Scholars have long debated how exactly Aristotle thinks that agents acquire the distinctivearchai(“principles” or “starting‐points”) that govern their practical reasoning. The debate has traditionally been dominated by anti‐intellectualists, who hold that for Aristotle all agents acquire theirarchaisolely through a process of habituation in the nonrational soul. Their traditional opponents, the intellectualists, focus their argument on the case of the virtuous person, arguing that in Aristotle’s view virtuous agents acquire theirarchaithrough a process of reasoning. I intervene in this debate in two (...) main ways: first, I press a heretofore underappreciated objection against anti‐intellectualism, that it is inconsistent with Aristotle’s account ofakrasia; and second, I urge that all sides in the debate would benefit from more sustained attention to Aristotle’s nonvirtuous character types. In the final section, I suggest that proper consideration of the full breadth of Aristotle’s account of character points in the direction of a new approach that I call “character pluralism,” according to which Aristotle’s moral psychology does not involve a single conception of psychic structure or moral development that is equally applicable to all character types. (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)

RésuméCet article fait valoir que si le bref traitement que consacre Aristote à la thêriotês, dans l'Éthique à Nicomaque,a été généralement négligé par les commentateurs, il mérite en fait d'être étudié de près. Il jette en effet un éclairage sur certains des sujets les plus populates de l”Éthique,la portée de l'éthique, la place du désir dans la vie morale, la distinction entre akrasie et vice, volontaire et involontaire, et il ouvre des pistes intéressantes sur la commensurabilité des évaluations éthiques.

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)

This dissertation is a study of the relation between Aristotle’s ethics and the crafts (or technai). My thesis is that Aristotle’s argument is at key points shaped by models proper to the crafts, this shaping being deeper than is generally acknowledged, and philosophically more problematic. Despite this, I conclude that the arguments I examine can, if revised, be upheld. The plan of the dissertation is as follows – Preface: The relation of my study to the extant secondary literature; Introduction: The (...) pre-Platonic concept of technē, as evidenced in Greek philosophical and literary sources, in particular the early Hippocratic corpus; Chapter one: The Platonic concept of technē, followed by an investigation of whether Plato affirms a virtue-technē in the Protagoras and Republic; Chapter two: Aristotle’s concept of technē, followed by scrutiny of his arguments in NE VI.5 against a virtue-technē, and of his analyses of slavery and deliberation; Chapter three: An exposition of Aristotle’s function argument, followed by a dominantist interpretation of it, and an explanation of dominantism as in part a technē-influenced doctrine; Chapter four: An examination of Aristotle’s ethical mean and its problems, with a diagnosis of these in terms of influence by the Philebus, and by paradigms derived from the crafts; Chapter five: Argument that Aristotle’s theory of habituation suffers from two significant opacities, these being a function of influence both by the Republic, and by models of craft-learning; Conclusion: Response to key objection; Aristotle’s ethics revised, defended. (shrink)

In this essay I offer a new particularist reading of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. I argue that the interpretation I present not only helps us to resolve some puzzles about Aristotle’s goals and methods, but it also gives rise to a novel account of morality—an account that is both interesting and plausible in its own right. The goal of this paper is, in part, exegetical—that is, to figure out how to best understand the text of the Nicomachean Ethics. But this paper (...) also aims to contribute to the current exciting and controversial debate over particularism. By taking the first steps towards a comprehensive particularist reading of Aristotle’s Ethics I hope to demonstrate that some of the mistrust of particularism is misplaces and that what is, perhaps, the most influential moral theory in the history of philosophy is, arguably, a particularist moral theory. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view favored by many contemporary scholars that corrective justice in the Nicomachean Ethics is essentially compensatory and in favor of a bifunctional account according to which corrective justice aims at equalizing inequalities of both goods and evils resulting from various interactions between persons. Not only does the account defended in this paper better explain the broad array of examples Aristotle provides than does the standard interpretation, it also better fits Aristotle’s general definition of what is (...) just. In the last section, the paper argues, again against the standard interpretation, that proportional reciprocity, the kind of justice discussed in Nicomachean Ethics V.5, has two forms and is closely linked to corrective justice. Although corrective justice and proportional reciprocity are conceptually distinct and do different work in Aristotle’s political philosophy, instances of proportional reciprocity are instantiated by instances of corrective justice. This linkage, the paper concludes, helps to explain why Aristotle would assign corrective justice such a prominent place in his theory of justice. (shrink)

Aristotle’s treatment of brutishness in the Nicomachean Ethics is very brief: a couple of paragraphs in the first chapter of Book VII, and most of Chapter 5 of the same book, together with some glancing references in Chapter 6. Commentators standardly give these passages short shrift indeed, if they do not ignore them altogether. In antiquity Aspasius commented on the Ethics, but, by great ill luck, his commentary on the first half of Book 7 is lost. A twelfth- or thirteenth-century (...) commentary known as “Anonymous” exists, but, in the words of Friedrich Schleiermacher, it “exceeds everything in poverty.” Aquinas comments helpfully on some items in the passage, but its doctrine does not find its way into his own moral theory, and indeed in his language the Latin word bestialitas, which standardly renders the Greek thêriotês, is taken over to denote sexual relations between members of different species. Dante makes a brief though striking reference to Aristotle’s discussion, but he gets it wrong. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the translators furnish occasional notes of interest; the line-by-line commentators go through the passage with small points of explanation but the overall theory does not seem to capture their attention; the more thematic commentators largely ignore it; and, to my knowledge, no article or monograph exists upon it. The beguiling issues of the Ethics, it appears, lie elsewhere: the function argument and the nature of happiness, the nature of virtue, the voluntary and involuntary, the distinction between vice and weakness, the place of contemplation in the happy life. On these subjects the literature is numbingly massive. (shrink)

The symbolism introduced earlier provides a convenient vehicle for examining the status and consistency of Aristotle's three diverse justifications and for explaining how he means to avoid Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism. When the variables ‘ x ’ and ‘ y ’ are allowed to range over the groups of free men in a given polis as well as over individual free men, the formula for the Aristotelian conception of justice expresses the major premiss of Aristotle's three justifications: (1) (...) (∀ x )(∀ y ) (P(x)·W(x)/P(y)·W(y)=V(T(x))/V(T(y)))Democracy is justified by adding a minor premiss to the effect that as a group the many ( m ) are superior (>) in virtue and wealth to the few best men ( f ): 85 (2 d ) (P(m) · W(m)) > (P(f) · W(f)) (3 d ) V(T(m))>V(T(f))Absolute kingship is justified when a godlike man ( g ) appears in a polis who is incommensurably superior (≫) in virtue and wealth to all the remaining free men ( r ): (2 k ) (P(g) · W(g)) ≫ (P(r) · W(r)) (3 k ) V(T(g)) ≫ V(T(r))True aristocracy requires a more complex justification, which was symbolized in Section 4. These justifications are compatible with each other since they apply to different situations. The polises where democracy and true aristocracy are justified contain no godlike men, and the polis in which democracy is justified differs from that in which true aristocracy is justified in containing a large group of free men who individually have little virtue ( Pol. III.11.1281b23-25, 1282a25-26). Each of the justifications is a valid deductive argument. Aristotle affirms the major premiss they share on the basis of a twofold appeal to nature. The principle of distributive justice, the concept as distinguished from the various conceptions of distributive justice, is itself according to nature ( Pol. VII.3.1325b7-10) and so too is one particular standard of worth, the standard of the best polis. Consequently, the question of the status of these three justifications, whether they are purely hypothetical or not, is a question about the minor premiss or premisses of each. In the case of the democratic premiss Aristotle's answer is straightforward: it is sometimes but not always true ( Pol. III.11.1281bl5-21). Hence the justification of democracy is not purely hypothetical. Nor is the justification of absolute kingship. The man who is “like a god among men” ( Pol. III.13.1284a10-11) would be a man of heroic virtue (see VII.14.1332bl6-27); and such a man, Aristotle says, is “rare” ( σπávιoη ) (not nonexistent) ( E.N. VII.1.1145a27-28). The minor premisses of the aristocratic argument describe a situation where all of the free men in a given polis have sufficient wealth for the exercise of the moral and intellectual virtues and where all of the older free men of the polis are men of practical wisdom. In the Politics Aristotle makes only the modest claim that such a situation is possible: It is not possible for the best constitution to come into being without appropriate equipment [that is, the appropriate quality and quantity of territory and of citizens and noncitizens]. Hence one must presuppose many things as one would wish them to be, though none of them must be impossible ( Pol. VII.4.1325b37-38; see also II.6.1265al7-18). But Aristotle appears to subscribe to the principle that every possibility is realized at some moment of time ( Top. 11.11.115bl7-18, Met. Θ.4.1047b3-6, N.2.1088b23-25). This principle together with the claim that the situation described is possible entails that the situation sometimes occurs. Thus even Aristotle's justification of true aristocracy is not purely hypothetical. The final question is Aristotle's way of avoiding Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism. The relativist, along with everyone else ( E.N. V.3.1131a13-14, Pol. III.12.1282bl8), can accept the principle of distributive justice: Q(x)/Q(y) = V(T(x))/V(T(y)) And he can concede that particular instances of this principle, particular conceptions of justice, accurately describe the modes of distributing political authority that appear just to particular polises and to particular philosophers. What he denies is that there is any basis for ranking these various conceptions of justice or for singling one out as the best (Plato, Theaet. 172A-B). Aristotle, following in Plato's track ( Laws X.888D7-890D8), maintains against the relativist that nature provides such a basis. But he departs from Plato in his conception of nature. For Plato “the just by nature” ( τó ρυσει δίκ↑oν }) ( Rep. VI.501B2) is the Form of justice, an incorporeal entity ( Phdo. 65D4-5, Soph. 246B8) that exists beyond time and space ( Tim. 37C6-38C3, 51E6-52B2), whereas for Aristotle the sensible world is the realm of nature ( Met. A.1.1069a30-b2). Thus in appealing to nature Aristotle does not appeal to a transcendent standard. Nor does he appeal to his main criterion of the natural, namely, happening always or for the most part. Aristotle's theory of justice is anchored to nature by means of the polis described in Politics VII and VIII, and he regards this polis as natural because it fosters the true end of human life and because its social and political structure reflects the natural hierarchy of human beings and the natural stages of life. Thus the nature that Aristotle's theory of justice is ultimately founded on is human nature. (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)

This project explores the topic of dependency of happiness on external goods in Nicomachean Ethics. In this project I defend the following thesis: the dependency of happiness on external goods, in EN, is interpreted in the light of its political self-sufficiency, and in the light of our political humanity; this dependency is of three kinds: 1) enhancing-instrumental, 2) constitutive, and 3) subsistent. The political self-sufficiency of happiness means that, the ultimate good of man, the good of the ruling science of (...) Politics, is self-sufficient based on the self-sufficiency of the city. According to Aristotle, every human being, by nature, is political. The nature of every human being is fundamentally relational. We are what we are, among and with others in the city. This constitutive political human nature functions best only in the city. Based on this political anthropology I interpret the dependency of the human political good on external goods in EN. (shrink)

In this thesis, I explore Aristotle’s conception of the relation between practical wisdom and the end of action. Intellectualists claim that phronesis determines the end of action, whereas non-intellectualists claim that virtue as a non-rational state determines the end of action. Recently, Jessica Moss has provided a sustained defense of the non-intellectualist interpretation. I offer three arguments against Moss’s interpretation: the line at 1144a6-7 that is taken to provide an obvious support for the non-intellectualist interpretation does not provide an obvious (...) support. The non-intellectualist interpretation is inconsistent with the conclusion of Aristotle’s function argument. The non-intellectualist interpretation fails to distinguish between two distinct senses of ‘goal.’ After arguing against the non-intellectualist interpretation, I explore the relation between phronesis and eudaimonia. (shrink)