Reply to Müller: Aristotle on vicious choice

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Acknowledgements

Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 33rd annual meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy in New York City and at the Third International Congress of Greek Philosophy in Lisbon. I am grateful to my audiences on those occasions. For helpful comments on previous drafts, I am indebted to Erica Holberg and to two anonymous referees for British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

Notes

1 For the labels ‘principled’ and ‘conflicted’, see Müller, ‘Aristotle on Vice’.

2 All quotations are from Nicomachean Ethics unless otherwise noted. Translations are my own. I have consulted and benefitted from Broadie and Rowe, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics; Crisp, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics; Irwin, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics; and Reeve, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics.

3 Some scholars argue that Aristotle is talking in these two places about two different kinds of vicious people: in Book VII, the ‘fully’ or ‘truly’ vicious, and in Book IX those who are merely phaulos or ‘base’ (see Hardie, Aristotle’s Ethical Theory and Reeve, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics). Others have argued that Aristotle’s inconsistency in fact reflects an inconsistency in the vicious person himself: because he gives free rein to his desires, he may attempt to be ‘principled’ but will end up ‘conflicted’ (see Brickhouse, ‘Does Aristotle Have a Consistent Account of Vice?’ and Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles and ‘Vice and Reason’). Some readers have thrown up their hands and concluded that Aristotle’s account of vice is hopelessly incoherent (see Annas, ‘Plato and Aristotle on Friendship and Altruism’ and Bostock, Aristotle’s Ethics).

4 See Müller, ‘Aristotle on Vice’.

5 This way of formulating my argument was helpfully suggested to me by an anonymous referee for British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

6 Aristotle has already introduced this contrast at VII.4 1148a17. For the idea that akratic agents do not act on choice, see also III.2 1111b13-14; for the claim that vicious agents act according to choice, see VII.3 1146b22 and VII.7 1150a20.

7 I follow Bywater, Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea in rejecting idein in line 19.

8 On this point, see Anscombe, ‘Thought and Action in Aristotle’.

9 The importance of this feature of Aristotle’s account was suggested to me by an anonymous referee for British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

10 In response to my argument, Müller might propose that stable endorsement is characteristic of choice only in akratic contexts, and not of choice in general. But this move strikes me as undesirable, since it would render Aristotle’s conception of choice unnecessarily ambiguous. Here I am indebted to a helpful suggestion from an anonymous referee for British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

11 In this passage and the following one, Müller uses ‘decision’ to render the term I translate as ‘choice’ (prohairesis). (‘Aristotle on Vice’, 464)

12 In this passage, Müller uses ‘uninhibited’ to render the term I translate as ‘intemperate’ (akolastos). (‘Aristotle on Vice’, 468 n.17)

13 See Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle and Moss, Aristotle on the Apparent Good: Perception, Phantasia, Thought, & Desire.