[Article Notes] The purpose of my notes is for me to keep track of what I thought of the article when I read it. It is intended only for my own future reference, but if anyone else finds it helpful, that would also make me happy.
The structure is as follows. First, a summary. Second, quotes integral to the summary of the paper that I would potentially like to include in my future papers or things I found particularly interesting. Third, some thoughts of mine, e.g. objections because something seemed insufficiently supported or non-obvious, points that were particularly interesting / insightful. This document is not clean… it is just my notes 🙂
Virtue of Character in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Professor Hendrik Lorenz (Princeton University)
The standard view of virtue of character in EN as Hendrik characterizes it in this paper is such that the virtues of character are wholly constituted by non-rational and appropriately habituated conditions of a person’s capacities for experiencing feelings, e.g. pleasure, anger (1) & (2). Hendrik thinks this is wrong.
His two central motivations: 1. Aristotle’s account of justice, a virtue of character, is constituted by an ability to grasp reasons (3), and 2. it seems repellant for Aristotle’s ethical theory to hold that having an outstandingly good character does not in important part consist in being disposed to grasp suitable reasons, and instead to think that the understanding of relevant matters of values and an openness to suitable reasons are a distinct condition from virtue of character (4).
Hendrik’s thesis: Virtues of character are rational states, i.e. constituted in part by rationality (5).
This conclusion could impact the question whether Book V/VI should or should not be as part of both Eudemian Ethics and Nicomachean Ethics or just the Nicomachean Ethics.
His Argument, Basically:
Part 1: Aristotle’s division of the soul in I.13 is a division between reason (including reason’s capacity for desire, wish [βούλησις]) and a non-rational part constituted by capacities for appetitive and spirited desire. Virtue of character in the standard view cannot account for virtuous people wishing for correct goals nor for them deliberating well, because the capacities appropriate for these are of reason.
Hendrik argues, just because Aristotle calls the relevant non-rational part of the soul the appetitive and generally desiring part (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν καὶ ὅλως ὀρεκτικὸν) does not mean that all desires are from there. He uses evidence from De motu animalium 7,701a36-b1 for Aristotle differentiating between ‘mere desire’ and ‘non-rational desire’ (6). Other animals have appetite and spirit, but humans uniquely have wish (βούλησις). Reason is capable of issuing its own impulses (ὁρμαί), because if reason has its own impulses then the 1102b21 passage wherein Aristotle says that ‘the impulses of the uncontrolled person go in opposite directions’ makes most sense (8).
Part 2: Aristotle’s decision [προαίρεσις] crucially involves grasping reasons in favor of performing a course of action. Virtues of character are states that issue in decision and make decision correct.
Virtue of character, which Aristotle defines as a ἕξις προαιρετική, should be translated as a ‘state that issues in decision’. Prohairesis is based on deliberation about how to achieve an end that one wishes for (9). Thus, we don’t understand a person’s decision unless we know the way someone chose to achieve the end and the end for which they wished (10). His evidence comes from the Eudemian Ethics Book 2 Chapter 11. This evidence, Hendrik thinks, is compatible with Nicomachean Ethics Book 3 Chapters 1-5 (11).
Is Aristotle’s etymological remark on prohaireton (a thing decided on), i.e. chosen (aireton) before (pro) other things:
(i) a temporal/spatial ‘before’ some relevant other things,
(ii) the choosing of the chosen thing takes place before some other things
(iii) a preferential ‘before’?
Evidence from EE 2.10 [1226b5-9] suggests that decision is something that arises from belief & wish together. Thus we get rid of (ii). But between (i) and (iii)… Hendrik settles on (i) because deliberation doesn’t always have to have a comparison of alternatives with one being more preferable than another (12).
Forming a decision, then, is opting for something as a preliminary to something else. There is a relevant textual issue with this; there are two main manuscripts for 1113a12.
(i) ἐκ τοῦ βουλεύσασθαι γὰρ κρίναντες ὀρεγόμεθα κατὰ τὴν βούλευσιν.
(ii) ἐκ τοῦ βουλεύσασθαι γὰρ κρίναντες ὀρεγόμεθα κατὰ τὴν βούλησιν. (Mb)
Hendrik wants to take (ii) and read it as “decision will be deliberative desire to do an action that is up to us; for when we have judged [that it is right] as a result of deliberation, we desire to do it in accord with [or with respect to] our wish”. The parallel in the Eudemian Ethics II.10 commits Aristotle to this, too. Nicomachean Ethics III.5 is also great with this: “we wish for the end, and deliberate and decide about things that promote it”.
This reading also works swimmingly to understand why Aristotle thinks that decisions distinguish states of character better than actions do (NE 3.2, EE 2.11 1228a2-3) (13). Note also, that this is compatible with the idea: “the correctness of any given correct decision is in very large part due to the correctness of the goal it aims at”, which makes sense more with the EE doctrine where “the task of identifying suitable means is a relatively minor one, much less challenging than identifying the correct goal in the circumstances in question” (p.191-2).
Part 3: Aristotle’s virtues of character must be rational states because X, Y, Z, and Book VI offers decisive textual evidence to conceive of them as rational states.
Premise: there is no decisive evidence supporting that virtue of character is identified with a certain state of the non-rational part of the human soul (14).
There is good philosophical reason for virtues of character to be partly constituted by a certain good state of reason: Virtue of character, which disposes you to form correct decisions, seems to make good sense to conceive of it as partly constituted by goodness at deliberation.
- Virtues of character are acquired states that people exercise or express in suitable activities & performances, i.e. actions that express the virtue. You come to have virtue X by doing X-type actions. But Aristotle thinks there is a big difference between doing X-type actions and doing X-type actions the way a person with X does them (EN II.4 & VI.12, 1144a13-20).
- Doing X-type actions the way a person w X does them:
- knowledge of the particulars
- acting on decision
- deciding it for its own sake
- acting from a firm and unchanging position
- Virtues of character are kind of like first actualities, they are states of preparedness for activities… that involve not only a desire to act in a certain way, but also, among other things, a decision to act in this way.
- Forming any decision requires deliberation, which presupposes an end and thought about how to promote that end.
- Goodness at deliberation is a state of reason strictly speaking (EN VI.9), correctness about what is advantageous in relation to the goal of which phronesis is true supposition. Goodness at deliberation is not only latching onto what’s correct but also grasping the reason why Y is the thing to do in the circumstances.
There is textual support for this:
- virtue of character: hexis prohairetike
- -ikos / -tikos = indicate that sb or sth is capable of doing sth or suited to doing sth
- thus, hexis prohairetike seems like: a state that makes one capable of or suited to making decisions, or capable of suited to making decisions of one kind or quality or another
- 4 definitional claims of states of reason in Book VI, the state has -ikos
- episteme: hexis apodeiktike
- techne: hexis poietike
- phronesis: hexis praktike
- These are all states that concern doing certain things, being in these states makes you capable of / suited to doing activities of a particular kind.
- knowledge: a state that issues in demonstrations
- craft: a state that issues in productions
- prudence: a state that issues in actions
- ….virtue of character: a state that issues in decisions
- this includes disposing a person to deliberate well about how to promote their ends
2 Passages that are hard for Hendrik’s view, he provides interpretations that work with his view:
- EN VI.12: τὴν μὲν οὖν προαίρεσιν ὀρθὴν ποιεῑ ἡ ἀρετή, τὸ δ’ ὅσα ἐκείνης ἕνεκα πέφυκε πράττεσθαι οὐκ ἐστι τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀλλ’ ἑτέρας δυνάμεως. (1144a20-2)
- People take this as: “virtue of character makes decision correct, whereas ‘the actions that are naturally done to fulfill the decision are the concern not of virtue, but of another capacity”
- ^this translation Hendrik thinks is super bad.
- VI.13: οὐκ ἔσται ἡ προαίρεσις ὀρθὴ ἄνευ φρονήσεως οὐδ’ ἄνευ ἀρετῆς. ἢ μὲν γὰρ τὸ τέλος ἢ δὲ τὰ πρὸς τὸ τέλος ποιεῖ πράττειν. (1145a4-6)
- ‘decision is not going to be correct without phronesis or without virtue of character: for the latter makes one do the goal, the former makes one do those things that promote the goal’
Context of both passages: Book VI Aristotle discusses sophia and phronesis, then articulates & resolves difficulties/puzzles about them. One of the difficulties he raises is this: phronesis seems like it’s not useful if we already have virtues of character. Characterizing virtue of character as a disposition to do virtuous actions, basically this difficulty holds… but he resolves this difficulty by saying that acting well in a consistent and reliable way requires phronesis. Phronesis is responsible for identifying and implementing suitable ways of promoting virtuous person’s ends. 2 questions arise from this:
- Do the disposition to adopt fine ends & phronesis together constitute 1 unified dispositional state of virtue of character?
- Hendrik’s answer: yes – acting in X-type way, on correct decision and from a stable state is a unified state
- This unified state = virtue of character?
- Hendrik’s answer: yuppp. phronesis is an integral part of virtue of character
Reinterpretation of Passage 1: τὴν μὲν οὖν προαίρεσιν ὀρθὴν ποιεῑ ἡ ἀρετή, τὸ δ’ ὅσα ἐκείνης ἕνεκα πέφυκε πράττεσθαι οὐκ ἐστι τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀλλ’ ἑτέρας δυνάμεως (1144a20-2). Let’s rely on EE Book 2 Chapter 11. We get: virtue of character makes decision correct by making correct the end for the sake of which the decision is made, whereas it belongs to cleverness or phronesis to identify and implement suitable ways of achieving the end. Problems arise from this reading:
- The correctness of decision gets underdescribed; it is really just not as simple as deciding for the sake of a fine end. We miss out on the correctly-identify-a-way-to-get-it part of decision.
- The contribution of virtue of character to the output of a virtuous action is limited to the setting fine ends. The virtuous action becomes an exercise of phronesis.
Hendrik’s alternative interpretation-building:
Literal Translation: Decision, then, is made correct by virtue. But as for those things that are naturally done for the sake of that, that task belongs not to virtue, but to another capacity.
Most people take the ‘that’ as picking up decision. Hendrik thinks it’s picking up ‘virtue’, instead. Then, the actions that are done for the sake of becoming virtuous is a task for the other capacity of phronesis. Hendrik uses ἐκείνης pronoun usage as support (15). This makes more sense. Virtue seems more like a thing to strive towards than a decision.
Thus, Hendrik thinks the passage should instead indicate: “Aristotle is saying that virtue of character makes decision correct, and so ensures good and noble action, but that it is the task not of virtue, but of some other capacity, to identify and perform those actions that are naturally done for the sake of virtue: those actions, that is, that naturally establish any given virtue of character. These will be actions that are virtuous, or very close to being virtuous, but that are not yet perfect expressions of fully completed virtue.” (p. 205). This relevant capacity is cleverness. Hendrik uses support from II.9 about the great difficulty of hitting the mean (16).
- The κατὰ vs μετὰ the ὀρθός λόγος passage (17), (18) and (19).
Quoting:
(1) “According to that view, the theory identifies the virtues of character with appropriately habituated conditions of the person’s capacities for experiencing feelings such as pleasure, distress, anger, and shame.” (p.177)
(2) “The view I mean to oppose takes Aristotle to hold that the virtues of character are wholly constituted by excellent conditions of a part or aspect of the human soul that is not itself capable of reasoning, deliberating, or thinking, but that is responsible for the person’s dispositions or tendencies to desire pleasures and to be averse to pains and to feel emotions such as anger and shame.” (p.178).
(3) “justice, for instance, is in important part constituted by the just person’s disposition to grasp suitable reasons for acting in certain ways” (p.178)
(4) “it seems repellant for a theory of virtue to deny that having an outstandingly good character in important part actually consists in being disposed to grasp such reasons in a way that rests on a suitable understanding of human affairs, and instead to insist that character-virtue consists exclusively in dispositions to experience certain feelings on appropriate occasions, allowing only that establishing and maintaining character-virtue for some reason or other requires also establishing and maintaining, as a distinct condition of the mind, an understanding of relevant matters of values and a corresponding openness to suitable reasons for acting in certain ways.” (p.178)
(5) “Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics conceives of the virtues of character as rational states, states partly constituted by a well-informed, thoughtful quickness to grasp suitable reasons for acting in certain ways if and when such reasons arise.” (p.189)
(6) “However, there is evidence that Aristotle recognizes and employs a use of that word in which it does not mean ‘desire’ but specifically ‘mere desire’ or ‘non-rational desire’. At MA 7,701a36-b1, he says that ‘among beings that desire to act, some produce or act on account of appetite or spirit, others on account of mere desire [orexis] or wish’.” Footnote in (7). “The flow of the sentence suggests strongly that orexis and wish are meant to be different kinds of desire, just as appetite and spirit are meant to be different kinds of desire. The other two classes of agents that the passage distinguishes from one another seem to be the non0human animals on the one hand, which are capable only of appetite and spirit, and humans on the other hand, capable not only of non-rational desire but also of wish.” (p.183)
(7) τῶν δ’ ὀρεγομένων πράττειν τὰ μὲν δι’ ἐπιθυμίαν ἢ θυμὸν τὰ δὲ δι’ ὄρεξιν ἢ βούλησιν τὰ μὲν ποιοῦσι τὰ δὲ πράττουσιν. This is the text of all the authoritative manuscripts. M.C. Nussbaum, in her edition of the De motu animalium (Princeton, 1978), brackets ὄρεξιν ἢ, but only because she finds a narrow use of the word orexis ‘unparalleled, and inexplicable here’ (346). (p.183)
(8) “…the argument for distinguishing between these two parts or aspects of the human soul appeals to the psychological conflicts characteristic of controlled and uncontrolled people, noting that ‘the impulses of the uncontrolled person go in opposite directions’ (1102b21). These are meant to be psychological conflicts between reason itself, or reason strictly speaking, and another part or aspect of the soul, about which Aristotle wants to say that it is non-rational, but capable of obeying reason. But for reason to be capable of issuing its own impulses (ὁρμαί), impulses that another part or aspect of the soul can oppose and do battle with, it must be able to give rise to desires of its own. It can do this if the capacity for one kind of desire, wish, is assigned to it, but not if all the kinds of desire, including wish, are assigned to the non-rational potentially obedient part.” (p.184)
(9) “Aristotle means by prohairesis a decision, based on deliberation about how to achieve a wished-for objective, to do something or other that is sufficiently determinate for one to think that one can do this (given the right circumstances) without needing to engage in further deliberation about how to do it.”
(10) “one does not know fully what the decision is that someone is acting on unless one knows both what the means is that he is trying to obtain or implement, and what the goal is for the sake of which he is trying to obtain or implement that means.” (p.185)
(11) “Having announced the topic of decision, Aristotle first distinguishes between action on decision and voluntary action. He then mentions a number of things that, he reports, people identify decision with (appetite, spirit, wish, and belief or judgment of a certain kind). He spends most of the remainder of chapter 2 eliminating every one of those candidates. At the end of chapter 2 he makes an important move, indicating the connection between decision and having deliberated ‘before’, presumably before both making the decision in question and acting on it. Chapter 3 then turns to deliberation, explaining what that is. Towards the end of that chapter, he identifies what is decided on with the means grasped as the result of deliberation–I take it, as the result of a process of deliberation that has reached its last stage, which is the identification of a means that one thinks one can implement without deliberating how to go about implementing it… [1113a2-6] & [1112b34-3a2]… that later text makes it clear that Aristotle’s ideas is this: what is decided on is the means identified as the final result of deliberation.”
(12) It is worth noting that deliberating does not always involve comparing alternatives. Sometimes one adopts a means to an end without envisaging any alternatives, perhaps because there is no alternative, or because there is no alternative that merits envisaging or considering. But if what it is to be an unqualified choice is to be understood by contrast with a choice of one thing in preference to another, then a choice simply of one thing (not in preference to anything else) would be an unqualified choice and hence not a decision. This seems an unattractive result.” (p.187)
(13) “If we know what decision it is that someone is acting on, we thereby know both what goal he is pursuing, and what means he has decided on. We know both what the decision is of (the means in question) and what it is for the sake of (the goal in question). In this way, decisions are individuated as the kinds of decisions they are by both what is decided on and the goal with a view to which the decision is made.” (p.191)
(14) “It is worth noting not only what Aristotle is saying here, but also what he is not saying: he is not saying, not here and not anywhere in the Nicomachean Ethics, what he says repeatedly in the Eudemian Ethics, including in the passage that is the counterpart or precursor in the Eudemian Ethics of our text, namely that the virtues of thought belong to reason, whereas the virtues of character belong to a non-rational part of the soul.” (p.193)
(15) “The pronoun that Aristotle is using in the sentence (ἐκείνης) tends to indicate a contrast or opposition between the thing or person in question ad other things or people. For example, in addressing his troops before a battle with the Athenians, the Spartan king Archidamus invites them to imagine the Athenians’ response when they see the Spartans destroy their property: that is, the property of the Athenians, of all people (τὰ ἐκαίνων). He adds that the Athenians are ‘more in the habit of invading and ravaging their neighbors’ territory, than of seeing their own treated in this way’ (Thuc. 2.11). The idea is that the Athenians are not used to seeing the destruction of their own property, as opposed to other people’s property. Similarly, the force of the demonstrative pronoun in our passage might be to indicate that actions done for the goal of virtue itlself, of all goals, are plainly not the responsibility of virtue, whatever other goals it may fall to virtue to pursue.” (p.204)
(16) “Given the great difficulty of hitting the mean, he says in 2.9, one should sometimes settle for the less bad of the two defective extremes (1109a34-5). He goes on to say that ‘we must examine what we ourselves drift into easily. For different people have different natural tendencies towards different goals, and we shall come to know our own tendencies from the pleasure or pain that arises in us. We must drag ourselves off in the contrary direction. For if we pull far away from error, as they do in straightening bent wood, we shall reach the intermediate condition. (NE 2.9, 1109b1-7)” (p.205)
(17) “Now there are quite a few texts… in which Aristotle characterizes states as being ‘with reason’ (μετὰ λόγου). He says this about scientific knowledge (NE 6.6, 1140b33), about crafts or arts such as that of building (NE 6.4, 1140a6-8), and about phronesis (NE 6.5 1140b20-1). In those cases it is fairly clear what he has in mind in characterizing the state in question in this way: the idea is that these are states that crucially involve being ready to grasp (and provide) suitable reasons or explanations with regard to some given domain. This is clear in a remark about knowledge in NE 6.6: Aristotle there says that in every branch of knowledge there are principle of demonstration, and explains this by pointing out that knoweldge is ‘with reason’ (cf. Posterior Analytics 2.19, 100b10).” (p.208)
(18) “It is also relevant to our purposes that saying about a power or capacity that it is ‘with reason’ (μετὰ λόγου) rather than non-rational (ἄλογος) is Aristotle’s standard way of saying that the pwoer or capacity in question is a rational one…” (p.208)
(19) “The Eudemian distinction between virtues of thought and character-virtue is another text that provides important evidence as to what Aristotle means when he characterizes states as ‘with reason’: Since the virtues of thought are with reason, virtues of this kind belong to the part of the soul that has reason, which is the part of the soul that issues commands in so far as it has reason, but the virtues of character belong to the part of the soul that is non-rational but naturally follows the part that has reason. (EE 2.1, 1220a4-12).” (p.209)
some preliminary thoughts:
The main point that is driving this whole paper, I’d say, is that because Aristotle’s conception of what it means to achieve our ends in the Nicomachean Ethics is significantly more complicated than what it was in the Eudemian Ethics, reason is a necessary part of being an outstandingly good person. Life is too complicated to reliably do the right thing as a good person would do without the ability to think through what’s ‘correct’. Aristotle’s understanding of what it takes to achieve our goals develops into something more complex. With it, virtue of character requires something more complex for which our non-rational parts cannot account.
Hendrik’s characterization of the opposing view in (1) & (2) seems uncharitable, given how much conceptual filling in there is on the other side as to how the rationality part / the upshots that Hendrik gets from making virtue of character in itself partly rational can be got from the in some way obeys reason, etc. I think we can get the same upshots by a more elaborate view on this relationship, instead of forcing the long-interpreted text to say something different than it has been for years. It’s interesting to me to see people fill in the conceptual work of the necessity / role of reason in being a good person in different ways.
The ‘opposite directions’ passage can equally be explained by the non-rational part of the soul having multiple urges. I can have the urge for sex, a glass of cold water, and ice cream all at the same time. So motivational conflict doesn’t necessarily force us to have to have wish in the rational part of the soul. It’s also not clear to me that ‘rational desires’ cannot be viscerally held by some people. E.g. Why can’t I have a carnal desire to acquire knowledge. Seems like Hendrik would think Aristotle places this sort of desire in the rational part of the soul. Or maybe this isn’t right. Maybe Plato’s idea of a philosophical soul would put this sort of orexis in the appetitive part. (think: Republic Book V lover of wisdom).
Hendrik’s reasoning for deciding that a prohaireton should be understood as something is temporally before some relevant other things (12) instead of the preferential ‘before’ is spot on especially when we think about the fully virtuous and thus also prudent person’s deliberation. It should be immediately clear to him what the best option, singular, is to accomplish their ends. There would be no preferential option for there would be one best method for the prudent person. They certainly make decisions, and their decisions certainly indicate how virtuous they are.
I don’t think that just being μετὰ λόγου is added to something means that that itself has to be rational, per se. It seems to me that Aristotle’s accounts for things allow for the conceptual space wherein this can be added to describe things that are closely related to reason without it necessarily being constitutive of it.
How would Hendrik accommodate II.4, 1105b1-5? “First, he must know [that he is doing virtuous actions]; second, he must decide on them, and decide on them for themselves; and third, he must also do them from a firm and unchanging state. As conditions for having a craft, these three do not count, except for the bare knowing. As a condition for having virtue [of character], however, the knowing counts for nothing, or for only a little, whereas the other two conditions are very important, indeed all-important. And we achieve these other two conditions by the frequent doing of just and temperate actions.”
p.202-203: I don’t think one of the problems Hendrik raises as a problem is a problem: Hendrik thinks that the activity undertaken to achieve an end turns out to be not an exercise of virtue but of phronesis…. it seems fine to me to have an excellent state like phronesis is responsible, instead of virtue of character, for the executions of the smaller tasks, and to have virtue of character responsible for the overall picture. I guess I am thinking that a person who has outstandingly good character need not have to do things super quickly. To have an outstandingly good character doesn’t necessarily involve doing things as quick or as efficiently as possible, but to do everything according to what objective ethics requires. I do think that Hendrik is right to think that the response to reasons that there are regarding what it takes to lead a flourishing life is important to have virtue of character—but it is not clear to me that this has to occur in a conscious way that cleverness/phronesis would require; maybe Huck Finn case is a good counterexample. Would the person who simply meditates and always does what really ~feels right~ to them and gets it right not count as a person of outstandingly good character? Or even, the paradigmatic person of outstandingly good character would simply do what feels right because they have simply internalized all the right reasons/truth of the world. So that person wouldn’t have to really think anymore, they simply would know.
