Download Aristotle's Function Argument: Understanding Human Happiness and the Concept of Function and more Schemes and Mind Maps Ethics in PDF only on Docsity!
Aristotle’s Function Argument
1. Introduction
The purpose of the Nicomachean Ethics is to discover the human good, that at which we ought to aim in life and action. Aristotle tells us that everyone calls this good eudaimonia (happiness, flourishing, well-being), but that people disagree about what it consists in (NE 1 .4 1059a 15 ff). In 1. 7 , Aristotle suggests that we might arrive at a clearer conception of happiness if we could first ascertain the ergon (function) of a human being (NE 1 .7 1097b 24 ). The justification of this line of inquiry is that ‘‘for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the ‘well’ is thought to reside in the function’’ (NE 1 .7 1097b 26 – 27 ). The compact argument that follows establishes that the human function is ‘‘an active life of the element that has a rational principle’’ (NE 1 .7 1098a 3 – 4 ). The human good therefore is the activity of the rational part of the soul performed well, which is to say, in accordance with virtue (NE 1 .7 1098a 15 – 17 ). Aristotle’s argument, which I will present in more detail in the next section, is a descendant of one offered by Plato at the end of the first book of the Republic (R 352 d– 354 b). Here Socrates is trying to establish that the just life is happiest and best, and he argues as follows. First of all, each thing has a function, which is what one can do only or best with that thing (R 352 e). Furthermore, everything that has a function has a virtue, which enables it to perform its function well (R 352 b–c). The function of the soul is ‘‘taking care of things, ruling, deliberating, and the like,’’ since these are activities you could not perform with anything except your soul. A few lines later Socrates also proposes that ‘‘living’’ is a function of the soul (R 353 d). Since the soul only performs its function well if it has the virtue associated with its function, a good soul rules, takes care of things, and in general ‘‘lives’’ well, while a bad soul does all this badly (R 353 e). Since earlier arguments have supposedly established that justice is the virtue of the soul, Plato concludes that the just soul lives well, and therefore is blessed and happy, while an unjust one lives badly and so is wretched. Both versions of the argument seem to depend on a connection between being a good person and having a good or happy life, and their aim is
130 Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
to connect both of these in turn to rationality. Aristotle’s version of the argument in particular has provoked a great deal of criticism, some of which I describe in the next section. In this essay, I offer an account of what Aristotle means by ‘‘function’’ and what the human function is, drawing on Aristotle’s metaphysical and psychological writings. I then reconstruct Aristotle’s argument in terms of the results. My purpose is to defend the function argument, and to show that when it is properly understood, it is possible to answer many of the objections that have been raised to it. For reasons I will explain below, I think it is essential to make good sense of the function argument, because the theoretical structure of the Nicomachean Ethics collapses without it. Part of the defense is conditional, and shows only that if one held Aristotle’s metaphysical beliefs, the function argument would seem as natural and obvious as it clearly seemed to him. But part of it is intended to be unconditional, and to show that, gien certain assumptions about reason and virtue, which, if not obvious, are certainly not crazy, the function argument is a good way to approach the question how to live well.
2. The Function Argument and its Critics
Aristotle opens his version of the argument with these words: Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a platitude, and a clearer account of what it is is still desired. This might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of man. For just as for a flute player, a sculptor, or any artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the ‘‘well’’ is thought to reside in the function, so it would seem to be for man, if he has a function. Have the carpenter, then, and the tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he naturally functionless? Or as eye, hand, foot, and in general each of the parts evidently has a function, may one lay it down that man similarly has a function apart from all these? (NE 1 .7 1097b 22 – 33 ) After quoting this remark, W. F. R. Hardie comments ‘‘the obvious answer is that one may not, unless one is prepared to say that a man is an instrument
FN:1 designed for some use.’’¹^ Only in light of controversial religious or metaphysical assumptions can we view human beings as having a function, or being designed for a purpose. We can read the passage quoted in either of two ways. We can read it as an expression of astonishment: ‘‘What! All these other things have a function, and a human being has none?’’ Or we can read it as an argument: bodily parts have functions, but that only makes sense if there is a function of the whole
¹ W. F. R. Hardie, Aristotle’s Ethical Theory , p. 23.
132 Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle. (NE 1 .7 1097b 3 – 1098 a 4 ) This move gives rise to further objections. Why should the human function be one of these three things—the life of nutrition and growth, the life of perception, and the life of reason? And of these, why should it be the one that is ‘‘peculiar’’ to us? If dolphins or Martians also reasoned, would it be any the
FN:4 less our function to reason?⁴^ And aren’t other things ‘‘peculiar’’ to us? Bernard Williams comments: If one approached without preconception the question of finding characteristics which differentiate men from other animals, one could as well, on these principles, end up with a morality which exhorted man to spend as much time as possible in making fire; or developing peculiarly human physical characteristics; or having sexual intercourse without regard to season; or despoiling the environment and upsetting the balance of
FN:5 nature; or killing things for fun.⁵
And Robert Nozick asks: If man turned out to be unique only in having a sense of humor, would it follow that FN:6 he should concentrate his energies on inventing and telling jokes?⁶
Even if we suppose that for some reason the human function must be one of the three kinds of life among which Aristotle makes his selection, why only one? Thomas Nagel points out that it may be more plausible to argue that human flourishing involves the well-functioning of all of our essential
FN:7 capacities, and not just one.⁷ Finally, even if we do manage to isolate a unique and characteristic human capacity that seems to be a plausible candidate for the human function, won’t it turn out to be a capacity that can be used either for good or for evil? Why should the good performance of the human function make one a morally good human being? Bernard Williams says: For if it is a mark of a man to employ intelligence and tools in modifying his environment, it is equally a mark of him to employ intelligence and tools in destroying others. If it is a mark of a man to have a conceptualized and fully conscious awareness of himself as one among others, aware that others have feelings like himself, this is a FN:8 preconception not only of benevolence but^...^ of cruelty as well.⁸
⁴ I draw these examples from Robert Nozick in Philosophical Explanation , p. 516 ; and Terence H. Irwin, ‘‘The Metaphysical and Psychological Basis of Aristotle’s Ethics,’’ in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics , p. 49. ⁵ Williams, Morality: An Introduction to Ethics , p. 64. ⁶ Nozick, Philosophical Explanations , p. 516. ⁷ Nagel, ‘‘Aristotle on Eudaimonia,’’ in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics , pp. 7 – 14. ⁸ Williams, Morality: An Introduction to Ethics , p. 64.
Aristotle’s Function Argument 133
In this way nearly every premise and presupposition of the function argument has been criticized. The idea that human beings even have a function is supposed to be based on a dubious teleological principle or an illegitimate piece of teleological reasoning. The inference that the good performance of this function, supposing that it did make you a good human
FN:9 being, would therefore be good^ for you , has been deemed a ‘‘fallacy.’’⁹^ The assumption that the good performance of the function would make you a good human being is called into question by the thought that any human capacity can be used—and used, in a non-moral sense, excellently—either for good or for evil. Even if these problems were resolved, Aristotle’s method of selecting the function—by choosing the kind of life that is unique to human beings—raises a whole new set of problems, since his critics cannot see either why it should be one of these or why it should be the one that is unique. For all of these reasons, even sympathetic readers sometimes dismiss the function argument as a piece of antique metaphysics, or as an unfortunate contrivance for supporting the philosopher’s characteristic prejudice in favor of rationality. Some of the critics seem to think of the function argument merely as a preliminary argument in favor of the contemplative life that Aristotle will champion in Book 10 , and therefore perhaps as something we may simply lay aside. On this reading, the function argument is simply ‘‘reason is the unique human capacity, therefore human happiness consists in thinking and doing science and philosophy.’’ This makes the bulk of the Nicomachean
FN:10 Ethics , Books^2 –^9 , appear as a kind of digression.¹⁰ In fact, however, the function argument cannot be set aside without a serious loss to Aristotle’s theory of the moral virtues. Both Plato and Aristotle recognize a conceptual connection between ergon , function, and arete , virtue (R 353 b–c; NE 2 .6 1106a 14 ff; NE 6 .2 1139a 18 ). A virtue is not merely an admirable or socially useful quality: it is quite specifically a quality that makes
FN:11 you good at performing your function.¹¹^ An important part of Aristotle’s task in the Nicomachean Ethics is therefore to show that the characteristics that we commonly think of as the moral virtues really are virtues in this technical sense—qualities that make us good at rational activity. So Aristotle needs the conclusion of the function argument not only to support his views about
⁹ Peter Glassen, ‘‘A Fallacy in Aristotle’s Argument about the Good.’’ ¹⁰ The text does not bear this reading in any case, since after Aristotle identifies the function as the active life of the part that has a rational principle, he adds that one part ‘‘has’’ such a principle in the sense of being obedient to it and another in the sense of possessing it and exercising thought. It is of course practical reason, not theoretical reason, to which the moral virtues are in some sense ‘‘obedient.’’ ¹¹ Sarah Broadie also points this out in her discussion of the function argument in Ethics with Aristotle , p. 37.
Aristotle’s Function Argument 135
wider range of meanings than just ‘‘purpose.’’ It can be used to mean work or
FN:12 workings or product or characteristic activity.¹²^ In fact^ energeia , activity, and ergon , function, are etymologically linked (M 9 .8 1050a 21 – 22 ). And the notion of an activity—an energeia —is central to Aristotle’s metaphysics, because of its connection to the important metaphysical notion of form. In Metaphysics 7 – 9 , in the course of an investigation into the idea of ousia , substance, Aristotle explores the distinction between form and matter. The distinction serves to explain how things (substances) can come to be and pass away (M 7 .7 1032a 20 ff.). A thing comes to be, as the kind of thing that it is, when a certain form is imposed on matter. But Aristotle raises questions about how we are to understand the ideas of form and matter, and which of the two is more essential to a substance. The form, Aristotle argues, is what gives us the real essence of the thing, for it is in terms of the form that we can explain the properties and activities of the thing. As the argument proceeds, the fairly simple notion of form as the shape of a thing and matter as what is thus shaped gives way to a notion of form as the functional construction of a thing and matter as the material or the parts which get so constructed. The thing is what it is when its parts are arranged in a way that makes it capable of the activities that are essential to or characteristic of it—capable of performing its function. In later stages of the argument, which I will not be taking up in this essay, the notion of form as the functional construction of a thing in turn gives way first to the more complex notion of form as the actuality of which matter is the potentiality, and finally to the notion of form as the activity itself. Aristotle does not give up the simpler accounts, but rather reinterprets them in light of the more complex ones. In this way he establishes a tight link between a thing’s form, its function, and the characteristic activities that make it what it is. It is in terms of this link that the function argument of the Nicomachean Ethics must be understood. Aristotle’s central examples of things that can be understood in terms of form/matter distinction are material substances. His favorite cases are plants and animals (M 7 .8 1034a 3 ). The elements—earth, air, fire, and water—are also material substances (M 7 .2 1028b 9 ff; M 8 .1 1042a 7 ff). So are the other sorts of things, characterized by mass nouns, which are most immediately composed of them: iron, bronze, wood, and flesh, for instance (M 7 .9 1034b 8 ff). These are often mentioned as matter, since they are matter relative to other substances, but they are also substances in their own right and as such must have a form and a matter of their own. The parts of animals and plants are also sometimes
¹² See especially Terence H. Irwin, ‘‘The Metaphysical and Psychological Basis of Aristotle’s Ethics,’’ in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics , pp. 35 – 53 ; Martha Nussbaum, in Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium , pp. 100 ff.
136 Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
classed as substances, although in the end Aristotle rejects that view. A related and important problem case is the things into which a substance dissolves when it loses its form: a corpse or skeleton, for example, or the bricks and timbers of a fallen house. These turn out to have a kind of privative form (M 7. 7
FN:13^1033 b^7 ff). And finally there are artifacts: a hammer, a house, and so forth.¹³ In identifying what is form and what matter in each of these cases, we must keep in mind certain constraints on the notion of form, which emerge in the course of the argument. The form of a thing is its essence. To know a thing is to know its essence or form (M 7 .7 1032a). Demonstrations, which yield scientific knowledge, start from a statement of the essence (M 7 .6 1031b 6 ; 7. 9
FN:14^1034 a^31 ff).¹⁴^ So the form must be something in terms of which we can explain the properties and activities of the thing (M 7 .17 1041a 9 ff.). To be a craftsman is to have the form of your product in your mind, and to work from it (M 7. 7 1032 b 1 – 20 ; 7 .9 1034a 24 ). And two things that are of the same species have the same form (M 7 .12 1038a 16 ff; 7 .13 1038b 21 – 22 ). Considering these constraints and Aristotle’s own examples, we can generate some cases of the form/matter distinction. Aristotle often introduces the form/matter distinction by identifying form with shape. He mentions a bronze cube, of which the bronze is the matter and the form is the ‘‘characteristic angle’’; a bronze statue, of which the bronze is the matter and the shape is the plan of its form; and a brazen sphere made out of brass and the sphere (M 5 .25 1023b 19 ff., 7 .3 1029a 2 , 7 .8 1033b 8 ff). He also mentions stone and wood as materials out of which various things are made (M 7 .11 1036a 30 ff), and such things are often made by shaping. For most things, however, shape in this sense—contour—has little explan- atory value. This is evidently true of things characterized by mass nouns, such as the bronze, stone, and wood that are identified as matter in the above cases. These are also, as I said earlier, substances in their own right, and as such have a form. Aristotle says these are characterized by the ‘‘ratio’’ or, as one might put it, the recipe. For instance, when criticizing the Pythagorean view that forms are numbers, Aristotle remarks that ‘‘the substance of flesh or bone is number
¹³ Aristotle applies the distinction in other kinds of cases as well. For instance, he says that mathematical objects, such as the circle or the plane, also have a form and a matter: these cases lead him to make a distinction between two sorts of matter, perceptible and intelligible (M 7 .10 1036a 7 ff.; M 7 .11 1037a 1 ff.; M 8 .6 1045a 34 ). Intelligible matter seems to be a kind of bare extension. Aristotle also says that since any change must be explained in terms of the three basic principles of form, matter, and privation, we must posit a form and a matter even for qualitative or ‘‘accidental’’—as opposed to substantial—change (M 7 .4 1030a 23 ; PHY 1. 6 – 9 ). In such cases, the matter is the concrete material substance, already a form-in-a-matter, and the form is that of the quality itself. For instance, in the case of tanning, the human being is the matter or substrate of the change, and the form is the form of the dark color acquired (not the form of the human being, who of course remains a human being). ¹⁴ This is also clear from Posterior Analytics 2.
138 Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
‘‘function.’’ In many cases it is quite natural to identify a thing’s function with its purpose, with what it is for or simply what it does. Some of the examples mentioned earlier suggest that Plato and Aristotle do identify a thing’s function with its purpose, and in the Metaphysics Aristotle occasionally says things that identify a thing’s form with its final cause. For instance, in one place, he gives an example of a definition, which is supposed to be a statement of a thing’s essence and so of its form, which is straightforwardly purposive: a house is ‘‘a covering for bodies and chattels’’ (M 8 .2 1043a 15 ). Similarly, in On the Soul , Aristotle argues that the soul is the form of the body, and illustrates this by remarking that if the eye were an animal, sight would have been its soul (OS 2 .1 412b 19 ). And sight is the function of the eye. There is, however, another way of understanding the idea of function, which in a way subsumes the concept of structural arrangement, and which is a more appropriate candidate for form. Function can refer to the way a thing functions or how it works, to its function- ing. If we use ‘‘function’’ in this sense—‘‘how a thing does what it does’’—it will diverge from ‘‘purpose,’’ which is simply ‘‘what it does.’’ Consider, for example, a complicated machine. Such a thing might have many purposes, but in the sense I am discussing now it has only one function—one way of functioning. For instance, a computer serves a great variety of purposes, things as different as word processing, solving mathematical problems, writing music and playing chess. But to describe its function, in this second sense, is to describe what we might call its functional construction, the mechanisms that enable it to do all these things. Superficially, we might say that its function is the electronic storage and retrieval of information according to a program, or some such thing. But in the strict sense, only someone who actually understands how computers work can tell you what their function is. Or, to take another example, you could say of a radio that among its purposes is to broadcast music and live entertainment, provide a medium for advertisement, keep people up to date on the news and serve as an early warning system in an emergency. These are all ‘‘what it does.’’ But if we wanted to talk about ‘‘how it does what it does’’ we would have to talk about transmitting electromagnetic waves of certain frequencies and rendering them audible, and about the mechanisms that make this possible. The various things the device does are its purposes; the second thing, how it does all this, is its form or function. Of course the two notions are closely related. The notion of purpose is embedded in the notion of function, the ‘‘what it does’’ in the ‘‘how it does what it does.’’ And there will be cases in which the two are virtually identical. Think for example of a very simple device like a fork or a shelf; in these cases to say what the thing does and to say how it does what it does is pretty
Aristotle’s Function Argument 139
much the same thing. (What is the function of a shelf? To put things on. How does it work? Well, you put things on it.) Another, very different sort of case where function and purpose coincide is where the function itself is the thing’s purpose or end. This is how Aristotle thinks of the functions of those things that he regards as ‘‘natural purposes,’’ especially plants and animals whose ‘‘final cause’’ or purpose is essentially to preserve their specific form of functioning, through their own survival and reproduction. The main argument for taking function in this second sense to be the correct notion of form comes from the role of form as the object of knowledge and the locus of craft. As I noted earlier, the person who minutely observes the structural arrangements of a thing but does not know what it does could not be said to know or understand the thing. But neither can purpose by itself be the object of knowledge in any very strong sense of ‘‘knowledge.’’ All of us know, for example, what the heart is for, and to this extent we know what it is, but this does not make us all cardiologists. But someone who knows what the heart is for, and its structural arrangements, and how those arrangements enable it to do what it does can truly be said to understand it. Or take an artifact. Aristotle says that the art of building is the form of a house. But knowing the purpose of a house does not make one an architect. The architect knows both the structure and the purpose, and how the structure makes the purpose possible: she understands the construction of the house functionally. She knows, for instance, not just that the bricks and timbers are arranged thus and so; and that the house must withstand the winter storms; but how this arrangement of bricks and timbers enables the house to withstand the winter storms. So, function in the sense of ‘‘how a thing does what it does,’’ of structure as tending to purpose, is from the point of view of knowledge the best candidate for form. This account also allows for varying structures in the same kind of object, since various structural arrangements could tend to the same end, and the expert would know how each does so. The accomplished architect knows how the construction of both teepees and castles enables them to withstand the winter storms. In Aristotle’s text, the notions of shape, recipe, purpose, and functional construction all seem to be candidates for form. Different ones work better in different cases. The bronze sphere and cube do not exactly have any purpose, so the shape seems to suit them. Recipe suits things whose contours are not so much of the essence as the ratio of their mixture. The form of a simple tool is virtually identical to its purpose. More complex things seem to be best characterized by their functional construction. As it turns out, there are other candidates as well. In Metaphysics 8 , Aristotle undertakes to show that items from almost any of the categories can serve as the form of a thing.
Aristotle’s Function Argument 141
device sometimes misses a step. Has it malfunctioned? Is it clumsily tripping or happily skipping? There is nothing to say. But according to Aristotle, a living thing does have a definite purpose, in the sense of a ‘‘what it does.’’ That purpose is to keep its own form, its own manner of functioning, in existence. It does this in two ways: first, through the continuous self-rebuilding activities of nutrition, which maintain its form in a spacio-temporally continuous stream of matter, and, second, through reproduction, by which it imposes its form on individually distinct entities. This is not a controversial metaphysical thesis about what living things are for, but rather a definition of ‘‘living.’’ If a thing has a form that is self-maintaining in these basic ways, then it counts as ‘‘living.’’ So far as this goes, there is nothing objectionable about Aristotle’s teleology. The appropriateness of teleological explanations need not have anything to do with claims about how or why the object whose parts and activities we seek to explain came into existence. Teleological explanations may be appropriate to an object simply because it has a self-maintaining form. We seek such explanations when we ask what contribution its arrangements or parts make to its self-maintenance. That is why Aristotle says that teleological or final cause explanations in nature tell us that something is better ‘‘not without qualification, but with reference to the substance in each case’’ (PHY 2. 198 b). Suppose a lion pursues an antelope, catches it, and eats it. We can give a teleological explanation of why the lion gives chase, kills, and eats—that is, of how these activities contribute to a lion’s self-maintenance, and are better for the lion. And similarly we can give a teleological explanation of why the antelope attempts to escape. We cannot give a teleological explanation of why the lion succeeds in this case, nor could we if she failed. Aristotle’s is not the complete teleology of Leibnizian optimism, or at least we need not understand it in that way. Anything capable of maintaining itself has a way that it does that. Consequently, any living thing has a function. So when Aristotle says that the function of a human being is the activity of the rational part of the soul, he does not mean simply that reasoning is the purpose of a human being. Nor does he mean merely that it is a characteristic activity of human beings, if we understand that to mean only that it is an activity which, as it happens, picks out the species uniquely. He means rather that rational activity is how we human beings do what we do , and in particular, how we lead our specific form of life. This brings us to the list from which Aristotle selects our function—the list of the three kinds of life. I have already suggested that the ‘‘purpose’’ of an animate being is to maintain itself—to live—and its function is how it lives. But there is not just one kind of thing that lives and maintains itself. Quite differently constructed things live, all of the different kinds of plants and
142 Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
animals. Each of these has its own form, which is to say its own specific manner of maintaining itself. But though in one sense each species of living thing has its own manner of living, living things can be divided into larger groups which ‘‘live’’ in different senses. In On the Soul , Aristotle asserts that there are three forms of life, corresponding to what he sometimes calls three ‘‘parts’’ of the soul (OS 2. 2 ). At the bottom is a life of basic self-maintenance, a vegetative life of nutrition and reproduction, common to all plants and animals. Animals are distinguished from plants in being alive in a further sense, given by a complex of powers related to the possibility of perception and action (or at least self-guided locomotion)—perception, sensation, locomotion, appetite, and imagination. The third form of life is that distinctive of human beings—the life of reason, and in particular, as I will argue, the life of rational choice. Each ‘‘part’’ of the soul, and each corresponding form of life, supervenes on the one below it. The addition of each new part of the soul changes the sense in which the thing is said to be alive or to have a life, both by influencing the way the ‘‘lower’’ functions are carried out and by adding new kinds of activities. Because it has the complex of powers that make perception and action possible, an animal lives or has a life in a sense that a plant does not. An animal is conscious; it does things; it pursues what it desires and flees what it fears; in some cases it builds a home and raises a family; if it is a ‘‘higher’’ animal it may even know how to love and to play. But these are not just powers added, so to speak, on top of the animal’s nutritive and reproductive life: they also change the way the animal carries out the tasks of nutrition and reproduction. The animal’s capacity for perception and action determines the way it gets its food and ensures the existence of its offspring. But these capacities also lead the animal to engage in activities not possible for a plant, like love and play. These things make the ‘‘life’’ of an animal a different sort of thing from the ‘‘life’’ of a plant. And a human being in turn lives , or has a life , in a sense in which a non-human animal does not. For a non-human animal’s life is mapped out for it by its instincts; and any two members of a given species basically live the same sort of life (unless the differences are biologically fixed, as by age and gender, or by kinds as among bees). A human being has a life in a different sense from this, for a human being has, and is capable of choosing, what we sometimes call a ‘‘way of life’’ or, following John Rawls, a ‘‘conception of the
FN:15 good.’’¹⁵^ Where her way of life is not completely fixed by some sort of cultural regulation—and the Eudemian Ethics quite explicitly addresses itself to those who get to choose (EE 1 .2 1214b 6 )—a human being decides such things as
¹⁵ John Rawls, Political Liberalism , p. 19.
144 Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
we use them to refer to a certain kind of activity, an activity that can be performed well, badly, or not at all. Plato, for example, characterizes the function of the soul as ruling or deliberating, things that can be done well or badly. The important point about the descriptive sense is that one counts as acting ‘‘rationally’’ though the reason is bad. In the descriptive sense, for example, a person who turns the hose on her neighbor because his clothes are on fire and a person who turns the hose on her neighbor because she thinks he is possessed by the devil are both acting rationally, though one of the reasons is good and the other presumably bad. But the person who turns the hose on her neighbor when she is startled into turning around suddenly does not do this rationally: she has not arrived at any deliberative conclusion in favor of hosing down her neighbor. When we use the terms normatively, however, we describe someone as being rational or reasonable only when she is reasoning well. It is because there are these two uses that we can say ‘‘That’s a terrible reason’’ (descriptive sense) and ‘‘That’s no reason at all’’ (normative sense) and mean essentially the same thing. When Plato and Aristotle identify rational activity as the function of the soul or the human function, it is clear that they are using reason in the descriptive sense. This is because their claim is that we need to discover the human function because our good will lie in performing it well —in accordance with the relevant virtues. The argument is not ‘‘rational activity is the function of a human being, so spend your life engaged in rational activity.’’ Rather, it is ‘‘rational activity is how a human life is conducted, how a human being does what he or she characteristically does, so a good life depends on performing rational activities well .’’ But once that is clear, some readers may feel that there is something askew about the function argument as I have presented it. Aristotle began by saying that we were looking for the function because when something has a function, its good ‘‘resides’’ in its function. The conclusion we expect is that eudaimonia or happiness consists in performing your function well. The argument as I have presented it, however, may seem at best to suggest that eudaimonia or happiness results from performing your function well. While it is almost uncontroversial to claim that insofar as your happiness is within your own power, it depends on the quality of your choices, it would be not merely controversial but false to say that happiness consists in deliberating and making choices, even good ones. Most of us do not spend the happiest moments of our life trying to figure out what to do. So, it may be thought, Aristotle must identify happiness not with rational activity but with its results. And when we look at the argument more carefully, that at first seems right. Plato’s version of the argument identifies deliberation as the function of the
Aristotle’s Function Argument 145
soul. Aristotle’s version seeks the function not of the soul, but of the human being , and identifies it as ‘‘an active life of the element that has a rational principle,’’ ‘‘activity of the soul in accordance with, or not without, a rational principle,’’ and ‘‘activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle’’ (NE 1 .7 1098a 5 – 15 ). We need not identify the activity that involves a rational principle, and is supposedly constitutive of happiness, as deliberation itself. Nor, given that his three candidates for the main constituents of the happy life are hedonistic pursuits, politics, and contemplation, does Aristotle seem to have that in mind. So we may conclude that Aristotle must mean that our other activities—engaging in politics, science, philosophy, athletics and crafts, consorting with our lovers and friends, eating and drinking and carousing, performing noble actions, or whatever it might be—count as ‘‘activities of soul implying a rational principle’’ insofar as they result from choice. But while this defense is available, it may seem to concede, rather than evade, the difficulty—or rather to make it worse. For if this is right, it looks as if happiness isn’t the activity of reasoning, but rather something that reasoning gets you. But in that case the whole argument threatens to become absurdly circular. For if all we mean by performing our function well is performing actions that result from good deliberation, and if what we mean by good deliberation is successful deliberation about how to achieve happiness , then of course happiness will consist in performing our function well. But if that is what the function argument amounts to, its claim to connect rationality to happiness is rather trivial, and its claim to connect rationality to moral virtue is probably void. To see how Aristotle can avoid this criticism, we must take a closer look at his accounts of deliberation and choice. Earlier I pointed out that Aristotle is using ‘‘rational activity’’ in the descriptive sense. In fact, Aristotle needs the three options associated with the descriptive sense (acting for a good reason, acting for a bad reason, and not acting for a reason at all) in order to distinguish his four character types—good, bad, continent, and incontinent. For the bad person is distinguished from the good person by the fact that the bad person acts on a bad reason, while both are distinguished from the incontinent person by the fact that the incontinent person is not acting rationally at all. To put the same point another way, the bad person does what he does by choice ( prohairesis ), while the incontinent person, according to Aristotle, does not act from choice (NE 3 .2 1111b 14 – 15 ; NE 7 .3 1146b 22 – 24 ). Now the claim that the incontinent person does not act from choice presents the reader with a puzzle. For choice is the outcome of deliberation, and deliberation, as Aristotle describes it in Book 3 , appears to be essentially
Aristotle’s Function Argument 147
principle of this kind as a description of an action that the agent chooses for its own sake. To introduce a bit of technical terminology, I am distinguishing between an ‘‘act’’ and an ‘‘action,’’ where the action includes both the act and the end or aim for the sake of which the act is done. For example, giving a donation is an act, and giving a donation in order to help a friend in need is an action. Including both the act and the end in the description of the chosen action enables us to harmonize what might otherwise seem
FN:18 to be incompatible things that Aristotle says about virtuous motivation.¹⁸ Aristotle tells us that a virtuous person does a good action for its own sake (NE 6 .5 1140b 6 ff; 6 .12 1144a 16 ) and for the sake of the noble (for instance, at NE 3 .8 1116b 30 ; 1117 a 7 – 10 ; NE 3 .12 1119b 15 ). But it also seems clear that such an agent acts for the sake of certain particular ends: the courageous person fights in order to defend his city, the liberal person gives in order to help someone out, the ready-witted person wants to entertain his audience, and so on. The key to harmonizing these accounts rests in the idea that the object of choice is an action, that is, an act-for-the-sake-of-a-certain-end, where that whole thing is chosen for its own sake and because it is noble (NE 4 .1 1120a 23 ff). The courageous person, for example, wishes to defend his city, and so he considers performing a certain action: ‘‘fighting (at a certain time and place, in a certain way) for the sake of defending my city.’’ He decides that this would indeed be a noble action, and chooses it—for its own sake—as such. The end is not simply given to him, by his appetite or even by his rational desire or wish ( boulesis ); rather, it is part of what he chooses, when he chooses to pursue it in a certain way here and now. He adopts both the end and the act together, as standing in the right relation to each other (NE 4 .2 4– 6 ). A rational principle or logos , therefore, represents the agent’s conception of what is worth doing for the sake of what, and especially, of what in his particular circumstances is worth doing for the sake of what. It is not merely a view about which ends to pursue and how to pursue them, although of course it is that, but also a view that the end is one that, here and now, in one’s circumstances, makes the act in question, and so the whole action, worth doing. The deliberation that issues in a choice is not merely instrumental because this must be its conclusion: that the entire action is a thing worth doing for its own sake. The incontinent person’s action does not count as chosen because he does not take it to be worth doing for its own sake; he just wants very badly to do it,
¹⁸ See ‘‘From Duty and for the Sake of the Noble: Kant and Aristotle on Morally Good Action,’’ essay 6 in this volume, especially pp. 000 – 000.
148 Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
FN:19^ or is hurried into it by anger.¹⁹^ In fact, Aristotle tells us that the incontinence of anger is less disgraceful than that of appetite because it at least seems to the angry person as if avenging oneself for an insult is an action worth doing. But the person who is incontinent from appetite is under no such delusion—he just wants the object or end. For reason or imagination informs us that we have been insulted or slighted, and anger, reasoning as it were that anything like this must be fought against, boils up straightway; while appetite, if reason or perception merely says that an object is pleasant, springs to the enjoyment of it. Therefore anger obeys reason in a sense, but appetite does not. FN:20 (NE^7 .6 1149a^30 –^1149 b^1 )²⁰
If the person who is incontinent from appetite does engage in deliberation about how to achieve his end, we may say that he follows the course mapped out for him by deliberation. But he does not act on its conclusion in the same sense as the intemperate person does. He does not adopt its conclusion as his logos or principle, and he therefore does not adopt the end as his good, for he does not believe that going to the refrigerator in order to get another beer to drink is a thing worth doing for its own sake—as the intemperate person certainly does. Deliberation, then, if it is to issue in an action that is chosen, is not merely about how to achieve a certain end, but about what, in the circumstances, is worth doing for the sake of what. Such deliberation issues in rational principles, which direct us to do certain acts for the sake of certain ends, and when we make choices—act in accordance with these principles—we are choosing both the means and the end. The specifically human function is a life of activity in accordance with such principles: a life, as we might put it now, in which your actions are shaped and directed by your values. Furthermore, a principle of this kind is not external to the action performed in accordance with it, the way an end is external to the means. Rather, it is a description FN:21 of the action itself.²¹ So the relation of deliberative choice to action is not merely the relation of a process to a result external to that process. A human being’s activities and actions are an embodiment of his deliberative choices. The specifically human function is activity that represents the person’s conception of what in his particular circumstances is worth doing, a kind of contextualized realization of his conception of the good. Nor is Aristotle claiming that doing
¹⁹ That remark of course is not intended as an explanation of what happens in the case of incontinence—it is just a description of the phenomenon that needs explaining. ²⁰ I take it that Aristotle is following up on Plato’s idea that thumos (anger, spirit) is the natural ally of reason. Thumos responds to the appearance of nobility. ²¹ I discuss this idea at greater length in ‘‘Acting for a Reason,’’ essay 7 in this volume.
