06/10/2018
Abstract –
Aristotle is well known for his ethical theory that is centred around moral character, as opposed to around rules or consequences of actions. Put simply, the aim of living and acting is to develop the right kinds of dispositions, virtues, which in turn should lead to becoming a good person. Aside from discussing the merits and shortcomings of this approach, there has been much debate over whether or not any modern virtue ethics is sufficiently Aristotelian to label it as such – much of Aristotle’s work seems so far removed from our modern lives that we cannot apply it to anything we do. The aim of this article is to explore Aristotle’s ethical framework, as laid out in ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, and establish whether Aristotle provides enough of a basis for modern virtue ethics in his writing.
In the following essay, I shall look at whether Aristotle provides an adequate basis for modern virtue ethics within his own ethical approach. I shall begin with a brief description of Aristotle’s ethics, with the intention of showing the point at which it can be attacked. I will then consider the objection that Aristotle’s views simply cannot be translated into a modern society, as they do not provide a way for the majority to correctly identify and perform virtuous activity. This objection arises because Aristotle’s virtues can be seen as necessarily tied to the community in which they were formed, and further that the requirements of being virtuous could be construed as elitist. If Aristotelian ethics is not at all compatible with modern society, then it is clear that Aristotle has not provided an adequate basis for modern moral philosophers to work with. Having considered some responses to the objection, I will conclude that, because virtue-ethicists are in fact able to utilise Aristotle’s core moral framework and adapt it to the society in which they wish to implement it, Aristotle does indeed provide an adequate basis for contemporary virtue ethics. While many aspects of Aristotle’s theory are rejected and adapted, the main foundation of modern virtue ethics can be Aristotelian.
In general, Aristotle’s ethical theory can be described as one of eudaimonist virtue ethics, meaning that its ultimate aim is for people to achieve eudaimonia – happiness or flourishing. Although eudaimonia can be seen as a state of being, it is dependent on doing – happiness is a matter of virtuous activity, it is not the result of the
possession of virtue (Sanford, 2015). As Aristotle explains in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics, “it is the doers that become achievers of fine and good things” (1099a5-6). Aristotle therefore defines eudaimonia in terms of virtues: it is activity in accordance with virtue.
The virtues themselves are not defined as part of this flourishing, they are instead taken to be the activities that are good for humans; virtues are particular character traits or dispositions (Nicomachean Ethics, 1106a10-12) that are desirable for themselves because they are good (Tännsjö, 2013). What Aristotle does explain is that in every situation each virtue is a mean between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency (Nicomachean Ethics, 1106a26-b28). This in itself does not give an account of what actions are or are not virtuous – this simply cannot be done as the mean between the vices of excess and deficiency varies depending on the situation that an agent is in. The guidance Aristotle provides for action, then, is that the virtuous person is an exemplar; whatever the virtuous person would do in a certain situation is the action that is virtuous (Simpson, 1992). We should therefore look to the virtuous person in order to determine how we should act, but to do that we must know what dispositions are virtues and who the virtuous person is.
The virtues were accepted by the people as a result of common opinion (Simpson, 1992), and were recognisable in the actions of the virtuous person. This virtuous person was not defined in other terms by Aristotle, he merely implied that it was known by the citizens who was virtuous and who wasn’t. He said that to be virtuous, one must act in a certain situation as the virtuous person would – it was therefore taken for granted that the people in Aristotle’s community were aware of who the virtuous person was and how they acted in particular situations.
This appears to cause a problem for the modern-day virtue-ethicist, as it looks as though we cannot know exactly what Aristotle’s virtues consisted of, nor what we should do in each situation in order to be good. We have no definitive way to “distinguish the virtuous from the vicious” (Louden, 1984). This problem arises because we are trying to separate Aristotle’s ethics from its social roots and apply it to a completely different kind of community, suggests Louden (1984). To be able to know precisely what actions constitute virtuous activity in any given situation, we would have had to have been alive at the time of Aristotle, seeing as there is no place in which he
describes what constitutes the mean between two vices in each possible situation. If we have no way of identifying virtuous activity, then we cannot act in accordance with virtue, and so Aristotle has not provided enough of a basis for virtue ethics to be applied in the modern era.
However, we can use the framework of virtues that Aristotle puts forward without having to commit to using exactly the same virtues as him. Seeing as Aristotle’s virtues are defined by being what is thought to be good for humans, then we can determine our own virtues as a result of what we hold to be good and right today. Many of these virtues may be similar to Aristotle’s, as we recognise the names of many of his virtues as things that we would consider to be desirable and right (courage, justice, wisdom etc.) but the only way for us to properly recognise them or know about them would be to look within our own community. Other new virtues may also be added, for example: nowadays we see altruistic actions and charity as virtues, coming from Christianity, and so these would be likely to be added to Aristotle’s list. Similarly, we would perhaps take away his virtue of magnanimity (Svensson, 2008) as it seems very specific to Aristotle’s social community and does not obviously fit in with our current moral standards. It seems then, that the problem of not being able to know what Aristotle meant when he referred to particular instances of virtuous action can be averted by determining our own notions of what constitutes virtue, in a similar manner to the approach that Aristotle takes in Nicomachean Ethics. What Aristotle has provided is not a list of virtues that we must take and use, but a framework into which our own notions of virtuous activity can be inserted. The important initial assumption of virtue ethics is that there is an ideal “virtuous life which we generally recognize as such” (Svensson, 2008), and this is given to us by Aristotle. We can then hold our mutually recognised virtuous agents up as exemplars and imitate their actions, in order to be virtuous ourselves.
Even if we did manage to decide upon our own virtues – most likely keeping the majority of Aristotle’s and then replacing some of his more controversial virtues with some more contemporary values – this may not be enough to say that Aristotle has provided a suitable basis for our modern virtue ethics. This is because one aspect of Aristotle’s ethics, practical wisdom, appears to be out of reach for most people.
For Aristotle, the aim of the individual is not to try to be “perpetually imitating one’s particular collection of exemplars” (Sanford, 2015), but instead to become a person who knows how to act according to virtue. The highest form of virtue is contemplative activity, the best aspect of us as humans, and this is what guides us in our action, according to Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, 1177a12-18). To be virtuous is not only to act in the right way, it is also to know that what one does is right and to do it for that reason. This requires practical wisdom, phronesis (Kraut, 2017). Practical wisdom is the knowledge utilised by its possessor to guide them to do the right thing in a specific situation (Hursthouse and Pettigrove, 2016); it is not enough to know that one should be courageous, for example – one must have the knowledge of what specific action constitutes courageousness at a given time.
Most of the population were not considered to possess this practical wisdom, and in fact only some were able to have it: Aristotle held the view that free (i.e. not slaves) males were able to become practically wise and virtuous (Kraut, 2017). Aristotle believed that only a very select group within society were able to recognise the right actions and so become fully virtuous; they were the only intended targets of Aristotle’s work, as they already had a good grasp of the correct first principles of ethics (Svensson, 2008). These were the citizens (free males) who had gone through the proper upbringing and education to provide them with the right dispositions to act in accordance with virtue (Svensson, 2008). These citizens turn out to be members of a class that we would refer to as nobles or gentlemen (Simpson, 1992).
This aspect of Aristotle’s ethics stands out to modern philosophers as it appears to be elitist (Sanford, 2015). As our modern society is much more concerned with equality than in Aristotle’s day, we would want a modern theory of virtue ethics to be applicable to the majority. This apparent discrimination within Nicomachean Ethics is unacceptable by the standards of today, as we do not see any grounds for believing that the ability to achieve a fully virtuous life is restricted to a particular social class, or any other group of people (Svensson, 2008). Therefore, if Aristotle’s ethical theory requires that most people have no chance of ever being or becoming virtuous, then he cannot have provided an adequate basis for a form of virtue ethics that is intended to be implemented in a modern society.
It is not enough to simply dismiss this alleged elitism and claim that everyone is able to act virtuously; if this element of practical wisdom, essentially a product of superior education and social standing, is a necessary part of Aristotle’s ethical theory, then it cannot be rejected while his framework of virtues, vices and eudaimonia is retained.
In response to this, the defender of Aristotle could firstly point out the intuitive fact that everyone within a society has at least some conception of what it means to be virtuous. This is because it is an idea that comes from living in a community. As Svensson (2008) asserts, the notions of various virtues such as generosity and courage are “parts of the socially embedded context in which we find ourselves”. Possession of practical wisdom is not intrinsic or necessary, therefore, it is contingent – it is dependent on social and economic factors such as upbringing and access to good education and resources. It is not the case, then, that a person is either able to become fully virtuous or will not ever be able to do so, as each person has access to at least some level of virtue.
It is by reflection on our own level of virtue that we can become more virtuous, and that is something that seems plausibly open to all (Svensson, 2008). This idea is brought out well in the following section, where an alternative way of viewing the idea of virtue is considered.
The concept of being fully virtuous should not be thought of as something that can be acquired quickly or easily. It is an ideal target to aim for, but must be developed over time with a desire to improve in terms of virtue (Svensson, 2008). Julia Annas refers to this kind of theory of virtue and right action as a “developmental account” (2004). This description of the acquisition of virtue takes into account the fact that some people, the nobles at whom Aristotle’s ethical views were aimed, are already more virtuous than the majority. However, it then shows that anyone, or at least most people, are able to gradually cultivate their virtuous activity and gain practical knowledge.
Annas (2004) draws attention to the comparison Aristotle makes in the second book of Nicomachean Ethics, where he says that becoming virtuous is similar to learning to become a builder. Just as teaching is required to produce people who build well (Nicomachean Ethics, 1103b10-15), and therefore good builders, the development of virtuous activity requires a guide or role model. The “beginning builder” (Annas, 2004) here can be seen as the average citizen, a member of some lower class, and the
expert is the fully virtuous person. In order to develop virtue, what a person must do is identify someone who has a greater understanding of virtue than themselves (Svensson, 2008). For the noble this would perhaps be the fully virtuous person, for the average person this may be a noble or some other more practically wise person. They would consequently use the more virtuous person as their role model, imitating them sufficiently so that they slowly see for themselves what virtue requires of them in different situations (Svensson, 2008) and become a person of greater virtue. The people with no practical wisdom to start with do in fact have the ability to possess it, they just take longer than, and should do slightly different actions to, someone who is close to the ideal of full virtue (Svensson, 2008).
While the person who is close to full virtue should act in accordance with all of Aristotle’s conditions for virtuous action, the beginner should perhaps rely on the advice of a role model (Svensson, 2008). This developmental account of virtue, then, shows that there is a way in which Aristotle’s virtue ethics can be applied without needing people to act in a way that will never be accessible to them. This means that it can be applied to all of society, and not just a select few, and so is compatible with our modern notion of equality. It is also worth noting that Aristotle’s exclusion of slaves and women from his ethics is not a necessary aspect of it, as we know now that there are no relevant differences, cognitive or otherwise, between these groups and men. It should now be clear that the implementation of Aristotle’s virtue ethics does not only apply to those who have already been educated to have the right kinds of dispositions, as everyone has some way in which they can act to become more virtuous. It is true that some people would have less to do to become fully virtuous than others, but this fact does not impact the compatibility of Aristotle’s ethics with modern values andsociety.
While it is true that Aristotle’s ethical theory in its entirety would most likely not be compatible with our society today, there is still a sufficient basis provided within it that can be used to build a more modern version of his ethics. I have now shown that the unfavourable aspects of Aristotle’s views are not necessary for his moral framework, and so can be separated from it. While the resulting virtue ethics may not be completely Aristotelian, in that there may be parts of it that Aristotle would reject, the central foundation of it could certainly be derived directly from Nicomachean Ethics.
Reference List
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