Dr. Thomas Slakey
Ethics According to Aristotle and Kant
Dr. Thomas Slakey was for many years the Dean of St. John's
College, Santa Fe. After graduating from St. Mary's College
in Moraga, California, he studied at Laval University in Quebec,
and obtained his doctorate in philosophy at Cornell University
in 1959. He joined the faculty at St. John's, Santa Fe and
taught there from 1959-1971, returned to St. Mary's from 1971-76,
and then back again to St. John's where he served as Dean.
He retired in 1995 and currently lives in Northern California.
Following is our abridged version of a lecture he gave at
the College on October 8, 1999.
I want to begin with the word ethics itself. The traditional
term used by Plato for ethical inquiry was politics. And this
is the term Aristotle himself first uses to describe such
questions as "What is justice? What is virtue? What is
a good human being?," and so on. However, Aristotle soon
makes a distinction which is found nowhere in Plato, between
two classes of human excellence or virtue, the first called
intellectual (that is, excellences of speculative reason)
and a second class called ethical, (roughly speaking, excellences
of behavior).
Aristotle coined the term ethics to mark this distinction.
He drew this from the root word, ethos, which then had referred
to as what is "typical or customary," as in the
dwelling places of animals or people, or as in the manners
or customs of people. This word has the same force as the
Latin word, mores, from which we get our own word, moral.
But while Aristotle was calling attention to what is customary
or traditional in human societies, and in that sense moral,
he was more concerned with examining what is customary or
characteristic in the life of an individual, specifically,
the distinctive habits of individuals, the dispositions or
states of soul, which lead us to act in typical ways. To inquire
into this characteristic is what he meant by ethical inquiry.
Such an inquiry led him to consider that part of the soul
which involves the appetitive (or desiring) part. This part,
he says, shares in a rational principle to some extent because
our desires are capable of listening to and obeying reason.
But our desires are also distinct from reason because they
are capable of resisting and fighting against it.
In developing the concept of ethical virtue, Aristotle begins
by examining two aspects of human conduct that relate to pleasure
and pain: Temperance (which relates to food, drink and sex)
and Courage (which relates to fear of bodily injury or death).
He next considers the passions and observes that when we are
experiencing a passion we are, so to speak, passive; we undergo
or endure a change that acts on us. This change is something
that occurs partly in our bodies and partly in our souls.
Finally, he considers the concept of hexis, which simply
means, "having something or possessing it," as in
having a habit or state of character. He defines hexis as
the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly in reference
to the emotions. For example, in reference to anger, we stand
badly if we feel anger violently or too weakly, and well,
if we feel it moderately.
Through such an analysis, Aristotle comes to a definition
of virtue, a definition that Plato never reached in the Meno.
Aristotle says that virtue is a state of character or a habit
that makes a person good, that makes a person function well,
and that lies in a mean (literally, a midpoint).
He goes on to say that the midpoint of virtue is not absolute,
but varies with individuals. For example, he notes, in determining
the proper amount of food for an athlete, what is too much
for a runner might be just right for a wrestler.
How then is this midpoint to be determined? By reason, he
says; that is, by looking to how the person having practical
wisdom would determine it. But why mention the midpoint? Why
not simply say that right human action is determined by reason,
as the person having practical wisdom would determine it?
The answer, he observes, is that we can be afraid, or be
confident, or have appetites, or get angry, or feel pity,
and in general have pleasure and pain, both too much and too
little, and in both ways, and not well. Choosing the right
times about the right things towards the right people for
the right end and in the right way, he says, will always be
an intermediate and (the) best condition. This choice of the
intermediate therefore must involve determining a midpoint
and thus is proper to virtue.
Moreover, Aristotle explains that in trying to decide what
to do - that is, in choosing the right time or the right way
- we consciously look toward a mean and that we even aim toward
it, as an archer aims toward a target. Indeed, he observes
that our actions, as well as our emotions, admit of a mean.
The virtue of justice, he shows, especially relates to the
mean in a way different from the other virtues. For example,
in dealing with money we ought to pay what is deserved, neither
too much nor too little. But what Aristotle wants to emphasize
is not so much that we actually point toward a mean, but that
we make it possible for reason itself to function by controlling
our desires and our fears, our hatreds and angers, our joys
and pities. The mean in question is a mean of the emotions,
not of actions.
In a way, his account of right action is that it is simply
what right reason determines. Ethical virtue is that moderation
of the emotions which leaves reason free to choose wisely.
And thus Aristotle says that the role of temperance is to
preserve practical wisdom. He says, "For the origin of
what is done in action is the goal it aims at. And if pleasure
and pain has corrupted someone, it follows that the origin
will not appear to him. Hence it will not be apparent that
this must be the goal and cause of all his choices and actions
because vice corrupts the origin."
Thus the solider who is in a state of terror fails to see
that he must stay at his post and defend the city, much as
he might know it otherwise. The habitual drunkard, his mouth
watering at the thought of whiskey, forgets everything else.
On the other hand, when reason finds something to be good
or necessary, our desires must move toward it and embrace
it, and not push reason to devise other alternatives. For
the person of ethical virtue, the emotions support and strengthen
reason, instead of impeding it. This is why, in addition,
Aristotle's sense of good human action is related to the notion
of the beautiful - because a beautiful human being will be
one whose actions are guided by right reason and action.
Let us now turn to Kant. Kant's moral philosophy is based
on the argument that any proposition possessing universality
and necessity (as in mathematics, the proposition 5 + 7 =
12) must be based on reason, not mere experience.
Kant says that while experience is needed to apply such a
proposition and help us obey it, the principles of that proposition
derive their power from reason itself. He thus forms what
he calls the "categorical imperative." He states:
"Act only according to that maxim by which you can, at
the same time, will that it should become a universal law."
What he means is that if I feel morally obliged to do something,
I believe that anyone else in my exact situation would also
be morally bound to do the exact same thing. If I feel morally
bound not to do something, anyone else in my exact situation
would also be morally bound not to do it.
Kant's analysis is reflected in the phrase, moral indignation.
If I see a bigger boy beating up on a small child, I feel
indignant; I think what he is doing is wrong. It would be
wrong for me and it is wrong for him. On the other hand, if
another person is merely ill-mannered or foolish, I might
be annoyed or even angry, but I don't feel indignation. The
word indignation implies a sense of right and wrong.
Kant makes a sharp distinction between the moral and the
merely prudential. What is moral is what I am strictly obliged
to do, whether I like it or not. It has nothing to do with
my inclinations and desires, but is simply my duty. The prudential,
he says, is based on my own inclinations and desires.
Kant's formulation, therefore, is different from Aristotle's
in three important respects. First, Kant reduces the virtues
to a secondary place. To him, the concept of duty is paramount.
Duty should "sparkle like the jewel" so that it
has "an influence on the human heart so much more powerful
than all other incentives which may be derived from the empirical
field that reason, in consciousness of its dignity, despises
them and gradually becomes master over them." Thus for
Kant, moral education is largely a matter of talk.
But according to Aristotle, moral education is achieved by
action. Just as we acquire skill in carpentry by building,
and skill in music by playing an instrument, so we acquire
virtues by doing the things that virtuous people do. Thus,
over time, we develop habits. We become just by doing just
actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing
brave actions. Hence it is important that we acquire good
habits right from our youth.
The second difference in the conception of the virtues is
that, while Aristotle distinguishes virtue from strength of
will (especially in relation to the virtue of temperance),
Kant makes no such distinction. For Kant, virtue is always
understood as self-constraint - resisting the desires and
inclinations that can lead us away from right action. On the
other hand, Aristotle thinks it is possible, through self-control
and the formation of good habits, to reach a state in which
the desires and inclinations no longer fight against the judgments
of reason. This is Aristotle's paradigm of true virtue.
Third, Aristotle emphasizes that it is generally difficult
to know what is good for a human being. The most we can hope
for in ethics is to say what is usually good. The virtue of
prudence (or practical wisdom) is hard to acquire because
it depends on the presence and support of all the other virtues.
But Kant asserts that human reason, even in the commonest
mind, can easily be brought to a high degree of correctness
and completeness in moral matters: "It is within the
reach of everyone, even the most ordinary man." Indeed,
he says that the ordinary man is more likely than the philosopher
to hit the mark in moral matters because he is less likely
to be confused by irrelevant considerations.
The contrast between Aristotle and Kant on this point is
unclear because their general conceptions of morality are
so different. Kant does acknowledge that, in the case of what
he calls "wide duties" - those concerned with many
of the decisions concerned with practical life - it is hard
to specify what should be done. For example, it is hard to
say in a particular case of need whether one should help one's
parents or help one's neighbor. It is only in the case of
what he calls "narrow duties," those that are properly
moral in his sense of moral, that he thinks the answers are
clear.
Much more can be said about the differences between Aristotle
and Kant. Here, I merely wanted to note that we should not
confuse differences in moral theory with differences in particular
moral beliefs. Kant's effort to provide a better understanding
of morality was not an effort to provide a new moral code.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2001
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