THE BRANIFF GRADUATE SCHOOL

OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICAL IMPRECISION:

PHILOSOPHIC METHOD IN THE NICOMACHEANETHICS

by

JOHN M. TUTUSKA

B.A., FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY OF STEUBENVILLE, 2003

M.A., UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS, 2007

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Dallas in partial fulfillment of
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy
in the Institute of Philosophic Studies.

May 13, 2010

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ARISTOTLE'S ETHICAL IMPRECISION: PHILOSOPHIC METHOD IN THE
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
John M. Tutuska, Ph.D.
University of Dallas, 2010
Director: Dr. Joshua Parens

Abstract:

This work is an investigation of Aristotle's understanding of the imprecision that

he says characterizes the Nicomachean Ethics [EN] as a whole. My argument is that

this imprecision holds a more far-reaching significance than it is usually taken to have.

Aristotle does not simply mean, as is often said, that general ethical discourses cannot

replace the prudential task of tailoring one's actions to the particular situation; rather, he

is concerned with the fact that the very elements of ethical discourse, such as the noble,

prudence, human happiness, et cetera, are especially marked by tensions and

ambiguities that create problems when one sets out to provide ethical accounts. That is,

ordinary ethical experience and thus the opinions that arise out of it possess a certain

inconstant or "wandering" nature, as Aristotle puts it, and Aristotle understands his task

to include the preservation and drawing out of the tensions that follow from this

inconstancy as aids in philosophic reflection. The imprecision of the things themselves

is thus met by an imprecision of the treatment, and this would be a gain even if it were

to do nothing more than make clear to us the fundamental aporiai (impasses) that arise

from our ordinary experience and beliefs. Nonetheless, Aristotle usually provides at

least some suggestions as to how one might move beyond the impasse, or at least come

to understand that the impasse is not simply an impasse but a reflection of the complex

nature of the things themselves.

 While the goal of this work is to illumine Aristotle's general approach to

imprecise writing in the Nicomachean Ethics, given the elliptical nature of Aristotle's

most explicit statements on the matter, this is best done by delving into various concrete

cases throughout the EN to see how he actually incorporates imprecision. Thus, I

consider difficulties found in his treatments of the noble, especially in its relation to the

good, of prudence and its relation to ends, of friendship and its relation to ethical virtue,

and of human nature and happiness. I also include a chapter that situates Aristotle with

respect to his forerunners among the Greeks, arguing that he is in continuity with

Aeschylus, Euripides, and Plato regarding the problematic nature of treatments of

ethical matters.
 Aristotle's Ethics Imprecision:
Philosophic Method in the Nicomachean Ethics
©2010 by John Tutuska
All Rights Reserved
 Table of Contents:

Page

Abstract i

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Philosophic Restraint 1

Chapter 1: Imprecision as a Theme in Aristotle's Predecessors 10
1.1. Aeschylus and the Oresteia 11
1.2. Euripides' Bacchae 18
1.3. Plato's Recognition of the Elusiveness of the Ethical 24
a. Euthyphro 24
b. Republic 29
Chapter 2: Aristotle on Imprecision 37
2.1. Precision in the Metaphysics 38
2.2. Imprecision as Caused by the Subject-Matter 41
2.3. Imprecision Caused by the Desire to Encourage Philosophy 52
2.4. Imprecision as Caused by the Nature of the Inquiry Itself. 55
Chapter 3: The Noble or the Beautiful 62
3.LWhatisthe^a/on? 65
3.2. The Noble and the Good 73
a. The Rhetoric 73
b. The Commentators 76
c. The/^a/o« in Bks. 2 and 3 of the EN 78
d. T h e ^ a / o n i n B k . 5 o f t h e E N 83
e. The Kalon in EN 9.8 86
3.3. Why Be Imprecise? 95
a. Phenomenology of Moral Experience and Motivation 96
b. Common Opinion 100
c. The Dangers of Overreaching for the Noble 102
Chapter 4: Prudence 109
4.1. Textual Problems Ill
a. The £>gon-Argument Ill
b. Archai 117
c. Desire and Thought in EN 6.2 124
d. Virtue Makes the End Right? 125
e. Prudence in EN 6.5 134
f. Phronesis and Nous in EN 6.11 137
g. Prudence as a True Conception of What? 143
h. Moderation and Phronesis 146
i. Resistance to Harmonization 151
4.2. The Underlying Matter of the Problem 152
Chapter 5: Friendship 160
5.1. The Three-fold Division of Philia 161
 5.2. Aristotle's Revisions 171
5.3. Significance of this Imprecision 187
Chapter 6: Human Nature and Happiness 200
6.1. A (Limited) Plurality within Human Nature? 201
6.2. Philosophy and Human Nature 209
Conclusion: Dialectical and Aporetic Play 214
A cknowledgements

It is a fine thing to be able to thank those who have made one's work possible. I

want to acknowledge a special debt to my director, Dr. Joshua Parens, who was able stir

me to think of Aristotle and the ancient Greeks in new ways despite my initially strong

reluctance to do so. His careful and illuminating interpretations provided the guiding

orientation throughout my inquiry. I am grateful as well to the other members of my

dissertation committee, Dr. Lance Simmons and Dr. David Sweet, for their careful

reading and insightful comments. It has been an honor to study under the graduate

faculty at the University of Dallas.

I must also acknowledge my debt to fellow intellectual travelers, in particular,

Michael Jones, Allison Rozek, William Turnage, David Alvarez, Bret Saunders, Amos

Hunt, and Cynthia Nielsen. Special thanks are due to Concetta Nolan and Marie

Azcona for help with administrative matters and for cheerful support.

Finally, I wish to thank my parents, for their love and support throughout the

whole course of my studies, without which nothing would have been possible. This

work is dedicated to you both.

Introduction: Philosophic Restraint

Philosophers by nature strive for clarity. There is a sober delight to be had in

meticulously articulating the structure of a thing without the slightest ambiguity or

imprecision. Nonetheless, it would seem possible that the natures of certain things are

such that they cannot be articulated in this way without falsification, in which case one

would need to incorporate imprecision into one's treatment of them. The philosopher

would then require self-restraint; that is, he would need to subordinate the desire for

precision to the desire to reflect the phenomena. As one could also say, in certain cases,

the philosopher must accurately reflect the difficulties of the things themselves through

the very imprecision of his account.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics seems to hold such an understanding of the

nature of ethical inquiry; the work is rife with imprecision in its treatment of the most

important ethical themes, an imprecision that has formed the basis for scholarly

controversy in all subsequent ages. We find such difficulties above all in regard to the

four following cases: the way in which the kalon functions as the end of ethical virtue,

the relation of prudence to the ends of human life, the relation between friendship and

ethical virtue, and the constitution of happiness as torn between 'inclusive' and

'exclusive* conceptions. The goal of my work is to illumine Aristotle's general

approach to writing in the Nicomachean Ethics (his methodos), but, given the difficulty

and brevity of Aristotle's most explicit statements on the matter, this is best done by

delving into these four concrete cases throughout the EN. Even as I treat these different

topics within the Nicomachean Ethics, my work will be unified in its attempt to show

that the imprecision in Aristotle's writing should be seen as both intelligibly arising

1
from and reflective of the tensions and difficulties contained within various ethical

phenomena and common ethical opinions. Aristotle employs this imprecision to draw

the reader to philosophic inquiry and thus a fuller understanding of the complexities of

the things themselves. I will here outline the following chapters to provide a basic

roadmap to the work.

Chapter 1: The Greek Background. I will first consider the background of

Greek thought on this topic via a consideration of certain dramatists and Plato. In the

Oresteia, Aeschylus presents a self-consciously opaque account of justice; in the

Bacchae, Euripides does the same for prudence or good sense. Each author shows that

the relevant ethical phenomenon contains inherent tensions that thwart attempts to

produce straightforward ethical accounts. Plato will have the larger role here, insofar as

certain treatments of Aristotle's ethical imprecision (viz., by Georgios

Anagnostopoulos, Martha Nussbaum) present Aristotle as being primarily motivated in

a reaction against Plato.1 In contrast, I will argue that Aristotle's position here reflects a

fundamental agreement with Plato, for whom the good, just, and beautiful (and their

relations) are inherently controversial and tension-filled. A precise, coordinate, and

hierarchical system harmonizing these, the most basic and important phenomena of

human experience, is, in the end, impossible. This argument will be made primarily

through reflections on the Euthyphro and Republic.

Chapter 2: Aristotle on Imprecision. 1 will then consider those passages in the

EN that directly bring up the topic of ethical imprecision, delineating the senses and

sources of such imprecision. I will show that Aristotle articulates three principal

1. See Nussbaum's The Fragility of Goodness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986),
chs. 4—7, and Anagnostopoulos' Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics (Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1994), 13-64,300-308.

2
sources of imprecision. The first stems from the attempt to faithfully reflect the nature

of the subject-matter of ethical inquiry, which is marked by an essential "wandering" or

irregularity; there is something particularly problematic about matters of the noble and

the just, Aristotle holds. He speaks in this context of imprecision as something like the

flexibility of his account, a flexibility that leaves room for fundamental disagreements

to unfold. This imprecision bears the fruit of adequately or properly reflecting the

material itself- one might speak of it as having a quasi-phenomenological function.

The second source is found in the desire for the treatment to serve as a sort of

philosophic enticement. This dovetails with the first source of imprecision described

above, insofar as the tensions preserved within one's account can serve as impasses that

engender reflection upon the problems of the phenomena. The third source is rooted in

the nature of ethical inquiry itself and its distinctive goal as Aristotle conceives it,

namely, that of making its audience good. This in turn entails that imprecision follows

from the limiting of connections between ethics and other studies such as psychology

and metaphysics and from rhetorically structured incitements toward virtue, as found,

for example, in Aristotle's treatment of harmony within the soul.

Chapter 3: The Kalon. Here I begin reading topics within the EN in terms of

imprecision. There is a fundamental ambiguity in Aristotle's treatment of the beautiful

or noble [kalon] as the "end of ethical virtue" that is revealed especially well by the

secondary literature, insofar as scholars are unsure if they should read the kalon in a

eudaimonistic light, and if so, how and to what extent this should be done." Aristotle

2. See, for example, Christine Korsgaard's "From Duty and For the Sake of the Noble: Kant and
Aristotle on Morally Good Action" in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty,
eds. Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 203-36.

3
begins by simply presenting the kalon as the end of ethical virtue, without elaborating

on the respect in which the kalon functions as an end. Does one simply seek the kalon,

with no further relation to the good? Or is the kalon sought as something (intrinsically)

beneficial for oneself? That is to say, is the kalon sought simply as kalon, or is it sought

as agathonl Eventually Aristotle asserts that it is sought as agathon, but this raises the

question as to whether we were supposed to understand it this way from the beginning

(earlier such a focus on one's own good is at least muted).

After presenting this ambiguity of the treatment, I will argue that it is grounded

in the ambiguity of the human moral experience of the kalon. The beautiful can

exercise an appeal all of its own, without a thematic emphasis upon the good of the

agent. Nonetheless, one can later 'parse out' an implicit desire for one's own good in

the pursuit of the kalon. The very need to 'parse out' this desire is important, however,

and suggests something complex about the normal moral relation to the kalon. Courage

in battle will be employed as an exemplar of this structure - the courageous often seem

drawn simply by the beauty of the courageous deed, and yet we can perhaps see an

implicit striving for their own good (as they understand it) therein. Furthermore, we can

say that common opinion seems generally torn on the relation of the good and the

noble; it is familiar both with the idea that nobility has nothing to do with one's own

good or even that it is found when one disregards or sacrifices one's good and also with

the idea that the noble itself constitutes one's own good. Aristotle works hard to

preserve this aporia and to show us how it is already at work within common moral

motivations, thereby forcing us into philosophic reflection on the dangers of hastily

3. The question is only heightened by the fact that in the Rhetoric the kalon is practically defined
as that which attends to the interests of others rather than oneself (1366b36-1367a5, 1389b37-1390al).

4
equating the noble and the good rather than grasping the delicate relationship between

the two.

Chapter 4: Prudence. Aristotle's account of prudence proves difficult in its

presentation of the relation of prudence to the ethical ends. The ergon-argument of Bk.

1 claims that ethical virtue is worth pursuing insofar as it is a mode of rationality

(rationality in the sense of listening to reason as a son listens to a father). This would

suggest that rationality governs ethical virtue in a strong sense, even to the point of

setting the ends of virtue (presumably through a vision of the whole and the place of the

human in it and thus of the way in which the pursuit of certain ends makes sense in light

of the whole). Nonetheless, when Aristotle turns to prudence in Bk. 6, he repeats many

times that prudence has only to do with "the things related to the end" rather than with

the ends themselves and grants it little connection to wisdom or an understanding of (or

even opinion about) the whole. Despite this, there are also passages in Bk. 6 where he

seems to suggest that prudence has some relation to ends and to a view of the whole.

This problem can also be connected to the afore-mentioned problem of the kalon;

despite the fact that the kalon is meant to serve as the definitive ethical end, it is

nonetheless unclear whether prudence establishes the kalon as such (and, if it does so,

how it does so).

I will argue that this difficulty can be traced back to a genuine tension in

prudence itself: prudence can be partially separated from a view of larger issues (or the

whole), but this separation can never become absolute. The difficulty in understanding

the relation of prudence to ends, then, can be tied back to the Aristotelian move to

distinguish prudence [phronesis] and wisdom [sophia] more sharply than does Plato.

5
Distinguishing them is in line with the "phenomenology" of morality; that is, the decent

man and the political agent have a certain mode of intelligence that Aristotle tries to do

justice to by treating it from within its own horizon. Nonetheless, important questions

can be raised as to whether this mode of intelligence is ultimately self-sufficient. Are

not larger, non-ethical matters relevant for ethics?

In other words, the ordinary ethical-political agent both has and does not have a

view of the whole. That is to say, he has a merely implicit opinion about the whole

(there are thus two defects to it: first, that it is merely implicit rather than reflectively

grasped, and second, that it has the status of mere opinion). This is seen, for example,

in the fact that such a man could not consistently take a view toward the whole of the

sort that is referred to in EN 1.2, when Aristotle mentions those who think that the

beautiful and the just are superficial conventions; the ordinary ethical-political agent

must instead adopt something that is much closer in spirit to the vision of the whole

offered by the so-called 'Platonic' Forms. Prudence thus works within an implicit view

of the whole; and Aristotle's treatment of it reflects this ambiguous relation.

Chapter 5: Friendship. Aristotle easily leaves the reader of EN Bks. 8 and 9

with the impression that all friendships fall neatly within three categories. Even more

importantly, he appears to boldly suggest that we should understand as existing only in

conjunction what would seem to be two distinct characteristics of friendship, namely,

(1) loving the other for what he himself is rather than for pleasure or use and (2) loving

the other for the sake of his ethical virtue.

Nonetheless, Aristotle complicates his treatment of philia by subtly treating of

cases that muddy this schema. Whereas even friendship of pleasure for Aristotle fails to

6
relate directly to the character of the friend ("as being the man that he is"), Aristotle

gives us cases in which one does relate in love to the very self of the other without such

love having ethical virtue as its ratio. In exploring the cases of ex-lovers, brothers,

mothers, those who share in some fundamental activity, and the wicked, Aristotle

explores relationships in which there is love for the very self of the other without any

central involvement of character. That is, genuine love for others seems possible on the

basis of factors such as likeness, familiarity, and belonging (relation as "one's own") as

well as virtue.

After tracing out this tension, I argue that it adequately reflects the nature of

philia, which is neither wholly determined by nor wholly indifferent to the character of

the friends involved. It is neither the case that friends need to be overflowing with

excellences in order for genuine love for the character of each other to exist, nor that the

qualitative excellences of the friends do not lead to expanded possibilities of relation

between them (although two mediocre persons, each having many unrealized human

potentials and focused on the pursuit of trivial goods, can love each for their own sake,

it seems right to say that their love will not be as deep or rich as that had by the more

mature). Common opinion divines this tension, and replicates it within itself; we cannot

ever decide for or against the limitation of philia to the philia of the best; it has a

teleological appeal, but to fully accept it would nonetheless seem strangely inhuman.

That is to say, Aristotle's treatment, in its apparent oscillation between the claim that

friendship is very much determined by the character of the friends and the implicit

claim that friendship is relatively indifferent to the character of the friends, expresses a

real tension within friendship itself.

7
 Chapter 6: Human Nature and Happiness. It is common knowledge that there is

tension between different conceptions of happiness within the EN. This tension is tied

to the fact that Aristotle provides at least three different accounts of what it is to be

human and thus of the happiness that pertains to human nature. The first suggestion is

that the human is his character (see esp. 8.3 1156b7—11; also, 3.1 111 Ibl: "non-rational

feelings seem to be no less human than reasoning is"; 6.2 1139b4-5: "choice is either

intellect fused with desire or desire fused with thinking, and such a source is a human

being"). The second suggestion is that he is his practical intellect (9.4 1166al6-19; 9.8

1168b28-l 169a3), and the third suggestion is that he is his theoretical intellect (10.7

1178a2-8). Human happiness is thus respectively to be found in ethical action, the

contemplation of such action (9.4 1166al0-29, 9.9 1170al-4), and finally, in the

contemplation of unchanging being.

Such tensions lead commentators such as A. J. Ackrill and Thomas Nagel to

claim that Aristotle was simply unable to make up his mind regarding human nature; as

Ackrill says, he has a hopelessly "broken-backed" account of human nature and thus of

human happiness. If we wish to hold out hope for Aristotle, however, then we might

do well to wonder whether the difficulties of Aristotle's account actually illumine

human nature better than could any straightforward account, better than any account

that had simply 'decided' on one of the options. Is it really the case that the human

species is so unvarying that there is one good that can unequivocally be said to be the

good of all men? Are all really of such a sort as to find their fulfillment in the

4. A. J. Ackrill, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia" in Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. Nancy

Sherman (Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 57-78, at 76; Thomas Nagel, "Aristotle on
Eudaimonia" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1980). 7-14.

8
theoretical life? If not, does it not seem "too unfeeling" (as Aristotle says in another

context -1.11 1101 a23-24) to deny those who are not any share in happiness?

Although Aristotle's claims about a "secondary happiness" may initially seem messy to

us, perhaps they reflect a human nature that is not as neat and determinate as we might

have expected.

Furthermore, does Aristotle's account suggest as well that even for the

philosopher perfect fulfillment is problematic? After all, one must remember that the

contemplative life is said to be a life that transcends one's mere humanity, which seems

to entail that much of one's nature is left unfulfilled, or, more precisely, is left

imperfectly fulfilled. One must further ask, however, whether Aristotle intends for this

difficulty to make us re-consider what it means for a life to be "lacking in nothing" (1.7

1097bl 5). Whereas we initially take Aristotle to claim that the happy life includes the

summation of every good and the total fulfillment of our nature, Aristotle eventually

makes us wonder whether it is perhaps possible for a life that falls short of this to

nonetheless be found lacking in nothing.

9
Chapter 1: Imprecision as a Theme in Aristotle's Predecessors

Aristotle never attempts to write ex nihilo. His works are filled with references,

whether implicit or explicit, to philosophers, poets, sages, and statesmen. He opens

major works such as the Metaphysics and On the Soul with extended reflections on the

work of his predecessors and the way in which their views relate to his. Ethical inquiry

continues this approach for him, and he makes some strong claims as to the role of the

thoughts of his predecessors in Bk. 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics:

One ought, as with other things, when one has set forth the appearances [tithentas

ta phainomena], and has gone through the puzzles [diaporesantes] a first time, to

bring to light in that way especially all the received opinions [endoxa] about these

experiences, or if not that, then most and the most authoritative [kuridtata] of these.

For if the difficulties are resolved, and something is left of the endoxa, it would

have been made evident sufficiently (7.1 1145b2-7; cf. Eudemian Ethics [EE]

1216b26-35).

In light of this, it seems only appropriate to preface this study of Aristotle with a study

of those who went before him; this will allow us to better understand Aristotle himself.

I will begin with Aeschylus and Euripides, trying to unpack their dramatic reflections

regarding the sort of precision that is possible in ethical matters. Both Aeschylus and

Euripides write their ethically-charged dramas with the sense that the fundamental

ethical categories are themselves difficult to penetrate or inherently opaque. After this,

1. On the endoxa, see Topics 100b 19-23: "Those things are true and primary which get their
trustworthiness through themselves rather than through other things (for when it comes to scientific
starting-points, one should not search further for the reason why, but instead each of the starting-points
ought to be trustworthy in and of itself). Those are endoxa, on the other hand, which seem so to
everyone, or to most people, or to the wise - to all of them, or to most, or to the most famous and
esteemed."

10
I will address the controversial issue of Plato's thoughts on the sort of precision that is

possible in regard to what he calls the political things (the noble, the just, the pious),

trying to show that, far from opposing the idea of the necessary imprecision of ethical

accounts, he advocates it.

1.1 Aeschylus and the Oresteia

Aeschylus' Oresteia is remarkable in the muddiness of its treatment of justice,

especially in light of the fact that Aeschylus was regarded, at least in the time of

Aristophanes, as a "safe" poet, one who wrote in line with decent morality and time-

honored custom. The basic plot of the Oresteia is well-known, but I will begin by

setting out a few salient points as a reminder. In the first work of the trilogy,

Agamemnon, we witness Agamemnon's homecoming from the long Trojan wars, only

to see him killed by his wife Clytaemestra and her new lover Aegisthus. In the second

work, The Libation Bearers, we find the surreptitious homecoming of Agamemnon's

son Orestes, who has been in de facto exile since the murder of his father. Under the

command and threat of an oracle from Apollo, Orestes has sworn to avenge the murder

of his father; and so, with the help of his friend Pylades and sister Electra, he sets to

work on an eventually successful plot to kill Clytaemestra and Aegisthus. The third

work, The Eumenides, shows Orestes pursued by the Furies, who enact punishment on

those who spill the blood of their own family members. Apollo and Athena take

2. Theaetetus 172a.

3. He was understood as differing from Euripides in this respect; see, e.g., Aristophanes' The
Frogs, esp. 1030-88.

11
Orestes' side before a court at Athens, where the jury reaches a split decision before

Athena exercises her authority to decide the case in favor of the acquittal of Orestes.4

From a certain perspective, the justice of these events seems straightforward:

Clytaemestra and Aegisthus are unjust murderers, while Orestes acts as an agent of

justice; although Orestes is indicted for his deed, this charge stems from archaic

representatives of a bloodthirsty vengeance, as is shown by his eventual acquittal. But

although the trilogy does not entirely reject such a view, it also works hard to

complicate matters. We will see that Aeschylus not only shows the difficulty of making

a judgment on justice in this particular case, but also points to a more general difficulty

in our understanding of justice itself.

The first complicating factor is the motivation of Clytaemestra. It is easy to fall

into the trap of viewing Clytaemestra as the chorus does for much of Agamemnon, and

as Orestes and Electra do in The Libation Bearers; that is, as a lustful and power-hungry

woman who kills Agamemnon simply to rule the kingdom with her new lover,

Aegisthus. This reading ignores what seems to be her central motivation, namely, the

need to avenge the terrible deed of Agamemnon, who, at the very outset of the Trojan

war, sacrificed their daughter, Iphigeneia, to Artemis as atonement for an offense to the

goddess, in order that the Greek fleet might set sail (184-247).5 It is hard to imagine a

more shocking crime than Agamemnon's - and thus hard to imagine a wife and mother

with a more just grievance; even the chorus, which later turns on Clytaemestra, regards

4. It should be noted that there is some scholarly debate as to whether Athena's vote makes for
an equal vote or instead decides the case in the face of an equal vote by the jurors. See what I consider to
be persuasive arguments for the latter interpretation by D. J. Conacher in his Aeschylus' "Oresteia ": A
Literary Commentary (Buffalo, New York: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 164-66. This is relevant
for what follows.

5. This tale is told, after Aeschylus, by Euripides in his Iphigeneia in Aulis. Additional
motivation for Clytaemestra stems from Agamemnon's marital infidelity {Agamemnon 1437-47).

12
the sacrifice of Iphigeneia as an "impious, impure, unholy" deed (219-20).6 This

obviously makes matters much more difficult; everything we find objectionable in

Clytaemestra seems related in one way or another to Agamemnon's deed; even her

taking of a new lover is most plausibly explained in terms of her revulsion for

Agamemnon after his crime. In this way, Clytaemestra can be cast as an agent of

avenging justice in much the same way as Orestes; in fact, she speaks of herself as a

dikaias tektonos [artificer of justice] (1406) and calls herself an "ancient, bitter,

avenging spirit" [palaios drimus alastor] (1501). The audience is called to ask

themselves what differentiates the vengeful deed of Clytaemestra from that of Orestes -

and no easy answer is forthcoming.

Aeschylus calls attention to this basic difficulty through the confrontation of

Clytaemestra and the chorus. The transformation is amazing: the chorus begins by

accusing Clytaemestra of every possible vice on account of her deed (1399-520), but

Clytaemestra does not back down, and focuses her defense on Agamemnon's murder of

Iphigeneia (1412-21, 1521-29, 1551-59). Eventually, the chorus realizes that it cannot

maintain its harsh accusation and changes its tone:

Each charge meets countercharge,/ and it is a hard struggle to judge. / The ravager

is ravaged, the killer pays;/ it remains firm while Zeus remains on his throne/ that

he who does shall suffer — for that is his law.7 (1560-64)

6. For a strong objection to the common claim that Agamemnon was torn between his
commitments to his allies and the familial bond, see Sommerstein's argument that this common claim
involves a less probable reading of line 213, finds no echo throughout the rest of the Agamemnon or even
in the Iliad, and is at odds with what we know about the way such military arrangements functioned (see
his Loeb translation of the Oresteia [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008], 24~25n46-47).

7. Translations of the Oresteia will be taken from Alan Sommerstein's Loeb edition, with
occasional alterations.

13
This is an amazing admission - the chorus that initially represents the legal and moral

case against Clytaemestra comes to admit the extreme difficulty of the case and

surrenders its judgment. All it can do now is stand back from the case of both killers,

Clytaemestra and Agamemnon, to bring them under a common form - the one who acts

must suffer. Furthermore, this comes off as a feeble attempt to hold onto something

firm in the face of a sort of moral vertigo; after all, if the chorus' claim regarding the

nature of justice were taken literally, then Orestes, as one who acts (to spill blood)

should also in turn be slain - yet this is precisely what the court eventually rejects.

It is perhaps tempting to forget or at least minimize the ambiguities of justice in

the Oresteia due to the nature of the Libation Bearers. There it seems that the reader is

worked up into a passionate sympathy for Orestes, Pylades, and Electra, hoping for the

realization of their plans and fearing lest they be discovered in their vulnerability. If,

however, the action of the Libation Bearers requires that we forget the ambiguity of

justice that was raised in the Agamemnon, the Eumenides brings it back in force,

transporting this ambiguity into the realm of the divine, insofar as even gods and

goddesses quarrel over the justice of Orestes' actions. Apollo and Athena take

Orestes' side, while the ancient Furies are committed to his destruction. One might try

to defuse this conflict of the divine, holding that the Furies merely represent an archaic

idea of blood-justice that clings too strongly to the ancestral; they are passed by in favor

of new divinities. But this claim would have the effect of condemning Orestes in the

8. It does this even though we are apparently meant to remain loyal in some way to Orestes,
which may say something important about the way that drama works. Does drama at times engage in a
play in which it deliberately sets our emotions in tension with our reason? This is obviously too much of
an aside to pursue any further here.

9. This would seem to provide a source of sorts for Socrates' claim in the Euthyphro that if the
gods were to disagree, they would likely do so over such things as the just (7c-e). See below, 26-28.

14
act of defending him; if the Furies, as divinities, are not justified in seeking blood for

the spilling of familial blood, then how was Orestes, a mere man, justified in seeking

the same? Indeed, it should be remembered that the Furies can offer punishment for a

blood crime in a much more seemly fashion than did Clytaemestra or Orestes; as

outsiders they can avenge the spilling of familial blood without calling down a further

curse. The right of the Furies cannot be swept away without casting doubt on the right

of Orestes as well. '

Although the conflict of divinities in the trial of Orestes is eventually settled,

Aeschylus is at pains to present this resolution as irresolute. First, we find a hung jury

(752-53) that was potentially coerced by divine force. Apollo and the Furies provide

(respectively) veiled and open threats should the case be found against them (711-14,

719-20, 731-33), while Athena also declares that should they be hung, she will decide

the case (734-43). In light of this, it becomes at least open to question whether the jury

did not arrange for a split decision to avoid responsibility for a decision that would

bring ruin to their city no matter whom they sided with. It is perhaps important,

however, that we do not need to have recourse to such an interpretation to explain the

indecision of the jury; their split vote reflects the situation of human reason, which

breaks down in the face of the difficulties of this case (just as we saw with the chorus in

regard to Clytaemestra).

10. It would, furthermore, render odd the promise that the Furies would receive a large role in
Athenian life (Eumenides 804-807, 834-36, 848-69, 890-937).

11. Furthermore, it should be remembered that there is a way in which Clytaemestra would seem
more justified than Orestes; Orestes slays his own blood, while Clytaemestra does not. This accounts for
why the Furies come after Orestes but not Clytaemestra (Eumenides 210-12). Indeed, the Greek
tendency to set a high stock on the blood-relation would seem to provide a perfect counter-balance to the
Greek tendency (discussed below) to set less stock on the life of a woman than a man.

15
 Second, when Athena decides the case, she does so on arbitrary grounds,

explaining her motivation in this way: "No mother gave birth to me, and I commend the

male in all respects (except for joining in marriage) with all my heart: in the fullest

sense, I am my Father's child. Therefore I shall not set a higher value [protimeso] on

the death of a woman, when she had killed her husband, the guardian of her house"

(736-40). It should first be noted that, contrary to what Athena says, she need not set a

higher value on the death of Clytaemestra to find Orestes' deed problematic but only an

equal value. Even more importantly, however, to decide such a case on the basis of

personal (or genealogical) history is hardly a satisfying resolution to a matter of justice

within a legal setting; such an appeal fails even to articulate a required universal

premise such as that the woman's life is worth less than the male's - a premise that

could not, of course, be taken seriously coming from a feminine figure who also wants

to speak authoritatively, and which seems to be proven false within the trilogy itself by

Athena's own intelligence and by the nobility of Electra.1"" The purported justification

for the decision in favor of Orestes is thus unsatisfying, leaving the matter without any

definitive resolution on the level of justice.

Aeschylus thereby seems to suggest that there is something ultimately

impenetrable about the just: it escapes even the gods' knowledge. We must accept the

imprecise way in which justice is dealt with in the play - strict retribution (nemesis) is

set aside or demoted precisely because nemesis entails the belief that we can easily

decide the right and then punish accordingly. If the right is difficult, however, then

12. We find a more universal case made by Apollo (657-73), but he is not the one to decide the
case. At any rate, see note 11 above.

13. Furthermore, for the prosecution (the Furies) to be bought off with promises of sacrifice and
favor hardly lends credibility to the resolution {Eumenides 804-807, 834-36, 847-69, 890-937).

16
nemesis and its reprisals need to be tempered. There has been bloodshed enough by

the end of the play; we want Orestes spared not so much because he is manifestly

innocent as because we cannot sustain our desire for vengeance in the face of such

opacity.

Although the foregoing shows something of the difficulty of justice that

Aeschylus tries to present, I think the case can be made that there is an even greater

difficulty. Aeschylus seems to show us that justice, at least as it was generally

understood - as doing good to one's own and harm to enemies (or those who harm

one's own) - can be confronted with cases in which the just is not merely difficult to

judge, but in which the just no longer applies in any unambiguous way. If justice is

understood in line with the above formula, then it is susceptible to incoherence in cases

in which members of one's own do harm to others of one's own. There is then no

possible answer to the question what is simply just. We find a situation in which justice

is set against justice (as Orestes himself says, "Justice clashes with justice" [xumbalei

dikai dika], Libation-Bearers 461); or, in which the key marks that we look to in order

to distinguish the just are set against each other. Both Orestes and Clytaemestra kill

those who are both their own and the killers of their own; and so, according to the

common criteria, what Orestes does in killing Clytaemestra is both just and unjust - and

the same holds for Clytaemestra in killing Agamemnon. This is the difficult mixture we

will later see Plato discuss: the deed that we must deem both just and unjust (Republic

479a-b). In this way, Aeschylus reveals a fundamental difficulty in the just; or, at least,

14. See Ronna Burger, "Ethical Reflection and Righteous Indignation: Nemesis in the
Nicomachean Ethics'''' in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy IV: Aristotle's Ethics, eds. John P. Anton,
Anthony Preus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 127-39.

17
in Greek common opinion regarding the just.15 Our understanding of the just is set

against itself; and our difficulty in pinning down the just in this particular case reveals

some fundamental lack of understanding of the just itself.

1.2 Euripides' Bacchae

Euripides Bacchae presents a similar difficulty with regard to intelligence, good

sense, or prudence. I must first briefly summarize the plot for the sake of the argument.

The action is centered on the coming of Dionysus among the Greeks to proclaim his

divinity (he has apparently been extremely successful among the barbarians prior to this

[13-25]). His divine status is not, however, immediately accepted by all. The sisters of

his mother Semele deny that he was born of Zeus, and Pentheus, the son of one of these

sisters, rules Thebes. Upon Pentheus' return to Thebes, he finds that Dionysus has put a

frenzy upon the women (his mother included), stirring them up to leave the city to

engage in Bacchic revels in the woods. His father Kadmos and the prophet Teiresias

attempt to persuade Pentheus not to fight against Dionysus, but they fail to calm him.

Pentheus imprisons Bacchic women and the priest of Dionysus (who turns out to be

Dionysus himself) only to find that they all escape. Dionysus then puts a mania into

Pentheus' mind such that the latter decides to follow the priest of Dionysus into the

woods, dressed as a woman, to spy on the revelers. The priest betrays him to the

women, who then take him for a beast and tear him limb from limb, with his mother

leading the attack. The play ends with his mother carrying Pentheus' head into the city,

15. It would be unwise, however, to assume that this opinion is merely an archaic Greek view
that can be and has been simply set aside. Consider the way in which this view of justice, seemingly
rejected out of hand early in Plato's Republic (332a-336a), nonetheless returns as the dialogue progresses
(e.g., 375a-c).

18
believing it to be that of a lion, and then gradually coming to recognize what she has

done. The whole family is then exiled and cursed.

Terms such as sophos [wise], phren [mind], nous [intelligence] and their

derivatives16 recur throughout the play, providing for a continued and only ambiguously

resolved debate. The central question of the Bacchae seems to be this: what is it to have

good sense? The two opposing parties of the drama, represented on the one hand by

Pentheus, and on the other hand by Teiresias, the Chorus, Dionysus, and Kadmos,

frequently trade accusations of foolishness, lack of intelligence, et cetera, and designate

their own position as the only sound-minded option. As we will see, however, there are

good grounds for the claims of both camps - so much so that it is hard to see what

unqualified good sense would look like in such a situation; we wonder whether all that

is possible in circumstances of this sort are various mixtures of the sensible and the

foolish.

It would be easy to fault Pentheus, putting him forward as the truly imprudent

figure of the drama. After all, Pentheus* resistance to the god leads not only to his own

miserable death but also to the ruin of his whole family and the destabilizing of the

polis. One must, however, fight the temptation to anachronistically assume the divinity

of Dionysus here (the sort of anachronism present in the rebukes of the chorus [882-96,

995, 997, 430-31, cp. 196]).17 The action of the drama requires that there be a genuine

16. These terms are used somewhat interchangeably, in accord with their pre-Aristotelian
flexibility.

17. This may suggest some dramatic solution to the problem of the anachronistic statements of
the chorus, as well as of Teiresias, who refer to Dionysus as a traditional deity in a context in which he is
anything but (see 201-3, 256, 272); perhaps the jarring nature of such statements is meant to remind the
audience of the danger that they face of anachronism in their evaluation of Pentheus. Alternately,
perhaps Euripides means for us to realize that encountering the divine through what has been traditionally

19
question as to the status of this newly purported divinity. If we consider the grounds

that Pentheus looked to in deciding against the divinity of Dionysus and the worth of his

cult, it becomes hard to fault him. For Pentheus, the mania of the Dionysian cult is

absurd and unacceptable by the light of political reason, especially insofar as Dionysus

puts all the women of Thebes into a frenzy that makes them leave the city to go off to

the woods to engage in a celebration that is reputed to contain extremes of

1 O

licentiousness. Politically speaking, this is a form of anarchy and constitutes an attack

on the family - and the family is apolitical entity. Pentheus thus represents

something like the view of Aristotle's political phronimoi, the prudent oi?es who use

their intelligence to order the affairs of the city with a view to the common advantage

(EN 6.8 1141b23-l 142al0, 8.9 1160a8-12). If, politically speaking, one needs to

encourage stability and moderation among the citizenry, then Dionysus shows himself

to be decidedly anti-political. To this extent, at least, he is opposed to the good sense of

handed down is by far the most common human experience, so much so that we have trouble even
imagining what it would be like otherwise.

18. This is what Pentheus primarily complains of when he enters the play with outrage (215-47,
260-62; see also, 352-54, 485—87). Dionysiac festivals, of course, were notorious for drunkenness and
sexuality. Although the messenger reports that the women were behaving modestly when he saw them
(686-88), Pentheus' fears seem reasonable: the messenger himself notes that Dionysus produced wine on
the mountain where the women celebrate (706-707, see 142-43) and relates the rapid transformation of
the women from calm to amazing violence (683-774). This hardly reassures us that calm is their usual
state and suggests that a transformation to erotic intensity might occur just as easily. Furthermore, it is
well known that Dionysus and his satyrs engaged in sexual relations with the maenads, and, as Seaford
notes, even Teiresias' reply to Pentheus' objection (314-18) implies that weaker maenads might well be
corrupted (p. 171, note on 221-25). In addition to this, from the classical standpoint, given the political
importance of the family, there is something politically dangerous in the mere appearance of sexual
immorality on the part of women; hence, the severe restrictions on the liberty of women (for example,
Greek women were generally discouraged from drinking wine).

19. Contemporary interpretations of the play often fail to adequately distance themselves from
modern tendencies toward individualism and thus end up ignoring the political significance of Dionysus'
actions and Pentheus' role as ruler of Thebes. We need not see Pentheus primarily as a moralist disgusted
by the threat of sexual immorality, but rather as a ruler worried about the political ramifications of so
great an upheaval. In speaking of the unjust "violation of the [marital] bed" [leche lumainetai] at 353-55,
Pentheus shows that he is concerned about the broader breakdown of marriage and the family.

20
the man of political action. It thus seems entirely reasonable and sound-minded for

Pentheus to attack this serious threat to the political order he represents and protects,

and reasonable for him to assume the falsity of the claims to divinity of such a

questionable figure.

The obvious problem with the view that Pentheus is unqualifiedly prudent,

however, is that he is wrong about Dionysus - and wrong in a way that leads to such

terrible consequences. It further seems that Pentheus had important indications that he

and his forces were incapable of simply quashing this movement. Whether the maenads

and the priest of Dionysus escaped from prison due to divine miracles or simply

because they had too many allies within his forces, Pentheus was given a sign of the

futility of trying to openly crush the new cult. At the same time, if he regarded this

threat to the polls as potentially lethal, then he may have had no choice but to risk

complete ruin in attacking it. The audience, then, is torn: we cannot accept that a man

who rejects a genuine divinity and chooses such a self-destructive course of action is

acting prudently, but we also cannot help but recognize the sound-mindedness of his

decision to resist this dubious new movement. In this way, Euripides seems to make us

wonder whether there are certain situations in which reason points to opposing courses

of action.

Similar difficulties arise from a consideration of the arguments of Pentheus'

opponents. Teiresias begins his critique before Pentheus even appears on the stage,

proclaiming,

21
 Ancestral traditions [patrious paradoxas] and those which have obtained as old as

time, no argument [logos] will throw down, not even if wisdom is found through

utmost thought [oud' ei di' akpon to sophon heuretai phrenon]. (201-203)

If we take Teiresias literally, then he suggests that wisdom may truly find against the

god; but he concludes that this is of no consequence fox praxis. It seems that he

advocates a traditionalist pragmatism: the old ways cannot be defeated, even should

they be shown wrong, so it is simply foolish to break oneself against a rock that cannot

be worn down.' This raises a difficulty: if we grant that there is a better way than that

of the tradition, then it would seem to be the part of good sense to choose it, for

prudence chooses what is best (as Pentheus cannot be content with the problems of

Dionysos' cult); but if this better way may lead to ruin, then it seems folly to pursue it.

Wisdom is thus set against wisdom, and we cannot be satisfied with the final wisdom of

either.

The chorus makes this difficulty more explicit. Praising the virtues of calm

living [tas hesuchias biotas] and good sense [to phronein] (389—90) (as though these

were Dionysian virtues!), the chorus faults Pentheus in this way:

Cleverness [to sophon] is not wisdom [sophia], and to think non-mortal thoughts

means a short life. Given that, who would by pursuing great things not obtain what

20. This is a reference to sophistical agnosticism and to Protagoras' work Kataballontes

[Throwing-Down] in particular.

21.1 will follow the translation of Richard Seaford, with occasional alterations: Euripides:
Bacchae (Warminster, England, Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1996).

22. Here it is perhaps helpful to think of the difficulties that Socrates got himself into by
advocating a reformed theology and thus "new gods" (see Apology 26a-27d, Republic 377d-382e, and
Euthyphro 5d-6c).

22
 is available? These are the ways of men who are, in my view, mad [mainomenon]

and of bad counsel [kakoboulon]. (395^401)

Again we see pragmatism mixed with traditionalism: those who try to go beyond

the usual bounds of piety are destroyed in the attempt, so who would be foolish enough

to pursue this? The line to sophon d' ou sophia (395) is especially important. It is often

translated, as above, as "Cleverness is not wisdom." This translation is helpful for

bringing out the sense of the words as the chorus itself probably understood them.

Nonetheless, it seems helpful to attend as well to the literal sense of these words: "that

which is wise is not wisdom," or, put simply, wisdom is not wisdom. This is a striking

paradox, and could stand as a thematic statement for the play as a whole. Wisdom is set

against wisdom; there is something wise and foolish about each wisdom put forward in

the play. More importantly, however, we have trouble imagining what a genuine or

unqualified wisdom would look like in these circumstances.

Just as in the Oresteia with regard to justice, so too here with regard to

prudence: we find that a judgment as to true prudence in this case is perhaps impossibly

difficult, and we find, further, that this reflects not only the special difficulty of this

particular case but also an underlying limitation in our understanding of prudence.

Euripides shows us that there are various marks that we look to in making judgments as

to what is prudent and that these need not line up on the same side; and that when they

do not, we no longer have a clear idea of how to identify the prudent. We can wonder

whether prudence even applies here. We learn, in other words, that it is because we do

not sufficiently understand the prudent itself, do not understand how to weigh its

23
different common marks, that we cannot judge what is prudent in this difficult particular

case.

1.3 Plato 's Recognition of the Elusiveness of the Ethical

a. Euthyphro

Now I must turn to Plato, making the relatively unusual argument that he is best

understood as a forerunner of Aristotle in rejecting the possibility of the attainment of a

final and unambiguous understanding of the ethical phenomena. The Euthyphro

proves particularly relevant for seeing Plato's awareness of the intractability of the

ethical. The dialogue famously consists in the Socratic questioning of a young man

who wishes - in the name of a simplistic understanding of piety and justice - to

prosecute his father for murder on dubious grounds. The theme of imprecision first

arises when Socrates incredulously inquires, "Before Zeus, do you, Euthyphro, suppose

you have such precise [akribos] knowledge about how the divine things are disposed,

23. In this I stand opposed to interpreters such as Martha Nussbaum and Georgios
Anagnostopoulos, who set up their whole reading of Aristotle as an opposition to Plato (see Nussbaum's
The Fragility of Goodness, chs. 4-7 and Anagnostopoulos' Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of
Ethics, 13-64, 300-308. It is common to take the Protagoras as providing clear evidence for Plato's
commitment to ethical precision; in that dialogue, it is said, we find Socrates putting forward the idea of
practical reasoning as taking the form of a simple, precise, hedonistic calculation (see Nussbaum's
Fragility of Goodness, 89-121). I think this reading is inattentive to the dialectical character of Socratic
argumentation; but here I can provide only a few suggestions as to how I would develop this line of
argument. For one thing, Nussbaum's reading fails to consider that if Socrates genuinely wishes to
commit himself to the usefulness of an "art of measuring" for practical reasoning, then he thereby
undercuts the position that he argues throughout the dialogue, namely, that virtue is not something
teachable (361 a-c); virtue will simply be a matter of applying a teachable art. This should clue us in to
the fact that Socrates' arguments here are dialectical rather than definitive. Socrates reveals as much
when he draws the proper practical conclusion from the hedonistic thesis: the Athenians should send their
sons to the sophists to be trained in this art and thus learn virtue, a conclusion we can hardly believe
Socrates truly holds (357e). The art of measuring, then, is the art that sophists themselves claim to deal
in, and is their proposed education in virtue. Socrates' argument seems meant to uncover the hidden
beliefs of the sophists and thereby answer the question that was raised very early on in the dialogue
regarding the subject-matter about which the sophists claim to make one wise (312e-313c). Furthermore,
I note that whereas Nussbaum portrays Socrates as one committed to the art that would measure pleasures
in order to "save our lives" (365d-e; Fragility of Goodness, 99), Socrates ends the dialogue by telling us
exactly what it is he will do "for the sake of [his] own life as a whole" (36 Id), and it is not to calculate
pleasures but to engage in philosophic discussion regarding things such as virtue, to persist in the
serpentine, seemingly hopeless, philosophic inquiry that Protagoras abandons (36le).

24
and the pious and impious things, that, assuming that these things [i.e., the facts of the

case] were done just as you say, you don't fear that by pursuing a lawsuit against your

father, you in turn may happen to be doing an impious act?" Euthyphro replies boldly

that "there would be no benefit for me, Socrates, nor would Euthyphro be any different

from the many human beings, if I didn't know all such things precisely [akribos]" (4e-

5a).24 So we see from the start that it is Euthyphro, not Socrates, who is sanguine about

the prospects of attaining precise knowledge about such matters as the pious and

impious. Indeed, Socrates later claims, in accord with his wont, that he knows nothing

of divine matters (6b).

This difference between Socrates and Euthyphro is only heightened by the

colorful character-portrait that Plato provides of Euthyphro, a man shocking in his nai've

boldness and odd piety. Euthyphro is presented as speaking prophecies before the

Athenian Assemblies, a practice bizarre enough to lead the Athenians to view

Euthyphro as mad, by his own admission (3b-c). Later, Euthyphro acknowledges that

he believes in the literal truth of the old Greek myths of the gods, a position that leaves

him looking quaint and naive (5d-6c).~ Furthermore, Euthyphro is a man with such a

simple conception of morality that he does not hesitate to prosecute his own father for

murder despite the plethora of extenuating circumstances in the case; believing with

strange certainty, as Socrates says, that "a man died unjustly who while serving for hire

became a murderer, and then, bound by the master of the man who died, met his end

24. Euthyphro speaks again of his precise knowledge at 14b.

25. Socrates may be even more serious than usual in disclaiming knowledge when it comes to
the divine things; see Republic 427b-c, where he turns over religious law to the prophets on the grounds
that he and the others know nothing of such matters.

26. See Phaedrus 229b-230a on the place of the literal reading in Greek society at the time.

25
because of the bonds before the one who bound him found out from the exegetes what

he should do about him" (9a). Such a character portrait hardly does him any credit -

and it is just such a man who believes that he possesses precise knowledge of things

such as piety and justice."

Socrates returns to the theme of precision later in the discussion when he

distinguishes two types of disagreement.

Socrates: If you and I should differ [diapheroimetha] about number- which of two

groups is greater - would our difference [diaphora] about these things make us

enemies and angry at each other? Or would we go to calculation [logismon] and

quickly settle it, at least with such things as these?

Euthyphro: Quite so it seems. (7b)

Socrates then goes on to establish the same with other mathematical objects: we

would go to measuring to adjudicate a difference regarding the greater and lesser,

and to weighing to come to a decision about the heavier and lighter (7c). There is,

however, a fundamentally different sort of conflict:

Socrates: Then what would we differ about and what decision would we be unable

to reach, that we would be enemies and angry at each other? Perhaps you have

nothing ready at hand, but consider while I speak whether it is these things: the just

and the unjust, and noble and shameful, and good and bad. Isn't it because we

differ [dienechthentes] about these things and can't come to a sufficient decision

about them that we become enemies to each other, whenever we do, both I and you

and all other human beings?

27. Precision is extended to justice at 9a-b.

26
 Euthyphro: Yes, this is the difference [diaphora], Socrates, and about these things.

(7c-d)

As Socrates goes on to claim, if we were going to ascribe conflicts to the gods, this is

the sort of conflict that we would expect even them to have (7d). In other words, such

matters are so difficult that it is at least imaginable that even the divine struggles over

Socrates thus forces Euthyphro to question whether one should be so sanguine

about the prospects for precise [akribos] knowledge of "the political things" {Theaetetus

172a). The just, beautiful, and good are essentially difficult; they do not admit of a

simple measure, unlike mathematical matters. Conflict with regard to such matters

28. Socrates is here using Euthyphro's assumption [hupolhesis - see 9d, lie] that there is such
conflict (6b-c, 7b), and yet, as suggested above, he is likely at least to be partially inspired by works such
as the Oresteia of Aeschylus, which portray the gods in conflict over the just.

29. The Phaedrus introduces a similar distinction (that the Phaedms, which is always dated later
than the Euthyphro, nonetheless shares this theme with it should help reassure those who would otherwise
object that the Euthyphro is simply an early, "Socratic" dialogue that does not reflect Plato's own
developed philosophic positions). When someone speaks of'"iron" or "silver," Socrates says, there is no
controversy as to what is at issue. But as Socrates then asks, "How about when we say 'just' or 'good'?
Do some interpret them in one way, and others in another way, and don't we part company both with
each other - and with ourselves?" (263a). Again we see there is an ineliminable conflict with regard to
ethical matters. What we additionally see here, however, is that such conflict is not simply with others -
but even within ourselves. Plato returns to this idea yet again in the Laws: we have opposed opinions
within ourselves regarding the noble and just; for example, we tend to want to say both that all the just
things are beautiful and that punishment, which is just, is ugly (859c-860b). See also Alcibiades I, where
Socrates makes the distinction between uncontroversial items such as stones and wood and controversial
things such as the just, with controversies over the just leading to violent hatreds (109d-l 12d) (although
here he focuses on "the many" in a way that he does not in the Phaedms or Euthyphro). (Although I find
it reasonable to accept the authenticity of ihe Alcibiades I, nothing essential to this argument rests on it.)
Note that in the Euthyphro, Laws, and Alcibiades I, Plato uses the noun diaphorai for the disagreements
we have and the verb diaphero for our disagreeing; Aristotle, as we will see, uses the same noun in a
related context, and he seems to be referencing this theme in Plato (see below, 42-46).

30. Socrates himself playfully conflates the difference between the human things and the
mathematical things when he inquires as to the relation of the just and the pious. He says, "If the pious is
part of the just, then we need to discover, as is likely, what part of the just the pious would be. Now if
you were asking me about one of the things mentioned just now [see 12c], such as what part of number is
the even and what this number happens to be, I would say 'whatever is not scalene but rather isosceles'"
(12d). This is typical of his dialectic, and it only reflects poorly on Euthyphro that he does not remember
the earlier point and connect it with this one. Socrates, by contrast, is characterized as one who never
forgets (Protagoras 336d; see also, Republic 486d),-and we can be confident that he is aware of the

27
stems from no mere accident, such as an accident of calculation, and thus admits of no

easy resolution. In this way, Socrates shows that he is fully aware of the problem that

interpreters such as Nussbaum accuse him of being blind to, namely, of trying to

employ a quasi-mathematical approach to the human things. ' The sort of confidence

Euthyphro expresses time and again seems due to thoughtlessness and a customary

usage that has grown entirely comfortable with itself; and this seems like the more

common human experience - until, that is, the unavoidable fact of conflict makes us

realize the difficulty of such matters. (Nonetheless, it should not be thought that

Socrates leaves us hopeless: we note that there is just such a disagreement regarding the

just and pious between Euthyphro and his family (4d-e); and we need not feel that such

a disagreement is beyond adjudication - indeed, Socrates seems in the end to side in

favor of the family [15d].)

The theme of the imprecision of ethical matters thus persists through the

Euthyphro as a whole in its thwarted attempts to neatly define the pious. It returns

explicitly as the dialogue comes to a close; Socrates ends the conversation by

suggesting that since precise knowledge of the pious escapes him, Euthyphro would do

better to follow the customary practice of not prosecuting one's father for ambiguous

tension. He is likely to be dialectically adopting for himself Euthyphro1 s assumptions about the
possibility of precision, as is customary for Socrates (see Meno 75d). This makes us wonder whether his
earlier claim about the pious having a self-same eidos in all action (6d) is not another such attempt on his
part to dialectically mirror Euthyphro. If Euthyphro were to have the sort of precise knowledge that he
claims to, he would seem to need something just like this self-same eidos. Socrates thus leads Euthyphro
back to see the presuppositions of his own views, or, at least, he shows them to the reader. Note that in
the Republic, as will be considered at length below, Socrates explicitly denies the possibility of such
purity ofeidei in our actions (479a—e).

31. Nussbaum notes this passage in the Euthyphro but only sees it as further evidence that Plato
is allured by the desirability of applying mathematical measurability to ethical matters {Fragility of
Goodness, 106-07; see also 25, 30). I find this reading odd, since Socrates nowhere in the Euthyphro
draws out anything desirable in such a move; he simply contrasts the two kinds of disagreements.

28
offenses (15d). This advice is close to that of the tragedians: super-human knowledge

of the loftiest things escapes us, and so we would do best to acknowledge our

limitations and keep to the customary ways. Is this not a form of the traditional Greek

sophrosune theme? Does it not portray Euthyphro as a man of hubris, dangerously and

absurdly raising himself too high in believing himself to have precise knowledge? It is

hard to see how the Euthyphro can be read other than as containing a caution about the

practical consequences of the belief in the possibility of such precision. Indeed, the

dialogue seems to present us with Socrates' practical refutation of the charge that he is

corrupting the youth (2c-3a); the youth Euthyphro is brought to moderation through the

shame of dialectical failure.

b. Republic

One might say, however, that the purity of the 'Platonic' Forms as presented in

the Republic provides unassailable evidence for the Platonic commitment to perfect

ethical precision. After all, Plato's Socrates seems to claim that the philosopher-kings,

looking off to the pure Forms, will be able to translate these into the human realm in

shaping thepolls; philosopher-kings are compared at several points to painters who look

to the pure Forms as models for their painting of the regime, "contemplating them with

as much precision [akribestata] as possible" (484c-d; see 500c-501c). The Republic,

then, would seem to decide unequivocally in favor of the possibility of attaining perfect

precision regarding such things as the just, beautiful, and pious, the possibility of

precisely understanding their interrelations (506a), and the relevance of such knowledge

for earthly praxis.

32. Here Socrates uses the language not of knowing precisely [akribos] but of "knowing clearly"
[saphos].

29
 Another understanding of the function of the Forms in the Republic is possible,

however, and the case can be made that far from representing the possibility of ethical

precision, they represent its impossibility. Paradoxically, Socrates' very distinction

between the Forms and the earthly things that we directly encounter should give pause

to the view that Plato is committed to a simplistically precise understanding of ethical

and political realities. The distinguishing feature of the Forms, Socrates says, is that

they are "always the same in the same respect" (479a) which seems to mean that they

are perfectly self-same, that the beautiful, for example, is beautiful through and through,

without admixture - beautiful in perfect purity. The earthly things, by contrast, are

always mixed with their opposite qualities, as a beautiful object is ugly in some

respect, or a just deed is unjust in some respect (as we saw in exemplary fashion in the

Oresteia) (479a-e). This distinction is what it means for the Forms to be, and for the

earthly things to be between being and not-being; the latter are, for example, between

being just and unjust (479b-d).

This means that it is very difficult to see why those who concentrate all their

understanding on the pure should be able to deal effectively with the mixed. The ethical

and political realities that we encounter and are forced to respond to are opaque and

imprecise in a way that would seem to demand a corresponding mode of understanding

and praxis. In fact, it seems that the gruesomeness of the political proposals of the

Republic can be traced back to the fact that the rulers impose the pure upon the mixed.34

This will be traced out in what follows; but for now it is important to note that if

33. See also Symposium 21 la—b (see also 21 le), HippiasMajor 289a-d.

34. This seems akin to what we saw in the Euthyphro: Euthyphro acts as though the mixed were
pure, which leads to ridiculous and problematic consequences.

30
Socrates presents the basic idea needed to undermine the idea of the purity of the just,

noble, pious, et cetera as we encounter them in our lives, then it seems hard to say that

he is a nai've believer in ethical precision. In fact, it might seem best to say that the

purity of the Forms is a sort of foil against which we can grasp the full complexity (or

mixed nature) of the ethical and political realities we encounter. 'Platonic' Forms

highlight the difficulties of the just, beautiful, pious, et cetera, both in themselves and in

relation to one another - at least as they stand in the human realm - and thus also the

imprecision of any attempt to speak of, think through, or deliberate about them as they

are in human affairs.

As was suggested above, the problem of the messy nature of the ethical and

political spheres is reflected in the drama of the failure of Socrates' city in speech. The

recurring motif for the city is this: attempts are made to organize the city in accord with

a beautiful, just, good, and pious that are rigidly purified of any contagion, that are

made mathematically precise; and this results in a beautiful, just, good, and pious that

are no longer recognizable as such, since they lack sufficient continuity with our

common beliefs, and are theoretically and practically unacceptable to us.

The first Form that can be considered along these lines is the kalon (beautiful).

Socrates' way of dealing with the kalon throughout the Republic is summed up in one

particular passage. Socrates, after raising the possibility of shared military training for

men and women, notes that this would have the apparently ridiculous consequence that

men and women would engage together in gymnastic training in the nude. Socrates

undertakes, at least ostensibly, to overcome this criticism first by noting that at one time

it likely appeared absurd for even men alone to engage in nude gymnastics. This sense

31
of the ridiculous dissipated in time, after it was widely recognized that these gymnastics

were genuinely beneficial. This is put forward as a sign that the ridiculous - and thus

the ugly " - is properly discerned only when one allows the good to set the standard; if

we know that a thing is good, we can conclude that it is beautiful (and thus not

laughable or ugly) (452a-e). As Socrates says in summation, "The finest [kallista]

thing that's being said or will have been said is this: that what's beneficial [ophelimon]

is beautiful [kalon] and what's harmful [blaberon] is ugly [aischron]'" (457b). In this

claim we find the attempt to establish a precise understanding of the beautiful and its

relation to the good; we are given a strict rule by which to determine the presence of the

beautiful in terms of the good. Any messiness or complexity in the relation of the two

is implicitly denied.

As Socrates' historical claim makes clear, there does seem to be some

connection between judgments as to beauty and judgments as to goodness or the

beneficial; it is plausible that the older Greeks lost a sense of nude male gymnastics as
6
laughably ugly as they came to appreciate its civic and military benefits. This

connection is important and worth thinking about in its own right, but Socrates

challenges us to think about the limits of this connection: is the beautiful as

straightforwardly and absolutely governed by the good as this logos claims? Do we

really want to let go of our sense of the ridiculousness of his gymnastic proposals? I

think most people would be more prone to say that even if it were beneficial, it would

35. It is common for the Greeks to connect the laughable and the ugly more closely than is
typical for us; see Aristotle's Poetics 1449a31-37.

36. This already-existing connection between the good and the beautiful allows Socrates'
interlocutors to make sense out of his claim and to at least tentatively accept it.

32
nonetheless, on some level at least, remain laughable. What we seem to see through

the mixture of plausibility and implausibility in the argument is that although there is a

relation between the beautiful and the good, it cannot be neatly delineated; the good

cannot govern the beautiful without falsifying the beautiful. That is, although we might

be able to modify our initial sense for the beautiful in light of a new recognition of

goodness, there is also some point - not to be precisely or generally determined - at

which the beautiful resists, at which we cannot abandon our common sense of what is

beautiful or not without also losing our hold on the beautiful altogether.

The beauty of the beautiful city [Kallipolis, 527c], then, is always a beauty that

is already somewhat falsified or one-sided; although we can see some beauty to the

political efficiency of the city in speech, we are always also forced back upon the

ugliness of certain of its features, such as the exiling (or perhaps murder) of all those
TO

over the age often and the theft of their children (541a). The Republic as a whole,

then, enforces the principle of governance of the beautiful by the good to show us what

this would look like. Insofar as there is some connection between the beautiful and the

good, it results in a city that has some genuine beauty - as is evidenced by its appeal to

Glaucon. But insofar as that connection is falsely absolutized in the Republic, we find a

city that is in many ways desperately ugly. Thus we see that this problem involves not

37. Just as we see in Socrates' "second wave" as well: there is something laughable as well (with
a sort of dark humor) in the proposal to raise human infants in the style of animal pens (460b-d) — it
would seem best to say that even if this were best for the polis, it is nonetheless ugly in a ridiculous way.
Note that Socrates says regarding the shared gymnastic training that for it to work the comic poets must
give up their proper function, i.e., their comic work (452c), which would seem to imply that something
comic remains in the proposal; only by abandoning the comic perspective altogether can we overcome the
comic nature of the proposal.

38. And surely the fact that the place of the cast-off children is not to be seen or spoken of
indicates that it too is unspeakably ugly (460c). Note also that the city is called Kallipolis in the course of
the discussion of the preliminary philosophic education in geometry, which seems to confirm that its
beauty is the sort of beauty that appears from within the context of a pursuit of excessive precision.

33
only the relation of the beautiful to the good, but also the beautiful to itself; it is,

Socrates says, beautiful for the beautiful to be in such harmony with the good (457b).

Yet we also find that the attempt to govern the beautiful by the good brings with it great

ugliness. In its troubled relation to the good, then, we also find the conflict of the

beautiful with itself, beautiful and ugly at once. The very attempt for purity and

precision - the sort of precision manifest in the claim that the good clearly and neatly

governs the beautiful - turns against itself and produces an even more tangled and less

desirable mixture of opposites. The beautiful as we are familiar with it, in all its

messiness, is surprisingly more beautiful than this 'purified' beauty. Not only, then,

does overreaching for precision ruin one's theoretical account, it causes practical and

political harm.

The same sort of convoluted economy we find in the Republic regarding the

beautiful is present as well with the just. Our beliefs regarding the just already contain
->q

the seeds of tensions. Thus, when one tries to apply the just with mathematical

precision, it breaks down and becomes unjust. The political programme of the Republic

undertakes to show this to us at great length. For example, we think the rule of the best

would be most just (434a-c); and yet the attempt to consistently apply such an

understanding of justice would require many things that exemplify injustice — for

example, structuring a society entirely by lies or stealing all children under the age of

ten and exiling or killing their parents (541 a). That is, although it seems exemplarily

just for the best to rule, it is also exemplarily unjust to perform the measures that go

along with this. Or one could say that under the aspect of serving the rule of the best,
39. Again, see Phaedi-us 263a, where Socrates asks, "How about when we speak of 'just' or
'good"? Do some interpret them in one way, and others in another way, and don't we part company both
with each other- and with ourselves!" (emphasis added).

34
such measures are just, but in another, obvious, respect are unjust - in which case one

sees again that the attempt to thwart the muddiness of ethical matters fails and in fact

results in an even less desirable mixture than we find in everyday life. It would appear,

then, that a muddy justice is, strangely enough, the most just.

Finally, it appears that something similar happens with regard to the pious.

Thus we find that the pious premise that the gods cannot be held responsible for evils

(379c) leads directly to the impious activity of heavily editing or discarding texts that

claim inspiration for themselves and that form our only possible source of contact with

the divine and ancient things (365e, 382d). (This pious premise also leads to the

impious claim that the divine is not responsible for most of what occurs [379c]).

Similarly, the pious idea that civic benefit and piety must fit together perfectly (458e,

461 a) becomes the impious exploitation of sacred marriage rites to better serve the

polis; if the two are truly inseparable, then anything that is politically beneficial must be

pious, and so there is no need to attend separately to the demands of piety, to make sure

that piety is not trampled underfoot by the beneficial (459e-460a).

The Republic thus shows that the most important phenomena of human

experience - the just, beautiful, pious, etc. - cannot be arranged in a precise,

coordinated, hierarchical system without being disfigured. The attempt to do so results

in disfigured versions of the just, beautiful, and pious, no longer recognizable as what

they were meant to be, results in theoretical ruin and a terrible praxis. The failure of

Socrates' attempt, then, is Plato's best proof of its undesirability and impossibility.

It is clear, then, that there was a rich tradition of Greek reflection on the

imprecision of ethical matters. We will see that Aristotle takes much from these

35
treatments; he too understands the imprecision of ethics to involve not just difficulties

of certain particular cases but a more general problem with the basic elements of the

ethical and political spheres such as prudence, the just, beautiful, good, et cetera as we

experience them in ordinary life and think about them in our common opinions. It is

time to turn to the details of his treatment.

36
Chapter 2: Aristotle on Imprecision

Having seen how some of his predecessors put ethical imprecision to work in

their writings, it is time to turn to Aristotle himself. In this chapter I wish to consider

Aristotle's most direct statements about imprecision, primarily those in the

Nicomachean Ethics, but also in other works that address the theme. My goal will be to

clarify the types of imprecision that Aristotle thinks are relevant for his work, the

sources of imprecision, and the fruits of imprecision. Central to my argument is the

claim that Aristotle does not limit imprecision in the Nicomachean Ethics to that

yielded by the difficulty of the particular case, i.e., the imprecision of general claims as

to what should be done, made irrespective of the relevant particular circumstances.

Rather, Aristotle suggests that there are more general types of imprecision at work as

well/ The imprecision of ethics has to do with the most basic elements and topics of

ethics: and so Aristotle states that his treatments of the good, happiness, virtue,

friendship, pleasure, and choice - in short, the basic themes of ethical inquiry - are

marked by imprecision (1.1 1094a25, 1.7 1098a20,3.3 1113al2-13, 3.9 1117b21-22,

10.6 1176a30-32, 10.9 1179a33-35).3 Imprecision thus covers ethical accounts in a

quite broad and far-reaching way. It is this general imprecision that is most

1. The tendency to limit Aristotle's idea of ethical imprecision to the particular is seen, for
example, in August Bayonas' "Exactness and Scientific Thought According to Aristotle" in Aristotle and
Contemporary Science, Volume II, eds. Sfendoni-Mentzou andDemetra (New York: Lang, 2001), 130—
36, at 134-35; C. J. Rowe, "The Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics": A Study in the Development of
Aristotle's Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1971), 7Inl; J. A. Stewart, Notes on
the Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), 29-30.

2. Christine Swanton seems to grasp the need to distinguish this more general imprecision in
ethical matters from the imprecision of the particular; see her Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 9-10.

3. See also Georgios Anagnostopoulos' Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics, 170.
This carefully researched and insightful work has helped me in my formulation of the issue, even when,
as is the case on some very fundamental matters, I must disagree with its conclusions.

37
determinative for the structure of the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole; and it is this

general imprecision that will provide the focus of this chapter and, in its relation to

various themes of Aristotle's text, of the chapters that follow.

In what follows, I will distinguish three basic forms of general imprecision. [1]

The first Aristotle describes as having its source in the desire to reflect the nature of

ethical matters, which possess a certain "irregular" character that must be captured in

one's speech. This is done through a mode of speech that consciously incorporates

ambiguities and tensions in order to shed light on the complexities of the subject-matter.

[2] The second imprecision finds its source in Aristotle's desire that the EN function as

an entry-way into philosophic reflection. Aristotle intends that the reader will need to

engage in philosophy in order to "fill in" the sketches that he provides, even to the point

of finding ways to make sense of the divergent lines contained within those sketches.

[3] The third imprecision follows upon the nature of ethical inquiry with its distinctive

goal, namely, that of making us good. This imprecision can be broken down into two

sub-forms: [3a] imprecision stems from Aristotle's refusal to draw heavily upon non-

ethical inquiries (for example, psychology and metaphysics) in articulating his ethical

study. [3b] Imprecision can be found in rhetorically structured incitements toward

virtue, as found, for example, in Aristotle's treatment of pleasure.

2.1 Precision in the Metaphysics

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle gives us a helpful glimpse into the debates

regarding precision that were prevalent at the time. He writes,

4. Note that I will employ these bracketed numbers throughout to keep track of the kinds of
imprecision.

38
 Courses of lectures go along with one's habits; for in the way that we are

accustomed, in that way we think it fitting for something to be said.... Some people

do not give a favorable reception to what is said if one does not speak

mathematically, others if one speaks without giving examples, and others expect

one to bring in a poet as a witness. Some expect everything to be said with

precision, while others are annoyed by precision, either because they can't keep the

connections straight or because of its hairsplitting pettiness. For precision does

have something of this sort about it, so that, just as in business agreements, so also

in reasoning it seems to some people to be illiberal. For this reason one must have

been trained in how one ought to receive each kind of argument, since it is absurd

to be searching at the same time for knowledge and for the direction to knowledge;

and it is not possible to get either of the two easily. Now mathematical precision of

speech is something one ought to demand not in all things, but concerning those

that do not have material. (994b32-995al, a6-l 6)

There tend, then, to be two sorts of excess, which are represented by two camps, each of

which wants to enforce a certain standard of precision (or imprecision) in all writings

and inquiries. One party demands that all accounts have a mathematical or quasi-

mathematical precision, thinking that they will thereby be most rigorous. This Aristotle

thinks is misguided. Although fully understanding and appreciating the appeal and

beauty of the mathematical (Metaphysics, 1078a31-b6), Aristotle nonetheless seems to

think that it can exercise a bewitching charm, precisely because of its beauty. It is

inappropriate to makes demands about precision without considering whether the nature

of that which is studied can accommodate it; and so Aristotle insists that restraint or

39
discipline is needed. In the case of the theoretical sciences, physics is a less precise

study than is mathematics, because physics cannot abstract from the material (and thus

irregular) nature of that which it studies. The simplest matters admit of the greatest

precision (Metaphysics, 1078a9-10); and the perfect simplicity of the mathematical thus

allows for a precision that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. To force the same precision

onto everything does not manifest a greater concern for the truth; the highest concern

for truth admits that the precision of a study must be guided by the subject matter itself.

There is, however, another camp, the detractors of precision, who, as Aristotle

says, either have difficulty following the argument or possess the high-minded disdain

of a gentleman for precise, and thus, to their mind, fastidious and illiberal, accounts.

Aristotle, although more subtly, rejects their position as well; it is not for the sake of

laziness or tolerance of intellectual inability, nor for the sake of gentlemanliness, that he

lessens the demands for precision in certain fields of inquiry. Rather, he seeks the

precision that is possible given the nature of the thing under consideration. This is

important to keep in mind when considering imprecision within the practical works, that

is, within the works that deal with matters close to the heart of the gentleman.

Aristotle's ethical treatment may prima facie appear to share in the gentlemanly disdain

for precision; but a closer look reveals something of greater philosophic interest.

5. See the discussion of the thumoeidetic in Seth Benardete's Socrates' Second Sailing
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 56, 98-101. See also Theaetetus 162e-163a.

6. See Metaphysics 982al2-14, a25-8, 1039b27-1040a2, 1052b31-1053a2; see also

Anagnostopoulos, Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics, 111-15.

7. One can readily picture the great-souled man of the EN having such disdain. He would
presumably not think the matters worthy of such seriousness (4.3 1125al4—15); and is, at any rate,
immune to the sort of wonder that is the origin of philosophy (4.3 1125a2-3; see Metaphysics 982bl 1—
21, and Theaetetus 155c-d). See also 4.2 1122b8.

40
2.2 Imprecision as Caused by the Subject-Matter

Aristotle places his first claim regarding the imprecision of ethical inquiry in the

Nicomachean Ethics very prominently (1.3 1094bl 1-27), directly after the opening

remarks on the pursuit of the good (1.1-1.2 1094al-bl 1), and comes back to the theme

again and again throughout the early books (1.4 1095b6-14, 1.7 1098a20-b8, 1.13

1102a23-26,2.2 1103b26-1104al 1, 2.7 1107a28-33, 3.9 1117b21-22). This fact

should make us realize the crucial importance of imprecision for his conception of the

work as a whole. It seems that Aristotle believes that his account cannot properly

proceed until he clearly establishes that it will be marked throughout by an essential

inexactness; after all, the discussion of imprecision in 1.3 serves on one level as an

interruption to the argument regarding the pursuit of the good - but it is apparently seen

by Aristotle as a fully necessary interruption. It would seem that the proponents of

mathematical precision cause problems not only for physics and metaphysics, but for

practical studies as well. In fact, the desire for such precision and clarity stems not only

from a hair-splitting theoretical position, but also seems to find a source in our ordinary

ethical life; there is a common tendency to expect to find clear-cut answers to ethical

questions, and it is only on the basis of much experience or careful reflection that we
o

realize how complicated and difficult matters of practice are. It is to preemptively

counter such desires that Aristotle writes,

8. This would seem to be why Aristotle moves immediately from the theme of imprecision to the
idea that the young, as inexperienced, do not make good audiences for ethical discourses (1095a3-4); this
should be taken to mean that they lack experience of the difficulty and variability of matters of the noble
and the just. This reading establishes an organic connection between the two discussions and allows us to
avoid committing Aristotle to the implausible claim that the youth simply have no experience at all of the
noble or just. This would fit Aristotle's portrait of the youth in the Rhetoric, where he presents them as
having a rather simplistic view of the noble (1389a2-bl3). See also EN 6.8 1142al2-22.

41
 One would speak adequately [hikanos] if one were to attain the clarity

[diasaphetheie] that goes along with the underlying material [hupokeimenen hulen],

for precision [to akribes] should not be sought in the same way in all kinds of

discourse, any more than in things made by the [various kinds of] craftsmen. The

things that are noble and just [ta kala kai ta dikaia], about which politics

investigates, involve great disagreement9 [diaphoran] and inconsistency10 [planen],

so that they are thought to belong only to convention and not to nature. The things

that are good also have some inconsistency of this sort [toiauten de tina planen],

because harm results from them for many people, for before now some people have

been ruined by wealth, and others by courage. So one ought to be content, when

speaking about such things and reasoning from such things [peri toionton kai ek

toiouton legontas], to point out the truth [talethes endeikniisthai] roughly

[pachulos] and in outline [tupoi], and when speaking about things that are so for the

most part, and reasoning from things of that sort, to reach conclusions that are also

of that sort. And it is necessary to take each of the things that are said in the same

way, for it belongs to an educated person to look for just so much precision in each

kind of discourse as the nature of the thing one is concerned with admits; for to

demand demonstrations from a rhetorician seems about like accepting probable

conclusions from a mathematician. (1.3 1094b! 1-27)

9. Diaphora literally means a moving hither and thither, and by extension can mean
disagreement (of opinion) or simply variance or difference.

10. Plane (from which we get our word planet for those heavenly bodies that appear to wander)
literally means wandering, roaming, and can also, by extension, mean irregularity or inconsistency. The
fact that both words Aristotle chooses here originally refer to forms of movement suggests that the literal
sense is important for him as a backdrop for the extended senses of the terms. Presumably, then, the
kalon and just involve disagreement and inconsistency as in some sense not standing still or wandering
about.

42
This initial passage on imprecision is perhaps the most revealing. Here Aristotle

identifies a clear source of imprecision: imprecision is caused by [1] the nature of the

subject-matter (- underlying material). There is something about the very nature of the

things studied by ethical philosophy that does not admit of the precision of other

inquiries. What is of particular difficulty here is located in the nature of matters of the

kalon (the noble or beautiful)1' and the just. Presumably, however, the difficulties with

regard to the good are also relevant for ethics, especially given Aristotle's overarching

conception of the ethical life as the pursuit of one's own highest good or eudaimonia

(happiness) and politics as the pursuit of this for the whole of a people or city (1.2

1094al8-bll). 12

But just what is the difficulty inherent in things noble, just, and good?

Aristotle's examples of the "inconsistency" of goods serves as a starting-point: at times,

people are harmed by the things that we all take to be goods, namely, by wealth, or by a

virtue such as courage (as wealth can lead one to arrogance and insolence [4.3

1124a29-31] and courage can lead to a terrible end). We should understand such cases

to have the following significance: in any given particular case, what is good simply

speaking for a human might not be good for this particular person, and so goods show

inconsistency. The noble and just things admit of inconsistency in the same way: what

11. For an attempt to clarify the nature of the kalon, see ch. 3 of this work. For now, let it
suffice that the kalon is the definitive end of ethical virtue (i.e., it is the appropriate motivation that makes
an act ethically virtuous), and that the kalon is something like the intrinsic nobility and grandeur of an act.

12. Nonetheless, this claim could be debated, since Aristotle here speaks of ta kala and la dikaia
as the objects of politics, which is what is here at issue. Still, Aristotle speaks of ta kala, ta dikaia, and ta
agatha as constituting a unified field with respect tophronesis (6.12 1143b21-23). Also, Aristotle speaks
of his account of happiness and thus the good as being marked by the same indefiniteness (1.1 1094a25,
1.7 1098a20-b8, 10.6 1176a30-32, 10.9 U79a33-35).

43
 1 •J

is simply speaking (or generally) just or noble (e.g., paying back a pledge ) may not be

so in these particular circumstances.

There is reason to think, however, that the difficulties of the noble and the just

are not limited to this one mode. Indeed, Aristotle's way of speaking here alerts us to

the fact that there is something more involved with regard to the noble and just things

than his examples of goods manifest. After all, he speaks of the diaphora and plane of

the noble and just things, and then adds that goods also show "some plane of this sort" -

a qualified claim that seems designed to make us look for the incongruence of the

comparison. Furthermore, it is not plausible that the sort of difficulty outlined above,

namely, that that which is simply speaking noble or just is not noble or just in this

particular case, is what leads some to the idea that the noble and just things are merely

conventional. Much more relevant for that concern is disagreement {diaphora,

precisely what Aristotle omits in discussing goods) with regard to noble and just things

- as manifest, for example, in the fact that these seem to vary from place to place and

from time to time, something that had become a prominent issue for Greeks in the time

preceding Aristotle. This cultural difficulty, however, is not the only sort of

13. See Republic 331 b-c.

14. See Theaetetus 172a-b, 177c-178a, Republic 505d. See also EN 5.7 1134bl8-l 135a7. The
failure to recognize the lack of perfect congruity between these seems to lead Irwin to think that the only
difficulty of the noble and just that is mentioned here is what I have spoken of first (see the notes in his
translation of the Nicomachean Ethics, 2nd ed. [Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999], p. 174 [henceforth referred
to as "Notes"]). Sarah Broadie thinks similarly; see her Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 18. Aquinas recognizes the need to go beyond this {Commentary on Aristotle's
"Nicomachean Ethics," trans. C. I. Litzinger, [Notre Dame: Dumb Ox Books, 1993], sec. 33 [p. 12]).
Hardie also takes the diaphora and plane to refer to disagreements and conflicts of opinions rather than
the simple sort of inconsistency between the simply speaking and the particular (although he does not
seem to put this to any purpose) {Aristotle's Ethical Theory [New York: Clarendon Press, 1968], 32). I
also believe these difficulties to be much more far-reaching than does Anagnostopoulos, who takes them
to be mainly dependent on Aristotle's doctrine of the mean ("Aristotle on Variation and Indefiniteness in
Ethics" in Topoi 15 no.l [1996]: 107-27, at 126), a fact which then leads to some notably different
conclusions on the role of imprecision for Aristotle in general. The doctrine of the mean does, of course,

44
disagreement regarding the noble and the just that appears to be on Aristotle's mind;

there is also a problem that, as we saw, was important to Plato, who repeatedly uses the

language of diaphorai in articulating it: we do not even seem to agree with ourselves

about the noble and just things ; that is, our ordinary opinions on such matters are

especially prone to tensions and even contradictions. For example, we tend to think of

the noble as both involving great self-sacrifice and as playing an important role in our

happiness,16 and we esteem war as an arena for the putting to work and display of our

noble excellences but are also repelled by the idea of desiring anything so bloody and

terrible (see EN 10.7 1177b7-12), and we tend to think of justice as unqualifiedly noble

(or beautiful) but are unsettled by the apparent ugliness of just punishments.

Especially important in this regard is the fact that the difficulties of (and

disagreements regarding) particular noble and just things open onto issues regarding the

noble itself and the just itself. This movement from particular to general difficulties is

in fact revealed in Aristotle's claim that because the noble and just things are

inconsistent, some think that nobility and justice are only conventional; here we see that

this move to general concerns has already been made, that to kalon and to dikaion have

become an issue via ta kala and ta dikaia. This mirrors the imprecision that we saw

cause problems on a general level, such as in defining gentleness or wit ("Aristotle on Variation and
Indefiniteness in Ethics," 116-17, 125), but I think there is good reason not to limit the difficulties to this.

15. Plato phrases this in terms of diaphorai at Euthyphro 7c-d,Laws 859c-860c, and Alcibiades
I 11 lb—116d, esp. 112b. See also Phaedrus 237c, 263a-c.

16. This difficulty is sketched out in Alcibiades I 113d-l 16e, and will be explored in ch. 3
below.

17. This is the example sketched out at Laws 859c-860c.

18. See the Rhetoric, where Aristotle says that disagreements about particular cases of justice
involve larger disagreements about the nature of the just (1374al~18). See also Politics 1337bl-2, where
Aristotle writes, "Concerning the things related to virtue, nothing is agreed."

45
with regard to Aeschylus, Euripides, and Plato; the difficulty of the particular case

reveals to us the difficulty of the general: when we see that we cannot pin down what is

noble or just in the particular case, we realize that this is because we also have some

difficulty in our understanding of the thing itself, the noble and the just themselves. For

example, the diaphora mentioned above as to the relation of the kalon and happiness

seems to involve a difficulty that pertains to the very nature of the kalon itself. The full

meaning of the difficulty of these matters will be revealed in the chapters that follow,

where I will try to flesh out some of those particular ways in which Aristotle traces out

these difficulties.

Another reason not to limit Aristotle's claims here to the problems of the

variation of particular cases is that this would then not seem to apply to the vast

majority of Aristotle's claims in the EN, which do not try to specify concrete courses of

action or provide guidance on particular moral cases. Indeed, it is hardly plausible

that Aristotle takes the imprecision that is so methodologically important to his work

that he needs to discuss it before he can embark on his inquiry to have to do primarily
7I

with the difficulties of claims such as "pay back a creditor before giving to a friend"^

19. It will become clear that I think there is room for liberality in determining the extension of
"matters of the noble and the just." That is, I see the imprecision of such matters as extending to themes
such as prudence and friendship, in addition to the noble and just per se. I think this is justified given
Aristotle's usage of the rubric of to kala kai ta dikaia as a general category for the subject-matter of ethics
or politics (see 1.3 1094bl4 15, 1.4 1095b4-6); he speaks likewise with regard to the scope of prudence
(6.12 1143b21-23, 1144all-12).

20. Nonetheless, the difficulty of the particular is even stronger than many commentators seem
to realize: it is not only that the particular cases present such variation that it is impossible to provide a
perfect universal statement on such matters, but also that judging the particular cases themselves, even
with knowledge of the relevant circumstances, can be extremely difficult; see 2.9 1109bl2-26, 3.1
1110a29-l 110M, 4.5 1126a31-35, 9.2 1165a33-35 (but also compare these with 2.6 1106M4-15).
Ronna Burger speaks of this sort of imprecision in her "Ethical Reflection and Righteous Indignation:
Nemesis in the Nicomachean Ethics," 127-39.

21. Or that it is just or kalon to do so.

46
(9.2 1164b32-33) - for the reason that Aristotle very rarely provides such claims. The

main imprecision of the Nicomachean Ethics, then, cannot be the sort of imprecision

that would be contained in statements regarding particular conduct. The imprecision,

rather, must be on a more general level, tied to general difficulties with the kalon and

other such phenomena.24

We have considered, then, the meaning of the diaphora and plane of to kala and

ta diakaia and the fact that this has relevance on the general and not just particular

level. But just what is the nature of the imprecision they bring about? There has been

a tendency of interpreters, I think, to unduly limit the force of Aristotle's suggestion

here; since Aristotle speaks of "reasoning from" such matters [ek toiouton legontas] and

then illustrates the difference in expectations of precision with the example of

demonstration in geometry as against probable argument in rhetoric, interpreters have

tended to explain this whole passage as dealing only or at least primarily with the

inability of ethics to provide demonstrations. But in fact Aristotle also speaks more

22. EN 9.2, in dealing with a variety of such cases, represents an exception to Aristotle's usual
way of proceeding.

23. See also 2.2 1104a 1-10, where Aristotle speaks of the imprecision yielded by the variability
of the particular cases and distinguishes it from the imprecision of "general" speech.

24. One might object in this way: Aristotle's methodological statements on imprecision are less
about the imprecision found in the claims that he makes throughout the EN than they are about the sorts
of statements that he will not even try to make, i.e., statements that would try to address what is to be
done in a more particular way. But this interpretation is shown to be false by the fact that Aristotle says
that "it is necessary also to take each of the things said in just the same way [i.e., in accord with their
imprecision]" (1.3 1094b22—23), a claim that seems to say that there is imprecision in the very claims that
are made, and not just that it is not possible to make certain claims.

25. Technically, it is best, as Anagnostopoulos recognizes, to speak of a material imprecision

that is predicated of the things themselves and a formal imprecision that is predicated of accounts
{Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics, 122-26). In my account, I will tend to mean formal
imprecision when I speak of imprecision simply and will speak of material imprecision in other terms.

26. As is also noted and rejected by Anagnostopoulos in his "Aristotle on Variation and
Indefiniteness in Ethics," 119-20. For some commentators who have stressed the role of demonstration

47
broadly of simply speaking or reasoning about such matters [peri toiouton legontas],

and this formulation supports a large scope to his comments. Indeed, if one takes the

problem to the source, namely, the wandering and irregular nature of to kala and to

dikaia, then the most fundamental imprecision will be in simply presenting these.

There is no reason on the basis of this passage to limit Aristotle's claims to the inability

of ethics or politics to provide demonstrative knowledge; in fact, Aristotle seems to be

suggesting that the very elements themselves are problematic, and that all other

problems derive from this. In other words, imprecision has to do with ethical speech

generally and not just syllogisms in their relation to demonstration.

It is necessary to flesh this out in greater detail; if Aristotle is not primarily

speaking of his (or anyone's) inability to provide ethical demonstrations, then what is he

speaking of? Aristotle tells us directly; he says that because of the disagreements and

irregularities of matters of the noble and the just, he will "point out the truth roughly

[pachulos] and in outline [tupoi]."27 Of course, this statement is also somewhat vague;

what does it mean for a treatment to be presented roughly and in outline? It would

seem that what is especially at stake here is the level of determinateness of the

treatment ; Aristotle seems to be saying that his ethical writings will lack the sort of

determinateness that other inquiries possess and that one might have expected from an

here, see John Burnet, The Ethics of Aristotle (New York: Arno Press, 1973), xliii-xlv, and J. A. Stewart,
Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics, 29-30. Alexander Grant is better at recognizing the range of this
imprecision; see his The Ethics of Aristotle (London: John Parker, 1858), 10—11.

27. Note that when Aristotle begins concluding the work in 10.9, he reaffirms the work's status
as an outline: "Now if what has to do with happiness as well as with the virtues, and also friendship and
pleasure, has been sufficiently discussed in outline...." (1179a33-34).

28. This is in contrast to common claims that talk of certainty is the best way to understand
Aristotle's claims here. See J. Barnes, Aristotle: Posterior Analytics, 1st ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1975), 182; Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics," sec. 135 (p. 45). See also
Aristotle's use of akribes at Metaphysics 982al3 with his use of bebaios at Metaphysics 1005b8-19.

48
ethical work. So in speaking about these matters [peri toiouton legontas], Aristotle will

not try to make finely determined claims, but will instead allow for a certain

indeterminacy or indefiniteness.29 This is the primary mode of imprecision that I will

be concerned with in my treatment, although it is important to note that Aristotle allows

for other sorts, such as the imprecision of claims that hold only for the most part

(1094b21-22).30

Talk of indefiniteness, however, also calls for further reflection; what does it

mean to say that a claim is indefinite? If we look at the way in which this lack of

definiteness finds its source in the diaphora and plane of to kala and to dikaia, then it

seems right to say that Aristotle's account will be indefinite precisely insofar as it

makes room to accommodate the diaphora and plane within itself. The sketch or

outline is not so determinate as to disallow this diaphora and plane, does not try to pin

matters down so precisely that there is no longer room for this sort of movement.

Even this claim admits of a further question, however: does the sketch accommodate the

diaphora and plane by simply rising to such a level of abstraction that the difficulties do

not arise, or does it actually include the diaphora and plane within itself? I believe that

the latter interpretation is to be preferred; the sketch is rough precisely insofar as it

includes and manifests the tensions of the things themselves. Different lines are traced

29. See related findings by Anagnostopoulos as to the connection of imprecision and

indeterminateness in Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics at 154-71.

30. Anagnostopoulos speaks of the difference between the "for the most part" and indefiniteness
in Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics at 291.

31. It should be noted that this places a strong qualification of what Aristotle later says of his
method in regard to the endoxa: he writes, "If the difficulties [of the endoxa] are resolved, and something
is left of them, it would have been made evident in an adequate way" (7.1 1145b6-7). What 1.3 reveals
from the start is that Aristotle will not try to resolve certain disagreements or difficulties; these will
remain in the work.

49
out, and Aristotle does not force all lines to converge toward perfect unity. (And as I

will try to show, this is not a limitation of the treatment, not simply a lack, but has its

virtues.) My main reason for preferring this interpretation is that this seems to be what

Aristotle actually does throughout the Nicomachean Ethics. That he does so can be

seen, of course, only as this investigation progresses into the thematic chapters on the

kalon, prudence, friendship, and happiness; and thus we find the benefit of a treatment

that does not confine itself to the study of Aristotle's most direct statements on

imprecision. My presentation of these topics within the EN, then, will not simply

'apply' my interpretation of Aristotle's explicit statements on imprecision but will try to

help establish that interpretation. In fact, this seems the necessary way to approach the

topic, given the elusive nature of Aristotle's most direct statements on the matter.

Nonetheless, other evidence supporting this view will be given throughout the rest of

this chapter.

It should be noted that my interpretation here differs importantly from that of

Georgios Anagnostopoulos. Anagnostopoulos holds that Aristotle could abstract from

the variation of ethical matters just as he abstracts from the variation and indefiniteness

of biological phenomena. Anagnostopoulos concludes that the main reason Aristotle

does not is because then ethics could not reach to the particular and thus not fulfill the

practical goal Aristotle sets for it, namely, of making us good.33 My argument, by

contrast, holds that Aristotle does not try to reach such a level of abstraction because to

do so would be to cut off reflection upon those very difficulties. My interpretation

32. See, e.g., Jonathan Barnes' complaint that to akribes is hardly presented by Aristotle with
exactness (Posterior Analytics, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994], 189-90).

33. Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics, 115-16, 139-40, 154-55, 171-80, 314-15,
355.

50
obviously holds that knowledge is more of a telos of the EN than Anagnostopoulos is

willing to grant. But, in the end, Anagnostopoulos is forced by Aristotle's own practice

in the EN to acknowledge that knowledge is one of the goals of the work and simply

holds that Aristotle was conflicted. It seems more straightforward to acknowledge

from the start that Aristotle is continuing in the tradition of political philosophy as

inaugurated by Socrates; Aristotle had obvious access to this tradition and is here acting

as its heir.35

In coming to an understanding of Aristotle's method of imprecise writing, it is

important to note that Aristotle speaks of his imprecise account as hikanos (1.3

1094M2). I would suggest that there is a play on multiple senses of the word hikanos

here; hikanos can mean adequate in the sense in which we might say that something is

merely adequate. But it can also mean something fuller and more complete; to be

hikanos can be to be fully befitting, becoming, or sufficient. Although the reader

begins by thinking that Aristotle is saying that his account will be merely adequate

because of its imprecision, reflection reveals that Aristotle must mean that his account

will be fully befitting and fully appropriate in its imprecision, for applying a wrong

standard of precision to an account will only lead to its being less appropriate, less

adequate. And if Aristotle's account is to be fully meet, then it would seem that its

34. Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics, 355-57. It is true, however, that Aristotle
consistently refuses to leave room in his accounts in the EN for what he seems to be doing throughout the
EN itself. For more on this and for an attempt at explaining the problem, see Burger's "Aristotle's
'Exclusive' Account of Happiness: Contemplative Wisdom as a Guise of the Political Philosopher" in
The Crossroads of Norm and Nature: Essays on Aristotle's "Ethics" and "Metaphysics," ed. May Sim
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1995), 79-98.

35. See Ronna Burger's Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 2008) for more on this interpretation.

36. Or, in another context, fully capable.

51
imprecision must not be mere imprecision. Rather, the imprecision of the account must

serve a positive function in indicating the relevant difficulties of the subject-matter. It

is this feature that allows Aristotle to deem his account hikanos. And to return to the

question just raised as to how Aristotle's imprecision concretely relates to the

difficulties of the material of ethics,37 the account would seem most hikanos if it did not

merely abstract from the difficulties, but tried to preserve them within itself, displaying

or even bringing to light the tensions contained within ordinary ethical experience and

opinion.

2.3 Imprecision as Caused by the Desire to Encourage Philosophy

Aristotle is not content, however, to let his discussion of imprecision in 1.3 settle

the matter. He returns to the topic already in 1.7, with some interesting new themes.

Having just finished his schematic account of happiness via the ergrw-argument (1.7

1097b22-1098a20), Aristotle then qualifies the results of that investigation:

So let the good have been sketched in outline [perigegraphtho] in this way, for

presumably one needs to rough it in [hupotuposai] first and then inscribe the details

[anagrapsai] later. And it would seem to be in the power of anyone to carry

forward and articulate things that are in fine shape in the outline [perigraphei], and

that time is a good discoverer of such things, or makes the work easier; in fact, the

advances in the arts have come from this, since it is in anyone's power to add what

has been left out. (1098a20-26)

It seems from this that we can discern a new source of imprecision: [2] the desire to

allow others to clarify matters for themselves. Others are expected to carry forward the

work, to go beyond what is said on the basis of what is said. Aristotle thus warns from

37. See pp. 49-50 above.

52
the outset that readers of the Nicomachean Ethics need to read actively rather than

passively, working out difficulties and vagueness for themselves. Note that this

involves the same sort of imprecision that we saw above, namely, the imprecision of

indefiniteness. This second source can operate in conjunction with the first to produce

the lack of determinacy that characterizes the Ethics.

Here, however, we remember that there is an important difference between

philosophy and the arts that Aristotle leaves unstated in this passage: although the arts,

especially in a Greek context, do seem to progress along a more linear and

straightforward path, philosophy works through aporiai, that is, through fundamental
TO

difficulties or impasses that force one to reconceive the basic situation so as to allow

for renewed understanding. It is difficult to overstate the importance of aporiai for

Aristotle; in the, Metaphysics, Aristotle writes,

It is profitable for those who want to get through something well to do a good job

of going over the impasses [diaporesai]. For the later ease of passage is an

undoing of the things one was earlier at an impasse about, but it is not possible to

untie a knot one is ignorant of.... Those who inquire without first coming to an

impasse are like people who are ignorant of which way they need to walk, and on

top of these things, one never knows whether one has found the thing sought or not.

For the end is not apparent to this one, but to the one who has first been at an

impasse it is clear. (995a27-30, a33-b2)

38. There is perhaps no one English term that adequately translates this term in its Aristotelian
usage. In its original signification, it refers to a lack of passage. This is then extended from physical
movement to the intellectual journey. It thus refers to a difficulty that suddenly stops one in one's tracks
and makes a problem explicit for the first time, thus giving direction to one's investigations. Aporiai
would seem intrinsically connected to wonder — the "origin of philosophy" (Theaetetus 155c-d,
Metaphysics 982b 11-21) - insofar as these problems make us aware of issues worthy of wondering over.
See Joseph Owens' helpful treatment of aporiai in The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies), 211-19.

53
Aristotle thus thinks that it is as impossible to philosophize without employing aporiai

as to arrive at a precise, distant location by walking about randomly; the aporia is

something like the condition for the possibility of philosophic resolution or clarification.

What this passage helpfully makes clear is that there is a genuine philosophic task - and

a real labor - in just making the aporiai clear to us in the first place. Although we tend

as human beings to have beliefs and notions that stand in tension with each other, these

tensions often do not come to our (focal) attention; only the attempt to 'put it all

together' makes them stand out fully.

Turning back to the discussion of imprecision in 1.7 1098a20-26, we can now

see that although Aristotle suggests a likeness between the need for clarification in the

arts and the need for philosophical clarification of his ethical writings, he must also, in

line with his belief in the importance of aporiai for philosophy, think that there is an

important difference: the outline or sketch in the domain of the arts can

straightforwardly encourage progress, but the philosophic sketch must encourage

precisely through aporiai. To see these aporiai clearly is already to make philosophic

progress - and sets the stage for any further understanding. We can, in fact, readily see

how this fits the most direct context for this discussion of imprecision, namely, the

inquiry concerning human happiness: the difficulties of Aristotle's sketches lead, as

they have in all times, to philosophical reflection. The treatment must, as said above,

actually include the tensions and difficulties of the things within itself, so as to stir up

this reflection. One form, then, of Aristotle's imprecision in the Ethics takes the form

of aporiai formulated so as to allow the philosophically inclined members of his

39. This particular difficulty is traced out in ch. 6 of this work.

54
audience to work out matters for themselves on the basis of what is stated. I will try

to trace out a few of these aporiai in the chapters that follow.

2.4 Imprecision as Caused by the Nature of the Inquiry Itself

After discussing the way in which the desire to inspire philosophic reflection

leads to imprecision in EN 1.7, Aristotle brings the reader back to the original

discussion of imprecision in 1.3 in what immediately follows and then adds yet another

source of imprecision:

But it behooves one to remember the things that were said before, and not to look

for precision in the same way in all things, but in accordance with the underlying

material in each case, and to the extent that it is appropriate to that course of

inquiry. For both a carpenter and a geometrician look for a right angle, but in

different ways, for the one seeks it to the extent that it is useful to the work, while

the other seeks it for what it is or what it is a property of, since he is someone who

beholds [theates] the truth. So one ought to do the same in other things, so that side

issues [ta parerga] do not become greater than the work being done. (1098a26-33)

We knew that imprecision could be caused by the nature of the subject-matter, but what

we now learn is that imprecision can be caused by [3] the nature of the inquiry itself.

There is something about the very nature of the inquiry - apparently apart from or in

addition to the nature of its subject-matter - that makes for a sort of imprecision. What

type of restrictions does the nature of the inquiry place upon its precision? Here the

40. On Aristotle's audience in the Nicomachean Ethics, and for discussion of the philosophically
inclined among them, see Aristide Tessitore, Reading Aristotle's Ethics: Virtue, Rhetoric, and Political
Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 16-20; and Ronna Burger, Aristotle's
Dialogue with Socrates, 1-9. The ability of Aristotle's work to stir up philosophical reflection has also
been discussed by Patrick Corrigan in his "Knowing One's Self through the Nicomachean Ethics," paper
presented at the Fourteenth Annual Association of Core Texts and Courses Conference, Plymouth, 2008,
and by Norma Thompson in her "Aristotle on Moral Education: Transmitting Uncertainty," paper
presented at the Fifteenth Annual Association of Core Texts and Courses Conference, Memphis, 2009.

55
analogy with the carpenter is helpful. As Aristotle says, the carpenter seeks the truth

only "to the extent that it is useful to the work/' unlike the geometer, who seeks the

truth unqualifiedly. What, then, is the purpose of the ethical inquiry? Aristotle tells us

in 2.2: "the present occupation is not for the sake of contemplation, as the other kinds of

study are, for we are investigating not in order that we might know what virtue is, but in

order that we might become good, since otherwise there would be no benefit from it"

(1103b26-29).41 Here in 2.2 we see the same distinction between contemplative studies

and practical studies that is presented in 1.7 by the distinction between geometry and

carpentry. What 2.2 does not repeat but what we know from 1.7 is that this difference

also entails a difference in the level of precision that is sought. There is, then, this limit

to the pursuit of the truth in ethical inquiry: it seeks not the truth simply, but the truth

that is relevant for making ethically virtuous persons.42

The attempt to flesh out how this practical orientation gives rise to imprecision

leads to seeing that imprecision can be caused by [3a] the need to simply stay focused

on ethical matters rather than divert into other disciplines such as metaphysics,

psychology, et cetera. Examples of this in the Nicomachean Ethics include not

dwelling for long on a metaphysical consideration of Forms (1.6 1096b31-32), and

outlining the soul only so far as is needed for political concerns (1.13 1102a25-26).43

As Aristotle says, "side issues" [ta pererga] must not be allowed to overshadow the

41. See also 1.3 1095a5-6: "the end of [ethical discourses] is not knowing but action." See also
1.2 1094a23-25, 10.9 1179bl^l.

42. Apparently, ethical inquiry and statesmen share this end (1.13 1102a8-10; see also 1.9
1099b30-32).

43. See, for example, Aristotle's criticism of the division of the soul into rational and a-rational
in On the Soul 432a23-b7, although this is the same division that he accepts as "good enough" in the EN.
This echoes the way in which Socrates accepts a certain way of dividing the soul in the Republic, despite
the fact that, as he explicitly says, this has not been done precisely [akribos] (435c-d, see also 444a).

56
main focus of the work; and so it would seem that Aristotle's point is that discipline is

needed, that the logos must stay focused rather than drift in leisurely fashion into other
. • 44

topics.

This already presents a sort ofaporia, however: if the findings of other

disciplines are merely "side issues" in the strictest sense, then it would not seem that

their presence or absence would much matter for the precision of an ethical account.

Said another way, why would foregoing discussions (or detailed discussions) of mere

side-issues result in any significant ethical imprecision? ' This points us to the idea that

the side-issues are not mere side-issues; that there is at least some relevance to these
6
investigations for the ethical inquiry. And, indeed, this seems right: would not, for

example, a more precise account of the soul be relevant? What ifthumos were included

in the account of the soul in 1.13 - surely that would have consequences for the ethical
7
account? And given the difficulties of determining the relation of rationality proper to

the distinctly ethical ends that govern desire, it seems plausible that an account of the

soul that more precisely tried to address the relation between the parts of the soul,

determining, for example, whether these parts are separate truly or only in speech (1.13

1102a26-32) or that clarified the relation of reason as father to reason as child (1.13

44. Compare Theaetetus 172c, 177c on leisurely speech.

45. Much more intuitive would be the idea that diverting into unnecessary subjects would
muddle the precision of the work; see Plato's Republic 484a.

46. See Anagnostopoulos, Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics, 162-63.

47. On the relative absence of thumos from the EN and the relevance of this for the work as a
whole, see Ronna Burger's Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates, 149-50.

48. See ch. 4 on prudence for an articulation of these difficulties.

57
1102b29-l 103a7), would be relevant for ethics itself. It could also be relevant for the

work to look more explicitly to metaphysics in providing an account of the relation of

human nature to happiness and the virtues; Aristotle provides us with glimpses of the

connection (e.g., 1.7 1097b21-1098a20) but these remain tantalizing and are not seized

upon as fully as they could be.5

It is important to consider where Aristotle leads the discussion immediately after

making it explicit that he will not allow other disciplines to become heavily involved in

the EN. He writes,

And nor should one demand a cause [or: explanation] [aitian] in all things alike,

but it is sufficient in some cases for the that [to hoti] to be shown finely

[deichthenai kalos], and so it is with such things as concern archas; the that is first

[proton] and an arche. (1.7 1098a33-b3)

This seems to be a return to his earlier stated claim that in this work the that (or the

apparent facts) [hoti] will predominate over the why [dioti] (1.4 1095a3O-bl4). If we

understand his claim here to continue his line of thought regarding the distinction

between kinds of inquiry, established by the discussion of the geometer as against the

carpenter (and his use of d' oude [and nor] suggests that we should), then it would seem

that the more precise and scientific account would possess the aitia or dioti and that this

49. Similarly, at the end of Bk. 5, Aristotle argues that talk of justice within the soul is only
metaphorical and relies on an imprecise picture of the soul (5.11 1138b5-14)-but here again the nature
of the soul is not argued for but assumed and presented only in the most indefinite way.

50. The fact that we do get glimpses of the connection between ethics and metaphysics has
encouraged some commentators to make the role of metaphysics in the Nicomachean Ethics more
prominent than seems warranted. For stress upon the metaphysical side, see Terence Irwin's "The
Metaphysical and Psychological Basis of Aristotle's Ethics" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amelie
Oksenberg Rorty (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), 35-54. For a representative of the
other side of the debate, see Timothy Roche, "On the Alleged Metaphysical Foundation of Aristotle's
Ethics" in Ancient Philosophy 8 (1988): 49-62.

58
would be had precisely by situating ethics more explicitly within a larger context. But

this is not the sort of precision that the Nicomachean Ethics will offer us.

It also seems likely that the end of ethical inquiry of making us "become good"

(2.2 1103b28) entails that imprecision can be caused by [3b] the use of rhetoric to

bolster the weak toward virtue. For example, Aristotle often treats pleasure in a way

that seems more negative than his own considered views as they are eventually

expressed in the EN. In particular, the early books often express a harsh view of

pleasure, expressing contempt for those who would devote their life to its pursuit (1.5

1095b! 9-22). He there employs the "first- for-us" notion of pleasure52 according to

which it is to be simply identified with bodily pleasure (7.13 1153b33-l 154al); and he

does this because the "first-for-us" notion of pleasure is what predominates in most of

human affairs. Indeed, it is in this context that Aristotle gives us one of the main

practical rules of the Nicomachean Ethics: we should generally ignore pleasure and all

its enticements if we want to act well (just as the elders of Troy should have banished

Helen despite her beauty) (2.9 1109b7-12). It is only later that Aristotle dialectically

transitions to a "first-in-itself' conception of pleasure, according to which it is the very

completion and perfection of human activity (10.4 1174M4-35), a conception of

pleasure that even raises the possibility that, properly understood, pleasure is the highest

good (7.13 1153b7-32, 10.4 1175al0-21). This reveals to us the fact that his initial

51. One could, contrariwise, argue that this passage regarding the lack of an aitia and restriction
to the hoti is not in fact a genuine limitation on the inquiry but is simply the basic structure of knowledge,
which must rest on some ultimate point that cannot be further articulated. But it seems that Aristotle is
here equivocating on the meaning of arche — although for Aristotle every study must rest on certain
fundamental archai, in the context of the EN arche seems to mean something like the first-for-us starting-
points that are given in ordinary moral experience. And this sort of arche is precisely to be contrasted
with the why (1.4 1095b6-9). For further discussion of this passage, see ch. 4, 117-23.

52. On the first-for-us as against the first-in-itself, see 1.4 1095a30-b8.

59
presentation of pleasure had as its goal not the presentation of the simply best account

of pleasure, but rather the more pressing practical end of helping to encourage ethical

virtue even as we remain in the midst of our deficient conceptions of things. This and

similar cases53 seem to suggest that Aristotle sees the practical goal of ethical inquiry of

making us good as entailing rhetorical presentations that may fall short of the most

adequate or precise account.

To bring these findings together, then, we have seen that for Aristotle there are

many sources for the imprecision found throughout the Nicomachean Ethics. The

fundamental sort of imprecision for our purposes here is the imprecision that Aristotle

speaks of as a certain "roughness" and lack of definiteness. This is brought about by [1]

the attempt to faithfully reflect the nature of the subject-matter of ethical inquiry, which

is marked by an essential "wandering" or irregularity. Here we see that this imprecision

bears the fruit of adequately or properly reflecting the material itself- one might speak

of it as having a quasi-phenomenological function; and this imprecision is thus its own

sort of precision or adequacy. We also saw that imprecision can be caused by [2] the

desire for the treatment to serve as a sort of philosophic enticement. This dovetails with

the first form of imprecision described above, insofar as the diaphora preserved within

one's account can serve as aporiai, engendering reflection upon the problems of the

phenomena. In fact, it is just this conjunction that will be most important for the

investigations of the chapters that follow. We also find imprecision stemming from [3]

the nature of the inquiry itself and its distinctive goal, namely, that of making its

53. See, for example, 9.4, where Aristotle presents the vicious as though they were in constant
inner turmoil and uses this to support an exhortation to virtue (1166b25—29), despite the fact that this
stands in tension with his own claim that the vicious are vicious by a choice that they stand by (7.8
1150b30-33). This problem is discussed at length in ch. 5, 187-92.

60
audience good. This in turn entails that imprecision follows from [3a] the limiting of

connections between ethics and other studies such as psychology and metaphysics and

from [3b] rhetorically structured incitements toward virtue, as found, for example, in

Aristotle's treatment of pleasure.

61
Chapter 3: The Noble or Beautiful

There is only one end that Aristotle provides for all of ethical virtue, and that is

the kalon [the noble or beautiful] (4.1 1120a23-24).' Yet despite its central importance

to his ethics, Aristotle makes it easy to be puzzled about the kalon. First, he notoriously

neglects to provide any direct, substantive account of the nature of the kalon in the

Nicomachean Ethics, although he speaks more directly on it elsewhere. Unfortunately,

what he does say regarding it elsewhere, especially in the Rhetoric, where he provides

his most extended treatment, only raises further problems, as we will see below. In

section one of this chapter, then, I will try to address the fundamental question: what

sort of a thing is Aristotle discussing in speaking of the kalon? Second, Aristotle

neglects, at least for most of the Ethics, to say much about the way in which the kalon

fits together with his governing framework of the pursuit of the highest good and thus

1. See also 3.7 1115M2-13, 3.8 1116b2 3, 3.9 1117b9, 3.11 1119al8, 3.12 H19bl6, 4.1
1120al2, 1120a24, 1120a28-b4, 4.2 1122b6-7, 1123a24-25. This is qualified, however, with certain of
the social virtues. Friendliness or sociability is tied to the advantageous as well as the kalon (4.6
1126b28—31, 1127a4-5), and charm or wit is tied to relaxation and thus necessity as well as to the kalon
(4.8 1128b3-4). Translators debate how best to render this term in the context of the EN. Suggestions
include the beautiful, noble, fine, and fair. In Attic Greek, the term had a wide use, ranging from the
physical beauty of the body to nobility of soul, as well as encompassing the useful (in the sense of the
'fine [for a purpose],' akin to when we say that "he did a fine job" - see, e.g., Republic, 370b), with
idiomatic meanings as diluted as "well" (as in the idiomatic kalos legeis, "you speak well or finely"). If
we understand nobility as beauty in the realms of action and soul (see, e.g., Republic 444e), then we are
perhaps allowed to speak of nobility or beauty interchangeably, and the use of one complements that of
the other. I will favor translating the term as "the noble," primarily for the reason that this would seem
closer to the everyday moral discourse with which Aristotle seeks to maintain continuity. For other views
on translating the term, see Anna Lannstrom's Loving the Fine: Virtue and Happiness in Aristotle's
"Ethics" (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 2006), 11-12, and Joseph Owens' "The KAAON in the
Aristotelian Ethics" in Studies in Aristotle, ed. Dominic O'Meara (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1981), 261-77. See also the discussion in K. J. Dover's Greek Popular
Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 69-73.

2. See Rhetoric 1361b8-16, 1362b7-10, 1366a35-1367a34; Eudemian Ethics 1248bl6-25,

1249a9; Metaphysics 1078a3 l-b6.
/

62
with happiness [eudaimonia].3 That is, it is unclear for much of the EN whether to read

the kalon in light of the pursuit of eudaimonia, and if so, how and to what extent this

should be done. Aristotle begins by simply presenting the kalon as the end of ethical

virtue, without elaborating on the respect in which the kalon functions as an end. Does

one simply seek the kalon, with no further relation to the good [agathon]? Or is the

kalon sought as something (intrinsically) beneficial for oneself? That is to say, is the

kalon sought simply as kalon, or is it (also?) sought as agathon? If it is agathon, how is

it agathon? As we will see below, Aristotle eventually asserts that it is sought as

agathon (9.8 1169a27-29), but this raises the question as to whether we were supposed

to understand it this way from the beginning; earlier such a focus on one's own good is

at least muted and is rendered problematic by certain passages. The second section of

3. In Xenophon's Symposium, Socrates makes a joke on two distinct meanings of the term kalos,
pretending that since his facial features are most useful, his snub-nose being best for smelling and his
bulging eyes best for seeing in all directions, they are thus the most beautiful (more precisely, he simply
ignores the distinction between these two senses of the term) (5.1-7). This perhaps reveals a less obvious
jest involved in Xenophon's Memorabilia, where Socrates denies that he knows of or desires anything
good that is not good simply in virtue of being good for something (3.8.3) and then reduces the noble to
the useful, such that even a dung-basket is fully kalon (3.8.6, see 3.8.3-10). Plato seems to make a
similar joke (although these jokes always mix the playful and the serious) when he has Socrates claim in
the Republic that the good is the standard of the beautiful, and means there by good something like
political utility (452d-e, 457b). This all shows that the relation of the kalon and the good was very much
an issue of the day and not something to be taken for granted.

4. Ross recognized that the relation between the pursuit of the kalon and the pursuit of the
overarching aim of happiness was problematic; see his Aristotle (London: Methuen & Co, 1956), 204-5.
It is also noted by D. J. Allan in his "The Fine and the Good in the Eudemian Ethics" in Untersuchungen
zur Eudemischen Ethik, eds. P. Moraux and D. Harlfinger (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), 63-71, at 69. See
also Irwin's recognition of the problem in his "Aristotle's Conception of Morality" in Proceedings of the
Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 1 (1986): 115-43, at 120-21, although he thinks that the
problem is merely apparent and admits of a straightforward resolution (see 132-36) (and see this essay
generally for Irwin's most detailed investigation of the kalon). As this chapter progresses, it will become
clear why I am less optimistic than Irwin as to an easy resolution; see also note 58 below.

63
this chapter will try to work through the tensions and imprecision contained within

Aristotle's treatment of this issue.

It is, of course, not sufficient merely to sketch out the tensions and problems

contained within Aristotle's account; I must also try to indicate why Aristotle might

have put these into his account. I would suggest first that the imprecision of Aristotle's

treatment of the noble reflects a certain lack of clarity that is present within the usual

moral motivation. If questioned as to his or her motives, it seems that often enough the

most that the ordinary decent person might be able to say is something like, "I acted for

the sake of the noble," without being able to give much further clarification. On at

least one level of his treatment, Aristotle clarifies the moral motivation only as much as

it is clarified for the ordinary moral person. Furthermore, I suggest that the

"wandering" or inconsistency [plane] (1.3 1094bl6) of Aristotle's treatment7 is able to

both manifest and call for philosophical reflection upon a fundamental split within

common opinion regarding the relation of the kalon and the agathon, according to

which the kalon is sometimes viewed as having a value that is utterly indifferent to and

potentially opposed to one's own good and sometimes viewed as constituting one's own

greatest good. What Aristotle further shows us is that sometimes both sides of this split

opinion can be operative in conjunction, the one surprisingly building on the other.

5. What I have distinguished here as the first and second problems can be held apart to some
extent, but they are of course deeply related, and this chapter will sometimes be forced to treat them
together.

6. And as Harry Jaffa suggests, there seems to be a peculiarly close relation of appearance and
reality in the moral sphere, such that holding fast to the appearances is required {Thomism and
Aristotelianism [Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1952], 34).

7. It is true that Aristotle explicitly speaks not of the plane of his treatment but of the plane of la
kala. Nonetheless, this plane is what he undertakes to treat of hikanos [adequately]; and this seems to
mean that his treatment must reflect this plane by partaking of it itself. See my treatment of this in
chapter 2, 42-50.

64
Finally, through encouraging reflection upon the kalon through his very imprecision,

Aristotle points us toward a few reasons to be hesitant about too zealous a pursuit of the

kalon, that is, about too readily assuming that the kalon is the absolute and sufficient

human good.

3.1 What is the Kalon?

What sort of thing is Aristotle discussing when he speaks of the kalon? After a

period of neglect, there has been much recent attention directed to this question. John

Cooper and Kelly Rogers have argued influentially that the kalon should be understood

in a strongly aesthetic sense, and that its aesthetic significance rests primarily in

fittingness, order, symmetry, and determinateness. There is surely something right

about including these constituents; Aristotle often at least implicitly links the kalon with

the fact that the ethically virtuous action is the one that gets everything right (regarding

the 'to whom,' the 'how,' the 'when,' etc.), hits the mark, and finds the mean (see, e.g.,

4.1 1120a23-26, 1120b3-4, 1121bl-3), and this clearly has to do with order, symmetry,

and determinateness.9 Nonetheless, focusing exclusively on these constituents runs the

8. See John Cooper, "Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value" in his Reason and Emotion
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 253-80, esp. 270-76; Kelly Rogers, "Aristotle's
Conception of to kalon" in Ancient Philosophy 13(1993): 355-71. See also Gabriel Richardson Lear,
"Aristotle on Moral Virtue and the Fine" in The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics,"
ed. Richard Kraut (Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 116-136, esp. 118-21. Cooper is clear,
however, that the kalon as it is used in the EN cannot be explained solely in aesthetic terms; there is, for
example, a sense of obligation that the kalon seems to bring with it that is different from what we
encounter in the purely aesthetic realm. As Cooper says, he wants to illumine the notion of the kalon as
used in the EN by thinking of it in terms of beauty, without, however, reducing it to beauty in general
(276n35). Joseph Owens is always careful to emphasize this obligatory nature of the kalon; see his
"Value and Practical Knowledge in Aristotle" in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy IV: Aristotle's
Ethics eds. John P. Anton and Anthony Preus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 143—
57, esp. at 146 and his "The KAAON in the Aristotelian Ethics" at 263 and 273-75.

9. Rogers does more to connect these factors to the mean ("Aristotle's Conception of to kalon"
356). Cooper puts more focus, less successfully to my mind, on the overall symmetry of a particular deed
to the whole of one's life ("Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value," 274). Pointing to order, symmetry,
and determinateness is supported by a passage in the Metaphysics which links the kalon to these three
[taxis kai summetria kai to horismenon] (1078a31-b36). But one must be careful not to assume that the

65
risk of 'over-philosophizing' the notion of the kalon, losing too much of the connection

with everyday ethical appearances and opinions. (It is, of course, in line with

Aristotle's general method in his practical works to maintain a strong degree of

continuity with everyday opinion, even in his usage of terms.1' Furthermore, the very

fact that Aristotle fails to provide much of a direct account of the nature of the kalon in

the Nicomachean Ethics must be taken to constitute a sort of implicit claim that he is, at

least on some level, following common opinion and common notions in his use of the

kalon.) The everyday sense of the kalon, as used by the kaloskagathos or gentleman to

whom Aristotle is most directly writing, is not tied simply to things such as symmetry,

and is likely not even primarily connected to them. As we will see, magnitude has just

as large a role in the kalon - with other factors being relevant as well. In this section,

then, I will try to put forward several passages that reveal this more everyday sense of

the kalon.

sense of the kalon as used in the more theoretical works is the same as that in the practical works. In fact,
in this passage Aristotle says that these three features are "the greatest forms" of the kalon, thereby
implying that there are other commonly recognized features of it - and thus opening the possibility that
he is revising somewhat the common criteria for the purposes of his theoretical work. This caution
likewise applies to Aristotle's discussion in the Parts of Animals, when he speaks of the way in which all
animals have something of the kalon in them and are thus worthy of study (645a4-25). This seems to
drift away from the more conventional senses of the term, since common opinion generally holds that
there are very many species that are simply ugly or too lowly to be worth much; in Parts of Animals, by
contrast, Aristotle seems to stress order as the basis of the kalon. Poetics 1450b34-1451a6 expresses a
view more in line with common usage.

10. To my mind, an extreme case of losing touch with the everyday sense of the kalon is found
in Troels Engberg-Peterson's claim that the noble is simply the universal and impersonal perspective of
reason {Aristotle's Theory of Moral Insight [Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1983], 44-45). See Arthur
Madigan's reply to Engberg-Peterson in his "Eth. Nic. 9.8: Beyond Egoism and Altruism?" in Essays in
Ancient Greek Philosophy IV: Aristotle's Ethics, 73-94, at 86-87.

11. On this, see Leo Strauss' "On Classical Political Philosophy" in The Rebirth of Classical
Political Rationalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 49-62, esp. 49-51.

12. See 1.3 1095al-12; Aristotle's audience is aptly discussed by Aristide Tessitore in his
Reading Aristotle's Ethics, 15—23.

66
 One important passage for clarifying Aristotle's usage of the kalort is found in

the midst of his reflections on courage. This passage is all the more significant insofar

as it is one of the first to present the kalon in any concreteness, that is, as something

other than a general category unconnected to its particular instances; it is therefore

crucial for shaping the reader's sense of the kalon. Aristotle writes,

But it would seem that the courageous person is not concerned with death in every

situation, such as at sea or by disease. In what situations then? Or is it in the ones

that are most kalon? And these are the ones that occur in war, for they occur in the

midst of the greatest and most kalon sort of danger.... The courageous show

courage at once in situations in which there is a defense, or in which dying is

something kalon, but in those other types of destruction neither possibility is

present. (3.6 1115a28-31, b4-6)

Aristotle could do nothing better to show from the very start that he wishes to maintain

strong continuity with ordinary notions of nobility than to employ a commonplace of

this sort: martial deaths are noble, and most others are not. The kalon as it functions in

this passage does not find its source in considerations such as proportion and order, but

in something much more like simple grandeur and the common belief that battle and

death in battle are splendid things.14 And this makes sense: although courage is the

13. There are only two instances of the kalon that Aristotle provides prior to this: first, that it is
kalon to achieve the good of the whole city (1.2 1094bl0—12), and second, that the kalon is manifest
when the virtuous suffer calmly and with dignity (1.10 1100b31-33).

14. One reason why commentators would perhaps prefer to emphasize fittingness over grandeur
in articulating the kalon is that diere is simply more to say and analyze with regard to fittingness; e.g., one
can say with regard to what action is fitting (the when, the how, etc.), but there is much less that can be
articulated about grandeur.

67
virtue with regard to which Aristotle most heavily emphasizes the kalon,15 courage is

not obviously characterized as a desirable quality by order and symmetry. Although

there is indeed proportion present in the courageous act - it too must hit the mean, after

all - this is not what would seem to make courage appear so grand and wondrous to the

decent.16 Rather, the ordinary moral man or the courageous soldier is drawn to the

grandeur (a sort of beauty) of the things involved in war, including death.17 If anything,

magnitude [megethos] would seem to be more relevant for the nobility of courage than

symmetry and the like; there is a greatness of scale possessed by martial affairs that

helps lend them a certain splendor (3.6 1115a30-31).18 It is this most basic sense of the

kalon, as the nobility that the decent experience in beholding or contemplating ethical

action, especially grand political and martial action, to which Aristotle is finely attuned

and always attentive in his treatment of the kalon.

A reflection on the virtue of magnificence seems to confirm the continuity

between Aristotle's usage of the kalon and this more everyday sense, especially if we

compare magnificence with generosity. After elaborating on the way in which

magnificence has to do with the fitting, Aristotle adds,

15. See Ronna Burger's Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates, 76, 81. Compare this with justice as
the particular virtue of equity, which is certainly characterized by symmetry and proportion, but which is
only minimally connected to the kalon by Aristotle.

16. For a similar reflection, see Rosalind Hursthouse's "A False Doctrine of the Mean" in
Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. Nancy Sherman (Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
1999), 105-19, at 114-17.

17. Here we also see a strong manifestation of the connection of the kalon and the praiseworthy,
which Aristotle points to at Rhetoric 1366a33-34 and EE 1248bl6-25.

18. In the Politics, Aristotle connects the kalon to the possession of a certain number and size
(1326a25-b7). Kelly Rogers, despite consistently minimizing the significance of magnitude for the
kalon, notes that kalon kai megan was a common Greek epithet (see, e.g., Homer's Odyssey, i 301, iii
199, ix 513) ("Aristotle's Conception of to kalon" 367nl8).

68
 So necessarily the magnificent person is also generous, for the generous person too

will spend what one ought and as one ought, since generosity is concerned with

these things, but it is in these qualities that the greatness [to mega], the magnitude,

[megethos]) of the magnificent person [tou megaloprepous] shows itself, and

makes the work more magnificent from an equal expense. For the excellence of a

work is not the same as that of a possession, since a possession that is worth the

highest price, such as gold, is the most valued, but the work that is valued most is

one that is great [mega] and kalon (for the contemplation of such a thing is

wondrous, and what is magnificent is wondrous), and the excellence of a work, its

magnificence, is in its magnitude [megethei]. (4.2 1122b 10-18)

Note that in this first sentence Aristotle affirms that generosity has just as much order

and proportion as does magnificence; both generosity and magnificence get the

conditions of action (the to whom, how much, when, etc.) right. But there is

nonetheless an important difference between the two, and this is perhaps best expressed

by saying, as Aristotle does, that the magnificent gift is more kalon than the merely

generous one.1 (The whole contrast of the passage is between the "works" of

generosity and those of magnificence, and it is in this context that Aristotle singles out

the works of magnificence as being great and kalon. )

This difference with regard to the kalon is again related to magnitude, but one

must be careful here: although it is often said that the difference between magnificence

19. Here it helps to remember the two possible senses of megaloprepeia; its root, prepein, can
mean either "to be fitting" or "to be conspicuously splendid." Although Aristotle begins by focusing on
the fitting within megaloprepeia, he eventually shows that that the aspect of the fitting is shared with
generosity to such an extent that one should focus more on the splendid.

20. That magnificent gifts are more kalon than generous ones also comes out clearly when
Aristotle writes that "for [ethical] actions many things [i.e., much equipment] are needed, and more of
them to the extent that the actions are of greater magnitude [meizous] and more kalori' (10.8 1178bl-3).

69
and generosity is found simply in the amount of the gift, this passage points to a more

essential difference, a difference of quality and not mere quantity: the real greatness of

the magnificent gift is in its grandeur. Indeed, Aristotle goes so far as to say that the

expense can be the same for the magnificent and the generous gift, but that the former

will nonetheless outshine the latter (4.2 1122b 13-14). It is hard to express this

difference other than in terms of style: the magnificent have a certain style of giving

that is simply more splendid and grand - and it is in this way that the magnificent gift

stands out as particularly kalon.22 The noble or beautiful, then, is here connected not

primarily with proportion, but with a certain irreducible grandeur (that is tied to

magnitude). In this way we again see something that is more closely connected to the

everyday sense for the kalon; just as great deeds of war immediately tend to strike most

people as noble, so too do lavish gifts given in splendid style immediately tend to

present themselves to us as being fine and grand."

There is another passage to consider in this vein. When discussing greatness of

soul, Aristotle again suggests a strong connection between magnitude and the kalon.

He first posits that greatness of soul consists in a certain proportion of equality between

one's worth and one's consideration of one's worth. But he then insists that this needs

to be qualified: greatness of soul is of course not found in the harmonized ratio between

just any degree of worth and consideration of worth, but only in the proportion that

21. This is an ambiguity that we still see in the term "great": it can have a more qualitative or
quantitative sense.

22. This point, by the way, renders moot the common discussion about why Aristotle would
distinguish generosity and magnificence as two different hexeis if they differ merely quantitatively.

23. Similarly, in the Rhetoric, Aristotle writes that one can "go beyond what is fitting [prosekon]
to something better and more kalon, for instance if someone is restrained in good fortune and great-souled
in misfortune" (1367bl4-16). Sometimes, then, it is the fitting that is precisely less kalon than something
more extreme.

70
obtains for those of great worth. This adorning and beautiful virtue (4.3 1124al-4), in

other words, requires not only proportion for its moral grandeur, but also magnitude.

Aristotle makes this even clearer through an analogy with physical beauty. He writes,

"Someone who is worthy of little and considers himself worthy of that is sensible, but

not great-souled, for greatness of soul is present in something great [megethei], just as

beauty [to kallos] is present in a body of full size [megalo], while small people can be

elegant [asteioi] and well-proportioned [summetroi] but not kalon"' (4.3 1123b5-8).

And although Aristotle is here discussing the kalon in the sense of physical beauty

rather than that more spiritual quality of actions, there would appear to be a strong

connection between these senses of the word; the kalon in the realm of deeds and soul

also tends to require magnitude. One could also express this by saying that virtuous

deeds are kalon not only in their status as means, but also in their status as extremes (see

2.6 1107a6-8, 4.3 1123M2-15).25

24. This passage should not be assimilated to that of Poetics 1450b34-1451a6, which claims that
something cannot be kalon without a certain magnitude because otherwise its order and harmony will not
be manifest to sight or contemplation. The whole point of this passage in the EN is that small bodies can
have a manifest symmetry and yet still lack the grandeur and impressiveness that makes for the kalon.
This raises a problem for Gabriel Richardson Lear's account in "Aristotle on Moral Virtue and the Fine"
at 122-23, and should remind us of the difficulties of taking the meaning of the kalon in one work as
being equivalent to its meaning in another.

25.1 do not wish to overemphasize the importance of magnitude for the kalon; after all, the
kalon is also found in the harmony present in such small-scale virtues as temperance and friendliness
(3.11 1119al8, 3.12 1119bl6,4.6 1126b28-31). Nonetheless, as Owens notes, talk of the kalon perhaps
fits the large-scale virtue somewhat better (The KAAON in the Aristotelian Ethics,''' 263n6). At any rate,
my point is mainly to correct an understanding of the kalon that underemphasizes the importance of
magnitude and a certain irreducible grandeur for the kalon (and thus its political dimension). It is also
important that the connection between martial and political grandeur and the kalon is qualified in 10.8
when Aristotle writes that "it is possible for one who is not a ruler of land and sea to perform kalon
actions. For one would be capable of acting in accord with virtue from moderate means (and it is
possible to see this plainly, since private people seem to perform decent actions not less than powerful
people but even more)" (1179a4-8). But the move to focus on the private sphere and the small-scale
virtues is something new in the EN that comes at the very end of the work and does not seem to be
operative throughout the work. It is for this reason, presumably, that this shift has been largely ignored
by commentators. The significance of the shift deserves its own treatment, but here I wish to note that (1)
this move is perhaps prepared for by the consideration of friendship (which clearly belongs more to the

71
 Another passing reference to the kalon is of use in this context. Aristotle writes

that "while getting angry, or giving and spending money, belong to everyone and are

easy, to whom and how much and when and for what purpose and in what way to do

these things are no longer in everyone's power, nor are they easy; for this reason what is

done well is rare and praiseworthy and kalon" (2.9 1109a26-29). Superficially, it can

look as though the kalon is here simply being linked again to the fittingness of an

action, to its getting the conditions right - and it is, but not directly to such fittingness,

but rather to the difficulty and perhaps also the rarity of it." It is precisely because
77

getting the conditions right is so difficult that it is also so beautiful. If the connection

between the two seems mysterious, the interpreter should perhaps remind himself of his

everyday beliefs and experience; does not the difficult (when it is also connected to

something of serious worth) just present itself in ordinary experience as something

wondrous, as possessing a certain splendor? This again helps to resist overly

philosophical interpretations and keeps the kalon rooted in common experience.

There is, then, no one and common constituent element of the kalon, that

distinctly moral beauty or nobility that the decent discern in the deeds of ethical

virtue." Its source can be found sometimes in the fittingness or proportion of a deed,

private sphere than to the public) in Bks. 8—9 and (2) that the shift would seem to make the ethical life
much closer to the philosophic life with its basically private character (as is noted by Tessitore in Reading
Aristotle's Ethics at 109). It is worth reflecting upon what happens to Aristotle's earlier arguments
demoting the ethical life once it has been transformed in this way, since many of these arguments seem to
focus on the distinctly political nature of the ethical life (10.7 1177b4-24).

26. Sarah Broadie, in particular, draws attention to the involvement of the difficult in the kalon
(Ethics with Aristotle, 92-93).

27. And here we see once again the connection of the kalon and the praiseworthy: the difficulty
of virtue makes for both. See note 17 above.

28. There is, of course, no reason why we might not take all sorts of acts and motivations as
kalon. The assumption that the kalon must have one distinct source or constitutive element seems to lead

72
sometimes in its magnitude and grandeur, sometimes in its difficulty or rarity,

sometimes, as we will discuss below, in action insofar as it seeks the good of others or

the common good (or, even stronger, insofar as it sacrifices the good of the agent), and

of course, these elements can all be combined together in one unified perception of the

kalon.

3.2 The Noble and the Good

a. The Rhetoric

To know something of what the kalon is, however, does not mean that one knows

exactly under what aspect it is pursued. As was said above, it would seem possible, at

least prima facie, for the kalon to be pursued simply as kalon, without any reference to

one's own good; but it would be just as possible for the kalon to be sought (whether

primarily or not) as one's good. It is here that Aristotle is most imprecise. In this

section, then, I must try to show the difficulty of the relation between the kalon and the

good in the Nicomachean Ethics. One of the best ways to do this is to look first to

Aristotle's Rhetoric. There Aristotle provides an account of the kalon in which it is

essentially bound up with the pursuit of the good of others in contrast to one's own

good (1366a33-1367a20). As he writes, kalon are

many commentators astray. But if the kalon is a notion that is taken over from common opinion, then it
makes sense that it would lack such conceptual precision. At any rate, we see moral beauty in all sorts of
things, and there is no reason to be sure in advance that it is the same feature that always makes for this.

29. Terence Irwin takes the promotion of the common good to be the essentially constitutive
element of the kalon (see his "Aristotle's Conception of Morality," esp. 127-33). One sure sign that this
cannot be the case is that the kalon is fully operative with regard to temperance, which is not primarily
concerned with the common good (3.11 1119al8, 3.12 1119bl5-16). Irwin tries to reply to this objection
at 136-37, but I am not persuaded. See also Engberg-Peterson for an argument akin to that of Irwin
(Aristotle's Theory of Moral Insight, see 44-56).

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 those choices upon which someone acts not for his own sake, and things that are

good simply, all the things someone does for his country in disregard of his own

interest, and things that are good by their nature and not good for oneself, since one

does things that are good like that for his own sake. Also, all those things that are

more capable of being present after one is dead than while one is alive, for things

present during life have more about them that is for one's own sake. Also, all those

things that are for the sake of others, since they are less for the sake of oneself.

And all things that make others prosper rather than oneself. (1366b36-1367a5)

He comes back to this theme again and again throughout this chapter (1.9), repeating in

nearly every possible formulation that the kalon is that which benefits others rather than

oneself. Virtue, likewise, is said to be "thought of as a power of providing and

safeguarding good things, as well as a power of providing many great benefits.... and

the greatest virtues would be those that are most useful to others, if in fact virtue is a

30. Aristotle clarifies later in the Rhetoric: "the advantageous is good for oneself [autoi agathon]
while the kalon is good simply [agathon haplos]" (1389b37-T390al). It would seem that agathon haplos
here refers to what we would term a sort of intrinsic value that is not constituted as a value through being
good for the one who acts to realize it. This use of the term agathon haplos is different from its usage in
the EN. In the EN, the agathon haplos refers not to a good independent of the human good or of one's
own good, but to that good which we can deem good for oneself simply speaking, or, in other words, that
which is good for one insofar as one is in the best condition - unlike the agathon tint, that which is good
for oneself only insofar as one is in a state that is not good or best (e.g., the way in which chemotherapy is
good for a cancer patient but is obviously not simply speaking good for a human). See EN 5.11129b3,
7.12 1152b27-33, 8.2 1155b21-26, and EE 1235b31-38, Topics 115b22-30, 116b8 10. On the terms as
used in the EN, see Paula Gottlieb's helpful "Aristotle and Protagoras: The Good Human Being as the
Measure of Goods" in Apeiron 24 no. 1 (1991): 25^45, esp. 33-4. This means that although the kalon as
presented in the Rhetoric is good in the language of the Rhetoric, it is nonetheless not good for the moral
agent. In the language of the EN, contrariwise, it would seem that the kalon as presented in the Rhetoric
should not be termed good. The EN meaning of agathon is the sense that will predominate in my
treatment.

31. He speaks similarly elsewhere in the work. See, for example, his statement at 1359al-5:
those engaged in praising "often even make it a matter of praise that [someone] did some kalon thing in
disregard of what was profitable to himself; for example, they praise Achilles because he went to the aid
of his companion Patroclus in the knowledge that he would have to die; though it was possible for him to
live. For him, death of that sort was a more kalon thing, though living was advantageous." See also
1389b37-1390al. One should note, however, that the Rhetoric manifests some tension on this point
(precisely the tension of common opinion, one might say); Aristotle also says that the virtues (and thus
presumably, the kalon) are good for their possessor (1362b2-9).

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power of conferring benefits" (1366a36—38, 1366b2^4). Both the kalon and arete are

thus presented in thoroughly altruistic terms, as having no self-regarding character and

thus no relation to one's own good.32

One might try to dismiss such passages from the Rhetoric on the grounds that

they merely represent common opinion (or Aristotle's reconstruction of it) rather than

Aristotle's own philosophical positions.33 But that would be to miss the point, which is

that Aristotle himself shows us that the relation between the kalon and one's own good

is strained and problematic for common opinion - and that despite knowing this,

Aristotle provides an account in his EN that is imprecise on just what that relation is,

even though it has a central importance for his account. In other words, Aristotle

himself shows us that we cannot take the connection between the kalon and one's own

good for granted, and yet he nonetheless leaves this connection merely implicit for most

of the Nicomachean Ethics and seems to present views that stand in tension with each

other (as will be explored below). This suggests that he has some good reason to do so,

32. Similarly, Aristotle describes friendliness [tophilein] in the Rhetoric as "wishing for him
what you believe to be good things, not for your own sake but for his, and being inclined, so far as you
can, to bring these things about" (1380b36-T381al, emphasis added). Whereas in the EN he only
stipulates that in friendship in the governing sense one aims at the friend's good for its own sake and does
not deny that one also looks to one's own good (see 8.5 1157b33-35: "by loving the friend, [friends] love
what is good for themselves"), the Rhetoric rejects this interest in one's own good. This point was
brought to my attention by David Brink in his "Eudaimonism, Love and Friendship, and Political
Community" in Social Philosophy and Policy 16 no. 1 (1999): 252-89, at 253 n3. Thus we find a
consistent tendency of the Rhetoric to represent what we would term the altruistic position within
common opinion. Compare this with Socrates' premature account of justice in Bk. 1 of the Republic, esp.
342a-345e.

33. More precisely, there are two temptations in dealing with the Rhetoric: the first is to forget
the endoxic nature of such claims (as some recent commentators do in claiming that Aristotle has an
altruistic ethics on the basis of passages from the Rhetoric), and the second is to simply dismiss all such
passages as though they provided no illumination whatsoever. The second is all the more dangerous in
light of Aristotle's own method of working from common opinion (7.1 1145b2-7); given such a method,
it is crucial that we should have a firm understanding of just what those starting-points are.

75
that this is somehow fruitful for his treatment of the ethical phenomena. I will circle

back to what exactly I think this fruit is in section three below.

b. The Commentators

Aristotle's ambiguous presentation of the relation of the kalon and the agathon

is highlighted especially well by two divergent tendencies of the scholarly literature on

the EN. On the one hand, there is the tendency for the noble or beautiful to be lost sight

of, as though for Aristotle the ratio of the ethical virtues lies solely in their contribution

to our happiness. This trend is widespread in the contemporary Aristotelian-based

revival of interest in virtue-ethics. Rosalind Hursthouse, for example, expresses a

commonplace when she takes the Aristotelian position to rest in the claim that "the

virtues are those character traits that human beings, given their nature, need for

eudaimonia, to flourish or live well as human beings." Here the kalon is simply

blotted out or consumed by the agathon; all we see of Aristotle is the agathon. As we

have said, however, Aristotle makes it clear that what virtue is most centrally about is

the kalon. Whether this ties into flourishing and how it might do so is another question

- and it is a question that is left open throughout the Nicomachean Ethics. Nonetheless,

it is not without reason that so many have fallen into this error: they are following out

the importance of the ergon-argument of 1.7, which both seems like a governing sort of

claim and which Aristotle does little to connect to the theme of the kalon.

34. This tendency is also noted by Lear at 116, and also by Rodger Crisp in "Socrates and
Aristotle on Happiness and Virtue" in Plato and Aristotle's Ethics (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2003),
55-78, at 78. For some provocative remarks on the relation of Aristotle and the contemporary virtue-
ethics movement, see Peter Simpson's "Contemporary Virtue Ethics and Aristotle" in Virtue Ethics: A
Critical Reader, ed. Daniel Statman (Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 1997), 245-59.

35. Hursthouse, "On the Grounding of the Virtues in Human Nature" in Was ist das fur den
Menschen Gutel, eds. Jan Szaif and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2004),
263-75, at 263.

76
 On the other hand, there is a tendency to maximize the importance of the kalon

as such and downplay the importance of eudaimonia with regard to virtue. Christine

Korsgaard provides a good example of this. Korsgaard understands the noble as a sort

of disinterested lightness of action and writes that "Aristotle suggests that...moral value

is exhibited in a special way in actions from which we are sure the agent gets nothing,"

looking to the treatment of the kalon in the Rhetoric for additional confirmation of

this. Similarly, Julia Annas argues that '"for the sake of the fine' [entails something]

rather like.. .doing one's duty for the sake of doing one's duty; it characterizes what

morality requires" and that "what characterizes virtue is a commitment to doing the

virtuous action, regardless of whether it brings personal loss or gain to the agent - doing

it for its own sake. Aristotle takes this to be the most basic and important fact about the

kalon." Again, there is a reason why Korsgaard and Annas can make the claim that

Aristotle has a disinterested view of moral motivation through his idea of the kalon;

Aristotle himself allows for this conclusion to be drawn, as we will see. Nonetheless,

there is also a reason why Aristotle has often been interpreted as holding the exact

36. See her "From Duty and For the Sake of the Noble: Kant and Aristotle on Morally Good
Action," 203-36, at 217.

37. Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 370-
71. See also her "Self-Love in Aristotle," in which she argues that the kalon is not consciously sought as
a good for oneself, and that self-love does not motivate but only, in some strange way, underlies and
explains this pursuit (in The Southern Journal of Philosophy 21 [1988]: SI—SI 8, at SI 2—SI 4). Suzanne
Stern-Gillet likewise holds that the virtuous person seeks "the good rather than his own private good"
{Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995], 70-71). Kelly
Rogers represents a somewhat more balanced position, holding that the "for the sake of the noble" is its
own distinct motivation, not in itself connected to the pursuit of happiness, but also that "presumably the
Aristotelian agent does not overlook or repress his awareness of the larger motivational context [i.e., the
pursuit of eudaimonia] in which his pursuit of the noble takes place" ("Aristotle on Loving Another for
His Own Sake" in Phronesis 39 no. 3 [1994]: 291-302, at 300). A view akin to that of Rogers is
expressed by Allan in "The fine and the good in the Eudemian Ethics" at 70. The difficulty with attempts
to simply harmonize these themes in this way is that it ignores Aristotle's own work to problematize the
relation of the two; these passages will be considered below in sees. 2.c-2.e.

77
opposite view; and given Korsgaard's or Annas' interpretations, one would be surprised
TO

by EN 9.8, where Aristotle makes the pursuit of the kalon sound so self-regarding.

c. The Kalon in Bks. 2 and 3 of the EN

As I said above, the very fact that Aristotle fails to provide much of an account

of the kalon in the Nicomachean Ethics must point the reader toward believing that

Aristotle, rather than putting forward some novel and specialized philosophic concept of

the kalon, instead follows common opinion and common notions here. This, then,

would lead the reader to think that his portrayal of the kalon in the Ethics follows the

popular account given in the Rhetoric. This means that the reader should be expecting,

whether from encountering the Rhetoric itself or, more importantly, simply from

holding the common views that the Rhetoric undertakes to represent, that the pursuit of

the kalon is wholly indifferent (if not opposed!) to the pursuit of one's own good.

Aristotle, in fact, does little to dispel this way of understanding the kalon for much of

the first half of the EN and even makes some claims that tend to foster it. I now want to

take a close look at some of the important early passages in which the kalon is at issue

to try to make this clear.

One such passage is found in Aristotle's list of the "three things that lead to

choices [eis tas haireseis]" which consists of the kalon, the advantageous

[sumpherontos], and the pleasant (2.3 1104b30-31). Elsewhere in Aristotle's writings,

38. The difficulties that Sarah Broadie seems to encounter in commenting on the notion of the
"for the sake of the kalon" also make this basic tension clear. Broadie begins by speaking of the "for the
sake of the kalon" as something like "the sense of owing it to oneself to do what is right or best even
when this is costly" or the sense of "being enhanced by the doing," an understanding with a strongly self-
regarding aspect (Ethics with Aristotle, 93). Nonetheless, when she goes to defend Aristotle with regard
to the question of whether his moral agent is distastefully self-regarding, she seems to shift to speaking of
the moral agent as being concerned for the kalon in the sense of simply seeking to act "appropriately"
(94).

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as Cooper notes, the sumpheron seems at times to stand in for the good, to agathon.

This leads Cooper to hold that Aristotle is here claiming that the kalon is pursued with

its own distinct kind of motivation, separate from that of the good of the agent. And

although this is a plausible claim, there is nonetheless also some evidence that must

give one pause. For example, in Bk. 3, Aristotle says that everyone does everything for

the sake of the kalon and the pleasant as ends and does not mention the advantageous

(3.1 1110b9-l 1), which could make it seem as though the advantageous is limited to

means and thus cannot be taken to stand in for the good. In this case, the kalon and

the agathon would seem to be brought closer together, insofar as the list in Bk. 3 of the

kalon, sumpheron, and pleasant would seem to closely mirror the list of lovable objects

in Bk. 8, which speaks of the agathon, chresimon [useful], and pleasant (8.2 1155M8-

21). Aristotle's claims regarding the objects of choice, then, are tantalizing but

ultimately hard to pin down.

39. See Cooper's "Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value," 264-66. His argument employs
Aristotle's usage of this list of the three objects of choice in the Topics, especially at 118b27-28. As he
also notes, in the Rhetoric Aristotle speaks of the sumpheron in a way that initially seems to limit it to
means and not ends, but then describes this as agathon and includes within it both whatever is good in
itself and what is instrumental to that (1362al7-23). See also the close connection between the
advantageous and the good in the discussion of prudence in EN Bk. 6: e.g., 6.5 1140a24-bl0.

40. Cooper, interestingly, takes the kalon to be the distinctive object of desire for (habituated)
thumos ("Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value," 276-80). I should add that for Cooper this relates to
something like the primary and original motivation to pursue the kalon; he holds that the kalon
derivatively comes to be seen as something good and is additionally sought as such (278-79).

41. But also note that Aristotle brings the advantageous back just a little later at 3.1 1110b25-31,
where it does seem to have more to do with ends.

42. In Bks. 8-9 Aristotle provides a nexus of terms as apparent synonyms for the chresimon, and
uses the sumpheron in this context (see, e.g., 8.9 1160a9-14). At any rate, the agathon itself is a difficult
matter in Bk. 8, as it seems to be presented both in terms of the agathos haplos in the sense of that which
is unqualifiedly good for the best sort of person (8.2 1155bl8-27), and as agathos haplos in the sense of
the being good irrespective of its goodness^br anyone at all (8.3 1156b7-16). See note 30 above for
more on this. So even if we do connect the kalon to the agathon here, it is unclear what sense of agathon
we should connect it to.

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 One of the most important passages regarding the relation of the kalon and the

good comes in the context of a discussion of courage, the virtue whose relation to the

kalon is most heavily emphasized.43 Aristotle wants to make a distinction: although

virtuous activity is generally pleasant (1.8 1099a7-21), courage presents a more

difficult case, due to the nature of the common consequences of courageous action,

namely, injury and death, which are obviously painful. After comparing the courageous

to boxers, who dislike the injuries that attend upon boxing but love the honors that come

with victory, he writes,

So if what is involved in courage is also of this sort [viz., as with boxing], death

and injuries will be painful to the courageous person, who will undergo them

unwillingly, but will endure them because it is a kalon thing, and not to do so

would be an ugly [or: shameful] [aischron] thing. The more one has all virtue and

the happier one is, the more one will be pained at [the prospect of] death, for to

such a person living is most worthwhile [malista zen axion], and this person will be

deprived of the greatest goods [megiston agathon] knowingly, and this is painful.

Still, such a person is courageous nonetheless, and perhaps even more so, because

he prefers [haireitai] what is kalon in war above those other things. (3.9 1117b7-

15)

43. This emphatic relation makes sense given Greek common opinions about the nobility of
courage. Note that in the context of a discussion of courage, we can readily see how the focal meaning of
the kalon is closer to nobility than to beauty.

44. There are some strange disanalogies here: honor is the reward for boxing, although honor is
the end of mere citizen courage, not true courage (3.8 1116al7-29) (but see note 53 below).
Additionally, note that this honor attends upon the boxer only if he gains victory, whereas the
attractiveness of the nobility of courage is apparently meant to be indifferent to defeat and death. Here I
disagree with the reading of Jaffa, who holds that Aristotle minimizes this second disanalogy and
suggests that the desired end of courage is that attendant only upon victory, or, in other words, always
with the assumption of victory (Thomism and Aristotelianism, 55). The problem with this reading is that
Aristotle explicitly speaks of death in what immediately follows the boxer analogy and thus plays up the
disanalogy himself (3.9 1117b7-9).

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Here we see a quite tentative presentation of the relation of the kalon and the agathon:

the noble or beautiful death of the courageous is set in stark contrast to the possession of

the greatest goods. The stage is set for this by the account of death that Aristotle gives

just a short time earlier: he writes, "The most frightening thing is death, for it is a limit,

and it seems that there is nothing beyond it to be good or bad for the one who is dead"

(3.6 1115a26-27). This portrait of death obviously makes the prospect of death

grimmer and harder to accept - and certainly makes it hard to reconcile the choice for

any death, even a noble death, with one's own good.45

And yet the courageous person does prefer and choose what is noble in war,

including death, above everything else. This raises the question, of course, as to

whether the courageous person understands, whether implicitly or explicitly, the kalon

as a form of the good, and holds that the kalon is a higher good than those other goods

(problematically enough, as a greater good than the "greatest goods"). Or does he

recognize the kalon as an altogether different kind of motivation, one that simply counts

for more for him than the good? It would seem that, here, one would have to lean

toward separating the kalon from the agathon as quite distinct from and even opposed

to one another; the explicit reference to the loss of the greatest goods and the prior

account of death seem designed to foster such an interpretation. The reader of the

Rhetoric (or simply the one who held the common opinion it tries to reflect) would

readily understand the pursuit of the kalon as being set against the pursuit of one's own

good. And yet the basic analogy to the boxer that Aristotle employs here suggests that

there is some connection to the good: after all, the boxer certainly takes victory and

45. This tension between courage and one's own good is recognized by Lisa Tessman in her
Burdened Virtues (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 127.

81
honor as great goods for himself. The imprecision, then, is striking, and it would seem

impossible to answer this question with any certainty based on this passage alone. And

perhaps that is the most important point: what we can clearly say is that this passage

presents an ambiguous relation between the kalon and the agathon and does not suggest

any easy or definitive resolution to this problem.

A consideration of generosity would also be helpful here. Generosity receives a

prominent role in the account of the virtues in the Rhetoric; as Aristotle says there, if

the virtues are conceived of as powers for aiding others, then generosity will count as

one of the most important of the virtues (1366b2-9). Interestingly, the EN has echoes

of this theme. Aristotle writes that "the generous are loved practically the most of those

who are recognized for virtue, since they confer benefits, and this consists in giving"

(4.1 1120a21-23). The very next claim Aristotle makes is that such actions are kalon

and for the sake of the kalon (1120a23-24), and so the natural flow of the argument at

least would seem to connect benefiting others and the kalon. 6 A little later, Aristotle

makes the even stronger claim that "not looking out for oneself is part of being

generous" (4.1 1120b6). These statements must surely put the reader in the mindset of

the Rhetoric's more altruistic and self-sacrificial presentation of virtue and the kalon,

whether through reminding the reader of that work or simply through tapping into the

same vein of common opinion that the Rhetoric represents. Note furthermore that if

Aristotle wished to introduce into his main treatment of the ethical virtues in Bks. 3-4

any notion of a calculus, in which the loss to self entailed by the giving of money and

the like is outweighed by the gain of the kalon (as he does later in the work, to be

46. The evaluative importance of the ability of the action to benefit others is also seen in the fact
that wastefulness, when it does not involve shameful taking of money to support itself, is deemed
something better than a vice at least in part because it benefits many others (4.1 1121a20-30).

82
discussed below), this would be an eminently appropriate place to do so. Instead,

Aristotle leaves the reader with a presentation that smacks more closely of the Rhetoric

and its notion of the kalon as lacking self-regard.

d. The Kalon in Bk. 5 of the EN

Another reason to think that Aristotle's treatment of the relation of the kalon and

the agathon is ambiguous is found in his discussion of the virtue of justice. Aristotle

explains his notion of complete justice as the putting to use of all the particular virtues

toward others and not just toward oneself or one's own. This accounts, he says, for why

it often seems that justice is the greatest of the virtues, and he then cites a line of poetry

to exemplify this: "neither the evening nor morning star is so wondrous [thaumastosY

(5.1 1129b28-29). This connection to the radiance of the stars and the wondrous seems

to entail a strong connection to the kalon (with its quasi-aesthetic character). Aristotle

then adds,

But for this same reason [i.e., because justice is the putting to work of virtue toward

others] justice alone among the virtues seems to be someone else's good, because it

is in relation to someone else, for one does things that are advantageous to another

person, either to one who rules or one who partakes in the community. So the

worst person is the one who makes use of vice in relation to himself and toward his

friends, while the best person is not the one who makes use of virtue in relation to

himself, but the one who does so toward someone else, for this is a difficult task.

(5.1 1130a3-8, emphasis added)

There seem to be two aspects that come together in making the appearance that

complete justice is another's good: first, that it includes and perhaps even privileges

47. The kalon and the wondrous are connected at 4.2 1 ] 22b 17— 18.

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virtues that are not by their nature directed toward oneself (think of generosity as

against temperance), and second, that even virtues that necessarily extend beyond

oneself, such as generosity, are here also extended beyond the circle of "one's own,"

that group of family and friends with whom one most directly identifies. What is of

particular interest here, however, is that Aristotle claims that it is for the very same

reason that complete justice is so wondrous and fair - in other words, kalon - that it also

has the appearance of being someone else's good. This clearly resonates with the

Rhetoric's more altruistic conception of the kalon in which the kalon is kalon precisely

insofar as it involves the good of others rather than oneself. At the least, we see in this

passage that Aristotle highlights the problematic nature of the relation between the

moral beauty {to kalon) of complete justice and its status as a good; what is immediately

clear is that complete justice has a sort of radiant beauty and wondrousness, but it also

has at least an initial appearance of being the good of another.

Of course, in the passage just considered (5.1 1130a3-8), Aristotle does not

affirm that ethical virtue as directed toward others does not in some way also benefit

oneself but rather puts forward an initial appearance. It is important, however, to track

down the continuation of this discussion later in Bk. 549; speaking of rulers, Aristotle

writes,

48. Nonetheless, there are also moments in this treatment of justice where Aristotle seems to
qualify this stress on the good of the other or the common good; see, for example, 5.2 1130bl9-29, which
connects complete justice with lawfulness and thus common or public education, and then suggests that
there may be an even better private education (see also Politics 1276b30-35). As we will see, Aristotle
provides other qualifications as well; this, of course, does not eliminate the need to consider each passage
in its own right as well (see Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, 55).

49. One should note that although this discussion is clearly meant to continue that of 5.1 on
justice in relation to one's own good, there is nonetheless an important switch: in 5.1 this issue arises in
the context of complete justice, whereas in 5.6 the discussion is centered on justice as the particular virtue

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 Since there seems to be nothing to gain for him if he is just (for he does not

distribute more of what is simply good to himself unless this is in proportion to

what he deserves, and hence he labors for someone else's good, and because of this

justice is said to be another's good, as was said before), some sort of compensation

must therefore be given, and this is honor and reverence; but those for whom such

things are not sufficient become tyrants. (5.6 1134b2-8)

Here we find that any mention of gaining the kalon as a good for oneself is

conspicuously absent: the ruler is not said to gain the kalon as a good for himself to

compensate for giving away other goods; rather, he can be paid back only by honor and

reverence, external goods that Aristotle elsewhere distinguishes from the kalon (see 3.8

1116al7-29).50 Thus we see Aristotle failing to take advantage of the chance to discuss

the kalon as a good for oneself, which must lead the reader at this point in the inquiry to

the tentative conclusion that the kalon is sought simply as kalon, without regard for

one's own good.

Nonetheless, there is also a moment within Book 5 that points in the opposite

direction, although not without its own ambiguity. Discussing the case of the person

who appears to distribute the lesser share of goods to himself (out of proportion to his

worth) and thus to potentially even do himself an injustice, Aristotle writes, "Perhaps it

of equity. Nonetheless, all things considered, the continuity of discussion seems to outweigh this
discontinuity, especially since Aristotle explicitly points out the continuity.

50. Nonetheless, the relation of the kalon and honor is a difficult matter for Aristotle, as he
alternately minimizes (again, see 3.8 1116al7-29; see also EE 1216a 19-22) and emphasizes (see esp.
10.8 1178a25-b3) the manifest and public nature of the kalon. Even at 3.8 1116al7-29 his treatment
both separates and brings together the kalon and honor; although citizen courage is distinguished in kind
from genuine courage by having honor rather than the kalon as its end, honor is nonetheless also here said
to be something kalon. It seems to me, however, that the surface of the text, at least, separates the two
more than it unites them; and this is the justification for my reading of 5.6 here. Note as well that
something analogous occurs with regard to the shameful; sometimes Aristotle presents shame as
something like the natural complement to the desire for the kalon (3.6 1115al2-13, 3.7 1116al0-12, 3.9
1117b9, 10.9 1179b7 16), while at other times he distances them (4.9 1128bl 0-35, 4.1 1120all-15).

85
is not true without qualification that he takes less. For perhaps he overreaches

[pleonektei] for some other good, such as glory or the unqualifiedly kalon" (5.9

1136b21-22). On one level, this would seem to straightforwardly point to the kalon as

a good for oneself that is sought as such. But there is a difficulty as well: the verb that

Aristotle employs, pleonektein, is related to pleonexia, which for Aristotle refers to

taking that goes beyond what is due or appropriate.51 Thus, although Aristotle here

explicitly speaks of the kalon considered as a good, he couches this in terms that must

give us pause, for he speaks of those who overreach toward the kalon. This can

hardly be considered an unequivocal endorsement of the view that takes the kalon as

something simply agathon. There is at least the possibility that one can go too far in

viewing the kalon as a complete and self-sufficient sort of good. This will be

considered in section three below.

e. The Kalon in EN 9.8

It is in the context of a discussion of the appropriateness of self-love that

Aristotle provides some of his most interesting suggestions as to the role of the kalon in

the ethical life. The true self-lover is the one who, first, gratifies and obeys the best part

of himself, the part that is most of all himself (nous), and, second, and as a result of the

first, "takes for himself the things that are most kalon and most good" (9.8 1168b29-

51. See Aristotle's usage of the term throughout his discussion in Bk. 5 to characterize the vice
of particular injustice; see 5.1 1129a32-b2, 5.1 1129b7-10, 5.1 1130al9-22, 5.9 1137al. See also
Irwin's characterization ofpleonexia in "Notes," 295, 340-41, and see David Sachs' "Notes on Unfairly
Gaining More: Pleonexia" in Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Tlieoiy, eds. Rosalind
Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence, Warren Quinn (NY: Clarendon Press, 1995), 209-218.

52. Many if not most translators simply obliterate the notion of overreaching in rendering this
sentence, translating it as simply "getting a larger share"; Irwin, although he renders the term literally in
his translation, nonetheless claims in his note on the passage that this usage of pleonektein is oxymoronic
(236-37). This does not seem to take into account various passages in which Aristotle expresses the need
for caution in dealing with the kalon. See 7.4 1148a28-30, 3.1 1110a4-23, 4.1 1121al-4, 5.11 1138a28-
b5,and 10.7 1177b 12-15.

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30). It is just this conjunction of the kalon and the agathon that is of particular interest.

Aristotle goes on to link these in the strongest and most thoroughgoing fashion, writing

that

a decent person does what he ought, since every intellect chooses what is best for

itself, and the decent person obeys his intellect. But it is also true of the spoudaios

[morally serious person] that he does many things for the sake of his friends and his

country, and if necessary, dies for them, since he will give up money and honors,

and all the goods people fight over, to gain what is kalon; for he would choose to

have an intense pleasure for a short time rather than a mild one for a long time, and

to live in a beautiful way for a year rather than in a random way for many years,

and to perform one great and kalon action rather than many small ones. And this is

no doubt what happens with those who die for others; they choose something great

and kalon for themselves. Such a person would also give up money in a case in

which his friends would get more money, since there would be money for the

friend, but a kalon deed for himself, so that he distributes the greater good to

himself... And he seems appropriately to be someone of serious stature, since he

prefers the kalon above all things.... So in everything that is praised, the spoudaios

obviously distributes to himself the greater share of the kalon. (1169al6-29, a31-

32, a34-bl)

The first interpretive question that faces the reader regards the mode under which the

spoudaios described above relates to the kalon. Does he directly (and consciously)

pursue the kalon as a good for himself or does this accrue to him as something more

like a byproduct? He could, after all, aim more directly at the good of his friend or

87
country, and gain the noble for himself only incidentally. In fact, many interpreters take

this route in interpreting this passage.53

But the passage does not seem to bear such a disinterested reading. Even if one

grants that certain statements taken in isolation are ambiguous, the passage as a whole

seems to clearly indicate that the spoudaios is consciously and primarily motivated by

the gain of the noble for himself. This is suggested by the very context of the passage;

self-love is the ultimate issue here, and this passage is meant to provide a portrait of the

highest kind of self-love. But a self-love that does not deliberately seek the good for

itself but only incidentally receives it is a very strange sort of self-love; an

epiphenomenal self-love is perhaps a contradiction in terms. It also fits poorly with

Aristotle's talk of "competing [hamilldmenon] for the kalorC (1169a8), which suggests

a direct and deliberate pursuit of the noble for oneself. It is also hard to see how such

a reading could fit with Aristotle's claim here that intellect chooses what is best for

itself (1169al7), which seems to entail that the decent, who follow their intellect, are

choosing under the aspect of that which is good for themselves. Finally, Aristotle's

claim that the spoudaios chooses to die so as to have the greatest pleasure and to live

beautifully rather than randomly is hard to interpret as anything other than a statement

53. See Stern-Gillet, Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship, 70-71; Michael Pakaluk,

Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII andIX(New York: Clarendon Press, 1998), 201-2; Annas, "Self-Love
in Aristotle," 12; Rogers has a similar position but perhaps allows for a somewhat more conscious
awareness of one's own pursuit of happiness in such cases ("Aristotle on Loving Another for His Own
Sake," 300). The apparent distastefulness of always making one's own gain focal (even when this is the
gain of the noble) would seem to provide the motivation for seeking to avoid the most natural reading of
this passage. Lorraine Smith Pangle seems better justified in taking the passage to be saying just what it
says, but then wondering whether Aristotle is aware of the problem, and intends for us to make a
dialectical progression through his presentation; see her excellent Aristotle and the Philosophy of
Friendship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 169-82.

54. See the discussion of this expression in Smith Pangle, 173, and Stern-Gillet, 116-18. This
should also be seen in connection with 5.9 1136b21-22, considered above, which speaks of overreaching
for the kalon.

88
about motivations, and shows that this motivation is strongly self-regarding. In fact, the

passage, amazingly enough given its placement in the books on friendship, makes very

little of the bond of friendship itself. Aristotle does not speak of dying for the friend

due to one's love for the friend and simple desire for the friend's good, instead stressing

again and again the relation to one's own good.55 For these reasons, 1 side with

commentators such as Lorraine Smith Pangle and Arthur Madigan, who hold that there

is something strongly self-regarding about the moral actions described in 9.8.

In this passage, then, it seems safe to say that the kalon and the agathon are

strongly conjoined: the spoudaios understands the kalon to be the highest sort of good

for himself and pursues moral action for the sake of receiving the kalon as that good for

himself.57 In fact, the kalon as presented in this passage is not only a high good, but is

apparently so high a good that to gain it by the loss of all other goods is not tragic or

even painful but pure gain. Here we see the fusion of the beautiful and the good; it

seems right to say that the beautiful has simply become the good for such a person.

It would be worthwhile, however, to pause for a moment regarding the details of

this relation of the kalon and the agathon: what exactly does it mean for the kalon to be

55. He does, of course, speak of acting and dying "for the sake" of friend and country (1169al9-
20), but leaves this theme undeveloped in the passage, so much so that it remains an issue whether "for
the sake o f here involves anything like the usual sense of this term or something more minimal, such as
something like "in such a way as to benefit."

56. See Smith Pangle, 7, 169-82; Madigan, "Eth. Nic. 9.8: Beyond Egoism and Altruism?," 87.
Yet interpreters like Stern-Gillet and Pakaluk seem to have more of a point when one considers earlier
treatments of the kalon in the EN, especially when these are taken against the back-drop of the Rhetoric.

57. Even here, however, one can find a sort of tension, insofar as it would seem that these noble
acts that are one's highest good are seen as noble precisely because they are self-sacrificing. This tension
will be discussed below in sec. 3.2.

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taken as a good here? There has been some interpretive controversy on this point. On

the one hand, we see a crucial role played here by pleasure: the intense pleasure

provided by considering oneself as responsible for noble actions is the first thing that

Aristotle refers to in explaining the gain of the spoudaios (9.8 1169a22-23).59 On the

other hand, this is not the only motivation that Aristotle provides - he also speaks

simply of the gain present in accomplishing noble deeds of serious magnitude and

living nobly generally - and for good reason; it is not plausible that the spoudaios

understands himself simply as aiming at pleasure; the spoudaios tends to think of his

aim primarily in terms of the noble itself, as something irreducible.60 What would it

mean to focus on the noble itself over and above the pleasure provided by the noble?

The simplest answer here seems best, especially since Aristotle is not purporting to

provide a complex and novel philosophical argument involving a distinctive notion of

the kalon but is rather trying to understand a common moral motivation that is actually

operative in the choices of the spoudaios. And the simplest answer is this: what we see

here is the attraction of grandeur; the kalon appears with a sort of beauty to the

spoudaios, and he sees this beauty as something worth having.61 That is, the beauty of

58. Irwin, for example, suggests that that since the spoudaios partakes of the common good that
he benefits by his noble action, his noble action also benefits himself ("Aristotle's Conception of
Morality," 132-34, 143). This seems to take too extrinsic a view of the good which the kalon constitutes;
and at any rate cannot explain the case of noble action leading to foreseeable death. Rogers focuses,
more successfully, on the "self-esteem" that comes about through understanding oneself to be involved in
the stable pursuit of the kalon ("Aristotle's Conception of to kalon'' 359-60). See also Madigan, 78-79.

59. The strong connection established here between the kalon and pleasure is interesting and
finds an important complement in Aristotle's account of Sophocles' Philoctetes, who, he says, rejected
Odysseus' clever advice to lie for the sake of a "noble pleasure" (7.9 1151M9-20). See also 7.2
1146al6-21, 1.8 1099a7-22, 2.3 1105al-2.

60. See Tessitore, Reading Aristotle's Ethics, 66.

61. Although it is stated in anachronistic terms, see Dennis McKerlie's claim that "sometimes it
seems that Aristotle sees virtuous actions as having an intrinsic value that is not explained by their

90
the deed is simply taken as a good; the spoudaios regards this beauty as his own highest

good. The relation is thus extremely direct; the spoudaioi just find noble actions

possessed with a radiance that endows them with worth; and sharing in something of

such worth is seen as something agathon. In contemplating their own kalon deeds (9.4

1166a23-29), the spoudaioi find them rich in solemn dignity.

Even granting something like this, however, some commentators still have

trouble with Aristotle's presentation of self-sacrificing death, wondering how it is

possible that one would come ahead even in the tally of noble actions by dying in battle

rather than living a long life filled with noble deeds. " But this objection shows a

failure to understand the phenomenological perspective of the spoudaios whom

Aristotle here undertakes to illumine, and especially misses the importance of

magnitude, which here predominates. The point is that such a death is the grandest sort

of action possible, and that the spoudaios yearns for this grandeur.63 Even in Bk. 3's

less elevated treatment of courage Aristotle claims that the courageous prefer what is

kalon in war above all other things - even, that is, above the noble in other spheres (3.9

1117b 14-15). Similarly, commentators wonder why one shameful act of fleeing would

connection to eudaimonia - rather, it is their intrinsic value that explains why they contribute to our
eudaimonia when we perform them" in "Friendship, Self-Love, and Concern for Others in Aristotle's
Ethics'7 in Ancient Philosophy 11 (1991): 85—101, at 88. The point is that in this passage articulating the
viewpoint of the spoudaios, the goodness of kalon deeds is presented as being prior to and explanative of
their relevance for happiness; whereas we might have expected from the early ergon-argument that we
would derive the relevance of ethical deeds for happiness by coming to understand them as markedly
rational. See also J. Donald Monan, "Two Methodological Aspects of Moral Knowledge in the
Nicomachean Ethics" in Aristole et Les Problemes de Methode (Louvain: Centre de Wulf-Mansion,
1980), 247-71, at 258-59.

62. McKerlie, 92; Hardie, Aristotle's Ethical Theory, 330-31; Madigan, 79-80.

63. See Lorraine Smith Pangle's criticism of interpretations that miss this point (235n9).

91
ruin one's eudaimonia - but Aristotle does not speak in 9.8 of avoiding the shameful

(that is found only in Bk. 3's less elevated treatment of courage); again, the point in 9.8

is not that one must sacrifice oneself to avoid shame, but that one wants to sacrifice

oneself in order to be at work with grand and noble action, so as to gain the noble for

oneself.

Consider, then, the contrast: whereas such cases as dying for friend or city

manifest the heights of nobility in the Rhetoric precisely because they show that one did

not gain any good for oneself in such action (1367al-3), in EN 9.8 they are presented as
5
a choice for the greatest good for oneself. In fact, Aristotle begins the discussion of

9.8 by mentioning the view of the Rhetoric; relating the view that unqualifiedly blames

self-love, Aristotle says, "The better a person is, the more he acts on account of the

kalon, and for the sake of a friend, while he disregards his own interest" (9.8 1168a33-

35). This view is, of course, here rejected; but, interestingly enough, it is rejected

without real reference to the transformation in the understanding of the kalon that must

occur in order to make such a rejection. Instead, we just simply and suddenly switch

from the non-self-regarding understanding of the kalon held by common opinion

(presented at 1168a33-35) to an understanding of the kalon as something good for

oneself (1168b29-30). If anything, this only makes the contrast between these two

views all the more glaring.

64. See McKerlie, 92. At any rate, on this point Aristotle would want to be careful to remember
the phenomenological perspective of the great-souled man, for whom "life is not worth living on just any
terms" (4.3 1124b9), as is noted by Tessman, 127.

65. This shift is also discussed by Crisp at 71-78. See also E. M. Cope's commentary on
1389b36-37 (The Rhetoric of Aristotle with Commentary [New York: Arno Press, 1973], 147).

92
 This tension between differing conceptions of the kalon is in fact found not just

between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Rhetoric and within EN 9.8, but within the

movement of the EN as a whole. Whereas in Bk. 3 Aristotle speaks, as we saw, of the

mixed nature of courage, in which one experiences pain and is called to give up the

greatest goods in order to pursue the kalon (3.9 1117a32-bl 6), in 9.8, there is no

mention of losing goods or of pain but only of gain and pleasure.66 Indeed, in the

context of 9.8, any thought of loss or pain would be unintelligible: the courageous seem

to come out so far ahead in dying nobly that there is no reason to hesitate, no genuine

loss of goods for oneself, only a loss of lesser goods that do not call for pain or sadness

at their loss. This difference is in part explained by the fact that, unlike in Bk. 3, the

kalon is explicitly taken as a good (indeed, as the highest good) for oneself in 9.8, but

this alone is not a sufficient explanation; Aristotle makes a more radical shift between

these passages, changing the fundamental options for choice at stake in each case.

Whereas in 3.9 the courageous have to face the choice between dying nobly in battle or

living a supremely happy and virtuous life, in 9.8. they must choose between dying an

intensely pleasurably, noble death or living a random life, filled with mild pleasure and

trifling actions. Obviously, the proposed alternative to death has undergone a massive

transformation. Also absent from the account of 9.8 is anything like the presentation of

death in 3.6, in which death is seen as a limit beyond which nothing can be good or bad

for the one who dies; such an account of death would ill suit the sort of unqualified gain

that the noble death is supposed to represent for the one who dies.

66. Jaffa saw the problem and commented on it in his Thomism and Aristotelianism, 54-66.

93
 These underlying differences, in fact, help to show why we should not simply

take EN 9.8 as providing Aristotle's final and authoritative view on the relation of the

kalon and the agathon, settling the matter as far as the Nicomachean Ethics is

concerned (in which case we would need to minimize the importance of 3.9 or

assimilate its sense to that of 9.8). That is, there are real questions and difficulties about

the claims of 9.8 as compared with those of 3.9, and Aristotle himself seems to confront

us with these through the work as a whole.68 What is the true nature of death? What

sort of goodness is possible for a life that does not seek noble death? Is the kalon really

of a nature such that its gain makes the loss of all else insignificant? Or does that seem

so only through a problematic denial (or at least minimizing) of the goodness of other

sorts of goods? Does 9.8 present a final teaching or should it be better understood as

the phenomenological reflection of the perspective of the spoudaios! As Ronna

Burger has noted, early on in the EN Aristotle reminds us of the fact that humans can

adopt a viewpoint such that one limited good appears as the all-encompassing good

beyond which no other goods are even sought (as health appears to the sick) (1.4

1095a22-26).70 Do we find another such case here in 9.8? At any rate, the difference

between the accounts of 3.9 and 9.8 suggests that it is one thing to pursue the beautiful,

67. Note that 9.8 actually represents a sort of return to the position of 2.3: "someone who
endures terrifying things and delights in them, or is at any rate not pained by them, is courageous; but
someone who does so while being pained is a coward" (1104b7-8).

68. This is reflected in the widespread difficulties that commentators have with the argument of
9.8. See, for example, Korsgaard's claim that Aristotle's presentation in 3.9 is far "more honest" than
that of 9.8 (222-23). See also Hardie: "a vicious circle may be suspected in this account of the virtuous
motive [in 9.8]. The 'many years' are first made to seem 'humdrum' by contrast with the intensity of the
brief encounter, and self-sacrifice in the encounter is then justified by the 'triviality' of the alternative"
(330).

69. And perhaps here Aristotle is not even speaking of all the courageous but, as Jaffa reads it, is
speaking of those with superhuman virtue in accord with the new beginning made in Bk. 7 (53-54).

70. Burger, "Aristotle's 'Exclusive' Account of Happiness," 85.

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and quite another to regard the beautiful as the absolute good of life, identifying the

kalon and the agathon - and Aristotle leaves us with no clear reason to adopt the latter

over the former.

Furthermore, as Jaffa has argued, it is not wise to simply import a later teaching

of Aristotle onto earlier books, as this renders the tensions of Aristotle's treatment

invisible and thereby obscures important truths that may be manifest through those

tensions. At the very least, as he says, it would seem important to ask why the treatment
71

of the early books has a different emphasis than is provided later. Allowing the

teaching of 9.8 to obscure the presentation of the earlier books is especially unwise if C.

Wesley DeMarco is right that the real truth of Aristotle's dialectic is not simply in the

final result but in the process itself.72 In the section that follows I will attempt to draw

out some of the possible significance of these tensions.

3.3 Why Be Imprecise?

Why would Aristotle present something so fundamental to his ethical thought so

imprecisely? Perhaps we should raise the question as to whether there is something

imprecise about the role of the kalon in everyday ethical life. If so, then Aristotle's

imprecision is perhaps something more akin to a phenomenology of ordinary ethical

experience, a treatment that is structured - at least in certain important respects - from

71. He writes, "Reading an interpretation into one passage, on the basis of a later one, however it
may be justified as showing the relevance of Aristotle's ultimate intention at a preliminary point, does not
disclose his immediate aim in concealing that ultimate intention, or presenting it in an equivocal or
ambiguous form, at the particular preliminary point"' {Thomism and Aristotelianism, 55).

72. DeMarco writes that "the dialectical aspects [of Aristotle's treatment] are the features of
things in their true dimensions" in "Plato's Ghost: Consequences of Aristotelian Dialectic" in The
Crossroads of Norm and Nature: Essays on Aristotle's "Ethics " and "Metaphysics," ed. May Sim
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1995), 151-74, at 158.

95
within the perspective of the ordinary moral agent. Here it might be helpful to recall

Aristotle's opening statement on imprecision:

One would speak adequately if one were to attain the clarity that goes along with

the underlying material [hupokeimenen hulen], for precision should not be sought

in the same way in all kinds of discourse, any more than in things made by the

[various kinds of] craftsmen. The things that are noble [ta kala] and just, about

which politics investigates, involve great disagreement [or: variance] [diaphoran]

and wandering [or: inconsistency] \planen], so that they are thought to belong only

to convention and not to nature.... so one ought to be content, when speaking about

such things and reasoning from such things, to point out the truth roughly and in

outline. (1.3 1094b 11-16, b 19-20)

From the start, then, we know that there will be a fundamental connection between the

nature of the kalon and the imprecision of Aristotle's account throughout the Ethics.

The difficulties of the kalon are, in turn, connected with the disagreement and

inconsistency of the kalon as manifest in what people think and say about it (and thus,

presumably, in how they experience it). In fact, we will see that this opacity of the

kalon in everyday life is aptly reflected by the tensions within Aristotle's treatment.

a. Phenomenology of Moral Experience and Motivation

Commentators lament that Aristotle does not provide a detailed analysis of his

notion of the kalon. But as was discussed above, it is the original experience of the

kalon that is most relevant for everyday moral life, and that is what Aristotle most

wishes to address. Everyday life is familiar with the kalon as the nobility that presents

73. See Leo Strauss, "On Aristotle's Politics" in The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally,
1964), 25-28; and Burger, Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates, 4, for more on this quasi-
phenomenological character of Aristotle*s ethical writing.

96
itself in certain sorts of deeds, and, although it surely has some grasp on the underlying

factors that make for the kalon, it nonetheless never forgets the nobility itself in favor of

these. The kalon is the glow that certain deeds possess, their splendor and moral

beauty. One can speak of this or that ground of the kalon, but one must take care not to

let the beauty or nobility slip away in favor of the grounds themselves. Some

commentators, for example, makes it sound as though "for the sake of the kalon" simply

means "for the sake of the common good," a view which, whether it is right or wrong in

suggesting that the kalon always involves the common good, is certainly wrong in

suggesting that the kalon adds no distinct notion of its own. If these commentators

were correct, one would wonder why Aristotle did not simply speak of the altruism or

rationality of the deed and leave it at that; it would seem as though Aristotle is simply

speaking in some strange code-language, that he just decides to give the name to kalon

to certain features of things. In refusing to provide a detailed analysis of the kalon,

then, Aristotle keeps us focused on that which is most relevant for ordinary moral life,

namely, on the face of things, on the very appearance of the noble.

If the preceding argument relates to the nature of the kalon itself as experienced

in ordinary moral life, then the following relates to the kalon with regard to ordinary

moral motivations, and the aspect under which the kalon is pursued. It seems correct to

say that the ordinary moral agent is very likely not in possession of a fully articulated

account of his moral motivation. If Aristotle is right about the proper motive for

74.1 am thinking in particular of Engberg-Peterson and Irwin (throughout his "Aristotle's

Conception of Morality"). This is criticized by Sarah Broadie at 120n27.

75. This is perhaps also connected to the larger goals of the work; Aristotle tells us from the start
that there is a sense in which the "that'" will be more important for his work than any "why" (1.4 1095bl-
9).

97
courage, then if one were to ask the courageous soldier why he risked his life in battle,

he would say that he did so because it was noble. Importantly, however, if one were

then to press the soldier as to why that nobility matters, or the respect in which it is

relevant, it seems likely that he might well have difficulty in providing an answer that

much clarified matters. If one were to try to help by asking the soldier whether he

pursued that nobility simply as nobility or whether he pursued that nobility with

reference to himself as something good for himself, he might well have difficulty

answering. When Aristotle says that the courageous person (and generally the virtuous

person) acts for the sake of the noble and (for the most part) leaves the matter at that,

we must take seriously the possibility that the lack of clarity of this statement is due

neither to obtuseness on Aristotle's part nor to our historical difficulties in

reconstructing Aristotle's notion of the kalon, but is more significantly a deliberate

reflection of the lack of clarity found in much of our moral motivation.

Pressing this point somewhat further, one might suggest that often enough the

desire for the noble as a good for oneself is merely implicit and needs to be 'parsed out'

in order to be seen. One needs to attend to both sides of this: that it is present, and that

it is only implicitly present. Consider, for example, this passage:

For each person, that of which he is said to be a lover [philotoioutos] is pleasant,

for example, a horse to one who loves horses, a show to one who loves shows; and

in the same way acts of justice are pleasant to one who loves justice and generally

things in accord with virtue to one who loves virtue. (1.8 1099a8-l 1)

Although the focus here is on the connection of virtue (and thus of the kalon - Aristotle

also speaks here of the lover of the kalon, the philokalos, 1099al3) and pleasure, one

76. See Allan's related thoughts in "The fine and the good in the Eudemian Ethics1' at 69-70.

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wonders whether this does not also reveal something of an implicit connection between

the kalon and the good. After all, is it really possible for someone to be a lover of X

without at least implicitly taking X to be something good for oneself, a part of one's

happiness? Love and happiness seem hard to ever fully pry apart; that which is lovable

to a person at least purports to be something necessary for his or her happiness. So

when one is a lover of the justice of which it is said that "neither the dawn's nor the

evening's light is so wondrous" (5.1 1129b29-30), one probably at least implicitly takes

it as something that is part of one's own happiness. But this need not be explicit; the

main theme is simply the beauty of virtue. Applying this to the case of courage that

Aristotle speaks of in Bk. 3, this means that the lover of the noble in war who sacrifices

the greatest goods and chooses a death that forms the limit beyond which there is

nothing good or bad for oneself (3.6 1115a26-27, 3.9 1117b7-15) is nonetheless

perhaps implicitly choosing what he understands to be his own good, even as he

perhaps also understands himself to be giving it up.

Sometimes this self-regarding character can be seen more clearly by looking to

the opposite of the kalon, the aischron, the (morally) ugly or shameful. Interestingly, it

is only with respect to courage that Aristotle speaks of being motivated to act in a

certain way because to do so would be kalon and because not to do so would be

aischron (3.7 1116al 1-12, 3.8 1117al6-17, 3.9 1117b9).77 One common moral

experience (even if it pertains to those not fully perfect in virtue) is that of saying, "I

don't want to be the sort of person who would do something that ugly." Here we see

77. At least one of the reasons this is usually less heavily emphasized is presumably to be found
in Aristotle's claim that "it is more characteristic of virtue...to do kalon things rather than not do aischron
ones" (4.1 1120al4-15). Presumably, it is at least in part due to the great difficulty involved in facing
down the prospect of death that reference to avoiding the ugly or shameful becomes more acceptable
here; one needs all the motivation one can get.

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the self-regarding character: one does not want to stain oneself with moral ugliness.

This suggests that the same self-regarding character is present as well with regard to the

kalon, although in a somewhat more concealed way. The subtlety with which Aristotle

connects the kalon and the good in the early books of the Nicomachean Ethics perhaps

reflects this situation, in which one is pursuing the kalon in a way that is not fully

clarified or in which one is only implicitly pursuing one's good in pursuing the kalon.

b. Common Opinion

If we now look beyond the structure of ordinary moral motivation and instead

focus on what common opinion has to say about the connection of the kalon and the

good in a quite general way, we find another interesting difficulty that Aristotle's

treatment makes manifest. Common opinion seems torn on this point, familiar both

with the idea that nobility has nothing to do with one's own good or even that it is found

when one disregards or sacrifices one's good and also with the idea that the noble itself

constitutes one's own good. We learn of the commitment of common opinion to the

belief that the kalon and agathon are separate and even opposed through the Rhetoric's

popular account. The idea that the noble simply is one's own good is also common

enough, and is found, for example, in the famous statement of Solon in Herodotus'

Histories, namely, that it is a great good for oneself to die in a noble cause and that
7Q

those who do are extremely well-off with regard to happiness (1.30-32).

In this controversy, then, we find just that sort of disagreement [diaphora] that

Aristotle speaks of with regard to the kalon, the difficulty that he tells us will be

reflected in the imprecision of his treatment (1.3 1094b 15-16). Aristotle's way of
78. As is also recognized by W. F. R. Hardie in his Aristotle's Ethical Theory, 330.

79. See also K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle, 70.

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 stressing first the pursuit of eudaimonia and then of the kalon (before returning to

happiness in Bk. 10), leaving the relation of the two so problematic throughout the

- Ethics, is thus perhaps his way of subtly reflecting this difficulty. The early books

present an account of the kalon that leans toward the less self-regarding kalon as found

in the Rhetoric. His account of cases of apparent self-sacrifice in 9.8 constitutes his

clearest formulation of the other trend within common opinion. Indeed, it seems that

Aristotle works hard to accommodate this tension, carefully presenting views which

favor the one or the other strand of ordinary moral thought. This is both a masterful

work of phenomenological articulation of the imprecision of the ordinary moral

perspective and a strong incentive for further philosophical reflection: what exactly is

the relation of the kalon and agathonl

Perhaps even more interestingly, Aristotle shows how these two divergent

opinions can be found at work in the moral life in a surprising conjunction, the one

building off the other. As Lorraine Smith Pangle has argued, Aristotle's presentation of

the noble in 9.8 is fraught with a tension: on the one hand, Aristotle, in line with

common opinion, presents cases of apparent self-sacrifice (e.g., dying for friend and

country, forgoing wealth and honors in favor of a friend) as being the most noble; on

the other hand, also in line with a thread of common opinion, he argues that since such

actions provide the agent with the noble, a good that outweighs all other goods, there is

no actual self-sacrifice. This presents the obvious question: if the self-sacrificing

80. Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship, 175—76.

101
quality of these actions is what makes for their nobility, then is it not in some way

contradictory to say that since they are noble they do not involve self-sacrifice?

Lorraine Smith Pangle has suggested that this problem helps us to see something of the

quandary facing the spoudaios of 9.8: he is inclined to see the noble as both the greatest

good for himself and as involving the greatest self-sacrifice. And indeed, despite the

apparently contradictory nature of these two views, they nonetheless have a sort of

strength that is hard to ignore or do away with. It is this tension of opinions within

ordinary moral life that Aristotle carefully captures and puts before us for further

philosophical reflection.

c. The Dangers of Overreaching for the Noble

If the tensions of Aristotle's treatment show that he does not take the relation

between the kalon and the good for granted, and if for that very reason they stir up

philosophical reflection on the matter, then it would seem that the EN calls for a certain

thoughtful caution with regard to the kalon. Perhaps, then, it would be fruitful to reflect

on Aristotle's reasons for being hesitant to simply identify these two. What might be a

danger of the kalon? One manifest danger is that an excessive love for the kalon will

overshadow one's attention to the sphere of the necessary, and with that, the

advantageous (the sphere of those goods that are not kalon but nonetheless good - e.g.,

81. As Aristotle shows us in the Rhetoric, we tend to hold that most fine are "those things that
are more capable of being present after one is dead than while one is alive, for things present during life
have more about them that is for one's own sake" (1367al-3).

82. Smith Pangle further suggests that Aristotle wants us to see that the kalon needs to be re-
thought, such that it is no longer seen as having a ground in self-sacrifice, and that action is instead to be
deemed noble when we find in it "the rationally chosen act of a strong soul, able to see clearly what is
good, to love friends who are good, to marshal great capacities to benefit those one cares about, and to
pursue one's highest concerns with enlightened, unwavering self-command" (175-76).

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health and, quite generally, the preservation of the conditions for living and thus living

well).

This danger becomes clear late in the Nicomachean Ethics: initially Aristotle

speaks of the pursuit of kalon as the governing telos of political life (the pursuit of

virtue is the end of the political life, and the end of virtue is the kalon [1.5 1095b22^30,

4.1 1120a23-24])83 - but later he reintroduces the demands of necessity and the

advantageous, bringing the political life back down to earth.84 As he tells us in Bk. 10,

the activity of the person involved in politics is unleisured, and political activity

achieves, beyond itself, positions of power and honors and the happiness for

oneself and for citizens that is different from political activity, and which it is clear

that we seek as something different from it.... among actions in accord with the

virtues, those that pertain to politics and war are pre-eminent in beauty and

magnitude, but they are unleisured and aim at some end and are not chosen for their

own sake. (10.7 1177b 12-18)

Aristotle does not expand on these themes with the detail one might hope for, but at

least part of what he seems to be arguing is that politics must deal not just with the

pursuit of noble actions, but also with such necessary things as preserving the city, and

securing the grounds for a certain standard of living for its citizens. This becomes clear

insofar as Aristotle here makes an analogy between political and martial action,

utilizing his immediately prior argument that the martial virtues are not simply desirable

83. He makes this claim even more explicitly at EE 1216a23-27.

84. For other passages in which Aristotle brings his relatively lofty presentation back to
remembrance of necessity and the advantageous, see 5.1 1129bl7—19, 5.5 1132b31-1333a2, 8.9
1160all-14.

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in themselves. Just as war is not desirable for itself but for the sake of its consequences

for the well-being of the city (10.7 1177b6—12), so too does political action find much

of its point in simply securing necessary external goods for the political unit. Thus,

politics must seek, as he says, the happiness that is different from political activity

itself85

There are two points to draw from this: (1) that even in cases where the beautiful

and advantageous coincide, the statesman does not or should not look to the beautiful

alone, but must also be motivated by the advantageous and (2) that there is the

possibility that the beautiful and the advantageous can conflict, in which case the

statesman must use prudence to adjudicate between these conflicting claims, with no

immediate assumption that the claims of the kalon must trump everything else. For

example, Aristotle himself holds that punishment is not simply kalon and has more of

necessity to it (Politics 1332a7-l 8). Too overreaching a concern for the beautiful

could lead one to become unable to perform the sort of punishing that is necessary for

law-based society.

This reading is supported by an interesting passage in the Politics that occurs in

the midst of very concrete and practical advice (e.g., what type of land a city should be

85. My emphasis here on necessity is not meant to deny the important role of honor in this
passage, but only to articulate one aspect of what it seems that Aristotle means by speaking of "the
happiness...that is different from political activity."

86. Similarly, when discussing what is appropriate conduct in various sorts'of relationships,
Aristotle writes, "Or is it no easy matter to determine all such matters precisely? For they contain many
differences of all sorts in magnitude and smallness, of both what is noble and what is necessaty" (9.2
1164b27-30, my emphasis). See also 9.2 1165a2-4, 33, 3.1 1110a4-b9, 5.11 1138a29-b5, 7.4 1148a23-
b2.

87. See also Rhetoric 1366b32-36; Plato's Gorgias 469b, Laws 860b, and Republic 439e^40a
with Ronna Burger's "The Thumotic Soul" in Epoche 7 no. 2 (2003): 151-67, esp. 156.

104
built on, how one should deal with water supply). Aristotle raises the question of

building fortified walls for a city, writing,

As regards walls, those who deny that cities laying claim to virtue should have

them have overly old-fashioned conceptions [lian archaios hupolambanousin] -

especially when they see the cities that have pretensions of that sort refuted by fact.

Possibly it is not a noble [kalon] thing to seek preservation from [attackers who

are] similar and not much greater in numbers by means of walls. But since it

happens - and is [always] possible - that the preeminence of the attackers is greater

than virtue that is [only] human and resident in a few [who make up the city body],

the safest fortification of walls must be supposed to be most what accords with

military expertise, if [the city] is to be preserved and not suffer any ills or be

arrogantly treated, particularly given the inventions of the present [dealing with

sieges]. (1330b32-41)

The point is that there is an 'old guard' that regards the building of walls as something

low, base, ignoble. Better, they think, to put your trust solely in your arms - if you are

defeated, then so be it - you must then deserve to be defeated, and life would not be

worth living on such terms. To hide behind walls - as advantageous as that may be - is

un-becoming for real men [andres]. What Aristotle here reveals is that he is not

willing to countenance the claims of these staunch defenders of the noble. There is a

prudential limit to the extent to which the noble should be pursued. If the noble is given

88. See Z-awA-778d-779b.

105
sole voice in matters of action, that is, is given absolute priority, it will lead to ruin and

thwart the human good, eudaimonia.

This need to be circumspect with regard to the kalon is further confirmed by

Aristotle's treatment in the Rhetoric of the general characteristics that go with different

times of life. In describing the youth, Aristotle begins with commonplace claims:

young men are governed by desires, especially bodily desires and those for sex

(1389a3-6). But as he continues, he adds an interesting new twist: the young also tend

to governed by the kalon: "they prefer to perform kalon deeds rather than advantageous

ones, because they live by character more than by reasoning, and reasoning has to do

with what is advantageous, while virtue has to do with what is kalon" (1389a32-34).

There is something, perhaps, about the spiritedness [thumos] of the youth that leads

them especially to such a love of the noble.91 And as Aristotle says, there is something

about thumos that tends to excess (EN 7.6 1149a25-32). The old are characterized in

the opposite way: "they live with a view to what is advantageous rather than to what is

kalon more so than one should, on account of being lovers of self. For the

advantageous is good for oneself, while the kalon is good simply" (Rhetoric 1389b36-

1390al).

89. We can think of this as Aristotle's word to the common view of the Homeric heroes or the
heroic tradition generally.

90. See Aristotle's claim toward the end of the EN that certain youths have a strong love for the
beautiful and thus the ability to benefit from ethical speeches (10.9 1179b7—10).

91. Note that Aristotle downplays the importance of thumos and thus its possible connection
with the kalon in the Nicomachean Ethics. On this general point, see especially Ronna Burger's
Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates, 149-50. See also Cooper's discussion of the connection of thumos
and the kalon in the EN in his "Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value," 276-80; and similar work by
Eugene Garver in Confronting Aristotle's Ethics: Ancient and Modern Morality (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press), 116-23.

106
 It is only those in the prime of life who, as a group, tend to find the mean

between these excesses, "living with a view not to what is kalon or what is

advantageous alone but to both" (1390a33-bl), weighing the demands of each in the

particular situation and acting accordingly. (This is, perhaps, as satisfactory a general

statement on prudence as can be made.92) That an excessive love for the noble and

beautiful is possible, then, seems clear: it characterizes (at least one strand of) the

immaturity of youth. Could there even be a sort of hubris entailed in the excessive love

for the beautiful, an attempt to rise above the human condition? Aristotle recommends

throwing the poets' cautions about moderation to the wind when it comes to the life of

the mind (10.7 1117b31-34), but he makes no such point with regard to the attempt to

make human political life as beautiful as we might like.

If Aristotle's treatment, then, wanders in its presentation of the noble in its

relation to the good, this should not only be forgiven but even commended as a

reflection of the wandering nature {plane, 1.3 1094M6) of the noble in everyday moral

life. The imprecision of the things themselves is met by an imprecision of the

treatment, and this would be a gain even if it were to do nothing more than make clear

to us a fundamental aporia (impasse) that arises from our ordinary beliefs. As Aristotle

says elsewhere, trying to philosophize without an awareness of the aporiai is like trying

to reach a far-off destination by setting off randomly {Metaphysics 995a33-b2). But in

92. Again, see 9.2 1164b27-30, 1165a2-4, a33.

93. Surely this is something he learned from Plato and the kallipolis of the Republic (527c).
Lorraine Smith Pangle has illumined another aspect of this danger of the kalon: Aristotle speaks of the
spoudaios as "competing [hamillomenon] for the kalon" (9.8 1169a8-9), a formula that reminds us that
there are only so many roles - such as ruler or general - in which to perform the most kalon actions, and
that the unbridled desire to perform noble actions could lead to a problematic competition for these roles
(173). See Stern-Gillet, however, for an attempt to read Aristotle's statement differently (116-18). Note
that Irwin translates the verb hamillaomai here by its less common meaning of "to strive" (and see his
note on p. 296 in "Notes").

107
fact, Aristotle does seem to subtly indicate to us something more than just the aporia;

we see, at the least, the problematic nature of the unqualified zeal for the pursuit of the

kalon, or the danger of simply identifying the noble and the good, even as we are also

shown the crucial and ineliminable role of the noble in ethical and political life.

108
Chapter 4: Prudence

It is notoriously hard to put together a coherent and unified reading of

Aristotelian prudence [phronesis] in the Nicomachean Ethics. If there is anywhere that

Aristotle seems to torment the reader with a sort of systematic imprecision, it is here. It

is perhaps not without reason that Aristotle provides one of his more extensive claims as

to the inevitability of ethical imprecision immediately after raising the issue of right

reason and thus prudence (2.2 1103b31—1104al 1); the two seem to run hand in hand

throughout the EN.'

The thorniest issue in this tangled topic is found in the question as to the relation

of prudence to the ends and means of human action and life. Does prudence in some

way set the ends of the ethical life or is it limited to a more subordinate function? This

problem is reflected by the controversies of the scholarly community on this question.

It was once common to hear it said that Aristotelian prudence deals only with means to

ends and not at all with ends, an interpretation that would seem to have the benefit of

support by several statements of Aristotle claiming exactly that.2 Nonetheless, there

1. See also EN 6.1, where Aristotle, in raising again the issue of right reason, admits that a
certain emptiness or vagueness has haunted the preceding inquiries [alethes men, outhen de saphes,
1138b25-26] and then undertakes to resolve that problem in Bk. 6. It is, however, very much at issue
whether he ever does this. Broadie, however, argues that he does fulfill his pledge when the pledge is
interpreted in the correct manner; see her Ethics with Aristotle, 188-90.

2. We will look at these passages in the EN in what follows. For a representation of the
scholarly position that sees a minimal relation between prudence and ends, see Julius Walter's Die Lehre
von derpraktischen Vernunft in der griechiscen Philosophie (Jena, 1874), esp. 208-12; Rackham,
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics ad 1142b32; John Burnet, The Ethics ofAristotle ad 1142b32 (but see note
48 below); Werner Jaeger, "Aristotle's Use of Medicine as Model of Method in His Ethics" in The
Journal of Hellenic Studies 11 (1957): 54-61, at 59; William Fortenbaugh, "Aristotle's Conception of
Moral Virtue and Its Perceptive Role" in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 95 (1964): 77-87. John McDowell is the best known contemporary adherent of minimalism,
arguing repeatedly that there is no special sense in which intellect discerns the "correct conception of
doing well," and holding that we should look to habituation to provide the only sort of 'foundation' that
exists here. Stated differently, the only rational element of practice is this: ethical virtue as a group of
habituated tendencies of motivation makes use of a concept (viz., of the noble) to make its assessments of
situations, and can then correctly or incorrectly judge any given act as noble or ignoble. Nonetheless, he

109
have been forceful attacks upon that interpretation in the twentieth century, and in fact

this debate has roots that stretch back much further.4 The truth of the matter is that

there is scholarly controversy surrounding such matters not accidentally but because the

text presents difficulties regarding this point.

The question as to the relation of prudence to ethical ends forms an obvious

connection with the previously discussed problem of the kalon in the Nicomachean

Ethics. If the kalon is meant to function as the overarching telos of the ethical virtues

(4.1 1120a23-4), then the question immediately arises as to how and by what such an

end is established. Does prudence direct one to the pursuit of the kalon, and if so, what

account should we give of the way in which it does so? The difficulty seen above as to

the way in which the kalon functions as the overarching ethical end thus becomes a

difficulty as to how the kalon is established as an end in the first place. I will return to

says, Aristotle gives us nothing by which one would judge whether having the noble as one's end (or
having it in such relative priority to other ends) is itself correct or justified. Surprisingly, McDowell does
not seem to think that this opens onto larger questions of the whole of the cosmos and the status of the
kalon within it, nor that this presents any problem for the life of ethical virtue, nor that this has anything
to do with Aristotle's move to theoria in Bk. 10. See his "Deliberation and Moral Development in
Aristotle's Ethics" in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty, eds. Stephen
Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 19-35, as well as his
"Virtue and Reason" in Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. Nancy Sherman (Boulder: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 121-43.

3. See John Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing,
1986), esp. 58-71; Terence Irwin, Aristotle's First Principles (New York: Clarendon Press, 1990), 333-
38, and "Notes," 242, 249; Martha Nussbaum, "Non-Scientific Deliberation" in Fragility of Goodness,
esp. 297; David Wiggins, "Deliberation and Practical Reason" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, 221^40;
Richard Sorabji, "Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, esp. 208-
14; C. D. C. Reeve, Practices of Reason: Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1992), esp. 79-87; Norman Dahl, Practical Reason, Aristotle, and Weakness of the Will (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1984), esp. 35—60; Christine Korsgaard, "From Duty and For the Sake of
the Noble," 214-15. It seems safe to say that the general view of these authors, allowing for their
differences, represents the current majority position. But see note 87 below.

4. In fact, one of the earliest works on the Nicomachean Ethics that we have, Alexander of
Aphrodisias' Ethical Problems (trans. R. W. Sharpies, [Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,
1990]), shows awareness of this problem, although Alexander does nothing to try to solve the impasse.
See problem 22, 142:23-143:8, p. 56; also problem 25, 148:5-151:16, pp. 63-67. We will see how
Aquinas tries to address this below.

110
this question throughout this chapter in attempting to shed light on the tensions inherent

in Aristotelian prudence.

This chapter will have two main parts, first a section in which I try to trace out

some of the problems found in Aristotle's presentation of phronesis throughout the EN,

arguing that these admit of no easy harmonization, and, second, a section in which I try

to explain why there is reason to think that these difficulties are themselves illuminating

of the phenomena under consideration and effective in drawing forth philosophical

reflection. What we especially discover by thinking through these impasses is that

prudence as found in the typical ethical-political agent has an uneasy relation to a

broader wisdom or understanding of the whole; such an agent has as the backdrop for

his prudence an implicit view of the whole which nonetheless does not arrive at the

rigor or loftiness of wisdom.

4.1 Textual Problems

a. The Ergon-argument

Aristotle suggests something of the difficulty of the status of practical reason

very early in the Nicomachean Ethics, through the tension of seemingly conflicting

implications of his ergow-argument. Aristotle is looking, of course, to gain ground in

the development of a helpful notion of human eudaimonia (happiness). He has

proposed to do so by looking for the work [ergon] proper to the human as human, with

the general idea that a good (and thus happy) x is an x that does its work well. After

5. For a sense of both the difficulty and dangerousness of deliberation about ends, one need only
look to Homer's Iliad and the politically dangerous and utterly impotent attempt by Achilles to deliberate
about ends (see Bk. 9, esp. 307-429). This must be taken as a sort of locus classicus and would surely
inform Aristotle's treatment of the matter.

Ill
eliminating the activities of nutrition and perception as shared with other species, he

writes,

So there remains a certain life of action [praktike tis] of that in us that has reason;

of this, one [part] [is of this sort] as obeying reason, the other as itself having

reason and thinking. And since this is meant in two ways, one must set it down as

that in accord with activity [kat' energeian], since this seems to be the more

governing meaning.. .[and] the work of a human being is an activity of the soul in

accord with reason, or not without reason [kata logon e me aneu logon]. (1.7

1098a3-8)

As Aristotle makes clear at the end of Bk. 1, the part that has reason as obeying reason

is the desiring part of the soul (1.13 1102b29-l 103a4).6 Ethical virtue is an active

condition [hexis] of this desiring part of the soul. This, then, means that ethical virtue

is established as worthwhile on the basis of its status as a form of rational activity, more

precisely, as a form of that rationality that obeys reason as a child does a father (1.13

1102b31-1103a4).9

There are several reasons at this point to think that practical rationality would

have something to do with ends. First, if ethical virtue is to receive a full justification,

6. As he also makes clear there, there is something imprecise about speaking of "parts" - this
seems to go too far in distinguishing or reifying such aspects of the soul (1.13 1102al9-32). This is the
sort of imprecision that it generated, at least on one level, through the need to stay on track with the
ethical inquiry rather than diverge into other disciplines. In On the Soul, he speaks strongly against the
notion of parts (see esp. 432al9-b7). I will return to this in part 2 below.

7. In the sense of habitus, a way of holding oneself. Both hexis and habitus are derived from
verbs of holding. Contemporary usage of the term habit has wandered very far from this sense and has
thus become inappropriate as a translation.

8. Aristotle makes this explicit in the EE (1220a8-l 1); and it is the unstated but nonetheless
obvious conclusion of what he does say at the end of Bk. 1 of the EN.

9. Note that there are apparently two levels of obedience: the sort of obedience that characterizes
the continent and the sort that characterizes the virtuous (1.13 1102b25-28).

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then it must be rational in the strong sense, that is, as pursuing ends set by reason. After

all, to be rational merely in one's choice of means to ends would be a rather minimal

sort of rationality (even when "means" is understood in a very broad sense). Second,

Aristotle's notion of the "obedience" of ethical virtue to reason gives us no grounds to

see practical reason solely in terms of means but actually points toward a broader

conception of it: obedience can generally be had with regard to ends as well as means

and in fact tends to point toward this. Third, when Aristotle makes this notion of

obedience more concrete by comparing obedience to reason to the obedience of child to

father, this would again seem to point to the idea that practical reason directs ethical

virtue in both ends and means, just as a father is in authority over both for his children.

In what way, then, does the desiring part of the soul obey reason? That is to say,

what is the distinctly rational dictate that desire here follows?1' Aristotle leaves this

vague for the moment, and although he will later provide some suggestions, these never

fully leave such vagueness behind. For the moment, though, it might prove helpful to

think about how this un-argued for, quickly stated connection between reason and

ethical virtue might have sounded to the ears of his Greek audience. It seems very

likely that his claim here would have strong resonances with the tradition of the

tragedians, for whom ethical virtue (which consists in large part, of course, in

moderation, sophrosune) seems to be rational primarily insofar as it preserves certain

10. The importance of ends for obedience can be seen in the fact that Hume, in denying any
power over ends to reason, expresses this by calling reason the "slave of the passions" (Treatise on
Human Nature, Bk. 2, sec. 3).

11.1 should note that here and throughout my treatment, I will speak of reason in the broad sense
now common that abstracts from the Medieval distinction between intellectus and ratio as an attempt to
express the difference between nous and logos respectively. In fact, even Aquinas blurs this
terminological distinction at times. Nonetheless, the fundamental difference between nous and logos will
not be lost sight of and will become quite important.

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extra-ethical goods. The rationality of moderation can be seen in a very simple way: if

you engage in acts of hubris, you will be destroyed. Sophrosune is thus rational as a

means to the end of preserving life or a life that is at least relatively choiceworthy in

extra-moral respects. We already saw this in Euripides' Bacchae: Pentheus is derided

as senseless time and time again because of the futility of his grandiose attempt to

oppose a god.

In other words, there is a certain way in which it would be easy to see the

rationality of practical reason in its relation to ethical virtue. Its rationality is readily

apparent when ethical virtue is taken as securing and preserving important extra-ethical

goods of the individual (as moderation in matters of the body can preserve one's health

or provide a condition for philosophizing) or of the polis (in the way that justice

paradigmatically secures the order and stability of the city). Indeed, Aristotle flirts with

this idea at times throughout the Nicomachean Ethics, perhaps most strongly when he

suggests that one of the questions that right reason [orthos logos] asks of an action to

see if it is moderate is whether it is in accord with health (3.11 1119al6-20). He

returns to this theme in the discussion of the social virtues, which, Aristotle tells us, are

not simply for the sake the kalon, but also for the sake of the advantageous and

necessary. The connection between the virtues and extra-ethical goods is also present

at times in his discussions of justice, when he claims, for example, that "in one sense,

we speak of the things that produce and preserve happiness or its parts in the political

community as just" (5.1 1129bl 7—19) or that "in associations that involve exchange,

what is just.. .holds them together.... for a city stays together by paying things back

12. Sociability itself is tied to the advantageous as well as the kalon (4.6 1126b28-31, 1127a2-
5), and charm is tied to relaxation and thus necessity as well as to the kalon (4.8 1128b3-4).

114
proportionately" (5.5 1132b31-33).13 Finally, this connection returns with force in Bk.

10, when Aristotle links the virtues closely with necessary concerns (10.8 1178alO-13,

10.7 1177b6-26). In all these cases, Aristotle comes close to saying that ethical virtue

is rational as a necessary means to extra-ethical ends that someone would lack only if

mad.

It thus seems plausible that in speaking of the rationality of desire found in

ethical virtue in 1.13 Aristotle is employing resonances of the tradition of the tragedians

and with it common opinion to support or at least provide an entryway into his own

distinctive way of approaching the matter.' That Aristotle does not simply remain with

this, however, is clear from the stress that we have seen him place upon the kalon

throughout his treatment of ethical virtue: the kalon is the definitive end of ethical

action. This move makes the rational status of ethical action much more difficult - for

how does one determine whether the kalon is a distinctly rational end?

For the moment, however, I wish to hold off pursuing that question. The fact

that Aristotle occasionally ties ethical virtue to motives more of the advantageous than

of the kalon forces us to ask whether he contradicts anything of the overall structure or

argument of the Nicomachean Ethics in so doing. If the ergon-argument has an

architectonic role for the EN, then this question can be made more concrete by asking

13. See also EN 8.9 1160al 1-14: "the political community seems to gather together from the
beginning, and to remain together, for the sake of what is advantageous. The lawmakers aim at this, and
people call the common advantage just."

14. This is to make two claims: (1) anun-argued for claim as to the rationality of ethical virtue
will tend to be assimilated to the common understanding of the relation of the two and (2) that Aristotle,
as someone interested enough in rhetoric to write the Rhetoric, would know that it would be taken in this
way. This is also supported by the fact that he connects right reason directly to sdphrosune (which is,
however, of much narrower scope here than in the tragedians) much more often than he does with the
other virtues (see 3.11 1119al6-20, 3.12 1119b3-18, 7.9 1151b34-l 152a6). There is also some
suggestion that sdphrosune may be the highest of the ethical virtues in this respect; at any rate, Aristotle
writes that the violation of sdphrosune, as centering upon delights of the most animalistic sense powers,
is most strongly against reason and thus is "justly the most reproached vice" (3.10 1118b2 3).

115
whether there is anything in that argument that would favor intrinsic ethical motivations

(i.e., choosing ethical virtue for its own sake, 2.4 1105a32) over extrinsic ethical

motivations (ethical virtue as advantageous toward the sort of extra-ethical goods that

have a structural role in the life of an individual and the community). And when one

asks this question, it seems clear that the ergon-argument is quite indifferent to the

distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. That is to say, even if we

assume for the moment that it is wholly unproblematic for Aristotle that the kalon is a

distinctly rational end, it would nonetheless seem rational to pursue ethical virtue for the

sake of extrinsic consequences such as health of body, tranquility of soul, freedom from

punishment, stability of the city, et cetera, as well as for the intrinsic end of the kalon.

This complicates the rational status of ethical virtue and, thus, of prudence.

Why does prudence for so much of the EN seem to be limited to the pursuit of the kalon

alone?1 Is this a distinctly rational limitation? Can prudence adopt other ends?

What does it mean for prudence to reason from an end in the first place? Can it

contribute in any way to establishing its end(s)? At this early point in his inquiry,

Aristotle leaves all of this unclear. In fact, these questions haunt the Nicomachean

Ethics, becoming centrally prominent in the puzzles of Bk. 6.

Sticking with the ergon-argument for a moment longer, it is important to notice

the puzzling qualification that Aristotle provides along the way; after making a rather

15. For example, in Bk.6 Aristotle says that prudence pursues eupraxia and the good attainable
in actions (6.5 1140b6-7, 6.7 1141bl2-14). We will consider this further below.

16. This would, of course, raise the problem of possible conflicts of ends. John McDowell
argues that prudence does not have any end other than the noble in his "Deliberation and Moral
Development," 30—31. Nonetheless, additional evidence for the fact that prudence has some ability to
relate to other ends is suggested by 3.1 1110a4-b9, 5.11 1138a28-b5, 9.2 1164b27-30, 10.7 1177b6-26,
10.8 1178a9-14. See sec. I.e. below.

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strong and bold claim that the only truly human activity is activity in accord with

reason, he softens this claim to an amazing degree: the proper work of a human is

either activity in accord with reason or at least not without it! Why is there the need for

such a strong qualification? Is he suggesting that to have reason in the sense of

obedience to reason is such a minimal form of rationality that it might be more

appropriate to say that such a thing is not wholly without reason than to say that it is

genuinely in accord with it?19 If so, then perhaps we should not expect practical

rationality to set ends - this would then seem to be too rational to fit something that is

merely "not without reason." In these ways Aristotle clues us in from the start through

subtle ambiguities that there is something muddy about phronesis and that further

reflection will be needed.

b. Archai

Aristotle's statements on the role of archai20 in ethical matters also suggests

early on that there will be difficulty regarding the role of the intellect in the ethical

sphere. He writes,

17. To see how strong it is, note that Aristotle himself later says that "non-rational feelings
[aloga pathe] [viz., those of spiritedness (thumos) and bodily desire (epithumia)] seem to be no less
human than reasoning is" (3.1 111 lbl).

18. This qualification is echoed later in Bk. 1: in the ergow-argument itself Aristotle states
without qualification that the part of the soul having reason is two-fold (1.7 1098a5-7), but later writes,
"If one ought to say that this [desiring] part of the soul has reason, then having reason will also be two-
fold" (1.13 1103al-2, emphasis added).

19. Whereas this passage gives us the distinction between being in accord with [kata] reason and
not being without it, Aristotle later gives us the distinction between the state that is in accord with right
reason and that which internally involves right reason [he meta ton orthou logou hexis] (6.13 1144b26—
27).

20. There are two distinct but related senses of arche that become important to Aristotle's
discussion. The 'low' sense of arche is that of beginning or starting-point, in the way that common
opinion or the "first for us" is an arche for further reflection. The 'high' sense of arche is that of
principle or source, as that which provides for the intelligibility of what follows upon it, and which does
not rest on anything further behind it, and thus cannot be further explained.

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 91

[1 ] Perhaps, then, we, at any rate, ought to begin from the things that are known

to us. This is why one who is going to listen adequately to discourse about things

that are kalon and just, and generally about things that pertain to political matters,

needs to have been brought up finely in habituation. For the arche is the that

[hoti], and if this is sufficiently clear, there is no additional need for the why [dioti].

And such a person [i.e., the one brought up well] either has or easily gets hold of

the archas. If one neither has them nor has it in him to get hold of them, let him

harken to Hesiod: "Best of all is the one who himself thinks out all things, while he

too is worthy who is persuaded by one who speaks well, but he who neither

discerns, nor, harkening to another, lays to heart what he says, that one for his part

is a useless man." (1.4 1095b3-13)

Here the arche is linked with the that and separated from the why. This, together with

the fact that Aristotle is elaborating on the role of the "first for us," makes it clear that

arche here has the sense not of source or principle but of beginning or starting-point.

What, then, is the that? It would seem to consist in a sort of acquaintance with the

kalon and the just as these are found in common ethical and political experience. If one

is to be a good student of political lectures, then one must have a root familiarity with

the kalon and the just. That this is the meaning of the that here is supported by the fact

that in 10.9 Aristotle speaks of those who, not having had habituation in the kalon, lack

even a notion [ennoian] of it (10.9 1179bl3—16). One needs this root familiarity if one

is to understand the fundamental elements of political affairs. Interestingly, Aristotle

21. For the sake of clarity throughout sec. 1 .b., I will number passages and refer to them by
number.

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denies that the student of politics needs the why. The meaning of this claim is

something we will return to toward the end of this chapter.

The above passage must then be considered together with its sister-passage that

follows soon after in Bk. 1:

[2] And one ought not to demand a cause (or: explanation) [aitian] in all things

alike, either, but it is sufficient in some cases for the that [to hoti] to be shown

finely [deichthenai kalos], and so it is with such things as concern archas; the that

is first [proton] and an arche. And of archai, some are beheld [theorountai] by

way of induction [epagogei], others by perception, others by a certain habituation

[ethismoi tini], and others in other ways. So one must try to go after each of them

by the means that belong to its nature, and be serious about distinguishing them

finely, for this holds great weight for what follows. For it seems that the beginning

[arche] is more than half of the whole and many of the things inquired after

become illuminated through it (1.7 1098a33-b8)

Passage [2] presents us with an interpretive difficulty. Here we see the same linkage of

arche and the that, as well as a return to the connection between habituation and the

arche, which would seem to show that Aristotle is returning to the same thought he was

exploring in passage [1]. But a closer look renders this problematic: is Aristotle here

speaking, as above in [1], of cases in which one does not for whatever reason need a

dioti that is nonetheless possible, or of cases in which a further explanation [aition] is

22. John McDowell proposes two options for interpreting the why: the why can either be a pre-
moral sort of principle that would justify ethics from a pre-ethical ground or, as McDowell thinks is the
case, is instead a sort of deepening of one's grasp upon the that (in a coherentist vein): "moving beyond
the 'that' to the 'because' is moving from unreflective satisfaction with piecemeal applications of the
outlook to a concern with how they hang together, so that intelligibility accrues to the parts from their
linkage to the whole" ("Deliberation and Moral Development," 31).

119
simply not possible, because one has reached the source or principle of the matter,

beyond which there is nothing further to explain? In certain ways passage [2] seems to

echo the many passages in his corpus in which he speaks of arche in the strict sense as

the fundamental source. This is perhaps most strongly suggested by his reference to

the way in which induction leads to archai, this being the standard way in which the

principles of the theoretical sciences are reached. It is also supported by his speaking

of the that as proton [first], which here sounds as though he means first in the order of

things."

If we were to follow this interpretive route, both arche and the hoti here in [2]

would have a quite different sense than that of passage [1]. Arche would here mean

source, not beginning, and the hoti would not be merely the first for us, but the

fundamental facts that govern everything else. Presumably the arche in question would

then concern the kalon, insofar as Aristotle elsewhere says that the end of an action is

the arche of the action (6.5 1140bl6-17), and says that the kalon is the end of ethical

virtue (4.1 1120a23-24). The arche would seem to be something like this: that the

kalon is worth pursuing even at the cost of other goods. In other words, here the arche

would not be the starting-point of an acquaintance with the kalon, as it was before in

23. See, e.g., Topics 100a30-b21, Posterior Analytics 71b20-33, 76al7-36. Most translators
generally render arche here in the stronger sense, by something like principle.

24. See EN 6.3 1139b27-31, Posterior Analytics Bk. 2, ch. 19.

25. See Posterior Analytics 72a7. Thomas Aquinas takes the two passages to be making the
same basic point, but he understands arche as principle in both (Commentary, sees. 51-54 [pp. 17-18],
sees. 137-38 [p. 46]). The example that he provides, however, is a surprising one: sensual desires are
reduced in force if one holds out against them or fasts. It is hard to see in what sense this is an ethical
principle in the strong sense of the word. There is certainly nothing there that would provide any ultimate
foundation of ethics.

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[1], but the source of action as knowledge that the kalon is a genuine end for human

life.

But such a reading is, as Aristotle would say, ex hupotheseos (on the basis of a

presupposition). Which interpretation should we adopt? This question leads to a

related problem centered on the issue of habituation. Aristotle had just recently

connected habit and the archai in passage [1], claiming that fine habituation provides

the "first for us" starting-points [archai] for even listening to political discourses. Now

in [2] we again find him speaking of the need for habituation to grasp the archai. Does

[2] then mean to repeat the previous point or to make a stronger point? The possibility

for a stronger claim comes out not only in the general sense that archai might hold its

stricter meaning here but also in Aristotle's talk of beholding [from the verb theoreo]

the archai. Does reference to such "beholding" suggest something that transcends

habit? In other words, does the habituation bring one to a place from which one can see

something (i.e., the genuine sources or principles of the practical life) in a purely
77

rational manner or does the beholding really just remain within the habituation itself,

as the sort of outlook of the habituation? This is not fully clear from what we see here,

but we can at least say this: it would be bizarre for Aristotle to introduce such an

important doctrine in a way that sounds so much like the weaker claim he has just made

in [1] regarding the connection between habituation and archai, that is, to introduce it

with nothing more to signal the reader.

26. It should be noted that there is ambiguity even with respect to this word. The general and
usual sense is of vision, which is then easily extended to intellectual vision - contemplation. But in some
cases the word can have a sense closer to "study." See, for example, 6.2 1139a6-8.

27. This is suggested by Irwin in "Some Rational Aspects of Incontinence," Southern Journal of
Philosophy 27 (1988): S49-S88. He writes, "Non-cognitive training [i.e., habituation] is
necessary... because we need some non-cognitive preparation if we are to be able to listen carefully and
without distortion or distraction to what practical reason tells us" (83).

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 Furthermore, Aristotle's expansion of the possession of the archai beyond

induction to include perception and especially habituation is somewhat unusual in his

corpus. This anomaly suggests that he may employ in passage [2], or at least in the

second part of this passage (from b3 on), a generic sense of arche that is indifferent to

the distinction between starting-point and source. In addition, one should also note

that at the end of passage [2], in playing off both a Greek proverb (that the beginning is

half of the whole) and a line from Hesiod (the half is more than the whole ), he returns

to the use of arche as beginning. Thus we find that Aristotle clearly shifts around to

different senses of arche in at least one way within this one passage.

In fact, if we look back to passage [1] we see that Aristotle makes a similar

switch in the meaning of the arche there as well. Prior to that passage, he writes,

Let it not escape our notice that arguments from first principles [ton archon] differ

from those that go up toward first principles [tas archas]. For Plato rightly raised

this question, and used to inquire whether the road is from first principles or up to

them.... one must begin from what is known, but this has two senses, the things

known to us and the things that are known simply. Perhaps then we, at any rate,

ought to begin from the things that are known to us. (1.4 1095a30-b4)

It is clear from the sort of claim he is making and from the reference to Plato that archai

here has the sense of first principles. But Aristotle then goes on, as we saw, to speak of

28. In the standard version given in the Posterior Analytics, perception is not a direct source of
the arche but rather a source of induction (Bk. 2, ch. 19). See also Physics 184al9-26. On this issue,
however, see Burnet, The Ethics of Aristotle, xxxvii.

29. Although Irwin favors the reading according to which arche in passage [2] means principle
rather than starting-point, his hesitancy is shown in the fact that he deems his translation of the passage to
follow an "assumption," and he suggests that it is possible that here the meaning of arche becomes
generic as Aristotle proceeds ("Notes," 186).

30. Works and Days, 40: pleon hemisu pantos,

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the need for habituation as providing those "first for us" starting-points - with archai

now referring to this "first for us" rather than to the theoretically grounding principles

(the "first in itself). In the short space of passage [1], then, Aristotle has switched from

the one meaning of archai to its opposite without much notice. It is plausible, then, that

he does something like this in passage [2] as well.

A further point: if Aristotle is speaking in passage [2] of a beholding of the first

principles of the practical life, then why has he just denied in passage [1] that this is

relevant for the student of politics? Surely that would be a strange and contradictory

move. This must incline us to the belief that Aristotle begins passage [2] with the

notion of arche as source and then moves to a more generic notion of arche as he

proceeds in the passage before finally reaching the sense of sheer beginning at the end

of the passage. Nonetheless, this is obviously not as definitive as one would like, and

perhaps the most important point is precisely that Aristotle does not make it very clear

how passage [2] relates to [1], or the sense of arche that he is employing at any given

moment. This allows for him to preserve ambiguity as to whether the ordinary decent

man has a relatively lofty intellectual insight into certain ethical first principles or

whether he has a simply habituated acquaintance with the kalon and a habituated desire
• 31

to pursue it.

31. Bk. 3 contains an allusion to this theme; in the context of a discussion of responsibility,
Aristotle writes, "By being people of a certain sort, we set down the end as being of a certain sort" (3.5
1114b24-25). Insofar as Aristotle is not here attempting to provide a focused statement as to the
contribution that the non-rational part of the soul as opposed to intelligence makes to the having of ends,
it is perhaps dangerous to take this passage too precisely. Nonetheless, it does at least show that the
involvement of character (and thus virtue and vice) is on Aristotle's mind as contributing importantly to
the perception of ends.

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c. Desire and Thought in EN 6.2

Aristotle works out the theme of practical intelligence most fully, of course, in

Bk. 6. A good place to begin is with his work in 6.2 to trace out the psychology of

desire and thought as involved in action. He writes,

what affirming and denying are in thinking [dianoiai] pursuing and avoiding are in

desiring, so that, since virtue of character is a hexis of the soul in regard to choice,

while choice is deliberate desire, for these reasons the logos must be true and the

desire [orexin] right if the choice is of serious worth, and what the one affirms, the

other pursues. Now this is the sort of thinking and truth that is practical; in

thinking that is contemplative, and not practical or productive, its working well or

badly [to eu kai kakos] are in truth and falsity, since this is the work of all thinking,

but of practical thinking, working well is truth that stands in agreement [homologos

echousa] with right desire. (1139a21-31)

This passage presents an important tension. The idea found in the first sentence that

desire pursues what logos affirms makes it sound as though both logos and desire relate

to the same thing, which would then seem to be the action itself taken under the aspect

of its end. Here we seem to have a relative equality of reason and desire, with any

possible priority going to reason. But in what immediately follows, Aristotle seems to

complicate and even question his initial claim: in practical matters, reason does well

when it works in agreement with right desire. The standard, then, for practical reason is

not reason itself, but is found in desire; practical reason must conform itself to right

32. This, however, will be questioned below in the idea that ethical virtue, which belongs to
desire, relates to the end, while prudence relates to the things related to the end.

33. See Dahl, Practical Reason, 38-39.

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desire. This must come as a surprise after we had become accustomed to the idea that

the desiring part obeys reason like child to father. This then demands the obvious

question: what is the standard of the lightness of the desire?35 Is this governed by a

higher sort of rationality? Or does desire in some way provide its own standard?36 We

will see this same question arise time and again for Aristotle, and time and again he

provides only ambiguous answers that stand in tension with one another.

d. Virtue Makes the End Right?

One of the most important and controversial claims that Aristotle makes relevant

to this topic as a whole is that it is virtue, not prudence, that makes the end(s) right.

What he writes is this: "the work of a human being is accomplished as a result of

phronesis and of virtue of character, since virtue makes the goal [skopon] right, and

34. This may simply be a formulation of what he says later, namely, that practical reasoning
must work from good ends if it is to be good (6.9 1142b 17-22, 6.12 1144a24-34). At any rate, it would
seem to mean that when Aristotle goes on to make the claim that choice is either desiring intellect or
thinking desire (6.2 1139b4-5), we already know that the latter is the truer formulation, at least when it
comes to praxis.

35. It is in commenting on this passage that Thomas Aquinas calls attention to the difficulty in
the EN of the relation of reason and desire and thus of the relation of reason to ends. He notes an
apparent vicious circle at work here, insofar as it seems that the standard of right desire is right reason,
and the standard of right reason is right desire. His proposed solution seems to run as follows: since the
ultimate goal in practical matters is the fulfillment of desire in happiness, this acts as the (naturally given)
standard for reason; that is to say, for desire to hit upon happiness is the mark of truth in practical
thinking, missing it is the mark of error. Nonetheless, reason must itself determine what the "means" (in
the broad sense in which we would speak of constitutive intermediate ends) to happiness are. In this
sense, reason acts as the standard to desire; desire, to be right, must pursue what reason orders. From
here, right desire again acts as a standard for reason, insofar as prudence must fittingly realize the desire
for the end in the particular circumstances. There is thus a high and low form of prudence, the high form
determining the ends constitutive of happiness, the low form determining the way to best realize the end
in the particular deed (Commentary on Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics," sec. 1131 [p. 360], sec. 1269
[p. 399]). This is certainly one possible reading of Aristotle, but it is surely important that this is not
clearer from the text. As we proceed, we will see to what extent there is evidence for this high form of
prudence. It should be noted that this interpretation has proven extremely influential: Irwin, for example,
suggests something quite like it in distinguishing "the deliberation that forms the correct supposition
about the end" from "the deliberation that follows it" ("Notes," 249). On Aquinas' reading of Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics quite generally, see Harry Jaffa's Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the
Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the "Nicomachean Ethics".

36. Analogous to the way in which the serious are the standard in moral matters (see 3.4
1113a25-bl, 10.5 1176al5-26).

125
phronesis makes the things toward it (or: related to it) [tapros touton] right" (6.12

1144a6-9). As he puts it elsewhere, "choice will not be right without phronesis or

virtue, since the latter makes one bring the end into action [to telos...poieiprattein], and

the former makes one enact the things related to the end" (6.13 1145a4-6). He makes a

similar claim in Bk. 7 when he writes that

virtue keeps the source [arche] [of action] safe, while vice destroys it, and in

actions the arche is that for the sake of which one acts, just as in mathematics the

sources are hypotheses; so neither there nor here is logos able to teach the sources,

but here it is virtue, either natural or habituated, that directs one to right opinion

[orthodoxein] about the source. (7.8 1151 al 5-19)

These statements must be interpreted in a very careful manner. First, we must try to

determine what sort of end and source (as he says, in practical matters, the source is the

end, 6.5 1140b 16™17) is at issue in these passages. It seems that the end preeminently

37. At 6.12 1144a20-22 Aristotle seems to repeat this claim, writing that "virtue makes the
choice right, but the being done of everything that is naturally for the sake of that choice is not from
virtue but from some other capacity [dunameos].'" This capacity, as he goes on to say, is that of
cleverness, and he seems to go on to say that the virtue of this capacity is prudence. Irwin, however,
thinks it more likely that "virtue" in this passage now includes both ethical virtue and phronesis, which
are both needed to make the choice right (see 6.13 1145a4-6), understanding cleverness to be a quite
distinct although related and helpful faculty ("Notes," 253). I would note, however, a few problems with
this reading: such a usage of the term virtue would be out of character for Aristotle in this part of the EN;
Aristotle has just connected choice with the "for the sake of which" (6.12 1144a 19-20), seeming to show
that here the rightness of choice is focused on Tightness of end; this view rests much on the distinction
between rightness of goal and rightness of choice, yet in this very passage Aristotle switches from
speaking of rightness of choice to fineness of goal as though here they were relatively interchangeable
(a26); such a reading does not seem to fit Aristotle's immediately following discussion as to the relation
of prudence to cleverness, which, as I say, seems to say that prudence is the virtue of cleverness, i.e.,
prudence is cleverness when it begins from the right starting-points in its practical reasoning; this reading
would seem to render the discussion of cleverness an inexplicable aside, irrelevant for the contextual
investigation of the need for phronesis. At any rate, it does not hold much significance whether Aristotle
repeats his claim here or not, but the underlying understanding of cleverness is important. One might add
that Aristotle's statement that "there are two forms present in the part of the soul that forms opinions,
cleverness and prudence" (6.13 1144b 14-15) seems to give more importance to cleverness than Irwin's
reading can accommodate (that is, Irwin would seem to reduce cleverness to something auxiliary, along
the lines of something like sunesis, but Aristotle here lists cleverness and prudence as though they of
relatively equal status). For a view on cleverness that differs from Irwin, see Reeve, Practices of Reason,
85.

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under consideration must be the end of the kalon, insofar as that is the definitive end of

ethical virtue. If the arche of action is the end of the action, and Aristotle is here

speaking in a manifestly ethical context and has mentioned only one comprehensive end

for ethical action, namely, the kalon, then it seems safe to conclude that the arche here

is that of the kalon. Only derivatively would the end in question be something like

"be magnificent" and even more derivatively would it be something like "do not be

vulgar in equipping theater performances." The question is thus one as to the source of

the guiding motive for all ethical virtue: the kalon. What is it that makes it such that

one has the desire for the kalorf! Is it a matter of reason, or does virtue itself provide

the only source of the virtuous end? We will return to this in a moment.

Second, we must consider the description that Aristotle provides for phronesis

as attending to tapros to telos, the things toward (or: related to) the end (6.12 1144a8-

9). It was once common to translate this by "means," but, as has been argued by many

scholars, this phrase in Greek conveys a broader notion and should thus be translated

with the looser, literal formula. Extrinsic means are one of the things that are tapros

to telos, but they do not exhaust this category. Also included would be certain

specifications of the end itself. Deliberation, then, these scholars argue, is in fact

involved in the end, insofar as it has to deliberate about and ultimately discern what it is

38. Or, if one wants to make the telos happiness, one would nonetheless need to make it a
happiness that is conceived of primarily in terms of the kalon. When, for example, Aristotle says at 6.5
1140b 19-20 that vice makes it so that one does not believe that everything must be done for the sake of
the end, the end in question cannot be happiness, which, for Aristotle, everyone does everything for (see,
e.g., 1.7 1097bl-3), but rather the kalon, or happiness taken in terms of the kalon.

39. See Wiggins, "Deliberation and Practical Reason," 221-40; Cooper, Reason and Human
Good, 19-22; Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, 297'.

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that the end concretely looks like or consists in. This is, at least as these scholars

claim, especially the case with the overarching end of eudaimonia (see 6.5, discussed

below), but is also the case with subordinate ends such as the kalon or justice: phronesis

allows one to be right about what it is that realizing the kalon looks like here in this

particular case. Indeed, this idea would seem to be nothing other than what is also

expressed by saying that prudence as orthos logos must determine the mean (see, e.g.,

6.13 1144b27-28 with 6.1 1138bl 8-26); for that is to say that prudence must determine

what, e.g., courage here and now looks like. Nonetheless, caution is needed here when

establishing a sort of connection between phronesis and ends: this phrase cannot be so

broadened in meaning that Aristotle's contrast in the passages we have seen between

making the end right and making tapros to telos right becomes meaningless. A

distinction that is often minimized in the commentaries would be helpful here: only if

the telos of tapros to telos is happiness taken as something yet indeterminate is there

the possibility that ta pros can have to do with ends as ends. With any other end,

insofar as that end is already determinate, ta pros cannot deal with an end in its

choiceworthiness as end, but only with such things as specifications of the end, external

means to the end, et cetera. And it is clear that in the passages under discussion here

from Bks. 6 and 7 the telos of ta pros to telos is not happiness taken as something yet

indeterminate; the whole point here is that the understanding of the end is right, and

40. In the Politics, Aristotle speaks of the need to know what it is that an end consists in or
'looks like' (although he does not put it in terms of deliberation, as many commentators rashly assert): the
doctor has to know not just how to bring about health, but also what health is (= consists in) in the first
place (1331b24-39). See also Metaphysics 1032bl8-29. In the EN, he also uses the example of the
doctor but abstracts from the way in which the doctor must come to know what health is (e.g., 3.3
1112bll-15).

41. Thus this contrast can never be applied to the relation of prudence and happiness; if indeed,
prudence gets right the parts of happiness, this would be precisely to get the end right. It can only be
meaningfully applied to subordinate ends, such as that of the kalon or justice.

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thus determinate. Thus ta pros to telos here does not include anything about an end in

its choiceworthiness as an end; it is simply about things such as the realization of the

kalon as an end here and now. This, however, leaves open the possibility that prudence

as dealing with tapros to telos is able to establish the kalon a step further back, when

dealing with the telos of happiness taken as indeterminate. We will return to this below.

At any rate, it must be kept in mind that there are quite distinct modes of

intellectual activity for Aristotle. There is, on the one hand, the direct vision of nous,

and, on the other hand, the discursive working-through of demonstration and dialectic in

logos42 In 7.8 1151al5-19, as we saw, Aristotle compares the arche of practice with

the arche of mathematics and denies of them both that logos provides the sources.43 For

the sources of mathematics not to be arrived at via logos, however, simply means that

they have to be arrived at by nous. Thus, when Aristotle denies that the ends have to

do with logos, it seems that he is primarily denying the idea that we might deduce the

ends, that we might arrive at them as the result of syllogistic reasoning (in the broad

sense of that term).45 To make this same point with a focus on phronesis: phronesis is

42. EN 6.6 1140b31-1141a8;6.3 1139M4-36: Topics 100a21-b23.

43. He makes a similar claim at EE 1227a5-13, although there he more broadly compares the
principles of the theoretical sciences and practical principles.

44. See EN 6.8 1142al8,a25-9, EE \227b28-33, Metaphysics 1061a28-bll. See also H. D. P.

Lee's "Geometrical Method and Aristotle's Account of First Principles" in The Classical Quarterly 29
(1935): 113-24.

45. This interpretation is possibly strengthened by a passage in the EE where Aristotle says that
of the goal [skopori] "there is no inference [sullogismos] or logos" (1227b24-25). Is the denial of the role
of logos here meant to substantively add to the denial of the role of sullogismos or merely repeat it? I
would incline toward the latter. Note, however, that there is a passage in the EN where Aristotle seems to
link logos and the end of the kalon: he writes, "Just as a child needs to live by the instructions of a tutor,
so too is the desiring part of the soul related to logos. This is why the desiring part of a temperate man
needs to be in harmony with logos, for the aim to which both look is the kalon, and the temperate man
desires what he should, in the way he should, at the time he should, and this is what logos also prescribes"
(3.12 1119bl3—18). It is difficult here to know what the "both" refers to here, but it would seem to refer
to the logos and the desiring part of the temperate. This, however, likely means only that the logos of the

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standardly connected by Aristotle with deliberation, which is again a step-by-step,

dialogical mode of rationality. Thus, to deny that phronesis sets ends is again perhaps

merely to deny that ends can be arrived at via a thinking-through of matters.

And indeed, this restriction would make good sense in regard to the kalon: if the

kalon is to be intellectually justified, this clearly cannot be done through any argument,

deliberative or otherwise. 7 Precisely because the kalon must be sought for its own sake

rather than for the sake of its consequences, it cannot be argued for (in the usual sense

of that term, at least) that the kalon is worthwhile. This still leaves open the possibility

that the kalon is justified via the direct vision of a practical form of nous. One would

temperate reasons from the beautiful as its end, an end set by the virtue of temperance. This seems
supported by the sentence that immediately follows, which claims that logos looks to and finds the fitting
specifications of the deed. Note also that in the EE Aristotle makes a clear and strong claim that he does
not repeat in the EN, namely, that ''logos bids us to choose the kalon' [ho de logos to kalon haireisthai
keleuei] (1229a2). Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind that elsewhere in the EE, as said above,
Aristotle denies that that logos has to do with ends (1227b28—33, see 2.11 generally), thus raising a major
tension within the EE as well.

46. In the EE, Aristotle writes, "No one demonstrates [deiknusin] that health is a good, any more
than he demonstrates any other starting point [arche], unless he is not a doctor but a sophist; for they
create sophistries by using arguments inappropriately'" (1218b22-24). Is it the same with regard to the
worthwhileness of the kalon? Note, however, that it is presumably not the case that we intuit the intrinsic
worthiness of health - that would seem too grandiose for such a tiling as bodily health. Note also that one
can demonstrate that health is a good if one looks to consequences of health; but Aristotle is here talking
about the intrinsic goodness of health. The same distinction applies for the kalon. Alternatively, one
might argue, as Aquinas does, that in passages like 6.12 1144a6~9 and 6.13 1145a4-6 Aristotle is
speaking more of the 'mechanics' of the psychological process whereby one comes to choose in accord
with the end of virtue. The idea is that Aristotle here only means to describe something like the moving
cause for the good action, which is the virtuous habituation of the desiring part of the soul (Commentary,
sec. 1269 [p. 399], sec. 1289 [p. 405]). The related passage at 7.8 1151al5-19, however, would seem to
show that Aristotle has something more in mind, since there he makes it clear that he is speaking not just
of ethical action in terms of moving cause, but in terms of the actual origin of the ethical sources.

47. Reeve would argue that while the end is not established by deliberation, it is nonetheless
established by dialectic (62-66, 83n29), presumably following the now common claim that dialectic is
what establishes first principles for Aristotle (the argument ofIrwin's Aristotle's First Principles: also see
Burnet, xxxix-xlii). See note 74 below. For a doubt about the power of dialectic to accomplish this for
Aristotle, see Robin Smith's note on 101a36-b4 in her edition of the Topics: Books J and K///(New
York: Clarendon Press, 1997), 52-54.

48. This in fact is how the early Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias seems to
have understood it; see his Ethical Problems, problem 18, 139:6-14, pp. 51-52. McDowell has provided
a precise formulation of this when he says that the view he rejects holds that "the content of practical

130
need something like an intuition of its intrinsic worthwhileness. Perhaps there is

another sense of prudence that includes this practical working of nous. Still, Aristotle

would obviously need to make this clear before we would be justified in attributing it to

him. We will consider below whether he does.

The denial of a dialogical foundation for ends, then, is itself compatible with the

possibility that the sources of practice are arrived at via nous. And this is a possibility

that we will take seriously in considering a few texts that follow. Nonetheless, Aristotle

goes on to make a claim about the sources of practical ends that would seem to

eliminate not just logos but also nous: the ends are given, he says, by virtue, even

merely natural virtue! Natural virtue, of course, is the form of virtue that arises by mere

inclination, without the guidance of intelligence in any strong sense (6.13 1144b 1-14).

wisdom's universal end could in principle be grasped in an act of pure intelligence" ("Deliberation and
Moral Development," 23). Burnet has written that, for Aristotle, "in the long run we must simply 'see' the
truth of our definition of the Good for Man" (xlii), and that "the first principles of the science of human
conduct are as incapable of demonstration as those of any other science. They too must in the long run be
'perceived' immediately, and if we cannot see them for ourselves, no one can make us see them"
(xxxviii). Nonetheless, Burnet thinks that Aristotle presents a unified teaching in the EN regarding the
good for human beings as lying in theoria (249) (a claim which is difficult to reconcile with the need for
ethical virtue to be chosen for its own sake), and so Burnet would not apparently say in the end that nous
sees the intrinsic worthiness of the ethical end, the kalon, nor, apparently, would he say that such an
intuition is part of prudence itself. Cooper also agrees that the final end can only be grasped by intuition
(Reason and Human Good, 58-71). See also Madigan, "Eth. Nic. 9.8: Beyond Egoism and Altruism?,"
79, 84.

49. Strangely, to me, at least, much of the literature often seems to think that the account in 6.5
of the way in which the prudent deliberate about the goods of human life (see sec. 1 .e. below) would
work for establishing the intrinsic worthwhileness of ethical virtue, or, what is the same, of the kalon
(e.g., T. H. Irwin's The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study, Volume I: From Socrates
to the Reformation [New York: Oxford University Press, 2007], 176). But no amount of deliberation
could ever get one by its own weight to recognize the intrinsic worth of ethical virtue; the best one could
hope for here is that deliberation taken in a very loose sense as a sort of rumination would provide the
occasion for one to have a vision of its worth as a separate act. See note 87 below. Although Irwin
thinks that this is what Aristotle intends, he is then forced to conclude that "Aristotle still has not
explained as fully as some might wish what the correct reason will prescribe. The reader needs to be
convinced that someone who deliberates in the way prescribed in Book vi and who accepts the
conception of happiness in Book i will decide on the virtues described in Books iii-iv" ("Notes," 254).
For a similar complaint, see L. H. G. Greenwood, Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics " Book Six: with
Essays, Notes and Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), 204.

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The importance of intelligence would in this way seem to be decisively excluded.

Although interpreters often argue that Aristotle has a sort of duality of prudence, a

prudence that first uncovers the end(s) and then a prudence that finds the means to the

end(s), the notion that even merely natural, i.e., pre-prudential, virtue has the end right

would seem to show that the end in question is simply that of being virtuous and that

this is provided without the contribution of practical reason. Aristotle here, then, would

clearly seem to deny that phronesis is what provides for the possession of the end of the

kalon. What prudence does here is to try to realize this end most fittingly. In terms of

what we saw above in 6.2 1139a21—31, this would then seem to point in the direction

of desire providing its own standard of lightness. If it is ethical virtue that provides for

the lightness of the end, and this end is the end of the kalon, the ethical end, then ethical

virtue would seem to be self-grounding.

Furthermore, the very structure of the argument in 6.12 speaks against an idea of

a prudence that discerns ends. Aristotle is there answering the pointed question as to

why we need prudence at all to engage in the ethical life (1143bl8-36, 1144al 1-13).

He replies, however, only with reference to the need for prudence as getting the things

related to the end right, and does not speak of any need for prudence to get the

(intermediate) ends right in the first place. If prudence discerns ends, would his reply

not contain an absurd omission? Would he not then be inexplicably failing to mention

the most important need for phronesis, precisely when this is what is in question?

50. For an attempt at defusing this passage, however, see Sorabji, 213.

51. See sec. I.e. above, 124-25.

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 We should note finally that one is not said to have understanding of the sources

(and thus ends) but rather correct opinion [orthodoxein] about them (7.8 1151al9).

The weakness of opinion would again fit something that is merely from character (or

even the inclinations that precede character) rather than from intellect in any strong

sense.5 The connection between the ethical ends and opinion that we find in 7.8 is only

strengthened by Aristotle's discussion of prudence in 6.7, where Aristotle claims that

prudence has more to do with knowledge of particulars than of universals (and thus

ends), and that the one with experience is often more adept at action than the one with

knowledge (1141b 14-21). This in turn should be considered alongside Aristotle's

statement that

we believe that [certain intellectual capacities] come along with certain times of

life, and this particular time of life includes intellect and thoughtfulness, as though

nature was the cause. So one ought to pay attention to the undemonstrated sayings

52. Note also that in the discussion of the practical syllogism, Aristotle claims that the major
premise is an opinion (7.3 1147a25-26). One might say that this is simply the result of Aristotle's
unusual usage of the term, in which opinion is linked to all things variable, as ethical matters are. But in
the context of Bk. 7, in which both of these passages occur, Aristotle has clearly shifted to the ordinary
distinction between knowledge and opinion (see 7.2 1145b36-b3). At any rate, Aristotle makes it clear
that we can have opinion about all things, even regarding the highest and thus unchanging things (3.2
111 lb31-33). See also EE 1226al6: "wish and opinion are pre-eminently of the end."

53. Although Reeve sees this as a sign that Aristotle in that passage is implicitly contrasting the
right opinion had by those with inferior forms of virtue to the clear knowledge that is had in full virtue,
and that he is thus speaking only of that which provides the material for the sources rather than the
sources themselves (86), the evidence does not seem to bear this out. First, in Bk. 7, the source of that
passage, Aristotle has already claimed, as noted above, that the major premise or universal of the practical
syllogism is an opinion, in a context where it makes no sense to see this as meant in contrast to full virtue
(7.3 1147b25). Second, in the very passage at issue, Aristotle is comparing the genuine archai of
mathematics with the archai of praxis - so it would be very strange for him to then speak only of the
quasi- or proto-archai of praxis rather than the actually operating archai. Reeve's interpretation of this
passage is in turn founded on another controversial view: namely, that the defect of natural virtue is the
lack of a grasp of the end, which grasp, he says, is provided by nous (86). This view seems to rest on his
unusual reading of the metaphor of blindness that Aristotle employs at 6.13 1144b 10-14; but the point of
blindness there is not that the blind person does not know where to go (= the end), as it is when Aristotle
uses blindness as a metaphor for lack ofaporiai in the Metaphysics (995a33-b2), but rather that the blind
person is not able to carefully navigate the particular salient features of the environment and is thereby
injured. This means that the defect of natural virtue is exactly the one we should expect: it lacks the sort
of situational perception that phronesis provides.

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 and opinions [anapodeiktois pasesi kai doxais] of people who are experienced and

old, or of the prudent, no less than to the things they demonstrate [apodeixeon], for

by having an eye sharpened by experience, they see rightly (6.11 1143b8-14).

These two passages sound as though Aristotle is suggesting that knowledge and

reflection regarding universals and ends are ultimately of lesser importance for

prudence. Although one needs enough of an understanding of the universal to

recognize an instance of it, so that one can act when it is appropriate to do so, it seems

that it is nonetheless enough to have a merely experience-based acceptance of the old

and time-honored opinions and sayings (and the universals and ends that are contained

within them).

e. Prudence in EN 6.5

Having seen some of the strongest evidence against the view that prudence is

able to establish ends for Aristotle, it is now necessary to consider some of the passages

that seem to support such a connection. One such passage is found in Aristotle's initial

characterization of prudence; he writes,

Concerning phronesis, the way we might get hold of it is by considering whom we

speak of as people with phronesis. And it seems then to belong to the prudent

person to be able to deliberate finely about the things that are good [agatha] and

advantageous [sumpheronta] for himself, not in part, such as the sort of things that

are [so] toward [pros] health or for strength, but the sort of things that are [so]

toward living well as a whole. A sign of this is that we also speak of people as

prudent concerning some particular thing, when they calculate well [eu logisontai]

toward [pros] some particular serious end (6.5 1140a24-30)

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The difference between what Aristotle says here and what he says repeatedly elsewhere,

namely, that virtue gets the end right while prudence gets the things related to the end

right, is easily obscured by the fact that in both places he speaks of a sort of means-

deliberation, employing the pros language. What then is the important difference? The

difference comes about through this notion of living well as a whole, which would seem

to be the equivalent to happiness. Seeing what is good and advantageous toward

happiness is quite different from seeing what is advantageous toward realizing a

concrete goal such as the kalon here and now. This would seem to support the position

that many authors have argued, namely, that prudence deliberatively works out what it

is that constitutes happiness." In this way, then, prudence as deliberation must seek out

those intermediate ends that make up the final end of happiness as its parts.

This is strengthened by Aristotle's repeated references to the good here;

prudence allows one to deliberate well about the things good [agatha] for oneself as a

human - goods being, of course, ends. This is incorporated even into Aristotle's

formula for prudence, which is "a truth-attaining hexis that has to do with action,

involving reason [meta logou], concerned with those things good and bad for a human

being" (6.5 1140b4-6). Aristotle strengthens (and complicates) this by writing in the

next sentence that "because of this, Pericles and those of his sort are thought to be

prudent because they are capable of seeing [theorem] the things that are good for

themselves and for humans [generally]" (6.5 1140b7-10). Here the language of seeing

54. See the discussion of senses of ta pros in sec. l.d. above; see also Wiggins, "Deliberation
and Practical Reason"; Nussbaum, "Non-Scientific Deliberation" in The Fragility of Goodness; Irwin,
The Development of Ethics, 176.

55. See 6.13 1144b26-28 on the meta logou as against the kata logon.

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is strong: does the deliberation of the prudent issue into a sort of vision of the goods and

thus ends of human life?56

Even regarding this passage in 6.5, however, a question can be raised: Aristotle

here seems to present it, at least at times, as though the prudent take eupraxia as their

standard for deliberating well about the happy life (1140b6-7). Insofar as eupraxia

seems to be a particularly moral notion bound up with the kalon, we can then ask

whether this sort of prudence is thus already working from within the perspective of

ethical virtue with its attendant ends.57 Is prudence here limited to the role of discerning

the best form of a life that is already taken as moral? That is to say, is it determining

the best shape of the already distinctly ethical life? If this is the case, then we would

still want to know how it is that the ethical life is to be established in the first place.

Another way to broach this question is to ask, as above, whether praxis in the strict,

non-productive sense, is really to be preferred to productive action (i.e., actions having

their ends outside themselves, whether in a literal product or simply in extrinsic

56. See, however, note 26 above on the ambiguity of theoreo; see also Fortenbaugh, "Aristotle's
Conception of Moral Virtue and Its Perceptive Role," 86-87.

57. Or, as he says in 6.7, the good deliberator simply [haplos], understood as the prudent man, is
the one who "by his reasoning, is apt to hit upon what is best for a human among actions [ton praktikon]"
(1141bl3-14). Does this limit prudence to the realm ofpraxis in a way that would, according to the
usual signification of that term, center on the ethical-political life and exclude philosophy or
contemplation? In the context of the contrast in 6.7 between Pericles, on the one hand, and Anaxagoras
and Thales on the other hand, one would have to think so. In this case, it would again seem that prudence
is already determined by something else that establishes the ethical life as choiceworthy and that it only
operates within that prior determination. Nonetheless, there is a sense of praxis that includes theoria (see
Politics 1325bl6—32) and at the end of Bk. 6 Aristotle suggests that there is a connection between
prudence and theoretical wisdom (6.13 1145a6-l 1). See also the way in which the good things for a
human that prudence deals with are strongly conjoined to (and limited to? - see Greenwood, 205) ta
dikaia kai ta kala at 6.12 1143b21-22, 6.12 1144al 1-13.

58. As noted above, this is how John McDowell understands prudence, although he always
wants to limit this to a response to particular situations ("Deliberation and Moral Development," 30-31,
22-26).

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consequences) in every case. Although it is surely the case that praxis, as having its

end within itself, is superior in itself to productive action, this would just as surely not

mean that praxis is to be preferred to productive action in every particular case. Despite

his knowledge of this obvious problem,60 Aristotle says very little to help with it.

Furthermore, even if we could conclude with certainty that here in 6.5 Aristotle is

proposing a form of prudence that deals with ends in a fully intellectual manner, it

would still be entirely unclear how to reconcile this with other claims he makes, the

claims we explored above.

f. Phronesis and Nous in EN 6.11

I argued in section Id. above that some sort of intuition regarding the kalon

would seem to be needed to rationally justify its status as an end in itself. In fact,

Aristotle may seem to suggest that this is what occurs in 6.11. Not long after opposing

nous and phronesis in 6.8, claiming that phronesis "stands opposite" [antikeitai] to

nous, insofar as nous is about (first) terms [horoi], while prudence is about "the ultimate

thing" [eschaton] (1142a25-30), namely, a particular deed (see 6.11 1143a32-33) and

thus an object of perception rather than intellect, Aristotle speaks of their unity. After

establishing that prudence and its related cluster of angchinoia, gnome, and sunesis all

have to do with things ultimate and particular, Aristotle writes:

59. On the distinction, see EN 6.2 1139bl-4, 6.4 1140al-6, 6.5 1140b6-7. The point I am
making is not about the possibility for conflict between art and ethical action (although this should not be
minimized, as the famous case of Gauguin shows), but about the more general possibility for conflict
between actions whose desirability lies solely in their consequences and ethical action.

60. See 3.1 1110a4-b9, 5.11 1138a28-b5, 9.2 1164b27-30.

61. There is, however, some obscurity about the term antikeitai, and it has been suggested that it
would better be translated as "corresponds," in which case 6.8 would provide only a less substantive
version of 6.11 See Greenwood, 197.

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 Nous is also concerned with the ultimates [eschaton] in both directions [ep'

amphotera]. For there is nous, not reasoning [or: a rational account] [logos],

about both the first terms [proton horon] and about the ultimates [or: last things].

In demonstrations, nous is [had] of the unchanging terms that are first. In practical

[inferences (or: premises)], nous is [had] of the ultimate and variable and of the

other premise [or: proposition] [heteras protaseos]. For these are archai of the 'for

the sake of which,' since universals are reached from particulars. Of these it is

necessary to have perception, and this is nous. That is why nous is both beginning

[arche] and end; for demonstrations are from these [particulars] and about these.

(6.11 1143a35-bll)

In 6.11, then, Aristotle considers the same relation of nous and prudence from a

different angle: rather than highlighting the difference between dealing with that which

is first and last respectively, Aristotle reflects on the fact that both deal with something

of which there is no reasoning toward or rational account of but only a sort of vision.

Both the first principles of theoretical science and the variable ultimates simply have to

be seen for what they are. Whereasphronesis was earlier set against nous precisely

insofar as it is perceptual, here nous is said to perform the task of perception.6

62. Speaking of the ultimates in both directions seems to be equivalent to speaking, as he does in
the next sentence, of the first and last. The two directions would seem to be the move from the particular
to the universal and from the universal to the particular, as Irwin argues ("Notes," 250).

63. This last sentence seems misplaced in the manuscripts, four lines below. OCT brackets it,
presumably due to the fact that for Aristotle to speak of practical reasoning as demonstrative would be
very unusual.

64. This then seems to involve a broadening of the notion of nous in this passage from its
strictest sense as intellect. This is also signaled by what immediately precedes and follows the quoted
material, insofar as he speaks in both places of common opinions and common claims about nous, which
must then refer to nous in the looser, common sense.

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 Although the passage is centered upon the kinship between phronesis and nous

via the notion of the ultimate particular (see 6.11 1143a25-35), it is another claim that

Aristotle makes along the way that proves more important for our purposes here.

Aristotle asserts that the ultimate variables (and the hetera protasis) are the archai of

the end, "since universals are reached from particulars." What exactly does this

mean? " In order to try to work this out, we will need to consider the exact meaning of

the "variable ultimate" here. In one sense, Aristotle indicates what he means by this

term in what precedes these lines, when he connects the ultimates to the kath' hekaston,

the particular, and taprakta, matters of praxis (a29, a33). The ultimate variable is the

ethical action itself, as a particular and contingent matter. This still fails, however, to

tell us something crucial, namely, the respect in which the action is here to be taken.

Aristotle links the ultimate variable with the hetera protasis, as though the ultimate is

taken through the lens of this hetera protasis.66 What, then, is the meaning of the

hetera protasis!61 An ethical action can be taken with reference to the minor premise of

a practical syllogism, in which case the action is grasped by nous insofar as it is of a

65. This line has proven notoriously difficult to interpret. See esp. Norman Dahl's reading of
this passage in his Practical Reason, Aristotle, and Weakness of the Will, 41-45 and esp. Appendix I (I
should note that Dahl is one scholar who seems particularly aware of the tensions of the text, although his
method is nonetheless to try to find a unified reading); Greenwood, 51, 70-72; Irwin, "Notes," 250;
Reeve, 57-61, 86; Alasdair Maclntyre, Whose Justice, Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988),
93; David Wiggins' "Deliberation and Practical Reason," 236-37; Sorabji, "Aristotle on the Role of
Intellect in Virtue," 214-8. For a discussion of many other, especially older, views, see Takatura Ando,
Aristotle's Theory of Practical Cognition (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), 193-208, and Emmanuel
Michelakis, Aristotle's Theory of Practical Principles (Athens: Cleisiounis, 1961), 25—38. It is hard to
understand the relevance of Aquinas' example for this passage; his illustration is that "from the fact that
this herb cured this man, we gather that this kind of herb has power to cure" {Commentary, sec. 1249 [p.
393]). Effect would seem of little relevance to an ethics centered on the intrinsic worthwhileness of the
kalon.

66. The plural of archai gar tou hou heneka hautai seems to refer to the conjunction of tou
eschatou, tou endexomenou, and tes heteras protasebs.

67. This phrase is not common in Aristotle. See Stewart, Vol. II, 92; Dahl, 231, 279nl3, and
note 72 below.

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certain kind; for example, 'this act (under consideration) is kalon.' But the same

action can also be taken with respect to the proposition that would directly move us

toward performing it; for example, 'this act is choiceworthy' or 'this act is to be

done.' 69

If the action is grasped through the latter, through the lens of a proposition

asserting that it is worthy to be done, then it would seem that nous could perhaps have a

vision of the intrinsic choiceworthiness of the kalon, a vision which would then be
70

universalized through induction. In other words, if nous perceives the ultimate

particular not only as kalon, but also as 'choiceworthy-because-£a/o«,' then it would

seem that Aristotle may here claim that nous sees the proper ends of human action

through attending to the particular cases of action around us - that is, that nous has a

68. This is Ross' translation and interpretation, although he thinks Aristotle may have become
confused here (Aristotle, 219). Historically, reading this as the minor premise has been the more common
interpretation. On the practical syllogism, see EN 7.3 1147a24-b5 and DeMotu Animalium 701a7-25.

69. On this interpretation, see Dahl, 231-32. Greenwood suggests, however, that perhaps
Aristotle is here using the phrase indifferently to refer to the feature common to both the minor premise
and the judgment that commands action (72).

70. Induction becomes relevant here because of Aristotle's talk of the move from particular to
universal, the method for which is induction. See Posterior Analytics 80a40, and Bk. 2, ch. 19. The
hesitation expressed as to whether nous would see the worthwhileness of the kalon even if dealing with
the hetera protasis taken as the practical command is due to this: recognition of the action as
choiceworthy because kalon could still perhaps be dependent upon prior desire. The judgment of nous
here could be understood as being so closely joined to the desire for the kalon that it would lack the sort
of independent, grounding status that nous in the strong sense possesses. In other words, does nous here
judge the kalon act to be desirable on the basis of a hypothesis, namely, of the desire for the kalon?
(Meta. 1072a24~30 does not disprove this; even if we can judge that something is desirable prior to desire
for it, this obviously does not mean that we always do this, or do it in all aspects of life). One might think
this impossible given that Aristotle is here talking about the origin of the universal end; how could a
generalized desire for the kalon precede the origin of the universal end of the kalonl If one distinguishes
between the grasp of the noble had, for example, by those youths with an innate love for the noble (10.9
1179b8-10) or those beginning a process of habituation, which could in both cases seem rather minimal,
from the possession of the universal of nobility as had by those who genuinely understand it and are
capable of seeing all that falls under it, then there may be room for this.

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vision of particular deeds of nobility precisely in their choiceworthiness, which

functions as a source, through induction, for a more universal end.

If, however, nous only grasps the ethical action under the aspect of the minor

premise,72 that is, according to its kind, then this would mean that nous has very little to

do with grasping or establishing the choiceworthiness of the kind. The perception of

the kind would then seem to merely link up with an independent desire, such as that

given by a command, natural affinity, or habituation, et cetera, to pursue this kind of

action. In this way, the particular would still be a source for a sort of induction to a

universal end, but the contribution of nous to the end qua end would be minimal. Nous

would add an understanding of that which good habituation tries to lead one toward, the

universal 'to kalon.'' That is, habituation tries to lead one to having the universal end of

the kalon, but it cannot do this without the contribution of nous as providing a genuine

understanding of that universal (rather than the sort of hit-or-miss acquaintance that

habituation itself provides).73 It is in this sense that nous as perception of kind would

serve as a source or arche of the universal end. According to this interpretation, to say

71. Thus Greenwood claims that these "particular true judgments [of the type 'this action A is
good'] must be made directly, just like sensations" (70). Of course, even this reading would have to grant
that habituation would be needed as well. But the Magna Moralia has a way of dealing with this: the
author claims that there is first a pre-rational impulse toward the kalon (which is stabilized in habituation)
that is later ratified by reason (see esp. 1206b 17-26; also 1199b38-1200a5, 1197b38-l 198a23, 1191bl8-
20, 1191a22-26). (Something akin to this occurs, of course, even with something like mathematics,
where we begin by merely imitating and going through the routine, and then eventually see the truth of
things for ourselves; so too, mutatis mutandis and pace Hume, with regard to causality.) The question is
whether Aristotle says anything equivalent in the EN. This passage, together with 1.7 1098a33-b8 (on
beholding on the basis of habituation), would seem to constitute the most plausible material for such a
reading.

72. Note that Aristotle refers to the minor premise as hetera (withprotasis understood) at 7.3
1147a25.

73. This, in fact, is John McDowell's interpretation of the role of intellect in regard to ethical
ends, although he does not, to my knowledge, comment directly on this passage; see his "Deliberation
and Moral Development" and notes 2 and 22 above.

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that nous contributes to forming a universal end out of the particulars would say nothing

as to whether or how that end is justified qua end.

There is perhaps some evidence that favors the reading sketched out above

according to which nous has minimal involvement in establishing ends. When Aristotle

speaks earlier of the prudential perception of the ultimate particular, this seems in

context to relate back to a claim about the possibility for error in deliberation through an

error about the particular premise, as when someone wrongly thinks that this water is

muddy (6.8 1142a20-30). This, of course, would constitute the minor premise of a

practical syllogism. Furthermore, this more minimalist interpretation would fit the

discussion of 6.13, where it is said that when nous is added to natural virtue, one has

governing virtue (1144M-14). If one considers what follows in 6.13, it seems clear that

nous is there linked with right reason, orthos logos (see 1144b23-28), and thus refers to

the ability to find the mean (see 6.1 1138bl 8-25), which is what keeps virtue from

74. The fact that a practical universal is reached from experience is undeniable as is the fact that
the universal reached by those with natural or habituated virtue will be different from that reached by
those without it. But the formation of a universal end out of experience does not in and of itself guarantee
that this end is a true end for a human as human. So although we can readily say that nous here reaches a
universal, we are left still wondering what it is that allows us to say that the universal end reached by the
decent is the true end, and this is precisely the crux of the problem — what is the standard? Sorabji's
interpretation seems to follow the weaker reading, although he seems content to have established some
connection between the end and nous, and is not worried about the problem I raise here (215-16). Reeve
holds that this account at 6.11 is non-normative, that nous here is not a grounding vision of the
choiceworthiness of the end, but goes on to argue that this is not a problem, since what really justifies the
arche is not nous but the dialectic that leads up to nous (62-66). Reeve thus speaks of the way in which
"the effects of [our] actions on ourselves and others will help us to determine whether or not acting like
that makes life choiceworthy and lacking in nothing" (59), but this seems problematic in light of the
irrelevance of consequences given Aristotle's claims as to the intrinsic worthwhileness of the kalon. Any
"effect" of the pursuit of the kalon would seem too extrinsic to vindicate the kalon as something
choiceworthy in itself. One could try to expand the meaning of effect here, but then it seems that one
would lose the ostensible point of turning to effect here, which is, it seems, to have something concrete
and 'verifiable' to look to. It is simply hard to see what dialectic has to hold onto in carrying out any
evaluation of the kalon.

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doing harm (6.13 1144b8-l4). For nous to find the mean, however, would seem

equivalent to saying that nous is capable of judgments of the form 'this act is generous,'

since that judgment is in turn equivalent to something like 'this act hits the mean

relevant for generosity.' And this type of judgment is again that which is expressed in

the minor premise. The foregoing passages from 6.8 and 6.13 serve to make clear that

if Aristotle is saying in 6.11 1143a35-bl 1 that we need a perception of that which hits

the mean and thus pertains to the kind, then we are well prepared for this claim by other

statements of the EN, whereas the claim that nous grasps the intrinsic worthiness of

the ethical ends would find relatively little resonance. Nonetheless, this does not seem

sufficient by itself to establish the one interpretation as clearly correct. In some ways,

after all, the reading according to which nous has a larger role in establishing ends is the

more straightforward. At any rate, although there is general agreement that Aristotle is

here proposing a form of induction toward universal ends, it is unclear how this occurs,

and it is hard to see how one could gather enough out of this passage to establish one or

another interpretation. Aristotle once again leaves us perplexed and questioning.

g. Prudence as a True Conception of What?

There is another passage to which one can look to try to establish the idea that

Aristotle believes that prudence somehow establishes ends. He writes, "So if

deliberating well belongs to people with phronesis, good deliberation would be

lightness in accord with what is advantageous in relation to the end, and phronesis is a

true conception [hupolepsis] of this" (6.9 1142b31-33). This translation attempts to

75. If, for example, one violates the mean in regard to generosity, then one might give to the
wrong person, in which case harm might arise from the giving (4.1 1120a27, b2-^t).

76. See also 2.9 1109b20-23, 4.5 1126b3-4, 6.7 1141M4-23.

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leave open the ambiguity of the claim, according to which it is unclear whether

Aristotle is saying that phronesis is a true conception of the end or of what is

advantageous in relation to the end. Other passages in Bk. 6 such as 6.12 1144a6-9

would point to the latter, but the grammar of the sentence would favor - although not

necessitate - the former.77 If one takes the former interpretation, then one would have

to understand the passage to say this: skilled deliberation works out what is

advantageous toward [= means] what prudence grasps as advantageous toward [=

constituents of] happiness.

A few interpretive points are called for here. Reading telos as the antecedent of

"this" should make us hesitant in at least this sense: it would require a strong

equivocation with regard to the phrase "advantageous toward" [sumpheron pros], as

noted above. Although this is indeed possible in itself, does the text really give us

reason to make this distinction here? Another way to address that is to consider

whether Aristotle generally suggests that there is such distance between prudence and

skilled deliberation. The view that he does would seem problematic; after all, at 6.7

1141b9—10 he writes that "we say that the work that belongs to the prudent most of all

is to deliberate well [eu bouleuesthai]." Nonetheless, in the final analysis, there is

77. See Cooper, Reason and Human Good, 64n84 on this; those in agreement with him include
Irwin in Aristotle's First Principles, 337, 598n24, Wiggins, 230-31, Dahl, 39^10, Aquinas, Commentary,
sec. 1233 (p. 389). Rackham takes the contrary position (based on Aristotle's stated views elsewhere in
the EN) in his note on the passage on pp. 356-57 of the Loeb edition of the EN, as does Burnet in his note
on this passage in his edition. Greenwood seems to favor reading "this'r as referring to sumpheron (65-
66), but also notes that the referent of the pronoun is unclear (113n3).

78. 6.9 1142b32-33 says that skilled deliberation works out in deliberation what is sumpheron
pros to telos, while 6.5 1140a26-28 says that the prudent deliberate well peri ta...agatha kai
sumpheronta...pros to eu zen holds.

79. Cooper thinks that there is such distance and claims that to see prudence as a true conception
of what is advantageous in relation to the end is thus to falsify the relation between prudence and
excellent deliberation {Reason and Human Good, 64n84). Although it may seem problematic to identify

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little to say about this passage in and of itself, since Aristotle does not argue for or

elaborate upon his claim here but simply states it. The reasonable move here, then,

would be to read this passage in light of others. This is, of course, rendered problematic

by the fact that other passages seem to go in both directions.

John Cooper, taking it as definitively established that Aristotle is linking

prudence and the end in 6.9 1142b31-3, attempts to relieve the tension between this and

passages where Aristotle states that it is ethical virtue that deals with the end (see 6.12

1144a6-9, 6.12 1144a20-22, 6.13 1145a5-6) by claiming that in those latter passages

"it is clear... [that] Aristotle, understandably enough, [merely] attempts to differentiate

[practical thinking and ethical virtue] by emphasizing, and playing off against one

another, the clearest and most indubitable contribution made by practical thinking (viz.,

the calculation of means) and the most uncontroversial condition supplied by moral
SO

virtue (viz., the desire for the right end)." Aristotle's contrast, in other words, is no

real contrast, but only a misleading way of differentiating things that barely admit of

differentiation. Unfortunately, this is not obvious, especially given the ambiguous,

unexplained and un-argued nature of the claim that Cooper relies on at 6.9 1142b31-33.

More importantly, however, this attempt at harmonization seems to be

contradicted by what Aristotle says in Bk. 10. In the context of an argument to the

effect that the happiness of a life centered on ethical virtue is "secondary" and merely

human (in contrast to the super-human life of contemplation), Aristotle writes,

them as closely as the one reading would require, it is at least as problematic to separate them as far as the
other reading would require (on the relation of the two, see Greenwood, 64-67). One clear way that
prudence exceeds excellent deliberate is in its perceptive character - but that, of course, does not provide
a vision of the true ends of human life either but has more to do with the discernment of the mean. Note
that Cooper faces the same problem of an identification of prudence with an orthos logos that only works
out the mean at 6.13 1144b27-28.

80. Reason and Human Good in Aristotle, 64.

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"Prudence is linked together with virtue of character, and it with prudence, if indeed

[eiper] the sources [archai] of prudence are according to [kata...eisin] virtue of

character, while the right thing belonging to virtues of character is according to

prudence" (10.8 1178al6-19). In context, the force of the "if indeed" would seem to be

slight: Aristotle is making an argument as to the limitations of the ethical sphere in

general and thus of prudence as well, and he seems to present this argument in a rather

straightforward fashion to support this. It is hard to see how Cooper's argument that

Aristotle is merely picking out the most obvious features of prudence and ethical virtue

could hold up in the face of this passage: the point here is that prudence is limited

precisely insofar as it is dependent upon ethical virtue for its sources. If it is thus

limited, then it is obviously difficult to see how it could also relate to ends.

h. Moderation and Phronesis

There is another passage that might seem to indicate that phronesis has

something to do with ends and sources. Aristotle makes a connection between

moderation [sophrosune] and phronesis, and understands sophrosune as preserving

phronesis (discerning in sophrosune the presence of the verb sozo, to preserve). In

unpacking the meaning of this claim, Aristotle writes,

[Sophrosune] preserves this [prudential] sort of judgment [hupolepsis], since it is

not every sort of judgment that pleasure and pain destroy and warp, but the

judgments that concern actions. For the sources [archai] of actions are the ends for

the sake of which the actions are done, but to someone disabled by pleasure or pain,

the arche immediately ceases to be apparent, and it does not seem to him that he

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 needs to choose and to do everything for the sake of this end, since vice is

destructive of the source. (6.5 1140b 12-20)

This passage would seem to hold that prudence has a strong connection with the sources

and thus ends; it sounds as though it may be one and the same to say that moderation

preserves prudence and to say that it preserves the sources and ends. This passage, at

least, gives us no reason to distinguish these claims. In fact, this claim comes in 6.5,

immediately after Aristotle has spoken of the prudent as deliberating well about that

which makes for living well as a whole (1140a25-28). One might also try to conjoin

the talk of hupolepsis here with 6.9 1142b31-33, considered in section 1 .g above, which

spoke of prudence in a possible connection with a hupolepsis of the end, seeing these

passages as mutually reinforcing for a 'strong' reading of the relation of prudence and

ends. It thus is plausible to read this passage as though loss of prudence constitutes loss

of the possession of proper ends of human action.

Nonetheless, this passage must be read against a sister-passage in which

Aristotle seems to argue in a different direction. Let us return again to 7.8 1151 al 5-19:

virtue keeps the source [arche] [of action] safe, while vice destroys it, and in

actions the arche is that for the sake of which one acts, just as in mathematics the

sources are hypotheses; so neither there nor here is logos able to teach anyone the

sources, but here it is virtue, either natural or habituated, that directs one to right

opinion about the source.

The important thing to note is that Aristotle here says that virtue both provides and

preserves the source. In the context, virtue is here strongly linked to moderation. This

81. And indeed Irwin takes this passage to be one of two (along with the ambiguous 6.9
1142b31—33) which show that prudence deals with first principles of the practical realm ("Notes," 247).

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causes an impasse - in 6.5 1140b 12-20 he said that moderation preserves phronesis,

which seemed to mean that it preserved the source. Here, however, he denies that

logos, which in context must be tied to phronesis, supplies the source, and says that the

virtue of moderation preserves that which virtue also provides, namely, the end. Here

phronesis seems rather uninvolved. It is unclear how these two arguments fit together.

These two passages (6.5 1140b 12-20, 7.8 1151 al 5-19) taken together form a

puzzle. Thankfully, there is a third passage that we can look to for help with the

problem. At 6.12 1144a29-bl Aristotle writes,

the hexis for that eye of the soul [viz., phronesis] does not come to be without

virtue of character, as was said and as is clear; for reasoning [sullogismoi] about

practical matters has the source, "since this is the end and the best"...and this does

not appear except to the good, since vice warps and makes [one] to be in error

about the practical sources. So it is clear that it is impossible to be possessed of

prudence without being good.

This seems to form Aristotle's clearest and most expanded thoughts on the matter.

When Aristotle says that prudence as the eye of the soul cannot develop without ethical

virtue, he is making a claim that is quite analogous to what we must also understand to

be the case with science: science is always already implicitly in connection with

intellect, because deductions made from faulty sources do not constitute a science in the

genuine sense of the word. So too is it the case that the practical reasoning

82. See 6.9 1142M0, where Aristotle says that "there is no Tightness with regard to science (for
neither is there error)" - the notion of episteme, like that of knowledge in English, already contains that of
truth. So too for Aristotle, but not necessarily for common opinion (6.12 1144a27-28, 7.2 1145bl7—19),
is it the case that the notion of phronesis contains the idea of issuing into something morally good (6.9
1142b21-22, 6.12 1144a31-34) (at least in its predominant usage in Bk. 6). See Aquinas, Commentary,
sees. 1273^1 (pp. 400-401).

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{sullogismoi ton praktikon] that constitutes phronesis must be understood to work from

true sources, which are, however, properly speaking, not of phronesis but from ethical

virtue. Thus phronesis should not be understood as really (i.e., as a hexis) containing

or providing the sources; rather, what we see here is that we can never fully pry it apart

from that which is nonetheless distinct from it (ethical virtue with its provision of the

sources), just as with science. If we make analogies between the theoretical and

practical, then we must say that intellect and virtue (whether natural or habituated, 7.8

1151a7) are analogous in providing sources, and that science and prudence are

analogous in reasoning from those sources (and thus can never be understood without

an implicit connection to intellect and ethical virtue, respectively).

If we look at all three passages together (6.5 1140M5-20, 7.8 1151al6-20, 6.12

1144a29-bl), it seems plausible that the argument of 6.5 1140bl5-20 is extremely

elliptical. Its elliptical nature makes its sound as though Aristotle is saying that it is one

and the same to say that sophrosune preserves phronesis and that sophrosune preserves

the source and the end. What 6.12 1144a29-bl (together with 7.8 1151al6—20) adds to

this account is a sort of middle term: phronesis is not possible without the right ends

(just as science is not possible without the true first principles), and these are not

possible without virtue, therefore, to be vicious and lose the right ends is also to lose

83. So too does Aristotle distinguish mere Tightness of deliberation from excellence in
deliberation by something that is, properly speaking, outside deliberation: again, the having of a good end
(6.9 1142b 17-24).

84. To extend this analogy further: wisdom is the combination of intellect and science, and
virtue in the governing sense is analogous to wisdom as the combination of ethical virtue and phronesis.
Just as it is possible to have the theoretical sources without seeing what follows from them, so too is it
possible to have the practical sources in natural virtue without being able to reason well from them. An
attempt at science (indifferent to its success or failure as science) would be the analogue to cleverness (or
perhaps of the closely related lightness of deliberation). Phronesis is thus the virtue of the faculty of
cleverness. Irwin offers an interpretation according to which cleverness is a faculty quite different from
the deliberative power of phronesis ("Notes," 253), but this seems belied by what Aristotle says here and
especially at 7.10 1152al(M5.

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phronesis. This interpretation seems sound, except that the general treatment in 6.5

seems to speak of the role of phronesis with regard to (intermediate) ends, something

that Aristotle has muted in his later treatment. Does Aristotle make two arguments that

deal with the same matter - the need of phronesis for sophrosune - but have a

fundamentally different understanding of the role of the relevant parts? We are left with

mere plausibilities in the face of textual tensions that cannot be washed away.

At any rate, if I am right that when Aristotle claims that we cannot be prudent

without having ethical virtue he means something quite analogous to saying that one

cannot have science without the intellectual grasp of first principles, then this would

seem to refute the common claim that the mutual entailment of prudence and ethical

virtue proves that prudence establishes ends.85 For the notion of mutual entailment does

not then mean, as is sometimes claimed, that the ability of virtue to get the end right

entails the use of phronesis to do so in the first place. It merely means, on the one

hand, that to have full virtue is to have efficacious virtue, but that virtue is not

efficacious unless you can concretely act in accord with it, which is what prudence lets

you do; and, on the other hand, that we should not deem prudent, with all the positive

implications of that term, a man who engages in practical reasoning with bad ends as

starting-points. At any rate, Aristotle's claim that even merely natural virtue gets the

end right (7.8 1151al6-20) would seem to speak definitely against this reading.

85. See Irwin, "Notes," 255; Cooper, Reason and Human Good, 63; Dahl, 38.

86. Thus I disagree with Irwin, who writes, "that the deliberative function of prudence reaches
the right end that the virtuous person grasps...does not mean [in passages such as 6.13 1145a5-6] that
prudence has no role in getting the right end; for the virtue that is said to grasp the right end is the
'complete' or 'full' (kuria) virtue that includes prudence" (The Development of Ethics, 176).

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i. Resistance to Harmonization

What have we seen? EN 6.5 1140a24-bl2, with its idea of prudence as

deliberating about the things good and advantageous toward living well as a whole,

would seem, despite some noted problems, to constitute the strongest piece of evidence

for a form of prudence that relates to ends (the intermediate ends to the ultimate end of

happiness). Other textual evidence that might be put forward to support such a view,

such as 6.5 1140b 12-20, 6.9 1142b31-33 and 6.11 1143a35-bll, is itself deeply

ambiguous. There are then several claims that Aristotle makes in which prudence has a

much more limited role. One might try to harmonize the text by saying that in these

latter passages Aristotle is not putting a genuine limitation on prudence but is only

speaking of certain lesser aspects of prudence in an unclear fashion.

Nonetheless, there are good grounds for rejecting such a harmonization. The

strongest pieces of evidence against it are found at 7.8 1151 al 5-19, which denies that

logos has anything to do with establishing the end and holds that even merely natural

(that is, pre-prudential) virtue supplies the ethical arche, and 10.8 1178al6-19, which

points to the fact that prudence takes its arche from ethical virtue as proof of its

lowliness, thus suggesting that this is a genuine limitation of prudence and not merely

prudence considered in a certain misleading respect. Furthermore, 6.12 1144al l-bl4,

which tries to answer the question as to why prudence is needed at all, answers only

with reference to the need for prudence as helping one to properly realize the act in the

particular case, which would constitute an inexplicably bizarre omission if there were

nothing problematic about prudence in regard to ends. Additionally, one notes that it is

fundamentally unclear how deliberation (under discussion in 6.5) would ever lead to the

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intrinsic worthwhileness of ethical virtue, or, what is the same, of the kalon. This

would seem to be something that could only be grasped directly, that is to say, in an

intuition. The best that one could hope for here is that deliberation, taken in the loose

sense as a sort of rumination, might provide the occasion for having such an intuition.

4.2 The Underlying Matter of the Problem

We have seen that there are passages where Aristotle seems to suggest that

prudence has at least something to do with ends, and that there are others where he

seems to deny just this, and perhaps more in which he does not clearly come down on

either side. We need to consider whether there is something fruitful and helpful to be

found precisely in this imprecision. Does it reflect something of the underlying matter

(hupokeimene hule ~ 1.3 1094b 12) of the phenomena of practical reason? At the very

least, it should already be clear that the aporiai of Aristotle's treatment readily give rise

to philosophic inquiry. In this way, our attempt to fill out his outline has shown us

87. If one wants to try to form a harmonized reading of prudence in its relation to ends in the
EN, there seem to be three interpretive options (see the notes throughout this chapter for full citations of
the respective views of the following commentators): (1) Prudence relates to ends by thinking things
through in deliberation (Irwin, Nussbaum, Wiggins) or dialectic (Reeve); (2) Prudence relates to ends
through intuition - the only way to know an end as intrinsically worthwhile is to directly see this in an act
of nous (Cooper, Trendelenberg, Burnet [for whom, however, this may not be an act of prudence per se]);
(3) Prudence does not relate to ends in any strong sense, that is, as rationally knowing that these ends are
worthwhile (Walter, McDowell, Fortenbaugh). Some authors, however, do not make it entirely clear
whether they side with (1) or (2) (e.g., Sorabji). Since any form of intuitionism tends to be rejected out of
hand these days as being too foundationalist, most of those who want to avoid (3) are led to (1), which is
in fact the current majority view. Nonetheless, its proponents have never been able to make it plausible
how it is that thinking things through would be able to accomplish this in any strongly rational sense. It is
certainly true that we can, for example, deliberate about how to best accommodate within one life
different ends that we already have. But how deliberation could ever lead anyone to know what one most
needs to know to rationally found ethics, namely, that the kalon is intrinsically worthwhile, a genuine end
of end human life, and to be preferred as an end to other important goods, even to life itself, seems
mysterious. If this is to be known in any strong sense, then it is something that could only be seen
directly. The best that one could seem to hope for is that deliberation taken in a loose sense (as a general
sort of reflection) could provide occasions for coming to see the intrinsic worth of the kalon. Otherwise,
deliberation is simply a process of thinking through, reaffirming, and synthesizing already existing
commitments. Regarding the limits of dialectic, see note 74 above. Thus (1), when pushed, seems to
reduce to (2) or (3). Scholars such as Nussbaum, adopting an explicitly anthropocentric view, would
seem to prefer to sacrifice genuine knowledge of the worthwhileness of ends in order to avoid what she
would see as the super-humanness of (2). See the weakness of the meaning of deliberative knowledge of
the worth of ends in her Fragility of Goodness, 297'.

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again how the good outline in philosophy differs from that of the arts; here, aporiai are

positively desired as providing the guiding lines for inquiry.

The question as to whether prudence deals only with means or also in some

sense with ends is perhaps best thought in relation to the question as to the relation of

prudence and wisdom [sophia], and is thus tied back to the Aristotelian move to

distinguish prudence and wisdom much more sharply than was the case in Plato and

previous Greek usage generally. Distinguishing them is in line with the

"phenomenology'' of morality; that is, the decent man and the political agent have a

certain mode of intelligence that is certainly not that of theoretical wisdom but that also

cannot be denied, an intelligence that Aristotle tries to do justice to by treating it from

oo

within its own horizon. It is clear that the ordinary person without any theoretical

wisdom can have or lack basic common sense as to how to live well in the world; e.g.,

the one who sees himself slipping into a self-destructive addiction and does nothing to

stop it is clearly in some way deficient in good sense as compared with someone who

lives a sounder life. So too is there clearly a difference between a skilled politician and

a foolish one - history provides us with a stock of obvious enough examples of both.

This also fits what Aristotle says right from the start of the Nicomachean Ethics:

the one who engages in ordinary political-ethical life does not need the why (1.4

1095b6-7). It is enough to be able to grasp what is kalon (the that) (among deeds and

types of deeds) and to have this as one's end through ethical virtue. Not only does this

88. Plato, by contrast, often has his interlocutors express a more radical view of ordinary
political reasoning, as when Socrates claims in the Theaetetus that the ruler is a mere swineherd,
shepherd, or cowherd (175d), a point that the Stranger also makes in the Statesman at 266c-d, before
going even further and denying that there is anyone with the political art at all (301c-302b). This is not,
of course, to say that this simply expresses Plato's view or even the final view of his interlocutors.

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suffice for living ethically, it also suffices to a large extent for the ability to understand

ethical matters from the inside, from their own proper perspective - for a sort of
on

"phenomenology" of morality. The very possibility of such a why, however, points to

the fact that ethics is ultimately situated within a larger domain of life that cannot be

completely ignored.

Indeed, this question as to the self-sufficiency of practical reason must now be

taken up directly. Are not larger, non-ethical matters relevant for ethics?90 Although

the Nicomachean Ethics often minimizes the extent to which this is the case through its

separation of prudence and wisdom, ' the connection shines through in various ways,

such as in the crucial ergon-argument. The argument, which in some way governs the

whole of the inquiry, is founded upon an analogy between the human being and both

bodily organs and craftsmen. Organs and craftsman are alike in having a work [ergon]

within a larger whole: organs, in the body, craftsmen, in the city. It is on this basis that

89. This is connected to Aristotle's point about the way in which ethical inquiry must take care
to respect the endoxa, those traditional starting-points of common opinion that are firmly established (7.1
1145b2-7; see also Topics 100bl9-23). Aristotle's incorporation of the endoxa, however, must not be
exaggerated. It seems to me that someone like Nussbaum runs the risk of over-emphasizing the
importance of the endoxa for Aristotle. We should note some important cases in which Aristotle seems to
depart significantly from the endoxa: regarding the role of ancestors in one's happiness (1.11 11101a22-
b9), regarding the involvement of the gods in human affairs and ethics generally (10.8 1178b8-34),
regarding the meaning and scope of sophrosune (3.10 1117b23-ll 18b8), regarding hubris (4.3 1125a32-
34), regarding the connection between courage and the needs of the city (3.8 1116al8~29), and, most
fundamentally, in Bk. 10's treatment of happiness. In fact, in Nussbaum's favorite case, that of the
violation ofendoxa by Socrates regarding incontinence {Fragility of Goodness, 240), Aristotle begins by
sounding as though he will fundamentally disagree with Socrates (7.2 1145b24—29), but ends in strong
agreement (7.3 1147bl3-17).

90. Indeed, much contemporary ethical skepticism arises precisely here; insofar as contemporary
thought tends to deny that humans can have anything more than an arbitrary or culturally determined
knowledge of the whole, it consistently denies that we can have knowledge as to how to live in that
whole. One might say in passing that this is perhaps a bastardized form of the dichotomy that Plato
perhaps rhetorically presents between knowledge and mere opinion - as though there were no
intermediaries, as though one might not have a better or worse, more or less reasonable, view of the
whole.

91. The minimalization of the relevance of the whole for ethics is also expressed on a lower level
by Aristotle's move to make the gods irrelevant to his inquiry.

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Aristotle then looks for and finds the distinctive human ergon of rational activity. The

argument both reveals and conceals this relation of the human to the whole; it reveals it

through the basic structure of the analogy, but conceals it insofar as Aristotle never calls

attention to this feature of the analogy. But surely it is appropriate to ask whether it

really is the case that the human being is part of a (cosmic) whole in anything like the

sense in which this is true of organs and citizens?93 If so, then this is manifestly

something for wisdom to deal with - the ordinary moral man will perhaps have opinions

about this, but it is hard to see how he could know anything about it. Whether there is

or is not such a whole is irrelevant for this problem; even the lack of such a whole

would have a sort of governing importance for human life and its ends.95 This means,

then, that prudence both can and cannot be separated from wisdom.96 There is an extent

92. Some contemporary commentators such as Martha Nussbaum take a very minimalistic
reading of this passage, according to which it says nothing about a relation between the human as a part
and a larger whole (see her "Appendix: The Function of Man" in her edition of De Motu Animalium
[Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978], 100-106). This is in one way right, since Aristotle does
not call attention to this feature of the analogy. But we also cannot forget that this pertains to the
essential structure of the analogy. At times, the search for a reading of a passage that renders its
argument as plausible as possible can hide the very problems that the passage should alert us to.

93. A question briefly but helpfully explored by Ronna Burger in her "Aristotle's Exclusive
Account of Happiness," 86.

94. Nor would he even know whether it is possible to know it.

95. Just as anarchy is as much a governing form as any genuine regime. Note that although
Aristotelian teleology often tends to focus on individual species in abstraction from a larger whole, the
notion of the whole returns in a very important way at Metaphysics 1075al 1-25 and is also present at
Politics 1256M5-22. Indeed, the very idea of teleology seems inescapably connected to the idea of the
whole; see Plato's Phaedo 97c-98b, 99b—c. For a contrary view, however, see Nussbaum, "Aristotle on
Teleological Explanation" in her edition of De Motu Animalium.

96. This does not, of course, mean that every part of the whole would be relevant for praxis; see
Alexander of Aphrodisias' Ethical Problems, problem 15; 136:20-27; p. 47, and Maimonides' Guide for
the Perplexed 1.31. It is precisely because the number of the stars does not seem relevant for praxis that
it can seem plausible that knowledge of the whole is not important for ethics. In other words, there is
some truth to the (partial) appearance of the philosopher as a Thales, gazing at stars and falling into wells
(EN 6.7 1141b3 8 - which, we should note, is couched in terms of conventional belief). But compare
what Aristotle says on Thales in the Politics 1259a5-21; see also EE 1247al5-21. Plato foreshadows
Aristotle in sometimes allowing for practical wisdom or skill in men like Thales and Anaxagoras

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to which such separation is possible, but this separation can never become complete.

Wisdom always in some sense governs prudence, although it is also the case that

prudence can always step back from such rule without simply collapsing.

In other words, the ordinary ethical-political agent both has and does not have a

view of the whole. That is to say, he has a merely implicit opinion about the whole

(there are thus two defects to it: first, that it is merely implicit rather than reflectively

grasped, and second, that it has the status of mere opinion). That he has a view on the

whole is also shown in the Nicomachean Ethics in the fact that such a man could not

consistently hold a position of the sort that is referred to at the start of the work, when

Aristotle mentions those who think that the beautiful and the just are superficial

conventions (1.3 1094bl 4-16); he must instead adopt something that is much closer in

spirit to the vision of the whole offered by the so-called 'Platonic' Forms. The issue

of nature and convention, one might add, is a perennially difficult philosophical

question that obviously touches upon the nature of the whole. Prudence thus works

within an implicit view of the whole.9 This difficulty is only compounded by the fact

{Phaedrus 270a, Republic 600a), and sometimes denying it {Theaetetus 174a-b, Greater Hippias 281c).
Note that although Aristotle contrasts Anaxagoras with Pericles, Plato reveals that Anaxagoras was
Pericles' very own teacher.

97. For a seminal articulation of this point, see Leo Strauss' "An Epilogue" in Liberalism
Ancient and Modern (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 203-23, at 205-7, and The City and Man, 25-29.

98. This would seem to qualify Aristotle's own dismissal of the 'Platonic' Form of the Good as
irrelevant for ethics (1.6 1096b30-35). At any rate, as Leo Strauss observes, the forms, as expressions of
the heterogeneous character of the whole, are deeply rooted in common sense and opinion: "the things
which are 'first in themselves' are somehow 'first for us'" {The City and Man, 19). Seth Benardete notes
that in the Republic it is Glaucon who first speaks of eidos (see Socrates' Second Sailing: On Plato's
Republic, 39).

99. Another expression of the relation of ethical philosophy to an understanding of the whole in
the EN is seen in the fact that Aristotle speaks of the inferiority of prudence to wisdom as based on the
judgment that the human being is "not the highest thing in the cosmos" (6.7 1141 a21-22, see 1141al8-
1141b3).

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that wisdom as a comprehensive knowledge of the whole of being might not be

available to us as human beings.100 Prudence thus needs and does not need something

that is not (for us).

That the neat division between prudence and wisdom is not Aristotle's final

thought on the matter is further seen in the fact that Aristotle's own activity of ethical

philosophy is not included within the divisions of Bk. 6.101 This activity, furthermore,

although it is indeed an activity of understanding ethics from within, as it understands

itself, is also a matter of situating ethics, of understanding it in the larger context of

human nature, the polls, and ultimately, the cosmos. In fact, we can wonder whether

the stark contrast that Aristotle presents between sophia and phronesls is not determined

by his prior splitting of the soul into the scientific and calculating parts. If we then

remember that Aristotle said that there was something imprecise about his precise

divisions of the soul (see 1.13 1102al8-32, 6.1 1139a3-6 and note the ton auton tropon

100. Platonic philosophy, with its unending dialogical, dialectical structure seems to take this
stance; see, Strauss, The City and Man, 20—21, and his "Progress or Return?" in The Rebirth of Classical
Political Rationalism, 235—36; also, Seth Benardete's commentary in his The Tragedy and Comedy of
Life: Plato's "Philebus" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 90-91. Aristotelian philosophy,
especially if one looks to Bk. 10, appears to take the opposite view, according to which the possession of
sophia is generally attainable. Nonetheless, one must be troubled in this interpretation by one line in
particular of Bk. 10: "philosophy seems to have pleasures wonderful in their purity and stability, and it is
reasonable [eulogon] that the way of life of those who have knowledge is more pleasant than that of those
who are seeking it" (10.7 1177a25-27). Why does Aristotle need to say that it is merely reasonable that
the possession of sophia would be extremely pleasant if in fact he thinks that he possesses it and that it is
generally available to philosophers'? Ronna Burger develops the possibility that Aristotle is not in as
great a disagreement with Plato on this point as we might be inclined to think in her "Aristotle's
'Exclusive' Account of Happiness." Seth Benardete also explores this in his "On Wisdom and
Philosophy: The First Two Chapters of Aristotle's Metaphysics A" in The Argument of the Action, eds.
Ronna Burger and Michael Davis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 396-406. Furthermore,
the difficulties that have historically plagued interpreters of his Metaphysics might be a suggestion that
Aristotle would not have thought it to have moved wholly beyond all aporiai.

101. See Leo Strauss, "On Classical Political Philosophy" in What is Political Philosophy?
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 94; Ronna Burger, "Aristotle's Exclusive Account of
Happiness," 92.

102. As Reeve says, "The scientific part and the calculating part must study completely
different, non-overlapping things, otherwise they would not be two distinct psychic parts" (73).

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there), we have reason to wonder whether there is something imprecise about his

precise divisions of wisdom and prudence. This imprecise precision according to which

prudence is neatly severed from wisdom is balanced, however, by the salutary

imprecision by which Aristotle repeatedly makes problematic the relation between

prudence and ends and thus a larger wisdom.

Another way to address this tension would be as the disjunction between

different senses of nature, between that which occurs for the most part and that which

pertains to the perfection of the form, a tension which Aristotle replicates within his

treatment of phronesis. Although it is perhaps possible for prudence to be informed by

a higher understanding of the whole and even ordered to it (see 6.13 1145a6-l 1), it is

nonetheless certainly the case that the normal, that is, de facto, political agent does not

possess such sophia - and often not even a desire for it - as could govern prudence in

this way. Just as Aristotle is scrupulous in avoiding a rejection of either sense of

nature in favor of the other, so too does he here find a way to retain the tension between

these poles.

I am suggesting, then, that the tensions we find in the text are a reflection of a

genuine tension in the things themselves, whereby phronesis both is and is not apart

103. This "imprecise precision" here presumably finds one of its sources in the need for the
inquiry to be useful, as discussed in ch. 2, 55-60 (see 1.7 1098a26-33, 2.2 1103b26-29). It is
presumably not feasible or helpful to the political man qua political man for him to become engaged in
philosophic inquiry into the whole.

104. We see this same tension between the common and the perfect with regard to Aristotle's
treatment of human nature in general throughout the EN. Is human nature found in that which is pointed
to by the ergon-argument, the complete actualization of our rationality, or is it found in that which
abounds everywhere around us in humans, namely, partial actualizations? (See EN 2.8 1109al2-19, 3.1
1110a23-26,4.1 1121bl2-15, 4.5 1126a30,5.8 1135b 19-22, 7.6 1149a29-32, 7.6 1149M-8, 8.5
1157bl6-17, 9.7 1167b26-28, 10.9 1179b11-13 and Politics 1332b6-8.) See Burger's helpful thoughts
on the inherent difficulties of providing any account that does justice to both the common and the perfect
in "Aristotle's 'Exclusive Account of Happiness," 81.

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from wisdom and thus knowledge of the whole and the ends befitting that whole.

This reflection simultaneously manifests the difficulty of the phenomena and invites us

to a philosophic inquiry that allows us a more precise understanding of the fundamental

imprecision of these matters through a starting point in the recognition ofaporiai. In

the ethical sphere, reaching clarity about a problem might simply be to grasp the puzzle

itself in its problematic aspect.

105. There is a further obscurity in the matters themselves that I have not yet mentioned: it is
very unclear how one would practically reason regarding ends and the relative priorities that one should
accord ends generally in one's life. How does one adjudicate the conflict between motives of the kalon
and motives of the advantageous, to say nothing of motives of philosophy and the intellect? Perhaps the
tension of the text also opens onto questions of this sort.

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Chapter 5: Friendship

All the goods of life cannot satisfy without friendship [philia],] Aristotle says

(8.1 1155a5-6). Nonetheless, when one tries to pin down exactly what friendship is for

him, one runs into great difficulties. There is, of course, the usual division of friendship

into three forms, friendship of the virtuous, friendship of utility, and friendship of

pleasure. Although the precision of this division is in many ways illuminating, there is

a question as to whether such a messy thing as human philia can really be so neatly

parsed, and just as much a question as to whether such a schema constitutes Aristotle's

final word on the matter or something more like a starting-point for him. What

demands and will receive special attention in this regard is the strong connection

between friendship and ethical virtue that Aristotle first posits and then seems to

interrogate. I will first explain the three forms of philia, showing just how bold and

strict a notion of friendship they express, and then try to show how Aristotle himself

questions the adequacy of these precise categories by outlining cases of friendship that

do not seem to fall under these. After this, I will try to explain why it is that Aristotle

might present friendship in this way, arguing that by so doing he maintains continuity

with a difficulty latent in common opinion, and that this difficulty in turn reflects a

1. Translating the term philia is problematic. The traditional and probably the best translation is
"friendship." There are, however, a few problems with this term: (1)philia for Aristotle includes
relations that we would not typically deem relations of friendship, e.g., between a mother and her infant;
(2) for us as moderns, friendship tends to have the implication of relative weakness of relation, whereas
Aristotle's philia can be an extremely intense relationship (see 8.6 1158al0-13, 9.10 1171al0-13).
Some have suggested that the intensity and breadth of philia makes "love" a better translation. (The
Medievals perhaps managed to straddle these two notions in speaking of amor amicitiae, 'the love that is
friendship.') Nonetheless, for Aristotle philia has such great breadth as to include many relations that we
would not want to term relations of love. What is probably best is to translate the term by friendship but
remember not to allow modern biases against friendship to cloud our understanding. And, as we will see,
the relation between friendships proper and family philia forms an important tension for Aristotle
himself. For some reflections on translating philia, see Martha Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, 354;
Gregory Vlastos, "The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato" in Platonic Studies (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1973), 3-42, at 3-^1; David Brink, "Eudaimonism, Love and Friendship, and Political
Community," 257n7.

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tension within the nature of philia itself. Aristotle shows us that we are unable to give

an unambiguous answer to the question as to whether friendship is something common

and accessible or something rare, possible only on the basis of surpassing excellence.

The former notion falsely obscures important distinctions, and the latter appears to

inhumanly limit friendship; both do violence to our experience of philia.

5.1 The Three-fold Division o/Philia

Although it is obvious that Aristotle divides friendship into three kinds, that of

virtue, that of utility, and that of pleasure, it is not immediately evident what it means to

make such a division, and in fact, commentators disagree on just this points My first

goal in this chapter will thus be to unpack the meaning of each of these forms as

Aristotle presents it. It is probably best to follow Aristotle's lead in treating the lesser

forms of friendship first. Of particular importance here will be friendship of pleasure.

Aristotle holds that this friendship has some generosity to it (8.6 1158a20—21), and so,

if one wished to hold that Aristotle sticks firmly to his three basic categories of philia,

one might try to assign to this category the cases of philia that I will later outline as

problematic. Thus I must devote special attention to showing why I take friendship of

pleasure as such a limited form of philia.

Friends for utility, Aristotle says, love each other not on account of themselves,

"but insofar as something good comes to them from one another" (8.3 1156al 1-12).

These relationships are, obviously enough, founded on advantage or benefit; the whole

ratio of the relationship is gain of one sort or another. Aristotle speaks of these

relationships as being "for the sake o f use (9.1 1164a9-l 1) and pros or "for" benefit

2. One major disagreement concerns whether friendships of pleasure and utility constitute
anything that we would want to call friendship in the genuine sense of the word, in other words, whether
they contain any real affection and goodwill. This question will be considered throughout this section.

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(8.3 1156a23-24), phrasings which seem to make it clear that they are for the sake of

gain and do not simply originate in gain in a way that then moves on to transcend this as

a motive, a view that has been influentially suggested by John Cooper. Aristotle seems

to have in mind something rather utilitarian: he says that such friends need take no

pleasure in each other (8.3 1156a28), and thus, as it would seem, need not even like

each other. Although some might argue that we must remember that Aristotle is

speaking of friendships rather than just any sort of relationship, Aristotle himself says

that he terms friendships of use as friendships only to maintain continuity with common

speech (8.4 1157a25-31).4 Typical examples include relations stemming from business

opportunities or political relationships (8.4 1157al2—14, a26-8, 8.6 1158a32, 9.1

1164a2-8). He makes it clear just what he thinks of such 'friendships' when he says

that making these sorts of relationships central to one's life is characteristic of vulgarly

commercial [agoraion] people (8.6 1158a21).

Friendship of pleasure receives a somewhat more extended and complex

treatment. The three cases that Aristotle mentions as pertaining to friendships of

pleasure are (1) those of the young, (2) erotic relationships (which to some extent

overlap with the first), and (3) friendships motivated by the wittiness of one or more of

3. See John Cooper, "Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship" in his Reason and Emotion
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 312-35, and especially his analysis of the more ambiguous
preposition dia (322-23). Note that 9.1 1164a9-l 1 explicitly applies, mutatis mutandis, to friendships of
pleasure as well.

4. This is pace Nussbaum (Fragility of Goodness, 355n), Cooper ("Forms of Friendship," 331),
and Rosalind Hursthouse ("Aristotle for Women Who Love Too Much" in Ethics 117 [2007]: 327-34 at
329). Note, however, that Aristotle's point at 1156a28 does not eliminate the possibility of some
affection or liking existing in some cases of friendship for use; it only says that the sine qua non and
governing structure of this relationship is provided by gain and nothing else.

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the friends.5 This does not, of course, mean that these are the only sorts of cases of

pleasure-based philia that are possible, but presumably does mean that these cases are

exemplary for the phenomenon.

What, then, is essential to this relation? The central point to which Aristotle

returns time and again is that the friend for pleasure is not loved for who he is, but is

only enjoyed insofar as he satisfies a desire for pleasure. In his fullest and most detailed

account of friendship of pleasure, Aristotle employs the case of the witty, writing,

[Those who love on account of pleasure] are fond of witty people [eutrapelous] not

for being of a certain sort [ou gar toi poious tinas einai agaposi], but because they

are pleasing to themselves.... those who love based on pleasure have a liking based

on what is pleasant for themselves, and the other person is not loved for what he is

[ouch hei], but insofar as he is...pleasant. Therefore, these are friendships of an

incidental kind, because it is not as being the very one that he is that the beloved is

loved [ou gar hei estin hosper estin hophiloumenos, tauteiphileitai], but insofar as

he provides...pleasure. (8.3 1156al2—19)

Although Aristotle has not yet introduced complete friendship at this point in his

inquiry, he nonetheless describes friendship of pleasure through denying of it what is

distinctive about the perfect case. We thus find a string of closely connected negations:

the friend on account of pleasure is not loved as being the sort of man that he is, nor as

being what he is, nor as being the very one that he is. Aristotle comes back to this at

later points in his treatment, as when he claims that friendships of pleasure and use

occur when one "is not fond of the other, but rather of what belongs to the other" [ou

gar autous estergon alia ta huparchonta] (9.1 1164al0-l 1), and when he says that

5.8.3 1156a31-b6, 8.4 1157a3-14, 8.6 1158al8-21, 8.6 1158a32, 9.1 1164a6-12.

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friends for pleasure are more properly friends of the pleasure given by the friend than of

the other person (9.3 1165b3; see also 8.4 1157al 5-16). Eventually he goes so far as to

say that friendships of pleasure (as well as of use) do not even include goodwill

[eunoia] (9.5 1167al 3-14). The moral dubiousness that we already saw him attribute

to friendships of use is also extended to friendships of pleasure: "the base [phauloi] will

be friends for pleasure or use, since they are alike in that respect" (8.4 1157b2-3).

This treatment of friendship of pleasure then prepares us for Aristotle's positive

characterization of complete philia, a characterization which occurs mainly in terms of

direct love for the friend as being the (sort of) person that he is. He writes,

Complete friendship is between those who are good and alike in virtue, since they

wish for good things for one another in the same way insofar as they are good, and

they are good in themselves [kath' hautous]. And those who wish for good things

for their friends for their own sake [ekeinon heneka] are friends most of all, since

they are that way for themselves [di' hautous] and not incidentally." (8.3 1156b7-

11)

The dominant theme of this passage expresses the most important characteristic of

complete friendship: such philia relates directly to the self of the friend, as being the

person that he is, as having the character that he does.7 This is expressed by the use of

two phrases that form a sort of refrain in regard to complete friendship as against the

6. It should be noted that Cooper reads this statement differently ("Forms of Friendship," 330). I
find his interpretation problematic; when Aristotle says that "since no goodwill comes about on the basis
of these" [oude gar eunoia epi toutois ginetai], Cooper apparently takes "these" as referring to something
like expectations of receiving use and pleasure before a friendship begins - but the text would seem to
force us to take ten [philian] dia to chresimon [kai] ten [philian] dia to hedu as the referent, in which case
Aristotle is simply denying that goodwill comes to be in these sorts of friendships at all. But see note 18
below for more on Cooper's interpretation.

7. This point is phrased in terms of character at 9.1 1164al2, 9.3 1165b5-6.

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other forms; friends love di' hautous (on account of what they themselves are) and for

what they are kath' hautous (in themselves).

This idea of friends loving di' hautous is opposed by Aristotle to the incidental

[kata sumbebekos] relation ; that is, it is precisely because friendships of use and

pleasure do not relate to the very self of the friend that they are incidental and thus

incomplete friendships (8.3 1156a 17-19). Since friendships for pleasure or use have as

their ratio the pleasant or useful, they relate to the friend insofar as he provides these,

and thus relate to the friend through something incidental to himself. Perhaps we

should take this idea of the kata sumbebekos here in two senses: first that the friend

loves the other for the sake of a quality that is not at the core of the self of the other, and

secondly, that even this quality is not loved in itself, but only insofar as it provides

something to the friend.

What is of greatest importance for the purposes of this study is that Aristotle

consistently links the theme of loving the friend for himself to another mark of

friendship, namely, loving another for the sake of his virtue.1 The idea seems to rest on

two premises. The first is that one is one's virtuous character, and that to love a friend

for his virtue would thus be to love the friend himself.1 This is expressed when

8. See 8.3 1156b21, 8.4 1157al8, 8.4 1157b3,9.1 1164al2, 9.10 1171al9.

9.See8.3 1156al8, 8.3 1156bll,8.4 1157a3 5-36; see also 8.8 1159al8.

10. The governing importance for Aristotle of the question as to whether only the virtuous can
be friends in the true sense of the word is seen in the fact that when Aristotle sets the agenda for his
inquiry (immediately after he dismisses the natural standpoint), he writes, "Let us examine all those that
have to do with human things and pertain to character and feelings, such as whether friendship comes
about in all people, or whether it is impossible for people who are vicious to be friends, and whether there
is more than one species of friendship" (8.1 1155b9-13).

11. This would, by the way, seem to provide Aristotle's reply to the now-common question as to
whether Aristotelian friendship allows for love of the individual or only of generic excellences possessed
by the individual. According to Aristotle's account here, the self simply is his or her character with its

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Aristotle says that the friend loves the other for what the other is in himself, and that the

virtuous person is good in himself (8.3 1156b8-10); virtue is here taken to constitute

one's most essential self.

The second premise, which is, however, not stated as directly as one might like,

is that one's character can only be loved for itself if it is good in itself. That is to say,

the sort of character that is able to be loved for itself is found only in those with ethical

virtue. It is those who are good in themselves [kath' hautous] who can be loved on

account of themselves [di' hautous}. Consider, for example, Aristotle's reasoning

regarding the obligation to remain friends with someone who has changed for the

worse: "if we accept a friend as a good person, and then he becomes vicious, and seems

so, should we still love him? Surely we cannot, if indeed not everything is lovable, but

only what is good" (9.3 1165b 14-15). Here we see that loving the friend who has lost

his virtue is not possible precisely because he is no longer lovable. Also helpful here is

Aristotle's claim regarding the rarity ofphilia in the governing sense; much of the

reason such philia is so rare is that it is difficult to find surpassing people of a sort as to

so thoroughly delight (8.6 1158al3-14). The idea is that only the good can provide the

source of any deep delight or love. So too, when discussing goodwill [eunoia],

understood as something like the disposition to hope for good things for the other (9.5

hexeis, and so there is no difficulty. Consider also the ergcw-argument in light of the backdrop of the
opening of the EN, in which it seems that the activity of acting virtuously produces the self as one's own
work (1.7 1097b22-1098a20). For some contemporary reflections on this problem, see Vlastos, "The
Individual as Object of Love" in Platonic Studies, 31, 33n; Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, 357; Talbot
Brewer, "Virtues We Can Share: Friendship and Aristotelian Ethical Theory" in Ethics 115 (2005): 721 —
58 at 742-45; David Brink, "Eudaimonism, Love and Friendship, and Political Community," 270-71.

12. Aristotle thus provides three accounts of what the human is: (1) character, as is stated
throughout 8.3 (see also 3.1 111 lbl: "non-rational feelings seem to be no less human than reasoning is"
and 6.2 1139b4-5); (2) practical intellect (9.4 1166al6-19; 9.8 1168b29-l 169a3); (3) theoretical intellect
(10.7 1178a2-8). This will be discussed further in ch. 6.

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1167al-2, a9-10), Aristotle, after excluding it from friendships of use and pleasure

(al3-14), makes the bold claim that "in general goodwill results from some sort of

virtue and decency [areten kai epieikeian tina], whenever someone appears noble

[kalos] or courageous or something similar, just as we said concerning those involved in

athletic competition" (al 8-21). Again Aristotle emphasizes that it is virtue that

engenders the truly friendly responses. Thus, although the most definitive mark of

complete friendship is that of loving the other for his own sake as the person whom he

is, once one accepts these two premises, such love can only be understood as a love for

the other qua virtuous.

At this point I must pause to reply to an objection. Some commentators

understand the connection between ethical virtue and love for the other in himself to

rest solely or at least primarily on the fact that only the morally mature are capable of

transcending their own particular interests in the way that is required for true

friendship. And, indeed, Aristotle does suggest that this forms part of the connection;

those who are vulgarly commercial and love only utility (8.6 1158a21) or those who,

like the youth, love only pleasure (8.3 1156a3 l-b6), will be able to form friendships

centered on these alone (see also 8.4 1157b 1-3). But Aristotle does not limit the

connection between virtue and genuine friendship to the side of the friend who loves;

and in fact what seems even more important to him is something on the side of the

friend who is loved. To stress the need for virtue on the part of the friend who loves can

create the false impression that virtue is something like a mere condition of possibility

for complete friendship, whereas in fact it is the very ratio of it. That is, in Aristotle's

13. See Dale Jacquette, "Aristotle on the Value of Friendship as a Motivation for Morality" in
The Journal of Value Inquiry 35 (2001): 371-89, at 380-81; Robert Sokolowski, "Friendship and Moral
Action in Aristotle" in The Journal of Value Inquiry 35 (2001): 355-69, at 357-58.

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presentation of complete philia, the friend is loved primarily as virtuous (8.4 1157b3,

8.3 1156b7-8), and so virtue forms the heart of friendship rather than some necessary

condition for it. The connection that Aristotle wishes to make between true friendship

and virtue, then, is not primarily that only the virtuous can love others for their own

sake, but that only the virtuous can be loved for their own sake. The very boldness of

this claim is perhaps part of the reason why commentators tend to shy away from it;

whether Aristotle sticks to this bold position, however, is another question.

Although talk of loving di' hautous constitutes Aristotle's usual way of

formulating the theme that the friend must be loved for what he himself is, the point is

also made at 8.3 1156b 10 when Aristotle speaks of wishing good things for the friend

"for his own sake" [ekeinou heneka], which, in context, has the sense of 'for what the

friend himself is.' I5 The realization that this is not the usual sense of the phrase "for his

own sake" makes another feature of friendship stand out more clearly, namely, that the

friend is loved, and his good is wished for and pursued, not for the sake of some return,

but simply as an end in itself (this is the sense that the term has, for example, at 8.2

14. A. W. Price suggests another reason why Aristotle connects virtue and love for the other for
his own sake. The middle term of the argument is constancy; only the good are constant enough to
constitute a unified self of the sort that is needed for love of the self of the other. As he writes, "only
good men identify themselves with their choices and actions over time in such a way that co-operation in
thought and action can express friendship for a person who is more than a partial or transient self {Love
and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle [New York: Clarendon Press, 1989], 128). Nonetheless, this idea
that only the good are constant is very problematic, especially for Aristotle, as we will discuss below in
sec. 3. Price notes this problem but suggests, with Terence Irwin, that the vicious will be inconstant in a
sense that does not involve moral regret but merely the inconstancy of their appetites (127-29). At the
least, however, this attempted solution seems to forget about the middle cases, as Aristotle himself easily
allows one to do. It also seems to ignore the possibility that even the appetites of the vicious might
remain relatively stable, fixed on one or a few overarching goals. This is all discussed further in sec. 3.

15. "And those who wish for good things for their friends for their own sake [ekeinon heneka]
are friends most of all, since they are that way for themselves [di' hautous]'' (8.3 1156b9—10).

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1155b31 ).16 It is important to note that although we might want to make a sharp

distinction between, on the one hand, loving and doing well for a friend for his own

sake rather than for personal gain via utility or pleasure, and, on the other hand, loving a

friend for the sake of what he himself is as a person,17 Aristotle deliberately blurs the

line between these two features by using the phrase "for his own sake" to refer to both

features of friendship.

16. More precisely, Aristotle usually speaks not of loving for the friend's own sake, but of
wishing or doing good things for the friend for his own sake. See 8.2 1155b31, 8.3 1156b9-10, 8.5
1157b31-32; 8.7 1159a9-10; 9.8 1168b2-3, 1169al8-19. Nonetheless, he also writes that "those who
love one another wish for good things for one another in the same sense in which they love" (8.3 1156a9-
10), and at 9.4 1166a3-5 the "for his own sake" is tied to the affirmation of the being of the friend rather
than to favors.

17. This ambiguity of the phrase ekeinou heneka is discussed by Price, 104-05, 108; Lorraine
Smith Pangle, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship, 210nl3; and Vlastos, "The Individual as an
Object of Love," 33n 100.

18. Aristotle does this again at 9.4 1166al6—17 when he says that the decent man wishes for
good things for his own sake since he wishes for them for the sake of his nous, which is most of all
himself. See also 9.1 1164a34-35, where Aristotle uses the language of di' autous where we would
expect him to say ekeinon heneka. John Cooper has argued in his influential "Aristotle on the Forms of
Friendship" that we should radically separate the features of doing good for the other for his own sake
and loving the other for what he is in himself. The former feature, he argues throughout this paper, is
present in all three forms of friendship. Sarah Broadie ("Philosophical Introduction and Commentary" in
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, eds. Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002], esp. 58 and the commentary on 1155b28-9 [409], 1156b7-l 1 [410], and 1167al2-14
[420]), Rosalind Hursthouse ("Aristotle for Women Who Love Too Much", esp. 327-31), and Martha
Nussbaum {Fragility of Goodness, 355n) have all joined Cooper in interpreting friendships of use and
pleasure more generously. I will here briefly suggest some of the main reasons why I disagree, focusing
on Cooper's claims, and noting as well that my general treatment has contained a sort of implicit reply
(see also notes 3, 4, and 6 above). First I want to emphasize again that Aristotle himself uses the one
phrase "for his own sake" to refer to the two features that Cooper so sharply distinguishes and thus would
seem to deliberately want to merge these features. Generalizing this point, one could say that at the very
least Cooper cannot explain the surface of the text, which certainly leads one to a more negative reading
of philia of use and pleasure, as historically has been the case; Cooper can only judge the surface to be
mere sloppiness on Aristotle's part, a judgment that the interpreter should always be hesitant to make.
Furthermore, his argument relies heavily upon Aristotle's initial characterization of friendship as
essentially containing goodwill (8.2 1155b27-l 156a5), together with the fact that Aristotle consistently
speaks of friendships of pleasure and use as friendships rather than mere relations. But 8.2 1155b27-
1156a5 would seem to constitute too much of a beginning-point to base anything solidly upon it; we can
hardly expect that Aristotle would disqualify relations of use and pleasure as friendships before he had
even treated of them! As for Aristotle's general ascription of the term friendship to such relations, he
himself tells us that this is primarily a matter of maintaining continuity with common speech (8.4
1157a25-b5). Also, if Aristotle has the ability to point to a central feature common to all three forms of
friendship, it becomes unclear why he would struggle as he does to present some grounds for speaking of
all three with the same name, settling upon a relation of likeness having to do with the involvement of the

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 In this way does Aristotle appear to boldly suggest that we should understand

what would seem to be two distinct characteristics of friendship, namely, (1) loving the

other for his own sake (in both senses of the term, i.e., as loving the friend for what he

himself is and loving the friend in a way that directly seeks his own good as an end in

itself) and (2) loving the other for the sake of his virtue, to be extensively identical,

found only together. This can be seen, in fact, as Aristotle's maximization of one of the

beliefs of common opinion: "some think that it is the same who are good men and

friends" (8.1 1155a31).19 It is the union of these two features that I especially wish to

subject to scrutiny in this investigation; my contention will be that Aristotle strays from

his own standard account (or, alternately, from this strand of common opinion that he

temporarily seizes upon).

Before concluding this section, I want to return for a moment to the contrast

between complete philia and philia on account of pleasure. It seems that the essential

good and the pleasant in all three (8.4 1157a29-b5, 8.6 115 8b5-l 1). Additionally, Cooper has to read
several passages in which Aristotle provides a strongly negative assessment of friendships of pleasure and
use in a way that seems rather unconvincing (8.4 1157al5-16, 9.1 1164al0-ll, 9.3 1165b3,9.5
1167al 3-14; "Forms of Friendship," 329-31). In so doing he seems to me to read the less obscure
passages in light of the more obscure. At any rate, the main motivation for making such a move seems to
be found in Cooper's reluctance to ascribe to Aristotle a view according to which such a great majority of
relationships would be crassly self-serving (317, 331). If, however, one understands Aristotle as raising
questions about the threefold division of friendship in the way that I will try to show, then perhaps one
can have something of what Cooper wants without, as I see it, sacrificing plausibility by interpreting
Aristotle's division of philia as being so generous. The key is that it is beyond and not within Aristotle's
threefold division of philia that we should look for this generosity and flexibility. At any rate, my
treatment here will acknowledge that doing good for another for his own sake rather than for gain and
loving another for what he himself is are different aspects of friendship, but will hold that Aristotle's
standard account places these together as existing only in one form of friendship, namely, the friendship
of the virtuous. For others who disagree with Cooper's interpretation, see Brewer, 730-31; Andrew
Payne, "Character and the Forms of Friendship in Aristotle" in Apeiron 33 (2000): 53-74.

19. In this, however, he privileges only one aspect of common opinion, as is made explicit by the
"some" [enioi]; the belief that good persons and good friends are one and the same seems widespread, but
perhaps equally far-reaching is the belief as to the mutual indifference of ethical virtue and friendship: see
8.4 1157a25-b5. As will become clear, I read Aristotle as exploring the merits of both views. It should
be noted, though, that there is textual disagreement regarding 1155a31; some manuscripts read
"moreover" [eti] in place of "some" [enioi], in which case we should translate the line as "And moreover
people believe..." This obviously does not affect my argument in any important way.

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characteristic found in the former that is lacking in the latter is found in this loving the

other for his own sake, as the person that he is, as having the character that he does. If,

then, we find cases in which the friends love each other directly, that is, love the

character of the other, we know that this sort of friendship has transcended the bounds

of pleasure-based philia.

5.2 Aristotle's Revisions

This criterion of the involvement of character can be used as a sort of touchstone

to judge the various cases that Aristotle articulates throughout his treatment of

friendship, with the purpose of learning whether all such cases fall neatly within his

three general categories. And in fact there are many cases that subtly remind us that

friends seem to be able to love each other for the sake of character, that is, directly love

the friend as being the self that he is, without either friend being especially virtuous or

without the love responding primarily to ethical virtue of even a limited sort. Aristotle

20. With 'character' here not to be taken as shorthand for the specific form of character as
virtuous character but in the generic sense of character as the unity of habits, traits, et cetera of a person
(see 2.1 1103a 14-19). It is important to realize that ethos in Greek, although often centered on moral
character, nonetheless had this broader sense as well. It is that sense that I will generally use throughout
in speaking of character. It seems possible that Aristotle exploits this ambiguity in the term in order to
preserve ambiguity in his treatment.

21. One passage that could be brought against this claim is in 8.6, when Aristotle says that those
who take pleasure from each other in the same respect "enjoy one another" [chairosin allelois]
(1158al9). Nonetheless, I would point to the fact that enjoying the other does not mean that one is
relating to him for what he himself is rather than for something incidental (just as the friend for pleasure
is said to be fond of the other not for himself but for what he provides, 8.3 1156al4-l 6). Nonetheless,
8.6 1158al8~23 does constitute Aristotle's most positive treatment of friendship based on pleasure, which
is intelligible in light of Aristotle's turn in 8.5-8.6 from a focus on virtue and wishing for the good of the
other to a focus on taking delight in the other (even in complete philia).

22. Cooper has argued that we should read Aristotle as holding that friendship for virtue is
possible not only between those perfect in virtue but also between "ordinary people" who possess, in
whatever limited ways, some small degree of virtue ("Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship," 316—20). It
seems problematic, however, to present, as he does, a dichotomy between either limiting complete
friendship to those who are "heroes" of virtue, in every way perfect, or extending it to most everyone; and
it is just this dichotomy which yields plausibility to Cooper's thesis. For Aristotle, at any rate, there
would seem to be something between the classes of the many and the heroes (7.1 1145al8-30).

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first presents this in speaking about ex-lovers, writing that "many lovers remain friends,

if, as a result of their intimacy [sunetheias], they become fond of [sterxosin] each

other's character [ethe], when they are alike in character [homoetheis]" (8.4 1157al0-

12). Here Aristotle explicitly notes the involvement of character in such relationships,

mentioning character twice in one sentence as though to emphasize the point, and this

seems to form a crucial acknowledgment that here one has transcended friendship of

use or pleasure. In fact, what Aristotle describes here sounds like a di' hautous

friendship; the friends must relate to each other's character, that is, to what each is in

himself. Yet the focus in this passage is not on virtue of character, but on simple

familiarity with and similarity of character - the sort of thing experienced by many

[polloi, al 0]. Aristotle here brings us back down to earth, and we are reminded of these

ordinary, everyday cases. We remember that love for character can come about not

simply through excellence but also through this modest familiarity and similarity,

something that the broad strokes of Aristotle's account tend to minimize.

Generally speaking, Aristotle avoids ascribing virtue generously; and he makes it clear that he regards
most people as falling somewhere between self-restraint and unrestraint (7.7 1150al5-16, 7.10 1152a26-
27; 10.9 1179b4-20). And although there are textual grounds for rejecting the limitation of complete
friendship to the perfectly perfect (see Aristotle's talk of inequality in even complete friendships and of
friendship as aiding virtue: 8.13 1162a34-b4, 9.9 1170al 1-13, 9.12 U72al0-15), Aristotle surely works
hard to present such friendship as a rare and elevated phenomenon requiring a high degree of
development of virtue (8.3 1156b24-26, 8.6 1158al3-14). Cooper, however, dismisses this as being due
simply to "the pervasive teleological bias of [Aristotle's] thinking, which causes him always to search out
the best and most fully realized instance when attempting to define a kind of thing" (320). For clear
evidence, however, that Aristotle was not unaware of the problem of using the perfect in a definition, see
Politics 1276bl9-36 and Ronna Burger's "Aristotle's 'Exclusive' Account of Happiness: Contemplative
Wisdom as a Guise of the Political Philosopher," 81, 94nl2. At any rate, it is important to note that even
if one were to accept Cooper's argument, one would still face the problem that the broad strokes of
Aristotle's treatment present love of the self of the friend as though it were identifiable with love of the
ethical virtue (however limited) of the friend. But part of what I wish to show is that Aristotle reminds us
of cases in which love of the very self of the friend seems to occur without any great thematic emphasis
upon ethical virtue.

23. One might even say that ethos is used three times in this sentence, if one realizes that it is
present as a root in sunetheia.

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 The case of the ex-lovers receives only a brief mention, but Aristotle goes on to

discuss other cases that muddy his threefold schema of philia, notably in his frequent

talk of the friendship of brothers. The, philia of brothers, as with the ex-lovers, is tied

explicitly to character, but not to character in terms of excellence but rather similarity

and familiarity. Thus he writes, "The friendship of brothers is like that of comrades,

since they are equals and of similar age, and such people are, for the most part, alike in

feelings and in character" (8.11 1161a25-27). He further explains the sources of their

likeness when he says,

Brothers love each other as having sprung from the same parents: the sameness of

their relation to their parents produces sameness with each other, which is why

people speak of'the same blood' and 'the same root' and such like. Thus they are

somehow the same thing, though in separate individuals [eisi de tauto pos kai en

dieiremeois]. And common upbringing [suntrophon] and similar age contribute

greatly to their friendship.... (8.12 1161b30-34)

Here Aristotle points to the power of likeness as such, independent of virtue; brotherly

love finds its source in shared blood, upbringing, and age, all of which leads to

sameness not necessarily of virtue but of feelings and character simply speaking. Yet

despite the fact that virtue is not essential here, the fraternal friendship is a friendship

that centrally involves the character of the brothers - that is, after all, why the likeness

of their characters is relevant in the first place - and thus transcends motives of use or

pleasure alone. The depth of such philia is also made clear by the fact that Aristotle

here relates it to his famous idea of the friend as an "other self," a theme that he

introduces for the first time in what immediately precedes this passage in reference to

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the love of parents' for their child (8.12 1161b27—29). The child, Aristotle says, as

coming from the parents but separate from them [kechoristhai], constitutes such an

other self (8.12 1161b29). So too does he go on to say that brothers are "somehow the

same thing," although separated [dieiremenois], and thus, although he does not draw the

explicit conclusion, are other selves. One can hardly imagine that friendship of use or

pleasure would entail this notion of the "other self," and so one here finds further proof

that brotherly love must be understood as a higher form of philia.

Nor are these themes uncommon to Aristotle's way of presenting brotherly love.

He makes similar claims about brothers, with some important additions, when he writes,

The very same characteristics which exist in a friendship of comrades - and more

so among the decent and in general among those who are alike - exist also in the

friendship of brothers, to the extent that they belong to each other more

[oikeioteroi] and have affection for one another from birth, and inasmuch as those

are more alike in character [homoethesteroi] who come from the same parents and

share a common upbringing and are similarly educated. (8.12 1162a9-14)

Again Aristotle stresses the importance of likeness of character as derived from

sameness of blood and upbringing. Interestingly, however, he here emphasizes both the

natural (as spontaneous) and non-natural (as cultivated) sources for this friendship in

ways that he had not previously. The non-natural aspect comes out through his talk of

education, a theme previously unmentioned: the learning that informs the minds and

24.1 owe the connection between these lines and the theme of the other self to David Brink,
"Eudaimonism, Love and Friendship, and Political Community," 261. Aristotle's failure to draw the
conclusion can perhaps be seen as an example of his philosophic use of enthymematic argumentation
(Rhetoric, 1356b2-ll, 1395b21-1396b34).

25. Furthermore, this passage makes it clear that Aristotle's famous theme of the "other self
stands in some tension with the theme of virtue, insofar as the driving force of the relation in terms of the
"other self seems to be likeness as such rather than excellence.

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souls of brothers is alike, and so they are made alike. The spontaneous aspect comes

out through Aristotle's talk of the affection that brothers have for each other from birth

[ek genetes]. This seems tied with Aristotle's emphasis here on the theme of one's own,

which is expressed when he speaks of the brothers as loving each other insofar as they

are oikeioteroi (more of one's own, more belonging to each other). These two ideas

seem to form a pair: as being oikeioi, they love each other from birth; love of one's own

is something natural and spontaneous. Again, none of this is tied to ethical virtue,

whether explicitly or implicitly. Nonetheless, we also here see Aristotle link brotherly

friendship to that of the decent, boldly claiming that the "very same characteristics"

[haper] of the latter are found in the former, thereby reinforcing the point that this

brotherly love transcends friendship of use or pleasure in relating to the very self of the

philos. In this claim one finds yet further evidence that brotherly love transcends

friendship of use or pleasure in relating to the very self of the loved one. Indeed, it is

noteworthy that Aristotle here speaks jointly of friendships of "the decent and.. .those

who are alike," as he seems to thereby bridge the gap between the two and reestablish in

a general way the importance of likeness, earlier set aside as an independent theme (8.2

1155a32-bl0).27

In this treatment of brothQx\y philia we find Aristotle making good on his claim

to stick to the phenomena of ordinary experience (7.1 1145b3); what is more ordinary

and common than fraternal love, based on humble traits that nonetheless have incredible

power? To deny either that this sort of friendship relates directly to the brother himself,

26. In context, this seems equivalent to speaking of the virtuous; see 8.12 1162a25-26.

27. See Lorraine Smith Pangle's similar findings in Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship,
48.

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going beyond use and pleasure, or that this friendship need not be centered upon the

brother as possessing noble virtues would be to do violence to the appearances in a way

that Aristotle eschews. Furthermore, we should note that far from this lack of

dependence on virtue being simply problematic, it is something for which we should be

grateful; it would be a fearful thing if there were no human bonds in lieu of surpassing

excellence!

Aristotle's Politics also argues for a strong connection betweenphilia and the

bonds of one's own; he writes that "there are two things above all which make human

beings cherish [kedesthai] and feel affection [philein]: what is one's own [to idion] and

what is dear [to agapetonY (1262b22-23). He even goes so far as to assert that this sort

of love for one's own plays a governing role in human life as a sort of fundamental glue

of the polis; he says that "we suppose it to be the greatest good for cities, for in this way

they would least of all engage in factional conflict" (1262b7-9). Thus, not only does

philia rooted in one's own exist, as Aristotle at times allows us to forget within the

Nicomachean Ethics, it is stronger than most other ties that humans can form. This

would also seem to tell against a reduction of this philia for one's own to philia for

pleasure or use, since these are consistently said to be weak and variable by Aristotle

(EN 8.3 1156al 9-24, 9.3 1165M-4).

Aristotle's elevation of brotherly love is also tied to a general shift in his

emphases. Although he focuses on virtue and reciprocal well-wishing from 8.2 to 8.4,

he then turns to emphasize themes such as spending one's days together (8.5 1157b20-

28. The importance of natural love for one's own figures centrally in Plato's Republic. There
Plato seems to provide a gruesome illustration of what it might look like to eliminate natural familial
bonds for the sake of relationships centered solely on forms of virtue.

29. For more on the tie of philia and one's own in the Politics, see also 1327b36-1328al6.

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25, 8.6 1158a8-10), delight in the friend (8.5 1157b7-8, 8.6 1158a3-4, al2-14),

equality (8.5 1157b36-l 158al), and sharing in common (8.9 1159b29-35, 8.11

1161a32-34). When it comes to these aspects of friendship, brotherhood is clearly

exemplary, in no way deficient relative to other forms of philia.30 Indeed, Aristotle

even takes brotherly friendship as a sort of paradigm case of friendship insofar as it

entails the complete sharing of all things (9.2 1165a29-30, see also 8.9 1159b29-35).

Aristotle's use of maternal love as an exemplar ofphilia also contributes to the

fundamental tension of his treatment. It is important to recognize that Aristotle clearly

presents maternal love as transcending philia of pleasure or use. Indeed, he even uses

maternal love as a paradigm case for his claim that loving pertains more to friendship

than being loved, reminding us that

mothers delight in loving [and] some of them give up their own children to be

raised, and feel love just in knowing them, not seeking to be loved in return if both

are not possible; it seems to be sufficient for them if they see their children doing

well, and they love them even if the children, in their ignorance, give back nothing

of what is due to a mother. (8.8 1159a28-33)

Insofar, then, as the mother loves and does not demand a return, she clearly loves the

child for his or her own sake and thus moves beyond philia of pleasure or use. Indeed,

Aristotle makes this even more explicit in 9.4, writing that some consider a friend to be

one who wishes good things for and affirms the existence of the friend for his own sake,

and then adds that "this is the very thing mothers feel toward their children" (1166a5-

6).

30. This general trend of his treatment is also essential to his move to make the friendship of
comrades a sort of standard for friendship (see 8.5 1157b24-25, 8.11 1161a25-26, 8.12 1161b35-36,
1162a9 14, 9.10 1171al4-15).

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 At the same time, Aristotle presents maternal love as a love of one's own,

speaking of the way in which parents "love their children as being something that is part

of themselves" (8.12 1161M8) and as a natural form of the "other self (b28-29).31 It is

just this character of being a love of one's own that shows that the love of a mother does

not fall under Aristotle's standard account of friendship of virtue. Far from maternal

love depending upon excellence of character in the one loved, it seems to be precisely

the mark and merit of this love to love in an unconditional manner. Thus, although

maternal love is for the sake of the child rather than for a return, transcending the

limitations of philia of utility and pleasure, it nonetheless differs importantly with

friendship of virtue, in which one loves the other for himself only insofar as he is

virtuous. Thus, amazingly enough, the very case that Aristotle chooses as an exemplar

of genuine ph i lia (8.8 1159a27-bl) violates the broad strokes of his treatment.

One should also consider the development of the argument at the very

conclusion of the books on friendship, where Aristotle, unpacking the idea of friends as

finding each other's existence intrinsically worthwhile, and thus again referring to that

which goes beyond friendships of use or pleasure, speaks of the way in which friends

share in the activity that they together consider essential, and then adds that such

activities can range from drinking, hunting, dice-playing, and exercising - activities

which can surely be engaged in without ethical virtue - to the higher yet still non-

ethical activity of philosophizing (9.12 1171b33-T 172a6). The key here is that such

31. See also 9.7 1168al-2, a24-27.

32. This fact is recognized by Vlastos, but he takes it only as a sign of Aristotelian daftness
("The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato," 6).

33. See also 8.5 1157b24 for an early reference to this theme of enjoying the same things
[chairontas tois autois].

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relationships seem to be presented by Aristotle as forms of complete friendship (insofar

as they include the essential mark of affirming the other for his own sake), and yet also

seem neither to necessitate great ethical virtue nor to centrally involve whatever virtue

the friends might possess. One could object that here Aristotle is simply including

those friendships of pleasure that involve spending one's days together, mentioned

earlier (8.3 1156b4, 8.13 1162M3-16). The important difference, however, between

those earlier passages and this late passage is that in the latter the account of sharing

time and those activities that are considered essential is presented as a way of unpacking

the idea of mutual affirmation by friends of the very being of each other, an affirmation

that clearly entails a move beyond the narrow limits of philia of pleasure and use.

Furthermore, the fact that this passage is located at the very end of Aristotle's treatment

on friendship seems to show that this more generous and inclusive notion of genuine

friendship is not a mere dialectical thread that is eventually discarded along the way.

Indeed, if anything, Aristotle seems to start with a more restrictive notion and then

gradually broaden it out.

Finally, one must consider Aristotle's views on the possibilities of friendship for

the wicked. Aristotle begins by making a claim that fits neatly in line with his general

treatment and the threefold schema of philia: "the bad [kakoi] do not enjoy their own

kind unless some benefit comes from them" (8.4 1157al9-20). In accord with his

official teaching, Aristotle here denies that a wicked person can delight in the self of

another wicked person; only the good is lovable (9.3 1165bl4—15) and so only those

who are good can engender such delight. This corresponds as well to Aristotle's

treatment in 9.4, which stresses that only those who are virtuous are of such a nature as

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to be capable of friendship with either self or others. But we find that Aristotle makes a

crucial revision along the way in a discussion about the lack of stability of the vicious:

The vicious [mochtheroi] have nothing stable about them, since they do not even

remain similar to themselves, though they become friends for a short time, while

they take pleasure in one another's viciousness [chairontes tei allelon

mochtheriai]. Useful or pleasant people stay friends longer, for as long as they

provide pleasures or benefits to one another. (8.8 1159b7-12, emphasis added)

Here we find a belated admission that the vicious can enjoy each other precisely qua

vicious rather than qua useful or pleasant. It might seem strange to deem this a relation

other than of pleasure, especially since Aristotle here speaks of enjoying the other. But

as the passage itself shows, Aristotle himself goes on to contrast this relation with

friendships of pleasure. The reason for this is probably that he means that the wicked

can enjoy each other di' hautous, on account of what they themselves are (their

fundamental hexeis as forming an ethos), and thus, in a twisted way, move beyond

friendship of pleasure. (Such a friendship is presumably based on the sort of love of

one's own that we saw above in more salutary contexts.) This claim, however,

threatens the very foundations of his general treatment; we see that delight in the self of

the other is not limited to delight in good character, and are reminded just how little

love of one's own depends upon excellence.

34. 9.4 nonetheless decisively returns to the denial of friendship to the wicked as wicked. One
should also note that even the claim at 1159b7-l 2 is situated within a framework that causes problems,
insofar as the bad are said to be unstable, a claim which should be compared with his treatment of the
matter in Bk. 7, in which the vicious man is said to be so by choice and to "stand by his choice" (7.8
1150b29-30), being in a "continuous bad condition" (b34-35). The idea that the wicked are so unstable
as to be incapable of being like anyone and thus incapable ofphilia is a reflection of Socrates' similar
claim in Plato's Lysis (214c-d, 222d).

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 To summarize the findings thus far, then, it seems that Aristotle presents

friendship in two different ways. According to one thread of his treatment, that

provided both by his general three-fold division of friendship and by many explicit

statements throughout, it seems that the presence or absence of virtue in the friends is of

decisive importance for the nature of the friendship: true friendship requires a direct

love for the self of the other, and such a love is only possible for the virtuous.

According to another thread, that found within the cases of the ex-lovers, brothers,

comrades, mothers, those who live together, and the wicked, the possibilities for

friendship are relatively independent of the presence or absence of virtue: direct love for

the self of the other is possible on the basis of likeness, familiarity, and belonging or

relation via one's own as much as through virtue. Although there is nothing that

necessarily precludes friendships based on likeness, familiarity, and belonging from

also being friendships of use or pleasure, Aristotle, as has been shown, repeatedly links

such friendships to the themes of relating to the character of the friend and loving the

friend for his own sake. By bringing in such cases, Aristotle subtly breaks down his

own identification of love of another for his own sake and for what he himself is with

love of another for the sake of virtue.35

It might be helpful here to look to Aristotle's discussion of practical intelligence

to illumine the relation between virtuous friendship and friendship based on similarity,

familiarity, and belonging. Aristotle's distinction between prudence and cleverness

makes it clear that there is a prior capacity of practical intelligence, namely, cleverness,

35. For some further reflections on the role of factors other than virtue in friendship, both in
itself and as related to Aristotle, see Paula Reiner's "Aristotle on Personality and Some Implications for
Friendship'" in Ancient Philosophy 11 (Spring, 1991): 67-84. One central difference between Reiner and
myself is that I see Aristotle as questioning his own categories while she does not.

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that can then be used with or without virtue (6.12 1144a23-bl). Perhaps it is also the

case that there is an analogous natural capacity for di' hautous friendship, and that this

natural capacity can then be exercised with or without virtue. It is important, however,

to keep in mind the obvious, namely, the fact that Aristotle never explicitly makes such

a point. In fact, by his official delineation of friendship he naturally leads one to the

belief that only in virtuous friendships do friends love di' hautous. It is still reasonable,

then, to ask why his treatment is structured in this way.

Furthermore, even granting the merit of the analogy given above, an important

difficulty still remains, because one is not sure just how friendly these non-virtuous di'

hautous friendships really are. Aristotle initially makes the claim that the fact that the

friends love di' hautous is the essential aspect of genuine friendship, and the connection

to ethical virtue is a subsequent and dependent point (8.3 1156b7-17). Granting, then,

that by definition those di' hautous friendships that lack thematic emphasis on virtue are

inferior from an ethical perspective, are they nonetheless fundamentally equal as

regards considerations of friendship alone? Aristotle would seem to de-value such

relations in his official delineation, but his actual usage of such cases seems to leave us

with a sense for their richness and substantiality as friendships, insofar as, for example,

both brotherly and maternal love are used as exemplars of philia (8.9 1159b29-35, 8.8

1159a28-33, 9.4 1166a5-6). At the very least, it should be clear by now that the

problem cannot be dissolved with the claim that these sorts of relationships are simply

analogous to philia proper or mere simulacra of it, since they share the feature that

Aristotle designates as most essential to philia proper. Important questions, then,

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remain, and it is still necessary to ask why Aristotle has included this tension in his

account.

In section three below, I will try to uncover Aristotle's purposes in working this

tension into his text. Before doing that, however, I wish to reflect on some of the

abstractions that allow Aristotle to present friendship as he does. One way to begin

understanding the problem is to note that Aristotle tends to ignore the existence of the

middling sort of person, and thus of the friendship between persons who are neither of

great virtue nor vice and whose friendship is not centered upon whatever virtue they

might possess. They are simply forgotten in the midst of continual reflection upon the

extremes of virtue and vice. An important passage in which Aristotle explicitly

acknowledges the existence of such people only strengthens this point; he writes,

On account of pleasure or usefulness, even bad people can be friends with each

other - and good with bad, and people of neither sort with those of any sort - but it

is clear that on account of themselves [di' hautous] only the good can be friends,

since the bad find no enjoyment in their own kind, unless some benefit would come

of it." (8.4 1157al6-20)

It is important to notice that although he here acknowledges the existence of those who

are neither good nor bad, his conclusion that only the good can be friends on account of

themselves rests on a claim about the bad only and thus abstracts again from the

middling case. Aristotle immediately takes away the middle ground that he had given

us.36 Nonetheless, as we have seen, although this applies to the broad strokes of

36. This echoes a move made by Socrates in the Lysis, although he moves in the opposite order;
he begins by excluding the middling cases (214c-e) and then suddenly brings them back (216c).

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Aristotle's treatment, he subtly allows such friends to return when discussing ex-lovers,

brothers, and the like.

Aristotle's initial abstraction from the "natural standpoint" also seems relevant

for this problem (8.1 1155a32-bl6). Indeed, it is not until Aristotle returns to the

natural standpoint that he is able to provide what he seems to consider the most

adequate explanation of the love of a mother (9.7 1167b28-l 168al 1). It is easy to see

why this would be the case, since maternal love would seem to be a naturally

spontaneous love rather than the sort of love that comes about through recognition of

noble virtue (see also 9.7 1168a25-26, 8.12 1161M6—27). This consideration suggests

that Aristotle's initial rejection of the natural standpoint necessitates his minimizing of

the sort of friendship that arises spontaneously through belonging as one's own,

similarity, and familiarity - but the fact that he explicitly returns to this standpoint

shows that his treatment never fully leaves it behind.

There is a related abstraction that is perhaps relevant for understanding

Aristotle's treatment of friendship and minimizing of natural love for one's own. The

Nicomachean Ethics, on the whole, abstracts from thumos (spiritedness).37 Although

-TO

thumos is mentioned at times, its absence from Aristotle's initial discussion of the soul

(1.13 1102a23-l 103al0) is very telling and seems to govern the work as a whole;

thumos is never given its full due as a force in human life in the EN.3 This becomes

37. On this general point, see especially Ronna Burger's Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates,
149-50. See also Cooper's discussion of thumos in the EN in his "Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral
Value," 253-80, esp. 266, 270-79.

38. See, e.g., 3.8 1116b24-1117a9; 5.8 1135b20-24.

39. The minimizing of thumos is expressed, for example, in Aristotle's claims that the desires of
pleasure are more forceful than those of thumos (2.3 1105a7-10), and that giving in to desires of pleasure
is more shameful than giving in to thumos (7.6 1149a25-b20).

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relevant in light of a claim that Aristotle makes in the Politics; there he claims that "it is

thumos that makes for loving [to philatikon]; for this is the capacity of soul by which we

feel love [he philoumenY (1327b40-1328al). He gives as a sign of this the fact that

spirited anger is more aroused with regard to 'our own' people than to strangers when it

comes to insults and outrages (1328al-16; see also 1262bl-24). If thumos is the seat of

philia understood as love of one's own, then perhaps we should say that Aristotle's

abstraction from thumos in the EN necessarily entails his abstraction from love of one's

own.40

To grasp the problem under another aspect, one might look to Aristotle's

discussions of the relation of the lovable and the good. He writes,

Do people love the good, or what is good for themselves? For sometimes these are

discordant; and it is similar with what is pleasant. And it seems that each person

loves what is good for himself, and that, while the good is lovable simply, the good

for each is lovable to each. And each person loves not what is good for himself,

but what appears to be, but this will make no difference, since it will be what

appears lovable. (8.2 1155b21~26)

There is a sister passage to this at 8.5 1157b25-28, where he writes,

Friendship, then, belongs most of all to good people, as has been said repeatedly;

for it seems that what is lovable and preferable is what is good simply or pleasant,

while what is loved and preferred by each person is what is good or pleasing to that

person, and to a good person, a good person is that way on both counts.

40. Note further that this abstraction from thumos in the context of a political work is utterly
astounding in light of a claim he makes in the Politics: political rule is the function of thumos (1328a6-7).
There is some sense in which, at least from the perspective of the Politics, the Nicomachean Ethics
fundamentally misses (or at least mutes) the core of political life. One should further compare the above
to the treatment of thumos found in On the Soul 414M-3,432a23-b7.

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Here we see Aristotle clearly recognizing that it is not legitimate to understand love as

though it can only be engendered by that which is simply and unqualifiedly good

[agathon haplos]. Rather, one must realize that there are two sorts of qualifications:

first, that some goods, although not simply good, are nonetheless good for some.

Elsewhere Aristotle provides as an example the way in which light is good for a healthy

person, while living in darkness is beneficial for a person with eye disease (EE

1235b32-38). Second, some of the things people seek are merely apparent goods. Both

qualified goods and merely apparent goods can engender love just as much as genuine,

unqualified goods. In other words, although the simply lovable can be tied to the

simply good, there is a breadth to both the lovable and good that severs such precision

from reality. Despite his explicit recognition of this point, the broad strokes of

Aristotle's treatment tend to present the simply lovable as though it were the

whatsoever lovable - as though only the simply good can be loved. This is shown

clearly in the following characteristic claim: "If one has accepted someone as good, and

he becomes and appears corrupt, should one still love him? Or is this not possible, if

not everything is lovable, but only what is good?" (9.3 1165b 14-15, emphasis added).

41. Note that Aristotle seems to employ two distinct though related senses of the agathon
haplos. According to one sense, it refers to that which is good or beneficial for those who are in the best
state (EN 5.1 1129b3, 8.2 1155b21-27, Topics 115bl 1, 116b8-10). According to another sense, it seems
to refer to that which is good in itself without reference to being good for humans at all (see Rhetoric
1390a], where the kalon is described as agathos haplos and then contrasted with the good for oneself).
In fact, Aristotle even seems to switch between these two senses in his treatment of friendship: 8.2
1155b21-27 seems to refer to the former sense, but 8.3 1156b 15 seems to refer to the intrinsic
choiceworthiness of virtue. For more on the agathon haplos, see Paula Gottlieb's "Aristotle and
Protagoras: The Good Human Being as the Measure of Goods" in Apeiron 24 no. 1 (1991): 25-45, at 33-
39.

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It is this abstraction which allows Aristotle to make it seem as though only the virtuous

can be loved for what they themselves are.

5.3 Significance of this Imprecision

We are now in a position to ask why it is that Aristotle would present friendship

in this way. Why would he build these tensions into his treatment? Once again, I think

that the answer to this involves the nexus of related sources of imprecision that we have

seen throughout this investigation. The first source of imprecision that I wish to

consider is Aristotle's goal of fostering virtue through his inquiry (1.7 1098a27-31, 2.2

1103b26-30). His work throughout Books 8 and 9 to connect friendship with ethical

virtue obviously promotes virtue; if the two can only be had in conjunction, and all or

most people want friendship, then this provides a strong incentive to pursue virtue.

The strongest indication that this supplies a rhetorical motivation for Aristotle's

imprecision is found in 9.4. There Aristotle connects friendship to self-love, arguing

that proper self-love is a sort of prerequisite for loving the friend as an "other self; only

if one has such stability of soul can one extend this to another (1166a30-32). This

argument then leads him to wonder who possesses self-love: all or only some, namely,

the virtuous? It initially seems that he will decide in favor of all; after noting that the

attributes of love belong to a decent person in relation to himself, he adds that they also

belong "to everyone else, insofar as they assume that they are decent" (9.4 1166al 1).

He develops this a little later in the treatment, writing that the attributes of love "appear

42. In this we see a mode of 'precise speech' that mirrors elements of the discussion of the
Republic. See esp. 340d—342e and Seth Benardete's Socrates Second Sailing: On Plato's Republic, esp.
23, 26, 88-89.

43. This argument for virtue is treated by Jacquette throughout his "Aristotle on the Value of
Friendship as a Motivation for Morality."

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to be present in the many, even those who are base \phaulois\" and asking whether this

is "insofar as they are pleased with themselves and assume themselves to be decent that

they share in them." (9.4 1166b2^).

But within a few lines Aristotle suddenly reverses this: the attributes of self-love

"are hardly present in thephaulof' (9.4 1166b6-7). It seems that we are here to

understand that the appearance of self-love in the base was a false appearance. Aristotle

then runs through a list of ways in which the base suffer from an internal "civil war" of

remorse and shame, with the conclusion that they are incapable of loving themselves

and thus incapable of loving friends. This then leads to a rare direct exhortation to

ethical virtue:

It is apparent that a base person is not even disposed in a friendly way toward

himself, on account of having nothing lovable about him. Then if being that way is

too miserable, one ought to avoid vice with the utmost effort, and try to be a decent

person, for in that way one can be in a friendly state with oneself, and also become

a friend to someone else. (9.4 1166b25-29)

44. Just who is Aristotle discussing in this passage? One could try to restrict Aristotle's claims
here to the extraordinarily bad, in which case one might think that what he says about their limited
prospects for friendship is reasonable enough. But the problem is then that there is no reason to accept
the dichotomy that he establishes at 1166b25-29 between the virtuous and the bad. What about all those
in between, the middling? What proof have we been given to prove that they lack all prospects for
friendship? Furthermore, Aristotle himself explicitly contrasts the base and the "completely base"
[komidepaulon] here (9.4 1166b5-6). Alternatively, one might want to say that since for Aristotle most
people fall between restraint and unrestraint (see 7.7 1150a 15-16), the account of inner turmoil that he
provides in 9.4 applies to most people and is thus extremely relevant. But one must then face the problem
that it appears as though the deeds of most people are not so vile as to lead to the sort of constant and
overwhelming regret that would eliminate the possibility of their forming friendships. Indeed, Aristotle
goes so far as to say that most people are not even capable of simple unrestraint (7.11 1152a25-26),
which seems to say that most people are simply not very bad. To hold otherwise would, at any rate, be
very much out of line with the ordinary appearances. At any rate, Aristotle here equates the base with the
vicious [mochtheroi] (1166b 13-29), and we have no reason to think that he means by mochtheroi
anything other than the usual sense of that term. See note 47 below.

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In sum, since friendship is such a great good and since only the virtuous can be friends,

one should try to be as virtuous as possible so as to receive such an amazing good.

How does this passage in 9.4 suggest that imprecision is present in Aristotle's

treatment of philia in a way that is due to the desire to encourage virtue? What catches

one's attention is the fact that Aristotle apparently has to obscure at least one of his

important ethical teachings in order to come to his conclusion. As we saw, his

argument depends upon the premise that only the virtuous are stable enough to be self-

lovers, which then, in turn, allows them to love others. The base, by contrast, are

perpetually shifting, wandering in the inner turmoil of regret, unable to love even

themselves, let alone another.46 If we compare this, however, with Aristotle's own

treatment of the vicious and dissipated throughout the rest of the Nicomachean Ethics

and especially in Book 7, we find two portraits that stand in marked tension. In Book

7 Aristotle writes that

the dissipated person does not have regrets, since he stands by his choice, but every

unrestrained person is capable of regret.... vice seems like such diseases as dropsy

45. The limitation of the extension of self-love in 9.4 must be carefully distinguished from the
related limitation of it in 9.8. In 9.4, the conclusion is that the base are not self-lovers since they cannot
whole-heartedly pursue their own conception of their own good, whereas in 9.8 the worry about a lack of
a unified pursuit is absent and the only defect mentioned is that the many pursue goods that are not
actually good, or not good for them given the way they are obtained (viz., unjustly; see 9.8 1168bl7—19
with 5.1 1129M-10).

46. Nussbaum notes that this forms one of the more "Platonic" passages of the EN (Platonism
being understood by her as standing in sharp contrast to Aristotelianism), but she is not able to provide a
reason why Aristotle would subvert his own teaching in this way ("Practical Syllogisms and Practical
Science" in her edition ofDe Motu Animalium, 218n61).

47. There are three main terms to keep track of here: the base [phauloi], vicious [mochtheroi]
(mochtheria seems interchangeable for Aristotle with kakia - see 7.8 1150b31-36), and dissipated
[akolastoi]. Dissipation is one form of vice (a vice opposed to the virtue of moderation, sophrosune), and
so the dissipated are vicious. It is slightly harder to attain precision on a general level with regard to the
base, but the important point is that in the passage under consideration in 9.4 Aristotle switches from talk
of the phauloi to talk of the mochtheroi without changing referents. Thus in this discussion I will treat all
three as pointing to those morally defective in the same basic way (with dissipation referring only to a
subset of these).

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 and consumption, and unrestraint like epileptic seizures, since the former is a

continuous bad condition while the latter is not continuous. And the kinds to which

unrestraint and vice belong are completely different, since vice is something one is

not aware of having, while unrestraint is something one is aware of. (7.8 1150b29-

36)

The bar for vice is quite high: vice involves choice (see also 7.8 1151a6-7), and this

fact seems to entail that one will, as he says, stand by this choice. One is deliberately

vicious, with bad opinions and bad desires creating a mutually reinforcing circle. This

means that there is no purchase for regret to get a grip on the vicious: indeed, they even

in some sense think that they ought to act as they do (7.9 1152a5-6). This way of

understanding the vicious constitutes Aristotle's usual position on the matter throughout

the bulk of the Nicomachean Ethics? The unrestrained, by way of contrast, have good

beliefs and bad desires (7.8 1151 a20-28); and so, although they may give in to a bad

desire, they are nonetheless pained by this, due to the presence of good belief. Thus, in

his standard teaching, Aristotle presents an essential difference between vice and

unrestraint, claiming that they are "wholly different in kind," [holds heteron to genos]

(7.8 1150b35). In Book 9, by way of contrast, he blurs the lines between the two,

explicitly claiming that the base are "like the unrestrained" [hoion hoi akrateis] (9.4

48. This does not mean that one chooses vice as vice; as Aristotle says, vice is something one is
unaware of having (7.8 1150b36). What it means is that when one acts viciously, one acts by choice.

49. See, e.g., 3.5 1114al2-25, 5.6 1134al7-26, 5.8 1135bl9-24, 1136al 3, 7.7 1150al7-23,
7.10 1152a24. I quote 3.5 1114al 1-12 as being particularly strong: "It is unreasonable for the person
who is unjust to wish not to be unjust, or for the person who is dissipated to wish not to be dissipated."
Aristotle's point is again that the level of commitment to vice that is entailed by its status as something
chosen makes it unreasonable to think that the unjust or dissipated might wish to be otherwise.

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1166b8). It is only because he obscures this distinction that he can make it seem as

though the base are so conflicted as to be incapable of the stability of soul needed for

friendship.

Here, however, I must reply to an objection. Terence Irwin has claimed that we

should understand the regret here attributed to the vicious to be different in kind from

that denied of them in 7.8, arguing that the regret here is of a non-moral nature and is

simply due to the variability of the desires of the vicious. That is, he says, the vicious

are prone to allowing the strongest desire of the moment to interfere with their own

clever long-term conception of their good; and acting upon the desires of the moment

can later cause pain insofar as it produces problems in fulfilling that long-term

(although still base and false) conception of their good.

This is an ingenious reading, but one can wonder whether its appeal is

predicated solely upon the desire to avoid putting an apparent contradiction in

Aristotle's mouth. The difficulty for this view is that Aristotle seems to make it clear

enough that the conflict and turmoil he mentions is of a distinctly moral nature; he

writes, for example, that the base "prefer things that are pleasant but harmful, instead of

what seems to be good for themselves, and they refrain from doing what is best for

themselves out of cowardice and laziness" (9.4 1166b8—11). It is hard to avoid the

interpretation that the base have a conception of a good that does not include the

harmful (and thus cannot include the aims of vice, which are harmful), and that they fail

to live up to this conception (through cowardice and laziness), a claim which is at odds

50. This could also be translated by the even stronger "for example, the unrestrained," taking the
unrestrained as an instance of the base.

51. Irwin, "Notes," 292; Price agrees, 127-29. See also Lorraine Smith Pangle, 144-^15,
although also see her partial agreement with my interpretation at \Ad—M.

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with Irwin's thesis. Aristotle confirms that this inner conflict is of a moral nature when

he claims that "vicious people [mochtheroi] even look for others to spend their days

with, running away from themselves, for when they are by themselves they have many

uncomfortable recollections, and anticipate other things of the same kind" (9.4

1166M3-16). This is clearly meant to express moral turmoil; the vicious, he is clearly

asserting, run away from themselves as unable to bear the baseness of their past and

future actions.

Thus the attempt to eliminate the tension fails, and we must conclude that

Aristotle has momentarily obscured his own teaching for the sake of encouraging his

audience toward virtue.52 He obscures the ugly truth as to just how comfortable the

vicious can become with themselves and their vice.53 Indeed, we saw above that

Aristotle, after earlier denying it, admits that the vicious can enjoy each other precisely

qua vicious (8.8 1159b9-10). This all seems to show that at least something of the

strong connection that Aristotle makes between virtue and friendship can be explained

on rhetorical grounds, that is, as an encouragement to virtue through the appeal of

friendship.

At this point, one must ask whether this rhetorical exhortation is sufficient by

itself to provide an explanation of the tensions and imprecision within Aristotle's

treatment of friendship. If we look back for a moment to the initial account of

imprecision in 1.3, we remember the importance of the notion of diaphorai or

52. Even if the attempt to defuse the tension found in this passage regarding the issue of regret
and inner conflict within the base were successful, one would still face the seemingly insurmountable
problem that Aristotle seems to illegitimately divide all people into the camps of the virtuous and the
base, eliminating the middle ground (as was discussed earlier). Only if one could accept such a
dichotomy would one be justified in accepting the argument that since the base cannot have friends, one
should try to be virtuous so as to be capable of the great good that is friendship.

53. See also 9.7 1167b25-27.

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disagreements within our conceptions of ethical matters (see 1094bl 1-25). Aristotle

will not bypass the diaphorai but rather maintain them through structuring his accounts

with a certain degree of imprecision or indeterminacy. This will allow him to do justice

to the difficulties of the phenomena of ethical experience. And in fact, the tension of

Aristotle's account of philia can be identified with just such a diaphora; a disagreement

that Aristotle subtly puts forward early in his treatment. In his opening account of

philia, he writes,

Friendship seems to be present by nature in a parent for a child and in a child for a

parent, not only among human beings but also among birds and most kinds of

animals. Members of the same species, and human beings most of all, have a

natural friendship for each other.... and in our travels we can see how every human

being is akin and is a friend to a human being. (8.1 1155al6-22)

But as he also writes just a few lines later, "People think that it is the same people who

are good men and friends" (8.1 1155a31). These views, however, stand in a high

degree of tension: is genuine friendship something natural and common, such that it is

capable between most people on the basis of their shared humanity, or is it something

that pertains to the good only? Common opinion is familiar with both sides of the

equation here; and one might even suspect that the very same people often tend to hold

both these views. That the tension in Aristotle's account has its roots in a diaphora of

common opinion should lead us to ask whether there is something fundamentally

difficult about the nature of friendship, something that has led to this split opinion -

something that would lead us to look beyond the purely rhetorical solution sketched out

given above.

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 Continuing this line of thought, it seems that the purely rhetorical explanation

would be sufficient only if it is the case that the possibilities for friendship are wholly

indifferent to the virtue of the friends involved; Aristotle's claims to the contrary could

then be considered sheer rhetorical concealment. But if we look at friendship itself, this

does not seem to hold. Rather, it seems that friendship is neither wholly determined by

nor wholly indifferent to the virtue of the friends. It is not the case, Aristotle himself

reminds us, that friends need to be overflowing with excellences in order for genuine

love for the character of each other to exist, as shown by ordinary experience in the

cases of mothers, brothers, comrades, ex-lovers, and even the vicious. Human beings

love others just as much through similarity, familiarity, and belonging as through virtue;

and these relationships go well beyond instrumental use of the other for advantage or

pleasure.

But if one considers the matter from the other side, one sees that it is also not

true that the qualitative excellences of friends are unconnected to the possibilities of

friendship between them; several such links can be found. Although two mediocre

persons, each having many unrealized human potentials and focused on the pursuit of

trivial goods, can love each for what they themselves are and for their own sake, it

seems right to say that their love will not be as deep or rich as that had by the more

mature. First, those of a generally more superficial nature would not seem to be capable

of the depth, intensity, rigor, and extremes that belong to the best sort of friendship. It

is hard to imagine that those satisfied by mediocrity could possess even the sheer

intensity of affection needed for complete friendship (8.6 1158alO-14, 9.10 1171al0—

13). We cannot imagine, for example, that the friendship between Theseus and

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Pirithous or Gilgamesh and Enkidu could have been as deep if they had been lesser

natures. There is, in other words, a certain maturity and excellence that would seem to

be needed for a relationship to be truly deep: only someone of depth can love with

depth. Even more, persons of depth will likely only be stirred to their fullest love by

someone of similar depth.

Second, there will not be as much or as excellent a material for the friendship;

and the weaving together of shallow interests does not generally seem to yield as tight

or strong a bond as the weaving together of pursuits of serious worth. To this second

point one might perhaps wish to object that what matters in this regard is not the actual

or objective importance of the activities that the friends engage in, but the perceived

importance of them: it is enough if the friends themselves think that the activity is

important. In reply to this, however, it must be said that the objective lack of richness

and depth to the activities will surely make itself present, even if only as an

unrecognized constraint upon the relationship. It simply seems false to say that the

same depth of possibilities that are present for those who share a project of deep

intellectual or ethical worth are also available to those who, as their governing activity,

play darts or share gossip. Aristotle suggests as much when he connects the intensity of

the best friendships to the fact that they are centered on things unqualifiedly good and

pleasant (8.3 1156b23-24); these goods allow for a sort of sharing that is not possible

otherwise. The material of the friendship, then, provides objective constraints upon the

form that can be realized in it, and this constitutes another reason why we should be

hesitant to simply disassociate friendship from excellence.

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 A further point: although, as Aristotle says, between the virtuous there is "never

a doing wrong" (8.4 1157a23), this always remains a possibility between those who are

less than virtuous, since they have not formed their character so as to reject all vicious

deeds as such. That is to say, it is hard to have complete confidence that particularized

affection alone is enough to reliably check all the more general tendencies and habits of

a person, especially in those times of difficulty that are traditionally held to be the

crucial test of friendship. One must take care neither to underestimate the power of

these particular bonds alone, as though someone who was not virtuous could not act

well toward someone with whom he has such a bond, nor to overestimate their power,

as though the lack of the virtues in general did not present the possibility of temptations

against friendship.55 As Aristotle says, the habitual preference of either the

advantageous or the noble provides a sort of governing structure to a person's life,

leading in quite different directions in each case (9.8 1169a5-6, 8.13 1162b35-36).

Additionally, the virtuous would seem to be better formed in living in accord with

choice, which would then allow them to continue to act appropriately toward their

friends even during those inevitable moments when affection wanes (see 8.5 1157b29-

34).

Furthermore, although it belongs to friends to do well by one another (9.5

1167a7-8), friends who have a shallow understanding of the human good might easily

54. This is surely part of the meaning of Aristotle's claim that when friendship is present justice
is not necessary (8.1 1155a26—27) and should be taken as a reply to the argument made in the Republic
that without justice no sort of association is possible (351d-352d), an argument which is, however,
echoed at times in the Nicomachean Ethics itself (see, e.g., 9.6 1167b4-16).

55. One could perhaps cite the typical stories of mafia members related by kin, who seem to
possess a deep affection and sense of one's own for each other, yet nonetheless turn on each other when
the situation becomes difficult. All the same, most of those lacking in complete virtue are obviously not
mafia members. Nonetheless, the example perhaps maintains relevance, mutatis mutandis.

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do unknowing harm to each other while trying to provide benefit. For example, if

someone did not understand the shallowness of ordering one's life around the pursuit of

money (1.5 1096a5-7), then he might well encourage and exhort a friend to consistently

sacrifice higher-order goods for the sake of needless wealth and use his influence to

create opportunities for this to occur. If he were later to attain a deeper understanding

of the human good, he would inevitably feel as though his previous actions, despite his

genuine intention to benefit, had been decidedly un-friendly, insofar as they injured his

friend on the most fundamental level. Only those who possess a deeper understanding

of the human good can be sure that they truly do well toward their friends rather than

merely appear (or try) to. In these various ways, then, the excellences held by friends

do not stand indifferent to the friendship itself but constitute a large part of its range of

possibilities.

Stepping back, it seems that although Aristotle has been faulted for limiting

friendship so rigidly, with the idea that this reveals his pervasive teleological bias, what

Aristotle brings out here is that we all already tend to be teleological thinkers when it

comes to something like friendship.57 With a sort of implicit reference to the grounds

sketched out above, we, in our common opinions, have the tendency to restrict the term

to its highest and best manifestations; as Aristotle correctly says, "People believe that it

is the same people who are good and who are friends" (8.1 1155a31). This comes out

in everyday speech, when, in reference to an exemplary case of friendship among

exemplary people, we say something like, "Now, that is a friendship." We there

identify the best case of the thing with the thing itself. But we also have another

56. A point noted also by the early commentator Aspasius in his On Aristotle's "Nicomachean
Ethics, " 1-4, 7-8, trans. David Konstan, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2006), 164:24-27.
57. See Cooper, "Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship," 320.

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tendency, a more lenient tendency, toward extending the term with liberality. Aristotle

shows us this split within our understanding of philia, a split that cannot be bridged in

any simple way. What would it even look like to simply decide in favor of the one or

the other alternative? Would it not result in either leveling the field of friendships or

inhumanly restricting it? The strife that we find here is a strife that cannot be un-done

without unhinging our basic human understanding of friendship. It would, at any rate,

falsify our experience of philia, which contains this very tension.

This all means, then, that Aristotle, in his apparent oscillation between the claim

that friendship is very much determined by the virtue of the friends and the implicit

claim that friendship is relatively indifferent to the virtue of the friends, expresses a real

tension within our experience, a diaphora that cannot be removed without violence. If

one looks to the opening question of Aristotle's treatment of friendship, whether all or

only some can be friends (8.1 1155b9-12), it becomes clear that no unqualified answer

is possible, even when one narrows the question to focus on the friendship that entails a

direct love for the very self of the friend. This reflection of the nature of friendship

itself, then, would seem to form the most important source of Aristotle's imprecision,

even more than the rhetorical exhortation to virtue. Aristotle's account thus has just

that phenomenological congruence of imprecision that he promises in the opening of the

Nicomachean Ethics; and in incorporating this disagreement into his account, Aristotle

is able to provide a better treatment of philia than he appears to in his most direct

statements. At the same time, the fact that Aristotle leaves this merely implicit as an

aporia gives us grounds for thinking that there is an additional source for his

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imprecision here, namely, that he wants to draw the philosophically-minded among his

audience into reflection on these problematic matters (see 1.7 1098a20-26).

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Chapter 6: Human Nature and Happiness

It almost goes without saying that Aristotle's account of happiness in the

Nicomachean Ethics is problematic. The twentieth century saw interminable debates

over the nature of happiness in the EN, and these debates still continue. The basic

problem is familiar: on the one hand, Aristotle seems to speak of ethical-political

activity as an important component of happiness through the majority of the EN; and,

connected to this, he seems to offer the idea of happiness as inclusive of a broad range

of human goods (see esp. 1.7 1097b6-21). On the other hand, Aristotle concludes the

work in Bk. 10 by largely restricting the human good to contemplation, allowing ethical

and political life to become a sort of footnote to happiness. Recognizing that debates

regarding human happiness inevitably find their source in debates regarding human

nature, commentators such as A. J. Ackrill and Thomas Nagel have influentially

claimed that Aristotle's account of eudaimonia is shot through with tensions because

Aristotle was simply unable to make up his mind regarding human nature; as Ackrill

says, Aristotle just has a hopelessly "broken-backed" account that cannot offer any

genuine guidance as to what we are as humans or how we find our flourishing.2

If we wish to hold out hope for Aristotle, however, then we might do well to

wonder whether the difficulties of his account actually illumine human nature better

1. See, e.g., John Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle, esp. 151, 167, 176; Martha
Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, esp. 373-77; Kathleen Wilkes, "The Good Man and the Good for Man
in Aristotle's Ethics" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, 341-57; W. F. R. Hardy, "The Final Good in
Aristotle's Ethics" Philosophy 40 (1965): 277-95; Richard Kraut, "Aristotle on the Human Good: An
Overview" in Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. Nancy Sherman, 79-104; Gabriel Richardson Lear,
Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics " (Princeton: Princeton
University, 2004), esp. 8-71.

2. A. J. Ackrill, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia" in Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays, 57-78, at 76;

Thomas Nagel, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, 7-14, esp. 8: "it is because
Aristotle is not sure who we are that Aristotle finds it difficult to say unequivocally in what our
eudaimonia consists."

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than could any straightforward account.3 Is it really the case that the human species is

so unvarying that one good can unequivocally be said to be the good of all? Are all

really suited by nature for the theoretical life? If not, does it not seem extremely

problematic to deny those who are not any possibility of a share in happiness?

Furthermore, does Aristotle's account suggest as well that even for the philosopher

perfect fulfillment presents difficulties? After all, one must remember that the

contemplative life is said to be a life that transcends one's mere humanity (10.7

1177b26-34), which seems to entail that it leaves much of one's nature unfulfilled, or,

more precisely, imperfectly fulfilled. Whether this decisively mars the happiness of

those who choose the philosophic life must also be considered.

6.1 A (Limited) Plurality within Human Nature?

It is clear that the tensions generated by Aristotle's differing accounts of

happiness can be linked to differing presentations of what it is to be human. Aristotle

provides at least three such presentations throughout the course of the EN. The first

suggestion is that the human being is his character. This is expressed when Aristotle

claims that friends love each other's very self and then takes this to be equivalent to the

claim that they love each other's character (8.3 1156b6-12). Along these lines, one

should also consider his claims that "non-rational feelings seem to be no less human

than reasoning is" (3.1 111 lbl), and that "choice is either intellect fused with desire or

desire fused with thinking, and such a source is a human being" (6.2 1139b4-5). This

inclusive conception of the human being is also expressed in the ergoH-argument,

3. This idea was first suggested to me by Ronna Burger in her "Aristotle's 'Exclusive' Account
of Happiness: Contemplative Wisdom as a Guise of the Political Philosopher," 79-98, at 97-98n49: "If
the argument moves, as it seems to, between the proposal that mind is, or is 'most of all,' the human
being (10.7 1178a8) and the denial of that view in favor of the compound (10.8 1178a21-22), it may be
this motion itself that is meant to shed light on what it is to be human."

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insofar as Aristotle, in pinning down the properly human work, includes not just the

exercise of reason proper but also the activity of that which is rational as obeying reason

(i.e., the activity of the desiring part of the soul) (1.7 1098a3-5; see also 1.13 1102b23-

1103 a 10). According to this conception of human nature, happiness will be found to

consist above all in the ethical-political life, and, more precisely, in the exercise of

ethical virtue for its own sake, as guided by prudence, the practically-oriented

intellectual virtue.

The second suggestion is that the human being is his practical intellect. This

finds expression throughout Bk. 9, as when Aristotle speaks of the good man as desiring

good things "for his own sake" and then adds that this would mean that he desires them

"for the sake of his thinking part, which seems to be each person" (9.4 1166al4-19).4

This identification is made more explicit when Aristotle tries to pin down the proper

meaning of self-love; the true self-lover is the one who loves his nous, since this is, or is

most of all, the self. Nous is established as the self as follows: just as a city or any other

organization is its most governing and authoritative element, so too with a human; and

nous is most authoritative of all (9.8 1168b29-l 169a3). The governing role of nous

here shows that Aristotle is thinking of practical intellect - that which has authority in

shaping the form of one's life.5

Happiness, according to this second conception of the human being, is found

primarily in the contemplation of ethical action; as Aristotle says in 9.4, immediately

after identifying the human and his thinking part, "[the good person] wants to spend

4. He adds again a few lines later that "each person would seem to be his activity of thinking, or
that most of all" (9.4 1166a22-23).

5. This is further established by the contexts of 9.4 and 9.8, which are centered wholly on the
sphere of praxis.

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time with himself, since he does it pleasantly, for his memories of things he has done

are delightful and his expectations of things he is going to do are good, and such things

are pleasing. And his thinking is well supplied with things to contemplate" (1166a23-

27). Practical nous, then, enjoys it own governance of a life. That this is not to be

taken as some mere ancillary to happiness is suggested by the continuation of this line

of thought in 9.9: Aristotle there says the happy man needs friends precisely so as to

better contemplate ethical actions, and suggests that such contemplation makes up the

core of his blissful activity (1170a2-4).

The third suggestion is that the human being is his theoretical intellect. In the

context of his discussion of the way of life that pursues the being-at-work of theoretical

nous above all, Aristotle writes,

Each person would even seem to be this part [i.e., nous], if it is the governing and

better part; it would be strange, then, if anyone were to choose not his own life but

that of something else. What was said before will be fitting now too: what is

appropriate by nature to each being is best and most pleasant for each, and so, for a

human being, this is the life in accord with the intellect, if that most of all is the

human being." (10.7 1178a2-7)7

Here theoretical nous is so closely identified with what it is to be human that it produces

a puzzle as to why anyone would ever choose a way of life that did not accord it

6. For an attempt to take this often-neglected option seriously, see Amelie Rorty's "The Place of
Contemplation in Aristotle's Nicomachecm Ethics" in Essays on Aristotle Ethics, 377-94. See also
Gabriel Richardson Lear's "Aristotle on Moral Virtue and the Fine," 116-36, esp. 130-31.

7. This reference here to nous as governing is somewhat strange; by context we know that
Aristotle must be referring to contemplative nous, but contemplative nous precisely lacks the function of
governing, at least or especially as presented in EN Bks. 6 and 10, where the intellectual life seems to
have taken on a quite abstract and wholly a-political character (on this, see Tessitore's Reading
Aristotle's "Ethics," 106-7). (Note that Aristotle also speaks of contemplative nous as ruling and leading
at 10.7 1177al3-14.)

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priority. Curiously, however, this claim comes in the midst of forceful denials that

theoretical nous is something human. Aristotle writes that the theoretical life "would be

greater than what accords with a human being, for it is not insofar as one is a human

being that he will live in this way, but insofar as something divine is present in him"

(10.7 1177b26-28); he also explicitly deems the life of the ethical virtues as consisting

of the properly human activities (10.8 1178a9-l 0). We are thus torn between seeing

Bk. 10 as fulfilling the ergon-argument (which looked for the proper human work)

through more precisely identifying human nature as theoretical nous and as discarding

the ergon-argument insofar as this argument is concerned with a merely human work.

If one then takes Aristotle to be staunchly committed to the idea of a perfectly

uniform human nature that all uniformly share in, then it seems hard to avoid holding

that the tension between these three accounts reflects very poorly indeed on Aristotle

and the EN. Perhaps it would be best, however, to suspend our judgment as to whether

Aristotle rigidly applies to human beings the "metaphysical biology" that he outlines in

his scientific works ; perhaps we should understand such claims to hold "for the most

part," as he reminds us all claims about natural phenomena do.10 Is it possible that his

varying accounts in the EN serve to illumine tensions within human nature? Aristotle

himself seems to say in 10.9 that some people have natural limitations on their capacity

for ethical virtue; there are those "naturally obedient [pephukasin...peitharchein] not to

shame [aidoi] but to fear, [who] refrain from base actions not on account of shame [to

8. See also 1.9 1099b 18-21, which speaks of happiness and virtue as "something divine and
blessed."

9. Speaking of this as a "metaphysical biology" has been made popular by Alasdair Maclntyre;
see his After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 162-63.

10. See, e.g., Physics 198b35-37, 199b24, Metaphysics 1026b27-1027a28, Generation of

Animals 727b29-30, 770M0-12, 777a21, 768a24, Magna Moralia 1194b30^0, Rhetoric 1371a32.

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aischron] but on account of penalties" (1179bl 1-13)H and who are "lacking in natural

capacity" [aphuesterois] with regard to virtue (1180a8-9). If we find among humans

at least some degree of natural incapacity for ethical virtue, how much more must there

be some natural incapacity for the (less human [10.7 1177b26-l 178a22]) theoretical

life?13 If Aristotle agrees with Plato that philosophy is not only impossible to perform

well but even harmful without certain capacities and gifts, then it would seem that for

Aristotle the intellectual life cannot hold the good for all.

11. Aristotle often uses aidos and aischune as synonyms or near synonyms; see, e.g., 4.9
1128bl0-35, Rhetoric 1384a35-bl.

12. Obviously, 10.9 heavily emphasizes the importance of habituation for ethical virtue; this
focus could allow one to miss Aristotle's more subtle reflections on the natural basis for such habituation.
This comes out insofar as he speaks of the youth who are receptive to ethical discourses as eugenes
(1179b8), which literally means "well-born," and which seems to retain the sense of the natural even in
its extended sense of "noble." He also, as we saw, speaks of the natural root of the incapacity of the
many for ethical discourses; they are ou pephukasin aidoipeitharchein alia phoboi (1179a 11). Further,
he seems to accept nature as one of the three necessary sources of virtue (along with habituation and
teaching at 1179b20-23). It is interesting to note that Aquinas omits Aristotle's reference to the natural
in commenting on the latter's claim about many being subject to fear rather than shame (Commentary,
sec. 2141 [p. 640]), focusing on habit alone (sec. 2139 [p. 639]); additionally, when commenting on
Aristotle's claim that "as for what comes by nature, it is clear that it is not up to us that it is present, but
by some divine cause it belongs to those who are fortunate in the true sense" (10.9 1179b21-23), Aquinas
makes it sound as though it is clear that Aristotle thinks all men receive this gift (sec. 2145 [p. 640]).

13. Aristotle does not specify exactly which sense of nature or capacity he is using in this
context. Presumably, there is some sense in which all humans, by sharing in their natural form, possess
the most fundamental human potency for rationality and thus the potency for ethical and intellectual
virtue. Nonetheless, Aristotle takes care not to confuse this most universal and formal sense of potency
with a more concrete sense of potency; he understands that there can be impediments to the actualization
of potencies and that these impediments can be such as to effectively eliminate the potency. Consider, for
example, his talk of remote tribes of barbarian peoples, of whom he has heard reports that they live
"senselessly"; he says that they "lack reason by nature" [ekphuseos alogistoi] even though they seem to
still be considered human (7.5 1149a9-l 1).

14. See Republic 474b-c, 487a, 495b-496a, 537e-539a; see also 520b, which speaks of the
philosopher as springing up spontaneously in cities, which suggests, at the least, that there is a distinctive
type of soul that leads one into philosophy by its own inherent tendencies (if not thwarted).

15. This need not entail, however, that Aristotle cannot still say that they would be better off if
they were so capable; see Philebus 1 lb—c (with Paul Shorey's "On Philebus 1 IB, C" in Classical
Philology 3 [1908], 343). Such a move would seem to restore a degree of uniformity that is lacking in
typical modern attempts to articulate a more flexible human nature.

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 There is then a question as to how one should judge the prospects for happiness

for those with these natural incapacities. Aristotle wants to provide a balanced answer

to this question. Rejecting in advance a tendency of modern philosophy, Aristotle is

unwilling to introduce a sort of anarchy into human nature and happiness; it is not the

case that men vary infinitely and that they can find happiness in an infinite variety of

ways of life suited to their individual 'natures.' On this he is clear: those who do not

attain to ethical virtue but remain stuck in a life of base pleasures alone cannot possess

human happiness (1.5 1095b 19-22). One must fulfill certain basic, distinctive human

potencies in order to participate in human happiness; and those who devote themselves

to a life of bodily pleasure alone fail in this regard. But at the same time, those who, for

whatever reason, lack the ability to attain the life that he considers best, the life of the

mind, are not thereby necessarily disqualified from happiness. Rather, there is another

happiness that admits of a larger extension, and this consists in the life that seeks

excellent or virtuous action in the polis.

This limited or moderate flexibility of human nature is further suggested by

Aristotle in one of his discussions of pleasure. He notes that different animal species all

seem to have a distinctive pleasure that goes with their distinctive ways of life; there is a

particular pleasure for the horse, the dog, and the donkey (10.5 1176a5-8). But this

immediately brings to mind, as Aristotle relates, our experience of the fact that humans

16. Why should one deem this way of life secondary in happiness? Aristotle suggests that this is
at least partly due to the way in which this life fails to live up to its own standards: ethical virtue qua
ethical virtue demands to be chosen purely for its own sake (2.4 1105a32), yet it ends up being tied to the
common good in ways that detract from this purely leisurely character (10.7 1177b6-l 8); the ethical life
seeks to rise above the bodily (4.9 1128bl4—15, 3.10 1 U8bl-4), but cannot be understood in such
abstraction (10.8 1178a9-22); the ethical life wants to be "right reason," (2.2 1103b31-34) and yet its
reason is, at least to a large extent, rational as obeying rather than as properly possessing reason (1.13
1102b29-l 103a 10); it wants to possess great magnitude, and yet this magnitude seems to lead to ethical
transgressions (10.8 1179al-9); it wants to distinguish the kalon from honor (3.8 1161al 8 29) and yet
cannot help but seek the manifestness of its deeds (10.8 1178a28-b3).

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seem to vary greatly in what they find pleasurable (1176a9-l 1); and the prospect of

utter indeterminacy opens up before us. Do humans find so many different ways of life

pleasant because they lack a distinctive nature? Are individual humans as different

from each other as one animal species is from another?17

Aristotle is quick, however, to close off the possibility of such infinite swelter;

pleasures must be judged by those qualified to judge; and those qualified to judge

pleasures are those with virtue (10.5 1176al6-24). There are certain ways of life the

pleasures of which we deem to be pleasant only on the basis of an undesirable state; and

thus not unqualifiedly pleasant. For this reason, we do not envy or desire the pleasures

of the degenerate; and so portrayals of their pleasure in fiction do not inspire us with

desire but rather disgust — their pleasure is not pleasant to us. In this way, Aristotle

attempts to save us from an infinite swelter within human nature; it is not nature but

some corruption or damage that makes for the near infinite diversity of human

pleasures. It is important, however, to note what immediately follows in this passage;

after rejecting all the corrupt pleasures, Aristotle continues by asking, "But among the

pleasures that seem to be decent, which sort or which one ought we to say is that of a

human being?'" (10.5 1176a24-25). In this way, Aristotle reminds us that even once we

restrict the field and disallow infinite plurality, there is still a plurality to contend with

(the decent pleasures would seem to be above all those of ethical virtue and those of

intellectual virtue, but perhaps also extend to those had, for example, by the music lover

or the horse lover; see 1.8 1099a9-10, 9.10 1170a8—11); and this limited plurality

17. See Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 2.40.

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suggests a limited difference of nature. Even if one of these is, as Aristotle suggests,

the pleasure of a human being in the primary and governing sense, it would seem that

these other pleasures would remain human in another sense.1

Rather than betraying a fundamental indecisiveness and the lack of a coherent

understanding of human nature, then, the tensions of Aristotle's account make clear to

us the structures of human nature in both its constancy and variance. He traces out, at

any rate, the fundamental types of human lives and thereby suggests the limited

differences in human nature that yield these ways of life. It is important to keep in mind

that Aristotle is dealing with actually existing ways of life; he sees three objects that

humans can take to provide overarching structure for their lives: they can order their

lives around bodily pleasure, political affairs, or study (1.5 1095bl7-19). And although

Aristotle is comfortable in dismissing the life of pleasure as failing to exercise anything

distinctive by comparison with other species of animals (1095bl9-22), he is unwilling

to judge that the ethical-political life holds nothing distinctive. As he says in the

Politics, this way of life involves a qualitatively different sort of communal activity than

that of other species (1253al—18). For Aristotle to dismiss this from the properly

human because it does not meet his standards for the highest good would be far too

reckless a move for him. This manifestly produces a messy account; but to assume that

the messy account is a failure is to fail to realize that such an account, by its very

messiness, may do the greatest justice to the phenomena.

18. See also Deborah Achtenberg's discussion of the way in which the ergon-argument provides
a metaphysical foundation for human flexibility in her "On the Metaphysical Presuppositions of
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics" in The Journal of Value Inquiry 26 no. 3 (1992): 317—40, esp. 328-35.

19. That this is so is further indicated by the fact that although this question in 10.5 seems to
clearly point forward to the conclusion in 10.7-8 that contemplation provides the best pleasure, these later
chapters also go back and forth regarding whether this is a properly human pleasure.

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6.2 Philosophy and Human Nature

The case can be made, however, that the tensions found in Aristotle's account

reveal another difficulty, that posed by the composite nature of human beings. It is

simply not clear that our nature forms a unity so perfect that every aspect of our nature

can be fulfilled in perfect harmony; and Aristotle explores this problem throughout his

treatment of happiness. He initially leads us to think of happiness as forming a

perfectly coherent and complete system, speaking of the way in which the happy life is

self-sufficient in the sense of "lacking nothing" (1.7 1097b 15). Recent commentators

have reasonably been led to take this as a claim that happiness forms an inclusive whole

that consists of the harmony of all goods and the total fulfillment of our nature. In

itself, however, as was said, it is far from clear that this is possible for us. More to the

point, Aristotle seems to call attention to this when he speaks of the way in which

"pleasures from different sources are impediments to activities" (10.5 1175M-3) and

then indicates, as we already saw, that there are fundamentally different kinds of decent

pleasures attending upon different fundamental ways of being-at-work (10.5 1176a24-

26). This would seem to mean that the fundamental activities that complete our being

are not mutually compatible, or not compatible in their fullness. Although the choice

for the philosophic life need not entail that significant parts of one's human nature find

no fulfillment whatsoever, it does seem to entail that they receive significantly less

fulfillment than they would in other ways of life.

20. See Irwin, "Notes," 182-83; Ackrill, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia," 20-24. Nonetheless, there
is a varying tradition of interpretation, made possible by grammatical ambiguity, that reads this passage
as saying that happiness does not include all goods and thus can be augmented (see Aquinas,
Commentary, sec. 116 [pp. 38-39]).

21. See Tessitore, Reading Aristotle's Ethics, 111-12.

209
 In a sense, the conflict should be obvious: Aristotle is primarily interested in

thinking about fundamental types of human lives, the overarching structures of which

are provided by a fundamental, passionate interest (in the language of Plato, some one

erotic object), whether that be the life that passionately pursues the noble beauty of the

exercise of the ethical virtues or the life that pursues, as far as possible for a human,

wisdom as knowledge of the whole (or of the best things) (6.7 1141al2-20). And it is

clear that one cannot have two primary and governing passionate loves (8.6 1158al2-

13); one cannot engage in the fullest possible pursuit of both ethical and intellectual

virtue, because each involves a distinctive way of life that vigorously pursues the

opportunity for action in accord with its respective virtues. Contemporary efforts to

blandly combine the two miss the point that for Aristotle ethical virtue is really only

itself in a way of life that takes the ethical virtues as the most worthwhile thing of all

and pursues them and the opportunities for acting in accord with them as far as
77

possible. This is all the more true in light of Aristotle's belief that ethical action

receives its fullest expression and unfolding on the political stage (10.7 1177b7—18,

6.7-8 1141b22-l 142al 0) ; and the philosopher, in choosing a private and quiet life

rather than a life of political leadership, does not have the opportunities to employ his

prudence in as robust a way, or to fully exercise magnanimity, or even courage. The

political life would seem to provide for the greatest fulfillment of one's thumotic nature,

22. See Lorraine Smith Pangle, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship, 235n9.

23. See also Politics 1277b25-30, 1288a39-b2.

210
not to mention one's practical intellect ; and this sort of fulfillment is precisely what

the philosopher, given the overarching structure of his way of life, cannot possess.

There are other ways to sketch out the way in which the philosophic life entails

limitations to the fulfillment that one can allow to one's thumotic nature. The lack of

both physical activity and self-assured assertiveness lead to scorn from the perspective

of andreia, manliness or courage, a crucial thumotic virtue. Furthermore, the

philosopher cannot seem to afford the same sort of unreserved attachment to one's own

of the sort that pertains to thumos (see Politics 1327b38-1328al6); the philosopher

needs to be capable of a radical questioning of the sort that can conflict with attachment

to one's own.

This is all suggested by Aristotle's talk of theoretical nous as "something divine

present in [the human being]," something that surpasses our "compound being" (10.7

1177b26-29); this reminds us that the life that pursues the exercise of the intellectual

virtues above all will necessarily attain a lesser fulfillment of the rest of oneself, the

'more human' parts of oneself that pertain to the compound. In part, this is due to the

fact that our time and energies are limited; but, more importantly, one supposes that,

given more time and energy, the philosopher might simply devote more to philosophy.

The aim of the philosophic life is not to complete the whole of one's being; philosophy

is not holistic, not inclusive. Whereas the actualization of practical intellect is holistic

24. The case for the connection between the ethical virtues and fulfillment of thumos is sketched
out by John Cooper in his "Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value," 276—80, and by Eugene Garver in
Confronting Aristotle's Ethics: Ancient and Modern Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2006), 116-23. See also Ronna Burger, "The Thumotic Soul," 156-57, and her Aristotle's Dialogue with
Socrates, 84.

25. See 3.8 1116b31-32, Republic 549c-550b.

26. As, for example, a political philosopher living in a bad regime needs to be capable of seeing
its faults without being unduly influenced by the fact that it is his own regime.

211
in the sense that it orders one's life as a whole and thus touches on the whole of one's

being, theoretical nous stands apart from the rest of one's nature.

This point about human nature becomes clearer when one compares humans

with non-rational animal species. It seems plain that the natural capacities of non-

rational animal are mutually reinforcing. As Thomas Nagel notes, the walking, seeing,

and digesting of an animal "are not simply three separate activities going on side by

side in the same individual" - rather, the animal forms an ordered whole as an

organism, and its functions are coherently organized. And, of course, there is much of

the same in the human: for example, our perceptive activity supports our intellectual

activity and vice-versa. But whereas the fullest actualization of the perceptive or

locomotive powers of a dog has no tendency to interfere with other canine activities and

goals (but rather aids them), it seems that certain fundamental human activities have a

tendency to detract from or limit each other.

This fact about human nature leads one to ask whether Aristotle intends for us to

eventually re-consider what it means for a life to be, as he puts it, "lacking in nothing"

(1.7 1097b 15). Is it possible for a life that does not combine all goods and the total

fulfillment of our nature to nonetheless be found lacking in nothing? Just as there are

several senses of self-sufficiency that Aristotle cycles through (1.7 1097b7-21, 10.7

1177a27-b3), might there also be multiple senses of lacking nothing? Do we tend to

think, for example, that Socrates led an unfulfilled life? Do we think Socrates would

have been happier if only he could have also engaged in a few more types of activities;

27. See the Eudemian Ethics, where Aristotle speaks of the way in which theoretical nous
operates best when one is least mindful of the rest of one's nature (1249b21-23)

28. Nagel, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia," 10.

212
if he had been able to engage in excellent musical activity, help fond the building of a

trireme, or exercise his justice and prudence to the fullest extent possible as a political

ruler(see5.1 1130al-2, 6.8 1141b23-l 142al 1)? Or would that not be to

fundamentally misunderstand Socrates and his happiness?

Early in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle calls attention to the possibility that

one good can blot out the appearance of other goods and falsely appear as the sole good

and thus as happiness, as health appears to the sick or wealth to the poor (1.4 1095a2O-

26). ' What we learn only much later in the work is that Aristotle is just as concerned

about another and opposed tendency that we have, namely, to ignore the fact that all

goods and all the actualizations of our nature cannot be combined together in one way

of life. That is, common opinion already expects that happiness will simply bring all

possible goods together into a whole, and so we readily accept Aristotle's initial,

holistic criteria for happiness as something easy to agree on (1.7 1097b8-21). Both of

these competing tendencies can prove problematic, but in the end, Aristotle appears

more comfortable with the idea that one good could by itself provide for at least the

bulk of happiness, especially if that good is thought to lead to happiness not only

beforehand and by those who lack it, but also stably by those who know it from within

(10.7 1177a25-26).

29. At the very least, we see that there is an odd abstraction from the greater and the lesser in the
claim that anything that fails to reach the ultimate resting-point of the ultimate telos is vain; is it not
possible that there are greater and lesser partial or incomplete fulfillments of our nature, with the former
being manifestly more desirable than the latter?

30. On this, see Ronna Burger, "Aristotle's 'Exclusive' Account of Happiness: Contemplative
Wisdom as a Guise of the Political Philosopher," 79-98, esp. 85.

213
Conclusion: Dialectical and Aporetic Play

We now better see the reasons for restraining our desires for precision in both

the reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and our understanding of various ethical

phenomena themselves. This restraint serves the function of all salutary forms of

restraint: it prevents one form of good from inappropriately hindering another.

Although there is clearly a proper philosophic love for precision, there must also be a

philosophic fidelity to the possibilities afforded by the things themselves, even when

this means that precision must be lessened. Aristotle shows us that this general danger

is especially pertinent when one is dealing with ethical matters, given their inherent

complexity.

It has also become clearer why one must, as Aristotle says, take care to respect

the common opinions in one's treatment of ethical matters (7.5 1145b2-7), even when

these common opinions contain tensions and difficulties. This is not, as the

conventionalists would have it, because ethical matters exist only by opinion or

agreement (1.3 1094b 16). It is rather because common opinion is our initial mode of

access to the truth of ethical matters and is well situated to discern various aspects of

such matters. If ethical matters are the affairs of ordinary human life (10.8 1178a9-14),

then ordinary human opinion and reflection ought to be able to grasp genuine structures

of the ethical. Whereas a physics that would overturn our ordinary understanding of the

structures of the material world is possible and has in fact become a reality in

modernity, it is hard to see what a similarly novel ethics would have to offer us; some

entirely new list of virtues, for example, would seem befuddling rather than attractive.

Aristotle, through this endoxic method, shows that he understands the Socratic turn in

214
philosophy as considering the logoi or ordinary speeches about things rather than trying

to bypass them in an attempt to look directly at the truth of things.

To conclude with some general remarks on Aristotle's writing style: It should be

apparent by now that Aristotle's EN presents special difficulties to the interpreter who

would simply excerpt lines and passages from the text and present these as definitive

teaching. The dialectical and aporetic style that characterizes Aristotle's more

theoretical works remains in his ethical philosophy, even if in a less obvious fashion. In

this way, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics reads more like a Platonic dialogue than like a

straightforward treatise. Aspects of the phenomena are taken up and given expression,

as are various common opinions, but these expressions are partial and must be set

against others if one is to gain a sufficient grasp of the subject. So we see something

new when we hold up, for example, Aristotle's virtue-laden account ofphilia with his

less virtue-dependent account. First, we learn of an impasse that already existed for us

in common opinion, albeit not explicitly. Second, and more importantly, we learn of

the grounds for this impasse; we see that there really is a sort of doubleness to the

relation between philia and virtue and that a straightforward account emphasizing or

minimizing the connection would leave out something important.

It thus seems that one cannot properly read Aristotle as a philosopher without at

the same time engaging in philosophy. The common distinction between the historian

of philosophy and the philosopher proper begins to break down in the case of Aristotle.

The philosophic task of the reader is two-fold. Aristotle gives us a way of entry into

various ethical problems through the tensions and difficulties contained both within his

individual accounts and between his accounts in their interrelations. Identifying these

1. Phaedo 99d-l 00a. See also Laws 897d-e.

215
problems is the first necessary philosophic labor - and proves more difficult that it

might at first appear to be - since in the EN (unlike the Metaphysics) Aristotle does not

explicitly identify the relevant aporiai. It is perhaps best to understand the aporiai of

the text as falling somewhere between the implicit and the explicit; while the impasses

are not left as implicit in the EN as they are in ordinary life and thought, they

nonetheless are not made as explicit as is possible. It is left to the reader to make them

fully explicit, and this requires philosophic activity.

Philosophy does not end, of course, with the identification of aporiai, and so the

Nicomachean Ethics calls us to a second task: to work through these impasses to reach

an understanding of the sources of the difficulties in common opinions and even in the

phenomena themselves. One must see not simply that there is an impasse but why there

is an impasse, how it arises not by accident but from the very nature of the subject in

question (7.14 21-25). In so doing, one also comes to see the extent to which the

impasse can be resolved and the extent to which it must remain, no longer as a mere

impasse but as an understanding of the complexity of the phenomena.

One must thus engage with Aristotle in looking at the phenomena even as he

speaks about them, precisely to understand what he says about them, which of course

leads back to the things. There is thus a sort of dialectical play between author, reader,

and world. In allowing the philosophizing of the reader to form a part of the text,

Aristotle shows his trust, first, that the world has a determinate nature and, second, that

2. See Metaphysics Bk. 3 (B).

3. Aristotle's decision not to make them fully explicit is presumably tied to the fact that the
intended audience of the EN contains a large proportion of political actors, for whom, as Aristotle says,
the work must bear practical and not merely theoretical fruit (2.2 1103b26—29). Consider as well
Aristotle's description of the function of ethical speeches in 10.9: he says that they should serve to
encourage noble youths in their love of the kalon (1179b7-9). It is clear that such youths would only be
distracted by constant and explicit philosophical speculation.

216
this nature is in principle accessible to others (even if only with difficulty). That is to

say, 1 believe Aristotle's texts make it possible to avoid the dual pitfalls of, on the one

hand, a merely mechanical repetition of the author's most explicit statements and

arguments, and, on the other hand, of that liberated violence that delights in making the

text over in its own image. Sharing Aristotle's trust, I have tried to offer some

reflections on a few things that Aristotle may have seen.

217
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For the following sources I have relied primarily on the Oxford Classical Texts editions:

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Aristotle On the Soul (De Anima)
Aristotle Eudemian Ethics
Aristotle On the Generation of Animals
Aristotle Magna Moralia
Aristotle Metaphysics
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle Poetics
Aristotle Politics
Aristotle Physics
Aristotle Rhetoric
Aristotle Topics
Euripides Bacchae
Herodotus Histories
Homer Iliad
Homer Odyssey
Plato Euthyphro
Plato Gorgias
Plato Phaedrus
Plato Protagoras
Plato Republic
Plato Theaetetus

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