The politics of passion: Aristotle and the preliminaries of morality (original) (raw)

Michael Dummett opens his monumental Frege: Philosophy of Language in a rather personal mood: "I am always disappointed when a book lacks a preface: it is like arriving at someone's house for dinner, and being conducted straight into the dining-room." 1 Transferring the comparison from prefaces to introductions, I could, in the same personal vein, say that I am always glad when a book lacks a lengthy introduction. If I am hungry, I prefer to skip the drinks and snacks in the antechamber; they might, and frequently do, spoil my appetite. This introduction, then, will be short, but, I hope, not too short to be useless. This is not, nor pretends to be, a work of classical scholarship. Its purport is not historical; nor is it my intention to reproduce 'what Aristotle really thoughf. It is perhaps best described as a modest contribution to what one could call the 'neo-scholastic revival' of the study of Aristotle. It provides a rather speculative, and probably controversial, interpretation of the adage 'ethics is practical'. It self-consciously exploits modern apparatus in arguing that the key to its decipherment lies not in Aristotle's ethical writings, but rather in its presuppositions. The argument is, in essentials, not difficult, although it might be easy to loose track. I shall not therefore, beat about the bush and rise to the occasion this introduction offers-to give a concise version of the story, which may serve the reader, so to speak, as an itinerary rather than a travel guide. In the first chapter, I design an argument against a fashionable, but mistaken interpretation of Aristotle's ethical method. It centers around a principal methodological term, phainomena, or, as it is frequently rendered 'appearances'. Contrary to what the 'new orthodoxy' (as I shall call it) claims, these are not, in a key passage in the Nicomachean Ethics, endoxa, or, common beliefs. Ethical inquiry, it is true, proceeds by examination of beliefs, but this it can do because they presuppose a command of the 'appearances' on the part of the subject These 'appearances' are, to put it bluntly, facts; and there are other ways than dialectical examination in which one becomes familiar with these. 1. Our chapter heading is, in fact a platitudinous pun on the title of what is standardly stigmatised as an 'extremely boring' or 'stodgy 7 work of moral philosophy. 1 Nevertheless, in The Methods of Ethics, first published in 1874, Henry Sidgwick managed to develop and present what has been called, with a keen sense for hyperbole, "the prototype of the modern treatment of moral philosophy." 2 Our pun is not only trite, but also confusing. A 'Method of Ethics' for Sidgwick is "any rational procedure by which we determine what individual human beings 'oughf-or what it is 'righf for them-to do, or seek to realise by voluntary action". 3 These several co-existing 'Methods' should be kept distinct from, so to say, the Method of The Methods. Sidgwick strikes a well of selfevident starting-points in the "Common Sense Morality of mankind" to test the Methods against, so as to secure a wide acceptance of his conclusions by the more reflective segments of society. 4 The procedure of mapping the market of common belief, the "impartial reflexion" and "reduction to consistency" of dialectic, Sidgwick owes to Aristotle. It is this method to which our pun refers. Sidgwick's acknowledgement, proffered in an upsurge of autobiographical excitement, marks one of those scant moments at which the Methods' monotonous hum is pierced through. 5 Like Sidgwick, modern moral philosophers are, in their more self-scrutinising moods, fond of labelling themselves heirs to Aristotle. For instance, John Rawls regards his own approach in moral theory as an offshoot of this conception "adopted by most classical British writers through Sidgwick", but (in a footnote) ultimately traced back "to Aristotle's procedure in the Nicomachean Ethics". 6 1 See Bernard Williams' Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture, held at Newnham College, Cambridge, 'The point of view of the universe: Sidgwick and the ambitions of ethics', reprinted m Williams (1995), p. 156. 2 Schncewind (1977), ρ 1 The italics are mine. 3 Sidgwick (1907), ρ 1 The methods Sidgwick discerns are intuitionism, philosophical egoism, and utilitarianism. «Schneewind (1977), p. 193 5 Sidgwick (1907), p. xx-xxi. « Rawls (1971), ρ 51 and n26 See Nussbaum (1978), p. 105 and n7. The footnote leads us to a passage from the third chapter ('The Nature of the Inquiry') of W.F.R. Hardie's 1968 book on Aristotle's Ethical Tlteoiy, which is for a considerable part devoted to the refutation of Bumet's view that the Nicomachean Ethics is "dialectical throughout". Hardie (1968), pp. 37-45; Burnet (1900), pp. v, xxxtx-XLVl, 13 Considerable tracts of the project, then, are reserved for description of common belief. This is brought out well by Sidgwick himself when he says that his "immediate object-to invert Aristotle's phrase-is not Practice but Knowledge." 7 The question is whether this seemingly innocuous inversion leaves Aristotelian ethical method where it is. Perhaps it can only begin to assume clarity of contour if we re-invert the phrase: ethics, for Aristotle, is, and essentially is, practical, and this has its repercussions on its method. These, however, will not become articulate until the subsequent chapters. The argument of this chapter is only a necessary step in that direction. Its colour is, on the whole, dimly iconoclastic, lit up by an occasional constructive twinkling. It aims at liberating Aristotelian ethical methodology from the 'Sidgwickian' cuffs into which it has been manacled by a recent interpretation. Since this interpretation is sail very much in vogue, it will take some effort to shoot holes in its incrustation. 8 This 'newly orthodox' interpretation, as I shall grandiloquently call it, epitomises one conception of moral philosophy, which, so much is sure, goes back at least to Sidgwick. But it may not go back to Aristotle. 2. The newly orthodox interpretation takes for a point of departure the methodological remarks at EN 1145b2-7, 9 which introduce the treatment of akrasia. An akratic person does what is wrong knowingly, on account of affection (EN 1111ЫЗ-4; 1145Ы2-3). 10 This treatment is generally considered a paradigm case of the application of dialectic to a particular inquiry. 11 1 shall for a start comply by quoting a well-known commentator's translation of the bulk of this passage (b2-6), and supply the missing clause in accolades. 12 Here as in other cases'* we must set down [hthenlas] the phatnomena and begin by considering the difficulties [proton diaporêsantas], and so go on to vindicate if possible all the common conceptions [ta endoxa] about these states of mind [pen lauta ta pathê], or at any rate most of them and the most important; {for when both the difficulties are solved and the endoxa are left [kataleipêtai], it would have been proven adequately [dedeigmenon hikanôs].} (EN 1145b2-7) 7 Sidgwick (1907), ρ vi 9 Some exegetical detail has to be dealt with to bring home the point of this chapter The reader who prefers to skip these issues is advised to make a leap to the next chapter '