Aristotle for the modern ethicist

Russian Studies in Philosophy

Topoi, 2024

Drawing on Anscombe, in this essay I argue that we should not take Aristotle to be a moral philosopher, nor a virtue ethicist. This is because contemporary virtue ethics has little to do with Aristotelian ethics. While contemporary virtue ethics (or aretaic moral theory, as one may call it) operates on the level of moral and thus categorical norms, Aristotelian ethics-an aretaic life ethics-is primarily concerned with pragmatic norms. The main question for Aristotle is what a good general conduct of life is. The major concern of aretaic moral theory, on the other hand, is to provide a criterion of morally right action and hence to define the concepts of the morally right, the impermissible and moral duty in aretaic terms. This shows that contemporary authors assume a primacy of virtue, while Aristotle assumes a primacy of eudaimonia. I illustrate this distinction by addressing the question of how the virtues benefit their possessor.

This review is forthcoming in the Journal of Moral Philosophy

2015

Aristotle’s complete picture of human flourishing departs problematically from our commonplace conceptions of personal moral goodness when he draws rapid conclusions in Book X concerning the eudaimonic supremacy of theoria; a static comprehension of the timeless order of nature exemplified by the academic philosopher. I develop a sympathetic account of this anxiety as a philosophically legitimate ground of resistance to Aristotle, but go on to make a further case drawing on resources from Aristotle, particularly the relationship between phronesis and theoria and the role of friendship, which I believe can bring about significant if not total allayment of the worry and reconcile us to an Aristotelian approach for the justification of the ethical life

2015

Aristotle’s complete picture of human flourishing departs problematically from our commonplace conceptions of personal moral goodness when he draws rapid conclusions in Book X concerning the eudaimonic supremacy of theoria; a static comprehension of the timeless order of nature exemplified by the academic philosopher. I develop a sympathetic account of this anxiety as a philosophically legitimate ground of resistance to Aristotle, but go on to make a further case drawing on resources from Aristotle, particularly the relationship between phronesis and theoria and the role of friendship, which I believe can bring about significant if not total allayment of the worry and reconcile us to an Aristotelian approach for the justification of the

Aristotle reasonably claims that in order to make right ethical choices, a mind must be trained to competently employ the discourse (lógos) in which ethical questions are posed and discussed. This discourse must include predications of ethical qualities such as good, bad, just, unjust, courageous, cowardly, etc. In this paper we show how Aristotle distinguishes various senses of predication, and uses these distinctions to resolve aporias in ethical discourse. An impoverished form of ethical discourse incapable of predicating qualities is described. In an appendix, the question whether ethical discourse can be divided into specialized roles that work together to reach ethical decisions is raised and discussed.

2021

Abstract: This paper analyzes some influential ideas in virtue ethics. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his work After Virtue, and Elizabeth Anscombe, in his controversial essay “Modern Moral Philosophy”, brought fresh ideas into moral philosophy of their time changing views on contemporary morality. They strongly influenced moral philosophers who then followed their ideas. The two philosophers criticized contemporary moral philosophies such as emotivism, utilitarianism, deontology. Elizabeth Anscombe criticized also the use of the concepts of duty and moral obligation in the absence of God as the context God had no place. For solving the quests of modern morality, both MacIntyre and Anscombe proposed that the only solution was the returning to ancient Aristotelian virtues

Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society, 2006

In recent years, the virtues have made a dramatic reappearance in Anglophone ethics, and it is safe to credit Elizabeth Anscombe with sparking this interest in her 1958 essay, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. In urging a return to Aristotle, Anscombe sets us a task that she does not know how to complete. Her bafflement should set constraints on interpreting the essay. I argue that Anscombe's complaints against neo-Kantianism and social contract were of a piece with her sense that virtue-centred ethics presented serious philosophical challenges. The problem becomes clear when we notice that accounting for just interaction requires that various agents act from a single source. The uniformity cannot rest on an accidental convergence of individuals (hence cannot be built up, person by person). Nor can it be a simple matter of the internalization of social norms. Neo-Aristotelians taking their cue from Anscombe seek that source in our species. But even after we have rejected empiricist accounts of our species, the hard work of explaining how something of virtue belongs to our kind remains to be done.

Parergon, 1989

Aristotelian Ethics before the Nicomachean Ethics: Alternate Sources of Aristotle's Concept of Virtue in the Twelfth Century* I Among the myriad of classicd influences exercised upon the intellecud life of the Latin Middle Ages, perhaps the most pronounced and dramatic impression was left by Aristotle. 1 During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries dmost the entirety of the Aristotelian corpus returned to circulation in the West dter an absence of more than five hundred years. But not all of Aristotle's writings were dforded the same reception. Some of his treatises, like those comprising the Organon, were readily and uncontentiously embraced by the mdnstream of the Christian tradition. 2 Other texts, such as the libri naturales (which may have been construed broadly to include De anima and perhaps the Metaphysics, as well as more strictly naturalistic tracts), were repeatedly condemned and prohibited by ecclesiasticd statute. 3 In short, the reception of Aristotle's philosophicd system by the Western Middle Ages was not uniform and thereby resists An earlier version of the present essay was read at the Ninth Conference of Australian Historians of Medieval and Early Modem Europe, held at the University of Auckland, 24-29 August 1987. 'Dante's judgment that Aristotle was 'maestre di color che sanno' expressed most eloquently the sentiments of the whole medieval period (Inferno, ed. J.D. Sinclair, Oxford, 1961, Canto IV, 1, 131). More recently, P.O Kristeller has explained the unique nature of the Aristotelian contribution in the following terms: 'Aristotle was not studied as a "great book", but as a textbook mat was the starting point for commentaries and questions and supplied a frame of reference for all trained philosophical thinkers even when they ventured to reinterpret him, or to depart from his doctrine, according to their own opinions. The Aristotelianism of the later Middle Ages was characterized not so much by a common system of ideas as by a common source material, a common terminology, a common set of definitions and problems, and a common method of discussing these problems', Renaissance Thought: The Classical, Scholastic and Humanist Strains, New York 1961, 31-32. 2 Aristotle's role at the centre of the discipline of logic during the Middle Ages is examined by M.

Review of the contents of the Proceedings of the Symposium Aristotelicum on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics VII in Venice 2007. Published in Rhizai VIII, 1, pp. 99-109. (2011)