Aristotle and the Virtues

Aristotle and the Virtues is an interpretation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as an unabashed ethic of virtue. Curzer gives pride of place to the Aristotelian virtues of character, highlights the relationship between justice and friendship, and provides an account of moral development, giving a taxonomy of different types of people. He also argues for a novel view of contemplation as reflecting and concentrating on matters of everyday life. His style is engaging and often colloquial. Where Aristotle himself is cryptic or seems to be on the wrong track, Curzer makes his own suggestions, and he treats Aristotle as a participant in contemporary discussion.It would be correct but misleading to say that Curzer devotes one chapter to each of the virtues of character, since each chapter may weave together discussion of several virtues and allow different doctrines to emerge, comprising what Curzer calls “Aristotle's architectonic.” The most important doctrines, according to Curzer, are the doctrine of disjoint spheres, the parameters doctrine and the doctrine of the mean, a taxonomy of character traits, a motivation doctrine, the virtue-is-the-measure doctrine, and the doctrine that to each virtue there corresponds a right rule. According to Curzer, Aristotle does not always live up to his architectonic. For example, he presents overlapping virtues of wit and friendliness. As far as I know, Curzer is the only commentator to construct one rule per virtue on Aristotle's behalf.In addition to the development of Aristotle's architectonic, various issues of contemporary interest are also included, for example, whether there are supererogatory actions, whether unconditional forgiveness is ever warranted, the importance of integrity, and how the impartiality of justice can be consistent with the partiality of friendship. In the following, I will make some brief comments about the core of Aristotle's architectonic and on an issue of special interest to modern ethicists, supererogation.According to Curzer, the core of Aristotle's architectonic comprises the doctrine of the mean and the parameters doctrine. The doctrine of the mean is the view that each virtue of character comes between exactly two vices. For example, the virtue of good temper comes between irascibility and inirascibility. The good-tempered person will also have the right feelings and act correctly. According to the parameters doctrine, acting and feeling appropriately require getting all the parameters right. For example, Aristotle says that with respect to passions, “one must feel them at the right time, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim and in the right way” (EN 1106b20, trans. Curzer, 42).On Curzer's view, the parameters are all quantitative. For example, “a good tempered person feels a moderate amount of anger about a moderate number of injuries and insults on a moderate amount of occasions toward a moderate number of people for a moderate length of time” (43). Curzer notes that it has been objected that “the right objects” cannot be expressed quantitatively. Not so, he argues. Feeling fear, say, toward the wrong object, for example, a mouse, would be to fear the mouse too much (54 and 79). But what makes fearing a mouse fearing it too much is that it is a mouse and not the appropriate object of fear. This raises a general problem about quantifying all the parameters. Surely, the reason why an amount of anger is moderate or the number of injuries is moderate or the number of occasions is moderate is that the person is angry for the right length of time, at the right time, toward the right people, and so forth, and not the other way round. Jo is not angry with the right people because they form a moderate number of people. Presumably, if she is angry with a moderate number of people, that is because they are the right people to be angry with. Nor is she angry for the right length of time because it is a moderate length of time. Often it may be appropriate not to get angry for any length of time at all. If that counts as a moderate amount of time, that is because it is the right length of time.Aristotle mentions heroic virtue only once, at the beginning of Nicomachean Ethics VII. Curzer argues that Aristotle presents a view of heroic virtue analogous to modern supererogation, and he identifies heroic virtue with magnificence and also with megalopsychia (conventionally translated as “magnanimity”). At first sight, it would appear to be hard to square any such view with the parameters doctrine. Giving away too much would not be exceptionally liberal or magnificent but prodigal according to Aristotle. Standing firm in battle when all is lost would not be exceptionally brave but rash. Curzer has a solution. The good person has a range of action that is appropriate, but pinpointing the perfect midpoint of every parameter is heroic. For example, suppose Norbert can give between $10,000 and $20,000. Giving $15,000 would be heroically magnificent (117). This interpretation is called the “extremely moderate account.”While it is plausible to suppose that Aristotle would allow for a range of options to be right in any situation, it is unclear why hitting the exact midpoint of those would be heroic or supererogatory. If a range of options is right, one should hit anywhere in that range. Furthermore, according to modern accounts of supererogation, doing something supererogatory is to do something that goes above and beyond the call of duty. If it is Norbert's duty to give between $10,000 and $20,000, he is not going beyond that by giving $15,000. Curzer continues by saying that the above is not Aristotle's view. Instead, Aristotle presents a “moderately extreme account,” according to which magnificent people border on prodigality but remain within the liberal range. Again, it is not clear why this would be supererogatory.In his discussion of megalopsychia, Curzer describes what he calls “splendid” actions a little differently. In Curzer's scenario, several characters confront wild animals and a dragon in order to rescue the damsel Daphne. Dominick, who stands his ground with the wild animals, but not with the dragon, is merely courageous. By contrast, Dick, who never runs away even when the dragon is present and often takes a step forward to take the brunt of the attack upon himself, has heroic courage. According to Curzer, Dick's standing his ground in front of the dragon is an ordinary act of virtue performed under extremely trying conditions and stepping forward is an extremely virtuous action performed under ordinary conditions (142).It certainly looks as if advancing on a dragon is better than merely confronting wild animals, but whether it is analogous to the supererogatory is not so clear. Curzer seems to agree that according to Aristotle, the right thing to do depends on the circumstances and skills of the agent (136–37). If Derrick lacks the wherewithal to confront the dragon, then the brave thing for him to do is to retreat. Conversely, if Dick has Saint George's ability to keep the dragon at bay, then that is what he should do. It is not supererogatory, but required. In fact, it would seem that on Aristotle's view, if someone did have superhuman powers, it would be incumbent on him or her to exercise them even if his or her actions were to go beyond any ordinary human ones, but it is paradoxical to say that there are required supererogatory actions.At the beginning of his book, Curzer quotes Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, “If I'd ‘a’ knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't ‘a’ tackled it.” Curzer's readers will thank him for taking the trouble. Aristotle and the Virtues is a rollicking adventure and raises many issues in virtue ethics that are worth pursuing further

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