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The problem of advising 'fools' or non-virtuous individuals using the principles of virtue ethics. The author argues that Stoic psychopathology offers a helpful approach to understanding how fools might approximate virtue and how advisers can guide them towards the best actions. However, the author also acknowledges the challenges in applying virtue theory to such cases and suggests that ancient Greek theorists may have a solution.
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Work in progress, for presentation at Lewis & Clark College, Nov. 2010. Please do not quote without permission. COMMENTS WELCOME
ABSTRACT: "Virtue ethics" tells us to do what the virtuous person would do in our circumstances. But if we are not virtuous—if we are "fools"—then the virtuous person would not be in our circumstances. What, then, can virtue theory say to advise a fool about what to do? I quickly suggest reasons to be pessimistic about recent approaches to this problem, and then I turn to the ancients' eudaimonism for a fresh alternative. The ancient Socratics, including especially the Stoics, counsel not causally promoting one's virtue or trying to follow "v-rules" but approximating virtue. I argue that Stoic psychopathology offers considerable help in making sense of how fools might approximate virtue and how advisers might use Socratic eudaimonism's conception of virtue to guide fools to the best action in their circumstances.
(^1) I thank John Doris, Julia Driver, Carrie Vodehnal, and Eric Wiland for discussion of some of the ideas in this essay, and Richard Kraut and the other participants in the May 2010 conference on ordinary virtue at Northwestern University for their comments on an early draft.
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(^2) I seem to recall Michael Smith using an example of a hothead who thinks that he should not try to shake his victorious opponent's hand after a hard-fought tennis match, though of course his idealized counterpart would, but I cannot find the reference. I'd love some help with this. (^3) It often appears in the journals as the "problem of action-guidance" or the "practicality objection." But these labels cover a host of distinct concerns, not all of which are predicated on the gap between the virtuous and the rest of us.
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(^5) If I understand her right, Hursthouse (1999, 52-62) accepts (and tries to mitigate the apparent undesirability of accepting) that there are cases in which virtue theory cannot provide any guidance beyond a list of v-rules whose recommendations appear to conflict in ways that a non-virtuous person (especially an inexperienced, non-virtuous person) would be unable to sort through. Presumably, she thinks that anyone unlucky enough to be stuck in such a circumstance should seek advice from his moral superiors (35). But my question concerns this advice: how exactly does thinking about virtue help the moral superior advise the fool? Hursthouse's general principle and her v-rules do not make it clear how it could.
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(^6) We could, I suppose, flatter ourselves with the thought that we are not fools. But it would disastrous for our theory of virtue to suppose that it is regularly attained by the likes of us, as the best responses to Doris' (2002) challenge to "virtue ethics" recognize (see esp. Kamtekar 2004). In any case, even if we were virtuous, would virtue theory then help us to live better? It seems that if virtue theory is going to help anyone at all, it needs to show the way toward virtue for people who are not virtuous.
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than Humean strictures would allow) and non-causal 'for the sake of' relationships (for which, see Kraut 1989, 87 - 88, and Lear 2004). (^10) Many scholars have recognized that at least some eudaimonists think of eudaimonia as virtuous activity whereas others think of it as something separate from and produced by virtuous activity, but I do not know of any scholar (aside from Brown 2008) who has emphasized this distinction or drawn significant inferences from it. Perhaps Annas (1993, esp. 36-37) comes closest, but instead of articulating a contrast within eudaimonism, she insists that one has to abdicate eudaimonism to claim that one's final good is a state of affairs to be brought about. I believe but cannot argue here that this misconstrues Epicurean ethics, inevitably misrepresents the theory of the Protagoras (cf. Annas 1993, 37 and 228), and cannot easily accommodate later antiquity's understanding of Democritean ethics. I also depart from Annas' account by distinguishing the non- consequentialist eudaimonism according to which eudaimonia is simply virtuous activity (Socratic) from the one according to which it is virtuous activity and more (Peripatetic: see the next note). (^11) Some ancient eudaimonists saw the final good for the sake of which one should act as a grab-bag including one's action and a motley assortment of goods, some of which would be consequences of one's action. This Peripatetic view (cf. Magna Moralia 1184a25-30) became prominent in the wake of Carneades' mischievous division of ethical theories (see esp. Cicero, De Finibus V, and Stobaeus II 7.3). The view would have us consider, in addition to how we might best try to act virtuously or at least in accord with virtue, how we might best bring about the other goods that it counts as part of the eudaimonia we should bring about. Whatever insights or advantages this view might offer—and I believe that it offers more confusion and disadvantages than insights and advantages—it first needs to determine how we can best try to act virtuously or at least in accord with virtue. So the work I do in this essay might help to clarify Peripatetic eudaimonism, even though I have to leave for another occasion a fuller reckoning of the Peripatetic view. (^12) White ( citation ) thinks that Plato is not a eudaimonist at all, principally because he thinks that the Republic's philosophers sacrifice their eudaimonia to rule, but see Brown (2000 and 2004). Other scholars would question the claim that Plato's eudaimonism is what I call Socratic. Some want to extract from Republic IX or the Laws some hedonism that might be in tension with Socratic eudaimonism ( citations ), and others want to extract from the Philebus a view like the one the Peripatetics developed ( citations ). By contrast, I am impressed by Socratic dialogues' frequent insistence that the goal is "living well" or "doing well" (Charmides 171e-172a, Crito 48b, Gorgias 507c; cf. Republic I 354a), and by Socrates' use of these phrases interchangeably with eudaimonia and being eudaimōn in the Euthydemus (278e-282d), and I do not see anything that requires Plato to retract these simple identifications of that for the sake of which we should act with virtuous activity. Obviously, though, this needs fuller argument elsewhere. 13 Kraut (1989) appeals to a discussion of exile in the Politics and argues that Aristotle is not a eudaimonist, and Whiting ( citation ) appeals to the discussion of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics and argues the same. But there is a general reason resist these moves: if Plato embraced eudaimonism, then we should expect Aristotle to make more noise renouncing it. Besides those doubters, so-called "inclusivists" readers ( citations ) attribute to Aristotle the view I call Peripatetic eudaimonism (see note 00 above). But the Peripatetics and inclusivists misread Aristotle. Aristotle avows again and again that eudaimonia is virtuous activity, even as he is working hard to show that this view can embrace and even explain apparently conflicting platitudes concerning the
1100b11; but also EN I 8 1099a29-31, I 10 1100a13-14, and I 13 1102a5- 6. Brown (2006b) discusses these.) But Aristotle does complicate his identification of eudaimonia with virtuous activity by adding that it must be virtuous activity temporally extended over a complete life. (See EN I 7 1098a18-20, with I 10 1101a16, X 7 1177b25, and Brown 2006b, 224 - 225. Cf. EN III 2 1111b28-29 with Brown 2006b, 239 - 240 .) It is worth emphasizing that a Socratic eudaimonist can reject Aristotle's addendum; indeed, some Stoics might have. Plutarch offers contrasting testimony at Stoic. rep. 1046c-e and Comm. not. 1061f-1062a. (^14) Mitsis (1988) and Annas (1993) argue otherwise. But I am struck by the fact that Epicurus finds mere instrumental value in so many of the things that most eudaimonists consider intrinsically valuable, including friendship (see Brown 2002 and 2009) and philosophical activity (see Brown 2008). I also suspect that Epicurus cannot consider eudaimonia to be virtuous activity because he takes it to be pleasure and he takes pleasure to be a passive condition (pathos). Indeed, he must take pleasure to be a pathos because, on his view, if it were not passive, it would not be an inerrant guide for action as sense-perception is an inerrant guide for judgments. But, again, this requires more argument elsewhere. (^15) One might suggest that consequentialist eudaimonism can accommodate the requirement that a virtuous agent find his or her virtuous actions intrinsically valuable. One might insist that nobody can successfully act for the sake of their eudaimonia except by accepting the fiction that virtuous actions are intrinsically valuable. Alternatively, one might construe consequentialist eudaimonism as a "two-level" view, according to which (level one) a person should be virtuous because it best brings about his or her own eudaimonia and (level two) a virtuous person should value virtue for its own sake. (O'Keefe (2001) attributes such a view to Epicurus, but I believe that RS 25 rules it out.) But these are also unlikely to appeal to the fans of "virtue ethics." These fans typically believe that virtue requires clear-eyed, correct apprehension of the value of one's actions and why they have that value. Relatedly, ancient eudaimonists desired that the agent's pursuit of his own good directly give
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19 (^17) One may contrast what follows with Hursthouse's (1999) strategy of filling in the account of virtuous actions by reference to "v-rules." (^18) Aristotle would want the qualification that "fully virtuous" or "virtuous activity strictly speaking" is wise activity (EN VI 13). Plato and the early Stoics are typically less accommodating of "ordinary virtue," but notice Plato's notion of "political courage" (politikē andreia, Rep. IV 430c2-4). (^19) See Brown 2006a. It is true that Socrates disavows knowledge (Gorgias 509a) even as he also claims for himself some measure of coherence (Gorgias 481d-482c), but this does not require that he conceive of knowledge as something entirely other than the coherence he has. It would be well explained by his thinking that knowledge does (or even might) require more of the coherence he has. In any case, Plato runs with the conception of wisdom and knowledge as coherence, insisting that wisdom appears only in the person who sees how things hang together as one (e.g., Rep. VII 537c6-7, Phdr. 270c1-2 with Brown 2003) and whose soul hangs together as one (e.g., Rep IV 443c9-444a2). Aristotle characterizes the knower as unpersuadable (A.Po. A2 72b3-4) and the wise as knowing everything so far as possible (Metaph. A2 982a8-9). The Stoic identification of knowledge with a coherent psychology is clearest, though: they define knowledge, whether a cognitive grasp, a system of grasps, or a state of receiving impressions, as secure, stable, and unshakeable by reason or argument (Stobaeus II 7.5l 73,19-74,1; Diog. Laert. VII 47; Sextus, M VII 151; Pseudo-Galen SVF 2.93; Philo SVF 2.95; and Cicero, Acad I 41-42, who attributes the account to Zeno of Citium).
20 (^20) Ep.Mor. 116.5-6 (trans. with some borrowing from Gummere 1917-1925): Eleganter mihi videtur Panaetius respondisse adulescentulo cuidam quaerenti an sapiens amaturus esset. 'De sapiente' inquit 'videbimus: mihi et tibi, qui adhuc a sapiente longe absumus, non est committendum ut incidamus in rem commotam, inpotentem, alteri emancupatam, vilem sibi. Sive enim nos respicit, humanitate eius inritamur, sive contempsit, superbia accendimur. Aeque facilitas amoris quam difficultas nocet: facilitate capimur, cum difficultate certamus. Itaque conscii nobis inbecillitatis nostrae quiescamus; nec vino infirmum animum committamus nec formae nec
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(^22) Even scholars who know better say that passions are false judgments. Compare Brennan 1998, 48-51, with Brennan 1998, 31. The former passage does an excellent job explaining what is wrong with the latter, and includes a fine discussion of Cicero, Tusc. III 77-78. For an apology, see Brennan 2003, 290. (^23) Tusc. III 77: For what shall we say—when Socrates, as we are told, persuaded Alcibiades that he was not at all a man and that there was no difference, though he was born in the highest class, between him and any porter, and when Alcibiades, distressed, tearfully begged Socrates to give him virtue and drive baseness away,—what shall we say, Cleanthes? Surely not that there was nothing bad in the cause which made Alcibiades feel distress? (Quid enim dicemus, cum Socrates Alcibiadi persuasisset, ut accepimus, eum nihil hominis esse nec quidquam inter Alcibiadem summo loco natum et quemvis baiulum interesse, cum se Alcibiades adflictaret
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25 lacrimansque Socrati supplex esset, ut sibi virtutem traderet turpitudinemque depelleret, quid dicemus, Cleanthe? num in illa re, quae aegritudine Alcibiadem adficiebat, mali nihil fuisse?) (^24) See the canonical definitions of passions cited below, along with Stobaeus II 7.10 82,22-89,2 and Cicero, Tusc. IV 15: "The judgment that we have included in all the above definitions they want to be weak assent" [Opinationem autem, quam in omnes definitions superiors inclusimus, volunt esse imbecillam adsensionem]. (^25) Frede (1986) rightly saw that the way one judges is crucial to whether one's judgment is a passion, but he did not stress that this way is determined by the relation between this judgment and one's other judgments. He also wrongly inferred that the content of the judgment was not also crucial, as the Stoic definitions of generic passions (cited below) suggest they are. So according to Frede's Stoics grief is not necessarily the judgment, e.g., that Socrates' death is bad for me but can be the judgment that Socrates is dead, judged in a certain way. In fact, however, Chrysippus thinks that it must be the judgment that Socrates' death is bad for me, judged in a certain way (namely, weakly and, as we shall see, freshly). Frede overreaches from two pieces of evidence. First, based on an argument by Arcesilaus against the Stoics, he maintains that the Stoics understand judgment in such a way that the judger assents to an impression, and not merely to the propositional content of an impression. But Arcesilaus says, "If the katalepsis is assent to a kataleptic impression, then it is non-existent, since, first, assent is not to an impression but to rational content (for assents are to propositions)…" [Sextus, M VII 154: εἴπερ τε ἡ κατάληψις καταληπτικῆς φαντασίας συγκατάθεσις ἐστιν, ἀνυπαρκτός ἐστι, πρῶτον μὲν ὅτι ἡ συγκατάθεσις οὐ πρὸς φαντασίαν γίνεται ἀλλὰ πρὸς λόγον (τῶν γὰρ ἀξιωμάτων εἰσὶν αἱ συγκαταθέσεις)…].
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(^29) See especially the canonical definitions of the four generic passions (pleasure, pain, desire, and fear) at Andronicus, On Passions 1; Cicero's Tusculan Disputations IV 14; Stobaeus II 7.10b 90,7-18. Galen separates the part of the definition in terms of an evaluative judgment (Galen, PHP IV 2.1) from the part of the definition in terms of an impulse (Galen, PHP IV 2.5), but he presumably does this because he wants to insist Chrysippus contradicts himself. Inwood (1985, 146-147) suggests, on the basis of some silence in Andronicus, On Passions 1; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations IV 14; and Stobaeus II 7.10 88,22-89,3, that only distress and pleasure must be fresh judgments, and not fear and desire. But this misses Stobaeus II 7.10b 90,7-18, which attributes freshness to fear's judgment. We can also explain the silence, if the Stoics assume that the motivational force of evaluative judgments about future goods and bads for me are more obvious (and less likely to wane) than the motivational force of evaluative judgments about present goods and bads for me. (^30) See Stobaeus II 7.10 88,8-10 with 7.10a 89,5 and 89,14-16, and cf. Galen, PHP IV 2.14-18. (^31) Cicero, Tusc. III 76: Chrysippus autem caput esse censet in consolando detrahere illam opinionem maerenti, si se officio fungi putet iusto atque debito.
(^32) Sorabji (2000, esp. 32-33) and Graver (2002, 90-94 with appendix C) argue that Chrysippus' is eliminating the passion of grief by removing the judgment that it is appropriate to mourn. This seems to me impossible: if the evaluative judgment is fresh, it must entail some impulsive judgment or another, and all Chrysippus can do is change the impulsive judgment and hope that by changing the impulsive judgment he can induce the evaluative judgment to go stale (and thereby extinguish the passion). Graver finds Cicero, Tusc. III 61 ad fin. and 68- 70 especially telling for her claim, but I suspect that these passages represent some Ciceronian flourishes and not Chrysippus' view. Sorabji offers four reasons. The first, that a passion must involve both an evaluative judgment and an impulsive judgment (33), is correct, but it says nothing about the possible connections between these judgments. The second, that the evaluative judgment can be true but passion's judgments cannot be wholly true (32), misconstrues the defect of passionate judgments. The third, that the impulsive judgment is the main target of Chrysippean therapy (32, cf. 176-179) is correct but does not show that this side of Chrysippean therapy is supposed to extirpate passions. And the fourth is the evidence of Galen, PHP IV 7.12-14 (33, cf. 109 - 112): "Chrysippus also testifies in Book Two of On Passions that passions soften in time even though the beliefs remain that something evil has happened to them, when he writes thus: 'One might inquire also about the lessening of distress, how it happens, whether with change in some belief or with all the beliefs continuing, and why this will be.' Then, proceeding, he says, 'I think belief of this sort remains, that the actually present thing is bad, but when it grows older, the contraction and, as I believe, the impulse to the contraction lessen.'" (Ὅτι δ' ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ μαλάττεται τὰ πάθη, κἂν αἱ δόξαι μένωσι τοῦ κακόν τι αὐτοῖς γεγονέναι, καὶ ὁ Χρύσιπποω ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ Περὶ Παθῶν μαρτυρεῖ γράφων ὧδε· "ζητήσαι δ' ἄν τις καὶ περὶ τῆς ἀνέσεως τῆς λύπης, πῶς φίνεται, πότερον δόξης τινὸς μετακινουμένης ἢ πασῶν διαμενουσῶν, καὶ διὰ τί τοῦτ' ἔσται." εἶτ' ἐπιφέρων φησί, "δοκεῖ δέ μοι ἡ μὲν τοιαύτη δόχα διαμένειν, ὅτι κακὸν αὐτὸ ὃ δὴ πάρεστιν, ἐγχρονιζομένης δ' ἀνὶεσθαι ἡ συστολὴ καὶ ὡς οἷμαι ἡ ἐπὶ τὴν συστολὴν ὁρμή ) Sorabji may be right to say that Chrysippus here links the fading of a passion ("the contraction") with the changing of the impulsive judgment ("the impulse to the contraction"). But I note that these occur as the evaluative judgment grows stale ("when it grows older"). So Chrysippus could well insist that the passion will lessen to the point of dissipation only if the evaluative judgment is so stale that it necessitates no impulsive judgment, and even in this case (which goes further than Chrysippus entertains here), the passion can be rekindled should the evaluative judgment become fresh again.