Читать книгу The Puzzle of Ethics - Peter Vardy, Peter Vardy - Страница 11

THREE

Aristotle and Virtue Theory

It would be difficult to begin an account of Aristotle’s moral theory without first saying something about where he stands in relation to Socrates and Plato. Socrates (470–400 B.C.), as has already been suggested, is generally regarded as the founding father of western philosophy. Although Socrates never wrote anything, or at least there is almost no evidence to point to his having done so, we know of his existence chiefly through the works of the comic dramatist Aristophanes (448–380 B.C.), the writer and historian Xenophon (430–355 B.C.) and particularly through the philosophical dialogues of Plato (427–347 B.C.). Plato was Socrates’ pupil for approximately ten years prior to Socrates’ death, and Aristotle became Plato’s pupil for roughly twenty years, studying under him at the famous Academy which Plato had established in Athens. These three, then, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, may be referred to as the Three Greek Wise Men as, arguably, they laid the foundations for all philosophical inquiry. Although western philosophy has been described by A. N. Whitehead as merely footnotes to Plato, it is Aristotle to whom, perhaps, the greatest debt must be paid, for in Aristotle’s writings we find the rigorous and systematic treatment of philosophical questions in continuous prose argument, unlike the dramatic and often poetically beautiful dialogues of Plato. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is, effectively, the first major piece of sustained moral argument from a secular point of view.

Biography

Born in 384 B.C. in Stagyra, Macedonia, Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus, a wealthy and highly influential court physician to the king of Macedonia. At the age of eighteen Aristotle entered Plato’s Academy where he stayed for almost twenty years. Disappointed at not being given the leadership of the Academy upon Plato’s death, and becoming concerned for his own safety as a result of some racial hatred being whipped up against Macedonians, Aristotle left Athens and moved East. He found relative peace and security in the kingdom of Atarneus, in the Eastern Aegean. Here he married the king’s niece. In 343 B.C. he became tutor to Alexander, later Alexander the Great. According to Bertrand Russell it is inconceivable that Alexander thought anything of Aristotle other than that he was a ‘prosy old pedant’. Nonetheless, enjoying some political and financial support from the king, Aristotle returned to Athens in about 335 B.C. and founded his own school of philosophy, the Lyceum. However, upon Alexander’s early death in a far-flung Eastern campaign Aristotle went into voluntary exile ‘lest Athens should sin twice against philosophy’, that is, execute him as it had done Socrates. He died in Chalcis in 322 B.C. at the age of sixty-two, and his will, which survives relatively intact, suggests that he had led a happy and fulfilled life.

His influence has been enormous for he began sorting human knowledge and inquiry into the various categories and disciplines that we know and use today. He compiled the first ‘dictionary of philosophical terms’ and produced major works in logic (the Organon or Instrument), in the physical sciences (the Physics, On the Heavens), in the biological sciences (The History of Animals, On the Parts of Animals), in psychology (On the Soul), in politics (Politics, The Constitution of Athens) and in ethics (Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics).

Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics, generally regarded as the most detailed and coherent of Aristotle’s works on moral philosophy, is a collection of lectures compiled and edited by his son, also called Nicomachus after his grandfather. Consisting of ten books in all it describes the purpose of life, the divisions of the soul, and the various qualities of mind and character that are supposed to be necessary for moral conduct. It continues with a detailed description of friendship before concluding with the view that contemplation of the Good (that is, the life of philosophic reflection) is the highest form of happiness. For those not fully committed or suited to the life of pure contemplation then friendship becomes the ideal forum in which to exercise all of the virtues; the virtues being those moral and intellectual characteristics which have been fashioned by habit and education. Morality finds part of its true expression in friendship.

The purpose of life

In Book 1 of the Ethics, Aristotle makes a number of points concerning the true object or purpose of life. Firstly, he makes the seemingly obvious point that everything a person or a group does is directed towards some kind of an aim.

Every art and every investigation and similarly every action and pursuit is considered to aim at some good (all references are to Nicomachean Ethics translated by J. A. K. Thomson and revised by H. Tredennick, 1976, Penguin, p. 63).

This, of course, makes complete sense. Whatever we do there is a purpose in doing it although sometimes, of course, the purpose may not seem immediately clear nor apparent. Alternatively, there may be a purpose to what we do, but we may want to object to that purpose. There is even a purpose in having no purpose! We might just want to sit and relax without having any particular aim in mind. But our purpose here is simply to enjoy doing nothing.

Secondly, there are, according to Aristotle, ‘superior’ and ‘subordinate’ aims. So, for example, writing the first philosophy essay is subordinate to obtaining the final A level or degree qualification, and sharpening the pencil or filling the ink cartridge are yet further subordinate aims to writing the essay. The point is that we do one thing in order to accomplish the aim of another more important thing, and so on, almost ad infinitum. We say ‘almost ad infinitum’ because there must be one overall or final aim towards which everything else is directed. For Aristotle, that final aim is the Good; not only the Good for oneself but the Good for all humanity.

If then, our activities have some end which we want for its own sake, and for the sake of which we want all the other ends … it is clear that this must be the Good, that is the supreme Good … (and) … Does it not follow then that a knowledge of the Good is of great importance to us for the conduct of our lives? (Moreover) … while it is desirable to secure what is good in the case of an individual, to do so in the case of a people or a state is something finer and more sublime (pp. 63–4).

Thirdly, that Supreme Good, for Aristotle, is defined as ‘Happiness”:

… what is the highest of all practical goods? Well, so far as the name goes, there is pretty general agreement. ‘It is happiness’ say both ordinary and cultured people (p. 66).

This, however, presents us with a problem. The problem is that because people differ from each other, there are therefore differing conceptions or versions of happiness. At root, according to Aristotle, there are three broad categories of people:

 those who love pleasure;

 those who love honour,

 those who love contemplation.

There are, then, lives given over to wine, women (or men!) and song; lives expressed in constant service to the community; and lives devoted to thinking Aristotle places the life of the politician in the second category (as someone who is always trying to find practical solutions to large- and small-scale problems); the life of a philosopher inevitably falls in the third category whereas most people, it seems, would prefer to live a life of pleasure:

the utter servility of the masses comes out in their preference for a bovine existence (p. 68).

Aristotle was nothing if not blunt! His three-part classification leads on to two further points. Firstly, the one thing that distinguishes human beings from the rest of creation is the faculty of reason. We share the basic function of life with both plants and animals, and we share sentience or some form of conscious life along with animals. But only humans have the capacity to use reason in order to think about the quality of their lives. Therefore, if reason is the distinguishing mark of humanity, then happiness, logically, must consist in using that reason in order to work out what a good life is, and then to live it. The second and final point is equally important. For Aristotle, and for the Greeks in general, a person is primarily a member of a group, be it a family, a household, a village or a city state. There is no such thing as a purely free-thinking individual. Our individuality is already partly decided for us by the group or groups of which we are a part. Hence, the overall wellbeing of a group is far more important then the wellbeing of any single member within it.

For even if the good of the community coincides with that of the individual, it is clearly a greater and more perfect thing to achieve and preserve that of a community; for while it is desirable to secure what is good in the case of an individual, to do so in the case of a people or a state is something finer and more sublime (p. 64).

And that, for Aristotle, is the major reason why politicians ought to study ethics, because they have the responsibility of ensuring that the good life is lived by all members of society, and not just by some of them.

The soul

Before any description of a truly ethical person can be given, an account of the soul needs to be offered, for

by human goodness is meant goodness not of the body but of the soul, and happiness also we define as an activity of the soul. (p. 88).

The accompanying diagram is an attempt to simplify Aristotle’s rather wordy account. As can be seen, the soul is divided into two major parts: the rational and the irrational. Whether these are actual divisions in the soul, or whether they are just helpful definitional differences is irrelevant for Aristotle. We cannot split open the person in order to examine the soul like we can a leg or an arm. Each of these two major divisions is also separated into two. The irrational part is divided into the vegetative and the desiderative. The vegetative part is the cause of nutrition and growth; that is, those basic instincts necessary for individual and collective survival, such as earing, drinking, resting and procreating.

The desiderative or appetitive part is associated with those many and varied desires and wants which can be channelled, controlled or made submissive. These are the desires not just for food (that is a need or a vegetative impulse), but for a particular kind of food – cheeseburger with all the relish plus chips and onions. The wants and desires will, of course, include all of those luxury goods and activities which are not strictly necessary for survival. The distinction is clearly between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’; and often what we want is not what we need. I might want another pint of beer after having already drunk three, but, physiologically it is clearly not what I need.

Next, the rational part of the soul is also divided into two: the scientific and the calculative. The scientific part is the bit of the mind which can grasp invariable first principles, that is, knowledge of physics, of mathematics, of geography and so on. It is the section which houses all the facts of the world which are not up for debate or dispute. The calculative part is the bit of the mind which deliberates, considers, weighs up or thinks about things in order to make a decision about what to do, what to choose, what to make, what to buy and so on. Instead of knowing facts, it is concerned with knowing how to choose or how to come to a decision. It allows us to weigh up the pros and cons of an argument or a situation.

The fruit cake example:

It must be stressed at the outset that this is not an example used by Aristotle. However, let us suppose that the vegetative part of me needs sustenance or nutrition and growth. Now, the desiderative part of me desires cake rather than fruit. However, the scientific part of me knows the fact that, given my current waist size, fruit will do me more good than cake will. So, finally, the calculative part of my mind thinks about the advisability of cake over fruit or vice versa, and comes to a decision: How about ‘fruit cake’? The scientific part of my mind will then be able to follow the precise instructions on how to make a reasonably respectable fruit cake of the health-food variety. Thus the vegetative, desiderative, calculative and scientific parts of my ‘soul’ have all come into play.

The virtues:

The reason why Aristotelian ethics is called Virtue Theory is because the virtues, those ‘excellences’ (Greek: arete) or qualities of mind and character, are at the heart of his argument. There are two sorts of virtues:

 moral virtues or qualities of character (such as courage, liberality, temperance, modesty and so on). These virtues are connected to the desiderative and hence, the irrational part of the soul. They can only be cultivated through habit.

 intellectual virtues or qualities of mind (such as wisdom, understanding and judgement). These virtues are connected to the rational half of the soul, and are to be cultivated through instruction.

1 Moral virtues

In Aristotle’s account there are twelve moral virtues which fall between two vices: the vice of excess or the vice of deficiency. So, for example, the moral virtue of courage would fall between its excess which is foolhardiness or rashness and its deficiency which is, of course, cowardice.

Excess	Virtue	Deficiency
rashness	courage	cowardice
licentiousness	temperance	insensibility
prodigality	liberality	illiberality
vulgarity	magnificence	pettiness
vanity	magnanimity	pusillanimity
ambition	proper ambition	lack of ambition
irascibility	patience	lack of spirit
boastfulness	truthfulness	understatement
buffoonery	wittiness	boorishness
obsequiousness	friendliness	cantankerousness
shyness	modesty	shamelessness
envy	righteous-indignation	malicious-enjoyment
		(p.104)

2 Intellectual virtues

There are nine intellectual virtues comprising five main or primary virtues, and four secondary virtues:

 Art or Technical Skill (techne): the practical skill of knowing how to bring something into existence. For example, knowing how to build a house or construct a bridge as well as knowing how to write a poem, paint a picture or sculpt a statue. For the Greeks all things had to meet two criteria: they had to be functional and they had to be aesthetically pleasing or decorative. Plays, poems and statues had a symbolic political, social or religious function as well as possessing what we might call ‘artistic or dramatic beauty’. Similarly, houses and bridges had not only to fulfil their obvious function, but they also had to be pleasing to the eye.

 Scientific Knowledge (episteme): This comprises the so-called ‘facts’ of the universe, that is, knowledge of all the objects in the universe as well as all the laws which govern them. Knowledge of biology, astronomy, geography and so on are all covered by this virtue.

 Prudence or Practical Wisdom (phronesis): This is one of the most important virtues which helps us to balance our interests with the interests of others. This is the virtue, for example, which helps us to make the decision whether or not to purchase the colour television with stereo sound, or whether to buy the small black and white portable and give the rest of the money to Oxfam. Arguably, without phronesis the remainder of the virtues revert to being mere skills.

 Intelligence or Intuition (nous): This is perhaps the basic intellectual virtue in the sense that without it probably few other intellectual virtues could get going. Arguably, without intelligence or intuition nothing else can happen in the mind!

 Wisdom (sophia): This is the finished form of all the virtues. Generally speaking, one must have lived to a good age, experienced many things and learned a number of lessons before wisdom is finally cultivated.

The four secondary intellectual virtues are:

 Resourcefulness or Good Deliberation (euboulia): This is a form of practical wisdom, and involves knowing where and how to enquire about something so that the best decision can be made. For example, suppose I need a new refrigerator. At the outset this seems to be a perfectly innocuous issue almost completely unconnected with moral concerns. Its relevance, however, will soon be made clear. Resourcefulness will prompt me to examine Which?, the popular consumer guide. This will help me to make a more informed decision about the best fridge to buy.

 Understanding (sunesis): This goes beyond the ability to know external facts about the world. To understand something is to recognise all the difficulties and perplexities associated with decision-making. I might choose the best fridge recommended by Which?, but when I get it home it may not fit into my kitchen! In order to understand things I am obliged to deliberate over many interrelated issues.

 Judgement (gnome): For a judgement to be a good one it has to take account of what is right and just for all concerned. Suppose, after examining all of the fridges on offer, after measuring my kitchen and so on, I find that my chosen fridge is called ‘The Philippino Special Exploiter’. Its high quality and low price depend upon the poverty and squalid conditions of the Third World workers who help manufacture it. My sympathetic judgement will be not to purchase the fridge and perhaps to begin campaigning on behalf of the exploited workforce.

 Cleverness (deinotes): the last of the secondary intellectual virtues. On its own, however, it can hardly be said to be a virtue in the true sense of the word. Cleverness unconnected with judgement can be unscrupulous. A shady second-hand car dealer may be said to be clever, but we would hardly say that he was in possession of a virtue.

Doctrine of the mean

According to the Aristotelian argument we all have the potential to develop these moral and intellectual virtues. However, it is likely that only a few people will be able to cultivate the potential virtues into actual virtues. Similarly, all acorns have the potential to become actual oak trees, but only some of them will become so. Moreover, if we are to cultivate our virtues, particularly our moral virtues, we must be aware of the doctrine of the mean. Put simply, we must regulate our emotions and responses to people and situations so that we are eventually able to conduct ourselves with dignity. We must try to ensure that we veer away from either the excess or deficiency, and so hit the ‘mean’ or midway point, although Aristotle is quick to mention that the midway point is not just a numerical halfway house.

For example, I have the clear capacity to feel intense anger at my computer when it fails to work. I accept my anger for what it is – a natural feeling or emotional response. However, it is my attitude towards that feeling which is crucial. I could, for example, set about my computer with a hammer in order to release my feelings. But this would be to exhibit a poorly developed virtue. On the other hand, I could simply not bother about the failure of my computer, do nothing about it and give up on writing altogether. This would be an equally poor response. The right response would be to control the anger, take the computer to a repair shop, and then hire or borrow another one for the intervening period. My feelings, no matter how overwhelming they are, should not drown my reason. Feelings are clearly important, but our virtues – our attitudes towards our feelings – are more important. What matters is what we do with our feelings so that eventually they can conform naturally to that which reason would advocate. Aristotle makes the point that children have to learn the virtues through habit. They must learn that they cannot simply give vent to all their feelings in whatever way they wish and whenever they want. Although the six-year-old may initially give vent to her emotions in the supermarket by screaming that she wants the chocolate bar, she must gradually learn that the feelings of anger and resentment at being denied it are perfectly natural. However, she must control that anger and resentment and develop a sense of patience instead. Arguably, adulthood is about learning to control and direct one’s emotions. In other words, it is about developing the moral virtues.

By constantly learning through habit to control our feelings we should, according to Aristotle, begin to:

have these feelings at the right times on the right grounds towards the right people for the right motive and in the right way … (this is) … to feel them to an intermediate, that is, to the best degree; and this is the mark of virtue (p. 101).

There is the obvious criticism that this approach to moral reasoning leads to a kind of blind uniformity of belief, desire and behaviour. The intention, it would seem, is to produce an automatic response in people to other people and to situations. This would perhaps be so, if Aristotle had not emphasised the importance of the intellectual virtues along with the moral virtues. Not only is it necessary for us to feel and behave in the right or appropriate manner, but we should also understand and know why it is important that we feel and act in these ways.

Friendship as the main aim of a moral life

Finally, without friendship none of the virtues – either moral or intellectual – would be of any value. For Aristotle, friendship is essential. We are social and political beings.

Nobody would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other good things (p. 258).

A community, a society, a state, any gathering of two or more people presupposes a notion of friendship, and depends upon it. Households, marriages, partnerships, clubs, societies, etc, all depend upon sustaining a forum within which friendships can be fostered and maintained. Again, Aristotle makes the point that:

Friendship also seems to be the bond that holds communities together … (p. 258).

Indeed, friendship is of such primary importance that it comes before justice itself. In fact without friendship there could be no sense of justice. The lawmaker, the lawgiver and the law-enforcer all derive their rationale from acting as the supposed legally-appointed ‘friend’ of everyone in the community, and of ensuring that the community fosters the right conditions under which friendship may flourish.

… lawgivers seem to attach more importance to it than to justice; because concord seems to be something like friendship, and concord is their primary object – that and eliminating faction, which is enmity … indeed friendliness is considered to be justice in the fullest sense (p. 258–9).

Briefly, there are three kinds of friendship, according to Aristotle: based on utility, pleasure and goodness.

 Utility friendships are those which are, as the name suggests, simply useful to us. Utility friends are those with whom we find ourselves in company at work, those next to us on the factory assembly line. It is convenient for both parties to engage in pleasant and friendly conversation in order to while away the time whilst doing something tedious and dissatisfying. The friendship is useful in that it is an aid to comfort. Moreover, there may be more than just pleasant mutual gain in the friendship; it may be useful for the completion of a game or a project. For example, it clearly helps if team members do actually get on with each other when a cricket or netball tour is arranged. Or the friendship may be formed deliberately to cater for plain personal need. Here Aristotle cites the elderly as a group who form utility friendships. For example, someone is needed to push the wheelchair or fetch the shopping. Or again, friendship may be sought in order to further one’s own personal advantage. Here it is the middle-aged who actively cultivate utility friendships – perhaps the businessman who purposefully cultivates a friendship with a local bank manager in order to secure a business loan. According to Aristotle, most friendships in the worlds of industry, business and commerce are utility friendships.

 Pleasurable or Erotic friendships are slightly better than the first type. Here, friends give us pleasure, and the friendship evolves through feelings and emotions. The relationship is governed more by the heart than by the head. Friends are pleasurable to be with because they may be witty, amusing or attractive. Friendships between the young are generally of this kind. They tend to be impermanent, and are often based on sexual attraction.

 Perfect friendships are based on goodness and are obviously the most valuable. Here friends care more about the other person than about themselves. Moreover, it means liking or loving the other person for what she/he is, not for any incidental quality that they might possess, such as beauty. Such friends have similar attributes, and such friendships only occur after a long while. The relationship needs time to develop. According to Aristotle, ‘You cannot get to know each other until you have eaten the proverbial quantity of salt together.’ This apparently is a medimnos or one and a half bushels. In other words, the friends need to share many meals together; mealtimes traditionally being times of social chatting, anecdote-telling and story-swapping. Finally, there are few truly good friendships for there are few truly good people.

Criticisms

According to some scholars (e.g. Ackrill 1981; Lloyd 1968; Taylor 1955), Aristotle’s account of ethics is, in fact, simply a detailed elaboration of a very orthodox Greek view of aristocratic living. It is easy to cultivate the virtues when the mortgage is fully paid up, the children are looked after by a nanny, and one’s inheritance pays for the daily needs and wants. Life for the Athenian (or Macedonian) aristocrat was relatively easy, being purchased with the help of a slave population and an underclass of women.

And so, from a singular and contemporary vantage point it would not be too difficult to savage Aristotle’s entire system by a process of selective analysis. Firstly, he is, through modern eyes, overtly racist. Any non-Greek is likely to be barbarous and sub-human, and therefore, a clear candidate for slavery. Friendships of utility are the only kinds of friendships one could have with ‘a foreigner’. Secondly, Aristotle appears blatantly sexist. He accepts unquestioningly the supposedly natural, paternalistic hierarchy of relationships in which ‘man rules by merit but hands over to his wife such duties as are best suited to her’(!) (p. 276). Thirdly, he is what Singer would call speciesist. Animals exist on an ontological level clearly below humans and barely above plants. ‘Animals have no share in happiness, being completely incapable of such activity’ (p. 333). According to Aristotle, animals cannot be happy because happiness depends upon the exercise of reason in order to pursue the virtuous life. As animals do not possess reason they, therefore, are incapable of achieving any happiness. However, what we now know of animals’ physiology and behaviour leads us to suspect that, to a degree, they can reason about their environment, and often do exhibit many of the signs of being happy. But, as with all issues in philosophy, it rather depends upon the meanings we wish to attach to words, in this case ‘reason’ and ‘happiness’. Fourthly, Aristotle is ageist given his clear dictum that no one would want to befriend the old and the sour-tempered, the one being synonymous with the other. And fifthly, his moral theory is élitist, in that only magnanimous men, honourable politicians and philosophers can truly know and exercise all of the virtues, and are therefore the only ones to appreciate fully the Good Life.

However, such a critique is unfair. Aristotle was ‘culture-bound’ and could not have transcended all of the conceptual constraints of his time and culture. Our criticism must be tempered by historical understanding. Such a defence cuts no ice with Russell, however, who stated:

The book (Ethics) appeals to the respectable middle-aged, and has been used by them, especially since the seventeenth century, to repress the ardours and enthusiasms of the young. But to a man with any depth of feeling it is likely to be repulsive … There is … an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind … do not move him … More generally there is an emotional poverty in the Ethics (B. Russell History of Western Philosophy, p. 195).

Questions for discussion

1 Argue either for or against the view that the moral life consists in ‘feeling the right things at the right times, on the right grounds, towards the right people for the right motive …’

2 What additions, subtractions and/or modifications would you wish to make to Aristotle’s list of intellectual and moral virtues?

3 Is happiness the Supreme Good? If so, in what does happiness consist?

4 How far does Aristotle’s classification of friendship correspond with what we know about human relationships?

5 Is Russell’s criticism of Aristotle fair? How might the criticism be rebutted?

6 Analyse critically Aristotle’s theory of the soul and his doctrine of the mean.