Final Aristotle Paper

7/27/2019 Final Aristotle Paper

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Jay Carlson

Plato/Aristotle

Dr. Cynthia Freeland

Spring 2013

In his 2006 article Virtuous acts, virtuous dispositions, Thomas Hurka

contrasts two understandings of virtue: the dispositional view and the occurent-

state view. The dispositional view understands virtue as states that arise out of an

agents stable character trait or disposition. The occurrent-state view, on the other

hand, understands virtue simply as the actual occurrence of virtuous states,

independent of whether they were produced by any stable dispositions in the agent,

e.g. in their character. Hurka takes the former position, largely drawn from

Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, to be the dominant understanding of virtue in

contemporary philosophy. Hurka argues that this dominant understanding does not

comport with common-sense ascriptions of virtue. In this paper, I will demonstrate

that Hurka misunderstands that Aristotle can make a distinction between a virtuous

action and a virtuous action done virtuously. This distinction disabuses the

disposition view of the counterintuitive claims that Hurka attributes to it. This

distinction illustrates what function the dispositional component of virtue captures.

It will also resolve other problematic issues in Aristotles account, namely the

circularity problem between acting virtuously from a virtuous disposition and

developing a virtuous disposition by doing virtuous acts.

Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics addresses the question of how one comes

to have virtue, specifically virtuous character. In chapter 4, Aristotle outlines what

distinguishes virtuous actions from virtuous character. Aristotle initially raises the

seemingly plausible viewthat doing virtuous acts is sufficient in itself for being


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virtuous in character. This account might be called the naive act understanding1 of

virtuous character, perhaps drawn from a nave understanding of Aristotles

abbreviated answer to this acquisition question in chapter 1, namely that we

become just by doing just actions.

But to think that the performance of virtuous actions is in itself sufficient

for having a virtuous character would entail that accidentally virtuous acts are

classified as genuine cases of virtue: that is, actions that are, objectively speaking,

virtuous but are done in what seems like non-virtuous manner would count as fully

virtuous actions. For example, suppose that someone performed a virtuous action

but did it for the purpose of garnering social approval or advantage. If the

performance itself of an actually virtuous deed is sufficient for achieving virtuous

character, then this person would be judged to have a virtuous character. But surely

a person should not be judged to have a virtuous character if she did a virtuous act

solely for self-interested reasons. If this nave act approach to virtue would consider

such a person to have a virtuous character, then it cannot be a sufficient account of

virtue.

The insufficiency of focusing on virtuous acts themselves leads Aristotle to

note a distinction between virtuous action and techneor craft. The qualities that

make a good craft are located just in whatever product is produced: it suffices that

1I am not claiming that this position is characteristic of Hurkas account, though

there are similarities between them. Perhaps the most significant difference

between Hurkas position and this nave act-approach to virtue is the relevance of

intention for ascribing virtue to an action. The position Aristotle is responding to in

this passage would presumably not even consider intentions as relevant for virtue

ascriptions. Hurka, as noted below, thinks intentions are especially important,

indeed, perhaps preeminently so.


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[products of craft] have the right qualities when they are produced (NE1105a28).

This seems to mean that a table having the kind of qualities that make it able to

function properly qua table is sufficient for us to judge it to be a good table; this

evaluation is independent of any evaluation regarding how it is producedfor

example, whether it was produced as a result of a stable disposition of the carpenter

in question to readily produce good tables or if the carpenter happened to have a

lucky day in the woodshop. Aristotle is not convinced that such an end-result

approach is even adequate for instances of craft (NE1105a21), but what he is

attempting to show in this passage is that it is certainly inadequate for the purposes

of virtue ascription. Aristotle wants to say that the nave act account that evaluates

virtue only according to the acts that are performed is an insufficient account of

virtue.

Aristotle draws on the analogies of a musician and a grammarian to

demonstrate the insufficiency of allowing coincidentally virtuous acts to count as

virtuous: suppose some fluky set of circumstances make it such that a musicians

wrongly played piece happens to be harmonious or a grammarians badly

constructed phrase happens to be grammatical. While we might grant that the

performance and phrase were harmonious and grammatical in themselves, Aristotle

thinks that we do not want to ascribe the same evaluative status to the mechanisms

that produced these entities. In the same way, Aristotle wants to claim that an act

that happens to be virtuous as a result of lucky circumstances should not count as

one that is done virtuously either. For example, an act of generosity that was done

purely for the sake of social approval intuitively should not count as a virtuous act,


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even though to a third party observer it might be indistinguishable from an act done

out of genuine concern for another person.

What additional quality over and above the performance of virtuous acts

must obtain for a person to be virtuous? Aristotle claims that it is not just that the

acts in question be virtuous, but also that the agent performing them must have the

right state when he does them (NE1105a31). Aristotle then gives three conditions

that must obtain for a person to have virtue and thus be capable of not only doing

virtuous acts but also doing them virtuously. First, the agent must know that what

she is doing is virtuous. That is, the act in question must be objectively virtuous

and not just apparently so. Second, she must decide to act for the sake of the act

itself. Under this condition, objectively virtuous acts that are done for other

reasons, e.g. social approval, self-interest, etc., do not count as actions that are

performed virtuously. This condition rules out the possibility of an agent choosing

to do a virtuous act for some other reason. Finally, a virtuous act must be one that is

performed from a firm and unchanging state within the performing agent (NE

1105b30-35). An act cannot be done virtuously if the agent in question in a

particular case happens to act contrary to a general disposition to act non-

virtuously. Aristotle then notes that when it comes to an agent having virtue, the

condition that an act actually be virtuous is only of minor importance, while the last

two concerning the intent and the disposition from which the virtuous act is done

are all-important (NE1105b2).

One might be willing to grant that intentions are obviously important for

whether an act is done virtuously, as this allows us to disregard virtuous acts that


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are done for selfish motives as virtuous acts that are not virtuously done. Why does

Aristotle think that his dispositional requirement is necessary for a virtuous act to

be done virtuously? A preliminary remark on this matter should be that Aristotles

account of virtue an exceedingly difficult thing to achieve. First, there are the

amount of factors involved: one must not only perform an objectively virtuous

action, but one must do it at the right time, toward the right end, with the right

motive, and with the proper amount and kind of emotion (NE1106b18-24). As if

the sheer number of factors involved did not make virtue difficult enough to achieve,

further complicating the matter is the fact that that none of these factors are decided

by any straightforward, universally applicable rules. The factors are highly

contextualized to each particular cases, in which the agents themselves must

considerwhat the opportune action is (NE1104a9) along with what amount of

the other factors is contextually appropriate. Making these fine-grained,

particularized decisions would perhaps not be so cumbersome if the final product of

virtue could readily withstand deviations from the mean in excess or deficiencies in

one respect or other. But the median, virtuous states by themselves are unstable, as

they tend to be ruined by excess and deficiency (NE1104a12). Becoming a

virtuous person, therefore, is hard work and achieving fully virtuous character

that satisfies all of these conditions is rare, praiseworthy, and fine (NE1109a29-

30). For virtuous states to be anything more than ephemeral flashes, therefore, they

must be grounded in something that preserves them and makes their occurrence

more regular.


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Aristotles account of virtuous character is well suited for explaining how a

persons character serves this preservative, stabilizing taskfor virtue in the fact that

it incorporates the desiderative aspect of action. For a virtuous action to become

something that is habitually doneand indeed, done for the right reasonsthe

action should be pleasing for the agent. It is pleasure in the act, after all, that

distinguishes the virtuous person from the merely continent one, who does an

appropriate action, but takes no pleasure in said performance. For instance, take

the virtue of bravery. By its very nature, bravery involves being undisturbed in the

face of forces that provoke feelings of fear and terror (NE1117a32). Thus, the brave

person, as well as the person who is becoming brave, must endure a significant

amount of pain. A person overcomes this pain by focusing on what pleasures are

present; a boxer endures the pain of the trials in the ring for the pleasures of glory

and honor (NE1117b3), but more importantly because to stand in the face of such

pain is itself a noble and fine act and to do otherwise would prompt shame (NE

115b12).

Every action, Aristotle claims, has some measure of either pleasure or pain

incorporated into it, and he notes that what generates pleasure and pain in a person

is partly constitutive of her character (NE1104b9) and is a sign to third party

observers as to what sort of state she is in (NE1104b5). Aristotle considers the

person who demonstrates feeling pleasure in doing generous acts and pain in doing

either miserly or spendthrifty ones to be virtuous; likewise if someone shows that

doing a median action is painful for them but pleasure in doing deficient or


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excessive acts, then Aristotle considers that person intemperate, as they are desiring

the wrong things (NE1104b7).

The desiderative element of character goes can be seen as what the firmness

and stability conditions that Aristotle takes to be essential for character. Lorenz

understands the desiderative element to be rational in an extended sense, meaning

that the appetitive and spiritive aspects of a person are capable of listening to the

cajolings of reason (Lorenz 2009, 182). On Lorenzs reading, reason is then tasked

with developing and reforming the appetitive and spiritive desires of the non-

rational parts of the soul (Lorenz 2006, 194).

But a virtuous character is consists not just in having the appropriate feelings

or desires. Aristotle himself notes that virtue is a state that decides according to

deliberative reason as well (NE1107a1). Hendrik Lorenz also notes that that

theories sell Aristotles account of character virtues short if they understand his

character virtues just in terms of habituated conditions for experiencing feelings

like pleasure, distress, anger, and shame (Lorenz 2009, 177-8). Character virtues

also include capacities to grasp relevant reasons about a situation, as well capacity

to deliberate about what decisions to make; for Lorenz, character virtues involve

not only a desire to act in a certain way, but also, among other things, a decision to

act in this way (Lorenz 2009, 194). The cognitive aspect of character virtue also

relates to the issue of the contextual complexity involved in figuring out what the

virtuous act is and how to perform it virtuously. As Myles Burnyeat notes, practice

has cognitive power in that it shows us what virtue is and how to go about


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obtaining it (Burnyeat 1980, 73). The fact that character facilitates this sort of

learning what virtue is and what it means in particular contexts.

Thomas Hurka takes issue with the condition that virtuous statesincluding

not only virtuous acts, but virtuous desires and feelings as wellrequire being

produced by a stable disposition. As Hurka describes the disposition account, in the

absence of issuing from a stable disposition, an act may be such as a brave or

generous person would perform, but [the act] is not itself brave or generous

(Hurka 2006, 70). Hurka takes this to mean that if the dispositional account is

correct, then we would have to say that ostensibly virtuous acts that are, so to speak,

out of character are not actually virtuous acts. A prominent literary example of

such a case Hurka used in a talk at the University of Houston is Ebenezer Scrooge:

upon receiving a Christmas Eve vision, Scrooge eschews his general lifelong

disposition of acting miserly and gives one of his employees a Christmas turkey and

a pay raise. Taken by themselves, we would usually judge Scrooges Christmas day

acts as virtuous, but since they are deviations from his general character of acting

miserly and thus not done out of a stable disposition in Scrooge to be generous,

these acts do not count as virtuous. Hurka thinks that denying the virtue of out of

character actions does great violence to common sense applications of virtue. If a

soldier jumped on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers, we would not condition

calling that act brave on whether the soldiers act issued from a stable disposition to

act bravely. Hurka thinks that the dispositional account is committed to saying that

unless the soldier acted from a stable disposition, then that act cannot be considered

brave. The same principle applies equally to vice as well: if we saw someone


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torturing a dog, while Hurka takes the common-sense ascription in this case to be,

That is a cruel act, for Hurka the dispositional ascription would be, That was a

cruel act on condition that it issued from a stable disposition to give similar kicks in

similar circumstances (Hurka 2006, 71). Hurka thinks it is clear that the common-

sense ascription, which he thinks is represented by the occurrent-state view, is right

to say that we make judgments about whether or not actions are virtuous

independent of whether they are done from . Hurka concludes that an alternative

account of virtue can better accommodate the common-sense ascription of virtue,

namely the occurent-state account. This view, drawing from W.D. Ross, claims that

virtues should be primarily ascribed to actual acts that are done with particular

motives: desire to do ones duty, to bring good to someone, or prevent some others

pain. While traits might arise to dispose one toward acting with these kinds of

motives, proper virtue ascription does not require that acts be done from some

dispositions (Hurka 2006, 70).

In prioritizing the local performance of virtuous action, Hurka is not

committing himself to the implausible claim that the nave act account where the

mere performance of a virtuous action is enough to warrant being described as

virtuous. As noted earlier, the virtuousness of an act is not just in the act itself but

also in the motive from which the act is done (Hurka 2006, 70). In terms of the

conditions for acting virtuously that Aristotle discusses in NEII.4, Hurka assents to

the first two conditions: that an act must be virtuous and that the decision and

motive of the agent is based on the virtuousness of the action. What Hurka is

denying is the third, dispositional condition, that attributing virtue requires any


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connections to more enduring traits like tendencies to act in similar ways in similar

circumstances (Hurka 2006, 71). He is also denying that acting from a stable

disposition adds any special value to acting in the absence of such a disposition.

Hurka sees no reason to give a higher evaluation to an act done from a stable

trait than one that is not; provided that both are done, e.g. out of genuine concern

for another, they are at least equally valuable. At a talk given at the University of

Houston, Hurka suggested that the out-of-character act might even be more

praiseworthy than an in-character act. The thoughthere is that while the agent in

the latter case is acting in step with the general flow of her current dispositions, the

agent in the former case is having to against her own dispositional grain, as it

were. Since going against ones own dispositional inertia is a more challenging task,

perhaps that we should evaluate. This emphasis on motive clearly would rule out

attributing virtue to someone who does an ostensibly generous act, but does it for

self-interested motives. Nor is Hurka denying the value of virtuous dispositions

wholesale; he grants that virtuous dispositions can be primary sources of reliably

producing virtuous actions and moral education should prioritize their development

(Hurka 2006, 73). What Hurka does want to claim is that the value of these more

global traits is derivative from the value of local, particular acts.

An adequate response to Hurka on his claims about the dispositional views

ascription of virtue requires nothing more than noting that there is a distinction in

Aristotle between doing a virtuous actionthat is, one that is objectively speaking

virtuousand doing such an actvirtuously. Any action satisfies that first condition

just in case it actually is a virtuous action and can be correctly called as such.


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Ebeneezer Scrooges acts toward Bob Cratchit therefore satisfy this condition

because they are both acts that a generous person would do in that situation; the

soldiers act of jumping on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers equally satisfies this

condition, such that we can call it a virtuous action as well. In the opposite

direction, we can certainly call the act of intentionally kicking a dog for ones own

amusement a vicious act because it satisfies the condition of being an act that a

vicious person would do. Hurkas claim that the disposition view requires that we

not ascribe virtue or vice, respectively, to these actions is simply mistaken.

Perhaps Hurka would respond that in these cases we would also be

intuitively inclined to say that they satisfy the other condition, of acting virtuously

or viciously in the case of a viceas well. After all, it does not seem unreasonable to

suppose that Scrooge and the soldier do their respective virtuous actions with the

right intention, for the right end, and with the proper amount and kind of emotion.

The only thing they might lack is doing their acts from a stable disposition. But a

clear response is available. First, Hurka is attempting to make the concept acting

virtuously to be demonstrable by a single instance. This is clearly not the way

Aristotle conceived of it being used. What Aristotle was attempting to describe was

a disposition that could be efficacious over a wide area of cases, not just a single one

or even single kind of instance.

In the case of Scrooge, let us suppose that it is true in the particular case of

acting toward Bob Cratchit that Scrooge hits the mean regarding all of the ethically

relevant features. That still will not demonstrate that Scrooge would be able to

consistently hit this same virtuous mark as accurately going forward with other


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cases. Even if we stipulate away any akratic behavior or backsliding on Scrooges

part in these future instances, it is unlikely that he would have the sufficient moral

understanding to know exactly what he should do in a completely different scenario

where hitting the mean requires different actions, different emotions, towards

different people. The same might be said of the soldier, supposing, of course, that he

does not actually die. While he might easily display bravery on the battlefield

towards his fellow comrades, he might find bravery more difficult, for example,

when the case involves standing up against racism from a family member directed

at a total stranger. Even if he did the actutally virtuous action in this case, it might

have been much more difficult for him to summon the proper emotions in a case

involving strangers. When Aristotle speaks of acting from a firm and stable

disposition, the idea is that it would be something that is efficacious over a wide

range of cases. The question of acting virtuously, however, is a separate question

that should not be assumed to always be satisfied whenever the first condition of

doing a virtuous action is satisfied.

Hurka also thinks that the dispositional account commits one to being able to

identify the virtuous character traits independently of virtuous acts or feelings

that issue from them (Hurka 2006, 70). If one is not able to make this independent

identification, then Hurka claims the dispositional account is circular. He does not

go into more detail as to what he means by circular. One probable understanding of

Hurkas worry is that one cannot display virtuous actions or feelings unless one

already possesses a virtuous disposition, and one cannot have a virtuous disposition

unless one, to use Aristotles own words, displays virtuous acts. On this


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understanding Aristotles account of virtue encounters a kind ofMeno problem that

Socrates encountered regarding knowledge, and thus Aristotle was well aware of

this potential hang-up. Irwin notes that Aristotles response to this objection is that

it assumes that performing virtue is analogous to a craft wherein one is acting from

previous knowledge. This response is not helped by the fact that Aristotle does

liken virtues to craft in certain respects: virtueswe acquire just as we acquire

craftswe become builders by building..Similarly, we become just by doing just

actions (NE1103a32-b1). While they might not be vicious cycles in the frequent

theme in Aristotles account of virtue seems to be the idea of dispositional feedback

loops, that virtue tends to beget virtue, but excess and deficiency tend to produce

their own respective vicious cycles, i.e. cycles that produce increasing amounts of

vice.

On Hurkas understanding of the account he is opposing, the primary

understanding of virtue seems to be a potentiality or capacity that one would be

disposed to display virtuous states. This is a position that Aristotle seems to

expressly reject. In chapter 5 of book II, Aristotle considers whether virtues are

feelings, capacities, or states. Aristotle understands feelings to be states involving

some pleasure or paine.g. happiness, sadness, fear, etc.while capacities involve

the capability of having a state if certain circumstances obtain (Irwin 1999, 318).

Aristotle denies that virtues could be feelings because virtues must arise from a

decision, and feelings are not under direct volitional control (NE1106a4). But

neither are virtues capacities in the sense of something that is capable of being

realized in the actions of an agent, what Irwin calls the raw materials for virtue


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(Irwin 1999, 196). While it is true that we are capable of coming to have virtuous

states (NE1103a27) the mere capacity itself is not what virtue is. Instead of either

of these options, Aristotle insists that virtue is a statea hexiswhere one is

actually displaying the appropriate amount and kind of feelings and behaviors (NE

1105b25). Irwin points out that having a state of virtue is not merely a tendency to

be virtuous, but a tendency that has been formed by doing virtuous acts: just as we

become builders by building, so also do we become virtuous by doing virtuous acts

(NE1103b1).

Cynthia Freeland, however, attempts to show that Aristotles rejection of the

understanding of virtues as capacities in II.5 ofNichomachean Ethics is a very

qualified denial. States or hexeisare defined in this passage only as what we have

when we are well or badly off in relation to feelings (NE1105b27). She aims to

demonstrate that a broader consideration of Aristotles understanding of hexis and

dynameis, especially Aristotles work in Metaphysics, that it is possible that a state

one possesses could actually be a capacity as well. Virtue could be understood as a

particular kind of state that is actually a subclass of potentiality, namely second

potentialities (Freeland 1982, 20). These potentialities develop from prior

capacities Aristotle calls virtuous behavior an activityan energeiaiand if some

particular activity exists, there must be corresponding capacity from which it arose.

This developed capacity for virtuous behavior, this dynameis, is itself moral virtue

(Freeland 1982, 6).

Freeland says that this construal of moral virtues as second potentialities is

useful if one is comparing how moral virtues resemble rational and non-rational


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capacities. On the one hand, moral virtues at their most perfected form operate

almost automatically in response to some salient feature about ones environment

(Freeland 1982, 19). While a novice might have to pause to consider what the right

decision is and how he should respond, the fully brave personi.e. one who has a

full possession of the virtuedoes not even have to think about whether or not to

be brave or in way they ought to be brave; she simply finds herself responding to

her circumstances with the right amount of bravery, and all that would entail for the

situation. Annas supports this idea by noting that people who have just performed

heroic feats make no mention of virtues or what the brave thing to do was, but

frequently just report they simply registered that the person needed to be rescued,

so they rescued them (Annas 2008, 22).

Contrast this picture, of course, with rational dispositions that are typified as

being deliberative rather than automatic. When one is weighing the pros and cons

of whether one should go on a vacation or donate ones vacation fund money to a

charitable cause, the procedure is deliberative rather than a quick automatic

response. Nevertheless, Freeland notes that another typical characteristic of moral

virtuesthis time like rational dispositions butunlike non-rational onesis that

there is some voluntary choice in what decision one makes. One makes a choice, for

example, whether to give ones money away or to spend it on oneself. Furthermore,

while we certainly hold people responsible for the decisions they make and the acts

the do, it is less clear that one is responsible for automatic responses in the same

way.


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How then can we make sense of the fact that moral virtues seem to be both

voluntary and automatic at the same time? Freeland suggests that the answer to

this lies in the fact that moral virtues are the product of the agents choice to engage

in some temporally extended practice of habituation, such that she no longer has to

even consciously deliberate what to do, but she is capable of the appropriate action

just spontaneously arising from within her in response to her environment.

Furthermore, she is responsible for this virtue because this capability was itself

predicated on her decisions and behavior of habituation (Freeland 1982, 20).

Hurka might respond that an agents concern for acting virtuously only

succeeds in making a person self-indulgent, that is, it makes her more concerned

with the maintenance of her internal states than how her internal states and the acts

that arise from them affect others (Hurka 2001, 139). Two responses could be made

here. First, the claim about acting virtuously is not that the end the agent is

pursuing is acting virtuously itself. If someone were to do this, then the self-

indulgent charge might have significant force.

But a more pertinent response is that during the initial stages of moral

education these inwardly directed questions are usually necessary, but they are not

permanent. For example, learning a musical instrument initially requires conscious

thought of what one should do, but as one becomes proficient, the need to mindful

consider what one should do becomes less of a need, to the point that they might

disappear from the conscious operations of the person. In the same way, as Julia

Annas points out, one might begin ones moral development with conscious

contemplation of what one should do, what one should desire, and so forth, as one


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develops ones capacity to be virtuous, the need to be mindful of what ones own

states should be dissipates; thoughts about how to act virtuously tend to be self-

effacing in this sense (Annas 2007, 24). The virtuous persons response to their

situation might initially be one of reflection and habituation, but the mature virtue

expresses itself directly in reacting to the needs of the situation (Annas 2007, 33).

Hurka would perhaps maintain that this understanding would still rank the

generous, out-of-character act as not as virtuous as the fully operative kind of virtue.

This is correct, but it perhaps does not have the same effect Hurka thinks it does for

several reasons. These sorts of deviations are operative in almost every actual

human agent to one degree or another, such that there are very few actualizations of

a fully virtuous person. But this should not bother us, for the ideally virtuous

person is not a state one could hope to capture, thought one might try to emulate it.

Second, if Hurka is concerned with blame and punishment, then that claim too is

overblown; at the end ofNE2.9, Aristotle claims that we do not blame people for

small deviations from the mean into excess or deficiency (NE1109b19-20).

In this paper, I have strived to demonstrate the value that virtuous

dispositions contribute to Aristotles overall system of ethics in addressing the

problems of the instability of virtues on their own as well as the circularity problem.

In doing so, I think I have provided plausible answers to Tom Hurka that

dispositions are not a necessary component of virtue.


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Works Cited

Annas, J. (2004). Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing. Proceedings and

Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 78 (2):61 - 75.

---. (2008). The phenomenology of virtue. Phenomenology and the CognitiveSciences, 7(1), 21-34.

Freeland, C. A. (1982). Moral Virtues and Human Powers. The Review of Metaphysics,

3-22.

Hurka, T. (2006). Virtuous act, virtuous dispositions.Analysis 66 (289):6976.

---. (2003). Virtue, vice, and value. Oxford University Press.

Irwin, T. (1999). Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.

Lorenz, H (2009). Virtue of Character in Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford

Studies in Ancient Philosophy 37 (2009): 177-212.

---. (2006). The brute within: Appetitive desire in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford

University Press.

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