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The Journal of Value Inquiry

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04.01.2021

Aristotle on Actual Virtue and Ordinary People

verfasst von: Marcella Linn

Erschienen in: The Journal of Value Inquiry | Ausgabe 4/2022

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Aristotle often describes virtue in an idealized way, indicating that the virtuous person will never err or have a bad desire. Yet, drawing from empirical work on character and personality, many philosophers and psychologists believe that the behavior of most people stems from situational factors and that good behavior often stems from the wrong motives, such as maintaining a good mood or relieving feelings of guilt.¹ As a result, it may seem that virtue as Aristotle conceived it does not exist, is extremely rare, or is not “psychologically realistic for beings like us.”² Further, some suggest that the variability in most people’s behavior raises a challenge to traditional categories of character such as virtue, vice, continence, and incontinence. Most people exhibit mixed characters where they sometimes do the right thing for the right reason, but other times for wrong reasons, and still other times fail to do the right thing even though doing so would require minimal effort.³ Thus, it may seem impossible (or nearly so) to develop virtue and that Aristotle’s categories of character (i.e., virtue, vice, continence, and incontinence) cannot explain the complexities of character revealed by contemporary empirical work. …

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For examples of the former views, see Gilbert Harman, “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 99 (1999): 315–331; John Doris, Talking to Ourselves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); and John Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and moral behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). For discussion of the latter view, see Christian Miller, Moral Character: An Empirical Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 29–56.

Harman argues that virtue does not exist. See Harman, op. cit., p. 316. Doris argues that it is extremely rare. See Doris, Lack of Character, op. cit., p. 60. Miller argues it is not psychologically realistic. See Christian Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” in D. Carr, J. Arthur, and K. Kristjánsson (eds.), Varieties of Virtue Ethics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 143–162, p. 151. See also Christian Miller, Character and Moral Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 202–207.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 153.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., pp. 151–157.

See Miller, Ibid., pp. 151–152.

See Miller, Ibid., p. 149.

I have discussed the charge of empirical adequacy against Aristotle elsewhere. The major worry I identify and address is that while the empirical evidence cannot show that virtue is impossible to achieve, it still indicates that the traditional conception of virtue attributed to Aristotle is so rare almost no one would have any of the virtues, which seems intuitively false. See Marcella Linn, “Aristotle and the Globalism Objection to Virtue Ethics,” Journal of Ethics 23 (2019): 55–76, pp. 57–61.

I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer of this journal for suggesting I include this discussion.

Books I–III and VII–VIII discuss political problems and forms of constitutions while Books IV–VI discuss change and preservation of constitutions. Further, the former set of books claim the end of the polis is happiness (eudaimonia). See Aristotle, Pol., trans. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998), 1337a21. Yet Books IV–VI seem to lower the standard and Aristotle claims the goal is to reform constitutions so that they are stable. See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1295a26–27, 1296a6. For more on stability as the final end of the polis in Books IV–VI, see Eugene Garver, Aristotle’s Politics: Living Well and Living Together (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), pp. 148–151; and Pierre Destrée, “Aristotle on improving imperfect cities,” in T. Lockwood and T. Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 204–223.

See Roger Masters, "The Case of Aristotle's Missing Dialogues," Political Theory 5 (1977): 31–60, p.35; and Carnes Lord, “The Character and Composition of Aristotle’s Politics,” Political Theory 9, 4 (1981): 459–478, p. 466.

See Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development, trans. R. Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948).

See Lord, op. cit., p. 469.

See Lord, Ibid., pp. 466–468.

See for instance Eugene Garver, Aristotle’s Rhetoric: An Art of Character (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); Eugene Garver, Aristotle’s Politics: Living Well and Living Together, op. cit.; Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); and Martha Nussbaum, “Shame, Separateness, and Political Unity: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato,” in A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 395–435.

See Amélie Rorty, “Structuring Rhetoric,” in A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1996), 1–33, p. 1.

See Amélie Rorty, Ibid., p. 1; and Garver, Aristotle’s Rhetoric: An Art of Character, op. cit., p. 3.

See George Kennedy, “Composition and Influence of Aristotle’s Rhetoric,” in A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1996), 416–424, p. 419.

See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2nd edition, trans. T. Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999), 1103a17–18, 1106a12–13, and 1106b15–16.

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1106b36.

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1145a15–17, 1146a10, and 1148a9–12.

See Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. W. R. Roberts, in R. McKeon (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle (USA: Random House, 1941), Bk. II, chs. 12–17.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1327b20–37, 1336b31, and 1337a14–16. See also Aristotle, Pol., 1337a39 and 1338b19 on natural character.

See Rorty, “Structuring Rhetoric,” op. cit., pp. 11–17 for discussion on the various senses of ēthos in the Rhet. There she notes a similar distinction.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1111b8, 1111b6, 1139a135, 1144b4, and 1163a23.

See Aristotle, Ibid, 1095a7.

See J.E. Garrett, “The Moral Status of ‘the many’ in Aristotle,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 31 (1993): 171–189, p. 182.

Consider the difference in the following definitions of character (ēthos) in Aristotle. “Character, on Aristotle’s view, is the acquisition of states (hexeis) through habituation (ethismos). The process of habituation involves essentially practice and repetition” (Sherman, op. cit., p. 246). By contrast, consider Mariska Leunissen’s definition of what she calls natural character (ēthos) developed from Aristotle’s biological works: “a ‘natural capacity’ (phusikē dunamis) of the soul that predisposes an animal’s – nonmoral – emotions, actions, and even ‘cognitive’ acts related to survival and procreation” in “Aristotle on Natural Character and Its Implications for Moral Development,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 50, 4 (2012): 507–530, p. 508. These natural capacities include what we would name personality traits such as timidity or natural courage as well as intellectual capacities such as craftiness (Ibid.). On the different senses of ēthos, see also Mary Whitlock Blundell, “Ēthos and Dianoia Reconsidered,” in A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics (New York: Princeton, 1992), 155–175, p. 156.

See Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1366a19, 26, 1376a25, 28, and 1384a7; and Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1337a39. In the Pol., he also speaks of the ēthos of political constitutions analogously by referring specifically to their ends (Pol. 1337a14). Elsewhere ēthos refers to natural temperaments of animals (Pol. 1338b19) in a way consistent with his discussion of natural ēthos at EN 1144b5.

The distinction follows the contemporary distinction between character and personality. See Miller, Character and Moral Psychology, op. cit., pp. 9–18.

If the discussion here remains unconvincing to some, it is worth noting that the Aristotelian may still draw from the evidence I present here from Aristotle’s works to build an Aristotelian account of character that is empirically adequate. One does not need to accept this picture as one that Aristotle endorsed to do so. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

See for instance Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1119a11–17, 1151b35–1152a1, or 100b18–22.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 151.

Miller discusses the many studies at length that indicate our behavior is largely influenced by morally insignificant factors. See especially Miller, Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, op. cit., pp. 29–131 and pp. 201–202.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p.151.

See Julia Annas, “Comments on Doris’ Lack of Character,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2005): 636–642; Jonathan Webber, “Virtue, Character, and Situation,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 3, 2 (2006): 193–213, pp. 206–208; and Joel Kupperman, “Virtue in Virtue Ethics,” Journal of Ethics 13 (2009): 243–255, pp. 254–255. For notable exceptions, see Neera Badhwar, “Reasoning about Wrong Reasons, No Reasons, and Reasons of Virtue,” in N. Snow and F. Trivigno (eds.), The Philosophy and Psychology of Character and Happiness (New York: Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory, 2014), 35–53; and Rachana Kamtekar, “Situationism and Virtue Ethics on the Content of Our Character,” Ethics 114 (2004): 458–491. Kamtekar focuses on Greek notions of virtue and character of the ordinary person that are not exclusively tied to Aristotle. My treatment of Aristotle’s notions of non–ideal virtue (what I call “actual virtue”) and the ordinary person is more extensive than these latter sources and draws more heavily from the Rhet. and Pol.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 150.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1119a11–17.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 151, 159.

See Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and moral behavior, op. cit., pp. 25, 64.

See Doris, Ibid., p. 60.

Maria Merritt, “Virtue Ethics and Situationist Personality Psychology,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 3 (2000): 365–383, pp. 375–376.

There is general agreement that Aristotle’s virtues (and vices) admit of degrees. See Doug Reed, “Degrees of Virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics,” Ancient Philosophy 37 (2017): 91–112, pp. 91–93; and Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 145. Aristotle often talks about having a virtue to some degree. See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1173a20–22, 1117b9–11, 1120b9–11, 1123b26–30, 1168a33–35, and 1172a10–14. See Aristotle, Ibid., 1126b7–9 on degrees of vice.

It is this point that undermines Merritt’s claim that for Aristotle there would be great tension for the virtuous person to acknowledge social contributions to maintaining virtue. See Merritt, op. cit, pp. 376–377.

Aristotle, EN, 1119a11–17. All translations of the Nicomachean Ethics are from Terence Irwin in Aristotle, EN, op. cit.

Aristotle, Ibid., 1151b35–1152a1.

Aristotle, Ibid., 1128b22–32.

Aristotle, Ibid., 1100b18–22.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 151.

See John Cooper, “Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship,” Review of Metaphysics 30, 4 (1977): 619–648, p. 627.

See Neera Badhwar and Russell Jones, “Aristotle on the Love of Friends,” The Oxford Handbook on the Philosophy of Love (2017): 1–26, pp.14–15. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199395729.013.22

See Neera Badhwar, “Reasoning about Wrong Reasons, No Reasons, and Reasons of Virtue,” op. cit., p. 38.

See Linn, op. cit., pp. 68–73.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 149.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 151.

Though I focus on virtue, I assume that if there is a reasonable picture of virtue, one can infer that there is one of vice. Just as the virtuous agent may not be perfectly virtuous, so too the vicious agent may contain some good desires. Indeed, Aristotle notes the changeable nature of the vicious person. See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1159b7–8. It would be extremely rare to have a unified, vicious character for Aristotle.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1253a2–4.

I use “city” broadly to refer to wherever citizens and others live under the laws of a particular constitution. This may include urban and rural areas.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1252b28–29.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1180a3.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1253a32–34.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1179b33–34.

Aristotle, Ibid, 1180a8.

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1180b5–7.

See Aristotle, Ibid, 1118a18–24.

See Aristotle, Ibid, 1180a30. See also Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1337a21 where Aristotle argues that moral education should be communal since it has one end (viz., happiness or eudaimonia).

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1180a31.

The ideal constitution is discussed in books VII–VIII, and his discussion of education spans Pol. Bk. VII, ch. 13 through Bk. VIII.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1336a29–31.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1103a32–1103b1, and 1103b13. On the similarly between developing virtue and skill, see Daniel C. Russell, “Aristotle on Cultivating Virtue,” in N. Snow (ed.), Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 17–48.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1331a38–40; and Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1128b15–22.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1336b4 and 1336b13–14.

See Merritt, op. cit., pp. 376–377.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1180a1–3.

See Merritt, op. cit., 376–377.

See Merritt, Ibid., 381.

On incomplete virtue, see Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1286a30–35.

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1335b38–1336a2 on adulterers and 1336b8–12 on being dishonored.

On the virtue of citizens of the ideal state, see Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1328b37.

See Aristotle, Ibid, 1330a15–6.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 150.

See Howard Curzer, “How Good People Do Bad Things,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 28 (2005): 233–256; and Shane Drefcinski, “Aristotle’s Fallible Phronimos,” Ancient Philosophy 16 (1996): 139–154.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1104a1–4.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 152. Miller explains that we can individuate situations based on nominal features, which are objective and observable by third parties, or based on psychologically salient features, which take into account a person’s mood or interpretation of a situation. His criticism here applies to nominal situations that have moral significance, e.g. situations that provide a low-cost opportunity to help. See Miller, Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, op. cit., pp. 34 and 64–66.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 156.

See Kamtekar, op. cit., for an exception.

For a survey of this literature, see Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and moral behavior, op. cit.; and Miller, Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, op. cit.

For discussion of the many, see Garrett, op. cit.; Howard Curzer, Aristotle and the Virtues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 333, 335, 342, and 370; and Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 150.

See Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., Bk. II, chs. 2–11 which discuss emotions and Bk. II, chs. 15–17 which discuss characters.

Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1377b30–1378a1. All translations of the Rhet. are from W. R. Roberts in Aristotle, Rhetoric, op. cit.

See Robert Baron, “The Sweet Smell of…Helping: Effects of Pleasant Ambient Fragrance on Prosocial Behavior in Shopping Malls,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23 (1997): 825–832; Michael R. Cunningham, “Weather, Mood, and Helping Behavior: The Sunshine Samaritan,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89 (1979): 1947–1956; and Berthold Berg, “Helping Behavior on the Gridiron: It Helps if You’re Winning,” Psychological Reports 42 (1978): 531–534.

See Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1378a24–25.

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1378a2.

See Baron, op. cit., Cunningham, op. cit, and Berg, op. cit. See Miller, Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, op. cit., pp. 63–73 for discussion of these studies.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., pp. 153–155; and Miller, Character and Moral Psychology, op. cit., pp. 201–202.

See Miller, “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., pp. 156–157.

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1146b4.

See Aristotle, Ibid, 1117a4–5.

See Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1389a3–9.

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1390a11.

100

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1389b15.

101

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1390a30–1390b6.

102

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1144b4–12.

103

See Miller “Categorizing Character: Moving Beyond the Aristotelian Framework,” op. cit., p. 157.

104

Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1389b3–5.

105

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1295b2–12.

106

See Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1390b32–34.

107

See Aristotle, Ibid., 1391a35–b2.

108

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1295b8–11, 1295b18–22, 1292a4–38, 1292b41–1293a10, and 1296b33.

109

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1119b25.

110

See Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1390b32–34.

111

See Aristotle, Pol., op. cit., 1295b6 and 1295b8–11.

112

See Aristotle, Rhet., op. cit., 1390a34.

113

See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1100b35–1101a6. Aristotle often contrasts the ordinary person’s character with that of the virtuous person in his discussion of friendship. See Aristotle, EN, op. cit., 1156a20, 1156b13, 1156b19, 1157a14, 1158b5, 1158b10, 1159b5–10, and 1164a12–13.

114

See Russell, op. cit., for an exception.

115

See Ryan West, “Virtue Ethics is Empirically Adequate,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (2017): 1–33, pp. 10–11, for discussion of the rarity thesis and empirical adequacy.

Titel: Aristotle on Actual Virtue and Ordinary People
verfasst von: Marcella Linn
Publikationsdatum: 04.01.2021
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: The Journal of Value Inquiry / Ausgabe 4/2022
Print ISSN: 0022-5363
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0492
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09789-4

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