Vice and reason

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 5, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 73-97

  Irwin, Terence ^a  

^a Cornell University ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

Aristotle; Character; Decision (prohairesis); Ethics; Fine; Pleasure; Reason; Regret; Self love; Vice

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950054429     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1011416908374     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. The sparseness of his account becomes especially clear when we compare the relevant parts of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae (ST) with the corresponding parts of the Ethics. Aquinas sees that to understand sin, we must distinguish its different sources. The three that he discusses are passion, ignorance, and deliberate badness (certa malitia). Deliberate badness is the characteristic attitude of the vicious person (It is not confined to the vicious person; see Aquinas, ST 1-2 q71 a4; q78 a2-3). We might reasonably ask, then, whether Aristotle has any plausible account of an attitude that corresponds to deliberate badness, as Aquinas conceives it. Much of what I will say to expound Aristotle is adapted from Aquinas, but I do not intend to discuss Aquinas here.
2. A vigorous statement of some of these objections to Aristotle is presented by Jean Hampton, "The Nature of Immorality," in E.F. Paul, F.D. Miller and J. Paul (eds.), Foundations of Moral and Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), pp. 22-44, at pp. 29-31.
3. A more carefully defended statement of the view that Aristotle is inconsistent appears in Julia Annas, "Plato and Aristotle on Friendship and Altruism," Mind 86 (1977), pp. 532-554.
4. Her argument is criticized by Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 177n41.
5. See Nicomachean Ethics (hereinafter cited as EN) 1166b6, 12, 1168a31, 1169a15, 1110b28, 30, 1113b7, 14 (the clearest sign of the equivalence of agathos / epieikês and of kakos and phaulos), 1115a13. In discussing vice in general, Aristotle mentions adikia and akolasia as salient examples, 1114a5. I cite the EN from the edition of I. Bywater (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892).
6. This phrase is deleted by some editors.
7. I reject Bywater's deletion of the passage anthrôpou de . . .. ei d'houtô, 1098a12-14. See his note in his edition, and his Contributions to the Textual Criticism of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892), p. 24f. The point I have made about the transition from kata logon ê ouk aneu logou to meta logou is one of a number of indications that Bywater is wrong to say that this passage is a mere duplicate.
8. This use of meta logou as broader than kata logon, and as equivalent to ouk aneu logou, reappears in 1144b26-8, if we accept Hardie's and Smith's interpretation. See W.F.R. Hardie, Aristotle's Ethical Theory, ed. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 237-239,
9. and J.A. Smith, "Aristotelica," Classical Quarterly 14 (1920), pp. 16-22. Their interpretation is strongly supported by the context of this passage, and by our passage in I 7.
10. Or perhaps "against."
11. We might (less plausibly) take panta as the subject of homophônei.
12. A good case can be made for understanding logos as "rational standard," and hence for understanding kata ton orthon logon as "in accordance with the correct rational standard" rather than "in accordance with correct reason." As far as I can see, this issue does not affect my main claims.
13. In EN, 1135b20, mê probouleusas de is not quite accurate, in the light of 1142b18-20.
14. Since Book VII is a book common to the Eudemian Ethics and the EN the reference to what has been said before may be a reference to the former work.
15. The first answer conflicts with Aristotle's discussion of good deliberation (euboulia). He does not allow good deliberation to anyone except the prudent person, who also grasps the right end (EN, 1142b29-33). He does not agree, then, that goodness of deliberation can be assessed purely instrumentally, without reference to the end involved.
16. I have discussed this further in Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Section 203.
17. This claim about prohairesis and boulêsis, in which I follow G.E.M. Anscombe, "Thought and Action in Aristotle," in Collected Papers, I (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), pp. 66-77, is not indisputable.
18. It is disputed by David Charles, Aristotle's Philosophy of Action (London: Duckworth, 1984), p. 151.
19. This does not by itself show that he has any articulate or explicit conception of happiness. Should we, then, infer that the vicious person's error consists in his failure to form an explicit conception of happiness? It is unlikely that Aristotle means us to infer this. He does not seem to take the absence of an explicit conception of happiness to be a necessary condition for vice. In his discussion of self-love, he mentions people who take any non-instrumental concern for the good of others to conflict with one's own good (EN, 1168a29-35). The fact that such questions can be raised suggests that Aristotle thinks people could reject the other-regarding virtues on the basis of a conception of their happiness that includes this judgment about concern for others. In Politics, VII 1, he suggests that very few people would think the virtues have no place in happiness; they dispute about the relative importance of external goods, since most people think they can get by with just a little virtue, and ought to pursue a high level of other goods (1323a27-38). Apparently, then, we can reach this level of explicitness about happiness, and still form views that encourage the vices.
20. In Aristotle's First Principles, Section 237, I say more about the fine. What I say has been criticized by Kelly Rogers, "Aristotle's Conception of to kalon," Ancient Philosophy 13 (1993), pp. 355-371,
21. and by John Cooper, "Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value," in M. Frede and G. Striker (eds.), Rationality in Greek Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 81-114, esp. pp. 102-112. Rogers and Cooper add further helpful discussion on other aspects of the fine. In this paper I do not rely on the connexion between the fine and the common good (though it seems to me to make some of Aristotle's contrasts between virtue and vice more plausible), but on the connexion between the fine and reason (which is perhaps under-estimated by Rogers and Cooper).
22. This is a bit too brief. I am not saying that only virtuous people can desire or choose virtuous actions because they are fine (to say so would be inconsistent with, e.g., EN, 1116a28-9, 1179b29-31), but that only virtuous people decide, on the basis of a correct prohairesis, on virtuous actions for their own sake because they are fine.
23. Or perhaps I should say "may agree." Perhaps not every vice involves choice of actions because they are fine; but if some involve it, or do not exclude it, choice of actions because they are fine cannot be a distinguishing mark of virtue.
24. I read oregesthai tou kalou.
25. Cf. EN, III 4 (though this chapter is not free of difficulty).
26. See Rhetoric, 1390a15-17, 1358b38-1359a5.
27. I have discussed the Phaedrus in Plato's Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), Section 208.
28. See EN, 1116a17-29, and cf. 1117a4-9, 1128b16-31.
29. In requiring a virtuous person's aims to be thoroughly good-dependent, Aristotle does not imply that the content of our non-rational desires and inclinations is irrelevant to virtue. He includes our initial desires, preferences, and aspirations among the starting points for the reflexion that produces a correct conception of the good; but he does not take a conception of the good to provide simply a strategy for the satisfaction of our pre-reflective desires.
30. A related contrast between virtuous and vicious people is developed by Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character (Oxford: Oxford Unviersity Press, 1989), pp. 113-117. She argues that the vicious person does not give the same role to praxis, as opposed to poiêsis, in his life as the virtuous person gives it. She correctly says that vicious actions do not constitute their own ends in the way that virtuous actions constitute their own ends. I am trying to explain what further feature of the vicious person explains this fact.
31. We cannot remove this difficulty by saying that Aristotle is concerned only with the specific vice of intemperance. Even if we say this about Book VII, where he is concerned with incontinence versus intemperance, we cannot say it about Book IX; for the description of vice in general claims that vicious people aim at pleasure (EN, 1166b6-11).
32. I will use "regret" simply to represent metameleia, without implying that this is always the most appropriate English rendering.
33. In EN, 1166b12-13 I read pepraktai, dia tên mochthêrian misousi te kai pheuogousi to zên, following one ms.
34. My non-pejorative use of "self-satisfaction" is partly derived from T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1882), Section 154.
35. Aristotle calls this error "ignorance about expedient things," "ignorance in the decision," and"universal ignorance," 1110b27-33. I will not discuss his reasons for taking it to be blameworthy error.
36. They are ultimate in so far as they are worthy of choice apart from their contribution to any end outside them. They are subordinate, though not purely instrumental, to happiness.
37. I read versions of this paper in Oxford, Pittsburgh, and Princeton. I especially remember helpful comments by David Charles, Steven Quevedo, Jennifer Whiting, Susan Meyer, Victor Caston, John Cooper, and Michael Frede.