Aristotle: Moral Virtues

Jimenez’s lucid, focused book is indispensable for those interested in social and emotional aspects of moral maturation. Arguing primarily that shame is central to Aristotle’s account of moral deve...

Although the commentary on Aristotle’s problematic discussion of slavery is vast, his discussion of nobility receives little attention. The fragments of his dialogue On Noble Birth constitute his most extensive examination of nobility, and while their similarity to the παμβασιλεύς of the Politics has recently been recognized, their relevance to natural slavery has hitherto gone unnoticed. Yet by declaring that true nobles – particularly the god-like ἀρχηγός – preternaturally possess superhuman characteristics, Aristotle precludes their easy inclusion in the kind “human” (...) in a manner inversely mirroring the preternatural subhumanity of natural slaves. Building on recent scholarship which argues that Aristotle’s “defense” of natural slaves is better understood as an indictment, On Noble Birth becomes most coherent if read as a hypothetical investigation into what would be required for “nobility” to name something true rather than equivocal, with the conclusion that “true nobility” is an empty set. (shrink)

This book argues that in order for people to live well, they must develop a virtue of playfulness. Inspired by Aristotle, the book draws on work from philosophy, classics, history, biology, psychology, and media studies to understand the place of play and playfulness in a good life. -/- Many philosophers have written about play, from Presocratics such as Heraclitus to contemporary philosophers such as Bernard Suits. Some champion play as the most crucial value in life. Others deride it and warn (...) strongly against it. This book evaluates the research for how play and playfulness bear on living a good life and becoming a good person. Its main argument is that in order to understand play as an action we must understand playfulness as a virtue in the lives of good people. The author develops a theory of playfulness from an Aristotelian perspective. Like Aristotle sees the virtues as necessary for a happy life, the author argues that playfulness is necessary for living well. And just as Aristotle offers multifaceted characterizations of core virtues, the author argues that playfulness includes aspects of seriousness, creativity, humility, optimism, and sociality. Playful people take play seriously, learn new skills, overcome failure, strive for success, and keep others in mind. As a result, playful people have a better shot at living well. -/- The Virtue of Playfulness is an accessible, empirically-informed, and detailed treatment of the philosophy of playfulness. It will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy and related disciplines who are interested in virtue ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of games, philosophy of sport, and ancient philosophy. (shrink)

In this short paper it is aimed to show that the concept of the “function”(the ergon) is such a concept that beyond its use in everyday language as a process or functioning, it can be considered as a mathematical function, and rather than modeling the phenomenon that is thought (by Aristotle)to correspond to reality, it models the derivative of this phenomenon, therefore it can be likened to a derivative function and the function obtained through its integration would better explain the (...) actual phenomenon, and interestingly, existentialists, who often reject the function argument, approach this more closely. (shrink)

Using research in social psychology, philosophers such as Gilbert Harman and John Doris argue that human beings do not have – and cannot acquire – character traits such as virtues. Along with defenders of virtue ethics such as Julia Annas and Rachana Kamtekar, they assume that this constitutes a dangerous attack on virtue ethics. I argue that even if virtues and vices did not exist and everyone accepted that truth, (1) we would continue to make attributions of character traits in (...) our ordinary practices and institutions and (2) it would still be useful to strategically harness – rather than suppress or ignore – our virtue (and vice) attributions. (shrink)

Aristotle thinks that happiness is an activity---it consists in doing something---rather than a feeling. It is the best activity of which humans are capable and is spread out over the course of a life. But what kind of activity is it? Some of his remarks indicate that it is a single best kind of activity, intellectual contemplation. Other evidence suggests that it is an overarching activity that has various virtuous activities, ethical and intellectual, as parts. At stake are questions about (...) how we should live and the correct balance of theoretical and practical activity. Numerous interpreters have sharply disagreed about Aristotle's answers to such questions. This book offers a fundamentally new approach to determining what kind of activity Aristotle thinks happiness is, one that challenges widespread assumptions that have until now prevented a dialectically satisfactory interpretation. This approach displays the boldness and systematicity of Aristotle's practical philosophy. (shrink)

Platón señala en República ix que en todos los seres humanos hay un trasfondo de deseos bestiales que se manifiestan especialmente en los sueños y el sabio logra mantener alejados. El artículo trata de reconstruir la respuesta de Aristóteles a estas tesis a través del estudio de tres tópicos de su filosofía: el concepto de felicidad, la categoría de bestialidad y la etiología de los sueños desarrollada en los tratados sobre los sueños incluidos en Parva Naturalia. -/- Plato points out (...) in Republic IX that in all human beings there is a background of bestial desires that manifest especially in dreams and the wise man manages to keep away. The article tries to reconstruct Aristotle's response to these theses through the study of three topics of his philosophy: the concept of happiness, the category of bestiality and the etiology of dreams developed in the treatises on dreams included in Parva Naturalia. (shrink)

Aristotle defines anger as a desire for revenge aroused by an intentional and undeserved slight. His remarks on revenge are scattered throughout his corpus causing many commentators to overlook or oversimplify his account of revenge. Stocker and Hegeman, for example, claim that for Aristotle the purpose of revenge is to make the offender suffer and take pleasure in his suffering. David Konstan claims that the purpose of revenge is to restore one’s sense of honour and social status. Both these claims (...) are correct, but the main purpose of revenge for Aristotle, I argue, is to restore justice and ensure that we are not mistreated by the offender in the future. I begin by showing that for Aristotle revenge entails three things. First, we desire to cause the offender pain; second, we want the offender to know that we are the cause of his pain; and third, we want him to know that we are causing him pain because he mistreated us. If the purpose of revenge was merely to take pleasure in the offender’s suffering, these last two criteria would be unnecessary. I further show that the desire for revenge is not a desire to destroy or ruin the offender. Killing another person or ruining their reputation would be an act of hatred, according to Aristotle, not revenge. This is an important point and one that many contemporary philosophers writing on revenge have failed to make. For Aristotle, revenge is analogous to punishment. We punish people for stealing so that they will refrain from stealing in the future. Similarly, we seek revenge because we believe the offender wronged us; we want to cause him pain so that he will not wrong us in the future. (shrink)

According to Aristotle there may be times when the virtuous person is justified in taking revenge. Many commentators claim that revenge, on Aristotle’s account, aims at restoring the honor and reputation of the avenger, but I will show that this cannot be why the virtuous person seeks revenge. I argue, instead, that the virtuous person seeks revenge when she is slighted in order to prove her worth. Aristotle claims that we slight those we think are neither good nor bad nor (...) capable of producing good or bad things. Although the virtuous person will ignore most slights, Aristotle thinks there may be times when even a virtuous person will have to take revenge in order to prove her worth, not because she is insecure or requires honors, but because she cannot function to the best of her abilities within her society if those she interacts with fail to recognize her worth. (shrink)

For Aristotle, some wrongdoers do not deserve blame, and the virtuous judge should extend sungnōmē, a correct judgment about what is equitable, under the appropriate excusing circumstances. Aristotle’s virtuous judge, however, does not forgive; the wrongdoer is excused from blame in the first place, rather than being forgiven precisely because she is blameworthy. Additionally, the judge does not fail to blame because she wishes to be merciful or from natural feeling, but instead, because that is the equitable action to take (...) under the circumstances. Moreover, while Aristotle does claim in his discussions of the virtues of megalopsychia and praotēs that the virtuous person will sometimes fail to become angry at blameworthy wrongdoers, Aristotle’s reasons for repudiating anger or forestalling blame have little to do with the sorts of reasons that one would or could be forgiving for. Although an Aristotelian virtuous agent does let go of anger for her own reasons, she does not forgive. As a result, I argue that since Aristotle’s account of equity entails that forgiveness is positively vicious, forgivingness is not merely a virtue left out of Aristotle’s account, but is in fact incompatible with his account. (shrink)

The present article critiques standard attempts to make philosophy appear relevant to the scientific study of well-being, drawing examples in particular from works that argue for fundamental differences between different forms of wellbeing, and claims concerning the supposedly inherent normativity of wellbeing research. Specifically, it is argued that philosophers in at least some relevant cases fail to apply what is often claimed to be among their core competences: conceptual rigor—not only in dealing with the psychological construct of flow, but also (...) in relation to apparently philosophical concepts such as normativity, objectivity, or eudaimonia. Furthermore, the uncritical use of so-called thought experiments in philosophy is shown to be inappropriate for the scientific study of wellbeing. As an alternative to such philosophy-as-usual, proper attention to other philosophical traditions is argued to be promising. In particular, the philosophy of ZhuangZi appears to concord well with today’s psychological knowledge, and to contain valuable ideas for the future development of positive psychology. (shrink)

According to many virtue ethicists, one of Aristotle’s important achievements was drawing a clear, qualitative distinction between the character traits of temperance and self-control. In an influential series of papers, John McDowell has argued that a clear distinction between temperance and self-control can be maintained only if one claims that, for the virtuous individual, considerations in favor of actions that are contrary to virtue are “silenced.” Some virtue ethicists reject McDowell’s silencing view as offering an implausible or inappropriate picture of (...) human virtue, but they argue that virtue can still be clearly distinguished from self-control by the absence of motivational conflict alone. In this paper, I argue that this criticism of McDowell is at most half right. If the silencing view is false, so that virtue can have a cost and the virtuous person can justifiably feel negative emotions in response to that cost, there is no principled reason why the virtuous person cannot also have motivational conflict. So, if one rejects the silencing view, then one must allow that the distinction between virtue and self-control is at most a matter of degree. (shrink)

In anticipation of updating annotated bibliographies on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics for Oxford Bibliography Online, I have sought to keep a running tabulation of all books, edited collections, translations, and journal articles which are primarily devoted to Aristotle’s ethical and political writings (including their historical reception but excluding neo–Aristotelian virtue ethics). In general, criteria for inclusion in this bibliography are that the work be: (1) publication in a peer–reviewed or academic/university press between 2011–2020; (2) “substantially” devoted to one of Aristotle’s (...) ethical or political works (e.g., Pol, EN, EE, MM, Athenian Constitution, Protrepticus); and/or (3) devoted to ethical or political concepts examined elsewhere in Aristotle’s corpus (e.g., Rhetoric, Poetics, zoological treatises, etc.). I encourage scholars to alert me about published works that I have omitted or listed incorrectly. (shrink)

Topical bibliography of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, organized by books/subjects within the Ethics. Includes editions and lexica for the study of Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics and Magna Moralia.

Aristoteles verwendet im Kontext seiner Bestimmung des Geldes in der Nikomachischen Ethik und Politik zwei Ausdrücke, die das ins Wort bringen, was im Deutschen Geld heißt: τὸ νόµισµα und τὰ χρήµατα. Beide Ausdrücke bezeichnen die selbe Sache, das Geld, aber nicht das selbe Geldphänomen. Der Singular auf der einen Seite und der Plural auf der anderen deuten an, worin das Problem der Phänomenalität dieses Phänomens liegt: Es ist die Doppeldeutigkeit dessen, was wir als Geld bezeichnen.

In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and repetition, specifically by the learner performing the same kinds of actions as the expert: in other words, we become virtuous by performing virtuous actions. Aristotle’s claim that “like states arise from like activities” has led some philosophers to challenge the virtue-skill analogy. In particular, Aristotle’s skill analogy is (...) sometimes dismissed because of the role that practical wisdom or phronesis purportedly plays in character virtue. In this paper, I argue that a proper understanding of character virtue, phantasia-based emotions, and Aristotle’s implicit distinction between habituated and strict or full virtue (aretè kuria) grounds his virtue-skill analogy. Character virtue stems from the non-rational orektikon and is developed through the habituation of passionate elements, primarily phantasia and pathé. Pathé are pleasurable or affective perceptions, not judgments or beliefs. Thus, pathé are subject to non-rational habituation. Practical wisdom, on the other hand, is an intellectual virtue stemming from the rational part of the soul. Though practical wisdom is necessary for full virtue (aretè kuria), it is not necessary for the habituated character virtue that Aristotle refers in Book II. Once we understand the phantastic basis of emotions and the distinction between habituated and full virtue, the virtue-skill analogy is apt. I conclude by briefly mentioning two contemporary forms of emotion regulation—cognitive reappraisal and cognitive behavioral therapy—that lend support from empirical psychology to Aristotle’s claim that emotions (pathé) can be habituated. Character virtue is indeed a skill; it is—at least in part—the skill of emotion regulation. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, one of Aristotle’s most frequent characterizations of the virtuous agent is that she acts for the sake of the fine (to kalon). In IX.8, this pursuit of the fine receives a more specific description; virtuous agents maximally assign the fine to themselves. In this paper, I answer the question of how we are to understand the fine as individually and maximally acquirable. I analyze Nicomachean Ethics IX.7, where Aristotle highlights virtuous activity (energeia) as central to the (...) fine, and argue that when virtuous agents pursue the fine, what they are pursuing is virtuous activity. I then address various problems, like how virtuous people can maximize virtuous activity yet sacrifice their lives, which would seem to amount to sacrificing future opportunities to virtuous activity and therefore not maximizing it. I also eliminate alternative interpretations that do not take virtuous activity as necessary to the fine, for example the common good interpretation, whereby virtuous agents pursuing the fine amounts to their pursuing the common good. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics II 4 Aristotle famously raises a puzzle concerning moral habituation, and he seems to dissolve it by recourse to the analogy between moral virtue and skills. A new interpretation of the chapter is offered on the basis of an important evaluative dissimilarity then noted by Aristotle, one almost universally disregarded by interpreters of the chapter. I elucidate the nature of the dissimilarity in question and argue for its paramount importance for understanding Aristotle’s conception of moral agency. I (...) also show that it is the particularly intricate and puzzling character of the chapter that has prevented scholars from noticing such a dissimilarity and from integrating it to the interpretation of the chapter. (shrink)

I offer a reading of Aristotle’s “doctrine of the mean” that avoids two pitfalls: taking it as truistic, and taking it as involving the bizarre thesis that whenever one acts as reason directs, one’s action is mid-way between some extremes. The crucial point is that while Aristotle denies the existence of useful general ethical truths, he himself offers truths about the *likelihoods* with which rationality will require actions of certain types; and it is with such truths that the statistical idea (...) of the mean gets a foothold in his theory of the virtues. (shrink)

Recent moral philosophy has seen a revival of interest in the concept of virtue, and with it a reassessment of the role of virtue in the work of Aristotle and Kant. This book brings that reassessment to a new level of sophistication. Nancy Sherman argues that Kant preserves a notion of virtue in his moral theory that bears recognizable traces of the Aristotelian and Stoic traditions, and that his complex anthropology of morals brings him into surprising alliance with Aristotle. She (...) develops her argument through close readings of major texts by both Aristotle and Kant, illustrating points of congruence and contrast. (shrink)

The revival of virtue ethics is largely inspired by Aristotle, but few---especially Christians---follow him in seeing virtue supremely exemplified in the “magnanimous” man. However, Aristotle raises a matter of importance: the character traits and type of psychological stance exemplified in those who aspire to acts of extraordinary excellence. I explore the accounts of magnanimity found in both Aristotle and Aquinas, defending the intelligibility and acceptability of some central elements of a broadly Aristotelian conception of magnanimity. Aquinas, I argue, provides insight (...) into how Christian ethics may appropriate central elements of a broadly Aristotelian conception of extraordinary virtue. (shrink)

Once again it is becoming fashionable to ask ‘What character traits are virtues?’ Naturally, it behooves us to try to recapture the insights of our predecessors, as well as forging ahead on our own. In this paper I shall examine one such insight.

The ancient Greeks present a moral outlook which is not without considerable difficulty for contemporary philosophers. This difficulty has origins which may go back as far as the Renaissance, but we can surely trace its sources at least to Descartes. We tend to think that we had best use a moral theory to address problems of morality. What better way to determine how we ought to conduct ourselves than to define, once and for all, some basic principles of action! If (...) only we could get our ethical concepts straight, we would then be able to act properly in almost any circumstances, whether we so act out of duty, for the sake of an overarching end, or in recognition of established norms and customs. (shrink)

Everyday moral thought uses the concepts of virtue and vice at two different levels. At what I will call a global level it applies these concepts to persons or to stable character traits or dispositions. Thus we may say that a person is brave or has a standing trait of generosity or malice. But we also apply these concepts more locally, to specific acts or mental states such as occurrent desires or feelings. Thus we may say that a particular act (...) was brave or that a desire or pleasure felt at a particular moment was malicious. Even when they concern acts, these last judgements are of virtuousness rather than of moral rightness. They therefore turn essentially on a person’s motives; while he can act rightly from a bad motive, he cannot act virtuously from a bad motive. But they assess the virtue or vice of particular acts and mental states rather than of persons or traits of character. These global and local uses of the virtue-concepts are clearly connected, in that we expect virtuous persons to perform and have, and virtuous traits to issue in, particular virtuous acts, desires, and feelings. A philosophical account of virtue should explain this connection, but there are two different ways of doing so. Each takes one of the two uses to be primary and treats the other as derivative, but they disagree about which is the primary use. A dispositional view takes the global use to be primary and identifies virtuous acts, desires, and feelings in part as ones that issue from virtuous.. (shrink)

I contend that Adam Smith and David Hume offer re-interpretations of Aristotle’s notion of greatness of soul, focusing on the kind of magnanimity Aristotle attributes to Socrates. Someone with Socratic magnanimity is worthy of honor, responds moderately to fortune, and is virtuous—just and benevolent. Recent theorists err in claiming that magnanimity is less important to Hume’s account of human excellence than benevolence. In fact, benevolence is a necessary ingredient for the best sort of greatness. Smith’s “Letter to Strahan” attributes this (...) greatness to Hume. It encourages us to admire Hume as an exemplar of human excellence, to seek Hume’s virtues for ourselves, and to approve of the “love of literary fame” which Hume calls his “ruling passion.”. (shrink)

In EN II, 1108 9-1108 b10 e più estesamente in EN IV, 1126b 10-1128b 9 Aristotele analizza tre virtù (amichevolezza, sincerità e arguzia) che, coinvolgendo il linguaggio e il senso dell’umorismo, riguardano quell’aspetto fondamentale della natura umana che è la socialità, al punto che pare giustificato l’utilizzo dell’etichetta “virtù sociali” per riferirsi ad esse. Tali virtù, infatti, rappresentano le eccellenze nell’ambito dei rapporti sociali non connotati da affetto e amicizia, ma caratterizzati da un legame ben definito, sufficiente a giustificare l’emergere (...) di virtù peculiari. Questo legame è la cittadinanza: la comune appartenenza a una stessa città genera una frequentazione che, per quanto formale o comunque non sentimentalmente connotata, è opposta all’estraneità. C’è un fine comune che regge la polis, in forza del quale ogni estraneità è vinta, e di cui l’amichevolezza reciproca, l’esigenza di una veridicità nei rapporti, e persino la moderazione ironica nello scherzare e nel fare battute sono segno inequivocabile. Aristotele pertanto tematizza una sfera ben precisa dei rapporti sociali, e ne stabilisce le eccellenze: ciò significa che questa sfera ha una sua specificità e consistenza e di conseguenza anche che questo gruppo di virtù ha una sua autonomia. (shrink)

Questo lavoro è diviso in due parti: una monografica in cui viene indagata l’autentica posizione aristotelica in merito allo statuto della phronesis e della conoscenza morale, e l'altra in cui si offre una nuova traduzione del VI libro ...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-TW X-NONE It is commonly believed that impartial utilitarian moral theories have significant demands that we help the global poor, and that the partial virtue ethics of Mencius and Aristotle do not. This ethical partiality found in these virtue ethicists has been criticized, and some have suggested that the partialistic virtue ethics of Mencius and Aristotle are parochial (i.e., overly narrow in their scope of concern). I (...) believe, however, that the ethics of Mencius and Aristotle are both more cosmopolitan than many presume and also are very demanding. In this paper, I argue that the ethical requirements to help the poor and starving are very demanding for the quintessentially virtuous person in Mencius and Aristotle. The ethical demands to help even the global poor are demanding for Mencius’ jun-zi ( 君子 chün-tzu / junzi ) and Aristotle’s megalopsuchos . I argue that both the jun-zi and megalopsuchos have a wide scope of concern for the suffering of poor people. I argue that the relevant virtues of the jun-zi and megalopsuchos are also achievable for many people. The moral views of Mencius and Aristotle come with strong demands for many of us to work harder to alleviate global poverty. . (shrink)

A.W. Price explores the views of Plato and Aristotle on how virtue of character and practical reasoning enable agents to achieve eudaimonia--the state of living or acting well. He provides a full philosophical analysis and argues that the perennial question of action within human life is central to the reflections of these ancient philosophers.

This volume, which is part of the Clarendon Aristotle Series, offers a clear and faithful new translation of Books II to IV of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, accompanied by an analytical commentary focusing on philosophical issues. In Books II to IV, Aristotle gives his account of virtue of character in general and of the principal virtues individually, topics of central interest both to his ethical theory and to modern ethical theorists. Consequently major themes of the commentary are connections on the one (...) hand with other relevant Aristotelian texts and on the other with modern writings, both text-related and thematic. -/- Since the main aim of the volume is to make Aristotle's thought as accessible as possible to readers who do not know Greek, considerable care is taken to elucidate both his technical vocabulary and significant features of his Greek idiom. C. C. W. Taylor also provides systematic comparisons with other translations into English and other languages, and frequent references to other commentaries, ancient, medieval, and modern. These features make the work useful to other scholars in the field as well as to students of philosophy, both undergraduate and graduate. -/- In view of the widespread contemporary interest in the topic of virtue, the volume should appeal to students of ethics (even those hitherto unacquainted with ancient thought) and to any reader who is concerned to see how fundamental questions of life and conduct were approached in a culture significantly different from our own. (shrink)

Aristotle repeatedly claims that character-virtue “makes the goal right“, while Phronesis is responsible for working out how to achieve the goal. Many argue that these claims are misleading: it must be intellect that tells us what ends to pursue. I argue that Aristotle means just what he seems to say: despite putative textual evidence to the contrary, virtue is (a) a wholly non-intellectual state, and (b) responsible for literally supplying the contents of our goals. Furthermore, there are no good textual (...) or philosophical reasons to reject this straightforward interpretation. Contrary to widespread opinion, Aristotle does not characterize Phronesis as supplying ends. Instead, its ethical import lies wholly in its ability to “determine the mean“. Moreover, because character involves non-rational cognition of the end as good, Aristotle can restrict practical intellect to deliberation without abandoning his anti-Humean view that we desire our ends because we find them good. (shrink)

IN BOTH THE EUDEMIAN ETHICS AND THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, Aristotle says that the aim of ethical inquiry is a practical one; we want to know what virtue is so that we may become good ourselves and thereby do well and be happy. By classifying ethical inquiry as a practical endeavor, Aristotle is rejecting a view that he attributes to Socrates according to which ethics is a kind of theoretical science. In theoretical sciences, such as geometry or astronomy, the knowledge of (...) a particular subject matter is sought as an end in itself, and the possession of such knowledge is sufficient to make one a geometer or an astronomer. In rejecting this model Aristotle argues that the knowledge of virtue is sought not solely for itself but in order to inform praxis and in order that we become virtuous and good, not by knowing what the virtues are but by cultivating them in practice. (shrink)

HOW ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VICE in Aristotle’s ethics? As many commentators have noted, it is by no means obvious that Aristotle’s scattered remarks about vice really add up to a coherent account. In several places Aristotle clearly assigns the leading role in the explanation of vicious action to reason. We see this, for example, in the unequivocal claim that acts expressing intemperance are “in accordance with choice”. This is important, in part because it provides a basis (...) for the distinction between vice and akrasia. Although both the intemperate and the akratic do what they ought not, the intemperate pursue their goal guided by reason and with “little or no appetite”, whereas the akratic act from appetite. What both pursue—and what both ought not pursue—is bodily pleasure. The difference is that the vicious pursue bodily pleasure because they think it is the central component in the good life. Thus, they choose pleasure as a good, indeed as the most important good. The akratic, on the other hand, pursue bodily pleasure as such and do so contrary to their conception of the good. (shrink)

Elizabeth Telfer; III*—The Unity of the Moral Virtues in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 90, Issue 1, 1 June 19.

This paper explores Aristotle ’s discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics of the relation between the rational and nonrational parts of the soul to make sense of his claim that “we cannot be fully good without prudence [practical wisdom], or prudent without virtue of character.” The significance of this interpretive project for an understanding of the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole cannot be understated. While Aristotle ’s conception of human excellence clearly incorporates both cognitive and conative capacities – which he calls (...) virtues of the intellect and virtues of character –, Aristotle ’s commitment to the biconditional relation between these capacities is less obvious. It follows that to understand his account of either form of virtue is to understand both, as well as the ways in which they are related. By attending to his account of the process through which an ethically undeveloped human being becomes a virtuous person, I approach this interpretive challenge from an angle too often neglected by contemporary readers of Aristotle. Although the Nicomachean Ethics contains no sustained treatment of the virtuous person’s development through time, the text is rich with materials that emerge in a variety of contexts and indicate the extent to which the very possibility of virtue itself depends on how one is brought up. By attending to the details of the developmental story, we will put ourselves in a much better position both to make sense of Aristotle ’s characterization of the fully developed virtuous person,, and to respond to the interpretive challenges articulated above. (shrink)

This paper considers the distinctions Aristotle draws (1) between the intellectual virtue of "phronêsis" and the moral virtues and (2) among the moral virtues, in light of his commitment to the reciprocity of the virtues. I argue that Aristotle takes the intellectual virtues to be numerically distinct hexeis from the moral virtues. By contrast, I argue, he treats the moral virtues as numerically one hexis, although he allows that they are many hexeis 'in being'. The paper has three parts. In (...) the first, I set out Aristotle's account of the structure of the faculties of the soul, and determine that desire is a distinct faculty. The rationality of a desire is not then a question of whether or not the faculty that produces that desire is rational, but rather a question of whether or not the object of the desire is good. In the second section I show that the reciprocity of "phronêsis" and the moral virtues requires this structure of the faculties. In the third section I show that the way in which Aristotle distinguishes the faculties requires that we individuate moral virtues according to the objects of the desires that enter into a given virtue, and with reference to the circumstances in which these desires are generated. I then explore what it might mean for the moral virtues to be different in being but not in number, given the way in which the moral virtues are individuated. I argue that Aristotle takes "phronêsis" and the political art to be a numerical unity in a particular way, and that he suggests that the moral virtues are, by analogy, the same kind of unity. (shrink)