Themes in Aristotle's Ethics: Justice, Practical Wisdom, Weakness of Will, Pleasure - Graduate Seminar (HT 2025)

Thursdays, 2pm–4pm, Keble College (Seminar Room 1)

Convened by Prof Karen Margrethe Nielsen and Prof Terence Irwin

These topics are ‘central’ in two ways:

1. They are theoretically central in Aristotle’s moral philosophy, in so far as they clarify some of his main claims about the virtues: (a) One type of justice is said to be ‘complete virtue’, because the other virtues would be incomplete if they did not include the concern for others that is characteristic of justice. (b) Practical wisdom (phronêsis) is both a primary virtue of intellect, and the intellectual virtue that is necessary for virtue of character. (c) Weakness of will (akrasia) and strength of will (enkrateia) are two intermediate conditions between virtuous and vicious character. (d) The right sort of pleasure is said to a necessary feature of virtue of character.
2. They are discussed in the middle books of the Nicomachean Ethics (V, VI, VII), which are also books of the Eudemian Ethics (IV, V, VI). Since they belong to both works, these three books are often called the ‘Common Books’. Can we tell whether they fit better into one work or the other? Does it make any difference whether we read them as part of one work or the other?

Our primary aim is to discuss the philosophical questions that make these books theoretically central, to see what we can learn from them about the strengths or weaknesses of Aristotle’s ethics. Our secondary aim is to try to decide where these books really belong. Success in the first aim is a precondition for success in the second aim; if we understand the philosophical point of these books in relation to the rest of the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, we can perhaps see where they belong in Aristotle’s developing thought on ethics.

Our main texts, therefore, will be the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics. But we will also consider the third major ethical text in the Aristotelian Corpus, the Magna Moralia. The status of this work is disputed. Some believe it is a post-Aristotelian work. Others believe it is the first of Aristotle’s three ethical works. In either case, it may contribute to our understanding of the other two ethical works; the nature of its contribution depend on its relation to them.

Provisional Schedule

Week 1: Phronesis; the relation between character and intellect.
(1) Aristotle distinguishes virtues of character from virtues of intellect. How is this division to be understood?
(2) In EN vi 13 he argues that (i) every genuine virtue requires phronêsis, and that therefore (ii) every virtue of character is inseparable from all the others. Does he present a good case for either of these two claims, or for the connexion that he sees between them?
(3) Aristotle sometimes says that virtue makes the end correct, and phronesis makes the means correct. What division of labour does he refer to here? Does it result in a coherent account of the virtues of character?

Week 2: Thought and truth about action
(1) Aristotle has often been thought to articulate a notion of ‘practical truth’ in EN vi 2. If Aristotle has a notion of practical truth, do practical and theoretical truth differ in kind? If so, how? If they don’t differ in kind, but in what they are about (their respective domains), how should we understand Aristotle’s remarks about truth and action in vi 2?
(2) Excellent decision (spoudaia prohairesis) presupposes ‘truth agreeing with correct desire’. What does this ‘agreement’ involve?
(3) What does the deliberative part of the soul grasp when it grasps the truth about action?
(4) What is good deliberation (euboulia)?

Week 3: Craft vs. phronesis
(1) Aristotle observes that phronêsis differs from craft knowledge in several ways. One difference concerns the capacity for misuse. While craft knowledge can be used well or badly, phronêsis cannot be misused. What is the significance of this difference?
(2) Unlike phronêsis, cleverness (deinotês) can be used for good or bad ends. What does the distinction between cleverness and phronêsis reveal about phronêsis as a virtue?
(3) Aristotle’s rejection of a craft-conception of phronêsis responds to a puzzle articulated by Socrates in the Hippias Minor. Aristotle discusses the puzzle in Metaphysics 1025a1-14, EN vi 5 and EE viii 1. How, if at all, do these responses differ, and what do they reveal about the accounts of phronêsis in EN vi and EE viii?

Week 4: Nous, particulars and universals
(1) In the course of seeking the highest good that is achievable in action, Aristotle warns in EN i 3 and 7 that ethics is an inexact science. In what way(s) is ethics an inexact science, and how is this point reflected in the analysis of phronêsis in EN vi?
(2) Aristotle explains that the phronimos must grasp both universals and particulars: ‘Nor is phronêsis about universals only. It must also acquire knowledge of particulars since it is concerned with action and action is about particulars’ (vi 7). What role does nous play in grasping universals and particulars in the practical sciences?
(3) What does Aristotle’s answer tell us about the division of labour between virtue of character and virtue of intellect?

Week 5: Justice
(1) The virtue of character that Aristotle discusses at greatest length is justice. Why does it receive such prominent treatment? Is justice, as Aristotle conceives it, an important virtue?
(2) Aristotle distinguishes ‘universal’ (or ‘general’) from ‘particular’ justice. How should we understand this division?
(3) Aristotle takes universal justice to be identical to, or closely related to, virtue as a whole. What relation has he in mind? What do we learn from it about the nature of virtue of character?
(4) At some points MM differs quite sharply from EN V. How is this difference to be explained?

Week 6: Weakness of will (incontinence, akrasia)
(1) Aristotle is confident that Socrates was wrong to say that we cannot choose the course of action that we know to be worse. He takes Socrates to deny the reality of incontinence, and he seeks an account that will show how incontinence is possible.
(2) Different readers disagree about whether Aristotle succeeds, and about how far he really disagrees with Socrates. Comparison of his different accounts of incontinence (in MM and in EN VII ) may throw some light on the central questions, as Aristotle understands them.
(3) Aristotle says that both the incontinent and the continent person have a ‘decent’ (epieikês) ‘election’ (or ‘decision’; prohairesis). Does it follow that they have exactly the same prohairesis (i) as each other, (ii) as the phronimos?
(4) Do Aristotle’s attempts to describe incontinence by using a syllogistic structure illuminate or obfuscate the questions?
(5) He distinguishes the ‘impetuous’ (or ‘rash’) from the ‘weak’ incontinent. How are we to understand this distinction in the light of the description of how incontinence happens?

Week 7: Pleasure
(1) Since the importance of forming the right kinds of pleasures is emphasized in the account of virtues of character, it is reasonable that Aristotle discusses the nature and value of pleasure at length.
(2) We have three accounts of pleasure. The discussion in MM is quite puzzling, and we need to think about what Aristotle is trying to do. Our text of EN contains a discussion both in Book VII and in Book X 1-4.
(3) These two treatments suggest a plausible argument for the view that EN VII is really EE VI. Could Aristotle himself ever have intended these two treatments (with no cross-references) to be parts of a single work?
(4) To answer this question, we need to ask (i) what the two accounts of pleasure (vii and x) are meant to do, and (ii) whether they express the same view, conflicting views, or complementary views. MM may help us to answer (i).
(5) It has sometimes been said that Aristotle, especially in EN vii, is a hedonist of some sort, or comes close to hedonism. Is this judgment defensible?

Week 8: The Common Books and the three ethical works
1. Have we learned anything from study of the three Common Books that suggests they belong to one or the other of EE and EN?
2. MM is normally more similar to EE than to EN. In the parts that correspond to the Common Books, MM differs more from the Common Books than it usually differs from EE. Does this feature of MM tell us anything about the relation of the Common Books to EE and EN?