Only doing an abbreviated version of this, covering the most important cross-cutting points.
Decision
- Understanding decision (prohairesis) is important to help us understand the account of virtue, given that virtue is a state which decides.
- If the human function is rational activity in accordance with virtue, then the virtuous person must make excellent decisions.
- And recall that prohairesis is the best way to assess character, since it tells us about motivation/goal.
- The nature of decision: a deliberative desire to do an action that is up to us.
- So, it’s the point at which deliberation (the work of the rationally-calculating part of the soul) and wish (desire for the good) come together.
- In some sense, it bridges the virtues of character with the virtues of thought.
- It is not:
- appetite or spirit (these are shared with non-rational animals)
- belief (which is a different category entirely, since beliefs don’t form character)
- wish (we can wish for the impossible, and moreover wishes are about the end rather than what promotes it)
- Decisions are always voluntary, but e.g. children and animals can act voluntarily without making any decision, because they lack capacity for deliberation.
- Of the three things that decision is not, wish (boulesis) is the most closely related to decision, and the most relevant for Aristotle’s ethics.
- Our wishes (and our conception of the end) reveal our values and are shaped by upbringing/character.
- Wish is connected to virtue via pleasure: the virtuous person sees correctly what is fine and pleasant (they’re the “standard and measure”), and wishes it.
- Recall that Lorenz argues that boulesis is the desire generated by the rational part of the soul.
- So wish connects to the doctrine of the mean too – the virtuous person correctly hits upon what is fine (& pleasant), since they see things that way.
- And since prohairesis includes a desiring component, it has motivational force. It’s not merely a cognitive state.
- Deliberation (bouleusis) involves reasoning backwards from a fixed end in mind, and identifying what actions would attain that end (and if there are multiple, which attains it most expediently & finely).
- “We deliberate not about ends, but about what promotes ends.”
- “A doctor, for instance, does not deliberate about whether he will cure, or an orator about whether he will persuade, or a politician about whether he will produce good order.” (III.3 1112b12-14)
- Wiggins’s exegesis is that “what promotes ends” (ta pros to telos) is broader than just instrumental promotion, and can include what constitutes the end.
- On this reading, we can deliberate about the right way to specify or fill out a general end (namely, eudaimonia) in particular circumstances
- “We deliberate not about ends, but about what promotes ends.”
- Since we don’t deliberate about ends, we need to have a good end in mind from somewhere else – i.e., ethical virtue. So, both intellectual virtue and ethical virtue are involved in taking the right actions.
- “decision requires understanding and thought, and also a state of character; for acting well or badly requires both thought and character” (VI.2, 1139a33-35)
Prudence and deliberation
- The intellectual virtue of prudence/practical wisdom (phronesis) is a general ability to deliberate about what promotes living well.
- “Prudence is a state grasping the truth, involving reason, concerned with action about things that are good or bad for a human being” (VI.5, 1140b5-6)
- It requires experience, and knowledge of both universals and particulars.
- Aristotle notes there aren’t prudent young people, even though there are mathematically gifted ones.
- Recall the practical syllogisms: (U) light meats are digestible & healthy, (P) bird meats are light; (C) I should eat bird meats
- Knowledge of particulars requires experience; mathematical knowledge can be reached through abstraction alone.
- Good deliberation (eubolia) is distinguished from cleverness (deinoteta) by the nature of the end it’s trying to promote.
- Both prudent and unscrupulous people can be called clever; prudence requires cleverness but also reaching a good. (VI.12, 1144a23-29)
- Also, even if you reach the right end but get there with incorrect inferences, that’s not good deliberation. (VI.9, 1142b17-27)
- Distinction between intellectual wisdom (sophia) and practical wisdom (phronesis)
- Phronesis aims at a particular kind of practical truth, which depends on desire; sophia aims at a narrower truth.
- “The thought concerned with study… has its good or bad state in being true or false; for truth is the function of whatever thinks. But the function of what thinks about action is truth agreeing with correct desire.” (VI.2, 1139a27-29)
- So (the claim goes), the continent (enkratic) agent lacks phronesis, because they don’t have complete virtue of character.
- On this account, reaching the true conclusions about what actions to take is not enough – it must also agree with correct desire.
- It’s something of a puzzle why this should be true, though. See resolution from Coope below.
- Phronesis aims at a particular kind of practical truth, which depends on desire; sophia aims at a narrower truth.
- Aristotle uses the link between phronesis and virtue of character to show the unity of the virtues.
- Having ethical virtue requires good judgement.
- As he establishes in Book II, virtue is “a state which decides… by reference to reason” (II.6, 1107a15)
- Book V and discussion about justice makes clear how you need practical wisdom to attain decency (1137b14-17)
- If he can show the dependence holds the other way too, then there’s unity.
- i.e., each ethical virtue requires phronesis, which in turn requires complete ethike arete, and so the virtues must all come together or not at all (Coope 2012).
- Aristotle accepts that you can be naturally virtuous without prudence (e.g. “just, brave, prone to temperance … immediately from birth”), but that full virtue requires prudence (VI.13, 1144b1-17).
- Having ethical virtue requires good judgement.
- But he doesn’t give much of a good argument about why phronesis needs practical truth agreeing with correct desire.
- The continent agent’s reasoning leads to the same good actions as the virtuous person’s, so why does only the latter fulfil their function well?
- In particular, how can a defect in the non-rational part of the soul (responsible for desires) influence the degree of excellence of the rational part of the soul?
- Coope (2012) offers an explanation: the enkrates fails to take pleasure in the fineness of right action
- This explains why they don’t wish to do the virtuous thing.
- It also means there’s a defect in the functioning of the rational part of their soul where these wishes are generated, rather than merely in the non-rational part.
- So the lack of phronesis (a virtue of the rational part) is more plausible.
- The continent agent’s reasoning leads to the same good actions as the virtuous person’s, so why does only the latter fulfil their function well?
- There’s debate about whether there is a nous (understanding of first principles) about phronesis as well as one about sophia; see longer notes below.
- Aristotle claims there is; he wants a link between phronesis and sophia, and nous could be a convenient way to provide that.
- The overall mission of NE is providing an account of flourishing based around the ergon of exercising rationality in accordance with virtue
- But if sophia and phronesis are fundamentally different, then why are both relevant to the single highest good of eudaimonia? How can intellectual activity/contemplation be related to the human function?
- The trouble is that it’s hard to see why there should be nous that grasps both universals and particulars, since they’re so different to each other.
- Aristotle claims there is; he wants a link between phronesis and sophia, and nous could be a convenient way to provide that.