Is Aristotle’s virtuous person primarily self-interested? (2020 Q2)

Related: notes ยท Is Aristotle’s account of friendship too egoistic? Would this be a problem for Aristotle? (essay)

No, Aristotle’s virtuous person is not primarily self-interested in the egoistic sense, in that they do take actions with the good of others apart from themself in mind. However, when we take “self-interested” to refer to where the agent directs their attention, then the virtuous person can be described as self-interested, because they focus more on their own moral character and virtue than others’. In this essay, I first disambiguate between these two senses of self-interestedness, and motivate why one might complain that Aristotle’s virtuous agent is self-interested. Then, I address the charges of egoism and self-centredness in turn, arguing that the first fails while the latter partially succeeds. Finally, I discuss the costs of this for Aristotle’s theory, concluding that his position on the self-interestedness of the virtuous agent is defensible.

Describing a person S as “self-interested” is ambiguous between several claims, among them:

  1. S places some weight on their own interests, when making decisions.

  2. S places more weight on their interests than those of others, when making decisions.

  3. S has regard exclusively for their own interests, when making decisions.

  4. S is more interested in themselves and their personal projects & goals than those of others.

Notably, as well as there being degrees of self-interestedness in (1)-(3), we can see from the difference between (1)-(3) and (4) that there are at least two dimensions along which this self-interest might vary:

(i) the reasons and motivations which play into their decision-making, and

(ii) the features of the world to which they pay attention, beyond simply for decision-making.

Consequently, we could take “primarily self-interested” to refer to someone who either (i) makes decisions primarily based on prudential considerations, i.e. the effects of the action on their own interests, or (ii) is focused primarily on their own personal projects and goals, but may have significant regard for others’ interests when making decisions with external effects.

Certainly it seems objectionable for the virtuous agent to satisfy (i): insofar as virtue is an admirable quality and involves agents taking the right action for the right reason, we would expect that the virtuous agent gives appropriately large regard for non-prudential considerations in their decision-making. Conversely, it’s not clear that there is anything wrong with a virtuous agent satisfying (ii), in that it seems acceptable for them to focus primarily on their own projects provided that they pay heed to others’ interests when relevant – though before I argue for this in more detail, we should establish which of these properties, if any, apply to Aristotle’s virtuous agent.

The critic of Aristotle might complain that his virtuous agent is self-interested in both ways. First, take charge (i), which I henceforth gloss as egoism. From the very start of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes clear that he believes the flourishing, happy life of eudaimonia consists in virtuous activity, and that in acting virtuously, an agent secures the fine (to kalon) for themselves. Given this, and Aristotle’s later discussion of how the virtuous agent finds their actions pleasant, one might conclude that Aristotle is presenting an account of ethics where virtuous things are done in order to obtain eudaimonia for oneself. But that seems clearly egoistic! If the virtuous agent takes the actions they do primarily because that is the path to securing flourishing, then their decisions are evidently driven by self-interested reasons. And, as described earlier, this would be an objectionable feature of Aristotle’s theory: the virtuous agent is meant to be admirable and praiseworthy, yet intuitively we have little reason to look up to somebody who is acting primarily to promote their own interests.

Can Aristotle defuse this objection, while also preserving the core of his theory that the human good consists in virtuous activity in accord with reason? Yes, and the resolution is simple: it simply is not the case that the virtuous agent acts in order to secure their own eudaimonia; indeed if someone did, they would not be a virtuous agent. Aristotle makes clear that the virtuous agent has the right principle (arche), as well as taking the right actions. But this rules out objectionable egoism along the lines of (i), since the aim rightly motivating, say, the virtuous agent’s honesty would be something like “my interlocutor is deserving of the truth”, rather than “I want eudaimonia (and thus must be honest)”. It seems plausible that considerations about eudaimonia do not even enter into the virtuous agent’s mind at the point of acting – in Aristotle’s account of decision in Book III, he notes that we do not deliberate about ends, only means, and given that the virtuous agent has the right end, her deliberation simply consists of a chain of considerations backwards from that end to the present action.

A more difficult charge for Aristotle to escape is (ii), that his virtuous agent primarily directs her attention inwards (or, is “self-centred”) – but this does not raise significant problems for him. The virtuous agent seems to be focused on her own character, in that she has cultivated virtue in herself, and now reaps the rewards in the form of having eudaimonia. Although she has friendships and relations with other people, these, too, seem to be inward-looking in that they provide opportunities for her to further develop her virtue or practise it (for example, via generosity). Yet this does not seem particularly objectionable: as Annas notes, who else’s virtue do we expect her to be concerned with? We only have control over our own character, and so while the virtuous agent might help others to develop their virtue as far as she can (e.g., by providing them with moral education and guidance), ultimately her focus will naturally be on her own projects and goals – specifically, of remaining virtuous.

One lingering doubt we might have concerns the costs of Aristotle’s defence against egoism regarding self-effacingness. In particular, part of the project of the Nicomachean Ethics is to demonstrate that the life of virtue is a pleasant and fine one, and perhaps to persuade readers that they ought to strive towards it. Yet if the aspirationally-virtuous agent needs to give up this motivation of eudaimonia in order to attain virtue, then we have a dilemma: either she must be self-effacing (i.e., deliberately adopt different motivations to those which make the action right), or she avoids self-effacingness but the rightness of action is grounded in something other than eudaimonia, which needs to be specified. Either way, there are unsatisfactory elements to be addressed (but Aristotle could counter each, with a tu quoque argument about self-effacingness, and bottoming out the rightness of correct actions with the brute goodness of the fine).

In this essay, I distinguished between two senses of self-interestedness, and explained why we might think each applies to Aristotle’s virtuous agent. I then argued that the more objectionable, egoistic sense, does not in fact apply, because the virtuous agent by definition has regard for others’ interests, as part of her possessing the right principle. Finally, I conceded that the self-centred sense does apply, but is defensible and indeed intuitive.

Post-Claude & examiner report notes