What is ethics?

In its core understanding, it is a body of prescriptions, rules and values. Together, they tell us what is right or wrong, good or evil, what we ought to do and ought not to do. Ethics also deals with the questions of its implementations: When do we act freely? What are we responsible for? Why should we be moral? What do we achieve when we are moral?

Distinct from law, customs and conventions by not being constituted by the fact to be legislated by a lawgiver or observed in a given community. Problem: Religious Morality like the Ten Commandments.

Us:

Not much on our mind in everyday life. We learn the rules and what one is supposed to do and not to do in our community. We follow them out of habit or out of fear. We do not think about situations where we need to decide ourselves what we feel is right and do the right thing. Most often, we think like that when we feel unfairly treated or wronged. Ethics is not a priority and an everyday concern, at least not in an explicit way. Things are different for people who are religious. Most religions ask their faithful to live by certain rules, and to conduct their lives in specific ways. Think of the Puritans.

Philosophical ethics is an effort to give us a rational basis for thinking about right and wrong, good and evil, and to make us use this thought in the orientation of our lives. This includes philosophical critique of factual standards in the community. Normative thinking: what we ought to . . . what is wrong to do . . . what is the right thing to do . . . what is ‘good’ (in the moral sense)! Two dominant ways of thinking about what is morally right and wrong. One school looks for basic rules, moral laws of a comprehensive kind. Its paradigmatic version comes from the German philosopher Kant: Act only in such a way that you your wills and policies are acceptable to every rational person as laws for all. The other school starts from the assumption that we primarily act out of self-interest. We pursue our happiness, understood as avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. Regards for others become morally relevant to the extent as their happiness is tied in with ours. Both schools try to offer to us formulae and procedures that allow us to decide whether an action we are considering is morally good or morally bad. Those who do the right things will lead moral lives.

Aristotle:

Aristotle thinks differently from both the modern schools. He has a primary target for what is ethically good: that good is ‘the good life.’ What matters most is that we lead our lives in the right way. Actions and our intentions enter only as means to lead a good life. He also thinks that you cannot say, with descriptive precision, what makes a life a good life. As a consequence, he is much less prescriptive that the moderns are. His ideas about what how we should behave in order to be ethical are much more open.

What is it ‘to live a good life?’

A good life is a life that pursues excellence. It is the “state of man which makes a man good and makes him do his own work well.” (NE p. 382, 1106a22). ‘Excellence’ translates “arete.” “Virtue” is another translation. We think of virtues as being prescriptive qualities: a virtuous woman, very much in the tradition of modern moral thinking: one is virtuous only if one obeys certain prescriptions and abstains from certain actions. Virtues are moral prescriptions. This is not how Aristotle thinks about excellences. In the first place, everything that has a purpose ‘has an excellence or virtue.

This means that living beings and artifacts – houses and knives - have virtue. The arete of a house is to be a good house, i.e. something that offers good shelter in a durable way as distinguished from offering bad shelter and being haywire. Excellence is here concerned with the evaluation of the item from the point of view of how well it fulfills that purpose. Excellence is graded: things can be better or less good, concerning the excellence of fulfilling a certain function. Excellence, in general, is to be able to be evaluated as better or worse, always with respect to its function. The good knife cuts well, does not blunt easily, resists quick rusting etc.

For living beings in general, excellence is related to their internal purpose or finality. Plants, animals will be more or less good exemplars of their kind. The form that is active in shaping them and drives their comportment is directed at making each one of them be the most perfect exemplar of its kind, in all of the relevant respects: a powerful tree, that resists atmospheric challenges, getting into the best exemplar circumscribed by their potential. The ideal form – recall the little oak tree – manifests the excellence of the thing. But form is not everything. For the tree, function needs to be added: a powerful tree. Human beings share in this purpose of aiming at the best possible exemplar they can become, both in body and soul.

Excellence:

When we now zoom in on ethical or moral excellence. For each being, it will lie in the excellence of those features that distinguish its kind from other beings. For humans, excellence is attached to that faculty of the soul that is specifically human: reason. It “is distinguished into two kinds: intellectual and moral (NE p. 375, 1103a4 and NE p. 376, 1103a17). Moral excellence, which interests us here, consists in the better or not so good conduct of soul faculties, where what counts as ‘good’ is determined by reason, and where I act for the sake of that good. Excellences are states, i.e. conditions of our soul due to actions we have taken and attitudes we have acquired by choosing to realize our rational potential as fully as possible. Typical excellences or virtues are courage, truthfulness, practical wisdom or prudence, justice. But this is not a closed list. Aristotle thinks that these excellences are something that exists in us as potential: “we are adapted by nature to receive them” (NE p. 376, 103a24). They are there, but do not develop by themselves: “none of the moral excellences arise in us by nature” (NE p. 376, 1103a19).

Acquiring excellence:

How do we get those excellences, first only dormant in us? We first get them by exercising them (NE p. 376, 1103a30). Part of Aristotle’s ‘good life’ is therefore that we learn excellences by doing. Important: This is not just learning something, in order to be able, later, to do the right thing. Acquiring excellences is itself already an integral part of leading the right, i.e. the moral life. In other words: you need not be truthful, brave or just in order to be moral. It may well be the case that you have not mastered the subtleties of an excellence, and are therefore as yet unable to practice it adequately. But that does not matter. What is required is that you work at acquiring the excellence. “By doing the acts that we do in presence of danger, we become brave” (NE p. 377, 1103b16). We will all agree that learning to do the right thing is important and laudable. But not all of us will agree that working at learning is an integral part of being moral. For the first time we see that Aristotle is not primarily looking at us being moral throughout, on every occasion, and according to precise and strict criteria for courage or honesty. What primarily matters is that we build the right kind of character. Ethos is character and habit, as you may remember from our discussions of Rhetoric. Ethics is concerned with character and habit. Character is a disposition to behave in certain ways, be it as a sincere person, be it as an insincere person (Theophrastus). Excellences – states of our souls, arise from activities. We will see in a moment that this reasoning still applies when we have acquired the excellence. Perhaps better: no excellence is definitely acquired.

Reason and Choice:

So far, we have not yet explored the role of reason in the practice of excellences. They are ‘states.’ These are “things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions” (NE p. 381, 1105b25). When do we ‘stand badly with reference to a passion or, for that matter desire or appetite? We do, when we let ourselves be overwhelmed by a passion, or driven by a desire. But: didn’t I interpret Sappho as doing just that: let herself be overwhelmed by passion? No, that was not what I said there. She does not lose control. She controls by fashioning. Fashioning is rational activity. A fine line separates ‘allowing to oneself one’s feelings’ and ‘being overwhelmed by one’s feelings.’ To let ourselves be overwhelmed, or simply to be overwhelmed – out of control from anger, driven to self-abandonment and destruction by passion, (“Fatal Attraction”), too fearful to take the right action against a danger – where this happens we “stand badly with reference to the passion.” Why? Is it because the passion might lead us to do stupid things and damage ourselves? Is it because we ought to say no to our passions and desires, perhaps because they propose immoral conduct to us? No. Aristotle’s reason is that the right and good order between the different faculties of the soul is out of sync. In us, the ‘higher’ faculty of practical reason must control and fashion the lower faculties. That control and fashioning is lost when we are overwhelmed or, as kids, still steered by our desires and feelings entirely. We miss out on our specifically human potential, when we do not practice the excellences. All of them are anchored in our rational soul, and their practice requires practical reason.

Why privilege courage, temperance or justice over fear, wanting everything right now, or pursuing one’s self-interest at the expense of others? Because, the passions push us to act without choice. They have chosen for us when they put pressure on us to enact them: to act out of anger or passion alone, to act to satisfy our desire just because that desire wants it so. From Aristotle’s point of view the question is: who is the master? Is it you, or is it your passion? Is it you, or is it your desires? The good life, the ‘moral’ life is a life of mastery. We need to master our passions. But we also need to be masters of ourselves. We are masters of ourselves where we make rational choices. “In respect to the excellences and the vices we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a particular way” (NE p. 381, 1106a5).

How about asking Aristotle: aren’t our feelings as dignified a part of us as our reason? Why not declare that our feelings, passions, desires and appetites do not overwhelm us. Who would that ‘us’ be, in the first place? We are our feelings, and we do not lose mastery when we give in to them. In that case we are the masters through that part of us that belongs to our affective faculties. The question is not, whether our affects or we are the masters. The problem rather is: Shall we let ourselves be ruled by our reason or by our feelings. What would Aristotle reply? He might argue that the rational and the irrational elements of our soul are not at the same level, and therefore are not equal players in a game where either the one or the other dominates us. Of course, all the elements have their own excellences, the irrational elements as well as the rational ones (NE p. 374, 1102b3). But the irrational faculties come without choice, whereas the rational one enables, even demands choice. In choice, it is not just reason that chooses. It is us who choose through reason. Reason does not determine what we are to do. It enables us to make choices, and to transform what the non-choice element proposes into a choice element. That’s what Sappho is doing when she allows herself to feel her passion and actively deals with her solitude. It is not: reason vs. passion. That’s the modern version. It is: all performances of the soul under (some) choice vs. performances of the soul without choice. In some cases, reason “persuades the irrational element by giving advice or exhortation (Sappho: hold your tongue!).

Choice, the Intermediate, and Deliberation:

What is choice in a matter where excellence is at stake? Let us assume that I am a freshman at UCI, start Core, and realize that the instructor has chosen to teach Aristotle. I do not understand a word of this philosophy. I begin to fear that Core will mess up the stellar GPA I want to achieve at UCI. That fear proposes to me that I drop the course. Now, following Aristotle, if I just let my fear dictate my behavior, I stand badly with reference to my pathos. Fear, as we know, will predominantly tell me to avoid the danger, which is the object of my fear. If there is an excellence to be pursued, here, it is courage. Now, is courage just to stay on and ignore the fear? A certain kind of rationality might suggest that to me: I need the course; better to get it behind; I will somehow muddle through; perhaps things will not be as bad as they now appear. But, if I come down at the side of reason like this, I have not performed a proper moral choice. I have done nothing that “makes a man good and makes me perform my work well” (NE p. 382, 1106a22). I have done nothing to acquire the excellence of courage. I have not been building character, more precisely: the character trait of courage.

Excellence or virtue involves choice, and that choice “must have the quality of aiming at an intermediate” (NE p. 382, 1106b15) between extremes. Aristotle’s key formula:

“Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess, and that which depends on defect” (NE p. 393, 1107a1).

How does this work? Let us try to unpack the formula. In our example, the excellence is courage. Our choice is twofold: It is, on the one hand, the choice of courage as opposed to the extremes, whatever they may be. It is, on the other hand, the choice of that action which is a better or worse enactment of courage. Let me wanting to be brave. Do I then know what I ought to do? No way! “Matters concerning conduct and questions of what is good for us – here: what counts as the right courageous conduct have no fixity . . . account of the particular case is yet more lacking in exactness” (EN p. 377, 1104a4-6) How come, courage does not come with a list of descriptions that align situations and the actions to be taken: In case of . . . you will be brave if you . . .? The reason is that there are two many different factors to be considered for a general policy recommendation to be able to be on target. That target is the excellence of courage!

But how do these intermediaries help me in my difficulty to opt in favor of courage and to conceive of the right action in my situation of the difficult Core course? First: the extremes. Abstractly, if courage is the mean as the right response to fear, then cowardice is ‘not enough courage’, i.e. the defect of courage, for it is the state of the soul of someone who lets him-/herself be controlled by fear. (The coal on the bridge in the Fairy Tale?). But in that same dimension - confronting a threatening situation - there is another extreme. It is that of ignoring the danger and the difficulty, or of rushing into the danger, reckless audaciousness (compare NE p. 384. 1107a32-1107b2). This misses out on courage by excessive disregard for the danger and, I would say, for what talks to me in terms of my fear: you may not be successful in that course.

Following Aristotle, I have decided to be brave and to choose an intermediate course of action between cowardice and disregard for my fear. But you can form an intermediate only if you know the extremes. Cowardice, insensitivity to danger (“The Young Man Who Went Out in Search of Fear”) do not tell me what kind of action counts as one or the other vice. But “excellence both finds and chooses that which is intermediate” (NE p. 383, 1107a5). But now I have a grid, and a continuum of positions between the two poles of cowardice and audaciousness, and I can try to compare different scenarios and actions as to where they put me in that continuum. Why should it be cowardly to back off? It would perhaps be cowardly if I simply drop, without weighing my chances of success. What of the idea of muddling through, or just closing my eyes and stay on? That looks like pure disregard of the danger. Did I weigh the danger concretely enough? What are my chances of succeeding? If I know perfectly well that Aristotle and I will be eternally without mutual understanding, then I perhaps better listen to my fear. It tells me what my reason also tells me: this won’t work. On the other hand: What if I am prepared to put in some extra work? That might diminish the chances of failure. But is the course worth the effort? And there still remains a risk I will not make it, or not do well. Personally, I think that if we should also enter another excellence into the equation: healthy pride, as a rational motive to pull through rather than out!

All this is called practical deliberation. The extremes and the idea of an intermediate are just helps in making up one’s mind in a rational way. You have seen that I take the fear seriously, if it can gain approval by reason. Note that I have done two things simultaneously in that deliberation: I have worked out what courage means for me in my situation. The intermediate is always “relative to us” (NE p. 382, 1106b5). Another person, or a slight change in the situation might led to a different conclusion about what courage means under the different circumstances. And I have determined what my specific courageous action will be. I have chosen this course of action as the intermediate one, avoiding cowardice and insensitivity or audaciousness. In other words: I have enriched my experience of courage by the case, ready, perhaps, to respond similarly in similar cases, or to argue significant difference in a new deliberation.

I have tried to demonstrate to you the openness of Aristotle’s practical rationality, but also the habit-building and character-building nature of his procedure in the pursuit of excellence. It is also a dealing with fear, and will have the fashioning quality we discovered in Sappho; for I have let my fear to be felt “at the right time, with reference to the right object, towards the right people (me!), with the right aim, and in the right way.” (NE p. 383, 1106b20.)