Jay Carlson Plato/Aristotle Dr.

Cynthia Freeland Spring 2013 In his 2006 article Virtuous acts, virtuous dispositions, Thomas Hurka contrasts two understandings of virtue: the dispositional view and the occurentstate view. The dispositional view understands virtue as states that arise out of an agents stable character trait or disposition. The occurrent-state view, on the other hand, understands virtue simply as the actual occurrence of virtuous states, independent of whether they were produced by any stable dispositions in the agent, e.g. in their character. Hurka takes the former position, largely drawn from Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, to be the dominant understanding of virtue in contemporary philosophy. Hurka argues that this dominant understanding does not comport with common-sense ascriptions of virtue. In this paper, I will demonstrate that Hurka misunderstands that Aristotle can make a distinction between a virtuous action and a virtuous action done virtuously. This distinction disabuses the disposition view of the counterintuitive claims that Hurka attributes to it. This distinction illustrates what function the dispositional component of virtue captures. It will also resolve other problematic issues in Aristotles account, namely the circularity problem between acting virtuously from a virtuous disposition and developing a virtuous disposition by doing virtuous acts. Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics addresses the question of how one comes to have virtue, specifically virtuous character. In chapter 4, Aristotle outlines what distinguishes virtuous actions from virtuous character. Aristotle initially raises the seemingly plausible viewthat doing virtuous acts is sufficient in itself for being

Carlson 2 virtuous in character. This account might be called the naive act understanding1 of virtuous character, perhaps drawn from a nave understanding of Aristotles abbreviated answer to this acquisition question in chapter 1, namely that we become just by doing just actions. But to think that the performance of virtuous actions is in itself sufficient for having a virtuous character would entail that accidentally virtuous acts are classified as genuine cases of virtue: that is, actions that are, objectively speaking, virtuous but are done in what seems like non-virtuous manner would count as fully virtuous actions. For example, suppose that someone performed a virtuous action but did it for the purpose of garnering social approval or advantage. If the performance itself of an actually virtuous deed is sufficient for achieving virtuous character, then this person would be judged to have a virtuous character. But surely a person should not be judged to have a virtuous character if she did a virtuous act solely for self-interested reasons. If this nave act approach to virtue would consider such a person to have a virtuous character, then it cannot be a sufficient account of virtue. The insufficiency of focusing on virtuous acts themselves leads Aristotle to note a distinction between virtuous action and techne or craft. The qualities that make a good craft are located just in whatever product is produced: it suffices that I am not claiming that this position is characteristic of Hurkas account, though there are similarities between them. Perhaps the most significant difference between Hurkas position and this nave act-approach to virtue is the relevance of intention for ascribing virtue to an action. The position Aristotle is responding to in this passage would presumably not even consider intentions as relevant for virtue ascriptions. Hurka, as noted below, thinks intentions are especially important, indeed, perhaps preeminently so.
1

Carlson 3 [products of craft] have the right qualities when they are produced (NE 1105a28). This seems to mean that a table having the kind of qualities that make it able to function properly qua table is sufficient for us to judge it to be a good table; this evaluation is independent of any evaluation regarding how it is producedfor example, whether it was produced as a result of a stable disposition of the carpenter in question to readily produce good tables or if the carpenter happened to have a lucky day in the woodshop. Aristotle is not convinced that such an end-result approach is even adequate for instances of craft (NE 1105a21), but what he is attempting to show in this passage is that it is certainly inadequate for the purposes of virtue ascription. Aristotle wants to say that the nave act account that evaluates virtue only according to the acts that are performed is an insufficient account of virtue. Aristotle draws on the analogies of a musician and a grammarian to demonstrate the insufficiency of allowing coincidentally virtuous acts to count as virtuous: suppose some fluky set of circumstances make it such that a musicians wrongly played piece happens to be harmonious or a grammarians badly constructed phrase happens to be grammatical. While we might grant that the performance and phrase were harmonious and grammatical in themselves, Aristotle thinks that we do not want to ascribe the same evaluative status to the mechanisms that produced these entities. In the same way, Aristotle wants to claim that an act that happens to be virtuous as a result of lucky circumstances should not count as one that is done virtuously either. For example, an act of generosity that was done purely for the sake of social approval intuitively should not count as a virtuous act,

Carlson 4 even though to a third party observer it might be indistinguishable from an act done out of genuine concern for another person. What additional quality over and above the performance of virtuous acts must obtain for a person to be virtuous? Aristotle claims that it is not just that the acts in question be virtuous, but also that the agent performing them must have the right state when he does them (NE 1105a31). Aristotle then gives three conditions that must obtain for a person to have virtue and thus be capable of not only doing virtuous acts but also doing them virtuously. First, the agent must know that what she is doing is virtuous. That is, the act in question must be objectively virtuous and not just apparently so. Second, she must decide to act for the sake of the act itself. Under this condition, objectively virtuous acts that are done for other reasons, e.g. social approval, self-interest, etc., do not count as actions that are performed virtuously. This condition rules out the possibility of an agent choosing to do a virtuous act for some other reason. Finally, a virtuous act must be one that is performed from a firm and unchanging state within the performing agent (NE 1105b30-35). An act cannot be done virtuously if the agent in question in a particular case happens to act contrary to a general disposition to act nonvirtuously. Aristotle then notes that when it comes to an agent having virtue, the condition that an act actually be virtuous is only of minor importance, while the last two concerning the intent and the disposition from which the virtuous act is done are all-important (NE 1105b2). One might be willing to grant that intentions are obviously important for whether an act is done virtuously, as this allows us to disregard virtuous acts that

Carlson 5 are done for selfish motives as virtuous acts that are not virtuously done. Why does Aristotle think that his dispositional requirement is necessary for a virtuous act to be done virtuously? A preliminary remark on this matter should be that Aristotles account of virtue an exceedingly difficult thing to achieve. First, there are the amount of factors involved: one must not only perform an objectively virtuous action, but one must do it at the right time, toward the right end, with the right motive, and with the proper amount and kind of emotion (NE 1106b18-24). As if the sheer number of factors involved did not make virtue difficult enough to achieve, further complicating the matter is the fact that that none of these factors are decided by any straightforward, universally applicable rules. The factors are highly contextualized to each particular cases, in which the agents themselves must considerwhat the opportune action is (NE 1104a9) along with what amount of the other factors is contextually appropriate. Making these fine-grained, particularized decisions would perhaps not be so cumbersome if the final product of virtue could readily withstand deviations from the mean in excess or deficiencies in one respect or other. But the median, virtuous states by themselves are unstable, as they tend to be ruined by excess and deficiency (NE 1104a12). Becoming a virtuous person, therefore, is hard work and achieving fully virtuous character that satisfies all of these conditions is rare, praiseworthy, and fine (NE 1109a2930). For virtuous states to be anything more than ephemeral flashes, therefore, they must be grounded in something that preserves them and makes their occurrence more regular.

Carlson 6 Aristotles account of virtuous character is well suited for explaining how a persons character serves this preservative, stabilizing task for virtue in the fact that it incorporates the desiderative aspect of action. For a virtuous action to become something that is habitually doneand indeed, done for the right reasonsthe action should be pleasing for the agent. It is pleasure in the act, after all, that distinguishes the virtuous person from the merely continent one, who does an appropriate action, but takes no pleasure in said performance. For instance, take the virtue of bravery. By its very nature, bravery involves being undisturbed in the face of forces that provoke feelings of fear and terror (NE 1117a32). Thus, the brave person, as well as the person who is becoming brave, must endure a significant amount of pain. A person overcomes this pain by focusing on what pleasures are present; a boxer endures the pain of the trials in the ring for the pleasures of glory and honor (NE 1117b3), but more importantly because to stand in the face of such pain is itself a noble and fine act and to do otherwise would prompt shame (NE 115b12). Every action, Aristotle claims, has some measure of either pleasure or pain incorporated into it, and he notes that what generates pleasure and pain in a person is partly constitutive of her character (NE 1104b9) and is a sign to third party observers as to what sort of state she is in (NE 1104b5). Aristotle considers the person who demonstrates feeling pleasure in doing generous acts and pain in doing either miserly or spendthrifty ones to be virtuous; likewise if someone shows that doing a median action is painful for them but pleasure in doing deficient or

Carlson 7 excessive acts, then Aristotle considers that person intemperate, as they are desiring the wrong things (NE 1104b7). The desiderative element of character goes can be seen as what the firmness and stability conditions that Aristotle takes to be essential for character. Lorenz understands the desiderative element to be rational in an extended sense, meaning that the appetitive and spiritive aspects of a person are capable of listening to the cajolings of reason (Lorenz 2009, 182). On Lorenzs reading, reason is then tasked with developing and reforming the appetitive and spiritive desires of the nonrational parts of the soul (Lorenz 2006, 194). But a virtuous character is consists not just in having the appropriate feelings or desires. Aristotle himself notes that virtue is a state that decides according to deliberative reason as well (NE 1107a1). Hendrik Lorenz also notes that that theories sell Aristotles account of character virtues short if they understand his character virtues just in terms of habituated conditions for experiencing feelings like pleasure, distress, anger, and shame (Lorenz 2009, 177-8). Character virtues also include capacities to grasp relevant reasons about a situation, as well capacity to deliberate about what decisions to make; for Lorenz, character virtues involve not only a desire to act in a certain way, but also, among other things, a decision to act in this way (Lorenz 2009, 194). The cognitive aspect of character virtue also relates to the issue of the contextual complexity involved in figuring out what the virtuous act is and how to perform it virtuously. As Myles Burnyeat notes, practice has cognitive power in that it shows us what virtue is and how to go about

Carlson 8 obtaining it (Burnyeat 1980, 73). The fact that character facilitates this sort of learning what virtue is and what it means in particular contexts. Thomas Hurka takes issue with the condition that virtuous statesincluding not only virtuous acts, but virtuous desires and feelings as wellrequire being produced by a stable disposition. As Hurka describes the disposition account, in the absence of issuing from a stable disposition, an act may be such as a brave or generous person would perform, but [the act] is not itself brave or generous (Hurka 2006, 70). Hurka takes this to mean that if the dispositional account is correct, then we would have to say that ostensibly virtuous acts that are, so to speak, out of character are not actually virtuous acts. A prominent literary example of such a case Hurka used in a talk at the University of Houston is Ebenezer Scrooge: upon receiving a Christmas Eve vision, Scrooge eschews his general lifelong disposition of acting miserly and gives one of his employees a Christmas turkey and a pay raise. Taken by themselves, we would usually judge Scrooges Christmas day acts as virtuous, but since they are deviations from his general character of acting miserly and thus not done out of a stable disposition in Scrooge to be generous, these acts do not count as virtuous. Hurka thinks that denying the virtue of out of character actions does great violence to common sense applications of virtue. If a soldier jumped on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers, we would not condition calling that act brave on whether the soldiers act issued from a stable disposition to act bravely. Hurka thinks that the dispositional account is committed to saying that unless the soldier acted from a stable disposition, then that act cannot be considered brave. The same principle applies equally to vice as well: if we saw someone

Carlson 9 torturing a dog, while Hurka takes the common-sense ascription in this case to be, That is a cruel act, for Hurka the dispositional ascription would be, That was a cruel act on condition that it issued from a stable disposition to give similar kicks in similar circumstances (Hurka 2006, 71). Hurka thinks it is clear that the commonsense ascription, which he thinks is represented by the occurrent-state view, is right to say that we make judgments about whether or not actions are virtuous independent of whether they are done from . Hurka concludes that an alternative account of virtue can better accommodate the common-sense ascription of virtue, namely the occurent-state account. This view, drawing from W.D. Ross, claims that virtues should be primarily ascribed to actual acts that are done with particular motives: desire to do ones duty, to bring good to someone, or prevent some others pain. While traits might arise to dispose one toward acting with these kinds of motives, proper virtue ascription does not require that acts be done from some dispositions (Hurka 2006, 70). In prioritizing the local performance of virtuous action, Hurka is not committing himself to the implausible claim that the nave act account where the mere performance of a virtuous action is enough to warrant being described as virtuous. As noted earlier, the virtuousness of an act is not just in the act itself but also in the motive from which the act is done (Hurka 2006, 70). In terms of the conditions for acting virtuously that Aristotle discusses in NE II.4, Hurka assents to the first two conditions: that an act must be virtuous and that the decision and motive of the agent is based on the virtuousness of the action. What Hurka is denying is the third, dispositional condition, that attributing virtue requires any

Carlson 10 connections to more enduring traits like tendencies to act in similar ways in similar circumstances (Hurka 2006, 71). He is also denying that acting from a stable disposition adds any special value to acting in the absence of such a disposition. Hurka sees no reason to give a higher evaluation to an act done from a stable trait than one that is not; provided that both are done, e.g. out of genuine concern for another, they are at least equally valuable. At a talk given at the University of Houston, Hurka suggested that the out-of-character act might even be more praiseworthy than an in-character act. The thought here is that while the agent in the latter case is acting in step with the general flow of her current dispositions, the agent in the former case is having to against her own dispositional grain, as it were. Since going against ones own dispositional inertia is a more challenging task, perhaps that we should evaluate. This emphasis on motive clearly would rule out attributing virtue to someone who does an ostensibly generous act, but does it for self-interested motives. Nor is Hurka denying the value of virtuous dispositions wholesale; he grants that virtuous dispositions can be primary sources of reliably producing virtuous actions and moral education should prioritize their development (Hurka 2006, 73). What Hurka does want to claim is that the value of these more global traits is derivative from the value of local, particular acts. An adequate response to Hurka on his claims about the dispositional views ascription of virtue requires nothing more than noting that there is a distinction in Aristotle between doing a virtuous actionthat is, one that is objectively speaking virtuousand doing such an act virtuously. Any action satisfies that first condition just in case it actually is a virtuous action and can be correctly called as such.

Carlson 11 Ebeneezer Scrooges acts toward Bob Cratchit therefore satisfy this condition because they are both acts that a generous person would do in that situation; the soldiers act of jumping on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers equally satisfies this condition, such that we can call it a virtuous action as well. In the opposite direction, we can certainly call the act of intentionally kicking a dog for ones own amusement a vicious act because it satisfies the condition of being an act that a vicious person would do. Hurkas claim that the disposition view requires that we not ascribe virtue or vice, respectively, to these actions is simply mistaken. Perhaps Hurka would respond that in these cases we would also be intuitively inclined to say that they satisfy the other condition, of acting virtuously or viciously in the case of a viceas well. After all, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that Scrooge and the soldier do their respective virtuous actions with the right intention, for the right end, and with the proper amount and kind of emotion. The only thing they might lack is doing their acts from a stable disposition. But a clear response is available. First, Hurka is attempting to make the concept acting virtuously to be demonstrable by a single instance. This is clearly not the way Aristotle conceived of it being used. What Aristotle was attempting to describe was a disposition that could be efficacious over a wide area of cases, not just a single one or even single kind of instance. In the case of Scrooge, let us suppose that it is true in the particular case of acting toward Bob Cratchit that Scrooge hits the mean regarding all of the ethically relevant features. That still will not demonstrate that Scrooge would be able to consistently hit this same virtuous mark as accurately going forward with other

Carlson 12 cases. Even if we stipulate away any akratic behavior or backsliding on Scrooges part in these future instances, it is unlikely that he would have the sufficient moral understanding to know exactly what he should do in a completely different scenario where hitting the mean requires different actions, different emotions, towards different people. The same might be said of the soldier, supposing, of course, that he does not actually die. While he might easily display bravery on the battlefield towards his fellow comrades, he might find bravery more difficult, for example, when the case involves standing up against racism from a family member directed at a total stranger. Even if he did the actutally virtuous action in this case, it might have been much more difficult for him to summon the proper emotions in a case involving strangers. When Aristotle speaks of acting from a firm and stable disposition, the idea is that it would be something that is efficacious over a wide range of cases. The question of acting virtuously, however, is a separate question that should not be assumed to always be satisfied whenever the first condition of doing a virtuous action is satisfied. Hurka also thinks that the dispositional account commits one to being able to identify the virtuous character traits independently of virtuous acts or feelings that issue from them (Hurka 2006, 70). If one is not able to make this independent identification, then Hurka claims the dispositional account is circular. He does not go into more detail as to what he means by circular. One probable understanding of Hurkas worry is that one cannot display virtuous actions or feelings unless one already possesses a virtuous disposition, and one cannot have a virtuous disposition unless one, to use Aristotles own words, displays virtuous acts. On this

Carlson 13 understanding Aristotles account of virtue encounters a kind of Meno problem that Socrates encountered regarding knowledge, and thus Aristotle was well aware of this potential hang-up. Irwin notes that Aristotles response to this objection is that it assumes that performing virtue is analogous to a craft wherein one is acting from previous knowledge. This response is not helped by the fact that Aristotle does liken virtues to craft in certain respects: virtueswe acquire just as we acquire craftswe become builders by building..Similarly, we become just by doing just actions (NE 1103a32-b1). While they might not be vicious cycles in the frequent theme in Aristotles account of virtue seems to be the idea of dispositional feedback loops, that virtue tends to beget virtue, but excess and deficiency tend to produce their own respective vicious cycles, i.e. cycles that produce increasing amounts of vice. On Hurkas understanding of the account he is opposing, the primary understanding of virtue seems to be a potentiality or capacity that one would be disposed to display virtuous states. This is a position that Aristotle seems to expressly reject. In chapter 5 of book II, Aristotle considers whether virtues are feelings, capacities, or states. Aristotle understands feelings to be states involving some pleasure or paine.g. happiness, sadness, fear, etc.while capacities involve the capability of having a state if certain circumstances obtain (Irwin 1999, 318). Aristotle denies that virtues could be feelings because virtues must arise from a decision, and feelings are not under direct volitional control (NE 1106a4). But neither are virtues capacities in the sense of something that is capable of being realized in the actions of an agent, what Irwin calls the raw materials for virtue

Carlson 14 (Irwin 1999, 196). While it is true that we are capable of coming to have virtuous states (NE 1103a27) the mere capacity itself is not what virtue is. Instead of either of these options, Aristotle insists that virtue is a statea hexiswhere one is actually displaying the appropriate amount and kind of feelings and behaviors (NE 1105b25). Irwin points out that having a state of virtue is not merely a tendency to be virtuous, but a tendency that has been formed by doing virtuous acts: just as we become builders by building, so also do we become virtuous by doing virtuous acts (NE 1103b1). Cynthia Freeland, however, attempts to show that Aristotles rejection of the understanding of virtues as capacities in II.5 of Nichomachean Ethics is a very qualified denial. States or hexeis are defined in this passage only as what we have when we are well or badly off in relation to feelings (NE 1105b27). She aims to demonstrate that a broader consideration of Aristotles understanding of hexis and dynameis, especially Aristotles work in Metaphysics, that it is possible that a state one possesses could actually be a capacity as well. Virtue could be understood as a particular kind of state that is actually a subclass of potentiality, namely second potentialities (Freeland 1982, 20). These potentialities develop from prior capacities Aristotle calls virtuous behavior an activityan energeiaiand if some particular activity exists, there must be corresponding capacity from which it arose. This developed capacity for virtuous behavior, this dynameis, is itself moral virtue (Freeland 1982, 6). Freeland says that this construal of moral virtues as second potentialities is useful if one is comparing how moral virtues resemble rational and non-rational

Carlson 15 capacities. On the one hand, moral virtues at their most perfected form operate almost automatically in response to some salient feature about ones environment (Freeland 1982, 19). While a novice might have to pause to consider what the right decision is and how he should respond, the fully brave personi.e. one who has a full possession of the virtuedoes not even have to think about whether or not to be brave or in way they ought to be brave; she simply finds herself responding to her circumstances with the right amount of bravery, and all that would entail for the situation. Annas supports this idea by noting that people who have just performed heroic feats make no mention of virtues or what the brave thing to do was, but frequently just report they simply registered that the person needed to be rescued, so they rescued them (Annas 2008, 22). Contrast this picture, of course, with rational dispositions that are typified as being deliberative rather than automatic. When one is weighing the pros and cons of whether one should go on a vacation or donate ones vacation fund money to a charitable cause, the procedure is deliberative rather than a quick automatic response. Nevertheless, Freeland notes that another typical characteristic of moral virtuesthis time like rational dispositions but unlike non-rational onesis that there is some voluntary choice in what decision one makes. One makes a choice, for example, whether to give ones money away or to spend it on oneself. Furthermore, while we certainly hold people responsible for the decisions they make and the acts the do, it is less clear that one is responsible for automatic responses in the same way.

Carlson 16 How then can we make sense of the fact that moral virtues seem to be both voluntary and automatic at the same time? Freeland suggests that the answer to this lies in the fact that moral virtues are the product of the agents choice to engage in some temporally extended practice of habituation, such that she no longer has to even consciously deliberate what to do, but she is capable of the appropriate action just spontaneously arising from within her in response to her environment. Furthermore, she is responsible for this virtue because this capability was itself predicated on her decisions and behavior of habituation (Freeland 1982, 20). Hurka might respond that an agents concern for acting virtuously only succeeds in making a person self-indulgent, that is, it makes her more concerned with the maintenance of her internal states than how her internal states and the acts that arise from them affect others (Hurka 2001, 139). Two responses could be made here. First, the claim about acting virtuously is not that the end the agent is pursuing is acting virtuously itself. If someone were to do this, then the selfindulgent charge might have significant force. But a more pertinent response is that during the initial stages of moral education these inwardly directed questions are usually necessary, but they are not permanent. For example, learning a musical instrument initially requires conscious thought of what one should do, but as one becomes proficient, the need to mindful consider what one should do becomes less of a need, to the point that they might disappear from the conscious operations of the person. In the same way, as Julia Annas points out, one might begin ones moral development with conscious contemplation of what one should do, what one should desire, and so forth, as one

Carlson 17 develops ones capacity to be virtuous, the need to be mindful of what ones own states should be dissipates; thoughts about how to act virtuously tend to be selfeffacing in this sense (Annas 2007, 24). The virtuous persons response to their situation might initially be one of reflection and habituation, but the mature virtue expresses itself directly in reacting to the needs of the situation (Annas 2007, 33). Hurka would perhaps maintain that this understanding would still rank the generous, out-of-character act as not as virtuous as the fully operative kind of virtue. This is correct, but it perhaps does not have the same effect Hurka thinks it does for several reasons. These sorts of deviations are operative in almost every actual human agent to one degree or another, such that there are very few actualizations of a fully virtuous person. But this should not bother us, for the ideally virtuous person is not a state one could hope to capture, thought one might try to emulate it. Second, if Hurka is concerned with blame and punishment, then that claim too is overblown; at the end of NE 2.9, Aristotle claims that we do not blame people for small deviations from the mean into excess or deficiency (NE 1109b19-20). In this paper, I have strived to demonstrate the value that virtuous dispositions contribute to Aristotles overall system of ethics in addressing the problems of the instability of virtues on their own as well as the circularity problem. In doing so, I think I have provided plausible answers to Tom Hurka that dispositions are not a necessary component of virtue.

Carlson 18 Works Cited Annas, J. (2004). Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 78 (2):61 - 75. ---. (2008). The phenomenology of virtue. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 7(1), 21-34. Freeland, C. A. (1982). Moral Virtues and Human Powers. The Review of Metaphysics, 3-22. Hurka, T. (2006). Virtuous act, virtuous dispositions. Analysis 66 (289):6976. ---. (2003). Virtue, vice, and value. Oxford University Press. Irwin, T. (1999). Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Lorenz, H (2009). Virtue of Character in Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 37 (2009): 177-212. ---. (2006). The brute within: Appetitive desire in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford University Press.