How to Distinguish Aristotles Virtues

MARGUERITE DESLAURIERS

ABSTRACT
This paper considers the distinctions Aristotle draws (1) between the intellectual
virtue of phron sis and the moral virtues and (2) among the moral virtues, in
light of his commitment to the reciprocity of the virtues. I argue that Aristotle
takes the intellectual virtues to be numerically distinct hexeis from the moral virtues.
By contrast, I argue, he treats the moral virtues as numerically one hexis,
although he allows that they are many hexeis in being. The paper has three
parts. In the rst, I set out Aristotles account of the structure of the faculties of
the soul, and determine that desire is a distinct faculty. The rationality of a desire
is not then a question of whether or not the faculty that produces that desire is
rational, but rather a question of whether or not the object of the desire is good.
In the second section I show that the reciprocity of phron sis and the moral
virtues requires this structure of the faculties. In the third section I show that the
way in which Aristotle distinguishes the faculties requires that we individuate
moral virtues according to the objects of the desires that enter into a given virtue,
and with reference to the circumstances in which these desires are generated. I
then explore what it might mean for the moral virtues to be different in being
but not in number, given the way in which the moral virtues are individuated. I
argue that Aristotle takes phron sis and the political art to be a numerical unity
in a particular way, and that he suggests that the moral virtues are, by analogy,
the same kind of unity.

Aristotle attributes multiple virtues to the virtuous person. Some of these

virtues are intellectual and some moral. The virtuous person has the intellectual virtue of phron sis, which allows one to deliberate well, as well
as the moral virtues which include, among others, courage and justice. So
Aristotle draws two different kinds of distinction within virtues: the moral
virtues are importantly different from the intellectual virtues, but the moral
virtues are also different one from another.1 Aristotle maintains both that
phron sis and the moral virtues are distinct, and that the person who has
one of them will have all of them (this view of the relation among the
virtues has come to be called the reciprocity of the virtues).2 I want to
Accepted September 2001
1
The intellectual virtues are also of course different one from another. I will focus
on the distinctions between the intellectual and the moral virtues, and among the moral
virtues, because these are the distinctions critical to the reciprocity of the virtues.
2
In calling Aristotles position the reciprocity of the virtues and the Socratic position the unity of the virtues I am using T. H. Irwins terminology (Disunity in the
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002
Also available online www.brill.nl

Phronesis XLVII/2

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examine how the claim that the virtues are reciprocally necessary affects
the ways in which Aristotle tries to distinguish the different virtues. In particular, I want to explore and clarify these two kinds of distinctions within
the virtues, the distinction between the intellectual and the moral virtues,
and the distinctions among the moral virtues, in the light of Aristotles
commitment to the reciprocity of the virtues.
That commitment emerges when Aristotle distinguishes his position on
the relation among the moral virtues and between the moral virtues and
the intellectual virtue of phron sis from the position that he attributes to
Socrates. The Socratic position, as he understands it, is captured in his
objection that on the Socratic view no peculiarly moral capacity (no
capacity having to do with desire and action) is necessary for virtue. He
complains that for Socrates a moral capacity is nothing more than a rational capacity (EN VI 3 1144b17-30) . Aristotle is then contrasting his view
of the relations among and between virtues with a view according to
which 1) there is no distinction between phron sis and moral virtues, because
the moral virtues are all instances of phron sis and 2) there is no distinction among the moral virtues, because each of them is (again) simply
phron sis. Call this the unity of the virtues. Aristotle seems to believe both
1) that phron sis and the moral virtues are genuinely different although
mutually necessary, and 2) that the moral virtues are genuinely different
each from the other, although mutually necessary. Call this the reciprocity of the virtues.3 What interests me is Aristotles insistence on the difAristotelian Virtues, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, ed. Julia Annas, Supp.
Vol. 1988). The position that I attribute to Aristotle is, however, somewhat different.
3
There is some disagreement about Aristotles position on the relation of the
virtues. Some commentators argue that Aristotle tries, but fails in the attempt, to argue
for the unity of the virtues, characterized as involving two claims: (1) Moral virtues
require practical wisdom and (2) The person with practical wisdom must have all the
moral virtues. See Elizabeth Telfer, The Unity of the Moral Virtues in Aristotles
Nicomachean Ethics, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, LXXXX
(1989/90), 35-48. Telfer argues that while Aristotles own argument does not succeed,
he might have succeeded had he cast the argument in terms of ideal moral virtues.
John Lemos has argued that the arguments for the unity of ideal moral virtues also
fail (The Unity of the Virtues and Its Defenses, The Southern Journal of Philosophy
XXXII (1994), 85-105), although he is less interested in, and less familiar with, the
argument as Aristotle presents it. The doubts about the argument focus on the second
of the two claims, that the person with practical wisdom must have all the virtues, or,
alternatively, that anyone who possesses one of the moral virtues will possess them
all. Two recent attempts to defend some understanding of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues are by Paula Gottlieb (Aristotle on Dividing the Soul and Uniting
the Virtues, Phronesis XXXIX, No. 3 (1994), 275-290) and Edward Halper (The

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ferences between virtues together with his insistence on the mutual necessity of these virtues. If we grant the mutual necessity, and the implication
that in practice these virtues form a unity, we might wonder how exactly
Aristotle proposes to differentiate the virtues.
I shall argue that Aristotles account of the parts of the soul and the
virtues peculiar to different parts makes most sense when we consider how
that account supports both the reciprocity of the virtues and the distinctions among the virtues. In particular, I argue that the way in which
Aristotle divides the soul makes clear that the moral and intellectual
virtues must be numerically different hexeis, but that the moral virtues cannot be numerically different hexeis and must be distinguished in some
other way. The argument is in three parts. In the rst I set out Aristotles
account of the structure of faculties of the soul, according to which desire
is a distinct faculty, so that the rationality of a desire is not determined
by whether or not the faculty that produces it is rational, but rather
whether or not the object of the desire is good. In the second I show that
the reciprocity of the intellectual virtue of phron sis and the moral virtues
requires this structure of relations between the faculties of the soul. In the
third I show that this division of the faculties of the soul requires that we
individuate moral virtues according to the objects of the desires that enter
into a given virtue and with reference to the circumstances in which these
desires are generated. I then examine the difference between phron sis and
the political art in order to show that this way of individuating the moral
virtues requires that the account of the difference between them should be
different from the account of the difference between moral and intellectual virtues. I argue that Aristotle takes phron sis and the political art to
be a numerical unity in a particular way, and that he suggests that the
moral virtues are, by analogy, the same kind of unity.
1. Division of desires and the divisions of the soul
Moral virtue is generally distinguished by Aristotle from intellectual virtue
by the element of desire: what it is to have moral virtue is to have a disposition to desire what is good (as opposed to a disposition to truth) (EN
Unity of the Virtues in Aristotle, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, XVII (1999),
115-43). Halper argues that the reciprocity of the virtues makes sense by arguing that
Aristotle does not believe that the exercise of each virtue involves one or two passions, but rather the appropriate exercise of every passion, and that practical wisdom
must assess not only the circumstances a person nds himself in but also the persons
own abilities and virtues.

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VI 2 1139a21-31). Desire is essential to moral virtue because of the connection between desire, choice, action and virtue. Moral virtue itself is a
state which disposes us to choose certain actions over others it is a jiw
proairetik (II 6 1106b 36). Actions require choices, so any morally
evaluable action will follow on some choice made by the agent. Choices
involve, but are not identical with, desires. Choices that manifest virtue
involve, but are not identical with, rational desires which are desires for
the good. How then does Aristotle distinguish rational desires from other
sorts of desires which might enter into a choice and hence motivate an
action? That is, how does he distinguish desires for the good from other
desires? This leads to a second question: How can Aristotle distinguish
one desire for the good from another? In order to individuate the moral
virtues, and to maintain that the virtues while reciprocal are not simply
one, Aristotle must draw distinctions within the desire for the good. I shall
address the rst of these questions about distinguishing rational desires
from others in this section; in the second section I shall show how the
answer to this question makes clear the way in which the intellectual
virtue of phron sis and the moral virtues are mutually necessary but distinct; and in the third section I shall answer the second question about
distinguishing one desire for the good from another.
(i) What makes a desire rational?
The distinction between rational and irrational desires is not a distinction
in the faculties which give rise to the desires, but rather a distinction in
the objects of desire. To demonstrate this, we need to consider how
Aristotle characterizes rational desire. In III 2 of the EN choice is distinguished from three sorts of desire: appetite, emotion and wish. Aristotle
recognizes that action requires some sort of desire, and will identify choice
as a certain kind of desire bouleutik rejiw (III 3 1113a10-11) or rejiw
dianohtik (VI 2 1139b4-5). He distinguishes in III 2 appetite (piyuma),
emotion (yumw) and wish (bolhsiw), as kinds of desire, from choice as
a kind of desire. The point is not that choice will not involve any of these
kinds of desire, but that it will not be identical with any of these kinds.
Aristotle remarks that wish is closest to choice and emotion farthest away
(1111b18-20) . This is because, despite their differences, wish is a desire
for the good, and choice involves a desire for the good (1113a22-6).
Appetite and emotion are set apart as desires shared by non-rational animals (and hence as non-rational desires which are not and do not involve
desires for the good) (1111b12-13).

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This classi cation of emotion and appetite as non-rational desires, and

wish as a rational desire is reiterated at Rhetoric I 10 1368b37-1369a4 ,
where Aristotle says that actions due to desire (as opposed to habit/character) are caused either by rational or by non-rational desires (t mn di
logistikn rejin t d di logon), that wishes, as desires for the good,
are rational desires, and that anger (a species of emotion) and appetite are
irrational desires. He says again, at de Anima I 3 414a32-b6, that anything with perception will have desire, and that desire includes or may
include appetite, emotion and wish. Aristotle adds . . . for a wish is a
desire, and whenever one is moved according to reason, one is also moved
according to a wish (de Anima III 10 433a23-25). Wishes seem then to
exhaust desires for the good, so that any desire for the good will be a
wish. As desires for the good, wishes are distinguished from appetites in
that appetites have as their object the pleasant.
Aristotle is then de ning wish as a kind of desire a desire for the
good, and a rational desire. What is the connection between wishes as
desires for the good and wishes as rational? It might seem natural to suppose that the distinction between rational and non-rational desires is a distinction between those desires which are produced by the use of reason
itself, on its own, and those which are not.4 This distinction would help
4
John Cooper argues that a rational desire or boulesis is the practical expression
of a course of thought about what is good for oneself, that is aimed at working out
the truth about what is in fact good while emotions and appetites are not such expressions (31). He adds . . . a logos-thought and a logos-desire are about the good in a
way that lays claim to there being a reason for thinking this, and to thinking it for
that reason. The passage Cooper takes as evidence for this is at EN VI-EE V 2
1139b12, where Aristotle says that both theoretical and practical reason have as their
function to pursue and attain truth. Cooper says One part of what he asserts in this
passage about practical reason is that its function is, not just to hold views to the effect
that something or other is good for us, but to do so, whether we are self-conscious
about this or not, as somehow part of or the result of a process of investigation into
the truth about what is good (30). On Coopers view This means that the non-rational desires, as such, can be conceived simply as ones that lack these special features
that their origin in reason gives to the rational desires. Accordingly, non-rational
desires will be desires no part of the causal history of which is ever any process (selfconscious or not) of investigation into the truth about what is good for oneself (31).
See John M. Cooper, Some Remarks on Aristotles Moral Psychology, The Southern
Journal of Philosophy, XXVII, Supplement (1988), 25-42. This view seems to presuppose rather than to show that reason, as a faculty, produces rational desires. Moreover,
as I argue below, Aristotle denies that the faculty of reason produces desires in the
passage at de Anima III 10 433a22-5.

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to explain the claim that wishes as desires for the good are rational
where the link between being a rational wish and being a wish for the
good is that wishes are produced or caused by reason in the process of
investigating what is good for us. Moreover, distinguishing in this way
between rational and non-rational desires accommodates Aristotles claim
that wishes may be for objects which are apparent, but not real, goods
(EN III 4 1113a22-b2). Aristotle does not, however, say that rational
desires are produced by reason; indeed, he seems to deny this claim at de
Anima III 10 433a22-5, when he says that nous or dianoia by itself does
not produce movement, since if reason were producing desires it would
produce movement on its own.5 This clearly suggests that reason as a faculty cannot produce desires; since reason can produce judgments, if it
could also produce desires, then reason by itself could produce movement,
since movements are produced by some combination of judgment and desire.
A different account of the sense in which wishes as desires for the good
are rational avoids this dif culty. An account that is more consistent with
what Aristotle says is that wishes as desires for the good are rational
because desiring the good, under that description, as the good, will require
that one can identify the good, or at least the apparent good. Desiring the
good will, then, require reason, even if reason does not produce the desire.
On this view, reason must recognize desires which are in accordance with
the judgments of reason. This is consistent with Aristotles habit of speaking of desires as being in accordance with reason, rather than of desires
as produced or caused by reason (see, for example EN VI 2 1139a30-1).
It is also consistent with the claim that desire is a separate faculty; if, as
I am suggesting, desires including rational desires are produced by a
faculty other than reason itself, then the question becomes how desire and
the judgment of reason can combine into a unity in choice. (I address this
question in the next section.)
The distinction, then, between rational and irrational desires is not a
distinction in the faculties which give rise to the desires, but a distinction
in the objects of desire.6 Objects of desire are either what is (perceived to
5

Cooper says that the passage does not mean that reasoning about what to do
does not lead to any movement toward acting except when it is coupled with some or
other non-rational desire (30), and that is right. But the passage does seem to mean
that reason itself is not producing desires and that some distinct faculty of desire produces both rational and non-rational desires.
6
Aristotle has de ned the difference in desires in terms of their objects. Rational and
non-rational desires might on this account be produced by different faculties of the
soul; that is, it might be the case that while Aristotle distinguishes rational from non-

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be) good or what is (perceived to be) pleasant. One might of course have
a non-rational desire for something for which one also had a rational
desire, insofar as the pleasant and the good might coincide. In such a case,
however, the virtuous persons desire will not be for the object as pleasant, but for it as good.
(ii) Why posit a single faculty of desire?
How must the soul be divided in order to account for the production of
rational desires? The various faculties of the soul that Aristotle distinguishes in most detail in the de Anima are, as he himself will acknowledge, dif cult to map onto the divisions within the soul postulated in these
discussions in the EN, where the rational and irrational parts of the soul
are said each to be divided into two parts. The irrational part includes the
nutritive part and a part which shares in reason or at any rate can obey
reason, although it does not always do so; this Aristotle calls the appetitive or desiring part (EN I 13 1102b 25-31). In the EN the two parts of
the rational part are not distinguished until VI 1, when the distinction is
expressed in terms of objects: one part of the rational part considers
objects whose origins do not admit of being otherwise, and one part
objects whose origins do admit of being otherwise (1139a 3-8). The former Aristotle calls pisthmonikn, the latter logistikn, or practical reason,
which he identi es with the capacity for deliberation (1139a 11-12).7
At Politics VII 14 the distinction between a rational and an irrational
part of the soul, and the sub-divisions of these parts, are maintained. Aristotle
again says that one part has a rational principle in itself, while the other
is able to obey such a principle (1333a16-19). In the Politics, as in the
Nicomachean Ethics, the context is a discussion of virtue. The politician
needs to know enough of the soul as is necessary for a knowledge of
virtue, and since there are human virtues of both the rational and the
rational desires in terms of their objects, he believes that they are produced by different faculties of the soul. But again, the evidence that tells against this is the passage
at de Anima III 10 433a22-5, which makes clear that reason does not produce desire.
7
Aristotle restricts action to those creatures which have the deliberative capacity.
When, in VI 2, he says that animals, although they have perception, do not act, he
seems to mean that they do not act because they do not make choices (1139a18-21) .
If they do not make choices it is not because they lack the part of the soul that generates desires, since animals with perceptual capacities share with us the capacity for
appetites and emotions. Rather it is because they lack the rational element (and in particular the deliberative faculty), a lack which prevents them from having the sort of
desires that must enter into virtuous choices, namely desires for the good as such.

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irrational parts of the soul, he needs to know these divisions (Politics VII
14 1133a37-9; EN I 13 1102a 7-28).8 As in the EN, Aristotle assumes that
the task of the politician is to inculcate virtues in people, that these virtues
are of two sorts (moral virtues and intellectual virtues) and that an understanding of the two sorts requires an understanding of the structure of divisions within the soul. The suggestion is that these descriptions of the divisions
within the soul are not suf ciently accurate for some other investigator,
for whom a knowledge of the soul is not background for the objects of
his concern, but the object of concern itself. We nd this more accurate
description in the de Anima.
The account of the divisions of the soul in the de Anima is particularly
important for my purposes because it is here, in the course of calling into
question the standard division of faculties into rational and irrational, that
Aristotle claims that both rational and irrational desires are generated by
a single faculty. In the de Anima the consideration of the divisions of the
soul arises not as part of a discussion of virtue, but rather of movement.
Aristotle asks what there is in the soul that is responsible for movement.
There are two questions: 1) Is there some faculty of soul which is responsible for movement, or is it the whole soul which is responsible? and 2) If
some faculty is responsible is it a) separate either in number or in
de nition from other parts? and b) if it is separate, is it distinct from the
parts of the soul already distinguished? (III 9 432a18-22).9 At III 10
433a21 and again at 433b10-11, Aristotle announces by way of answers
to these questions that the faculty of desire (rather than the whole soul)
produces movement. This is because there is no movement without
desire and (since one might object that neither is there movement without some faculty of judgment or intellect, however primitive) because
desire provides the source of the movement for reason, in providing the
object of desire (433a18-20). One might ask many questions about this passage.10 I shall focus on one strand of Aristotles motivation for claiming

Aristotle tells us that the politician needs to know about the soul in the same
way that the ophthalmologist needs to know about the whole body. The analogy is
that the eyes are to the body as virtue is to the soul (1102a17-21) .
9
Some movements are brought about by the nutritive faculty (432b8-11) but it is
not these that are of interest so much as instances of locomotion, which include the
actions on which we rely for moral assessments.
10
Hamlyn complains that Aristotle is arguing . . . on the dubious grounds that there
has in the end to be just one cause (D. W. Hamlyn, Aristotles De Anima Books II
and III (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 151). No doubt Aristotles motivation is in part to
give an account of the origin of movement that will hold equally well for non-rational
animal movements and human movements.

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that desire alone is the source of movement, which concerns the usefulness or accuracy of a division of the soul into rational and irrational parts.
When the question about the source of movement is rst posed, Aristotle begins with a criticism of the division of the soul into the rational
and irrational. This criticism seems to be aimed in the rst instance at the
Platonic division of the soul into reason, emotion and appetite, but it bears
on any division of the soul into a rational and an irrational part, including, then, Aristotles own division as we nd it in the EN and the Politics.
The main point of the criticism is that there are soul faculties which do
not t easily into the rational/irrational split which seem, that is, to share
somehow in reason, but not to have a rational principle. That there is (at
least one) faculty which somehow shares in reason without having a
rational principle is, as we have seen, a claim common to the EN and the
Politics, but in those works Aristotle treats it as unproblematic. Here in
the de Anima, however, he is no longer satis ed to say that in order to
count as a rational faculty a part of the soul must have within itself the
principle of reason, apparently because he no longer thinks it is obvious
in all cases which parts do indeed have such principles.11
The objection to the division of the soul into rational and irrational parts
has three components.12 The third, which concerns us here, is that there
are (as we have seen) both rational and irrational desires. Aristotle clearly
believes that were one to commit oneself to a division of the soul into
rational and irrational parts, one would have to account for the difference
between rational and irrational desires in terms of the rationality or irrationality of the faculty that is the source of these desires (432b 3-7). On
such a view, deliberative reason (the rational part, of course) would generate wishes, but the irrational part of the soul, including the faculties
responsible for emotion and appetite, would generate emotions and appetites.
If, on the other hand, all desires are generated by a single faculty, as
Aristotle argues, then that faculty can in itself be neither rational nor irrational, given that some desires will be rational and some irrational.13
11
Notice that a rejection of the division of the soul into a rational and an irrational
part does not tell against a distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. So long
as Aristotle maintains that there are faculties of 1) deliberation 2) scienti c thought
and 3) desire, he can maintain the distinctions he wants between kinds of virtue.
12
The rst is obscure. The second is that imagination, in particular, is a faculty
that can be classi ed neither as rational nor as irrational (perhaps because it is not
clear whether it has within it a rational principle).
13
In discussing the passage at EN 1139a21-31, where Aristotle describes choice as
a deliberate desire, Sarah Broadie suggests that wishes must be generated or produced
by reason itself, since Aristotle is not positing a logos as an assertion of fact and the

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Now, if all desires are generated by a single faculty which is neither rational nor irrational, then desires as a result are intrinsically neither rational
nor irrational. And if desires are not rational or irrational because the faculty which generates them is rational or irrational, then Aristotle needs to
provide some other way of distinguishing rational from irrational desires.
My suggestion is that he does this in offering the account that we have
already considered the account in the EN, the Rhetoric and the de Anima
of rational desires as desires for the good, as determined by phron sis.
And, again, if rational desires are rational insofar as their objects are good
as determined by deliberative reason, then we can make better sense of
Aristotles assertion that desire must be in accord with reason.
2. How Aristotle distinguishes the moral from the intellectual virtues
Aristotles account of the division of the soul, together with his claim that
all desires are produced by a single faculty, supports the view that desire
and deliberation as elements of choice must be different. And if desire and
deliberation are different because they are produced by different faculties,
then the virtues of those different faculties the moral virtues and the
intellectual virtues including phron sis are different. So the account of
the division of the soul according to which desire is a single faculty supports one part of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues over that of
evaluative aspect of choice as the function of a separate noncognitive faculty of desire
or feeling (Sarah Broadie, Ethics With Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1991), 213). She argues that Aristotle cannot hold a theory that parcels out thought
and motivation between separate faculties because he holds (1) that desires pursuit
of its object is equivalent to af rmation in the sphere of thought and (2) that in rational choice what is af rmed and what is pursued are the same (216). As a result Aristotles
statement that thought must af rm the same as what desire pursues is simply a way
of saying that these are the same act (217). Broadie allows that identity sits ill with
Aristotles remark that thought and desire must agree (1139a29-31), but dismisses this
objection with the claim that while we must think of choice as a composite of desire
and thought, choice itself is a natural unity. She is led then to acknowledge that at
this point Aristotles division of the soul no longer makes sense except as a reminder
that the same thing can be viewed from different perspectives (218). I think that
Aristotle does parcel out motivation between separate faculties, for reasons that I will
consider in the next section; but I agree with Broadie that Aristotles account of choice
as combining desire and reasoned judgment calls into question the division of the soul
into rational and non-rational faculties. Aristotle himself attempts to address this in
the de Anima, by abandoning the rigid classi cation of soul faculties as rational or
non-rational, while preserving the division of soul into faculties.

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the unity of the virtues, by supporting the view that the desiderative and
deliberative elements of a choice must be genuinely different.
Why does Aristotle assert that different kinds of desires are generated
by the same faculty? I am suggesting that he is motivated in part by a commitment to the reciprocity of phron sis and the moral virtues, which
requires that the desire and the deliberation that result in choice should
not occur in the same faculty. That is, desires must be generated by one
faculty, distinct from the faculty of reason, in order that the element of
desire and the element of reason in a choice might be genuinely different.
If, as the thesis of the unity of the virtues the thesis that Aristotle rejects
in favour of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues would seem to
require, different kinds of desire were generated by different faculties, then
rational desires would be generated by reason, and the deliberation and
desire that combine in choice and lead to movement (action) would occur
in the same faculty of the soul.
Moreover, as we have seen, the divisions within the soul as described
in the EN and the Politics have as their context a discussion of the virtues,
and indeed immediately precede discussions of the distinction between the
moral and the intellectual virtues. Aristotle in both cases distinguishes the
part of the soul that has a rational principle, part of which is deliberative,
from the part that can obey the rational principle, in order to claim a foundation for a distinction between moral and practical intellectual virtues.14
If there are different faculties involved in choice, then there must be different virtues involved, so phron sis and the moral virtues must be genuinely different. This of course is a rejection of the thesis of the unity of
the virtues. By the same token, if desire as a faculty is the sole source of
movement, but requires the involvement of the faculty of deliberation in
cases where the movement is produced by a choice, then desire, even
when it produces rational desires, is genuinely different from any intellectual faculty.
The account of the divisions in the soul and the role of the faculty of
desire as the source of movement make clear not only why phron sis and
the moral virtues are genuinely different, but also why phron sis is necessary for the moral virtues and the moral virtues for phron sis another
14
The division of virtues is more detailed than this. The practical intellectual virtues
include, on the one hand, those which have to do with judgment and deliberation,
and, on the other, those which have to do with commanding. So, phron sis, as epitaktik , deliberates or judges and commands, while sunesis and gnm , as kritikai, only
deliberate or judge (1143a8-10, 28-31).

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part of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues. Aristotle cites desire as
the sole source of movement, and hence of action. The way in which he
explains this, and accommodates the view that practical reasoning or deliberation is at least sometimes involved in the production of movements,
makes clear that desire can be the sole source of movement only because
of the relation it has to practical reason, when practical reason is involved.
That is, desire in determining the object of desire also determines the
object and the terms of deliberation. So right desire is necessary for phron sis, because right desire establishes the correct object of deliberation.
And phron sis is necessary for right desire because without phron sis one
could not distinguish between desires for the good and other desires.
Aristotles reasoning seems to be: there must be one faculty that is the
source of movement.15 This faculty will have to bridge somehow the distinction between the rational and irrational, because the source of some
movements will have to be both some judgment and some desire. The faculty of desire is then a likely source of movement, both because it can
supply the motive for movement and because it is neither rational nor irrational. A rational desire counts as such only because it is in accordance
with phron sis; so while there is no movement without desire, there are
also no desires for the good without phron sis and hence without practical reason. When we consider that for the faculty of desire to produce a
rational desire is for it to produce a desire in accordance with practical
reason, and that practical reason is provided with its object by the faculty
of desire, then we can agree that rational desires and phron sis are mutually necessary.
More evidence for the importance of Aristotles division of the soul to
the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues is provided by the passage at
EN VI 13 1144b 17-30. Paula Gottlieb has argued that by dividing the
soul Aristotle is better able to unite the virtues than is Socrates, who unites
the virtues only by con ating moral and intellectual virtues.16 Gottliebs
argument is particularly persuasive insofar as it deals with the reciprocity
of phron sis and the moral virtues, rather than the reciprocity of the moral
virtues. This part of her argument rests on an interpretation of the dis-

15
Aristotles reason for claiming that there must be one faculty which is the source
of movement is obscure: he says . . . for if two [faculties] moved [the animal], thought
and desire, they would move it according to some common form (de Anima III 10
433a21-2).
16
Aristotle on Dividing the Soul and Uniting the Virtues, Phronesis, XXXIX,
No. 3 (1994), 275-90.

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tinction between acting met to ryou lgou and acting kat tn ryon
lgon, according to which when an agent acts met to ryou lgou she
is acting with reason and motivation fully integrated. Phron sis in fact
requires this integration of parts of the soul, according to Gottlieb. And if
desire is the sole source of movement, and desire is a genuinely different
faculty from the faculty of deliberation, and yet virtuous action requires
that the desire be met to ryou lgou, then deliberation and desire will
have to inform one another.17
3. How Aristotle can distinguish one moral virtue from another
It is clear then (i) that any moral virtue will have to involve phron sis,
and that phron sis will require moral virtue, since it will require the
desiderative element of choice, and (ii) that phron sis and the moral
virtues are different hexeis, because they are hexeis that belong to different faculties of the soul. And because phron sis requires moral virtue
because practical reason requires desires for the good but is not the same
hexis as moral virtue, we can understand why phron sis and moral virtue
are reciprocally necessary but not identical. Must then the moral virtues
also be different hexeis in the same sense that phron sis and moral virtue
are different hexeis in order to make sense of the reciprocity of virtues?
We can begin to answer this by asking how Aristotle individuates
moral virtues.18 The simplest answer is: according to the actions and
feelings produced by a virtue (this is what the discussion of the different
moral virtues in EN II 7 suggests). But which aspect of an action or a
feeling makes it one which manifests courage rather than justice? Clearly
17
Gottlieb links the reciprocity of phron sis and the moral virtues to the reciprocity of the moral virtues: It is precisely because of the connection between rational
and non-rational parts of the soul that a vice in any one area may undermine an
Aristotelian virtue in any other (288). This explains why if one has one of the moral
virtues, one must have them all (because to fail to have one is to have the corresponding vice, and vice in any sphere will undermine virtue in any other sphere). What
remains to be explained is whether the moral virtues are distinct one from another in
the same way that phron sis is distinct from the moral virtues.
18
Richard Kraut, discussing the dif culty of distinguishing large-scale from smallscale virtues, says that we do not know much about how Aristotle intended to individuate virtues. See Kraut, Comments on Disunity in the Aristotelian Virtues by
T. H. Irwin, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, ed. Julia Annas, Supp. Vol. 1988.
I think we know something about this, as I will go on to show, but that the means of
individuation Aristotle offers us suggest that he himself was not committed to making
the distinctions on every occasion.

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phron sis cannot help to individuate virtues, since phron sis is what all
the moral virtues share. So if the moral virtues are genuinely different, it
will have to be because there is something about the desiderative element
of one virtue that distinguishes it from all other virtues. Since Aristotle
has distinguished the most general kinds of desire in the discussions of
EN III 2, Rhetoric I 10 and de Anima I 3 according to the objects of
desires, and since, more generally, he distinguishes faculties of the soul
according to their objects, it seems likely that one kind of desire will differ from another with respect to its object. Now, all desires that enter into
virtuous choices and actions will be wishes or rational desires, that is, they
will be desires for the good. A desire is a desire for the good because it
is not a desire for something intrinsically bad, and because the circumstances in which it occurs make it good.19 There will then be nothing about
the object of the desire as such which will make it a desire for the good,
but rather something about the circumstances in which the agent producing the desire nds himself which will make the desire for that object, or
that kind of object, a desire for the good. As we have seen, desires are
not rational or irrational hence not desires for the good or something
else in virtue of the faculty that produces them but in virtue of their relation to phron sis, and more generally to the good. A desire, say, to give
money away or to ght may or may not be a rational desire, a desire for
the good.
Now, if we describe the desires which the morally virtuous person must
have simply as desires for the good, we cannot individuate the moral
virtues. Under the general description desires for the good we cannot of
course distinguish one kind of rational desire from another. That is, insofar as the desire that enters into just choices is a desire for the good, it
differs not at all from the desire that enters into generous or courageous
choices. But moral virtues, while they will all be desires for the good, will
be desires for different kinds of goods. Desires for different kinds of goods
will be such that the differences between the kinds will have to be characterized not only in terms of the objects, but also in terms of the circumstances in which the desires occur, just as desires for the good must
be distinguished from desires for, say, the pleasant, not only in terms of
their objects but also in terms of their circumstances.
19

Of course, there are desires which could be desires for the good under no circumstance spite, shamelessness, envy are all emotions (pyh) which Aristotle claims
are always base because there can be no mean between extremes in such cases (1107a
8-11). And if there is no mean in such cases, then the desires to which such emotions
give rise cannot be desires for the good.

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Aristotle characterizes the desires that enter into the moral virtues neither as generally as, desires for the good nor as particularly as desires
to do X, but rather as desires for the good that have to do with money
(or anger, or honour), judging from his articulation of the various moral
virtues at EN II 3 1107a33-1108a 31. This still will not be adequate to
individuate the desires and thereby the virtues. The area of money, for
example, is particularly dif cult. Suppose that we accept that a coarsegrained reading of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues is right that
is, that if one has one virtue in some area one will have all the virtues in
some area (so one will have generosity if not magni cence).20 It will still
be the case that desires for the good that have to do with money might be
the desires of what Aristotle will call a generous action, or a magni cent
action or even a just action. In order to make more ne-grained distinctions
among virtues Aristotle will have to appeal to the external circumstances
in which the desires occur. So desires that correspond to the judgments of
phron sis and have to do with the distribution of goods that are the spoils
of war to the citizens will be just desires, but desires that correspond to
the judgments of phron sis and have to do with the distribution of goods
that are the property of the agent will be generous desires.
My suggestion, then, is that Aristotle will have to try to individuate the
moral virtues by distinguishing the kind of desire that enters into a decision that expresses one moral virtue from the kind of desire that enters
into a decision expressing any other moral virtue. He will have to do this
by appealing rst of all to the object of desire, which will be some kind
of action, and then to the circumstances in which that action is an object
of desire.
Notice that one can individuate the moral virtues in this way without
claiming that the moral virtues are numerically different hexeis. That is,
if Aristotle individuates the moral virtues by appeal to the object of desire
and the circumstances in which it is an object of desire, he need not think
that the dispositions that are moral virtues are numerically different dispositions. That he does not indeed think this is evident if we consider the
contrast between the difference between one moral virtue and another, on
the one hand, and the difference between moral virtues and phron sis on
the other. As we have seen, Aristotle maintains that phron sis and moral
virtue are hexeis that belong to different faculties. By contrast, I shall
20

Richard Kraut draws this distinction between a ne-grained and a coarse-grained

reading of the all in Aristotles claim that if one has phron sis one will have all the
virtues (80).

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argue, he considers the moral virtues to be numerically one hexis, although

different in being.
The textual evidence for this is largely negative. When Aristotle speaks
of a distinction between virtues, he means the distinction between intellectual and moral virtues, and not the distinctions among the moral virtues.
So, for example, at EN I 13 1103a3-7 Aristotle says that virtue is divided
(diorzetai) according to the distinction between the part of the soul that
has reason, and the part that can obey reason. That is, some virtues are
intellectual (tw mn dianohtikw) and some are moral (tw d yikw). And
at EE II 1 1220a5, he says that there are two forms (edh) of virtue, the
one moral and the other intellectual.21 The talk of dividing and of different forms does not appear in any discussion of the moral virtues. So that
while Aristotle does speak of moral virtues in the plural (as a jeiw at,
for example, EN II 1 1103b23), the sense in which the moral virtues are
different seems less strong than the sense in which the moral virtues are
different from the intellectual virtues. Con rmation of this comes from
Aristotles frequent treatment of the moral virtues as a unity as well as a
multiplicity. So, for example, at EN 1103b27 he insists that the point of
the inquiry is not to know what virtue (in the singular) is, but to become
good, and then goes on immediately to speak of moral virtues in the plural
as tw jeiw (at 1103b31).
I do not take this to be suf cient evidence for the claim that the moral
virtues are distinguished from one another differently, and less rigorously,
than are the moral virtues from the intellectual virtues. The argument that
the moral virtues are numerically one jiw depends on the claim Aristotle
makes at EN VI 8 1141b23-4 that the political art is the same jiw as
phron sis, although they are not the same in being (t mntoi enai o
tatn ataw). I want to establish a connection between this claim and
certain passages in the logical works and the Metaphysics that discuss
numerical identity and what has come to be called accidental sameness,
in order to make clearer what I take to be Aristotles understanding of the
relation among the moral virtues the sense in which they are the same
and the sense in which they are different.22 It is not so much the onto-

21
See also EN II 1 1103a14-15: Since then virtue is twofold (dittw), one sort
intellectual and one moral . . .
22
I take it that accidental unities are what Gareth Matthews, and many following
him, have called kooky objects and not simply different descriptions of non-kooky
objects. See Gareth B. Matthews, Accidental Unities, in Malcolm Scho eld and Martha
Craven Nussbaum, eds. Language and Logos: Studies in ancient Greek philosophy

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logical status of the unities that Aristotle calls numerically one but not the
same in being that concerns me here, as the usefulness of construing certain intellectual virtues as constituting such unities, and the appropriateness of construing the moral virtues, by analogy, to constitute unities of
the same kind.
In what follows I shall try to show that the moral virtues are a numerical unity, although different from one another in an important sense. The
argument for this has two parts. First, I shall establish what it means to
say that phron sis and politik are one hexis but different in being.23
Second, I shall argue that we ought to understand the relation among the
moral virtues to be like the relation between phron sis and politik .
The claim that the political art is the same jiw as phron sis, although
they are not the same in being, has generally been interpreted without particular attention to the logic of sameness.24 But an examination of what it
means for two or more virtues to be different in being although numerically a single hexis is useful in considering the relation among the moral
presented to G. E. L. Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 223-240.
The unities formed by substances and properties would then also be kooky objects of
a sort.
23
Burnet thinks this means that the political art is an application of phron sis,
just as is the art of running a household. See also the discussion at Politics III 4 concerning the relation between the good person and the good citizen. Eudemus, according to Grant (he means the author of the Eudemian Ethics), treats politik not as a
division of the sciences, but as a state of the mind and a mode of phron sis (A. Grant,
The Ethics of Aristotle, Volume II (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1885), 168). I
take it that calling politik a mode of phron sis is like calling it an application. These
interpretations are consistent with understanding Aristotle to be distinguishing between
one thing which is numerically one, and that same thing which is two with respect to
essence, but they seem to t less well with what Aristotle says about the sameness of
phronetik and politik in EN VI 8.
24
See, for example, Marie-Christine Bataillard, Thal s, P ricl s et les poissons
(thique Nicomaque, VI, 6-9), in La V rit Pratique: Aristote thique Nicomaque,
Livre VI, textes r unis par Jean-Yves Chateau (Paris: Vrin, 1997), 87-115 (97). See
also Enrico Berti, Phron sis et science politique, in Aristote Politique: tudes sur
la Politique dAristote, sous la direction de Pierre Aubenque, publi es par Alonso
Tordesillas (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), 435-459. Interpreting the
passage, Berti says . . . elles [ politik and phron sis] sont identiques du point de vue
de la disposition subjective, cest--dire quelles sont le m me tat dme, mais diff rent du point de vue de leurs objets, cest--dire quelles ont des objets diff rents et,
par cons quent, une d nition diff rente . . . On peut conclure, par cons quent, que la
phrn sis et la politique sont la m me vertu . . . (p. 451). Neither Bataillard nor Berti
make any mention of the parallel passages I mention below which claim that certain
items are the same but different in being.

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virtues. Some argue that the distinction between politik and phron sis is
not a distinction between two virtues, one more general and one more
speci c, but an expression of the difference in the application of a single
virtue according to the domain in which it is exercised.25 I want to support this understanding by appealing to certain logical considerations.
Passages at which Aristotle makes the same claim about other things
suggest that he means that the state of phron sis and the state of political art are one in number but different in what they are that they are one
and the same but not identical. At Topics V 4 133b31-6 Aristotle says,
for example, For constructive purposes, however, you should say that the
subject of an accident is not different without quali cation from the accident taken along with its subject; although it is called another thing
because what it is to be them is different; for it is not the same thing for
a man to be a man and for a pale man to be a pale man. 26 The point is
that a man and that same man taken with his pallor are not numerically
two things, but one, although what it is to be a man in an unquali ed
sense and what it is to be a man quali ed by pallor are different. The
same point is made at de Caelo IV 4 312a16-21, speaking of the matter
of that which is heavy and light: as potentially possessing the one character, it is matter for the heavy, and as potentially possessing the other,
for the light. It is the same matter, but its being is different, as that which
is receptive of disease is the same as that which is receptive of health,
though in being different from it, and therefore diseasedness is different
from healthiness. In this passage what is the same is what underlies, and
what is different are the quali cations of what underlies. At de Memoria
1 450b21-3 the point is reiterated. A picture painted on a panel is at once
a picture and a likeness: that is, while one and the same, it is both of
these, although the being of both is not the same, and one may contemplate it either as a picture, or as a likeness. Again, the picture and the
likeness are numerically the same, but not the same in what they are. So,
when Aristotle says that the political art and phron sis are the same state
but different in being, we can presume that he means the state is numerically one and the same, but not one in what it is and hence that the political art and phron sis although they are the same are not identical.

25
See, for example, Bataillard, who claims that the distinction between politik and
phronetik is not a distinction between two virtues, one more general and one more
speci c but an expression of the difference in the application of a single virtue (see
above, note 24).
26
See also Metaphysics VII 4 1029b21-1030a6 .

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If we consider certain passages in the Metaphysics and the logical

works (especially Topics, at I 7 103a23-32 and I 5 102a17-24), in which
Aristotle discusses numerical oneness and properties, we see that Aristotle
takes certain kinds of numerical unities to be the same although not the
same in being, in just the same way that he says phron sis and the political art are the same and yet not the same in being.27 There is evidence
that we should understand the relation between phron sis and politik to
be an instance of the kind of numerical unity that holds between something quali ed by one property and that same thing quali ed by another
property. This will explain why Aristotle believes both that the practical
intellectual virtues on the one hand and the moral virtues on the other are
distinct and that they are reciprocally necessary.
At Topics 103a23-32 Aristotle distinguishes three ways in which something can be numerically one. The primary way in which something can be
numerically one is that in which two things are numerically one because
they have the same de nition (e.g. cloak and doublet are numerically one
in this sense). The second way is that in which something and that same
thing under a description of it in terms of some property unique to it are
numerically one (so re and what naturally travels upward are numerically one). The third sense of numerical unity is that in which a thing and
that same thing described in terms of an accident are numerically one (e.g.
the creature who is sitting is the same as Socrates in this sense).
This third sense of numerical unity is often called accidental unity. The
account of accidental unity is re ned in two other passages. At de

27

These passages in which Aristotle discusses what it is to be numerically one but

different in being have been examined most often recently as evidence of a doctrine
of accidental predication, accidental being, accidental unity and accidental sameness.
Commentators have been particularly concerned with determining whether Aristotle is
(and if he is, whether he should be) making claims about the nature of reality or the
structure of language; and concerned with the philosophical uses to which the doctrine
might be put for example, to resolve dif culties about knowledge and belief, or about
time and change. See Nicholas P. White, Aristotle on Sameness and Oneness, The
Philosophical Review LXXX (April, 1971), 177-197 and Identity, Modal Individuation, and Matter in Aristotle, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XI (1986), 475-494;
Alan Code, Aristotles Response to Quines Objections to Modal Logic, Journal of
Philosophical Logic 5 (1976), 159-86; Gareth B. Matthews, Accidental Unities, in
Malcolm Scho eld and Martha Craven Nussbaum, eds. Language and Logos: Studies
in ancient Greek philosophy presented to G. E. L. Owen, 223-240; C. J. F. Williams,
Aristotles Theory of Descriptions, The Philosophical Review, XCIV, No. 1 (January
1985) 63-80; Frank A. Lewis, Substance and Predication in Aristotle (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), especially 85-140.

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Interpretatione 11 21a7-19 Aristotle distinguishes the relation between

accidents and the substances they qualify, on the one hand, and accidents
that qualify the same substance, on the other. Of things predicated, and
things they get predicated of, those which are said accidentally, either of
the same thing or of one another, will not be one. The point here concerns identity: in the case of a man who is both musical and white, the
musical and the white are not identical, because they belong only accidentally to the same thing. Similarly, the cobbler who is good without
quali cation is not identical with his goodness, because it belongs accidentally to him. (By contrast, a two-footed animal and its two-footedness
are identical, assuming that two-footedness is an essential feature, because
the two-footedness does not belong accidentally to the animal.) At
Metaphysics V 6 1015b16-34 Aristotle makes explicit that the cases described
in the de Interpretatione passage are cases of the accidentally one.
Aristotle again here distinguishes between cases where the accidental unity
is a substance and an accident qualifying that substance (e.g. Coriscus and
musical), and cases where the accidental unity is constituted by two accidents of one substance (e.g. just and musical). These examples make clear
that two things are accidentally one, but not identical, when they are either
(i) a substance and some accident of that substance or (ii) two accidents
which belong to the same substance.
This re nement on the concept of numerical unities constituted by accidents should also apply to the case of numerical unities constituted by
properties, the second sense of numerical unity described in the passage
at Topics 103a23-32. That is, just as substance+accident and substance
constitute one kind of accidental unity and accident+substance and accident+same substance constitute another kind, so too property+substance
and property will constitute one kind of numerical unity and property+substance and property+same substance will constitute another kind.
With this analysis of the ways in which something can be numerically
one, we can ask in which of these senses politik and phron sis are numerically one. Two things which have the same de nition are of course the
same in being, so phron sis and politik cannot be numerically one in the
rst sense which would require that they were also one in being. Are these
virtues then numerically one because they are related as substance to property (or two properties to the same substance) or because they are related
as substance to accident (or two accidents to the same property)? Both the
second and the third sense of numerical unity are cases where the elements
of the unity are not the same in being. In the case of numerical unities
that are accidental unities, Aristotle tells us that a substance quali ed by

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an accident is different in being from that same substance unquali ed

(Meta. VII 4 1029b16-18) . In the case of numerical unities constituted by
a substance and its properties, the evidence that the elements of such unities are not the same in being is at Topics I 5 102a17-19, where Aristotle
de nes a property as something which does not indicate the essence of a
thing but belongs to that thing alone, and is predicated convertibly of it
(for example, a property of persons is possessing knowledge of grammar).
Since it must not state the essence of the substance it quali es, it must
also be different in being from that substance; what it is to be a person
and what it is to possess knowledge of grammar are different, although
everything that is a person will possess knowledge of grammar and everything that possesses knowledge of grammar will be a person.28
My suggestion is that Aristotle believes both in the case of phron sis
and politik and in the case of the moral virtues that there is an underlying jiw, a disposition in the rst case to see what is true, and in the second case to want what is good. In both cases there is a single hexis
modi ed by different properties, so that particular properties individuate
the various virtues. The advantages of such an interpretation are, rst, that
it allows us to make sense of the claim that certain virtues are one in number but different in being, and, second, that it allows us to understand why
Aristotle believes that the moral virtues are reciprocally necessary, on logical grounds. On my understanding, then, phron sis is to politik as one
property+substance is to another property+same substance. This requires
that a hexis, which of course is not a substance, can be logically equivalent to a substance, in the sense that it can be quali ed by properties, and
can be what underlies those properties. It also requires that there be some
unquali ed hexis which Aristotle might recognize as the hexis which
underlies (at least) two properties, where the hexis and those properties
constitute phron sis on the one hand and politik on the other.
The evidence that phron sis and politik form this kind of unity is in
EN VI 8. We have already considered the claim that politik and phron sis are the same hexis, although not the same in being. One implication
of this claim is that each of these virtues is, on Aristotles view, a hexis
quali ed in a certain way, namely by a property rather than an accident.
That is, if politik and phron sis are a hexis, then they are not a property
At Metaphysics VI 2 1026b15-18 Aristotle treats knowledge of grammar as an
accident (along with musical) rather than as a property; this instance is anomalous. I
hope to show that there are signi cant logical differences between accidental unities
and the unities constituted by a substance and its properties.
28

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MARGUERITE DESLAURIERS

of a hexis. So the kind of numerical unity that phron sis and politik form
is of the form: Substance+property and same substance+property. Why think
that phron sis and politik are one hexis quali ed in different ways by
properties rather than accidents? If Aristotle understood politik and
phron sis to be the same hexis differently quali ed by accidents, we would
not expect him to argue that to have the one is to have the other: if
phron sis and politik were analogous to Coriscus quali ed as musical
and Coriscus quali ed as just there would be no reason to expect this reciprocity. Yet at VI 8 Aristotle does argue that to have phron sis is to have
politik . And the logic of the relation of properties to substances is such
that because each property is predicated convertibly of the substance to
which it belongs, each property belongs necessarily and not accidentally
to that substance. So if there is a hexis to which belongs some property
such that the hexis quali ed by that property constitutes politik , and to
that same hexis belongs another property such that the hexis quali ed by
that property constitutes phron sis, then both the quali cation that makes
for phron sis and the quali cation which makes for politik will belong
necessarily to the hexis in question. The important implication is that if
the hexis has one of these properties it will necessarily have the other; and
that means that if one has the quali ed hexis that is politik one will also
have the quali ed hexis that is phron sis.
Consider now a few passages which offer some evidence that Aristotle
understands the relation among the moral virtues (and not just the relation
between phron sis and politik ) to be that of the elements of a numerical
unity differentiated by certain properties. The similarity between passages
in which Aristotle speaks of politik and phron sis as the same virtue
(quali ed or unquali ed) and passages in which he speaks of justice and
moral virtue tout court as the same virtue (quali ed and unquali ed), is
some evidence that Aristotle not only might have thought of the relation
among the moral virtues on the model of the relation between phronetik
and phron sis, but actually did think of the relation among the moral
virtues on that model.
To begin with the passages concerning the intellectual virtues, at EE I
8 1218b 13-16 Aristotle says The political art, the art of household management and phron sis are the same. For these states differ with respect
to all other states by being such [i.e. by being concerned with the end of
human conduct]. Whether they differ from one another, we will discuss
later. At EN VI 8 Aristotle seems to undertake the promised discussion.
At 1141b29-33 he suggests that there is a contrast between phron sis
concerned with the individual himself ( peri atn ka na) and general
phron sis, which Aristotle implies is often identi ed with the phron sis

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concerned with the individual, but which in fact includes the political art
(itself divided into the judicial and the deliberative), the legislative art,
and the art of running a household.29 This passage then establishes a distinction between an intellectual virtue unquali ed ( phron sis as such,
which can be applied in many ways) and that same intellectual virtue
quali ed in a particular way (as it is applied to the self ). The aim of the
passage is to identify the various parts of phron sis and politik and to
clarify the terms used commonly to identify those parts; this clari cation
is intended more generally to contribute to the account of phron sis as a
virtue distinct from other intellectual virtues. What is important is the suggestion that phron sis and politik are the same state (a certain kind of
ability or disposition) and yet in some important sense different (because
the objects of their concern are different).
I turn now to the passage concering moral virtues where we nd the
same kind of distinction, and relation, between a virtue considered without quali cation, or generally, and the same virtue considered in a particular application. It occurs in the discussion of justice. At EN V 3
1130a12-13, after identifying general justice with complete virtue, Aristotle
has said At the same time our discussion makes clear the difference between
virtue and this type of justice. For virtue is the same as justice, but what
it is to be virtue is not the same as what it is to be justice. Rather, in so
far as virtue is related to another (prw teron), it is justice, and in so far
as it is a certain sort of state unconditionally (toide jiw plw) it is virtue.30
The contrast here is between what relates to another, and what is simple

Phron sis is used then both as a general term to indicate an art which includes
state management and household management, along with self-management, and also
to indicate self-management as opposed to state or household management. At the
same time state-management ( politik ) is used both (i) at 1141b24-6 as a general term
to include both legislative science (nomoyetik which is rxitektonik and concerned
with universals) and political science (the part of state management concerned with
particulars rather than universals), which Aristotle likens to the part of phron sis concerned with the individual self (1141b30), and (ii) at 1141b31-3 to indicate political
science (which itself includes an executive or deliberative function bouleutik and
a judicial function dikastik) as opposed to legislative science or household management. See Grant, 169.
30
Joachim says We now learn that the intellectual virtue which they [phron sis
and politik ? justice as a whole and virtue as a whole?] involve is one and the same.
Political genius is moral genius in its fullest sphere of exercise. Moral genius, even if
concerned with the happiness of a family of private life implies as its basis the
qualities which create and plan the happiness of a whole pliw. Aristotle: The
Nicomachean Ethics, a Commentary by H. H. Joachim, ed. D. A. Rees (Oxford: Clarendon,
1955), 214.
29

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or unconditional, i.e. unquali ed by related to another. Notice that the

claim is that virtue (generally) and justice are numerically the same state;
that must be what it means to say that virtue is the same as justice. At
the same time, what it is to be virtue is not what it is to be justice, because
justice is a particular application of virtue, an application of virtue relative to another. The passage is most signi cant for my purposes because
it makes clear that Aristotle thinks that at least some moral virtues, and
not only some intellectual virtues, are the same in one sense (to have one
is to have the other, because they are the same hexis) and different in
another (different in what it is to be one or the other, because one is an
application of the other). My suggestion is that Aristotle thinks more generally that moral virtue is one hexis in number, but many in being, in the
sense that each individual virtue is the same underlying hexis quali ed by
some property. The underlying hexis will be a disposition to desire the
good, and the properties will be the different ways in which that desire
manifests itself, the different ways in which, as we have seen, Aristotle is
accustomed to individuate the virtues.
The contrasts in the passage at V 3 1130a12-13 and the passage at VI
8 1141b30 are not exactly parallel, since one indicates a contrast between
unquali ed virtue and virtue quali ed by its concern for others, where the
other indicates a contrast between unquali ed virtue and virtue quali ed
by its concern for the self. Nonetheless, both passages suggest more generally that the contrast is one between a state considered without respect
to any particular exercise of that state, and a state considered with respect
to some particular circumstance or object.31 If the jiw of politik and phron sis is the same in number but different in what politik is and what phron sis is, then to have one will be to have the other, although not necessarily to exercise the other. That is, politik and phron sis will not be two
parts of virtue, but the same part exercised in different circumstances, with
respect to different objects. And the context of VI 8 gives us some explanation of the inseparability of phron sis and politik (as well as
oikonomik ). Perhaps, however, the well-being of the self [does] not [occur]
without household management and politics (1142a9-10). Aristotle goes
on to say that the reason that the young can acquire a knowledge of mathematics but not acquire phron sis is that the young do not have experience
which gives us knowledge of particulars, and phron sis is concerned with
31
The alternative would seem to be that both passages suggest a contrast between
virtue in all its parts, and virtue in some one part. That seems less likely, given that
the claim is that the two items contrasted are the same jiw.

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particulars (1142a14-16). The point seems to be that an acquaintance with

particulars will bring with it phron sis, which can then be used in different circumstances in political contexts this will be the political art, in the
context of the household it will be the art of household management.32
Politik and phron sis are of course intellectual virtues, but the relation
between them suggests a model for the relation of moral virtues to one
another, a model which I am suggesting we nd con rmed in the claim
about virtue and justice. In the same way that certain intellectual virtues
are one, the moral virtues are the same jiw, not numerically different
states, but different in practice, or in how the virtue manifests itself. The
passage at EN V 3 is evidence that this is how Aristotle understands the
different moral virtues to be related: there is a hexis, call it moral virtue
tout court, and that hexis is quali ed in certain ways (by, I have argued,
certain properties), where the quali cations together with the hexis constitute the different moral virtues (for example, justice). This would allow
Aristotle to maintain the reciprocity of the virtues, of course, since the
possession of one would entail the possession of the others. It would not
commit him to any systematic individuation of the virtues apart from the
contexts or circumstances in which those virtues were manifested. If this
is right, then the account of the reciprocity of phron sis with the moral
virtues is quite different from the account of the reciprocity of the moral
virtues, since the former relation is one between distinct hexeis of the soul
and the latter relation is one within the same hexis.
I have been arguing that Aristotle distinguishes moral from intellectual
virtues in one way, as two different hexeis, and that he distinguishes the
individual moral virtues differently, as the same hexis quali ed in different
ways. I have tried to show that Aristotles characterization of the practical
intellectual virtues as a certain hexis (one concerned with truth in a particular way) and the moral virtues as a distinct hexis (one concerned with
right desire) is motivated in part by a conception of virtue according to
which virtue must include some capacity other than reason. Because Aristotle
distinguishes moral from intellectual virtues in one way and the individual moral virtues in another, he has different reasons for believing, on the
32

Does the precise nature of the particulars matter? One might think that the political art could only be acquired through a familiarity with political particulars, and the
art of household management through the particulars bearing on the household. But
Aristotles suggestion here seems to be that particulars of any sort will be useful to
the acquisition of phron sis, which can then be used in different circumstances, and
that no special kind of particulars is necessary for the acquisition of phron sis.

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one hand, that phron sis and the moral virtues are reciprocally necessary,
and, on the other, that the individual moral virtues are reciprocally necessary.
I have appealed to Aristotles conception of numerical unity in a particular
form in order to uncover his reasons in the case of the individual moral
virtues. Of course, to give an account of the logical structure of the relations
among the moral virtues does not exhaustively explain how Aristotle understands those relations; my aim has been to supplement recent accounts of
those relations cast in terms of moral agency and the passions.33
McGill University

33
Again, see Paula Gottlieb (Aristotle on Dividing the Soul and Uniting the
Virtues, Phron sis 1994. Vol. XXXIX, No. 3) and Edward Halper (The Unity of the
Virtues in Aristotle, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. XVII (1999), 115-43).
I read an earlier version of this paper at the University of Ottawa and at the 14th
Annual Spring Conference (Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics and Aristotles
Theory of Intellectual Virtue) of the Department of Philosophy at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, organized by Mark Gifford, and I am grateful to the
audience at Ottawa and to the participants at that conference for their comments. I
wish also to thank Eric Lewis for his philosophical help.