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Feedback on the question "Explain Bentham's Utilitarianism and explain how Nozick's experience machine challenges this view".

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Reason as a source of knowledge

The intuition and deduction thesis

The meaning of ‘intuition’ and ‘deduction’ and the distinction between them.

René Descartes’ notion of ‘clear and distinct ideas’.

His cogito as an example of an a priori intuition.

His arguments for the existence of God and his proof of the external world as examples of a priori deductions.

Empiricist responses including:

responses to Descartes' cogito

responses to Descartes' arguments for the existence of God and his proof of the external world (including how Hume's Fork might be applied to these arguments)

and issues with these responses.

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Perception as a source of knowledge

Direct realism

The immediate objects of perception are mind-independent objects and their properties

Issues including:

the argument from illusion

the argument from perceptual variation

the argument from hallucination

the time-lag argument

and responses to these issues.

Indirect realism

The immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects (sense-data) that are caused by and represent mind-independent objects.

John Locke's primary/secondary quality distinction.

Issues including:

the argument that it leads to scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects. Responses including:

Locke's argument from the involuntary nature of our experience

the argument from the coherence of various kinds of experience, as developed by Locke and Catharine Trotter Cockburn (attrib)

Bertrand Russell's response that the external world is the 'best hypothesis'

the argument from George Berkeley that we cannot know the nature of mind-independent objects because mind-dependent ideas cannot be like mind-independent objects.

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3.1 Epistemology

What is knowledge?

The distinction between acquaintance knowledge, ability knowledge and propositional knowledge.

The nature of definition (including Linda Zagzebski) and how propositional knowledge may be analysed/defined.

The tripartite view

Propositional knowledge is defined as justified true belief: S knows that p if and only if:

S is justified in believing that p,

p is true and

S believes that p (individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions)

Issues with the tripartite view including:

the conditions are not individually necessary

the conditions are not sufficient – cases of lucky true beliefs (including Edmund Gettier’s original two counter examples):

responses: alternative post-Gettier analyses/definitions of knowledge including:

strengthen the justification condition (ie infallibilism)

add a 'no false lemmas' condition (J+T+B+N)

replace 'justified' with 'reliably formed' (R+T+B) (ie reliabilism)

replace 'justified' with an account of epistemic virtue (V+T+B).

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Intuitiion and Deduction

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Locke, Berkeley, & Empiricism: Crash Course Philosophy #6

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The Meaning of Knowledge: Crash Course Philosophy #7

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For each paper the list shows the major focus of the content of the exam.

Questions will be drawn from one or more of the indicated areas of specification conte

nt

.

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Moral Philosophy

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Moral philosophy

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Moral Philosophy

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Moral philosophy

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This qualification is linear. Linear means that students will sit all their exams at the end of the course.

Subject content

Assessments

Paper 1: Epistemology and moral philosophy

What's assessed

Sections 1 and 2

How it's assessed

Written exam: 3 hours

100 marks

50% of A-level

Questions

Section A: Five questions on epistemology

Section B: Five questions on moral philosophy

Paper 2: The metaphysics of God and the metaphysics of mind

What's assessed

Sections 3 and 4

How it's assessed

Written exam: 3 hours

100 marks

50% of A-level

Questions

Section A: Five questions on the metaphysics of God

Section B: Five questions on the metaphysics of mind

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This qualification is linear. Linear means that students will sit all their exams at the end of the course.

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Aristotle's Ethical Theory - Virtue Ethics, Eudaimonia & The Golden Mean

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The Argument from Queerness - J.L Mackie (Extract from "Moral Skepticism: Error Theory")

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Cognitivism vs Non Cognitivism (Extract from "Metaethics")

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A.J Ayer's Emotivism - Non Cognitivism (Metaethics)

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G.E Moore's Non Naturalism (Open Question Argument & Intuitionism: Metaethics)

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

metaethics, the subdiscipline of ethics concerned with the nature of ethical theories and moral judgments.

A brief treatment of metaethics follows. For further discussion, see ethics: Metaethics.

Major metaethical theories include naturalism, nonnaturalism (or intuitionism), emotivism, and prescriptivism. Naturalists and nonnaturalists agree that moral language is cognitive-i.e., that moral claims can be known to be true or false. They disagree, however, on how this knowing is to be done. Naturalists hold either that these claims can be adequately justified by reasoning from statements employing only nonmoral terms or that moral terms themselves can be defined in nonmoral (natural or factlike) terms. Intuitionists deny both of these positions and hold that moral terms are sui generis, that moral statements are autonomous in their logical status. Emotivists deny that moral utterances are cognitive, holding that they consist in emotional expressions of approval or disapproval and that the nature of moral reasoning and justification must be reinterpreted to take this essential characteristic of moral utterances into account. Prescriptivists take a somewhat similar approach, arguing that moral judgments are prescriptions or prohibitions of action, rather than statements of fact about the world.

Brian Duignan.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by metaethics, the subdiscipline of ethics concerned with the nature of ethical theories and moral judgments. A brief treatment of metaethics follows. For further discussion, see ethics: Metaethics. Major metaethical theories include naturalism, nonnaturalism (or intuitionism), emotivism, and prescriptivism.

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Aristotle conceives of ethical theory as a field distinct from the theoretical sciences. Its methodology must match its subject matter-good action-and must respect the fact that in this field many generalizations hold only for the most part. We study ethics in order to improve our lives, and therefore its principal concern is the nature of human well-being. Aristotle follows Socrates and Plato in taking the virtues to be central to a well-lived life. Like Plato, he regards the ethical virtues (justice, courage, temperance and so on) as complex rational, emotional and social skills. But he rejects Plato's idea that to be completely virtuous one must acquire, through a training in the sciences, mathematics, and philosophy, an understanding of what goodness is. What we need, in order to live well, is a proper appreciation of the way in which such goods as friendship, pleasure, virtue, honor and wealth fit together as a whole. In order to apply that general understanding to particular cases, we must acquire, through proper upbringing and habits, the ability to see, on each occasion, which course of action is best supported by reasons. Therefore practical wisdom, as he conceives it, cannot be acquired solely by learning general rules. We must also acquire, through practice, those deliberative, emotional, and social skills that enable us to put our general understanding of well-being into practice in ways that are suitable to each occasion.

1. Preliminaries

Aristotle wrote two ethical treatises: the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics. He does not himself use either of these titles, although in the Politics (1295a36) he refers back to one of them-probably the Eudemian Ethics-as " ta êthika"-his writings about character. The words " Eudemian" and " Nicomachean" were added later, perhaps because the former was edited by his friend, Eudemus, and the latter by his son, Nicomachus. In any case, these two works cover more or less the same ground: they begin with a discussion of eudaimonia ("happiness", "flourishing"), and turn to an examination of the nature of aretê ("virtue", "excellence") and the character traits that human beings need in order to live life at its best. Both treatises examine the conditions in which praise or blame are appropriate, and the nature of pleasure and friendship; near the end of each work, we find a brief discussion of the proper relationship between human beings and the divine.

Though the general point of view expressed in each work is the same, there are many subtle differences in organization and content as well. Clearly, one is a re-working of the other, and although no single piece of evidence shows conclusively what their order is, it is widely assumed that the Nicomachean Ethics is a later and improved version of the Eudemian Ethics. (Not all of the Eudemian Ethics was revised: its Books IV, V, and VI re-appear as V, VI, VII of the Nicomachean Ethics.) Perhaps the most telling indication of this ordering is that in several instances the Nicomachean Ethics develops a theme about which its Eudemian cousin is silent. Only the Nicomachean Ethics discusses the close relationship between ethical inquiry and politics; only the Nicomachean Ethics critically examines Solon's paradoxical dictum that no man should be counted happy until he is dead; and only the Nicomachean Ethics gives a series of arguments for the superiority of the philosophical life to the political life. The remainder of this article will therefore focus on this work. [Note: Page and line numbers shall henceforth refer to this treatise.]

A third treatise, called the Magna Moralia (the "Big Ethics") is included in complete editions of Aristotle's works, but its authorship is disputed by scholars. It ranges over topics discussed more fully in the other two works and its point of view is similar to theirs. (Why, being briefer, is it named the Magna Moralia? Because each of the two papyrus rolls into which it is divided is unusually long. Just as a big mouse can be a small animal, two big chapters can make a small book. This work was evidently named "big" with reference to its parts, not the whole.) A few authors in antiquity refer to a work with this name and attribute it to Aristotle, but it is not mentioned by several authorities, such as Cicero and Diogenes Laertius, whom we would expect to have known of it. Some scholars hold that it is Aristotle's earliest course on ethics-perhaps his own lecture notes or those of a student; others regard it as a post-Aristotelian compilation or adaption of one or both of his genuine ethical treatises.

Although Aristotle is deeply indebted to Plato's moral philosophy, particularly Plato's central insight that moral thinking must be integrated with our emotions and appetites, and that the preparation for such unity of character should begin with childhood education, the systematic character of Aristotle's discussion of these themes was a remarkable innovation. No one had written ethical treatises before Aristotle. Plato's Republic, for example, does not treat ethics as a distinct subject matter; nor does it offer a systematic examination of the nature of happiness, virtue, voluntariness, pleasure, or friendship. To be sure, we can find in Plato's works important discussions of these phenomena, but they are not brought together and unified as they are in Aristotle's ethical writings.

2. The Human Good and the Function Argument

The principal idea with which Aristotle begins is that there are differences of opinion about what is best for human beings, and that to profit from ethical inquiry we must resolve this disagreement. He insists that ethics is not a theoretical discipline: we are asking what the good for human beings is not simply because we want to have knowledge, but because we will be better able to achieve our good if we develop a fuller understanding of what it is to flourish. In raising this question-what is the good?-Aristotle is not looking for a list of items that are good. He assumes that such a list can be compiled rather easily; most would agree, for example, that it is good to have friends, to experience pleasure, to be healthy, to be honored, and to have such virtues as courage at least to some degree. The difficult and controversial question arises when we ask whether certain of these goods are more desirable than others. Aristotle's search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.

Aristotle thinks everyone will agree that the terms " eudaimonia" ("happiness") and " eu zên" ("living well") designate such an end. The Greek term " eudaimon" is composed of two parts: " eu" means "well" and " daimon" means "divinity" or "spirit". To be eudaimon is therefore to be living in a way that is well-favored by a god. But Aristotle never calls attention to this etymology in his ethical writings, and it seems to have little influence on his thinking. He regards " eudaimon" as a mere substitute for eu zên ("living well"). These terms play an evaluative role, and are not simply descriptions of someone's state of mind.

Aristotle's conclusion about the nature of happiness is in a sense uniquely his own. No other writer or thinker had said precisely what he says about what it is to live well. But at the same time his view is not too distant from a common idea. As he himself points out, one traditional conception of happiness identifies it with virtue (1098b30-1). Aristotle's theory should be construed as a refinement of this position. He says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity. Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.

At the same time, Aristotle makes it clear that in order to be happy one must possess others goods as well-such goods as friends, wealth, and power. And one's happiness is endangered if one is severely lacking in certain advantages-if, for example, one is extremely ugly, or has lost children or good friends through death (1099a31-b6). But why so? If one's ultimate end should simply be virtuous activity, then why should it make any difference to one's happiness whether one has or lacks these other types of good? Aristotle's reply is that one's virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate supply of other goods (1153b17-19). Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, and what little he can accomplish will not be of great merit. To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune; happenstance can rob even the most excellent human beings of happiness. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists, the highest good, virtuous activity, is not something that comes to us by chance. Although we must be fortunate enough to have parents and fellow citizens who help us become virtuous, we ourselves share much of the responsibility for acquiring and exercising the virtues.

3. Methodology

3.1 Traditional Virtues and the Skeptic

A common complaint about Aristotle's attempt to defend his conception of happiness is that his argument is too general to show that it is in one's interest to possess any of the particular virtues as they are traditionally conceived. Suppose we grant, at least for the sake of argument, that doing anything well, including living well, consists in exercising certain skills; and let us call these skills, whatever they turn out to be, virtues. Even so, that point does not by itself allow us to infer that such qualities as temperance, justice, courage, as they are normally understood, are virtues. They should be counted as virtues only if it can be shown that actualizing precisely these skills is what happiness consists in. What Aristotle owes us, then, is an account of these traditional qualities that explains why they must play a central role in any well-lived life.

But perhaps Aristotle disagrees, and refuses to accept this argumentative burden. In one of several important methodological remarks he makes near the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, he says that in order to profit from the sort of study he is undertaking, one must already have been brought up in good habits (1095b4-6). The audience he is addressing, in other words, consists of people who are already just, courageous, and generous; or, at any rate, they are well on their way to possessing these virtues. Why such a restricted audience? Why does he not address those who have serious doubts about the value of these traditional qualities, and who therefore have not yet decided to cultivate and embrace them?

Addressing the moral skeptic, after all, is the project Plato undertook in the Republic: in Book I he rehearses an argument to show that justice is not really a virtue, and the remainder of this work is an attempt to rebut this thesis. Aristotle's project seems, at least on the surface, to be quite different. He does not appear to be addressing someone who has genuine doubts about the value of justice or kindred qualities. Perhaps, then, he realizes how little can be accomplished, in the study of ethics, to provide it with a rational foundation. Perhaps he thinks that no reason can be given for being just, generous, and courageous. These are qualities one learns to love when one is a child, and having been properly habituated, one no longer looks for or needs a reason to exercise them. One can show, as a general point, that happiness consists in exercising some skills or other, but that the moral skills of a virtuous person are what one needs is not a proposition that can be established on the basis of argument.

This is not the only way of reading the Ethics, however. For surely we cannot expect Aristotle to show what it is about the traditional virtues that makes them so worthwhile until he has fully discussed the nature of those virtues. He himself warns us that his initial statement of what happiness is should be treated as a rough outline whose details are to be filled in later (1098a20-22). His intention in Book I of the Ethics is to indicate in a general way why the virtues are important; why particular virtues-courage, justice, and the like-are components of happiness is something we should be able to better understand only at a later point.

In any case, Aristotle's assertion that his audience must already have begun to cultivate the virtues need not be taken to mean that no reasons can be found for being courageous, just, and generous. His point, rather, may be that in ethics, as in any other study, we cannot make progress towards understanding why things are as they are unless we begin with certain assumptions about what is the case. Neither theoretical nor practical inquiry starts from scratch. Someone who has made no observations of astronomical or biological phenomena is not yet equipped with sufficient data to develop an understanding of these sciences. The parallel point in ethics is that to make progress in this sphere we must already have come to enjoy doing what is just, courageous, generous and the like. We must experience these activities not as burdensome constraints, but as noble, worthwhile, and enjoyable in themselves. Then, when we engage in ethical inquiry, we can ask what it is about these activities that makes them worthwhile. We can also compare these goods with other things that are desirable in themselves-pleasure, friendship, honor, and so on-and ask whether any of them is more desirable than the others. We approach ethical theory with a disorganized bundle of likes and dislikes based on habit and experience; such disorder is an inevitable feature of childhood. But what is not inevitable is that our early experience will be rich enough to provide an adequate basis for worthwhile ethical reflection; that is why we need to have been brought up well. Yet such an upbringing can take us only so far. We seek a deeper understanding of the objects of our childhood enthusiasms, and we must systematize our goals so that as adults we have a coherent plan of life. We need to engage in ethical theory, and to reason well in this field, if we are to move beyond the low-grade form of virtue we acquired as children.

3.2 Differences from and Affinities to Plato

Read in this way, Aristotle is engaged in a project similar in some respects to the one Plato carried out in the Republic. One of Plato's central points is that it is a great advantage to establish a hierarchical ordering of the elements in one's soul; and he shows how the traditional virtues can be interpreted to foster or express the proper relation between reason and less rational elements of the psyche. Aristotle's approach is similar: his "function argument" shows in a general way that our good lies in the dominance of reason, and the detailed studies of the particular virtues reveal how each of them involves the right kind of ordering of the soul. Aristotle's goal is to arrive at conclusions like Plato's, but without relying on the Platonic metaphysics that plays a central role in the argument of the Republic. He rejects the existence of Plato's forms in general and the form of the good in particular; and he rejects the idea that in order to become fully virtuous one must study mathematics and the sciences, and see all branches of knowledge as a unified whole. Even though Aristotle's ethical theory sometimes relies on philosophical distinctions that are more fully developed in his other works, he never proposes that students of ethics need to engage in a specialized study of the natural world, or mathematics, or eternal and changing objects. His project is to make ethics an autonomous field, and to show why a full understanding of what is good does not require expertise in any other field.

There is another contrast with Plato that should be emphasized: In Book II of the Republic, we are told that the best type of good is one that is desirable both in itself and for the sake of its results (357d-358a). Plato argues that justice should be placed in this category, but since it is generally agreed that it is desirable for its consequences, he devotes most of his time to establishing his more controversial point-that justice is to be sought for its own sake. By contrast, Aristotle assumes that if A is desirable for the sake of B, then B is better than A (1094a14-16); therefore, the highest kind of good must be one that is not desirable for the sake of anything else. To show that A deserves to be our ultimate end, one must show that all other goods are best thought of as instruments that promote A in some way or other. Accordingly, it would not serve Aristotle's purpose to consider virtuous activity in isolation from all other goods. He needs to discuss honor, wealth, pleasure, and friendship in order to show how these goods, properly understood, can be seen as resources that serve the higher goal of virtuous activity. He vindicates the centrality of virtue in a well-lived life by showing that in the normal course of things a virtuous person will not live a life devoid of friends, honor, wealth, pleasure, and the like. Virtuous activity makes a life happy not by guaranteeing happiness in all circumstances, but by serving as the goal for the sake of which lesser goods are to be pursued. Aristotle's methodology in ethics therefore pays more attention than does Plato's to the connections that normally obtain between virtue and other goods. That is why he stresses that in this sort of study one must be satisfied with conclusions that hold only for the most part (1094b11-22). Poverty, isolation, and dishonor are normally impediments to the exercise of virtue and therefore to happiness, although there may be special circumstances in which they are not. The possibility of exceptions does not undermine the point that, as a rule, to live well is to have sufficient resources for the pursuit of virtue over the course of a lifetime.

4. Virtues and Deficiencies, Continence and Incontinence

Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtue (1103a1-10): those that pertain to the part of the soul that engages in reasoning (virtues of mind or intellect), and those that pertain to the part of the soul that cannot itself reason but is nonetheless capable of following reason (ethical virtues, virtues of character). Intellectual virtues are in turn divided into two sorts: those that pertain to theoretical reasoning, and those that pertain to practical thinking (1139a3-8). He organizes his material by first studying ethical virtue in general, then moving to a discussion of particular ethical virtues (temperance, courage, and so on), and finally completing his survey by considering the intellectual virtues (practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, etc.).

All free males are born with the potential to become ethically virtuous and practically wise, but to achieve these goals they must go through two stages: during their childhood, they must develop the proper habits; and then, when their reason is fully developed, they must acquire practical wisdom ( phronêsis). This does not mean that first we fully acquire the ethical virtues, and then, at a later stage, add on practical wisdom. Ethical virtue is fully developed only when it is combined with practical wisdom (1144b14-17). A low-grade form of ethical virtue emerges in us during childhood as we are repeatedly placed in situations that call for appropriate actions and emotions; but as we rely less on others and become capable of doing more of our own thinking, we learn to develop a larger picture of human life, our deliberative skills improve, and our emotional responses are perfected. Like anyone who has developed a skill in performing a complex and difficult activity, the virtuous person takes pleasure in exercising his intellectual skills. Furthermore, when he has decided what to do, he does not have to contend with internal pressures to act otherwise. He does not long to do something that he regards as shameful; and he is not greatly distressed at having to give up a pleasure that he realizes he should forego.

Aristotle places those who suffer from such internal disorders into one of three categories: (A) Some agents, having reached a decision about what to do on a particular occasion, experience some counter-pressure brought on by an appetite for pleasure, or anger, or some other emotion; and this countervailing influence is not completely under the control of reason. (1) Within this category, some are typically better able to resist these counter-rational pressures than is the average person. Such people are not virtuous, although they generally do what a virtuous person does. Aristotle calls them "continent" ( enkratês). But (2) others are less successful than the average person in resisting these counter-pressures. They are "incontinent" ( akratês). (The explanation of akrasia is a topic to which we will return in section 7.) In addition, (B) there is a type of agent who refuses even to try to do what an ethically virtuous agent would do, because he has become convinced that justice, temperance, generosity and the like are of little or no value. Such people Aristotle calls evil ( kakos, phaulos). He assumes that evil people are driven by desires for domination and luxury, and although they are single-minded in their pursuit of these goals, he portrays them as deeply divided, because their pleonexia -their desire for more and more-leaves them dissatisfied and full of self-hatred.

It should be noticed that all three of these deficiencies-continence, incontinence, vice-involve some lack of internal harmony. (Here Aristotle's debt to Plato is particularly evident, for one of the central ideas of the Republic is that the life of a good person is harmonious, and all other lives deviate to some degree from this ideal.) The evil person may wholeheartedly endorse some evil plan of action at a particular moment, but over the course of time, Aristotle supposes, he will regret his decision, because whatever he does will prove inadequate for the achievement of his goals (1166b5-29). Aristotle assumes that when someone systematically makes bad decisions about how to live his life, his failures are caused by psychological forces that are less than fully rational. His desires for pleasure, power or some other external goal have become so strong that they make him care too little or not at all about acting ethically. To keep such destructive inner forces at bay, we need to develop the proper habits and emotional responses when we are children, and to reflect intelligently on our aims when we are adults. But some vulnerability to these disruptive forces is present even in more-or-less virtuous people; that is why even a good political community needs laws and the threat of punishment. Clear thinking about the best goals of human life and the proper way to put them into practice is a rare achievement, because the human psyche is not a hospitable environment for the development of these insights.

5. The Doctrine of the Mean

5.1 Ethical Virtue as Disposition

Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a " hexis" ("state" "condition" "disposition")-a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have appropriate feelings (1105b25-6). Defective states of character are hexeis (plural of hexis) as well, but they are tendencies to have inappropriate feelings. The significance of Aristotle's characterization of these states as hexeis is his decisive rejection of the thesis, found throughout Plato's early dialogues, that virtue is nothing but a kind of knowledge and vice nothing but a lack of knowledge. Although Aristotle frequently draws analogies between the crafts and the virtues (and similarly between physical health and eudaimonia), he insists that the virtues differ from the crafts and all branches of knowledge in that the former involve appropriate emotional responses and are not purely intellectual conditions.

Furthermore, every ethical virtue is a condition intermediate (a "golden mean" as it is popularly known) between two other states, one involving excess, and the other deficiency (1106a26-b28). In this respect, Aristotle says, the virtues are no different from technical skills: every skilled worker knows how to avoid excess and deficiency, and is in a condition intermediate between two extremes. The courageous person, for example, judges that some dangers are worth facing and others not, and experiences fear to a degree that is appropriate to his circumstances. He lies between the coward, who flees every danger and experiences excessive fear, and the rash person, who judges every danger worth facing and experiences little or no fear. Aristotle holds that this same topography applies to every ethical virtue: all are located on a map that places the virtues between states of excess and deficiency. He is careful to add, however, that the mean is to be determined in a way that takes into account the particular circumstances of the individual (1106a36-b7). The arithmetic mean between 10 and 2 is 6, and this is so invariably, whatever is being counted. But the intermediate point that is chosen by an expert in any of the crafts will vary from one situation to another. There is no universal rule, for example, about how much food an athlete should eat, and it would be absurd to infer from the fact that 10 lbs. is too much and 2 lbs. too little for me that I should eat 6 lbs. Finding the mean in any given situation is not a mechanical or thoughtless procedure, but requires a full and detailed acquaintance with the circumstances.

It should be evident that Aristotle's treatment of virtues as mean states endorses the idea that we should sometimes have strong feelings-when such feelings are called for by our situation. Sometimes only a small degree of anger is appropriate; but at other times, circumstances call for great anger. The right amount is not some quantity between zero and the highest possible level, but rather the amount, whatever it happens to be, that is proportionate to the seriousness of the situation. Of course, Aristotle is committed to saying that anger should never reach the point at which it undermines reason; and this means that our passion should always fall short of the extreme point at which we would lose control. But it is possible to be very angry without going to this extreme, and Aristotle does not intend to deny this.

The theory of the mean is open to several objections, but before considering them, we should recognize that in fact there are two distinct theses each of which might be called a doctrine of the mean. First, there is the thesis that every virtue is a state that lies between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency. Second, there is the idea that whenever a virtuous person chooses to perform a virtuous act, he can be described as aiming at an act that is in some way or other intermediate between alternatives that he rejects. It is this second thesis that is most likely to be found objectionable. A critic might concede that in some cases virtuous acts can be described in Aristotle's terms. If, for example, one is trying to decide how much to spend on a wedding present, one is looking for an amount that is neither excessive nor deficient. But surely many other problems that confront a virtuous agent are not susceptible to this quantitative analysis. If one must decide whether to attend a wedding or respect a competing obligation instead, it would not be illuminating to describe this as a search for a mean between extremes-unless "aiming at the mean" simply becomes another phrase for trying to make the right decision. The objection, then, is that Aristotle's doctrine of the mean, taken as a doctrine about what the ethical agent does when he deliberates, is in many cases inapplicable or unilluminating.

A defense of Aristotle would have to say that the virtuous person does after all aim at a mean, if we allow for a broad enough notion of what sort of aiming is involved. For example, consider a juror who must determine whether a defendant is guilty as charged. He does not have before his mind a quantitative question; he is trying to decide whether the accused committed the crime, and is not looking for some quantity of action intermediate between extremes. Nonetheless, an excellent juror can be described as someone who, in trying to arrive at the correct decision, seeks to express the right degree of concern for all relevant considerations. He searches for the verdict that results from a deliberative process that is neither overly credulous nor unduly skeptical. Similarly, in facing situations that arouse anger, a virtuous agent must determine what action (if any) to take in response to an insult, and although this is not itself a quantitative question, his attempt to answer it properly requires him to have the right degree of concern for his standing as a member of the community. He aims at a mean in the sense that he looks for a response that avoids too much or too little attention to factors that must be taken into account in making a wise decision.

Perhaps a greater difficulty can be raised if we ask how Aristotle determines which emotions are governed by the doctrine of the mean. Consider someone who loves to wrestle, for example. Is this passion something that must be felt by every human being at appropriate times and to the right degree? Surely someone who never felt this emotion to any degree could still live a perfectly happy life. Why then should we not say the same about at least some of the emotions that Aristotle builds into his analysis of the ethically virtuous agent? Why should we experience anger at all, or fear, or the degree of concern for wealth and honor that Aristotle commends? These are precisely the questions that were asked in antiquity by the Stoics, and they came to the conclusion that such common emotions as anger and fear are always inappropriate. Aristotle assumes, on the contrary, not simply that these common passions are sometimes appropriate, but that it is essential that every human being learn how to master them and experience them in the right way at the right times. A defense of his position would have to show that the emotions that figure in his account of the virtues are valuable components of any well-lived human life, when they are experienced properly. Perhaps such a project could be carried out, but Aristotle himself does not attempt to do so.

He often says, in the course of his discussion, that when the good person chooses to act virtuously, he does so for the sake of the " kalon"-a word that can mean "beautiful", "noble", or "fine" (see for example 1120a23-4). This term indicates that Aristotle sees in ethical activity an attraction that is comparable to the beauty of well-crafted artifacts, including such artifacts as poetry, music, and drama. He draws this analogy in his discussion of the mean, when he says that every craft tries to produce a work from which nothing should be taken away and to which nothing further should be added (1106b5-14). A craft product, when well designed and produced by a good craftsman, is not merely useful, but also has such elements as balance, proportion and harmony-for these are properties that help make it useful. Similarly, Aristotle holds that a well-executed project that expresses the ethical virtues will not merely be advantageous but kalon as well-for the balance it strikes is part of what makes it advantageous. The young person learning to acquire the virtues must develop a love of doing what is kalon and a strong aversion to its opposite-the aischron, the shameful and ugly. Determining what is kalon is difficult (1106b28-33, 1109a24-30), and the normal human aversion to embracing difficulties helps account for the scarcity of virtue (1104b10-11).

5.2 Ethical Theory Does Not Offer a Decision Procedure

It should be clear that neither the thesis that virtues lie between extremes nor the thesis that the good person aims at what is intermediate is intended as a procedure for making decisions. These doctrines of the mean help show what is attractive about the virtues, and they also help systematize our understanding of which qualities are virtues. Once we see that temperance, courage, and other generally recognized characteristics are mean states, we are in a position to generalize and to identify other mean states as virtues, even though they are not qualities for which we have a name. Aristotle remarks, for example, that the mean state with respect to anger has no name in Greek (1125b26-7). Though he is guided to some degree by distinctions captured by ordinary terms, his methodology allows him to recognize states for which no names exist.

So far from offering a decision procedure, Aristotle insists that this is something that no ethical theory can do. His theory elucidates the nature of virtue, but what must be done on any particular occasion by a virtuous agent depends on the circumstances, and these vary so much from one occasion to another that there is no possibility of stating a series of rules, however complicated, that collectively solve every practical problem. This feature of ethical theory is not unique; Aristotle thinks it applies to many crafts, such as medicine and navigation (1104a7-10). He says that the virtuous person "sees the truth in each case, being as it were a standard and measure of them" (1113a32-3); but this appeal to the good person's vision should not be taken to mean that he has an inarticulate and incommunicable insight into the truth. Aristotle thinks of the good person as someone who is good at deliberation, and he describes deliberation as a process of rational inquiry. The intermediate point that the good person tries to find is

determined by logos ("reason", "account") and in the way that the person of practical reason would determine it. (1107a1-2)

To say that such a person "sees" what to do is simply a way of registering the point that the good person's reasoning does succeed in discovering what is best in each situation. He is "as it were a standard and measure" in the sense that his views should be regarded as authoritative by other members of the community. A standard or measure is something that settles disputes; and because good people are so skilled at discovering the mean in difficult cases, their advice must be sought and heeded.

Although there is no possibility of writing a book of rules, however long, that will serve as a complete guide to wise decision-making, it would be a mistake to attribute to Aristotle the opposite position, namely that every purported rule admits of exceptions, so that even a small rule-book that applies to a limited number of situations is an impossibility. He makes it clear that certain emotions (spite, shamelessness, envy) and actions (adultery, theft, murder) are always wrong, regardless of the circumstances (1107a8-12). Although he says that the names of these emotions and actions convey their wrongness, he should not be taken to mean that their wrongness derives from linguistic usage. He defends the family as a social institution against the criticisms of Plato ( Politics II.3-4), and so when he says that adultery is always wrong, he is prepared to argue for his point by explaining why marriage is a valuable custom and why extra-marital intercourse undermines the relationship between husband and wife. He is not making the tautological claim that wrongful sexual activity is wrong, but the more specific and contentious point that marriages ought to be governed by a rule of strict fidelity. Similarly, when he says that murder and theft are always wrong, he does not mean that wrongful killing and taking are wrong, but that the current system of laws regarding these matters ought to be strictly enforced. So, although Aristotle holds that ethics cannot be reduced to a system of rules, however complex, he insists that some rules are inviolable.

5.3 The Starting Point for Practical Reasoning

We have seen that the decisions of a practically wise person are not mere intuitions, but can be justified by a chain of reasoning. (This is why Aristotle often talks in term of a practical syllogism, with a major premise that identifies some good to be achieved, and a minor premise that locates the good in some present-to-hand situation.) At the same time, he is acutely aware of the fact that reasoning can always be traced back to a starting point that is not itself justified by further reasoning. Neither good theoretical reasoning nor good practical reasoning moves in a circle; true thinking always presupposes and progresses in linear fashion from proper starting points. And that leads him to ask for an account of how the proper starting points of reasoning are to be determined. Practical reasoning always presupposes that one has some end, some goal one is trying to achieve; and the task of reasoning is to determine how that goal is to be accomplished. (This need not be means-end reasoning in the conventional sense; if, for example, our goal is the just resolution of a conflict, we must determine what constitutes justice in these particular circumstances. Here we are engaged in ethical inquiry, and are not asking a purely instrumental question.) But if practical reasoning is correct only if it begins from a correct premise, what is it that insures the correctness of its starting point?

Aristotle replies: "Virtue makes the goal right, practical wisdom the things leading to it" (1144a7-8). By this he cannot mean that there is no room for reasoning about our ultimate end. For as we have seen, he gives a reasoned defense of his conception of happiness as virtuous activity. What he must have in mind, when he says that virtue makes the goal right, is that deliberation typically proceeds from a goal that is far more specific than the goal of attaining happiness by acting virtuously. To be sure, there may be occasions when a good person approaches an ethical problem by beginning with the premise that happiness consists in virtuous activity. But more often what happens is that a concrete goal presents itself as his starting point-helping a friend in need, or supporting a worthwhile civic project. Which specific project we set for ourselves is determined by our character. A good person starts from worthwhile concrete ends because his habits and emotional orientation have given him the ability to recognize that such goals are within reach, here and now. Those who are defective in character may have the rational skill needed to achieve their ends-the skill Aristotle calls cleverness (1144a23-8)-but often the ends they seek are worthless. The cause of this deficiency lies not in some impairment in their capacity to reason-for we are assuming that they are normal in this respect-but in the training of their passions.

6. Intellectual Virtues

It is not easy to understand the point Aristotle is making here. Has he not already told us that there can be no complete theoretical guide to ethics, that the best one can hope for is that in particular situations one's ethical habits and practical wisdom will help one determine what to do? Furthermore, Aristotle nowhere announces, in the remainder of Book VI, that we have achieved the greater degree of accuracy that he seems to be looking for. The rest of this Book is a discussion of the various kinds of intellectual virtues: theoretical wisdom, science ( epistêmê), intuitive understanding ( nous), practical wisdom, and craft expertise. Aristotle explains what each of these states of mind is, draws various contrasts among them, and takes up various questions that can be raised about their usefulness. At no point does he explicitly return to the question he raised at the beginning of Book VI; he never says, "and now we have the standard of right reason that we were looking for". Nor is it easy to see how his discussion of these five intellectual virtues can bring greater precision to the doctrine of the mean.

We can make some progress towards solving this problem if we remind ourselves that at the beginning of the Ethics, Aristotle describes his inquiry as an attempt to develop a better understanding of what our ultimate aim should be. The sketchy answer he gives in Book I is that happiness consists in virtuous activity. In Books II through V, he describes the virtues of the part of the soul that is rational in that it can be attentive to reason, even though it is not capable of deliberating. But precisely because these virtues are rational only in this derivative way, they are a less important component of our ultimate end than is the intellectual virtue-practical wisdom-with which they are integrated. If what we know about virtue is only what is said in Books II through V, then our grasp of our ultimate end is radically incomplete, because we still have not studied the intellectual virtue that enables us to reason well in any given situation. One of the things, at least, towards which Aristotle is gesturing, as he begins Book VI, is practical wisdom. This state of mind has not yet been analyzed, and that is one reason why he complains that his account of our ultimate end is not yet clear enough.

But is practical wisdom the only ingredient of our ultimate end that has not yet been sufficiently discussed? Book VI discusses five intellectual virtues, not just practical wisdom, but it is clear that at least one of these-craft knowledge-is considered only in order to provide a contrast with the others. Aristotle is not recommending that his readers make this intellectual virtue part of their ultimate aim. But what of the remaining three: science, intuitive understanding, and the virtue that combines them, theoretical wisdom? Are these present in Book VI only in order to provide a contrast with practical wisdom, or is Aristotle saying that these too must be components of our goal? He does not fully address this issue, but it is evident from several of his remarks in Book VI that he takes theoretical wisdom to be a more valuable state of mind than practical wisdom.

It is strange if someone thinks that politics or practical wisdom is the most excellent kind of knowledge, unless man is the best thing in the cosmos. (1141a20-22)

He says that theoretical wisdom produces happiness by being a part of virtue (1144a3-6), and that practical wisdom looks to the development of theoretical wisdom, and issues commands for its sake (1145a8-11). So it is clear that exercising theoretical wisdom is a more important component of our ultimate goal than practical wisdom.

Even so, it may still seem perplexing that these two intellectual virtues, either separately or collectively, should somehow fill a gap in the doctrine of the mean. Having read Book VI and completed our study of what these two forms of wisdom are, how are we better able to succeed in finding the mean in particular situations?

The answer to this question may be that Aristotle does not intend Book VI to provide a full answer to that question, but rather to serve as a prolegomenon to an answer. For it is only near the end of Book X that he presents a full discussion of the relative merits of these two kinds of intellectual virtue, and comments on the different degrees to which each needs to be provided with resources. In X.7-8, he argues that the happiest kind of life is that of a philosopher-someone who exercises, over a long period of time, the virtue of theoretical wisdom, and has sufficient resources for doing so. (We will discuss these chapters more fully in section 10 below.) One of his reasons for thinking that such a life is superior to the second-best kind of life-that of a political leader, someone who devotes himself to the exercise of practical rather than theoretical wisdom-is that it requires less external equipment (1178a23-b7). Aristotle has already made it clear in his discussion of the ethical virtues that someone who is greatly honored by his community and commands large financial resources is in a position to exercise a higher order of ethical virtue than is someone who receives few honors and has little property. The virtue of magnificence is superior to mere liberality, and similarly greatness of soul is a higher excellence than the ordinary virtue that has to do with honor. (These qualities are discussed in IV.1-4.) The grandest expression of ethical virtue requires great political power, because it is the political leader who is in a position to do the greatest amount of good for the community. The person who chooses to lead a political life, and who aims at the fullest expression of practical wisdom, has a standard for deciding what level of resources he needs: he should have friends, property, and honors in sufficient quantities to allow his practical wisdom to express itself without impediment. But if one chooses instead the life of a philosopher, then one will look to a different standard-the fullest expression of theoretical wisdom-and one will need a smaller supply of these resources.

This enables us to see how Aristotle's treatment of the intellectual virtues does give greater content and precision to the doctrine of the mean. The best standard is the one adopted by the philosopher; the second-best is the one adopted by the political leader. In either case, it is the exercise of an intellectual virtue that provides a guideline for making important quantitative decisions. This supplement to the doctrine of the mean is fully compatible with Aristotle's thesis that no set of rules, no matter how long and detailed, obviates the need for deliberative and ethical virtue. If one chooses the life of a philosopher, one should keep the level of one's resources high enough to secure the leisure necessary for such a life, but not so high that one's external equipment becomes a burden and a distraction rather than an aid to living well. That gives one a firmer idea of how to hit the mean, but it still leaves the details to be worked out. The philosopher will need to determine, in particular situations, where justice lies, how to spend wisely, when to meet or avoid a danger, and so on. All of the normal difficulties of ethical life remain, and they can be solved only by means of a detailed understanding of the particulars of each situation. Having philosophy as one's ultimate aim does not put an end to the need for developing and exercising practical wisdom and the ethical virtues.

Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of akrasia: impetuosity ( propeteia) and weakness ( astheneia). The person who is weak goes through a process of deliberation and makes a choice; but rather than act in accordance with his reasoned choice, he acts under the influence of a passion. By contrast, the impetuous person does not go through a process of deliberation and does not make a reasoned choice; he simply acts under the influence of a passion. At the time of action, the impetuous person experiences no internal conflict. But once his act has been completed, he regrets what he has done. One could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something that post-dated rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes through after he acts comes too late to save him from error.

It is important to bear in mind that when Aristotle talks about impetuosity and weakness, he is discussing chronic conditions. The impetuous person is someone who acts emotionally and fails to deliberate not just once or twice but with some frequency; he makes this error more than most people do. Because of this pattern in his actions, we would be justified in saying of the impetuous person that had his passions not prevented him from doing so, he would have deliberated and chosen an action different from the one he did perform.

The two kinds of passions that Aristotle focuses on, in his treatment of akrasia, are the appetite for pleasure and anger. Either can lead to impetuosity and weakness. But Aristotle gives pride of place to the appetite for pleasure as the passion that undermines reason. He calls the kind of akrasia caused by an appetite for pleasure "unqualified akrasia"-or, as we might say, akrasia "full stop"; akrasia caused by anger he considers a qualified form of akrasia and calls it akrasia "with respect to anger". We thus have these four forms of akrasia: (A) impetuosity caused by pleasure, (B) impetuosity caused by anger, (C) weakness caused by pleasure (D) weakness caused by anger. It should be noticed that Aristotle's treatment of akrasia is heavily influenced by Plato's tripartite division of the soul in the Republic. Plato holds that either the spirited part (which houses anger, as well as other emotions) or the appetitive part (which houses the desire for physical pleasures) can disrupt the dictates of reason and result in action contrary to reason. The same threefold division of the soul can be seen in Aristotle's approach to this topic.

Although Aristotle characterizes akrasia and enkrateia in terms of a conflict between reason and feeling, his detailed analysis of these states of mind shows that what takes place is best described in a more complicated way. For the feeling that undermines reason contains some thought, which may be implicitly general. As Aristotle says, anger "reasoning as it were that one must fight against such a thing, is immediately provoked" (1149a33-4). And although in the next sentence he denies that our appetite for pleasure works in this way, he earlier had said that there can be a syllogism that favors pursuing enjoyment: "Everything sweet is pleasant, and this is sweet" leads to the pursuit of a particular pleasure (1147a31-30). Perhaps what he has in mind is that pleasure can operate in either way: it can prompt action unmediated by a general premise, or it can prompt us to act on such a syllogism. By contrast, anger always moves us by presenting itself as a bit of general, although hasty, reasoning.

But of course Aristotle does not mean that a conflicted person has more than one faculty of reason. Rather his idea seems to be that in addition to our full-fledged reasoning capacity, we also have psychological mechanisms that are capable of a limited range of reasoning. When feeling conflicts with reason, what occurs is better described as a fight between feeling-allied-with-limited-reasoning and full-fledged reason. Part of us-reason-can remove itself from the distorting influence of feeling and consider all relevant factors, positive and negative. But another part of us-feeling or emotion-has a more limited field of reasoning-and sometimes it does not even make use of it.

Although "passion" is sometimes used as a translation of Aristotle's word pathos (other alternatives are "emotion" and "feeling"), it is important to bear in mind that his term does not necessarily designate a strong psychological force. Anger is a pathos whether it is weak or strong; so too is the appetite for bodily pleasures. And he clearly indicates that it is possible for an akratic person to be defeated by a weak pathos-the kind that most people would easily be able to control (1150a9-b16). So the general explanation for the occurrence of akrasia cannot be that the strength of a passion overwhelms reason. Aristotle should therefore be acquitted of an accusation made against him by J.L. Austin in a well-known footnote to his paper, "A Plea For Excuses". Plato and Aristotle, he says, collapsed all succumbing to temptation into losing control of ourselves-a mistake illustrated by this example:

I am very partial to ice cream, and a bombe is served divided into segments corresponding one to one with the persons at High Table: I am tempted to help myself to two segments and do so, thus succumbing to temptation and even conceivably (but why necessarily?) going against my principles. But do I lose control of myself? Do I raven, do I snatch the morsels from the dish and wolf them down, impervious to the consternation of my colleagues? Not a bit of it. We often succumb to temptation with calm and even with finesse. (1957: 24, fn 13 [1961: 146])

With this, Aristotle can agree: the pathos for the bombe can be a weak one, and in some people that will be enough to get them to act in a way that is disapproved by their reason at the very time of action.

What is most remarkable about Aristotle's discussion of akrasia is that he defends a position close to that of Socrates. When he first introduces the topic of akrasia, and surveys some of the problems involved in understanding this phenomenon, he says (1145b25-8) that Socrates held that there is no akrasia, and he describes this as a thesis that clearly conflicts with the appearances ( phainomena). Since he says that his goal is to preserve as many of the appearances as possible (1145b2-7), it may come as a surprise that when he analyzes the conflict between reason and feeling, he arrives at the conclusion that in a way Socrates was right after all (1147b13-17). For, he says, the person who acts against reason does not have what is thought to be unqualified knowledge; in a way he has knowledge, but in a way does not.

Aristotle explains what he has in mind by comparing akrasia to the condition of other people who might be described as knowing in a way, but not in an unqualified way. His examples are people who are asleep, mad, or drunk; he also compares the akratic to a student who has just begun to learn a subject, or an actor on the stage (1147a10-24). All of these people, he says, can utter the very words used by those who have knowledge; but their talk does not prove that they really have knowledge, strictly speaking.

These analogies can be taken to mean that the form of akrasia that Aristotle calls weakness rather than impetuosity always results from some diminution of cognitive or intellectual acuity at the moment of action. The akratic says, at the time of action, that he ought not to indulge in this particular pleasure at this time. But does he know or even believe that he should refrain? Aristotle might be taken to reply: yes and no. He has some degree of recognition that he must not do this now, but not full recognition. His feeling, even if it is weak, has to some degree prevented him from completely grasping or affirming the point that he should not do this. And so in a way Socrates was right. When reason remains unimpaired and unclouded, its dictates will carry us all the way to action, so long as we are able to act.

But Aristotle's agreement with Socrates is only partial, because he insists on the power of the emotions to rival, weaken or bypass reason. Emotion challenges reason in all three of these ways. In both the akratic and the enkratic, it competes with reason for control over action; even when reason wins, it faces the difficult task of having to struggle with an internal rival. Second, in the akratic, it temporarily robs reason of its full acuity, thus handicapping it as a competitor. It is not merely a rival force, in these cases; it is a force that keeps reason from fully exercising its power. And third, passion can make someone impetuous; here its victory over reason is so powerful that the latter does not even enter into the arena of conscious reflection until it is too late to influence action.

Supplementary Document: Alternate Readings of Aristotle on Akrasia

8. Pleasure

Book VII offers a brief account of what pleasure is and is not. It is not a process but an unimpeded activity of a natural state (1153a7-17). Aristotle does not elaborate on what a natural state is, but he obviously has in mind the healthy condition of the body, especially its sense faculties, and the virtuous condition of the soul. Little is said about what it is for an activity to be unimpeded, but Aristotle does remind us that virtuous activity is impeded by the absence of a sufficient supply of external goods (1153b17-19). One might object that people who are sick or who have moral deficiencies can experience pleasure, even though Aristotle does not take them to be in a natural state. He has two strategies for responding. First, when a sick person experiences some degree of pleasure as he is being restored to health, the pleasure he is feeling is caused by the fact that he is no longer completely ill. Some small part of him is in a natural state and is acting without impediment (1152b35-6). Second, Aristotle is willing to say that what seems pleasant to some people may in fact not be pleasant (1152b31-2), just as what tastes bitter to an unhealthy palate may not be bitter. To call something a pleasure is not only to report a state of mind but also to endorse it to others. Aristotle's analysis of the nature of pleasure is not meant to apply to every case in which something seems pleasant to someone, but only to activities that really are pleasures. All of these are unimpeded activities of a natural state.

It follows from this conception of pleasure that every instance of pleasure must be good to some extent. For how could an unimpeded activity of a natural state be bad or a matter of indifference? On the other hand, Aristotle does not mean to imply that every pleasure should be chosen. He briefly mentions the point that pleasures compete with each other, so that the enjoyment of one kind of activity impedes other activities that cannot be carried out at the same time (1153a20-22). His point is simply that although some pleasures may be good, they are not worth choosing when they interfere with other activities that are far better. This point is developed more fully in Ethics X.5.

Furthermore, Aristotle's analysis allows him to speak of certain pleasures as "bad without qualification" (1152b26-33), even though pleasure is the unimpeded activity of a natural state. To call a pleasure "bad without qualification" is to insist that it should be avoided, but allow that nonetheless it should be chosen in constraining circumstances. The pleasure of recovering from an illness, for example, is bad without qualification-meaning that it is not one of the pleasures one would ideally choose, if one could completely control one's circumstances. Although it really is a pleasure and so something can be said in its favor, it is so inferior to other goods that ideally one ought to forego it. Nonetheless, it is a pleasure worth having-if one adds the qualification that it is only worth having in undesirable circumstances. The pleasure of recovering from an illness is good, because some small part of oneself is in a natural state and is acting without impediment; but it can also be called bad, if what one means by this is that one should avoid getting into a situation in which one experiences that pleasure.

Aristotle indicates several times in VII.11-14 that merely to say that pleasure is a good does not do it enough justice; he also wants to say that the highest good is a pleasure. Here he is influenced by an idea expressed in the opening line of the Ethics: the good is that at which all things aim. In VII.13, he hints at the idea that all living things imitate the contemplative activity of god (1153b31-2). Plants and non-human animals seek to reproduce themselves because that is their way of participating in an unending series, and this is the closest they can come to the ceaseless thinking of the unmoved mover. Aristotle makes this point in several of his works (see for example De Anima 415a23-b7), and in Ethics X.7-8 he gives a full defense of the idea that the happiest human life resembles the life of a divine being. He conceives of god as a being who continually enjoys a "single and simple pleasure" (1154b26)-the pleasure of pure thought-whereas human beings, because of their complexity, grow weary of whatever they do. He will elaborate on these points in X.8; in VII.11-14, he appeals to his conception of divine activity only in order to defend the thesis that our highest good consists in a certain kind of pleasure. Human happiness does not consist in every kind of pleasure, but it does consist in one kind of pleasure-the pleasure felt by a human being who engages in theoretical activity and thereby imitates the pleasurable thinking of god.

Book X offers a much more elaborate account of what pleasure is and what it is not. It is not a process, because processes go through developmental stages: building a temple is a process because the temple is not present all at once, but only comes into being through stages that unfold over time. By contrast, pleasure, like seeing and many other activities, is not something that comes into existence through a developmental process. If I am enjoying a conversation, for example, I do not need to wait until it is finished in order to feel pleased; I take pleasure in the activity all along the way. The defining nature of pleasure is that it is an activity that accompanies other activities, and in some sense brings them to completion. Pleasure occurs when something within us, having been brought into good condition, is activated in relation to an external object that is also in good condition. The pleasure of drawing, for example, requires both the development of drawing ability and an object of attention that is worth drawing.

The conception of pleasure that Aristotle develops in Book X is obviously closely related to the analysis he gives in Book VII. But the theory proposed in the later Book brings out a point that had received too little attention earlier: pleasure is by its nature something that accompanies something else. It is not enough to say that it is what happens when we are in good condition and are active in unimpeded circumstances; one must add to that point the further idea that pleasure plays a certain role in complementing something other than itself. Drawing well and the pleasure of drawing well always occur together, and so they are easy to confuse, but Aristotle's analysis in Book X emphasizes the importance of making this distinction.

He says that pleasure completes the activity that it accompanies, but then adds, mysteriously, that it completes the activity in the manner of an end that is added on. In the translation of W.D. Ross, it "supervenes as the bloom of youth does on those in the flower of their age" (1174b33). It is unclear what thought is being expressed here, but perhaps Aristotle is merely trying to avoid a possible misunderstanding: when he says that pleasure completes an activity, he does not mean that the activity it accompanies is in some way defective, and that the pleasure improves the activity by removing this defect. Aristotle's language is open to that misinterpretation because the verb that is translated "complete" ( teleein) can also mean "perfect". The latter might be taken to mean that the activity accompanied by pleasure has not yet reached a sufficiently high level of excellence, and that the role of pleasure is to bring it to the point of perfection. Aristotle does not deny that when we take pleasure in an activity we get better at it, but when he says that pleasure completes an activity by supervening on it, like the bloom that accompanies those who have achieved the highest point of physical beauty, his point is that the activity complemented by pleasure is already perfect, and the pleasure that accompanies it is a bonus that serves no further purpose. Taking pleasure in an activity does help us improve at it, but enjoyment does not cease when perfection is achieved-on the contrary, that is when pleasure is at its peak. That is when it reveals most fully what it is: an added bonus that crowns our achievement.

It is clear, at any rate, that in Book X Aristotle gives a fuller account of what pleasure is than he had in Book VII. We should take note of a further difference between these two discussions: In Book X, he makes the point that pleasure is a good but not the good. He cites and endorses an argument given by Plato in the Philebus: If we imagine a life filled with pleasure and then mentally add wisdom to it, the result is made more desirable. But the good is something that cannot be improved upon in this way. Therefore pleasure is not the good (1172b23-35). By contrast, in Book VII Aristotle strongly implies that the pleasure of contemplation is the good, because in one way or another all living beings aim at this sort of pleasure. Aristotle observes in Book X that what all things aim at is good (1172b35-1173a1); significantly, he falls short of endorsing the argument that since all aim at pleasure, it must be the good.

Book VII makes the point that pleasures interfere with each other, and so even if all kinds of pleasures are good, it does not follow that all of them are worth choosing. One must make a selection among pleasures by determining which are better. But how is one to make this choice? Book VII does not say, but in Book X, Aristotle holds that the selection of pleasures is not to be made with reference to pleasure itself, but with reference to the activities they accompany.

Since activities differ with respect to goodness and badness, some being worth choosing, others worth avoiding, and others neither, the same is true of pleasures as well. (1175b24-6)

Aristotle's statement implies that in order to determine whether (for example) the pleasure of virtuous activity is more desirable than that of eating, we are not to attend to the pleasures themselves but to the activities with which we are pleased. A pleasure's goodness derives from the goodness of its associated activity. And surely the reason why pleasure is not the criterion to which we should look in making these decisions is that it is not the good. The standard we should use in making comparisons between rival options is virtuous activity, because that has been shown to be identical to happiness.

That is why Aristotle says that what is judged pleasant by a good man really is pleasant, because the good man is the measure of things (1176a15-19). He does not mean that the way to lead our lives is to search for a good man and continually rely on him to tell us what is pleasurable. Rather, his point is that there is no way of telling what is genuinely pleasurable (and therefore what is most pleasurable) unless we already have some other standard of value. Aristotle's discussion of pleasure thus helps confirm his initial hypothesis that to live our lives well we must focus on one sort of good above all others: virtuous activity. It is the good in terms of which all other goods must be understood. Aristotle's analysis of friendship supports the same conclusion.

9. Friendship

The imperfect friendships that Aristotle focuses on, however, are not unequal relationships based on good character. Rather, they are relationships held together because each individual regards the other as the source of some advantage to himself or some pleasure he receives. When Aristotle calls these relationships "imperfect", he is tacitly relying on widely accepted assumptions about what makes a relationship satisfying. These friendships are defective, and have a smaller claim to be called "friendships", because the individuals involved have little trust in each other, quarrel frequently, and are ready to break off their association abruptly. Aristotle does not mean to suggest that unequal relations based on the mutual recognition of good character are defective in these same ways. Rather, when he says that unequal relationships based on character are imperfect, his point is that people are friends in the fullest sense when they gladly spend their days together in shared activities, and this close and constant interaction is less available to those who are not equal in their moral development.

When Aristotle begins his discussion of friendship, he introduces a notion that is central to his understanding of this phenomenon: a genuine friend is someone who loves or likes another person for the sake of that other person. Wanting what is good for the sake of another he calls "good will" ( eunoia), and friendship is reciprocal good will, provided that each recognizes the presence of this attitude in the other. Does such good will exist in all three kinds of friendship, or is it confined to relationships based on virtue? At first, Aristotle leaves open the first of these two possibilities. He says:

it is necessary that friends bear good will to each other and wish good things for each other, without this escaping their notice, because of one of the reasons mentioned. (1156a4-5)

The reasons mentioned are goodness, pleasure, and advantage; and so it seems that Aristotle is leaving room for the idea that in all three kinds of friendships, even those based on advantage and pleasure alone, the individuals wish each other well for the sake of the other.

But in fact, as Aristotle continues to develop his taxonomy, he does not choose to exploit this possibility. He speaks as though it is only in friendships based on character that one finds a desire to benefit the other person for the sake of the other person.

Those who wish good things to their friends for the sake of the latter are friends most of all, because they do so because of their friends themselves, and not coincidentally. (1156b9-11)

When one benefits someone not because of the kind of person he is, but only because of the advantages to oneself, then, Aristotle says, one is not a friend towards the other person, but only towards the profit that comes one's way (1157a15-16).

In such statements as these, Aristotle comes rather close to saying that relationships based on profit or pleasure should not be called friendships at all. But he decides to stay close to common parlance and to use the term "friend" loosely. Friendships based on character are the ones in which each person benefits the other for the sake of other; and these are friendships most of all. Because each party benefits the other, it is advantageous to form such friendships. And since each enjoys the trust and companionship of the other, there is considerable pleasure in these relationships as well. Because these perfect friendships produce advantages and pleasures for each of the parties, there is some basis for going along with common usage and calling any relationship entered into for the sake of just one of these goods a friendship. Friendships based on advantage alone or pleasure alone deserve to be called friendships because in full-fledged friendships these two properties, advantage and pleasure, are present. It is striking that in the Ethics Aristotle never thinks of saying that the uniting factor in all friendships is the desire each friend has for the good of the other.

Aristotle does not raise questions about what it is to desire good for the sake of another person. He treats this as an easily understood phenomenon, and has no doubts about its existence. But it is also clear that he takes this motive to be compatible with a love of one's own good and a desire for one's own happiness. Someone who has practical wisdom will recognize that he needs friends and other resources in order to exercise his virtues over a long period of time. When he makes friends, and benefits friends he has made, he will be aware of the fact that such a relationship is good for him. And yet to have a friend is to want to benefit someone for that other person's sake; it is not a merely self-interested strategy. Aristotle sees no difficulty here, and rightly so. For there is no reason why acts of friendship should not be undertaken partly for the good of one's friend and partly for one's own good. Acting for the sake of another does not in itself demand self-sacrifice. It requires caring about someone other than oneself, but does not demand some loss of care for oneself. For when we know how to benefit a friend for his sake, we exercise the ethical virtues, and this is precisely what our happiness consists in.

Aristotle makes it clear that the number of people with whom one can sustain the kind of relationship he calls a perfect friendship is quite small (IX.10). Even if one lived in a city populated entirely by perfectly virtuous citizens, the number with whom one could carry on a friendship of the perfect type would be at most a handful. For he thinks that this kind of friendship can exist only when one spends a great deal of time with the other person, participating in joint activities and engaging in mutually beneficial behavior; and one cannot cooperate on these close terms with every member of the political community. One may well ask why this kind of close friendship is necessary for happiness. If one lived in a community filled with good people, and cooperated on an occasional basis with each of them, in a spirit of good will and admiration, would that not provide sufficient scope for virtuous activity and a well-lived life? Admittedly, close friends are often in a better position to benefit each other than are fellow citizens, who generally have little knowledge of one's individual circumstances. But this only shows that it is advantageous to be on the receiving end of a friend's help. The more important question for Aristotle is why one needs to be on the giving end of this relationship. And obviously the answer cannot be that one needs to give in order to receive; that would turn active love for one's friend into a mere means to the benefits received.

Aristotle attempts to answer this question in IX.11, but his treatment is disappointing. His fullest argument depends crucially on the notion that a friend is "another self", someone, in other words, with whom one has a relationship very similar to the relationship one has with oneself. A virtuous person loves the recognition of himself as virtuous; to have a close friend is to possess yet another person, besides oneself, whose virtue one can recognize at extremely close quarters; and so, it must be desirable to have someone very much like oneself whose virtuous activity one can perceive. The argument is unconvincing because it does not explain why the perception of virtuous activity in fellow citizens would not be an adequate substitute for the perception of virtue in one's friends.

Aristotle would be on stronger grounds if he could show that in the absence of close friends one would be severely restricted in the kinds of virtuous activities one could undertake. But he cannot present such an argument, because he does not believe it. He says that it is "finer and more godlike" to bring about the well being of a whole city than to sustain the happiness of just one person (1094b7-10). He refuses to regard private life-the realm of the household and the small circle of one's friends-as the best or most favorable location for the exercise of virtue. He is convinced that the loss of this private sphere would greatly detract from a well-lived life, but he is hard put to explain why. He might have done better to focus on the benefits of being the object of a close friend's solicitude. Just as property is ill cared for when it is owned by all, and just as a child would be poorly nurtured were he to receive no special parental care-points Aristotle makes in Politics II.2-5-so in the absence of friendship we would lose a benefit that could not be replaced by the care of the larger community. But Aristotle is not looking for a defense of this sort, because he conceives of friendship as lying primarily in activity rather than receptivity. It is difficult, within his framework, to show that virtuous activity towards a friend is a uniquely important good.

Since Aristotle thinks that the pursuit of one's own happiness, properly understood, requires ethically virtuous activity and will therefore be of great value not only to one's friends but to the larger political community as well, he argues that self-love is an entirely proper emotion-provided it is expressed in the love of virtue (IX.8). Self-love is rightly condemned when it consists in the pursuit of as large a share of external goods-particularly wealth and power-as one can acquire, because such self-love inevitably brings one into conflict with others and undermines the stability of the political community. It may be tempting to cast Aristotle's defense of self-love into modern terms by calling him an egoist, and "egoism" is a broad enough term so that, properly defined, it can be made to fit Aristotle's ethical outlook. If egoism is the thesis that one will always act rightly if one consults one's self-interest, properly understood, then nothing would be amiss in identifying him as an egoist.

But egoism is sometimes understood in a stronger sense. Just as consequentialism is the thesis that one should maximize the general good, whatever the good turns out to be, so egoism can be defined as the parallel thesis that one should maximize one's own good, whatever the good turns out to be. Egoism, in other words, can be treated as a purely formal thesis: it holds that whether the good is pleasure, or virtue, or the satisfaction of desires, one should not attempt to maximize the total amount of good in the world, but only one's own. When egoism takes this abstract form, it is an expression of the idea that the claims of others are never worth attending to, unless in some way or other their good can be shown to serve one's own. The only underived reason for action is self-interest; that an act helps another does not by itself provide a reason for performing it, unless some connection can be made between the good of that other and one's own.

There is no reason to attribute this extreme form of egoism to Aristotle. On the contrary, his defense of self-love makes it clear that he is not willing to defend the bare idea that one ought to love oneself alone or above others; he defends self-love only when this emotion is tied to the correct theory of where one's good lies, for it is only in this way that he can show that self-love need not be a destructive passion. He takes it for granted that self-love is properly condemned whenever it can be shown to be harmful to the community. It is praiseworthy only if it can be shown that a self-lover will be an admirable citizen. In making this assumption, Aristotle reveals that he thinks that the claims of other members of the community to proper treatment are intrinsically valid. This is precisely what a strong form of egoism cannot accept.

We should also keep in mind Aristotle's statement in the Politics that the political community is prior to the individual citizen-just as the whole body is prior to any of its parts (1253a18-29). Aristotle makes use of this claim when he proposes that in the ideal community each child should receive the same education, and that the responsibility for providing such an education should be taken out of the hands of private individuals and made a matter of common concern (1337a21-7). No citizen, he says, belongs to himself; all belong to the city (1337a28-9). What he means is that when it comes to such matters as education, which affect the good of all, each individual should be guided by the collective decisions of the whole community. An individual citizen does not belong to himself, in the sense that it is not up to him alone to determine how he should act; he should subordinate his individual decision-making powers to those of the whole. The strong form of egoism we have been discussing cannot accept Aristotle's doctrine of the priority of the city to the individual. It tells the individual that the good of others has, in itself, no valid claim on him, but that he should serve other members of the community only to the extent that he can connect their interests to his own. Such a doctrine leaves no room for the thought that the individual citizen does not belong to himself but to the whole.

10. Three Lives Compared

In Book I Aristotle says that three kinds of lives are thought to be especially attractive: one is devoted to pleasure, a second to politics, and a third to knowledge and understanding (1095b17-19). In X.6-9 he returns to these three alternatives, and explores them more fully than he had in Book I. The life of pleasure is construed in Book I as a life devoted to physical pleasure, and is quickly dismissed because of its vulgarity. In X.6, Aristotle concedes that physical pleasures, and more generally, amusements of all sorts, are desirable in themselves, and therefore have some claim to be our ultimate end. But his discussion of happiness in Book X does not start from scratch; he builds on his thesis that pleasure cannot be our ultimate target, because what counts as pleasant must be judged by some standard other than pleasure itself, namely the judgment of the virtuous person. Amusements will not be absent from a happy life, since everyone needs relaxation, and amusements fill this need. But they play a subordinate role, because we seek relaxation in order to return to more important activities.

Although Aristotle's principal goal in X.7-8 is to show the superiority of philosophy to politics, he does not deny that a political life is happy. Perfect happiness, he says, consists in contemplation; but he indicates that the life devoted to practical thought and ethical virtue is happy in a secondary way. He thinks of this second-best life as that of a political leader, because he assumes that the person who most fully exercises such qualities as justice and greatness of soul is the man who has the large resources needed to promote the common good of the city. The political life has a major defect, despite the fact that it consists in fully exercising the ethical virtues, because it is a life devoid of philosophical understanding and activity. Were someone to combine both careers, practicing politics at certain times and engaged in philosophical discussion at other times (as Plato's philosopher-kings do), he would lead a life better than that of Aristotle's politician, but worse than that of Aristotle's philosopher.

But his complaint about the political life is not simply that it is devoid of philosophical activity. The points he makes against it reveal drawbacks inherent in ethical and political activity. Perhaps the most telling of these defects is that the life of the political leader is in a certain sense unleisurely (1177b4-15). What Aristotle has in mind when he makes this complaint is that ethical activities are remedial: they are needed when something has gone wrong, or threatens to do so. Courage, for example, is exercised in war, and war remedies an evil; it is not something we should wish for. Aristotle implies that all other political activities have the same feature, although perhaps to a smaller degree. Corrective justice would provide him with further evidence for his thesis-but what of justice in the distribution of goods? Perhaps Aristotle would reply that in existing political communities a virtuous person must accommodate himself to the least bad method of distribution, because, human nature being what it is, a certain amount of injustice must be tolerated. As the courageous person cannot be completely satisfied with his courageous action, no matter how much self-mastery it shows, because he is a peace-lover and not a killer, so the just person living in the real world must experience some degree of dissatisfaction with his attempts to give each person his due. The pleasures of exercising the ethical virtues are, in normal circumstances, mixed with pain. Unalloyed pleasure is available to us only when we remove ourselves from the all-too-human world and contemplate the rational order of the cosmos. No human life can consist solely in these pure pleasures; and in certain circumstances one may owe it to one's community to forego a philosophical life and devote oneself to the good of the city. But the paradigms of human happiness are those people who are lucky enough to devote much of their time to the study of a world more orderly than the human world we inhabit.

Although Aristotle argues for the superiority of the philosophical life in X.7-8, he says in X.9, the final chapter of the Ethics, that his project is not yet complete, because we can make human beings virtuous, or good even to some small degree, only if we undertake a study of the art of legislation. The final section of the Ethics is therefore intended as a prolegomenon to Aristotle's political writings. We must investigate the kinds of political systems exhibited by existing Greek cities, the forces that destroy or preserve cities, and the best sort of political order. Although the study of virtue Aristotle has just completed is meant to be helpful to all human beings who have been brought up well-even those who have no intention of pursuing a political career-it is also designed to serve a larger purpose. Human beings cannot achieve happiness, or even something that approximates happiness, unless they live in communities that foster good habits and provide the basic equipment of a well-lived life.

The study of the human good has therefore led to two conclusions: The best life is not to be found in the practice of politics. But the well being of whole communities depends on the willingness of some to lead a second-best life-a life devoted to the study and practice of the art of politics, and to the expression of those qualities of thought and passion that exhibit our rational self-mastery.

Glossary

Further Reading

A. Single-Authored Overviews

Broadie 1991; Bostock 2000; Burger 2008; Gauthier & Jolif 1958-59; Hall 2019; Hardie 1980; Pakaluk 2005; Price 2011; Reeve 2012a; Urmson 1987.

B. Anthologies

Anton & Preus (eds.) 1991; Barnes, Schofield, & Sorabji (eds.) 1977; Bartlett & Collins (eds.) 1999; Engstrom & Whiting (eds.) 1996; Heinaman (ed.) 1995; Kraut (ed.) 2006b; Miller (ed.) 2011; Natali (ed.) 2009; Pakaluk & Pearson (eds.) 2010; Polansky (ed.) 2014; Roche (ed.) 1988c; Rorty (ed.) 1980; Sherman (ed.) 1999; Sim (ed.) 1995.

C. Studies of Particular Topics

C.1 The Chronological Order of Aristotle's Ethical Treatises

Kenny 1978, 1979, 1992; Rowe 1971.

Barnes 1980; Berryman 2019; J.M. Cooper 1999 (ch. 12); Frede 2012; Heinaman (ed.) 1995; Irwin 1988b; Karbowski 2014b, 2015a, 2015b, 2019; Kontos 2011; Kraut 1998; McDowell 1995; Nussbaum 1985, 1986 (chs 8-9); Reeve 1992 (ch. 1), 2012b; Roche 1988b, 1992; Scott 2015; Segvic 2002; Shields 2012a; Zingano 2007b.

C.3 The Human Good and the Human Function

Annas 1993 (ch. 18); Barney 2008; Broadie 2005, 2007a; Charles 1999; Clark 1975 (14-27, 145-63); J.M. Cooper 1986 (chs 1, 3), 1999 (chs 9, 13); Curzer 1991; Gadamer 1986; Gerson 2004; Gomez-Lobo 1989; Heinaman 2002, 2007; Irwin 2012; Keyt 1978; Korsgaard 1986a, 1986b; Kraut 1979a, 1979b, 1989, 2002 (ch. 3); Lawrence 1993, 1997, 2001; G.R. Lear 2000; J. Lear 2000; MacDonald 1989; Natali 2010; Nussbaum 1986 (chs 11, 12); Purinton 1998; Reeve 1992 (chs 3, 4); Roche 1988a; Santas 2001 (chs 6-7); Scott 1999, 2000; Segvic 2004; Suits 1974; Van Cleemput 2006; Wedin 1981; N. White 2002, 2006; S. White 1992; Whiting 1986, 1988; Wielenberg 2004; Williams 1985 (ch. 3).

C.4 The Nature of Virtue and Accounts of Particular Virtues

Brickhouse 2003; Brown 1997; Brunschwig 1996; Clark 1975 (84-97); N. Cooper 1989; Curzer 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2012; Di Muzio 2000; Gardiner 2001; Gottlieb 1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 2009; Halper 1999; Hardie 1978; Hursthouse 1988; Hutchinson 1986; Irwin 1988a; Jimenez 2020; Kraut 2002 (ch. 4), 2012, 2013; Leunissen 2012, 2013, 2017; Lorenz 2009; McKerlie 2001; Pakaluk 2004; Pearson 2006, 2007; Peterson 1988; Russell 2012a; Santas 2001 (ch. 8); Scaltsas 1995; Schütrumpf 1989; Sherman 1989, 1997; Sim 2007; Taylor 2004; Telfer 1989-90; Tuozzo 1995; Whiting 1996; Young 1988; Yu 2007.

C.5 Practical Reasoning, Moral Psychology, and Action

Broadie 1998; Charles 1984, 2007; Coope 2012; J. Cooper 1986 (ch. 1), 1999 (chs 10, 11, 19); Dahl 1984; Destrée 2007; Engberg-Pedersen 1983; Fortenbaugh 1975; Gottlieb, 2021; Gröngross 2007; Hursthouse 1984; Kontos 2018; Kontos 2021; Kraut 2006a; Lorenz 2006; McDowell 1996a, 1996b, 1998; McKerlie 1998; Meyer 1993; Milo 1966; Moss 2011, 2012; Natali (ed.) 2009; Nussbaum 1986 (ch. 10); Olfert 2017; Pakaluk & Pearson (eds.) 2010; Pickavé & Whiting 2008; Politis 1998; Reeve 1992 (ch. 2), 2013; Segvic 2009a; Sherman 2000; Taylor 2003b; Walsh 1963; Zingano 2007a.

C.6 Pleasure

Gosling &Taylor 1982 (chs 11-17); Gottlieb 1993; Natali (ed.) 2009; Owen 1971; Pearson 2012; Rorty 1974; Taylor 2003a, 2003b; Urmson 1967; Warren 2009; Wolfsdorf 2013 (ch. 6).

C.7 Friendship

Annas 1977, 1993 (ch. 12); Brewer 2005; J.M. Cooper 1999 (chs 14, 15); Hitz 2011; Kahn 1981; Milgram 1987; Nehamas 2010; Pakaluk 1998; Pangle 2003; Price 1989 (chs 4-7); Rogers 1994; Schollmeier 1994; Sherman 1987; Stern-Gillet 1995; Walker 2014; Whiting 1991.

C.8 Feminism and Aristotle

Freeland 1998; Karbowski 2014a; Modrak 1994; Ward (ed.) 1996.

C.9 Aristotle and Contemporary Ethics

Bielskis 2020; Broadie 2006; Chappell (ed.) 2006; Garver 2006; Gill (ed.) 2005; Kraut 2018; LeBar 2013; MacIntyre 1999; Peters 2014; Russell 2012b; Stohr 2003, 2009; Wiggins 2009.

D. Bibliographies

Lockwood 2005.

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Other Internet Resources

Links to relevant works by Aristotle at Perseus:

Athenian Constitution, ed. Kenyon. (Greek)

Athenian Constitution, ed. H. Rackham. (English)

Economics, (Greek)

Economics, (English)

Eudemian Ethics, (Greek)

Eudemian Ethics, (English)

Metaphysics, (Greek)

Metaphysics, (English)

Nicomachean Ethics, ed. J. Bywater. (Greek)

Nicomachean Ethics, ed. H. Rackham. (English)

Poetics, (English)

Politics, (Greek)

Politics, (English)

Rhetoric, ed. W. D. Ross. (Greek)

Rhetoric, ed. J. H. Freese. (English)

Virtues and Vices, ed. I. Bekker. (Greek)

Virtues and Vices, ed. H. Rackham. (English)

Nikomachische Ethik, in German, translated by Eugen Rolfes, Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1911, at the Projekt Gutenberg-DE

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Aristotle conceives of ethical theory as a field distinct from the theoretical sciences. Its methodology must match its subject matter-good action-and must respect the fact that in this field many generalizations hold only for the most part. We study ethics in order to improve our lives, and therefore its principal concern is the nature of human well-being.

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Joseph Kranak

Relative to most other philosophers, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a late bloomer, publishing his first significant work, The Critique of Pure Reason, in 1781 at age 57. But this didn't slow him down, as through his 50s, 60s, and 70s, he published numerous large and influential works in many areas of philosophy, including ethics. He published two large works on ethics, The Critique of Practical Reason and The Metaphysics of Morals, but it's his first short work of ethics, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that is his most important because it provides a succinct and relatively readable account of his ethics.

Some of the main questions that Kant's ethics focuses on are questions of right and wrong: What makes an action right or wrong? Which actions are we required by morality to perform? Do consequences matter? Is it ever permissible to do something morally wrong in order to achieve good consequences? Is it important to do actions with good intentions? And what are good intentions? Some of Kant's answers to some of these questions are complex, but as we will see, he doesn't think that consequences matter and thus good consequences cannot justify wrong actions. He also thinks that intentions are important to the ethical evaluation of actions.

Deontology

One of the distinctive features of Kant's ethics is that it focuses on duties, defined by right and wrong. Right and wrong (which are the primary deontic categories, along with obligatory, optional, supererogatory, and others) are distinct from good and bad (which are value categories) in that they directly prescribe actions: right actions are ones we ought to do (are morally required to do) and wrong actions we ought not to do (are morally forbidden from doing). This style of ethics is referred to as deontology. The name comes from the Greek word deon, meaning duty or obligation. In deontology, the deontic categories are primary, while value determinations are derived from them. As we'll see, Kant believes all our duties can be derived from the categorical imperative. We'll first need to explain what Kant means by the phrase "categorical imperative" and then we'll look at the content of this rule.

First, Kant believes that morality must be rational. He models his morality on science, which seeks to discover universal laws that govern the natural world. Similarly, morality will be a system of universal rules that govern action. In Kant's view, as we will see, right action is ultimately a rational action. As an ethics of duty, Kant believes that ethics consists of commands about what we ought to do. The word "imperative" in his categorical imperative means a command or order. However, unlike most other commands, which usually come from some authority, these commands come from within, from our own reason. Still, they function the same way: they are commands to do certain actions.

Kant distinguishes two types of imperatives: hypothetical and categorical imperatives. A hypothetical imperative is a contingent command. It's conditional on a person's wants, needs, or desires and normally comes in the following form: "If you want/need A, then you ought to do B." For example, the advice, "If you want to do well on a test, then you should study a lot" would be a hypothetical imperative. The command that you study is contingent on your desire to do well on the test. Other examples are, "If you are thirsty, drink water," or "If you want to be in better shape, you should exercise." Such commands are more like advice on how to accomplish our goals than moral rules. If you don't have a particular want, desire, or goal, then a hypothetical imperative doesn't apply. For example, if you don't want to be in better shape, then the hypothetical imperative that you should exercise, doesn't apply to you.

A genuinely moral imperative would not be contingent on wants, desires, or needs, and this is what is meant by a categorical imperative. A categorical imperative, instead of taking an if-then form, is an absolute command, such as, "Do A," or "You ought to do A." Examples of categorical imperatives would be "You shouldn't kill," "You ought to help those in need," or "Don't steal." It doesn't matter what your wants or goals are; you should follow a categorical imperative no matter what.

But these aren't the categorical imperative. Kant believes that there is one categorical imperative that is the most important and that should guide all of our actions. This is the ultimate categorical imperative from which all other moral rules are derived. This categorical imperative can be expressed in several different ways, and Kant presents three formulations of it in The Groundwork.

The First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

The underlying idea behind the first formulation of the categorical imperative is that moral rules are supposed to be universal laws. If we think of comparable laws, such as scientific laws like the law of gravitational attraction or Newton's three laws of motion, they are universal and apply to all people equally, no matter who they are or what their needs are. If our moral rules are to be rational, then they should have the same form.

From this idea, Kant derives his first formulation of the categorical imperative, "act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law" ( Groundwor k 4:421).

First, we must explain this word "maxim." What Kant means by a maxim is a personal rule or a general principle that underlies a particular action. As rational beings, we don't just act randomly; we devise certain rules that tell us what to do in different circumstances. A complete maxim will include three pieces: the action, the circumstances under which we do that action, and the purpose behind that action. For example, the maxim explaining why you're reading this book, if it's an assigned text, might be, "I will read all books assigned for class because I want to succeed in class." Different principles could underlie the same action. For example, you might be reading this book simply to help you understand the topic, in which case your principle might be, "When I am confused about a topic, I will read an accessible text to improve my understanding." The important point is that we are guided by general principles that we give to ourselves, that tell us what we'll do in certain circumstances.

The first formulation, thus, is a test of whether any particular maxim should be followed or not. We test a maxim by universalizing it, that is, by asking if it would be possible for everyone to live by this maxim. If the maxim can be universalized, meaning that it's possible that everyone could live by it, then it's permissible to follow it. If it can't be universalized, then it is impermissible to follow it. The logic of the universalization test is that any rule you follow should apply to everyone-there's nothing special about you that allows you to be an exception.

To look at some examples, imagine you need money to pay off some debts. You go to a friend to borrow the money and tell this friend that you will pay him back. You know you won't be able to pay your friend back, but you promise him nonetheless. You are making a false promise. Is this permissible? To test, we first look at the maxim underlying the action, something like, "If I need something, I'll make a false promise in order to get what I need." What would happen if everyone were to make false promises every time they needed something? False promises would be rampant, so rampant that promises would become meaningless; they would just be empty words. For this reason, the maxim can't be universalized. The maxim included the idea of making a promise, but if, when universalized, promises cease to have any meaning, then we couldn't really make a promise. Since the maxim can't be universalized, we shouldn't follow it, and thus we derive the duty to not make false promises.

We should note that Kant's universalization test is not asking whether universalizing a maxim would lead to undesirable consequences. Kant is not claiming that making a false promise is wrong because we wouldn't want to live in a world where no one kept their promises. It's wrong because it's not possible to universalize the maxim. It's not possible because it leads to a contradiction. In this case, the contradiction is in the concept of a promise: that it becomes meaningless when universalized. We can see this with other maxims. If you're thinking of stealing something, the maxim underlying this action might be something like, "I'll steal the things I want so I can have what I want." If everyone were to follow this maxim, then the concept of ownership would cease to have any meaning, and if nothing were owned, then how would it be possible to steal? To steal means to take someone else's property without permission, and this is where the contradiction comes in. It's not possible to steal if nothing belongs to anyone. Thus, it's not possible to universalize this maxim, and we thereby get the duty that we shouldn't steal. Both of these contradictions are what Kant calls "contradictions in conception."

Another example Kant gives is of our obligation to help out others. Suppose you could help people but didn't want to. Your maxim might be, "I will never help out anyone else since everyone should be independent." If this were universalized, then everyone would be completely independent, with no one asking for, nor offering help. However, we wouldn't be able to live in a world where no one helps anyone because we'll inevitably sometimes need others' help. The contradiction in this case is a practical contradiction, "a contradiction in will," as Kant calls it. In this case, we would eventually have to break the maxim due to our need for help. Thus, from this, we get the duty that we should sometimes help out others in need.

Problems with the First Formulation

One criticism that Kant faced among his contemporaries was for his stance on lying, since he said that we always have a duty to be truthful to others ( Metaphysics of Mora ls 8:426). His reasoning seems to be that if we were to try to universalize a maxim that permits lying, such as "I will lie whenever it's convenient to get what I want," then people would be lying constantly, and it would lead to the concepts of "lie" and "truth" becoming meaningless. Thus, since "lie" would no longer mean anything, it's impossible to universalize this maxim, and thus we should never lie. His contemporaries thought there must be cases where lying is permissible, and Kant responded in "On a Supposed Right to Lie From Philanthropy." In this essay, Kant imagined a situation that would seem to permit lying. Suppose that your friend is being pursued by someone who intends to kill him. Your friend comes to your house and asks to hide. You let him do so, and soon after, the killer is knocking at your door asking, "Is your friend inside?" Should you lie or not?

Kant asserts that you shouldn't lie, even in these circumstances. Suppose your friend hears the killer knocking at the door and decides to flee out the back without your knowing. You lie and tell the killer that your friend is not here, and the killer leaves. Because of this, your friend and the killer bump into each other, and your friend is killed. Since your lie led to them to bump into each other, you bear some responsibility for the friend's death. His general point is that consequences are uncertain. Importantly, Kant believes that consequences don't affect whether an action is right or wrong, and this example highlights why: because consequences are unpredictable. The type of rational approach to ethics that Kant prefers will downplay the importance of consequences due to this unpredictability.

Another problem for the first formulation is that it's possible to imagine maxims that can't be universalized but that don't seem to be immoral. For example, a stamp collector might live by the maxim, "I will buy but not sell stamps in order to expand my collection." If everyone were to follow this, then the collector wouldn't be able to buy because no one would be selling. This seems to lead to the implausible conclusion that collecting stamps (or collecting anything) is immoral. Since Kant says that we are to "act only in accordance" with maxims that can be universalized, then any maxim that can't be universalized is impermissible.

Some who want to defend Kant think that the problem is with how this maxim is phrased. The maxim specifies two actions: buying and not selling. If we split it into two maxims-"I will buy stamps to expand my collection" and "I will not sell stamps to expand my collection"-the problem can be avoided. This does point to a general difficulty with the first formulation, generally referred to as the "problem of relevant descriptions," which is that there is often more than one way to describe the maxim underlying an action. And when we formulate it some ways (like in this case with the stamp collecting) it leads to a contradiction, whereas formulating it other ways does not.

Good Will

For Kant, just doing the right thing is not sufficient for making an action have full moral worth. It's also necessary to act with good will, by which Kant means something like the inclination to do good or what is also known as a good character. He believes that a good will is essential for morality. This is intuitively plausible because it seems that if an otherwise good action is done with bad or selfish intentions, that can rob the action of its moral goodness. If we imagine a man who goes to work at a soup kitchen to help out the poor, that seems like a good action. But if he's going there just to impress someone who works there, then that's less virtuous. And if he's going there to embezzle money from the charity, the action would be morally wrong.

Less intuitive is that Kant thinks the only possible genuine good will is respect for the moral law. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) would later describe Kant's position as, "a deed must be performed simply and solely out of regard for the known law and for the concept of duty.... It must not be performed from any inclination, any benevolence felt towards others, any tender-hearted sympathy, compassion, or emotion of the heart" ([1818] 1969, 526). That is, when you do something because it is the right thing to do, that alone counts as good will.

Schopenhauer was a critic of Kant's philosophy, including his ethics, and he objected that Kant's view of the good will is "directly opposed to the genuine spirit of virtue; not the deed, but the willingness to do it, the love from which it results, and without which it is a dead work, this constitutes its meritorious element" ([1818] 1969, 526). Schopenhauer thought that good people are good because they want to do good actions and they feel love and compassion towards others. If we return to the example of working in the soup kitchen, if the person is showing up to the soup kitchen because he likes helping people or he feels compassion for the people he helps and wants to improve their lot, Schopenhauer would say this is a good person and thus a virtuous action.

Kant defended his position on good will by saying that an action done out of love or out of compassion is not fully autonomous. Autonomy means self-rule, and Kant saw it as a necessary condition for freedom and morality. If an action is not done autonomously, it is not really morally good or bad. Again, if our friend at the soup kitchen is working there because of some implant in his brain by which another person is able to control his every action, then the action is neither autonomous nor morally commendable.

Concerning acting out of love and compassion, Kant believed that when people act due to their emotions, then their emotions are in control, not their rationality. To be truly autonomous, for Kant, an action must be done because of reason. An action done because of emotion is not fully free and not quite fully moral. This doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy doing good things. It just means that this shouldn't be the reason underlying the action. According to Kant's ethics, it's morally commendable for a person, acting out of good will, to decide that helping at the soup kitchen is the right thing to do, to go there, and then to thoroughly enjoy doing so and feel great compassion for the people helped. The important point is that reason you do an action should be because you have determined that it is the right thing to do.

The Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

The idea underlying the second formulation is that all humans are intrinsically valuable. As Kant writes, "What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity" ( Groundwork 4.434). What has a price is a thing, but a person has dignity and is thus beyond price and irreplaceable. It follows that a person with dignity deserves respect and shouldn't be treated as a thing.

Kant expresses this idea in the second formulation of his categorical imperative: "So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means" ( Groundwork 4:429).

That is, we shouldn't treat people merely as means to ends; we should treat them as ends, including ourselves. To treat someone merely as a means is to not give the person the proper respect-to fail to treat the person with dignity, to treat the person as a thing. It makes sense to use inanimate objects as tools-you can use a hammer as a means to drive in nails without worrying about what the hammer feels about this because it's a thing. But if you use a person in such a way, it devalues the person. Similarly, if you harm someone, take advantage of someone, or steal from someone, then you treat that person as a thing, as a means to your ends. Conversely, if you treat someone as having unlimited value, if you treat the person with dignity and respect, then you treat the person as an end.

One important thing to add is that Kant says we should never treat people "merely as a means." The "merely" is there to acknowledge that we can treat people as means, so long as we don't only treat them as means. It's not unusual to have to use other people for their skills or knowledge, so it's necessary to sometimes treat people as means. For example, imagine that your pipes need fixing, and you call a plumber. You're using the plumber as a means because he is making your end (to fix your pipes) his end, but there is nothing wrong with this if you also treat him as an end-that is, if you are respectful and pay him appropriately. The plumber's end is to make a living with his plumbing skills. By paying him the agreed-upon amount, you are making his end (earning a living) your end. Thus, in this situation, you both are effectively advancing each others' ends at the same time and thus treating each other both as ends and means.

One way to think of the idea of treating someone as ends and means is that, when you treat people as ends, you make their ends your ends, and when you treat people as means, you force them to make their ends your ends. To explain, let's look at an example from the first formulation. Since the first formulation and the second formulation of the categorical imperative are supposed to be saying the same thing, they should come to exactly the same conclusions about what's right and wrong. Thus, since we discovered earlier that it's wrong to make a false promise, then the second formulation should also tell us that false promises are wrong. In our example, you made the false promise because you needed to borrow money to pay off debts; thus, your end was to pay off debts, and by lying to your friend, you are forcing him to make your end (paying off debts) his end. If you told your friend that you needed money and might not be able to pay it back, your friend would be able to decide. He might decide to make your end his end (to pay off your debts for you), but by depriving him of that choice, you are treating him as an object. For similar reasons, we can also conclude that any time we deceive someone, we are treating the person as a mere means to our ends.

We can also look at the other example from the first formulation discussed above and see that it leads to the same conclusion. Kant argued that we have an obligation to sometimes help out others in need. To help people out is to make their ends our ends. For example, if you see that someone is poor and hungry, his end at that point might be to get food. If you give him food or money to buy food, you are making it your end to feed him. Since you should treat people as ends, then that means you should sometimes provide people with help.

In addition, the second formulation also includes the idea that we shouldn't treat ourselves as mere means to ends. In the Groundwork, Kant gives two examples of duties to oneself: we shouldn't commit suicide, and we should cultivate some of our useful talents. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant presents several more, including that you should not pursue greedy avarice, stupefy yourself with excessive food or drink, nor be excessively servile.

Such a list of duties does raise the question, though, of what it means to treat oneself as a mere means. The idea that we could treat ourselves as a mere means seems somewhat implausible, and if we look at it the way we explained it before (to treat people as a mere means is to force them to make their ends our ends), then it doesn't make sense. Our ends are our ends and can't be anything other than our ends.

Perhaps, by treating oneself as a mere means, one is not treating oneself with respect-as a person with dignity and with unlimited value. We can see how this might apply to duties like not being too servile or not being too avaricious. By being excessively servile, you are debasing yourself, making yourself into a thing to be used by someone else. And with excessive greed, you are elevating the value of money over and above your own value.

Another way to think about it is that, by treating oneself as a mere means, one is not giving proper respect to the humanity within oneself. The second formulation specifically forbids treating the humanity in ourselves and in others as a mere means. Concerning our humanity, Kant means mostly our capacity for rational human thought. So, by treating oneself as a mere means, one is not giving proper value to this rational capacity. One can see this in the case of stupefying oneself with excessive drink. Excessive drunkenness and opium use-the two examples Kant specifically mentions in the Metaphysics of Morals-dull one's thinking, and Kant describes them as turning a person into an animal, though he seems to concede that some level of moderate alcohol consumption or opium use might be permissible (6:427-6:428). Similarly, in the Metaphysics of Morals, his argument against suicide is that, "To annihilate the subject of morality in one's own person is to root out the existence of morality itself from the world" (6:423). That is, by committing suicide, you destroy some of the morality in the world by destroying your capacity for morality.

Problems with the Second Formulation

One of the main problems with the second formulation of the categorical imperative is that it's somewhat vague. There are clear-cut cases of using people as mere means, such as slaveholders exploiting their slaves, but what about something more ambiguous like an employer underpaying his employees? The employer is advancing the employees' ends by paying them, but clearly would better promote their ends if wages were raised. But what exactly counts as "underpaying" is unavoidably vague, and the categorical imperative doesn't give clear guidance.

Another problem is that it doesn't seem that morality is entirely about not treating people as mere means to ends. The categorical imperative is supposed to be the sole principle of morality. Thus, we should be able to derive all moral duties from it. But it seems like there are actions that are morally wrong but which don't amount to treating anyone as mere means. For example, the destruction of the natural world through carelessness or negligence seems wrong. If I accidentally start a forest fire by setting off fireworks when there is high fire risk, aren't I morally culpable? But in what way have I treated a person merely as a means? The forest is not rational and thus is not an object of direct moral consideration. Kant does write, "A propensity to wanton destruction of what is beautiful in inanimate nature is opposed to a human being's duty to himself" (6:443). But if it's through neglect, it doesn't appear to be treating any person merely as means. Similarly, what about our obligation to care for the dead? If my mother wanted to be given a Christian burial and instead I simply left her body out in the woods, that would seem to be quite immoral. But how would we explain that in terms of treating her as a mere means? The body is no longer a person; it lacks humanity, rationality, and thus is a thing, and it's permissible for us to treat things as means. There are perhaps ways a defender of Kant could explain why these are wrong within a Kantian framework, but it is a potential limitation of the theory.

Kant is only able to derive obligations to not mistreat physical objects and non-rational living things from obligations to oneself and other rational beings. By misusing objects and animals, we habituate ourselves to not giving others the proper respect, which thereby debases our character. But it does seem strange to say that the reason why it's wrong to damage non-human life is because it's harmful to oneself.

The Third Formulation of the Categorical Imperative

Kant gives a third formulation of the categorical imperative based on the notion of a kingdom of ends. By kingdom, Kant explains, "I understand a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws" ( Groundwork 4:433). By a kingdom of ends we're to imagine an interconnected world of rational beings where everyone is treated as an end and treats everyone else as ends and everyone shares the same set of laws.

Kant explains the third formulation as, "act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible kingdom of ends" ( Groundwork 4:439).

As mentioned, Kant believes that autonomy is necessary for morality. Kant is here emphasizing that we are each the creators of our own moral rules. We are fully autonomous beings, and if our morals were imposed on us, then that would undermine our autonomy; we would no longer fully decide our actions. To maintain full autonomy, everyone must be the creator of their own moral rules.

However, if everyone is creating their own moral rules, then wouldn't people disagree on what is right and wrong? Kant doesn't believe so. He believes that the categorical imperative is the only rational moral rule, and he also believes that we can derive a complete, consistent set of moral duties from the categorical imperative. Thus, every person who is fully following their rationality will agree on what is right and wrong.

Conclusion

Despite many of the criticisms to which Kant's ethics has been subject, it remains one of the most influential ethical theories in contemporary Western ethics. Many thinkers agree with its emphasis on ethics being fundamentally rational and being justifiable through reason. The first and second formulations of the categorical imperative also do have great intuitive appeal. Despite the abstract way that the first formulation is expressed, its core meaning is that ethical rules should be universal and that if any rule can't be universalized, it shouldn't be followed. This appeals to our sense that all people deserve equal moral consideration and we shouldn't make special exceptions for ourselves or others. And the second formulation speaks to the idea that we are beings with intrinsic value and with dignity, and to use people as if they are objects or tools is deeply immoral. Kant has put these intuitions into a sophisticated and carefully thought out framework that remains, to this day, a very useful way of thinking about difficult moral questions.

References

Alighieri, Dante. (1320) 1995. The Divine Comedy, trans. Allen Mandelbaum. London: Everyman's Library. https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/

Aquinas, Thomas. 1920. The Summa Theologiæ, 2nd ed., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

Augustine. (426) 1887. The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1(2), ed. Philip Schaff. Grand Rapids, MI: W. M. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.i.html

Gregor, Mary J., ed. 1996. Practical Philosophy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Hume, David. (1777) 1998. Of Suicide. In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the Posthumous Essays, ed. Richard H. Popkin. Indianapolis, IN : Hackett Publishing Company.

Kant, Immanuel, and Allen W. Wood. 1996. Practical Philosophy. Edited by Mary J. Gregor. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kant, Immanuel. (1797) 1996. The Metaphysics of Morals. In Practical Philosophy, 353-603.

Kant, Immanuel. (1785) 1996. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In Practical Philosophy, 37-108.

Kant, Immanuel. (1797) 1996. "On a Supposed Right to Lie From Philanthropy." In Practical Philosophy, 605-615.

More, Thomas. Utopia. (1516) 2012. In Open Utopia, ed. Stephen Duncombe. Wivenhoe/New York/Port Watson: Minor Compositions. http://theopenutopia.org

Schopenhauer, Arthur. (1818) 1969. The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1., trans. E. F. J. Payne. New York, NY: Dover Publications.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. (1851) 2015. On Suicide. In Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Vol. 2, eds. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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