Decision and virtues of thought

If I have been habituated into possessing all the virtues of character, why do I need prudence? (2017 Q8)

Also: ‘Prudence makes us no better at achieving fine and just actions if we already have virtue of character’. How does Aristotle respond? (2019 Q6)

• It’s not especially obvious, and this is a difficulty for Aristotle.
• The thought behind the question goes: once someone has attained virtue of character, they will take the right actions without needing to think about it. So it seems like prudence is a state for developing moral agents, not one that’s necessary for the ethically excellent person.
• Aristotle talks about prudence in VI, dedicated to the intellectual virtues; virtues of character came earlier in III.5-V.
  • It’s the state associated with excellence in the rationally-calculating part of the soul.
• One could concede that prudence isn’t necessary once you have all the virtues of character, and wouldn’t lose too much of Aristotle’s view.
  • Aristotle cares about the connection between prudence and ethike arete partly because it allows him to secure the unity of the virtues.
    • Mutual dependence.
  • But actually, even if we accept that having attained full virtue of character, prudence is no longer required – but it was required to reach that state – then unity can be preserved anyway.
    • You don’t even need to worry about someone losing their virtue, since Aristotle thinks it’s a firm, stable, unchanging state.
• But we can defend Aristotle even more rigorously. Aristotle believes that virtue is not merely the state in accord with correct reason, but the state involving correct reason. So for him, he wouldn’t make the concession above.
  • There are at least two senses in which someone might “need” prudence:
    • To arrive at the right action.
    • For their life to go as well as it could.
  • On both readings, prudence is plausibly necessary even once someone has been habituated.
  • (1): As many modern virtue ethicists have talked about, there are ethical dilemmas. Habituation towards possessing each virtue of character cannot be enough to tell you how to balance the considerations, in a difficult situation.
  • (2): Prudence and the exercise of practical rationality is part of the human function, and it partly constitutes eudaimonia on inclusivist readings. So lacking prudence means your life goes worse than it would otherwise; your soul does not exercise itself as finely as possible.
• [could talk about Broadie(?) and the function of practical reason being practical truth, which agrees with correct desire, but actually unsure how relevant that is here beyond what I already have]
  • → oh, maybe to talk about the enkrateia and how they don’t take pleasure in the fineness of right action and this means they lack phronesis?
  • But actually that is a different case; the enkrateia isn’t habituated into virtue, and if they were probably they would take pleasure rightly since response to pleasure/pains is a key part of habituation

Post-Claude & examiner report notes

• Remember Aristotle’s conditions for virtuous action (II.4): you must decide on the action & for its own sake, acting in knowledge, and from a firm & unchanging state.
  • So for Aristotle, it’s simply not possible for you to proceed as virtuous if you’re not deliberating / exercising prudence, because you’ll fail the decision condition.
    • You’d be more like someone just following instructions, etc.
• Can also talk about cleverness (morally-neutral capacity for means-end reasoning).
  • Virtue makes the goal correct, etc.
• Remember also that prudence involves knowledge of particulars (VI.7; it’s why the young lack it), so no amount of habituation can help with judging intricacies.
  • Cf the decent person vs the stickler for legality.
  • Can connect to the methodological point that ethics is an imprecise science.

How, if at all, does Aristotle’s discussion of decision and wish help him explain what virtue is? (2021 Q4)

• Lorenz’s account: wishes are desires generated by the rational part of the soul.
• Aristotle says virtue is a state which decides, defined with reference to reason, consisting in a mean relative to us (II.5).
• At book VI we get more discussion of decision and wish.
  • Someone arrives at a decision (prohairesis) following deliberation (bouleusis). Aristotle thinks we deliberate only about means, not ends.
  • Good deliberation (eubolia) involves reasoning like a geometer: starting with a fixed goal, and finding the most effective and noble way to reach that end.
  • This is the decision involved in virtue.
• But it’s not yet specified how we arrive at the goals; and this is what discussion of wish matters for.
  • Conception of the good: our character shapes this, by habituation, and that in turn affects what we wish for.

Post-Claude & examiner report notes

• Remember the definition of a prohairesis: a deliberative desire. So decision is the bridge between character and intellect.
  • A good decision needs both phronesis (to arrive at the right means), but also ethike arete (which makes the goal right).
  • Aristotle’s discussion of decision and wish helps explain why virtue requires both practical and intellectual excellence.
• Being more precise about the importance of wish: the virtuous person wishes for what is truly good, whereas the vicious person only wishes for what appears good to them.
  • And our conception of the good is shaped by our character.
  • So wish (at least partly) explains why habituation matters for virtue: it’s the mechanism by which character affects decision.
• Recall also that Aristotle thinks decision reveals character better than actions.
  • This again is because decision involves desire. And people could take a given action for a variety of reasons – but for Aristotle, virtue is about motivational structure behind actions (feelings!), not merely actions.
  • So the discussion of decision helps us distinguish between actions in accordance with virtue, and virtuous action (where the latter requires acting in knowledge, decided on & for the sake of the action itself, from a firm state).
• Criticism: the circularity / bootstrapping worries.
  • If it’s good character that produces good wishes which let you have good ends for deliberation, leading to good decisions and virtuous actions – then how do you get good character in the first place?
    • Burnyeat habituation account comes in here.
  • And this also connects to questions about whether it’s the agent’s motivational state that grounds rightness, or something else (to kalon, probably).

What is Aristotle’s argument for the claim that decision (prohairesis) is ’either understanding combined with desire or desire combined with thought’ (VI.2, 1139b4-5)? Is it plausible? (2024 Q8)

[in conjunction with reading exam reports & Claude]

• A decision is a deliberative desire to do an action that is up to us.
  • So, it involves both motivational and intellectual components.
• This builds on the parts earlier in III, where Aristotle talks about what decision is not
  • Not mere appetite, not belief, not wish – but closely connected to wish (the desires of the rational part of the soul, per Lorenz).
• Different parts of the soul: the rational part has two separate subparts
  • The part concerned with science; things that cannot be otherwise – just aims at truth
  • The rationally-calculating part; things that can be otherwise – aims at practical truth, which is truth agreeing with correct desire
• The standard of excellence for practical reasoning therefore involves correct desire – so practical reason, a virtue of the rationally-calculating part of the soul must produce outputs which have both intellectual and motivational components
  • Practical reason is the ability to reason finely.
  • And good deliberation (eubolia) will arrive at a decision, which is going to involve desire and thought.
• The composite nature of prohairesis is what makes it a bridge between virtues of character and virtues of thought.
• One problem: why should it be that the rationally-calculating part aims at practical truth? It’s not clear why that really is the object.
  • And the enkrateia seems to have correct reasoning and correct wish, but somehow lacks phronesis, which is hard to explain
    • Coope: they fail to take correct pleasure in the fineness of right action.
    • And this is indeed a defect in the rational part of the soul, which is why they lack phronesis.
• On the other hand, this account does explain the motivational force of prohairesis.

Claude note

• The disjunction between nous and dianoia (thought) here across the two horns of the dilemma isn’t really doing philosophical work and it’s something of a red herring…
  • The point is that you can describe the same object, prohairesis, from either side (desiderative or intellectual), neither prior to the other.