11/05/2023

Junior Philosophy Paper

Pedro da Silva

Dr. Rodrigo Ribeiro

On the Scientific Character of Aristotle's Ethics

In the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics,1 Aristotle says that one should not expect the

same degree of certainty in this study as in the other sciences, for ethics is concerned only in

giving a rough sketch or outline about its subject matter. This claim seems surprising at first,

for Aristotle, speaking about the importance of this study, compared the knowledge acquired

in ethics to an archer aiming at the bullseye,2 that is, an exact knowledge that would help one

to achieve his end. How, then, is one to reconcile these two claims? Are we to look at the

Ethics just as a probable account of the good of human beings, hoping that we get it right? Or

are we to look at it as some science that can give us certain knowledge of our end and the

means necessary to acquire it?3

Aristotle’s two claims need not to be opposed. I will show that Ethics is a practical

science that can give us demonstrative knowledge of general truths about human action, such

as the end and the means to acquire it. I will concede, however, that we can only understand

these things in a general way, for there is no science of particulars, and therefore no ethics of

this particular man and his actions. I will prove my thesis by doing three things: First, I will

explain Aristotle’s account of science, showing that science is concerned with necessary

things. I will also give a brief explanation of the three constitutive parts of a science, namely,

that about which we prove things in the science, that by which we prove things in the science,

1
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Bartlett and Collins, 1094b20-22.
2
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a24.
3
See, for example, Dr. Martha Nussbaum’s book "Love's Knowledge”, and William
Wallace’s dissertation called “The Role of Demonstration in Moral Theology” for different
approaches on the question of the scientific character of Aristotle’s Ethics.
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and that which we prove about the subject in the science. Second, I will apply those

definitions and distinctions to Aristotle’s Ethics looking for its subject-genus, its premises,

and its conclusions. By doing that I hope to have a clear account of how Aristotle understands

his scientific account of the Ethics. Third, I will make a distinction about what is necessary

and what is contingent in this science in order to reconcile the two claims presented in the

beginning of this paper. Having accomplished the three aforementioned parts I hope to have

given a clear explanation of how one can understand the Nicomachean Ethics in a scientific

way, granting that there are still many good questions and reflections that arise from a serious

study of the text.

There are two important texts of the Stagirite that ought to be analyzed when

understanding his account of scientific knowledge:

We believe that we know in an unqualified way and not sophistically (that is,
accidentally) when we think that we know the cause by which a thing is, that it is the
cause, and that the thing cannot be otherwise. Clearly, unqualified knowing is
something of this kind. For both those who do not know in this way and those who do
are in agreement on this, the former thinking that they possess such knowledge, the
latter actually possessing it. Therefore, that which is known in an unqualified sense
cannot be otherwise.4

This text is the foundational one in Aristotle's account of science being about necessary

things.5

The second text used by the Philosopher is this:

In demonstrations we find three things. One is the conclusion, that which is

demonstrated. This is what belongs per se to a particular genus. Another is the
axioms. These are the principles from which a demonstration proceeds. The third is

4
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, trans. E. Poste, 71b10-15.
5
Aristotle later in the Posterior Analytics uses the example of astronomy to expound further
on this same point. He says that astronomy as a science has demonstrative knowledge of what
is an eclipse, but not of when an eclipse is going to happen. What an eclipse is, or its nature,
is unchanging, and whenever one sees the moon being interposed by the earth and the sun
one will know that there is an eclipse happening. To be able to have certainty of when an
eclipse is going to happen, however, is harder. Particular and contingent things, insofar as
they are particular and contingent, are not able to be understood scientifically. One can only
understand those things insofar as they have something necessary and unchanging in them.
This is an important truth that will be helpful for the future.
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the subject genus, whose attributes and per se accidents are shown by the
demonstration.6

Here he is talking about what makes a science, which are its parts. The subject-genus, as the

name indicates, defines the underlying of the science, the subject that will be receiving all the

per se predications caused by the demonstrations. The subject-genus shows how the subjects

and the predicates in the syllogism belong to each other essentially. In other words, the

subject-genus gives the scientist the subject about which he is talking. Next, the principles of

the science are those which are, as Aristotle says, true, first, immediate, better known, prior,

and causes of the conclusion.7 A science must have principles which are proper to the genus

being studied, as the definition of circle (the principle) is proper to the study of continuous

quantity (the genus) for example, for circle is a species of continuous quantity. The principles

will normally appear as definitions in the science, used as middle terms in the demonstrations

that ought to be proven.8 The third part of a science is the conclusions, or that which is

proved about the subject. The predicate of the conclusions will be properties or per se

accidents that belong to the genus. An example will be helpful to show the conclusion's

relation to the other two constitutive elements. Given the syllogism:

Heavenly bodies that are far away twinkle.

Stars are heavenly bodies that are far away.
:. Stars twinkle.

In this situation one finds a demonstrative syllogism that shows the causes for stars twinkling,

namely, that they are far away. The conclusion is included in one of the premises, namely the

major one, and is shown to apply to a particular (stars) that belongs to the subject genus

(heavenly bodies). A more thorough account of the relation of the three parts of a science in a

demonstration would require more space and knowledge than what is possible for this paper,

6
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 75a39-75b.
7
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 71b20.
8
A discussion of the principles of Ethics, although important and fundamental, does not
belong to this paper, for as he himself says, no science proves its own principles. For the
purpose of this paper it is enough to identify the principles used in Ethics.
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what was said should suffice for the intent of an analysis of the scientific character of the

Ethics. To summarize what has been said so far, the subject genus is that about which one

proves something in a science, the principles are that from which one proves things in a

science, the conclusions are that which one proves about the subject in a science.

Having established the parts of a science, it is now necessary to look at the Ethics in

particular and try to find its genus, principles and conclusions. Aristotle starts the Ethics with

a general notion that "the good is that which all desire."9 From there he applies the principle

to inquire what is the good that humans desire. Whence it appears the subject genus of ethics,

or that about which the moralist is studying is the good insofar as it belongs to human action,

or in a more proper way, human actions insofar as they are ordered towards their ultimate

end. One can use an example of psychology to understand this claim better. Psychology, as

understood by Aristotle, is concerned with human actions as well, but only insofar as they

relate back to the nature of man, which is proper to natural philosophy. Ethics, on the

contrary, is concerned with human action precisely as it is ordered towards the ultimate good

of man.

Having established what the subject is, the principles should follow naturally. If in

ethics one is studying human actions insofar as they are ordered towards the ultimate good,

one should first determine whether the ultimate human good exists and what it is. That is why

Aristotle starts book one with the discussion of happiness, because the definition of happiness

has the ratio of a final cause in the science, and a cause is such as a thing through which other

things can be demonstrated. Again, an example from some other work of Aristotle may help

to see the truth of this claim. Aristotle in the Physics10 is inquiring into motion and the mobile

being, thus the first thing that he ought to determine are the causes of motion. Similarly in

ethics, when one is inquiring into human action as ordered to an end, it is necessary to see the

9
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a3.
10
Aristotle, Physics, trans. Coughlin, 200b12.
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causes for that action. The cause of action, as Aristotle shows in the III book of De Anima11 is

more properly the good, and from the cause one can then demonstrate what is consequent

upon such cause. Therefore, the definition of happiness is one of the principles of the science.

Other principles could be found as the parts of the soul which is used in subalternation in

ethics, and the principle that the whole is greater than the part which is a common principle

here applied to, nonetheless, it is enough for this study just to see how happiness is used as a

principle in the science.

Another way of arguing that the definition of happiness is a principle in the science of

ethics comes from the determination given by the subject-genus, as was said. Thomas

Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, explaining how sacred doctrine is a science, says that the

subject-genus of a science can be considered materially or formally. The subject-genus

considered under its formal aspect is what makes a science one, as for example "divinely

revealed" is the formal aspect under which sacred doctrine is studied. The things divine

revealed, however, as Aquinas says in the same question,12 are the principles of the science.

From this it is clear that one can take the formal aspect of the subject-genus as the principles

of the science. Applying to ethics, one sees that the formal aspect of the subject-genus is the

final end, or happiness, because both human psychology13 and ethics share the material

subject of human actions, what differentiates these two sciences is that ethics studies them

under the formal aspect of the ultimate end. It follows then that happiness is a principle in

ethics.

Next, what are the things demonstrated in the science? Following the Philosopher in

the order presented in the Ethics one would need to say that what ought to be demonstrated is

the nature and character of the virtues. The virtues are present in the first definition of

11
Aristotle, De Anima, trans. Coughlin, 432b28.
12
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q1. A3.
13
Here I mean human psychology as the study pursued by Aristotle in his De Anima.
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happiness, and their character must be better understood in order not only for one to

understand happiness better, but to acquire it. If happiness is a certain activity of the soul in

accordance with virtue,14 one must know all the virtues to see which one, or if even all of

them, is proper to happiness. In that way, they are consequent upon the definition of

happiness, as means are consequent to an end, insofar as the end establishes some necessity

to the means, as for instance, the end of building a house establishes a certain necessity about

the material that one will use when building the house. Therefore the nature of the virtues are

conclusions demonstrated in ethics, such conclusions are known through the proper principle

of happiness, the subalternated principles of the human soul and other common principles

used by the Philosopher.

With the three elements of a science having been applied to ethics, it is now clear how

Aristotle understands ethics as a science and what the study is aiming at. It is necessary to

discuss now what ethics does not show, what type of knowledge it does not give to its

students, for one can also know something better by knowing what that thing is not.

As Aristotle says in book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics,15 there is a difference

between the scientific study of ethics and the virtue of prudence or practical wisdom.16 The

science of Ethics aims at general and universal truths about human life, things are in

themselves necessary. Practical wisdom, on the other hand, is concerned with deliberation

about action, and therefore, about particulars. The first is a science that can be studied, the

second is a virtue that requires experience and trial. Practical wisdom, Aristotle says, requires

deliberation, which takes both knowledge of universals and particulars.17 From this, one can

14
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1098a10-20.
15
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1142a25-30.
16
Nussbaum, Martha C. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. Oxford
University Press, 2009. Chapter 2: “On the Discernment of Perception: an Aristotelian
Conception of Private and Public Rationality” gives great insight on the difference between
science and practical wisdom.
17
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1142a30-1143b25.
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already see the role that the study of Ethics can have in someone’s life. Ethics helps one to

deliberate well by giving him the knowledge necessary of the universals and general truths

about human action. Nevertheless, it is necessary the experience with particulars for one to be

really called prudent. Having thus concluded, it is clear now the scientific character of

Aristotle’s Ethics, its extent and limitations as well as its importance for living well.