Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach

Now the fact that Aristotle believes something does not make it true. (Though I have sometimes been accused of holding that position!) But it does, on the whole, make that something a plausible candidate for the truth, one deserving our most serious scrutiny. In this case, it would be odd indeed if he had connected two elements in ethical thought that are self- evidently incompatible, or in favour of whose connectedness and compatibility there is nothing interesting to be said. The purpose of this paper is to establish that Aristotle does indeed have an interesting way of connecting the virtues with a search for ethical objectivity and with the criticism of existing local norms, a way that deserves our serious consideration as we work on these questions. Having described the general shape of the Aristotelian approach, we can then begin to understand some of the objections that might be brought against such a non- relative account of the virtues, and to imagine how the Aristotelian could respond to those objections.

II. The relativist, looking at different societies, is impressed by the variety and the apparent non- comparability in the lists of virtues she encounters. Examining the different lists, and observing the complex connections between each list and a concrete form of life and a concrete history, she may well feel that any list of virtues must be simply a reflection of local traditions and values, and that, virtues being (unlike Kantian principles or utilitarian algorithms) concrete and closely tied to forms of life, there can in fact be no list of virtues that will serve as normative for all these varied societies. It is not only that the specific forms of behaviour recommended in connection with the virtues differ greatly over time and place, it is also that the very areas that are singled out as spheres of virtue, and the manner in which they are individuated from other areas, vary so greatly. For someone who thinks this way, it is easy to feel that Aristotle’s own list, despite its pretensions to universality and objectivity, must be similarly restricted, merely a reflection of one particular society’s perceptions of salience and ways of distinguishing. At this point, relativist writers are likely to quote Aristotle’s description of the “great- souled” per-son, which certainly contains many concrete local features and sounds very much like the portrait of a certain sort of Greek gentleman, in order to show that Aristotle’s list is just as culture-bound as any other. But if we probe further into the way in which Aristotle in fact enumerates and individuates the virtues, we begin to notice things that cast doubt upon the suggestion that he has simply described what is admired in his own society. First of all, we notice that a rather large number of virtues and vices ( vices especially) are nameless, and that, among the ones that are not name-less, a good many are given, by Aristotle's own account, names that are somewhat arbitrarily chosen by Aristotle, and do not perfectly fit the behaviour he is trying to described. Of such modes of conduct he writes, “Most of these are nameless, but we must try . . . to give them names in order to make our account clear and easy to follow” (NE 1108a16– 19). This does not sound like the procedure of someone who is simply studying local traditions and singling out the virtue names that figure most prominently in those traditions. What is going on becomes clearer when we examine the way in which he does, in fact, introduce his list. For he does so, in the Nicomachean Ethics, by a device whose very straightforwardness and simplicity has caused it to escape the notice of most writers on this topic. What he does, in each case, is to isolate a sphere of human experience that figures in more or less any human life, and in which more or less any human being will have to make some choices rather than others, and act in some way rather than some other. The introductory chapter enumerating the virtues and vices begins from an enumeration of these spheres (NE 2.7); and each chapter on a virtue in the more detailed account that follows begins with “Concerning X . . .” or words to this effect, where “X” names a sphere of life with which all human beings regularly and more or less necessarily have dealings. Aristotle then asks: What is it to choose and respond well within that sphere? What is it, on the other hand, to choose defectively? The “thin account” of each virtue is that it is whatever it is to be stably disposed to act appropriately in that sphere. There may be, and usually are, various competing specifications of what acting well, in each case, in fact comes to. Aristotle goes on to defend in each case some concrete specification, producing, at the end, a full or “thick” definition of the virtue. Here are the most important spheres of experience recognized by Aristotle, along with the names of their corresponding virtues: