Ancient perfectionism and its modern critics

Social Philosophy and Policy

Volumn 16, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 197-231

  Anagnostopoulos, Georgios ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0039035803     PISSN: 02650525     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0265052500002302     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Thomas Hurka, "The Well-Rounded Life," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 84 (1987), pp. 707-26; Hurka, Perfectionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Amartya Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1970); Sen, "Capability and Well-Being," in The Quality of Life, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 30-53.
2. Thomas Hurka, "The Well-Rounded Life," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 84 (1987), pp. 707-26; Hurka, Perfectionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Amartya Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1970); Sen, "Capability and Well-Being," in The Quality of Life, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 30-53.
3. Thomas Hurka, "The Well-Rounded Life," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 84 (1987), pp. 707-26; Hurka, Perfectionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Amartya Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1970); Sen, "Capability and Well-Being," in The Quality of Life, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 30-53.
4. Thomas Hurka, "The Well-Rounded Life," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 84 (1987), pp. 707-26; Hurka, Perfectionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Amartya Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1970); Sen, "Capability and Well-Being," in The Quality of Life, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 30-53.
5. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
6. John Rawls, "Social Unity and Primary Goods," in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); see also Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 173-211.
7. John Rawls, "Social Unity and Primary Goods," in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); see also Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 173-211.
8. As Charles Larmore has aptly put it: "[B]y its very nature liberalism must be a philosophy of politics, and not a philosophy of man...." Larmore, Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 25.
9. According to Hurka, Perfectionism, pp. 37-39, perfectionism of physical attributes is one component of Aristotelian perfectionism. He claims that "Aristotelian perfectionism finds the highest physical good in great athletic feats."
10. Rawls argues that perfecting certain capacities is rational and something that one's associates are likely to support as "promoting the common interest and also to take pleasure in ... as displays of human excellence." See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 429.
11. Hurka, Perfectionism, p. 17.
12. J. M. E. Moravcsik, "The Nature of Ethical Theorizing in the Eudemian Ethics," Topoi, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1996).
13. The functional account is not the only account of the good in the Republic. In Book VI, Plato presents a metaphysical account in terms of his theory of the Form of the Good. But it is the functional account that is of relevance to human flourishing and perfectionism.
14. This was pointed out a few years ago by Richard Sorabji, "Function," Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 57 (October 1964).
15. Clearly, much depends here on how the levels of specificity are to be determined; it might be a rather complicated matter. Martha Nussbaum argues (in "Aristotelian Social Democracy," in R. Bruce Douglass, Gerald M. Mara, and Henry S. Richardson, eds., Liberalism and the Good [New York: Routledge, 1990]) that even an Aristotelian version of perfectionism can allow for many flourishings.
16. Plato has often been interpreted as distinguishing between actual and "real" desires, the latter being those representing the agent's rational interests, which, of course, need not be the agent's actual desires. For a recent defense of the Platonic position, see Gary Watson, "Free Agency," in Watson, ed., Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
17. Nussbaum (in "Aristotelian Social Democracy") argues that a thick but vague conception of the good along Aristotelian lines can be developed which is perfectionist in character and thus objective, but which allows for choice and a plurality of flourishings.
18. Some of the problems concerning the relation of uniqueness to function are discussed in Hurka, Perfectionism, pp. 10-14.
19. Plato seems to hint that at least some notion of teleology or design underlies the notion of function. According to him, the reason trimming is the function of the pruning knife and not of the other cutting tools he mentions is the fact that only the former has been fashioned for this purpose, while the other tools have not (353A). Yet understanding function in terms of design may have its limitations. Reference to design may be useful in understanding the function of artifacts of the kind Plato cites, but its role in explaining the functions of bodily organs or individuals is questionable. The design conception of function would be of some value for Plato's political objectives only if he were to presuppose that individuals are in some way designed or fashioned for some uses or functions. Plato does, of course, advocate in both the Republic and the Statesman something like fashioning citizens for certain purposes, but it seems quite clear that his use of function in determining the specific activities of individuals or classes in the Republic does not rely on a conception of function in terms of design, at least not of the type relevant to artifacts.
20. See Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Richard Kraut, "The Peculiar Function of Human Beings," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 9 (1979); Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); and Jennifer Whiting, "Aristotle's Function Argument: A Defense," Ancient Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 1 (1988).
21. See Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Richard Kraut, "The Peculiar Function of Human Beings," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 9 (1979); Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); and Jennifer Whiting, "Aristotle's Function Argument: A Defense," Ancient Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 1 (1988).
22. See Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Richard Kraut, "The Peculiar Function of Human Beings," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 9 (1979); Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); and Jennifer Whiting, "Aristotle's Function Argument: A Defense," Ancient Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 1 (1988).
23. See Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Richard Kraut, "The Peculiar Function of Human Beings," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 9 (1979); Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); and Jennifer Whiting, "Aristotle's Function Argument: A Defense," Ancient Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 1 (1988).
24. The metaphysical presuppositions of Aristotle's claim that certain activities are unique or peculiar to certain functional things are altogether overlooked by Thomas Nagel's critical discussion of eudaimonia in his "Aristotle on Eudaimonia," in Amélie Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
25. Gerasimos Santas, "Desire and Perfection in Aristotle's Theory of the Good," Apeiron, vol. 22, no. 2 (1989).
26. This objection was raised by Richard Kraut.
27. John L. Austin, "Agathon and Eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle," in his Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 31.
28. This view of rationality is also shared by economists. Commenting on the economists' view, David Gauthier writes: "Rationality does not enter into what the individual considers to be a commodity or regards as a factor service. In this sense economic rationality is not concerned with the ends of action.... My greater good, or what has greater utility for me, is by definition what I prefer, and more of what is good is necessarily a greater good." See Gauthier, "Economic Rationality and Moral Constraints," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 3 (1978), p. 77.
29. Of course, in the present context one thinks of Aristotle's unmoved mover; but in Metaphysics A, such cosmic teleology is suggested without any reference to any movers.
30. The transitivity of desire is considered by many as an axiom of choice, stating that if some agent A desires x for the sake of y and y for the sake of z, then A desires x for the sake of z. The asymmetry of desire states that if an agent A desires x for the sake of y, then A does not desire y for the sake of x. Aristotle hints at both these formal properties of desire in the first chapter of Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics and presupposes them in his subsequent discussion about the good. For a discussion of some of these formal features of desire and preference and a defense of the transitivity of preference and choice, see R. C. Jeffrey, "Preference among Preferences," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 71 (1974), pp. 377-91.
31. For a discussion of the relation of desire to the good in different conceptions of goodness (e.g., subjective versus objective), see Amartya Sen, "Well-Being, Agency, and Freedom," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 82 (1985), pp. 192-200.
32. The term teleiotes, as almost all translators point out, can mean a variety of things, including "perfection." If it means "perfection" in the present context, then Aristotle's finality test is not independent of perfectionism.
33. David Keyt, "Intellectualism in Aristotle," in John Anton and Anthony Preus, eds., Essays in Ancient Creek Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983).
34. Flutes seem to be a better example of a subservient end, one that Aristotle also finds paradigmatic of such ends. Some would say that it is even part of the meaning of the term "flute" that it is used for another final end, so that one cannot have the making of flutes as one's subordinate or final end. Wealth is clearly a much more complicated case, since so many - mistakenly, according to Aristotle - make it their subordinate or even final end.
35. Bernard Williams, "Aristotle on the Good: A Formal Sketch," Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 49 (October 1962).
36. Ibid., p. 290.
37. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 432-33; and Bruce Ackerman, "Neutralities," in Liberalism and the Good (supra note 11).
38. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 432-33; and Bruce Ackerman, "Neutralities," in Liberalism and the Good (supra note 11).
39. See, in this connection, David Keyt, "The Meaning of Bios in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics," Ancient Philosophy, vol. 9 (1989).
40. According to Rawls, "Social Unity and Primary Goods," pp. 164-65: [I]n formulating a conception of justice ... we start by viewing each person as a moral person moved by two highest order interests, namely, the interests to realise the two powers of moral personality. These two powers are the capacity for a sense of justice ... and the capacity to decide upon, to revise and rationally to pursue a conception of the good.
41. See Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 554, where Rawls remarks: Human good is heterogeneous because the aims of the self are heterogeneous. Although to subordinate all our aims to one end does not strictly speaking violate the principles of rational choice (not the counting principles anyway), it still strikes us as irrational, or more likely as mad. The self is disfigured and put in the service of one of its ends for the sake of system.
42. For a discussion of Aristotle's views on education and the end of the ideal state, see David Depew, "Politics, Music, and Contemplation in Aristotle's Ideal State," in David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr., eds., A Companion to Aristotle's "Politics" (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
43. See, in this connection, Fred D. Miller, Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's "Politics"(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), ch. 5.
44. Although most scholars agree on the teleological nature of Aristotle's ethical theory, those who take him to advocate a type of virtue ethics question the standard teleological reading of Aristotelian ethics. For a discussion of these issues, see Gerasimos Santas, "The Structure of Aristotle's Ethical Theory: Is It Teleological or a Virtue Ethics?" Topoi, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1996).
45. See note 3 above.
46. Rawls, Political Liberalism (supra note 3), pp. 40-43.
47. Miller, Nature, Justice, and Rights, pp. 45-56.
48. See ibid. for the most recent discussion and assessment of Aristotle's views on biology and their presuppositions. For a more lengthy discussion and defense of Aristotle's biology and its metaphysical presuppositions and implications, see Montgomery Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche: An Aristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
49. See ibid. for the most recent discussion and assessment of Aristotle's views on biology and their presuppositions. For a more lengthy discussion and defense of Aristotle's biology and its metaphysical presuppositions and implications, see Montgomery Furth, Substance, Form, and Psyche: An Aristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
50. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 183. For a recent assessment of MacIntyre's views, see Miller, Nature, Justice, and Rights, esp. pp. 198, 336-46.
51. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 183. For a recent assessment of MacIntyre's views, see Miller, Nature, Justice, and Rights, esp. pp. 198, 336-46.