Contemplating Friendship in Aristotle's Ethics

Ann Ward

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781438462684
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

In this book, Ann Ward explores Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, focusing on the progressive structure of the argument. Aristotle begins by giving an account of moral virtue from the perspective of the moral agent, only to find that the account itself highlights fundamental tensions within the virtues that push the moral agent into the realm of intellectual virtue. However, the existence of an intellectual realm separate from the moral realm can lead to lack of self-restraint. Aristotle, Ward argues, locates political philosophy and the experience of friendship as possible solutions to the problem of lack of self-restraint, since political philosophy thinks about the human things in a universal way, and friendship grounds the pursuit of the good which is happiness understood as contemplation. Ward concludes that Aristotle's philosophy of friendship points to the embodied intellect of timocratic friends and mothers in their activity of mothering as engaging in the highest form of contemplation and thus living the happiest life.

Chapter One

Contemplating Friendship
in Aristotle’s Ethics

Aristotle begins the Nicomachean Ethics by embracing the claim that all human activity aims at the good. Living from 384–322 BC, and having been a student in Plato’s Academy for nearly twenty years before founding his own philosophical school in Athens, the Lyceum, in 335 BC, Aristotle identifies the highest human good as happiness (eudaimonia). Aristotle defines happiness as an activity of soul in accord with the reason of a serious person, and thus as an activity of soul in accord with virtue. Such a definition is problematic, however, because virtue is divided by Aristotle into two different types: moral virtue and intellectual virtue. Which of these virtues for Aristotle constitutes happiness is one of the most contested debates in the contemporary literature on the Nicomachean Ethics. On one side of this debate are ranged scholars such as J. L. Ackrill and David Bostock who hold that Aristotle has an “inclusive” view of happiness.1 This means that the happy life requires the practice, in some form, of both the moral and the intellectual virtues. Scholars on the other side of the debate, such as C. D. C. Reeve and Thomas Nagel, believe that Aristotle has an “exclusive” or “dominant” view of happiness.2 This view holds that happiness is grounded in the intellectual virtue of contemplation, which is separable from and superior to moral virtue. I argue that Aristotle’s text comprehends both the “inclusive” and “exclusive” views of happiness attributed to it.

In acts of moral virtue, Aristotle argues, reason determines the mean and guides the passions to it, which is then usually followed by an external action of the body. Moral virtue is thus an internal motion of the soul that culminates in an action that is external. Actions, internal and external, that “hit” the mean, as it were, are virtues, excesses and deficiencies are vices. For instance, with respect to the passion of fear, if the soul is disposed to feel an excess of fear it can lead to an act of cowardice, whereas to feel a deficiency of fear can lead to an act of recklessness. However, if the soul is disposed to feel a median amount of fear, this can lead to the active virtue of courage. Aristotle identifies and discusses eleven moral virtues and their corresponding vices: courage, moderation, generosity, magnificence, greatness of soul, ambition, gentleness, friendliness, truthfulness, wittiness, and justice.

Despite Aristotle’s apparent embrace of the moral virtues, his analysis, I argue, brings to light significant problems with these phenomena. According to Aristotle, from the perspective of those who pursue them, the end of all the moral virtues is the noble, not the common good of the political community. As such, virtue incorporates a drive toward autonomy that abstracts from the political or law-dependent grounds of its existence. The problem of autonomy is illustrated in Aristotle’s analyses of the virtues of courage and moderation. The second problem with moral virtue that Aristotle identifies is that it is grounded in significant inequality, both sociopolitical and psychological.

The problem of sociopolitical inequality is at the core of Aristotle’s analyses of the virtues of generosity and magnificence. According to Aristotle, both generosity and magnificence are usually products of inherited wealth, and both the generous and the magnificent seek to be noble in their actions, rather than to benefit their recipients. Moreover, magnificence requires that the provision of public goods actually be in private hands. The problem of psychological inequality and its connection to the drive for an excessive autonomy is explored in Aristotle’s account of greatness of soul. Great-souled persons, according to Aristotle, feel themselves to be at a height and regard the community as a platform to reveal their greatness. Moreover, such persons are also divided in soul; they are torn between their desire for the noble, and thus for virtue as its own reward, and their desire to be honored for being noble, and thus look on virtue as a means to reward.

By shedding light on the sociopolitical inequality that grounds moral virtue, Aristotle points to the need for justice as a corrective. I will therefore explore Aristotle’s theory of justice, focusing on competing notions of equality that arise within it. I argue that for Aristotle, reciprocal justice can provide a constructed equality that allows political justice and the rule of law to come into being. Justice, therefore, seeks to redistribute goods in such a way as to achieve a greater balance among citizens, making meaningful political life possible.

Not only does the inequality at the root of moral virtue point to the need for justice, but the conflicts and tensions within the moral realm push the moral agent beyond that realm and into the realm of intellectual virtue. Aristotle identifies five intellectual virtues: art, science, intellect, prudence, and wisdom. Prudence, according to Aristotle, is that aspect of reason that determines the mean between excess and deficiency. Guiding the passions to the mean, prudence, although grounded in and sustained by the virtue of moderation, is also what brings the moral virtues into being. The other intellectual virtues, however, seem distinct from moral virtue. Art looks to the creation of beautiful or technically proficient products rather than the goodness of the producer, and science, intellect, and wisdom, grounded in scientific or theoretical reason, seek the true and the false irrespective of what is good and bad. Aristotle’s analysis of intellectual virtue, therefore, illustrates that there are human virtues that are not moral virtues; there is an intellectual realm beyond or at least apart from the moral realm.

The potential implications of theoretical reason’s pursuit of a type of knowledge that is distinct from moral knowledge will be an important question explored in this book. Aristotle suggests that because certain intellectual virtues can grasp truths that are distinct from what is morally right for human beings, lack of self-restraint (akrasia) is a possibility. The person who lacks self-restraint knows what is good but, experiencing excessive desires, does the opposite nonetheless. Aristotle discusses various possible causes of lack of self-restraint, but most interesting is the connection he makes between lack of self-restraint and the emergence of theoretical thinking. For the inexperienced philosopher, the passions in the soul can “slip the leash,” as it were, put there by habit and prudential reason, as they surge toward what theoretical reason shows to be true rather than to what prudence has determined to be right. One possible solution Aristotle suggests to the problem of lack of self-restraint is the discovery and practice of a philosophy that thinks about human things in a universal way, namely political philosophy.

The second possible solution to lack of self-restraint is the phenomenon of friendship. In his philosophy of friendship, Aristotle characterizes complete or perfect friendship as a relationship in which two persons feel affection for each other due to their goodness. Adherence to moral virtue is, therefore, motivated by the desire to achieve recognition and affection from the friend based on the goodness of one’s character. Moreover, Aristotle suggests that it is in perfect friendship that the unqualified good is manifested and grasped. Friendship, therefore, appears necessary to participate in what Aristotle calls “contemplation,” and which comes to light as essential to the highest human life accompanied by the highest human good: happiness. Aristotle speaks of contemplation in three senses. The first conceives of contemplation as the activity of the intellect (nous) grasping universal truths. The second suggests that contemplation is the activity of a “divine” intellect reflecting on the intellect’s grasping of universal truth; it is self-reflection in the highest sense. The third, taking place within a philosophic friendship, conceives of contemplation as reflection on the goodness of the self through reflection on the goodness of the friend.

Two important questions that this book explores are: (1) can perfect friendship be comprehended within political friendship?, and (2) can perfect friendship be experienced by women? I argue that Aristotle’s analysis of the political friendship between citizens of a timocracy (the just form of majority rule) indicates that it can resemble the perfect friendship between persons of moral excellence, while simultaneously allowing for an internal life of contemplation to be pursued. With respect to women and friendship, Aristotle suggests that in their activity of mothering, persons can experience and express a type of friendship that resembles or perhaps transcends the perfect friendship based on moral excellence. Moreover, I suggest that the maternal transcendence of self for the good of the other beyond the self points to women’s entry into the political sphere with men, and makes women especially suited for the philosophic transcendence of self necessary for the activity of contemplation. Mothering and contemplating are closely linked.

Considering Aristotle’s discussion of friendship, citizenship, the family, and contemplation in the latter books of the Nicomachean Ethics, I conclude that Aristotle’s understanding of happiness comprehends both the “inclusive” and “exclusive” views that scholars have attributed to it. Aristotle argues that the practice of moral virtue, especially the virtue of moderation, guided by prudential reason, is what allows for and sustains intellectual virtue grounded in theoretical reason. Yet, theoretical reason, or contemplation, once it emerges, gives access to a realm of truth that is morally neutral. In other words, it is possible for intellectual virtue derived from theoretical reason to become separated off from and even act against its foundation in prudence and moral virtue. Aristotle suggests two possible ways to bridge the potential gap between moral action and contemplation grounded in theoretical thinking: the practice of political philosophy and the activity of friendship. Such philosophy and friendship, however, allow for the simultaneous existence of two ways of being in the life of a single person. As a citizen and friend exercising moral virtue toward others, a person lives the “inclusive” social and political life natural to human beings. Yet, this social and political life also provides the opportunity for persons to turn inward and engage in an “exclusive,” internal life of contemplation, in which an embodied human reason touches or imitates a reason that is “divine.”

In my reading of the Nicomachean Ethics, I build on Aristide Tessitore’s concept of Aristotle’s dual audience. Aristotle’s primary audience, Tessitore argues, are not philosophers but rather respectable citizens who subordinate theoretical knowledge to the active pursuit of goodness. However, Aristotle hopes that his work will reach a second, more philosophically inclined audience. Such potential philosophers do not adhere to moral conventions but are characterized by a radical questioning of all conventional opinions and practices for the sake of discovering truth. Aristotle thus invites these students to consider the more fully satisfying character of the philosophic life, the life dedicated to theoretical knowledge.3

My reading of Aristotle’s ethical treatise is informed by, yet goes beyond, Tessitore’s methodological assumption of a dual audience. I approach Aristotle’s text not with a dual but a single audience in mind, and understand this audience to be focused on the ethical journey that a single moral agent can take, a journey presented by the Nicomachean Ethics and culminating in the phenomenon of contemplation. I thus view the moral agent’s life, as well as the text that analyzes that life, as progressive in structure. The agent and Aristotle’s text start with an “inclusive” view of happiness that understands moral virtue as the highest purpose in life, but the agent and the text are moved by moral virtue itself toward an “exclusive” or “dominant” view of happiness the reaches toward contemplation. Yet, the agent and the text conclude that moral virtue and intellectual virtue can actually manifest two ways of being in the life of a single person. In acting virtuously toward others, a person lives the social and political life natural to human beings. Yet, at times they can turn inward, as it were, engaging in the activity of contemplation. The reader, or audience, of Aristotle’s text, proceeds along the same journey as the agent of the text. Aristotle’s text, therefore, gives the reader access to an understanding of the ethical and intellectual life in a way that the agent’s life journey, presented by the text, gave to him or her.

I also read the Nicomachean Ethics in light of the current revival of scholarly interest in Aristotle’s political and ethical theory. The focus on virtue and human flourishing in Aristotle’s thought compels many scholars to reconsider both the foundations of contemporary liberal democracy and the desired aims of liberal society. As Susan Collins points out, contemporary neo-Aristotelians tend toward either a “political” or a “perfectionist” reading of Aristotle’s philosophy.4 Political neo-Aristotelians such as...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One: Contemplating Friendship in Aristotle’s Ethics
• Chapter Two: Teleology, Inequality, and Autonomy
• Chapter Three: Moral Virtue: Possibilities and Limits
• Chapter Four: Justice: Giving to Each What Is Owed
• Chapter Five: Intellectual Virtue, Akrasia, and Political Philosophy
• Chapter Six: Citizens, Friends, and Philosophers
• Chapter Seven: Happiness and Maternal Contemplation
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover