Aristotle: Moral Virtues, Misc

In order to understand the Gricean "logic of conversation" that underlies the Nicomachean Ethics, Burger believes it necessary to identify the audience to which the work is addressed: this is the audience of men and citizens who have received a good education, that is, have learned the virtues through habit, but have doubts about the content of the education received, that is, about the beautiful and the just. Aristotle proposes on the one hand to give them reasons to defend and (...) justify the moral virtues they have learned and they practice, but on the other hand also to lead them to understand a dimension that goes beyond the horizon of traditional ethos. (shrink)

En los escritos de Aristóteles está frecuentemente relacionada la investigación (zethesis) con la deliberación (boulé). En el presente texto se hará una revisión de dicha relación, y se tratará de rechazar una relación meramente analógica entre investigar y deliberar, que, como se intentará mostrar, se basa fundamentalmente en una fuerte distinción entre razón teórica y razón práctica. Se tratará de probar una relación mucho más fuerte entre investigación y deliberación, mostrando que no es ni su objeto ni las habilidades racionales (...) y cognitivas lo que distingue la una de la otra, sino simplemente su finalidad: investigar es el género de la deliberación, y, por tanto, es preciso distinguir entre investigación teórica e investigación práctica o deliberación, cuyo fin, a diferencia de la investigación teórica, es hallar la manera de alcanzar un estado de cosas determinado, lo cual no depende tanto del objeto mismo, como es el caso de la teoría, sino del agente. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the possibilities of relating scientific knowledge, practical and theoretical, with normative accounts. Firstly, we investigate how the particularized aspect of political science guarantees a degree of normative appropriateness between laws according to habit and the activity of phrónesis as a form of political intelligence. Secondly, we investigate how the universal aspect attributed to theoretical science and written laws could identify a criterion of epistemological validity that expresses normativity. In this sense, the reader will find in this essay (...) a study about methodological questions in Aristotelian philosophy, mainly in the direction in which the texts of practical philosophy establish a methodological relation with the texts of theoretical philosophy. The possibility of inferring normative aspects in Aristotle’s political philosophy depends on the direct results of this kind of methodological connection. (shrink)

I argue that, for Aristotle, virtue of character is a state of the non-rational part of the soul that makes one prone to making and acting on decisions in virtue of that part’s standing in the right relation to (correct) reason, namely, a relation that qualifies the agent as a true self-lover. In effect, this central feature of virtue of character is nothing else than love of practical wisdom. As I argue, it not only explains how reason can hold direct (...) authority over non-rational desires but also why Aristotle defines virtue of character as hexis prohairetikē. (shrink)

I argue that, for Aristotle, virtues of character like bravery and generosity are, like the emotions, properties that require a hylomorphic analysis. In order to understand what the virtues are and how they come about, one needs to take into account their formal components and their material components. The formal component of a virtue of character is a psychic disposition, its material component is the appropriate state and composition of the blood. I defend this thesis against two potential objections and (...) I show that it is relevant for a study of Aristotle’s ethics. (shrink)

This paper assesses the aesthetic components of the experience of forgiveness to develop a procedural model of the phenomenological process that negotiates cognitive judgments and understanding with emotional affective states. By bringing the Greek concepts of kalokagathia and eudaimonia into conversation with Ricoeur’s “solicitude,” I suggest that the impetus for engaging in the process of forgiveness is best understood narratively as the pursuit of a life well lived (in terms of beauty). Consequently, forgiveness is revealed as a technique for developing (...) both an optimal personal and public character (in both moral and aesthetic terms). (shrink)

In recent decades, it has been argued that the modern concept of forgiveness is absent from Aristotle’s conception of συγγνώμη as it appears in his Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle’s view is more modern than it might appear. I defend the idea that Aristotle’s treatment of συγγνώμη, when seen in conjunction with his theory of ethical decision, involuntary action, and character alteration, commits him to a cognitive and emotional theory of forgiveness that is both (...) well-grounded and thoroughly modern. I go on to claim that Aristotle’s view of συγγνώμη helps to solve at least four controversial problems about the nature of forgiveness raised by modern philosophers: how one can forgive a wrong without condoning it, whether forgiveness is a duty, whether moral luck requires us to forgive more widely, and whether forgiveness ought to be unconditional. (shrink)

O objetivo dessa dissertação é discutir alguns conceitos que dizem respeito ao estatuto da eudaimonía, tendo como pressuposto que o texto da Ética a Nicômaco possa por si só esclarecer como ela é entendida por Aristóteles. Na minha hipótese, as discussões metodológicas estabelecidas no livro I servem como orientações suficientes para esclarecer a relação entre a realização da eudaimonía e o exercício das virtudes da alma, sem com isso haver a necessidade de que recorramos a outras obras de Aristóteles. Em (...) conseqüência dessa orientação, priorizei nessa pesquisa entender a afirmativa de Aristóteles de que a eudaimonía é um bem realizável pela ação do homem virtuoso, sendo um bem de caráter prático que consisti no exercício de um érgon, que é exclusivo ao homem; privilegiei então os conceitos relacionados à vida prática para o esclarecimento do que seja a eudaimonía, a relação entre as arētaí ēthikaí, a phrónesis e a sophía na sua realização, objetivando também, através dessa relação, entender as conexões entre lógos, práxis e páthos na realização do bem supremo do homem. Meu objetivo é pensar as relações entre a eudaimonía e as virtudes morais e intelectuais na Ética a Nicômaco; em conseqüência, compreender o lugar da vida prática e da vida teórica na realização da vida plena. (shrink)

Questo contributo riguarda il tema specifico dell’umiltà come virtù etica e nasce all’interno di uno studio più ampio sulla relazione tra umiltà in campo morale e umiltà intellettuale, tema ricorrente tra i sostenitori della Virtue Epistemology. L’intento di questo saggio è quello di approfondire il recente dibattito circa la natura dell’umiltà come virtù e la sua definizione e il mio obiettivo è quello di mostrare come la tradizione aristotelico-tomista, generalmente sottovalutata da chi si occupa di umiltà nella filosofia analitica contemporanea, (...) possa fornire una risposta soddisfacente alle problematiche più recenti relative a questo tema. La struttura di questo breve contributo prevede un primo paragrafo in cui offrirò una sintetica panoramica sulla concezione di umiltà di Aristotele e Tommaso d’Aquino. Quindi, nel secondo paragrafo, analizzerò la ricezione di questa virtù all’interno della filosofia morale contemporanea di matrice analitica, affrontando due problemi di cui qualsiasi definizione di umiltà deve dare spiegazione: la compatibilità di umiltà e conoscenza di sé, e la possibilità, per chi eccelle in un determinato ambito, di essere umile. Mostrerò come la tradizione aristotelico-tomista possa fornire una risposta efficace a tali quesiti recenti e presenterò i tratti generali della concezione di umiltà come virtù relazionale. Infine concluderò indicando alcuni punti degni di futuri sviluppi. (shrink)

Contrapondo-se às interpretações que sobrevalorizam o papel da razão nas escolhas dos fins morais, pretendo resgatar o papel positivo que a virtude do caráter, uma virtude não-racional, pode exercer em tais escolhas. Isto será feito levando em consideração a análise que Aristóteles faz da crise moral de Neoptólemo na tragédia Filoctetes.

I offer a reading of Aristotle’s “doctrine of the mean” that avoids two pitfalls: taking it as truistic, and taking it as involving the bizarre thesis that whenever one acts as reason directs, one’s action is mid-way between some extremes. The crucial point is that while Aristotle denies the existence of useful general ethical truths, he himself offers truths about the *likelihoods* with which rationality will require actions of certain types; and it is with such truths that the statistical idea (...) of the mean gets a foothold in his theory of the virtues. (shrink)

Positive psychology has significantly influenced studies in the fields of moral philosophy, psychology and education, and scholars in those fields have attempted to apply its ideas and methods to moral education. Among various theoretical frameworks, virtue ethics is most likely to connect positive psychology to moral educational studies because it pursues eudaimonia (flourishing). However, some virtue ethicists have been concerned about whether the current mainstream concept of positive psychology can apply directly to moral education because it focuses on subjective aspects (...) of happiness, but not its objective and moral aspects. Thus, I will consider whether the concept of purpose, which was investigated recently by a group of psychologists and emphasizes both subjective and objective aspects of happiness, can address this issue. I will examine whether purpose is a moral virtue contributing to flourishing, consider if its nature is possibly a second-order virtue and whether it is distinguishable from other second-order virtues. (shrink)

These are commentaries to the translation into Portuguese of Nicomachean Ethics VI, found in the same volume of Dissertatio.

There seems to be confusion and disagreement among scholars about the meaning of interpersonal forgiveness. In this essay we shall venture to clarify the meaning of forgiveness by examining various literary works. In particular, we shall discuss instances of forgiveness from Homer’s The Iliad, Euripides’ Hippolytus, and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and we shall focus on the changes that the concept of forgiveness has gone through throughout the centuries, in the hope of being able to understand, and therefore, of being able (...) to use more accurately, contemporary notions of forgiveness. We shall also explore the relationship between forgiveness and concepts that are closely associated with it, such as anger/resentment, hurt, clemency, desert/merit, excuse, etc. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the widely held view that Aristotle's vicious agent is a principled follower of a wrong conception of the good whose soul, just like the soul of the virtuous agent, is marked by harmony between his reason and non-rational desires is an exegetical mistake. Rather, Aristotle holds – consistently and throughout the Nicomachean Ethics – that the vicious agent lacks any real principles of action and that his soul lacks unity and harmony even more than (...) the soul of the uncontrolled agent. (shrink)

This paper discusses some issues concerning the definition of moral virtue in Nicomachean Ethics 1106b 36- 1107a 2. It is reasonable to expect from a definition the complete enumeration of the relevant features of its definiendum, but the definition of moral virtue seems to fail in doing this task. One might be tempted to infer that this definition is intended by Aristotle as a mere preliminary account that should be replaced by a more precise one. The context of the argument (...) Aristotle develops in Book II of his NE give us some help. I argue that the definition of moral virtue, once considered in the light of its context, is far from being an incomplete and provisional account: it rather introduces coherently the same notion of moral virtue that Aristotle employs in other texts (as in Nicomachean Ethics VI 13). My main proposal is that the way in which "hexis" is understood in the context of previous chapters allows Aristotle to encode in it the notion of an ability to do the right things regularly. Thus, moral virtue is a "hexis prohairetike etc.", but the ability to do the right things regularly is already encoded in the occurrence of "hexis" in the definiens account of moral virtue, as if Aristotle meant "hexis [praktike] prohairetike". (shrink)

This article provides a critical analysis of the situationist challenge against Aristotelian moral psychology. It first outlines the details and results from 4 paradigmatic studies in psychology that situationists have heavily drawn upon in their critique of the Aristotelian conception of virtuous characteristics, including studies conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928), Darley and Batson (1973), Isen and Levin (1972), and Milgram (1963). It then presents 10 problems with the way situationists have used these studies to challenge Aristotelian moral psychology. After (...) challenging the situationists on these grounds, the article then proceeds to challenge the situationist presentation of the Aristotelian conception, showing that situationists have provided an oversimplified caricature of it that goes against the grain of much Aristotelian text. In evaluating the situationist challenge against the actual results from empirical research as well as primary Aristotelian text, it will be shown that the situationist debate has advanced both an extreme, untenable view about the nature of characteristics and situations, as well as an inaccurate presentation of the Aristotelian view. (shrink)