Philosophy 361 Ethics Darwall Fall 1996 ARISTOTLE IV I Recall the major points Aristotle has argued for thus far: 1. There is a chief good, an end at which all activity aims, desirable only for itself, everything else being desirable, at least partly, for the sake of it. 2. This good is eudaimonia (flourishing or happiness) and it consists in excellent distinctively human activity, which is "activity of soul exhibiting excellence [or virtue]." 3. These distinctively human excellences (or virtues) are states of character--stable dispositions to regulate actions and passions by an ideal of noble conduct. The virtuous person chooses actions as good (noble) in themselves and, in so doing, enjoys her noble activity. II Ethical virtue "is concerned with passions and actions" (1106b 13). Our passions and feelings set the practical situation for us. Our practical problem is how to respond to them. It is because we are subject to fear and to feeling encouraged or discouraged that we can display the virtue or vice that is distinctively related to these: courage or cowardice. It is because we are subject to pleasures of various sorts that we can display the virtue of temperance or the vice of self-indulgence. All Aristotelian virtues are related to passions, appetites, or emotions characteristic of the human condition. It is against this background that we must understand Aristotle's famous theory of the mean. In all passions and actions, Aristotle writes, "there is excess, defect, and the intermediate." (1106b 15) So, he concludes: "Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it." (1106b 36-8) Some remarks: (a) Aristotle uses both "mean" and "intermediate"; usually he uses the former to refer to the virtuous state of character and the latter to refer to that at which this state of character aims. (b) We should resist taking the metaphor of a mean too seriously. Aristotle distinguishes between the intermediate "in the object" and the intermediate "relative to us." "By the intermediate in object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes . . . by the intermediate relatively to us that which is neither too much nor too little . . . ." (1106a 22) So the "mean relative to us" is not terribly informative, taken by itself. Aristotle is making more of a structural point--virtues are states of character that are somewhere between opposing vices; and they aim at actions and responses that are somewhere between opposing actions and responses to certain specific passions, emotions, and feelings. V But what determines where, in the case of any particular virtue, the mean is between the opposing vicious extremes? Aristotle writes: "this [the mean] being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it." (1106b 38) Next time we will examine Aristotle's views about practical wisdom to see how we should understand this thesis. VI To get a more specific understanding, let's take the example of courage. Like any virtue, courage requires an emotional or passional context. Virtues relate to "passions and actions." It is because we are subject to passions and emotions that the problem of how to respond to them arises for us. Each vice/virtue/vice trio exists in relation to some emotional or passional context. In Chapter VII of Book II, Aristotle runs down the various virtues and vices and relates them to these passional contexts (or, at least, we can supply them pretty easily from what he says). VII Courage is the mean "with regard to feelings of fear and confidence". These are distinct feelings. We are subject to fear and also to lack of confidence. The former is the natural felt response to present danger; the latter is the emotion that corresponds to a belief that we will be unable adequately to cope with our fear and with the danger. Both feelings admit of excessive response in two directions. A person may fear too much or too little. It is right to fear some things: "for to fear some things is even right and noble, and it is base not to fear them--e.g. disgrace." (1115a 13) But other fears are inappropriate--e.g. fear of a noble death, or disease, or poverty. If a person fears too much, he is a coward; if he fears too little, or not at all, he "would be a sort of madman or insensitive to pain." The courageous person is the person "who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and at at the right time." Likewise, confidence admits of extremes in two directions. One may have more confidence than is warranted; if so one is rash. Or one may have less confidence than is warranted; one may be too easily discouraged or despairing. Both failings of character. The excellent (or virtuous) character in relation to fear and confidence is courage, the mean between these excesses. VIII Aristotle helpfully distinguishes between true courage and "five kinds of courage improperly so-called": 1) A "citizen-soldier" may face danger because he fears the reproach of his fellow citizens, or because he fears sanctions of the law. Neither of these is true courage, although the former does manifest another virtue, proper shame. To face danger to escape sanction or reproach is not to face it because it is noble to do so. 2) A professional soldier may appear brave to those inexperienced with war because the latter tend to overestimate dangers, whereas the former know there are many false alarms. 3) A person may "act bravely" in the grips of a passion; but a genuinely courageous person acts deliberately and withstands danger when that is warranted, for its own sake. 4) "Sanguine people" may appear brave, but only because they are unwarrantedly confident. "Drunken men also behave in this way; they become sanguine." 5) A person may appear brave simply because he does not know of the presence of danger (unlike (4) he has no tendency to underrate it).