Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022.

In this article, I vindicate the longstanding intuition that the Stoics are transitional figures in the history of ethics. I argue that the Stoics are committed to thinking that the ideal of human happiness as a life of virtue is impossible for some people, whom I dub ‘hopeless fools.’ In conjunction with the Stoic view that everyone is subject to the same rational requirements to perform ‘appropriate actions’ or ‘duties’ (kathēkonta/officia), and the plausible eudaimonist assumption that happiness is a source (...) of normative reasons only if it is in principle attainable, the existence of hopeless fools demonstrates that the Stoics were pluralists about the ultimate justificatory basis of rational action. Hopeless fools are required to behave just like their non-hopeless counterparts, not because doing so is conducive to their happiness, but because doing so conforms with the dictates of Right Reason. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the function argument of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics 2.1. The argument seeks to define happiness through the method of division; shows that the highest good is better than all four of the goods of the soul, not only two, as commentators have thought; and unlike the Nicomachean argument, makes the highest good definitionally independent of the human function.

El concepto de _physis_ y sus derivados aparecen cientos de veces en los diálogos de Platón. Dado el carácter poco sistemático de su autor y los muchos años que dedicó a la escritura filosófica, no debe sorprender la diversidad de sentidos en que emplea un término ya de por sí complejo y polisémico. Por otra parte, Platón recoge, sintetiza y reelabora algunas de las concepciones fundamentales de la _physis_, siendo de especial relevancia las de los filósofos pluralistas, interesándose por los (...) elementos constitutivos del mundo físico y tomando partido en la discusión en torno a su carácter, bien mecánico, bien teleológico. En este estudio se analiza tanto la asimilación platónica de la física presocrática, como la influencia ejercida en el planteamiento aristotélico, especialmente por lo que respecta a la causalidad final y al principio del movimiento. (shrink)

In this paper, I challenge the standard reading of complete virtue (ἀρετή τελεία) in those disputed passages of Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. I argue that, for Aristotle, complete virtue is neither (i) wisdom nor (ii) a whole set of all virtues. Rather, it is a term used by Aristotle to denote any virtue that is in its complete or perfect form. In light of this reading, I offer a pluralist interpretation of Aristotelian happiness. I argue that for Aristotle, the (...) life-long exercise of a predominant virtue—as long as it is exercised in its complete or perfect form—will suffice for human happiness. The so-called inclusivist and intellectualist notions of Aristotelian happiness, thus understood, are merely two forms (viz. the composite and the non-composite form) of the pluralist notion of Aristotelian happiness. And if I am right, my pluralist interpretation provides an alternative, if not better, solution to the long-standing problem of “dual happiness” in Aristotle. (shrink)

Aristotle’s theory of human happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics explicitly depends on the claim that contemplation (theôria) is peculiar to human beings, whether it is our function or only part of it. But there is a notorious problem: Aristotle says that divine beings also contemplate. Various solutions have been proposed, but each has difficulties. Drawing on an analysis of what divine contemplation involves according to Aristotle, I identify an assumption common to all of these proposals and argue for rejecting it. (...) This allows a straightforward solution to the problem and there is evidence that Aristotle would have adopted it. (shrink)

After a short description of the Aristotelian examples for practical syllogisms, the essay gives an overview of the interpretations of the practical syllogism since the 1950s. These interpretations can be divided into two main groups: while the first group connects the practical syllogism with practical thinking, the second, smaller group considers it as an illustration of the causal explananation of actions. The essay closes with some remarks on the reasons for these different interpretations.

Among scholars it is common to assume that Aristotle’s practical syllogism does two jobs. It is often taken to explain both animal motion and human deliberation. I will call this the “two-jobs view of the practical syllogism”. In what follows, I will argue that the two-jobs view of the practical syllogism is not working. I will then try to give a very brief and incomplete sketch of how to conceive of a non-two-jobs view of the Aristotelian practical syllogism. Finally, I (...) will discuss two possible problems for the non-two-jobs view. (shrink)

This study will answer the question, what do students expect to learn from philosophy teachers in the 21st century. by framing a response based on the following: The researcher’s teaching philosophy developed over 30 years, a survey conducted of UAEU students, and a discussion of the changing role and purpose of philosophy in the academy and current pedagogical philosophy in teaching. The study has focused on how philosophical questions have been changed over time, using new technology to teach philosophy, what (...) are the characteristics of philosophy teachers and students, the new direction for teaching philosophy, and career opportunities. The practical frame of this research will be analyzed students survey conducted on female students from United Arab Emirates University. I will use the method of content analysis to investigate and trace this phenomenon to determine its meaning, developing philosophical questions, and the new direction for teaching philosophy. Then I will examine the data taken from the theoretical and practical sources for the purpose of diagnosing and reaching conclusions a process which is called in philosophy synthesis, therefore the approach of the research would be analysis and synthesis. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that Aristotle's ethical theory shares deep structural similarities with neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. I argue that this assumption is a mistake, and that Aristotle's ethical theory is both importantly distinct from the theories his work has inspired, and independently compelling. I take neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to be characterized by two central commitments: (i) virtues of character are defined as traits that reliably promote an agent's own flourishing, and (ii) virtuous actions are defined as the sorts of actions (...) a virtuous agent reliably performs under the relevant circumstances. I argue that neither of these commitments are features of Aristotle's own view, and I sketch an alternative explanation for the relationship between virtue and happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics. Although, on the interpretation I defend, we do not find in Aristotle a distinctive normative theory alongside deontology and consequentialism, what we do find is a way of thinking about how prudential and moral reasons can come to be aligned through a certain conception of practical agency. (shrink)

Sometimes, in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), Aristotle describes virtuous actions as the sorts of actions that are ends; it is important for Aristotle to do so if he wants to maintain, as he seems to at least until NE 10.7-8, that virtuous actions are a constituent of eudaimonia. At other times, he claims that virtuous actions are the sorts of actions that are for the sake of ends beyond themselves; after all, no one would choose to go into battle or (...) give away a significant portion of their wealth if it did not realize some good end. In this paper, I review the familiar problem raised by Aristotle's discussion of the nature of virtuous actions, propose a solution to this problem by appealing to a distinction between virtuous actions and 'acting virtuously', and sketch the significance of this solution for understanding the relationship between virtue and human happiness. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes the following claims: “the end cannot be a subject of deliberation, but only what contributes to the ends” (NE 1112b33-34) and “virtue makes the goal right, practical wisdom makes the things to- ward the goal right" (NE 1144a7-9). A problem arises from such claims: the ends as- sumed by a moral agent cannot be subject to rational choice. For deliberation, an intel- lectual procedure, is bound to deal with the things that contribute to the (...) ends, and the ends, in turn, fall within the realm of virtue of character, which is described by Aristotle as a virtue of the non-rational part of the soul. In order to understand how Aristotle sup- ports such thesis, this research investigates how virtue of character and practical wis- dom are related and their work to delimit the ends and the things that contribute to the ends in the moral actions. (shrink)

The first sentence of NE I.2 has roughly the form: "If A [there is a universal end] and B, then D [this end will be the best good]". According to some commentators, Aristotle uses B to infer A; but then the sentence is fallacious. According to other commentators, Aristotle does not use B ; but then the sentence is bizarre. Contrary to both sets of commentators, I suggest that Aristotle uses B together with A to infer validly that there is (...) a non-instrumental – and thus unique – universal end. On this interpretation the above two problems disappear, but a subtler problem emerges: not-B does not entail C. (shrink)

Aristotle ’s claim that we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions raises a familiar problem: How can we perform virtuous actions unless we are already virtuous? I reject deflationary accounts of the answer given in _Nicomachean Ethics_ 2.4 and argue instead that proper habituation involves doing virtuous actions with the right motive, i.e. for the sake of the noble, even though learners do not yet have virtuous dispositions. My interpretation confers continuity to habituation and explains in a non-mysterious way how (...) we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions in the right way. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 60, Issue 1, pp 60 - 87 Aristotle invokes a specifically human desire, namely wish, to provide a teleological explanation of the pursuit of the specifically human good in terms of virtuous activity. Wish is a basic, unreasoned desire which, independently of other desires, or evaluative attitudes, motivates the pursuit of the human good. Even a person who pursues what she mistakenly believes to be good is motivated by wish for what in fact is good, although she (...) is oblivious of it. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics X.7–8, Aristotle defends a striking view about the good for human beings. According to Aristotle, the single happiest way of life is organized around philosophical contemplation. According to the narrowness worry, however, Aristotle's contemplative ideal is unduly Procrustean, restrictive, inflexible, and oblivious of human diversity. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle has resources for responding to the narrowness worry, and that his contemplative ideal can take due account of human diversity.

In disagreement with Claudia Baracchi’s controversial thesis that there is a “simultaneity and indissolubility” if not an “identity” of intelligence (nous) and perception (aisthēsis) at the core of Aristotle’s philosophy, I will argue that Aristotle maintains a fundamental distinction between these cognitive faculties. My goal in this paper is to examine specific parts of two central and complex passages, VI.8, 1142a12-30 and VI.11, 1143a33-b15, from the Nicomachean Ethics to show that Baracchi’s view is unpersuasive. I will show that Aristotle considers (...) nous to be a different capacity than mere perception and one through which particulars and indemonstrable principles become intelligible. Moreover, I will show that Aristotle considers that the objects of nous differ in kind from those that sensation (our senses) and perception (inference from our senses) grasp. After examining critically Baracchi’s thesis in light of a close reading of those two relevant passages, I will conclude the paper by showing the significance of Aristotle’s claim that a state is defined in terms of its objects of apprehension for understanding the distinction between nous and aisthēsis. (shrink)

The ways in which the Aristotelian sciences are related to each other has been discussed in the literature, with some focus on the subalternate sciences. While it is acknowledged that Aristotle, and Plato as well, was concerned as well with how the arts were related to one another, less attention has been paid to Aristotle's views on relationships among the arts. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle's account of the subalternate sciences helps shed light on how Aristotle saw the (...) art of rhetoric relating to dialectic and politics. Initial motivation for comparing rhetoric with the subalternate sciences is Aristotle's use of the language of boundary transgression, germane to the Posterior Analytics, when discussing rhetoric’s boundaries, as well as the language of "over" and "under" found in APo. First, I discuss three passages in Rhetoric Book I and argue that Garver's (1988) account cannot be correct. Second, I look to the subalternate sciences, especially focusing on optics and the distinction between "unqualified" optics and mathematical optics. Third, I discuss rhetoric's dependence on both dialectic and politics. (shrink)

A standard thesis of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and some recent Heideggerian scholarship is that virtuous behavior can be performed immediately and spontaneously without engaging conscious processes of deliberative thought. It is also claimed that phronēsis either enables or is consistent with this possibility. In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle identifies phronesis as the excellence of the calculative part of the intellect, claims that calculation and deliberation are the same and that it is the mark of the phronimos to be (...) able to deliberate well. He also insists that for an action to count as virtuous it must issue from rational choice, which he characterizes as determined by deliberation. It thus seems that any exegetically respectable attempt to explain virtuous action within an Aristotelian framework would need to integrate with some account of deliberative choice. This creates a tension in Aristotelian scholarship. In this paper, I shall formalize this tension in terms of an apparently inconsistent triad of claims and shall examine the merits of at least one prominent interpretation of phronesis with respect to its reconciliation. (shrink)

Aristotle is believed to have introduced the focal meaning of friendship in Eudemian Ethics VII.2 and then to have formulated it more generally in Metaphysics Γ.2. Bonitz’s unjustifiable emendation of the text underscores these interpretations. This paper therefore reads the MSS and supposes that the EE passage introduces a wider focal meaning based on the theory presented in the Categories, one that does not imply referential relationships between the primary and secondary terms. This wider focal meaning can help explain disputed (...) terms in practical philosophy, such as “friendship” and “like-mindedness,” without invoking the Form of the Good. (shrink)

In the ethical texts, Aristotle claims that all instances of choice (prohairesis) must be preceded by deliberation, but it is not clear why he believes this. This paper offers an explanation of that commitment, drawing heavily from the De Anima and showing that the account emerging from there complements that of the ethical texts. The view is that the deliberative faculty has the capacity to manipulate reasons combinatorially, while the perceptual/desiderative faculty does not, and choice requires the combinatorial manipulation of (...) reasons. (shrink)

Las primeras teorías sociológicas son deudoras de las filosofías ilustradas de la historia, las cuales aparecieron para proporcionar un marco de sentido a la acción moral, una vez que la teoría moral renunció a los compromisos metafísicos de la filosofía moral premoderna. Al tiempo que defendió la autonomía de la sociología frente a la filosofía, Durkheim le prescribió a aquélla una tarea específica: realizar una ciencia moral que atendiendo a dos rasgos con los que los hechos morales se muestra a (...) la conciencia —solidaridad y coerción— pueda dar cuenta del sentido moral de la división del trabajo, hasta entonces considerado un proceso casi natural. El propósito de este artículo es mostrar cómo el enfoque durkheimiano permite descubrir una semejanza estructural entre el análisis sociológico y la tradicional perspectiva filosófico-moral de las obligaciones mutuas. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 63, Issue 3, pp 229 - 256 I argue that, for Aristotle, akratic actions are against one’s general commitment to act in accordance with one’s correct conception of one’s ends overall. Only some akratic actions are also against one’s correct decision to perform a particular action. This thesis explains Aristotle’s views on impetuous _akrasia_, weak _akrasia_, stubborn opinionated action and inverse _akrasia_. In addition, it sheds light on Aristotle’s account of practical rationality. Rational actions are coherent primarily (...) with one’s commitments to one’s conception of the good and only secondarily with one’s decisions to perform a particular action. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics X.7, Aristotle argues that perfect happiness consists in contemplation alone. The question that I want to take up in this essay is whether the superiority of contemplative life fits with Aristotle’s argument for the self-sufficiency of the political life, according to which politics can lead us to happiness without being guided by philosophical knowledge of the highest sort. My basic argument is that, paradoxical as it may seem, Aristotle is led to acknowledge that contemplative life is superior (...) to political life by the same strand of argumentation which makes him plea for the self-sufficiency of the political life in the first place. In order to show how this argument unfolds, I take my point of departure from Aristotle’s analysis of phronēsis as stated in Nicomachean Ethics VI and bring it to bear on his discussion of the respective virtues of the contemplative and political ways of life in Politics VII. (shrink)

Naturalistic theories of disease appeal to concepts of biological function, and use the notion of dysfunction as the basis of their definitions. Debates in the philosophy of biology demonstrate how attributing functions in organisms and establishing the function-dysfunction distinction is by no means straightforward. This problematization of functional ascription has undermined naturalistic theories and led some authors to abandon the concept of dysfunction, favoring instead definitions based in normative criteria or phenomenological approaches. Although this work has enhanced our understanding of (...) disease and illness, we need not necessarily abandon naturalistic concepts of function and dysfunction in the disease debate. This article attempts to move towards a new naturalistic theory of disease that overcomes the limitations of previous definitions and offers advantages in the clinical setting. Our approach involves a re-evaluation of concepts of biological function employed by naturalistic theories. Drawing on recent insights from the philosophy of biology, we develop a contextual and evaluative account of function that is better suited to clinical medicine and remains consistent with contemporary naturalism. We also show how an updated naturalistic view shares important affinities with normativist and phenomenological positions, suggesting a possibility for consilience in the disease debate. (shrink)

In my paper, I defend an interpretation according to which Aristotle thinks in Nicomachean Ethics (EN) that the rational aspect of soul is needed in discerning which ends of desire would be good. Many interpreters have traditionally supported this, ‘rationalist’ line of interpreting Aristotle’s theory of value cognition. The rationalist interpretation has, however, recently come under a novel challenge from Jessica Moss (2011, 2012), but has not yet received a defence. Moss attempts to resurrect now virtually abandoned ‘anti-rationalist’ interpretation, which (...) claims, in a contrast to the rationalist one, that discerning good ends may require no activity from the rational aspect, but only well-habituated non-rational desire. Moss’ interpretation appeals to certain Aristotle’s claims in De Anima (DA) 3, which, she thinks, show that non-rational phantasia suffices for discerning good ends if only accompanied with the habituated desire. Although her interpretation can successfully avoid some problems that earlier anti-rationalist interpretations faced with certain passages of EN, I also argue, however that it introduces some new problems, and attributes philosophically incoherent views about moral responsibility to Aristotle. Therefore I conclude that even after Moss’ improvements to the anti-rationalist interpretation, the rationalist interpretation remains overall more plausible. (shrink)

Something Aristotle calls ‘right logos’ plays a crucial role in his theory of virtue. But the meaning of ‘logos’ in this context is notoriously contested. I argue against the standard translation ‘reason’, and—drawing on parallels with Plato’s work, especially the Laws—in favor of its being used to denote what transforms an inferior epistemic state into a superior one: an explanatory account. Thus Aristotelian phronēsis, like his and Plato’s technē and epistēmē, is a matter of grasping explanatory accounts: in this case, (...) accounts that identify the right action and say why it is right. Arguably, Aristotelian rationality is a matter of being able to grasp accounts in general. (shrink)

This paper argues that Aristotelian practical wisdom (phronēsis) is a state of conviction (pistis) in the goodness of our goals based on proper grounds. This state of conviction can only be achieved if rational arguments and principles agree with how things appear to us. Since, for Aristotle, passions influence appearances, they can support or undermine our conviction in the goodness of ends. For this reason, we cannot be practically wise without virtuous dispositions to experience appropriate passions. Along the way, I (...) argue that this reading allows us to explain the shortcomings of self‐controlled and akratic agents. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Goodness is Goal‐like Criteria of an Ultimate Good A Particular Activity in Accordance with Virtue The Systematic Examination of the Virtues The Activity of Speculative Wisdom Conclusion Bibliography.

Prevailing interpretations of Aristotle’s use of syllogistic language outside the Organon hold that he offers a single, comprehensive theory of the practical syllogism spanning his ethical and biological works. These comprehensive theories of the practical syllogism are plausible neither philosophically nor as interpretations of Aristotle. I argue for a multivocal account of the practical syllogism that distinguishes (1) Aristotle’s use of syllogistic language to explain aspects of his account of animal motion in MA from (2) his use of syllogistic language (...) to explain aspects of his account of the distinctive practical cognition of the phronimos in EN. I offer a novel account of the role of syllogistic language in ethics, arguing that it elucidates a nuanced account of universals and particulars in ethics according to which acting virtuously requires an understanding of underlying universal values and a capacity to relate them to concrete, particular features of our circumstances. (shrink)

Recent reconstructions of Heidegger's thoughts on ethics have a curious paradoxical feature. On the one hand, Heidegger, particularly in his Aristotle lectures of the 1920s, offers a view of practical reason on which Dasein has its “moral knowledge” in a fully perceptual, non-cognitive way. This generally sets Heidegger in opposition to the whole business of principled moral justification before the fact. On the other hand, the literature is peppered with what appear to be principled denunciations of immorality—particularly violations of other (...) Dasein—grounded in the analytic of Dasein. To see human life as having a stable ergon (“business” or “function”), with certain broad tasks to pursue and vices to avoid, is not necessarily counter-Aristotelian; on the contrary, it is basic to the kind of Aristotelianism Husserl pursued in his own lectures on ethics. Here I set Heidegger's Aristotelian model of practical reason amid the competing, though similar, Aristotelianisms of John McDowell and Husserl, which differ on their handling of the human ergon. I conclude that Heidegger's views on practical reason and moral knowledge certainly constrain and very much alter the business of moral justification, but they do not precisely rule it out. (shrink)

This paper provides a phenomenological account of the intentional structure of action. To establish the context, I first distinguish physiological changes and the bodily motions manifesting the...

Modern medicine faces fundamental challenges that various approaches to the philosophy of medicine have tried to address. One of these approaches is based on the ancient concept of phronesis. This paper investigates whether this concept can be used as a moral basis for the challenges facing modern medicine and, in particular, analyses phronesis as it is applied in the works of Pellegrino and Thomasma. It scrutinises some difficulties with a phronesis-based theory, specifically, how it presupposes a moral community of professionals. (...) It is argued that Pellegrino and Thomasma's concept of phronesis corresponds to a Hippocratic concept of t�chn�, and that this latter concept seems to address many of the challenging issues Pellegrino and Thomasma also address. Thus, if modern medicine is to find its philosophical model in ancient concepts, it appears that the Hippocratic t�chn� is closer to the ancient concept of medicine than the Aristotelian phronesis, and that it might avoid many of the pitfalls of a phronesis-based approach. (shrink)

Eudaimonism is often regarded as egoistic. If it recommends that agents pursue their own good because it is their own good, it is guilty as charged. But excellence‐prior eudaimonism offers a non‐egoistic alternative to this welfare‐prior eudaimonism. Excellence‐prior eudaimonism recommends that an agent live in a way that is in fact good for the agent, but it does not regard the agent’s own good as necessarily that for the sake of which the agent acts, nor does it regard living well (...) as justified by the fact that it is good for the agent, but simply because it is good. The Christian eudaimonisms of Augustine and Aquinas are best understood as deepened forms of excellence‐prior eudaimonism. (shrink)

Eudaimonists deny that eudaimonism is objectionably egoistic, but the way in which they do so commits them to eschewing an important insight that has been a central motivation for eudaimonism: the idea that an individual must, in the end, organize her life in such a way that it is good for her. In this paper I argue that the egoism objection prods eudaimonists to make a choice between (what we might roughly call) welfare-prior and excellence-prior eudaimonism, and I make some (...) preliminary remarks on behalf of welfare-prior eudaimonism. (shrink)

presents a puzzle as to whether Aristotle views morally virtuous activity as happiness, as book 1 seems to indicate, or philosophical contemplation as happiness, as book 10 seems to indicate. The most influential attempts to resolve this issue have been either monistic or inclusivist. According to the monists, happiness consists exclusively of contemplation. According to the inclusivists, contemplation is one constituent of happiness, but morally virtuous activity is another. In this essay I will examine influential defenses of monism. Finding these (...) accounts superior to inclusivism, but still deficient, I will present and defend a dualistic account of happiness in which two different types of happiness, one divine and one human, are present in Nicomachean Ethics. When Aristotle commends contemplation as a happiness that humans can attain, he is careful to specify that this activity corresponds to a capacity (nous) that is not, properly speaking, human, even though humans can exercise it. Contemplation, the divine good, is the highest good that humans can obtain, but it is not the characteristic human good. The characteristic human good corresponds to the specifically and merely human function, which is an activity of the compound of human reason and emotions. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se sostiene que la filosofía práctica de Aristóteles puede dar lugar a dos sentidos distintos de προαίρεσις, los cuales se encuentran relacionados a su vez con dos sentidos distintos de deliberación. El primer sentido de προαίρεσις hace referencia a las elecciones deliberadas particulares, en las que el fin que se busca alcanzar, el deseo relacionado y los medios empleados son de carácter particular y se encuentran circunscritos a la situación concreta en que se realiza la elección. (...) En cambio, el segundo sentido de προαίρεσις se refiere a las elecciones vinculadas con objetivos de mediano y largo plazo, que si bien pueden ser particulares, buscan fines que trascienden la particularidad de la situación dada. Al primer tipo de προαίρεσις le corresponde la "deliberación descendente", mientras que al segundo le corresponde la "deliberación ascendente". Finalmente se presenta un análisis de las características del silogismo práctico de acuerdo a los dos tipos de deliberación. (shrink)

Aristotle thinks that an account, alogos, of some sort is characteristic of craft,technē. Some scholars think that thelogoselement oftechnēis tagged onto experience as a theoretical element not directly engaged in successful production: I argue instead that thelogosgrounds the productive ability of craft, and also that is practically orientated in a way that distinguishes it from thelogosof theoretical science. Understanding thelogosof craft thus helps us explain how the craftsman differs both from the merely experienced practitioner and from the theoretical scientist.

Historically, philosophers have identified happiness with, among other things, pleasure, contentment, desire satisfaction, and, if we count the Greek eudaimonia as happiness, the life of virtue. When faced with competing theories of happiness, we need a way to decide which theory is more accurate. According to Larry Wayne Sumner's principle of descriptive adequacy, the best theory of happiness is the theory that best describes our ordinary, pretheoretical beliefs and intuitions. The chief aim of this article is to show that the (...) principle of descriptive adequacy is mistaken. To do this, it shows how the principle breaks down when applied to Aristotle's theory of eudaimonia, a theory Sumner claims to be descriptively inadequate as a theory of happiness. The article argues that we should reject descriptive adequacy as a metaphilosophical principle on the grounds that our intuitions and beliefs about happiness are too inchoate for any theory adequately to describe. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that the virtuous person acts for the sake of to kalon. To understand this idea, I examine the analogy he draws between craft and virtue. I argue that the kalon is a formal feature of well-ordered wholeness and that the virtuous person takes intellectual pleasure in perceiving (or remembering or imagining) the kalon-in-action, akin to pleasure in observing artworks or works of nature. However, the virtuous person’s pleasure in kalon action is primarily a pleasure of practical reason. In (...) these ways, Aristotle’s concept of the kalon is and is not like the modern aesthetic concept of the beautiful. (shrink)