Moral knowledge and the acquisition of virtue in Aristotle's Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics

Review of Metaphysics

Volumn 54, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 553-583

  London, Alex John ^a  

^a CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 0041078987     PISSN: 00346632     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (102)

1. Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (hereafter, "EE") 1.5.121654-26; Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter, "NE") 2.2.1103b26-9.
2. Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (hereafter, "EE") 1.5.121654-26; Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter, "NE") 2.2.1103b26-9.
3. EE 1.5.1216b4-26.
4. EE 1.5.1216b17-23. For translations of the EE I have relied primarily on Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics Books I, II, and VIII, trans. Michael Woods (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
5. EE 1.5.1216b17-23. For translations of the EE I have relied primarily on Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics Books I, II, and VIII, trans. Michael Woods (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
6. Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1.1.1182a9-10.
7. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.1.981a12-24. have relied on W. D. Ross's translation of the Metaphysics in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
8. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.1.981a12-24. have relied on W. D. Ross's translation of the Metaphysics in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
9. My understanding of this passage and the distinctions that follow is indebted to Daniel T. Devereux, "Particular and Universal in Aristotle's Conception of Practical Knowledge," The Review of Metaphysics 39, no. 3 (March 1986): 483-504.
10. See NE/EE 6.7.1141b15-23.
11. Devereux, "Particular and Universal," 493-4.
12. Aristotle, Magna Moralia 2.10.1208a31-b2. have relied on St. G. Stock's translation of the Magna Moralia in The Complete Works of Aristotle.
13. Aristotle, Magna Moralia 2.10.1208a31-b2. have relied on St. G. Stock's translation of the Magna Moralia in The Complete Works of Aristotle.
14. EE 1.2.1214b11-13.
15. EE 12.1214b10-11.
16. EE 1.2.1214b7-10.
17. EE 1.5.1216b20-6.
18. EE 1.6.1216b26-7.
19. EE 1.3.1215a1-2.
20. In the parallel passage at NE 1.3.1095a2-14, there is no such ambiguity. I discuss this passage Belle.
21. EE 1.6.1216035-7.
22. EE 1.6.1217a1-9.
23. EE 1.6.1217a10-18.
24. EE 1.2.1214b11-13.
25. EE 2.1.1220a22-4.
26. EE 2.1.1220a29-31.
27. In both the NE and the EE Aristotle says that virtue is concerned with (JtEQi) pleasures and pains. However, as D. J. Allan has pointed out, in the NE this remark "precedes and is external to the inquiry into the TÎ EOTI of moral virtue. It has only the status of a practical rule suggested to the disciplinarian. In the Eudemian argument this assertion plays its part during the inquiry into the ti eori and is incorporated in the actual definition of moral virtue"; D. J. Allan, "Quasi-Mathematical Method in the Eudemian Ethics," in Aristotle et les problemes de methode, ed. Suzanne Manison (Paris: Louvain, 1961), 315. Although Allen thinks that the EE is probably the later work (p. 318), I will argue below that this very difference in emphasis between the two works argues against that view.
28. In both the NE and the EE Aristotle says that virtue is concerned with (JtEQi) pleasures and pains. However, as D. J. Allan has pointed out, in the NE this remark "precedes and is external to the inquiry into the TÎ EOTI of moral virtue. It has only the status of a practical rule suggested to the disciplinarian. In the Eudemian argument this assertion plays its part during the inquiry into the ti eori and is incorporated in the actual definition of moral virtue"; D. J. Allan, "Quasi-Mathematical Method in the Eudemian Ethics," in Aristotle et les problemes de methode, ed. Suzanne Manison (Paris: Louvain, 1961), 315. Although Allen thinks that the EE is probably the later work (p. 318), I will argue below that this very difference in emphasis between the two works argues against that view.
29. EE 2.5.1222a10-13.
30. EE 2.4.1221b37.
31. EE 2.2.1220b7-8.
32. EE 2.2.1220b12-15.
33. EE 2A.1222a1-3.
34. EE 2.3.1220b27-30.
35. EE 2.10.122Tb5-11.
36. Aristotle, Rhetoic 1.2-1356a22-5.
37. EE 8.3.1249b and following.
38. EE 8.3.1248b17-25.
39. When Aristotle does mention virtuous action in the EE, it is often deample, Aristotle says that "the political life is concerned with noble actions (aksflkagasg asfasgjasgkla ) and these are the actions which spring from virtue (asfjskag sdagjas a fklas asdg asg)." See EE 1.4.1215b3-4, compare 1.5.1216a21, 1216b1, 2.1.1220a23-4, 2.6.1223a9-10, 3.7.1234a31-2, 8.3.1248b35-7. If noble actions are those which spring from virtue, then we may well wonder how we can acquire the virtues if in order to do so we must first perform noble actions. My point is just that remarks of this sort invite the kind of objection Aristotle considers in the NE.
40. NE 2.4.1105a25-b12. See Myles F. Burnyeat, "Aristotle on Learning to Be Good," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 69-92.
41. NE 2.4.1105a25-b12. See Myles F. Burnyeat, "Aristotle on Learning to Be Good," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 69-92.
42. The role of the emotions as an index of an agent's character is brought out nicely in J. O. Urmson, "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean," in Essays an Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 157-70. See also his Aristotle's Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), chapter 2. However, Urmson thinks that for Aristotle "what is primarily in a mean is a settled state of character" and that it follows from Aristotle's definition of virtue as a settled state that lies in a mean that "an emotion or action is in a mean if it exhibits a settled state that is in a mean" (p. 161). While Urmson's view may fit the text of the EE, it does not represent the position of the NE where Aristotle is explicit that virtue is a mean state because it both finds and chooses the mean (see NE 2.6.1107a5-6, 2.6.1106b14-16, 2.9.1109a20-5). Urmson's position is criticized at length in Rosalind Hursthouse, "A False Doctrine of the Mean," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 (1980-1): 57-72.
43. The role of the emotions as an index of an agent's character is brought out nicely in J. O. Urmson, "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean," in Essays an Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 157-70. See also his Aristotle's Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), chapter 2. However, Urmson thinks that for Aristotle "what is primarily in a mean is a settled state of character" and that it follows from Aristotle's definition of virtue as a settled state that lies in a mean that "an emotion or action is in a mean if it exhibits a settled state that is in a mean" (p. 161). While Urmson's view may fit the text of the EE, it does not represent the position of the NE where Aristotle is explicit that virtue is a mean state because it both finds and chooses the mean (see NE 2.6.1107a5-6, 2.6.1106b14-16, 2.9.1109a20-5). Urmson's position is criticized at length in Rosalind Hursthouse, "A False Doctrine of the Mean," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 (1980-1): 57-72.
44. The role of the emotions as an index of an agent's character is brought out nicely in J. O. Urmson, "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean," in Essays an Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 157-70. See also his Aristotle's Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), chapter 2. However, Urmson thinks that for Aristotle "what is primarily in a mean is a settled state of character" and that it follows from Aristotle's definition of virtue as a settled state that lies in a mean that "an emotion or action is in a mean if it exhibits a settled state that is in a mean" (p. 161). While Urmson's view may fit the text of the EE, it does not represent the position of the NE where Aristotle is explicit that virtue is a mean state because it both finds and chooses the mean (see NE 2.6.1107a5-6, 2.6.1106b14-16, 2.9.1109a20-5). Urmson's position is criticized at length in Rosalind Hursthouse, "A False Doctrine of the Mean," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 (1980-1): 57-72.
45. The role of the emotions as an index of an agent's character is brought out nicely in J. O. Urmson, "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean," in Essays an Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 157-70. See also his Aristotle's Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), chapter 2. However, Urmson thinks that for Aristotle "what is primarily in a mean is a settled state of character" and that it follows from Aristotle's definition of virtue as a settled state that lies in a mean that "an emotion or action is in a mean if it exhibits a settled state that is in a mean" (p. 161). While Urmson's view may fit the text of the EE, it does not represent the position of the NE where Aristotle is explicit that virtue is a mean state because it both finds and chooses the mean (see NE 2.6.1107a5-6, 2.6.1106b14-16, 2.9.1109a20-5). Urmson's position is criticized at length in Rosalind Hursthouse, "A False Doctrine of the Mean," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 (1980-1): 57-72.
46. NE 2.1.1103b14-22.
47. See NE 2.3.1104b13-16, 2.6.1106b15-25, 2.6.1107a4-8, 2.8.1108b18-19, 2.9.1109a20-5.
48. As John Cooper notes, this way of putting the matter also makes room for virtues like justice which, "is a virtue of action only, with no peculiar range of emotion under its control"; John Cooper, "The 'Magna Moralia' and Aristotle's Moral Philosophy," American Journal of Philology 94 (1973): 346.
49. NE 2.2.1103b25-32.
50. See NE 2.9.1109a20-5. See also 2.6.1106b27-8: "virtue is a mean state in the sense that it is able to aim at and hit the mean" (ieoonic TIC âpa ecrriv r| OJiETT] aroxaoTixri ye ouoa TO€ ueoou).
51. For instance, in his discussion of "mixed" actions at NE 3.1.1110a9-1110b9. Aristotle says that such actions, though involuntary in themselves ÏÏtuS belong more to the voluntary class, for actions are among the particulars (Htf? ' lxaOTa) and here the particular things are done voluntarily. He then notes that there is a good deal of variation among particulars. It is instructive to compare this with the parallel passage at EE 2.8.1225a2-37 where there are no such references to particulars.
52. NE 1.3.1095a3-4.
53. NE 1.4.1095b5-7.
54. NE 1.4.1095b7-9.
55. NE 2.1.1103b23-5.
56. NE 2.2.1103b25-32.
57. NE 2.2.1104a1-10.
58. For example, at NE 1.3.1094a25 Aristotle tells us that it will be useful if we can determine in outline (afdafg) what the supreme good is. At this point it seems that Aristotle in simply saying that having an account of the supreme good, even in outline, will help us to attain what is fitting. However, just a few lines later (1.3.1094a11-1095a13) Aristotle explains that our treatment of political science will be adequate if it achives the amount of precision (afjagjk) that is appropriate to its subject matter. Since politics is concerned with the noble and the just, and since there is a great deal of divergence and diversity (adjakgjajg asj aklfjas afda afajgk) among these things, we must be content if we can present a general outline of the truth about such matters (see also 1.7.1098a20-35, 1.11.1101a27, 2.7.1107b14, 3.3.1113a13, 3.5.1114b27, 10.9.1179a34).
59. NE 2.7.1107a28-32, 3.1.1110b6-7, 3.1.1110b31-1111a1, 3.1.1111a22-4.
60. NE 3.1.1110b8-9.
61. This is also the reason why there is much diversity and variance (£ S e°A ̈) amongst matters of nobility and justice (NE 1.3.1094b12-16). The closest parallel to these sorts of remarks in the EE is the statement that there is some variation (aa jasgjlak) amongst the ends for which we act at 2.8.1225a13-15.
62. NE 2.2.1104a9-10.
63. NE 2.9.1109b20-4, 4.5.1126b2-5. This emphasis on the virtuous person's powers of judgment and perception has no parallel in the EE. Nor does Aristotle's statement at NE 2.9.1109b13-14 (compare 2.6.1106b28-33, 2.9.1109a24-30) that it is especially difficult to find the mean in particular cases (xaXejtôv ô' ïocoç TOÛTO [that is, TOU uéoou ruyxaveiv] xal fidXior' EV TOÎÇ KaQ' êxaoTov). I return to this point below.
64. NE 2.6.1106b14-16.
65. NE 2.6.1106b27-8.
66. NE 2.9.1109a20-5.
67. Compare NE 2.6.1107a5-6.
68. Although the Definitions is a spurious Platonic work it dates from roughly the same period There shrewdness is defined as cleverness of the soul according to which the person possessing this quality is OTOxacraxoc with respect to anything he requires (412e4). Similarly, cleverness is defined as a disposition according to which the person possessing this quality is OTOxaoTixoc of their own ends (413a8). In both cases the term is associated with an agent's ability to achieve a desired end through a kind of improvisation and learned ability.
69. This translation is taken from Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997).
70. This is a particularly difficult passage to translate. Zeyl's translation in the Cooper volume reads "it has no account of the nature of whatever things it applies by which it applies them." I have altered the translation here following Dodds for the sake of clarity.
71. Gorgias 465a.
72. Philebus 55e.
73. Philebus 56b.
74. Aristotle's treatment of the role of experience in practical sciences at Metaphysics 1.1.981a1-24 seems to support this, as does the favorable way Aristotle refers to Polus' comments in the section of the Gorgias just mentioned.
75. NE/EE 6.7.1141b12-23.
76. This use of the verb oroxaouai is mentioned in Werner Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine As Model of Method in His Ethics," Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957): 56. It is also linked to improvisation and the ability to adapt to novel situations by Martha Nussbaum in Love's Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 71, and Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25.
77. This use of the verb oroxaouai is mentioned in Werner Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine As Model of Method in His Ethics," Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957): 56. It is also linked to improvisation and the ability to adapt to novel situations by Martha Nussbaum in Love's Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 71, and Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25.
78. This use of the verb oroxaouai is mentioned in Werner Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine As Model of Method in His Ethics," Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957): 56. It is also linked to improvisation and the ability to adapt to novel situations by Martha Nussbaum in Love's Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 71, and Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25.
79. I take Aristotle's description of virtue as otoxaorixf] TOU uéaou, his remarks about the importance of particulars, the fact that actions are among the particulars, and that the judgment of particulars requires perception (each of which is discussed above) to be strong indications that the noncommon books of the NE also contain the view that knowledge of the universal is secondary in importance to knowledge of particulars. I also take this to be the sense in which the passage at 6.7.1141b12-23 is an elaboration of themes which pervade the noncommon books of the NE. Since these themes are absent from the noncommon books of the EE, I will argue below that this supports the view that this portion of the common books underwent extensive revision when it was incorporated in the NE.
80. NE 6.8.1142a14-16. Compare 6.8.1142a13-25, 6.11.1143b12-14.
81. This suggests that although Aristotle in the EE disagrees with Plato concerning the kind of knowledge one must possess in order to become virtuous, he may still agree with the general claim that if we are to avoid suffering wrong or to avoid wrongdoing ourselves, "we must equip ourselves with a certain power and art (ovvaniv tiva xal TEXVT]V)"; Gorgias 509d-510a. Compare Protagoras 357a-b. This is not to claim that Aristotle thinks there is a craft of virtue, but that a necessary condition for acting well is the possession of some sort of general, theoretical knowledge. This would support the view of Jaeger and Rowe that in the EE Aristotle has not fully distanced himself from certain Platonic doctrines.
82. Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine," 54.
83. Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine," 60.
84. EE 1.8.1218b1-4.
85. NE 1.6.1097a11-13.
86. Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine," 56. See also NE 2.2.1104a1-10.
87. Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine," 56. See also NE 2.2.1104a1-10.
88. Jaeger mentions the way that both the practice of medicine and ethics requires perception (aïo6T)oiç) because in both cases there is no absolute measure, number, or weight because there is nothing stable in matters of health. See Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine," 56. He cites De vetere medicina, ch. 9, and refers the reader to Diokles von Karystos: die griechische Medizin und die Schule des Aristoteles (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1938), 46. He also claims that the use of oroxdCofiai in the NE is also used by the Hippocratic writer of the De vetere medicina in order to bring out that "there is no general rule, no absolute measure or number, that tells him exactly what to do in every case or at every moment, but he must aim at that which is fitting for the nature of his patient" (p. 58). Some of Aristotle's appeals to medicine in the NE are meant to highlight the importance of particulars and the agent s abilities to deal with them effectively. As noted above, these elements are absent from the discussion of virtue and the doctrine of the mean in the EE.
89. Politics 2.10.1271b24-5.
90. For example, Rowe points out that the NE "often anticipates points and distinctions which are formally developed only later, something of which the EE is almost entirely innocent"; C. J. Rowe, "The Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics A Study of Aristotle's Thought," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, supplement no. 3 (1971): 14.
91. EE 1.3.1214b28-1215a8.
92. EE 1.6.1217a1-9.
93. See Cooper, "The 'Magna Moralia,'" 335-6.
94. This view of the relationship between the common books and the two treatises is defended by scholars such as Gauthier-Jolif, Dirlmeier, C. J. Rowe, John Cooper, and Terence Irwin. Anthony Kenny in The Aristotelian Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) has recently challenged this view, claiming instead that the common books as we have them belong exclusively to the EE. However, see for example, Cooper's review of The Aristotelian Ethics, in Nous 15 (1981): 381-92, especially 387-92; also see Irwin's review in The Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980): 338-54.
95. This view of the relationship between the common books and the two treatises is defended by scholars such as Gauthier-Jolif, Dirlmeier, C. J. Rowe, John Cooper, and Terence Irwin. Anthony Kenny in The Aristotelian Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) has recently challenged this view, claiming instead that the common books as we have them belong exclusively to the EE. However, see for example, Cooper's review of The Aristotelian Ethics, in Nous 15 (1981): 381-92, especially 387-92; also see Irwin's review in The Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980): 338-54.
96. This view of the relationship between the common books and the two treatises is defended by scholars such as Gauthier-Jolif, Dirlmeier, C. J. Rowe, John Cooper, and Terence Irwin. Anthony Kenny in The Aristotelian Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) has recently challenged this view, claiming instead that the common books as we have them belong exclusively to the EE. However, see for example, Cooper's review of The Aristotelian Ethics, in Nous 15 (1981): 381-92, especially 387-92; also see Irwin's review in The Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980): 338-54.
97. Rowe, "The Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics," 109-14 has even gone so far as to claim that unlike NE books 5 and 7 which first appeared in the EE and were later revised for the NE, NE book 6 was written exclusively for the NE and did not originally appear in the EE.
98. EE 2.3.1220b27.
99. NE 2.6.1106a29-32. This should not be taken to mean that the mean relative to us cannot be a precise point. For example, see 2.6.1106b14-15, where we are told that virtue is better and more precise than any of the arts. Whether or not the mean is a range or a precise point will vary from case to case.
100. NE 2.6.1106a32.
101. For example, NE 2.9.1109b1-2.
102. NE 2.9.1109b14. Compare 2.6.1106b28-33, 2.9.1109a24-30.