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Virtue and Self-Love in Aristotle's Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Marcia L. Homiak
Marcia L. Homiak*
Affiliation:
Occidental College
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Extract

We are often told that there is a striking and important difference between ancient Greek moral philosophy and modern moral philosophy. Whereas the moderns emphasize principles of right action and what a person is obligated to do, ancient moral philosophy is concerned with character and what it is to be a good, that is, a virtuous human being. For the Greeks, virtue was not a matter of making our actions conform to a specific code of conduct or to the moral law. Instead, it was a matter of being in the right psychological state. This idea is explicit in Socrates’ famous claim that knowledge is sufficient for virtue: once we know that virtue is an indispensable means to the final good of eudaimonia, we will choose virtue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 1981 , pp. 633 - 651
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1981

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References

1 See the interpretation of Socrates’ moral theory offered by Irwin, Terence in Plato's Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977)Google Scholar chs. III-IV.

2 Irwin, T.H. ‘Aristotle on Reason, Desire, and Virtue,’ Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975) 567-78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Wiggins, David ‘Deliberation and Practical Reason,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 76 (1975-6) 29–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Rawls, John A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P. 1971)Google Scholar sections 63-65. The examples cited here come from section 63, 411-2.

5 The background to Aristotle's remarks at 1097b34-8a4 is his account of the soul in de Anima 11.1-3. There Aristotle argues that the soul of a living organism is not a separate entity, but the form, or characteristic pattern of activity, of that organism, in the way that seeing is the characteristic activity of the eye (412b10- 3a3). The different patterns of activity of different organisms overlap, with souls thus forming a hierarchical series in which each soul includes some of the activities of others (414b28-32). Thus, at EN 1 098a3-4, where Aristotle describes the characteristic activity of persons as ‘the active (praktikē) life of the element that has a rational principle (tou logon echontos),’ he should not be taken to mean that the characteristic activity of a human being cannot overlap with the activities of lower organisms. This human life, then, is not one exclusively devoted to the use of reason in theoretical activity or in a way disengaged from the body, as suggested in Gauthier, R.A. and Jolif, J.Y. Ethique à Nicomaque (Louvain: Publications universitaires de Louvain 1958-9) II, 1, 56.Google Scholar

6 Aristotle's discussions of pleasure are natural extensions of his remarks about characteristic activities in 1.7 and love in IX.7-8. For example, the passages at 1153a12-5 and 1153b9-17, when taken together, suggest that the happy life is one we enjoy and find pleasant, and that it consists of the unimpeded exercise of our natural powers — most significantly, as we know from 1.7, the ability to plan and organize our lives. The exercise of our natural powers is, then, a central human good; without their exercise, our lives will not be expressions of ourselves, and hence they will not be a source of self-love.

7 Aristotle's readers have often been perplexed by the fact that he provides only one example of genuine courage, i.e., the person who, properly motivated, risks his life in battle. But this will be less puzzling if we understand courage in terms of self-love. Presumably, this example of courage is uncontroversial because the brave person is risking his life for the sake of the polis, which he acknowledges to be part of the good life. But why is it a part of the good life? It is a component of the final good because it provides the environment necessary to sustain and nurture the exercise of rational planning. Thus any danger to the state is a danger to our ability to plan and choose our lives. Thus it seems reasonable for the Aristotelian brave person to fight against any such danger: his life would not be worth living if he could not exercise his planning abilities. We should not conclude from this, however, that defending the state is the only way the brave person can show his bravery. Courage can be manifested on smaller scales as well, as the example of the seamen indicates.

8 See Cooper, John M. Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. P. 1975) 130·1Google Scholar for a helpful discussion of this point.

9 I offer only a sketch of how these feelings are produced and maintained. An adequate account would require extended treatment of the nature and role of friendship and the political community in Aristotle's ethics. For more detail, see Cooper, John M. ‘Friendship and the Good in Aristotle,’ Philosophical Review, 86 (1977), 290–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ibid., 302-10.

11 For a more extensive treatment of this point, see Gosling, J.C.B. Pleasure and Desire (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1969), 163-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 I am especially grateful to john Cooper, Michael Friedman, Terence Irwin, and Calvin Norm ore for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.