Aristotle's Ethics

This is a summary of Hutchinson's chapter in The Cambride Companion to Aristotle, 'Ethics.' Hutchinson summarizes one standard view of what A says.






Thus we need to modify the above definition of success a bit: success is 'living a life of entirely virtuous activity, with moderate good fortune, throughout an entire lifetime.'

Virtue may guard sufficiently against failure, but it cannot guarantee success. In other words, the virtuous may not be happy, but will nonetheless make the best of any situation. Virtue combined with moderate good fortune can guarantee success. And virtue is always the best bet.

'The Best Ways of Life'

Three reputable reasons to live (not all of which are good reasons: they are reputable):
for refined pleasures (the life of culture)
for a good name (in your own and your community's estimation) (the public service life)
to understand the universe (the philosophical life)
Which one(s) are good reasons?

The life of pleasure itself is not a candidate in spite of the fact that absolute rulers (who are free to choose any life) choose it. Why? because slaves and animals too choose it. Tyrants who have never known the life of public service or the philosophical life are not in a position to be the arbiters of which life is best.

Those who have tried all three choose pleasure merely as a means of relaxation to better achieve the life of service or the philosophical life.

Humans are political, says Aristotle, which means that their nature is only capable of full development within the context of a community (a human on a deserted island could not possibly exhibit all the major virtues). Thus the life of public service is a life that is fine and proper to human nature.

But human nature also partakes in the divine via its understanding of the universe, and this is the highest human good, according to A.

The intellectual life is less dependent on fortune than that of public service: it is more self-sufficient, requires less wealth, power, and support of fellow humans (not all of whom are virtuous).
The pleasures of the intellectual life are the most pure and lasting.

'Reason and the virtues of the mind'

As rational animals, humans are using their highest capacity in the highest way when they use reason to know and contemplate the truth.

There are two sorts of virtues: intellectual and moral. Moral virtues involve our response to practical situations. Intellectual virtues are distinct from moral virtues, except that 'practical wisdom' (which is an intellectual virtue) is tied to the moral virtues.

Intellectual virtues (the first three concern things that cannot be changed):
Practical wisdom and skill are virtues involving things that can be changed about the world.
Skill brings things into being and so is productive.
Practical wisdom is an intellectual virtue which leads us to correct action. So why does A also posit moral virtues (i.e. additional virtues that are not 'intellectual')?
The moral virtues provide us with the proper objective. Practical wisdom tells us the right way to achieve it, given the facts of our situation.
Moral virtues provide the values. Practical wisdom provides the correct application.

'Wisdom' as a whole requires both moral virtues and practical wisdom.

Knowledge can be misused, but practical wisdom cannot, says A, because practical wisdom is a sort of all-or-nothing holistic idea.
For A, it seems, a virtue might be said to consist of a moral part (the part that has to do with emotions: what we desire, fear, are repulsed by, etc.) as well as an intellectual part (the practical wisdom side).
Because practical wisdom takes into account the full picture of all of our objectives, we cannot have real practical wisdom (i.e. practical wisdom that is truly wise) and not have all the virtues.
Thus the virtues come as a package which has different aspects.

'Responsibility for actions and decisions'

Actions reveal character.
Involuntary action involves being unaware of some aspect of the action: for instance, I may poison a man, but in so doing not voluntarily poison my friend (I did not realize the man is my friend). If the action is truly involuntary, it must be the case that the reason for being unaware is a reasonable reason and is not my fault. Not knowing one's legal or moral duty is not an excuse. If I use ignorance as an excuse, I must also regret the action. But one should not regret a truly involuntary action.
Voluntary action is "acting with reasonable knowledge of the circumstances, when it is possible to do otherwise"
There are mixed actions: where the circumstances can be said to move the agent. E.g. my children are held hostage, so I steal money.

"Decision" for A is "a deliberate desire to do something within the agent's immediate range of options." It is 'deliberate' because it results from deliberation (consideration of how to achieve one's goals).Deliberation starts with a goal and works backwards through means to the goal until one reaches an action that is in one's power to do, and that can be one's decision, which can lead to action.

We praise or blame people for their decisions and actions because they reveal the sort of people we are.
If someone claims to do bad involuntarily because they are a bad person, then even if A agrees that at that point the person could not possibly have acted well, A will still blame that person for having become bad (that is to say, Aristotle thinks we are responsible for our character in the long run, not just particular actions in the now)

'Understanding pleasure'

A thinks that pleasure comes with any unimpeded action which exercises our natural capacities.
It is a thing that accompanies action as an aspect of that action. It is not something separate from the action.
Whether it is good or not depends on whether the action is good or not.

A thinks that the standard which we should hold in mind is a human who is exercising human capacities to a high degree: an excellent human, a virtuous human.
A successful life is one full of activities well performed, and so it will be a pleasurable life.

A thought that a life spent in pursuit of pleasure as the only or most important goal was not a good life, but he did not think pleasure was bad in and of itself. So he thought that the pleasure of virtuous activity was good, the pleasure of vicious activity was bad.

It seems that he thought that all things being equal, pleasure is choiceworthy in itself and pain to be rejected in itself.

'Emotions and the moral virtues (and vices)'

Moral virtue consists in aligning the reactions of one's emotions to what reason dictates: one should habitually allow one's rationality to control one's emotions.

You cannot argue with an emotion or an attitude: you must train it over time. That is called a habit. Thus Aristotle advocates not moral argument, but rather moral training. If one has to ask oneself and persuade oneself of what is right every time, one is not really virtuous: one should train oneself to set the virtuous choice as the default choice.

Pleasure and pain and their application are the most important factors in the formation of habits. Reward and punishment structures must be created and applied that inculcate the right habits.

Aristotle held that if you do something virtuous only with great emotional struggle and through force of will, it is not truly virtuous: to have moral virtue, one should do the moral thing without internal resistance. This is radically different from many theories of virtue (I believe that Kant, for instance, thought that to be good, one must be truly tempted to do something bad, one must be tested, and yet one still resists: if that is right, Kant disagreed with Aristotle about this).

We often need another person for the initial formation of our character, but at some point, we take over and set our own reward and punishment structure and become responsible for our own actions and character. The child who does the right thing because of a reward and punishment structure is not really virtuous, but with enough practice, once doing the right thing settles into a habit, she will become virtuous.

In a virtuous soul, there is no need for the rational part to assert its control in a violent way: the irrational parts are in agreement with the rational part through habituation.

There is such a thing as godlike virtue that is as far above normal virtue as depravity is below vice. One who has godlike virtue would be fit to rule over others absolutely and legitimately.

'Moral virtues as middle states'

Every virtue is a middle state between vices. In each case, there is some thing that needs to be balanced, and an excess or a deficiency is a vice.

That is not to say that something vicious, like adultery, is ever right, even if we can figure out a 'middle state' of viciousness (if that makes any sense). Vice is always wrong, says A. There is not a middle state for everything, but virtues are middle states.

Also, there is often more than one variety of vice: take anger. One may be too quick to anger, one may get angry at the wrong things, one might stay angry too long: they are all excesses of anger, but only some of them have names (irascibility and grudge-holding, but there is no name for being angry at the wrong things). The temperate person is none of those.

Some vices have no name: insensitivity to pleasure is a vice, but it has no particular name (it is quite rare).