Aristotle

by George Grote

ETHICA.

I.

The Ethics of Aristotle presuppose certain conditions in the persons to whom they are addressed, without which they cannot be read with profit. They presuppose a certain training, both moral and intellectual, in the pupil.

First, the reason of the pupil must be so far developed, as that he shall be capable of conceiving the idea of a scheme of life and action, and of regulating his momentary impulses more or less by a reference to this standard. He must not live by passion, obeying without reflection the appetite of the moment, and thinking only of grasping at this immediate satisfaction. The habit must have been formed of referring each separate desire to some rational measure, and of acting or refraining to act according as such a comparison may dictate. Next, a certain experience must have been acquired concerning human affairs, and concerning the actions of men with their causes and consequences. Upon these topics all the reasonings and all the illustrations contained in every theory of Ethics must necessarily turn: so that a person thoroughly inexperienced would be incompetent to understand them.

For both these two reasons, no youthful person, nor any person of mature years whose mind is still tainted with the defects of youth, can be a competent learner of Ethics or Politics (Eth. Nic. i. 7. Compare vii. 8). Such a pupil will neither appreciate the reasonings, nor obey the precepts (i. 3).

Again, a person cannot receive instruction in Ethics with advantage unless he has been subjected to a good practical discipline, so as to have acquired habits of virtuous action, and to have been taught to feel pleasure and pain on becoming occasions and in reference to becoming objects. Unless the circumstances by which he has been surrounded and the treatment which he has received, have been such as to implant in him a certain vein of sentiment and to give a certain direction to his factitious pleasures and pains — unless obedience to right precepts has to a certain degree been made habitual with him — he will not be able to imbibe, still less to become attached to, even the principia of ethical reasoning (Eth. Nic. i. 4. 7). The well-trained man, who has already acquired virtuous habits, has within himself the ἀρχὴ, or beginning, from which happiness proceeds: he may do very well, even though the reason on which these habits were formed should never become known to him: but he will at least readily apprehend and understand the reason when it is announced. The ἀρχαὶ or beginnings to which ethical philosophy points and from whence the conduct which it enjoins is derived, are obtained only by habituation, not by induction nor by perception, like other ἀρχαί: and we ought in all our investigations to look after the ἀρχὴ in the way which the special nature of the subject requires, and to be very careful to define it well (i. 4, i. 7).

In considering Aristotle’s doctrine respecting the ἀρχαὶ of ethical and political science, and the way in which they are to be discovered and made available, we should keep in mind that he announces the end and object of these sciences to be, not merely the enlargement of human knowledge, but the determination of human conduct towards certain objects: not theory, but practice: not to teach us what virtue is, but to induce us to practise it — “Since then the present science is not concerned with speculation, like the others. For here we enquire, not in order that we may know what virtue is, but in order that we may become good, otherwise there would be no profit in the enquiryâ€� (ii. 2. See also i. 2, i. 5, vi. 5).

The remarks which Aristotle makes about the different ways of finding out and arriving at ἀρχαὶ, are curious. Some principles or beginnings are obtained by induction — others by perception — others by habituation in a certain way — others again in other ways. Other modes of arriving at ἀρχαὶ are noticed by the philosopher himself in other places. For example, the ἀρχαὶ of demonstrative science are said to be discovered by intellect (νοῦς) — vi. 6-7. There is a passage however in vi. 8 in which he seems to say that the ἀρχαὶ of the wise man (σόφος) and the natural man (φυσικὸς) are derived from experience: which I find it difficult to reconcile with the preceding chapters, where he calls wisdom a compound of intellect and science (ἐπιστήμη), and where he gives Thales and Anaxagoras as specimens of wise men. By vi. 6 — it seems that wisdom has reference to matters of demonstrative science: how then can it be true that a youth may be a mathematician without being a wise man?

Moreover, Aristotle takes much pains, at the commencement of his treatise on Ethics, to set forth the inherent intricacy and obscurity of the subject, and to induce the reader to be satisfied with conclusions not absolutely demonstrative. He repeats this observation several times — a sufficient proof that the evidence for his own opinions did not appear to himself altogether satisfactory (Eth. Nic. i. 3, i. 7, ii. 2). The completeness of the proof (he says) must be determined by the subject-matter: a man of cultivated mind will not ask for better proof than the nature of the case admits: and human action, to which all ethical theory relates, is essentially fluctuating and uncertain in its consequences, so that every general proposition which can be affirmed or denied concerning it, is subject to more or less of exception. If this degree of uncertainty attaches even to general reasonings on ethical subjects, the particular applications of these reasonings are still more open to mistake: the agent must always determine for himself at the moment, according to the circumstances of the case, without the possibility of sheltering himself under technical rules of universal application: just as the physician or the pilot is obliged to do in the course of his profession. “Now the actions and the interests of men exhibit no fixed rule, just like the conditions of health. And if this is the case with the universal theory, still more does the theory that refers to particular acts present nothing that can be accurately fixed; for it falls not under any art or any system, but the actors themselves must always consider what suits the occasion, just as happens in the physician’s and the pilot’s art. But though this is the case with the theory at present, we must try to give it some assistanceâ€� (πειρατίον βοηθεῖν). — Eth. Nic. 2.

The last words cited are remarkable. They seem to indicate, that Aristotle regarded the successful prosecution of ethical enquiries as all but desperate. He had previously said (i. 3) — “There is so much difference of opinion and so much error respecting what is honourable and just, of which political science treats, that these properties of human action seem to exist merely by positive legal appointment, and not by nature. And there is the same sort of error respecting what things are good, because many persons have sustained injury from them, some having already been brought to destruction through their wealth, others through their courage.�