What moral character is and is not

Abstract

Louise Mitchell discusses character in “Integrity and virtue: The forming of good character” (The Linacre Quarterly 82, no. 2: 149–169). I argue that she is mistaken in identifying character as a potency and that it is rather the sum of one’s moral habits and dispositions. I establish this by showing that if one correctly applies the division Aristotle presents in the text that Mitchell relies on, it follows that character belongs in the category of habit. I further support this conclusion by considering how people commonly speak of moral character. I then show that the text from the Summa Theologiae Mitchell relies on concerns sacramental character and not moral character; moreover, if we apply the reasoning contained there to moral character, we are again led to see that it should be categorized as a habit. Lastly, I explain that a human being’s potency for character lies in the soul’s rational powers.

Summary: I defend the common-sense view that moral character is the sum of one’s moral habits and dispositions in response to Louise Mitchell who maintains that moral character is a potency. I do so by applying Aristotle’s threefold division of things that exist in the soul—namely, potency, habit, and emotion—and also by examining how Aristotle speaks about character and how the average person speaks about character. In addition, I show why humans are the only animals that have the potential to develop character, and how this potential lies in the rational faculties of our soul.

Keywords:

• Moral character
• Habits
• Rational potencies
• Aristotle
• Aquinas

Notes

1. Plato himself does not speak explicitly about character, but about the soul.

2. See Mitchell (2015, 154): “Therefore, character must be a power, a potentia.”

3. The translation here is my own. Unless otherwise noted the translation is Rackham’s.

4. I have slightly modified Rackham’s translation.

5. Aquinas paraphrases Aristotle, Categories, 9a3–10. All translations of Aquinas are my own.

6. There are other things that exist in the soul, in addition to the three that Aristotle names; for example, various intellectual operations, such as opining.

7. Note that “dunamis” can be translated as “potency,” “ability,” and “power.” Mitchell generally uses the word “potency,” and for that reason I will also generally do so, though occasionally I will use “ability” and “power.”

8. I am adapting here what Aquinas says about virtue to character. As Aquinas notes in his commentary on the passage in question from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: “Powers are in us by nature, because they are natural properties of the soul. But virtues and vices according to which we are called good or bad, are not in us by nature…. Therefore, virtues and vices are not powers” (Aquinas 1964, n. 304).

9. Moral character can belong to the supernatural order as well, as occurs in the case of the infused virtues.

10. The continent or self-controlled person has unruly desires, but restrains them, whereas the incontinent or person lacking self-control yields to them; see Aquinas (1953, II-II, q. 137, a. 1).

11. See Aristotle (1982, bk. 6, chap. 13, 1144b30–5a2) and Aquinas (1964, nn. 1286-1288). An explanation of why Aristotle and Aquinas maintain that the acquisition of one virtue depends on the acquisition of all the other virtues lies beyond the scope of this paper. An example, however, might help make this view more palatable. Parents may have raised their children to be honest and they themselves may generally take pleasure in performing acts of honesty and do so without hesitation, and yet when it comes to their college-age child making a career or job decision, they may suppress relevant information because they do not want their child to pursue a certain career or job. Their general honesty is tainted by their excessive fear for their child’s well-being.

12. While more often than not when we speak of a person’s character, we are referring to their goodness or badness, we do sometimes use a broader definition of character, in function of which someone might say, for example, “I was surprised to learn that she is auditing a history course; it is not in her character to take interest in history”; or “she is phlegmatic in character.” Mitchell notes that Ricoeur seems to understand character according to this broader definition (see Mitchell 2015, 150). However, whether one is interested in history (or an expert in it) or not does not make one a good or bad person, nor do traits of temperament; thus, such things are not part of one’s moral character.

13. I have slightly modified Rackham’s translation.

14. This passage from Aristotle (1982) also speaks of virtue and character as being related as part to whole: “The mean opposed to boastfulness has to do with almost the same things. It also is without a name; but it will be as well to discuss these unnamed excellences as well, since we shall the better understand the nature of moral character if we go through each quality; and we shall also confirm our belief that the virtues are means if we notice how this holds good in every instance” (Aristotle 1982, bk. 4, chap. 7, 1127a13–18; I have somewhat modified Rackham’s translation).

15. See Aristotle (1982, bk. 3, chap. 5, 1114b22-25): “and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our moral disposition [hexeon], and it is our having a certain character [poioi tines] that makes us set up an end of a certain kind.” “Poios” is not specifically a word for moral character; it means “of a certain nature, kind, or quality.” The context, however, makes it sufficiently clear that moral character is what is being spoken of.

16. Aquinas refers to character in his commentary on Nicomachean Ethics far less frequently than Aristotle does in Nicomachean Ethics. The reason for this, at least in part, is that the Greek word for character was translated into Latin by William of Moerbeke sometimes as “mos” and sometimes as “mores,” which is the plural of “mos.” “Mos” means: 1) Character (pl.), behavior, morals; 2) custom, habit; 3) mood, manner, fashion (Lexilogos, http://www.lexilogos.com/english/latin_dictionary.htm). When Aquinas sees “mos” in Moerbeke’s translation, this does not clue him in to the fact that Aristotle is talking about character. And when he sees “mores” (which can mean both character and morals), there is often ambiguity as to whether he takes it to mean character or to mean morals. When one searches “mores” in his works, it turns out that he mainly uses the word when he is quoting other people. Thus, Aquinas does not give us much insight into the notion of character.

17. See note 11 above concerning “character” in the broad sense.

18. Aquinas never uses the Latin word “character” to name moral character, as can be seen from examining the passages that come up using the Index Thomisticus. This is not surprising since the Latin word for moral character is “mores.” The Latin word “character” means: 1) branded/impressed letter/mark/etc; 2) Marking instrument; 3) stamp, character, style. (Latdict, http://www.latin-dictionary.net/search/latin/character). Aquinas virtually always uses character to talk about spiritual “marks” that give one the authority to do or receive things in the context of divine worship; he generally opens such discussions by talking about physical marks by which some authority is assigned to a person.

19. Note that Aquinas is not saying that habit as a logical genus as such is not open to the further determinations of good and bad, as plainly habits can be good or bad; he is talking about using those virtues and vices, i.e., relying on them as a principle of action. Similarly character as a logical genus can be further subdivided into good and bad; however, when one acts in accord with good or bad character one’s action will be determinately good or bad respectively.

20. Note that Mother Teresa would also not be acting in accord with her virtue of mercy if she threw a sick person in the gutter—another indication that virtue is not something separate from character, but is rather part of it.

21. Aquinas explains the rationale behind these spiritual characters: “Sacraments of the new law are ordered to two things, namely, as a remedy against sin, and for perfecting the soul in those things which pertain to the worship of God according to the rite of the Christian life. However, it is customary to affix a seal [or mark] to whoever is deputed to something determinate; just as soldiers who were enlisted in military service in ancient times were accustomed to be marked with certain bodily characters [e.g., tattoos], because they were deputed to something bodily. And therefore when men through sacraments are deputed to something spiritual pertaining to the worship of God, consequently through them the faithful are marked by some spiritual character” (Aquinas 1953, III, q. 63, a. 1).

22. Aquinas maintains that there is such a thing as divinely infused virtues and these too would determine a person’s character. However, Mitchell’s paper concerns character as it pertains to the natural order.

23. Whereas moral character falls under the first species of quality spoken of in the Categories, sacramental character, by reduction, falls under the second.

24. This passage is a cross reference to Aquinas (1953, III, q. 63, a. 2).

25. See Aquinas (1953, II-II, q. 32, a. 1, ad 1): “And such an act of virtue can be without virtue, for many not possessing the habit of justice do just things, either from natural reason, or from fear, or from the hope of obtaining something. In another way, something is said to be an act of virtue formally, as an act of justice is a just act in the manner in which the just person performs it, namely, promptly and with pleasure. And in this manner, the act of virtue is not without virtue.”

26. See also Aquinas (1886, 4, q. 10 a. 1): “It happens, however, that the same deed which is done according to some perfect virtue is not only also done by someone possessing little virtue, but even by one not possessing virtue; just as someone not possessing justice is able to perform some just action. But if we look to the mode of performing, the one who does not have virtue is not able to act as that one who does, nor can the one who has little virtue act as does the one who has great virtue; the latter operates readily and promptly and with delight, whereas the one who lacks virtue or has little virtue does not act in this manner.” See also Aquinas (1964, bk. II, lec. 4).

27. See Mitchell (2015, 154): “character can be good or bad, in other words, it is indifferent to goodness or badness.”

28. As Aquinas (1965, un., a. 1) explains, not all powers are subjects of habit. Powers that are always active (such as the agent intellect) and powers that only act when moved by another (such as the sense of sight) are not subjects of habits. It is only powers that are both active and acted upon in a way that does not determine them to one act that are subjects of habits. This is the case of the rational powers of human beings; they stand indeterminately to more than one act, e.g., one can mitigate or fan the flames of one’s anger–as opposed to fire which burns necessarily according to natural law. One’s repeated choices concerning anger result in a habit.

29. Animals do have character in the broad sense; e.g., some dogs are ferocious and most rabbits, timid.

30. See also, Mitchell (2015, 149): “Virtue is the act of good character.”

31. See Aquinas (1886, 12.22): “For someone is able to have a natural inclination to the act of some virtue without prudence; and the greater an inclination they have without the habit of virtue, the worse it is, and the more it is able to push someone to action without prudence: as is manifest in the person who has natural courage without discretion and prudence.”

32. See Aristotle (1982, bk. 6, chap. 13, 1144b4–9): “All are agreed that the various characters [ēthōn] are in a sense bestowed by nature; we are just, and capable of temperance, and brave, and possessed of the other virtues from the moment of our birth. But nevertheless we expect to find that true goodness is something different, and that the virtues in the true sense come to belong to us in another way. For even children and wild animals possess natural habits, yet without intelligence, these may be harmful.” (I have slightly modified Rackham’s translation.)

33. We sometimes speak of people of bad character as lacking character. Since we are rational animals, by nature we are ordered to living in accord with reason and to developing habits that allow us do so easily, promptly, and with pleasure. Thus, people who develop habits that are opposed to reason have failed to develop their character in accord with their nature. Their character in this sense is defective. Accordingly, to the extent that people have failed to become the type of person they were meant by nature to become we speak of them as lacking in character; to the extent that they have become the opposite of the type of people they were meant to become, we speak of them as being of bad character. See Aquinas (1953, I, q. 71, a. 2): “Whether vice is contrary to nature.”

34. Aquinas maintains that virtue makes the one having it good by way of formal causality, and not by way of efficient causality; see Aquinas (1953, II-II, q. 27, a. 3): “‘On account of’ implies a relation to a cause…according to the genus of formal cause, as we love a man on account of his virtue, for it is namely by virtue that he is formally good, and consequently loveable.”

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Notes on contributors

Marie I. George

Marie I. George, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University, New York. An Aristotelian-Thomist and generalist by training, her interests lie primarily in the areas of natural philosophy and philosophy of science. She is author of two books: Christianity and Extraterrestrials? A Catholic Perspective (2005) and Stewardship of Creation: What Catholics Should Know about Church Teaching on the Environment (2009). She may be contacted at [email protected].