Moral virtue is, for Aristotle, famously acquired through the practice of virtuous actions. But how should we understand the activity of Aristotle’s moral learner, and how does her activity result in the acquisition of virtue? I argue that by understanding Aristotle’s learner as engaged in the emulative imitation of a virtuous agent, we can best account for her development. Such activity crucially involves the adoption of the virtuous agent’s perspective, from which I argue the learner is positioned so as to (...) appreciate the value of virtuous action—its fineness—and what it would be to act finely herself. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 2.4 Aristotle raises a puzzle about moral habituation. Scholars take the puzzle to concern how a learner could perform virtuous actions, given the assumption that virtue is prior to virtuous action. I argue, instead, that Aristotle is concerned to defend the necessity of practice, given the assumption that virtue is reducible to virtuous action.

In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates argues that ‘the many’ are confused about the experience they describe as ‘being overcome by pleasure’. They think the cause is ‘something other than ignorance’. He argues it follows from what they believe that the cause is ‘ignorance’ and ‘false belief’. I show that his argument depends on a premise he does not introduce but they should deny: that when someone is overcome by pleasure, the desire stems from a belief. To explain why Plato does not (...) make Socrates introduce this premise, the account I construct is speculative. It starts from the assumption that Plato is thinking through an understanding of human beings and what they must do to live good lives that he takes the historical Socrates to set out. (shrink)

Aristotle tells us that in order to develop virtue, one needs to come to love and hate the right sorts of things. However, his description of the virtuous person clearly privileges love to hate. It is love rather than hate that is the main driving force of a good life. It is because of her love of knowledge, truth and beauty that the virtuous person organizes her life in a certain way and pursues these rather than other things (such as (...) pleasure). When hate comes into the picture, it is merely an unavoidable consequence of loving those noble and beautiful things. The virtuous person hates things that are contrary to her values, but does not concentrate on them, much less constructs her life in the pursuit of their destruction. But why privilege love over hate in this way? Why could not a good (happy) and virtuous life be a life driven primarily by hate (in particular, one aimed at eradicating what one (correctly) considers shameful and evil)? Without appealing to any consequences or harmful effects that hate might have on other People, the paper gives two answers to this question. First, allowing hate (rather than love) to dominate one’s life would undermine the right relationship between the two parts of the soul (the rational and the non-rational one) that Aristotle recognizes. Virtue involves establishing the right kind of internal ordering of one’s soul and this cannot be done if one’s soul is dominated by hate. Second, hate has negative cognitive effects insofar as it renders one insensitive to the beauty of human nature and behavior and actively precludes one from acquiring knowledge and understanding. Accordingly, if a good life is a life that involves virtue and knowledge, a life fueled by hate cannot but fall short of that ideal. (shrink)

This book presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's account of how shame instils virtue, and defends its philosophical import. Shame is shown to provide motivational continuity between the actions of the learners and the virtuous dispositions that they will eventually acquire.

I argue that Aristotelian decisions (προαιρέσεις) cannot be conceived of as based solely on wish (βούλησις) and deliberation (βούλευσις), as the standard picture (most influentially argued for in Anscombe's "Thought and Action in Aristotle", in R. Bambrough ed. New Essays on Plato and Aristotle. London: Routledge, 1965) suggests. Although some features of the standard view are correct (such as that decisions have essential connection to deliberation and that wish always plays a crucial role in the formation of a decision), Aristotelian (...) decisions sometimes must include non-rational desires such as appetite. Consequently, any exegetical account of Aristotle’s notion of decision must be able to accommodate this feature. (shrink)

Resumen: En este trabajo replantearé el papel que cumple la inducción en la obtención de los principios éticos. Sostengo que, para Aristóteles, en el texto de EN A4 1095a30-1095b8, la inducción consiste en un proceso cognitivo-intelectual que posibilita las primeras generalizaciones éticas, es decir, los principios prácticos universales, a partir de la generalización o universalización de los datos particulares de la experiencia práctica, es decir, a partir de los principios prácticos particulares. El producto de la inducción es de especial relevancia (...) para la ciencia ética porque parece ser uno de los puntos de partida para la búsqueda de las definiciones éticas. Además, si la inducción se concibe de esta manera, la habituación debe considerarse una inducción sólo por analogía.: In this paper I reassess the role that induction plays in obtaining the ethical principles. In my view, Aristotle holds in Ne A4 1095a30-1095b8 -a passage which has not been duly attended- that inductions consist in intellectual and cognitive processes by means of which we obtain the first ethical generalizations, i.e. the universal practical principles, which in turn are obtained from the generalization of the particular data of practical experience, i.e. from the particular practical principles. What we obtain by means of induction is of great relevance for the ethical science, since it is the starting point for the search of the ethical definitions. If induction is to be conceived this way, then, I conclude, habituation must be considered as an induction only by analogy. (shrink)