overcome reason.
1.1.1 Moral virtue
Aristotle defines moral virtue as
. . . a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. (1107a1)
This is a complex definition, and Aristotle spends most of the Nicomachean Ethics explicating the components of this definition.
Purposive disposition
By “disposition”, Aristotle means that moral virtue is a matter of habit, not knowledge, and that those who possess virtue act consistently. Virtuous acts, properly speaking, result from stable tendencies, not erratic whims or occasional exertions of willpower. By “purposive”, Aristotle means that the acts that result from virtue are deliberately chosen, and directed at a virtuous goal. One cannot be accidentally virtuous.
It may seem inconsistent to say that virtuous acts are both deliberately chosen and done through force of habit. Aristotle explains that we are responsible for our habits. Particular habits are built up through repeated actions of a particular type. Initially, these particular actions are not habitual, and the agent who performs those actions could have done otherwise. So, although once a person has developed a habit, the person has lost control of her actions to a certain extent, since the person need not have developed that habit, habitual action may still be laudable or blameworthy. (Aristotle also discusses the responsibility of educators and legislators to induce people to form good habits.)
Lying in a mean
Virtuous action lies between the extremes of excess and deficiency. For example, courageous action is neither cowardly nor foolhardy. Aristotle recognizes that telling people to avoid the extremes is useless without further clarification; hence the rest of the definition:
Relative to us
What is excessive for one person may be virtuous for another and deficient for a third, depending on their natural endowments and circumstances.
Determined by a rational principle
Although the mean varies individually, virtue is not simply a matter of subjective preferences. There is a right answer to the question, what is the mean for me? The answer to this question can be determined through the exercise of reason.
That which prudent man would use
When I try to exercise my reason to figure out whether an act would be virtuous (lying in the mean) or vicious (excessive or deficient), I may or may not reach the right conclusion. The fact that I am reasoning about myself does not guarantee that I will decide correctly. There is an external standard against which my decision may be judged.
That standard is the judgment of the phronimos, the person who possesses the intellectual virtue of phronēsis. Here again we have a word with no exact English translation; it is usually rendered as “prudence” or “practical wisdom”. phronēsis is a crucial but elusive concept in Aristotle’s practical philosophy. It can perhaps be understood better when it is contrasted with the other intellectual virtues (see below).
Aristotle describes several moral virtues in varying degrees of detail, showing how the doctrine of the mean applies to each. He briefly discusses several virtues that might be lumped under the heading of “propriety”, such as the proper use of wealth, proper ambition, and proper manners. He spends more time on courage and temperance: the former is about having the right attitude towards pain, and the latter is about having the right attitude towards pleasure. The moral virtue he devotes the most attention to is justice.
Justice is, in a sense, the sum of all virtues insofar as they relate to human relations (“general” justice, i.e., lawfulness), but in another sense, it is a specific virtue that can be distinguished from the others (“particular” justice, i.e., fairness). In this latter sense Aristotle construes it as a moral virtue (as opposed to an intellectual virtue) and divides it into distributive and rectificatory justice.
Justice as fairness is a matter of receiving what is one’s due, and this is not simply equality or reciprocity without qualification. In the case of distributive justice, “which is manifested in the distribution of money or honor or other things that have a share in the constitution,” distribution should be “geometrical”, ie., proportionate to merit. In the case of rectificatory justice, however, the merit of the parties does not matter; when one party has wronged another, restitution depends upon the nature of the loss the injured party has suffered or the gain the injuring party has received, and justice is achieved when restitution equalizes these losses and gains.
1.1.2 Intellectual virtue (epistēmē, technē, sophia, nous, phronēsis)
Aristotle proposes that there are five ways of arriving at truth: art or craft (technē), science (epistēmē), practical wisdom or prudence (phronēsis), philosophical wisdom (sophia), and intuitive reason or understanding (nous).
Epistēmē is knowing-that, specifically, knowledge of necessary first principles and of what can be deduced from them.
The possession of first principles is part of epistēmē, but deriving these first principles is an achievement of nous, which inductively infers the appropriate general law from the experience of many and various particular instances.
Epistēmē and nous together constitute sophia. Sophia is concerned with necessary eternal truths, which means that it is concerned with purely theoretical fields of inquiry, namely metaphysics, physics, and mathematics.
Technē is knowing-how; it is skill at production (poiēsis). Technē is the specialized expertise exemplified in crafts, fine arts, and medicine.
Phronēsis is adeptness at deliberation insofar as it pertains to acting for human good per se. Phronēsis combines the faculty of discerning the most expedient means to an end with a correct estimation of which ends are worthy of pursuit. The phronimos is one whose priorities are in order.
Phronēsis applies to human action (praxis) at all levels of complexity: an individual who must confront a moral dilemma, parents who must decide how to run their household and educate their children, and legislators who must decide upon a course of action for the state will all act correctly if they act according to right reason as prescribed by phronēsis.
It is like technē and unlike the other intellectual abilities insofar as it deals with variable and contingent matters, but Aristotle distinguishes production from action, stating that neither is a species of the other, for production is a means to an end, but right action is an end in itself. Another difference is that technē can be acquired from instruction but phronēsis must be acquired through experience.
Aristotle’s claim that production is not a species of action may seem puzzling. Does he mean that a tradesman who makes an honest living by performing a craft (say, shoemaking) exemplifies technē but not phronēsis? The solution may be that insofar as the tradesman makes shoes, he exemplifies technē, and insofar as he makes an honest living, he exemplifies phronēsis. Thus phronēsis and technē apply to different dimensions or levels of description of human deeds. Even though these dimensions might be separable only in abstraction, neither can be subsumed under the other. In that sense the work of making a shoe per se is not praxis in the sense that phronēsis is concerned with.
1.2 Theōria (“contemplation” or “study”)
Aristotle believes that the highest human happiness consists in the exercise of the highest human faculties upon the highest objects, in other words, the exercise of reason to contemplate eternal truths and sublime reality. This activity is theōria, the exercise of sophia. As phronēsis is to praxis and technē is to poiēsis, sophia is to theōria. Contemplation seeks truth, action seeks goodness, and production seeks beauty or usefulness.
Theōria as telos (inherent purpose) is what prevents Aristotle’s theory of the virtues from becoming a sort of relativism or situational ethics. It might seem that the virtues could pull in different directions at times; the demands of courage might conflict with the demands of temperance. Aristotle denies this (Nic. Eth. Bk. 6:13). Aristotle rejects Plato’s Form of the Good as the basis of all value, so to avoid relativism there must be some other principle. That principle is theōria.
Moral virtues are valuable because they make philia (“love” or “friendship”; see next section) possible, which is a practically necessary condition for a life of theōria. The intellectual virtue of phronēsis is doubly necessary: it provides the rule of reason that orders the moral virtues, and it allows recognition that the life of theōria is objectively better than a life devoted to the pursuit of honor, wealth, or pleasure.
“A life of theōria” here must be understood relative to a human frame of reference. Only the divine Prime Mover can lead a life of theōria in an absolute sense: eternal contemplation of its own perfectly and completely actualized being (Metaphysics 1072b). The best that human beings can achieve is periodic reflection upon known truths, or speculation and inquiry about unknown truths.
This means that eudaimonia can be understood in a narrow and a broad sense. In the narrow sense, eudaimonia is the activity of theōria. In the broad sense, or rather the full sense, eudaimonia is the activity of theōria along with the entire way of life that makes theōria possible.
Aristotle acknowledges that some aspects of eudaimonia are external to the individual (gifts of fortune, for example), but the most important factors are internal or interpersonal, and those who have these but lack wealth or high birth or who undergo misfortunes beyond their control will come closer to eudaimonia than fortunate individuals with bad characters.
1.3 Philia (“friendship” or “love”)
Human happiness is based in part on the quality of human relationships and the social context within which those relationships are situated.
Philia is a very broad concept; it refers to any desirable human relationship. Aristotle classes such relationships into three basic categories according to whether they are based on utility, pleasure, or goodness of character, the latter being “perfect friendship”. There are also mixed varieties in which the relationship has a different basis for each of the parties involved (e.g., one is in it for pleasure, the other for utility).
Aristotle says, “To be friends, then, they must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons.” Utility and pleasure are self-interested bases for friendship but goodness is not. Perfect friends wish each other well for unselfish reasons, for the virtuous both merit goodwill and have goodwill for others. Aristotle says that loving is more important to friendship than being loved.
Aristotle begins with the analysis of philia as a dyadic relation but does not stop there. He also examines the workings of friendship in a community (koinōnia), by which he means any association that people form in order to pursue a common goal, including groups that form for political, religious, commercial, or recreational purposes.
Aristotle connects friendship with community and justice. Aristotle uses the political community as the paradigm against which other forms of community are compared. The political community is the paradigm because in a well-ordered political community, the common goal toward which the members are striving is the ultimate human good, eudaimonia, while in other forms of community the goal is usually some subordinate good. The ideal political community therefore is perfect friendship on a larger scale, and will exhibit perfect justice. Other forms of community, or less well-ordered states, will be like friendships of utility or pleasure on a larger scale, and the members will be just to each other insofar as they contribute to their common goal. In addition to the abstract analogical relationship between friendship and community, Aristotle seems to believe that as a practical matter, community requires some degree of friendly feeling between members. The worst form of government (tyranny) will have the least degree of friendship and justice, and will be more like the relationship between master and slave than between friends.
1.4 Aretē, theōria, and philia
Aretē, theōria, and philia are interdependent. Aretē enables philia insofar as perfect friendship depends on the virtues of the friends, and even lesser forms of friendship must exhibit a minimal degree of justice in order for the friendship to fulfill its purpose. Aretē enables theōria insofar as virtues are the means to the contemplative life—the intellectual virtues make one able to see the value of contemplation and do it, and the moral virtues are necessary for the constructive interpersonal relationships that make such a life feasible. The contemplative life is the end towards which virtues are the means (although they are also valuable in themselves), without which there would be no basis for preferring any given set of dispositions over any other. Friendship makes the contemplative life possible, for human beings are physically, emotionally, and intellectually interdependent, and inquiry is a collaborative enterprise.
To fully understand how aretē, philia, and theōria interact to constitute eudaimonia, one must appreciate Aristotle’s conception of what human beings are. Aristotle was not a dualist in the sense that Descartes was, but nevertheless Aristotle sees human beings as having a dual nature: we are earthbound, temporal, and mortal, yet we also have a spark of something divine, eternal, and immortal in us, which gives us the potential that is actualized through theōria. But nevertheless Aristotle does not disregard the rest of our nature. Eudaimonia not only realizes our divine potential but also realizes our earthly potential. Thus the contemplative life for Aristotle is not the life of a cartoon guru on the mountaintop thinking deep thoughts in solitude, but rather one in which contemplation is simply the most important part of a balanced life that includes constructive interpersonal and political engagement and fulfillment of social obligations.