Non - relative Virtues : An Aristotelian Approach

NON-RELATIVE VIRTUES: AN ARISTOTELIAN APPROACH

Introduction

Virtue ethics is a branch of ethics which is gaining more and more interest in today’s world. Today the problem is the new generation wants something that is related to their life, they are not satisfied by those theories that are remote from concrete human experiences. Whether this remoteness results from the utilitarian’s interest in arriving at a universal calculus of satisfaction or from a Kantian concern with universal principles of broad generalities, in which the names of particular contexts, histories and persons do not occur, remoteness is now being seen by an increasing number of moral philosophers as a defect in an approach to ethical questions. It is in this context the concept of virtue is playing a prominent role. So, is the work of Aristotle, the greatest defender of an ethical approach based on the concept of virtue. Aristotelian virtue ethics seems appealing to combine rigour with concreteness, theoretical power with sensitivity to the actual circumstances of human life and choice in all their multiplicity, variety, and mutability. But there is a striking divergence between Aristotle and contemporary virtue theory. To many current proponents of virtue ethics, the return to virtue is connected with a turn towards relativism – that is, the view that the only criterion considered is the local ones, there by virtue ethics of each civilization want to be different. This understanding of virtue ethics makes it a relative one for different traditions and practices. But for Aristotle it is not true. Because he was not only a defender of an ethical theory based on virtues, but also the defender of a single objective account of the human good, or human flourishing. And also Aristotle’s one of the most obvious concerns was the criticism of existing moral traditions that were against human flourishing. Aristotle evidently believed that there is no incompatibility between basing an ethical theory on the virtues and defending the singleness and objectivity of the human good. In this case, it would be odd indeed if he had connected two elements in ethical thought that are incompatible. The purpose of this paper is to establish that Aristotle was a genius who had an interesting way of connecting virtues with a search of ethical objectivity and with the criticism of existing local norms. This way is so important to understand the Aristotelian ethics, to view it as non-relative.

Here my intention is to bring out the non-relativistic face of Aristotelian Virtue ethics. I am doing this based on the article Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach by Martha Nussbaum in the book The Quality of Life

Having described general shape of Aristotelian approach now we can begin to understand some of the objections that might be brought against such a non-relative account of the virtues, and to imagine how Aristotle could respond to those objectives.

1. Virtues a Reflection of Local Traditions and Values

A relativist may think that any list of virtues must be simply a reflection of local traditions and values; there can be no list of virtues that can be normative for all varied societies. By this view ‘The Great Souled’ person of Aristotle will be a Greek gentleman.

But if probe further in to the way in which Aristotle in fact enumerates and individuates the virtues, we can see that things are against these suggestions.

We can see that a rather large number of virtues and vices that Aristotle explain are nameless, and that, among the one that are not nameless; a good many are given, names that are somewhat arbitrarily chosen by Aristotle and do not Perfectly fit the behavior he is trying to describe. This does not sound like the procedure of someone who is simply studying the local traditions and bringing out the virtue-names that figure most prominently in those traditions.

The idea is clearer when we examine the way in which he introduces his list of virtues. In Nicomachean Ethics what he does in each case is to isolate a sphere of human experience that figures in more or less any human life, and in which more or less any human being will have to make some choices rather than others. In each sphere what is required is to act appropriately for that there will be specific actions, and at the end he gives thick definition of the virtue.

On this approach it does not seem possible to say, relativist does, that a given society does not contain anything that corresponds to a given virtue. Nor does it seem to be an open question. The point is everyone makes some choices and acts somehow or other in these sphere, if not properly then improperly.

Here the job of ethical theory will be to search for the best further specification corresponding to this nominal definition, and to produce a full definition.

Now there are three main objections against the non relativism of Aristotelian ethics.

2. The Relationship Between Singleness of Problem and Singleness of Solution

The first objection concerns the relationship between singleness of problem and singleness of solution. We can suppose that the approach succeeds in doing this in a way that embraces many times and places, bringing disparate cultures in a single debate about the good human being and the good human life. Still, it might be argued, what has been achieved is, at best, a single discourse or debate about virtue.

But looking from another perspective the conflicting theories are clearly put forward as competing candidates for the truth; the behavior of those involved in the discourse about virtue suggests that they are indeed, as Aristotle says, searching ‘not for the way of their ancestors, but for the good’. And it seems reasonable in that case for them to do so. It is far less clear, where the virtues are concerned, that a unified practical solution is either sought by the actual participants or a desideratum of them.

The Aristotelian proposal makes it possible to conceive of a way in which the virtues might be non-relative. It does not, by itself, answer the question of relativism.

3. Ground Experiences as in Some Way Primitive

The second objection seems to treat the experiences that ground the virtues as in some way primitive, given, and free from the cultural variation that we find in the plurality of normative conception of virtue. Normative conceptions introduce an element of cultural interpretation that is not present in the grounding experiences, which are, for that very reason, the Aristotelians starting point. But, the objector continues, such assumptions are naïve. They will not stand up either to our best account of experience or to a close examination of the ways in which these so-called grounding experiences are in fact differentially constructed by different cultures.

But we want to consider some other aspects also before reaching to a conclusion; the human mind is an active and interpretative instrument, and that its interpretations are a function of its history and its concepts, as well as of its innate nature. Also the nature of human world interpretations is holistic and that the criticism of them must, equally, be holistic. But these two factors do not imply, as some relativists in literary theory and in anthropology tend to assume, that all world interpretations are equally valid and altogether non-comparable. Certain ways in which people see the world can still be criticized exactly as Aristotle criticized them: as stupid, pernicious, and false. The standards used in such criticisms must come from inside human life. Also despite the evident differences in the specific cultural shaping of the grounding experiences, we do recognize the experience of people in other cultures as similar to our own. We do converse with them about matters of deep importance; understand them, allow ourselves to move by them. This sense of community and overlap seems to be especially strong in the areas that we have called the areas of the grounding experiences. And this, it seems, supports the Aristotelian claim that those experiences can be a good starting point for ethical debate. Thus Aristotle seeks, instead, to discover, among the experiences of groups in many times and places, certain elements that are especially broadly and deeply shared. Here also it is evident that Aristotelian virtues are non-elative.

4. Universal and Necessary Features as Contingent

The third objection against non-relativism of Aristotelian ethics is that, Aristotelian has taken for universal and necessary features of human life an experience that is contingent on certain non-necessary historical conditions. Like the second this argument also says that human experience is much more profoundly shaped by non-necessary social features than the Aristotelian has allowed. Therefore the virtues are defined relatively to certain problems and limitations, and also to certain endowments.

In counter to this argument Aristotle will say that our morality is an essential feature of our circumstances as human beings. An immoral being would have such a different form of life, and such different values and virtues that it does not seem to make sense to regard that being as part of the same search for good. In general it seems that all forms of life, including the imagined life of god contains boundaries and limits. Thus it does not appear that we will not easily get beyond the virtues. Nor does it seem to be so clearly a good thing for human life that we should.

Conclusion

So much for our outline sketch for the good. For it looks as if we have to draw an outline first, and fill it in later. It would seem to be open to anyone to take things further and to articulate the god parts of the sketch. And time is a good discoverer or ally in such things. That’s how the sciences have progressed as well: it is open to anyone to supply what is lacking.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nussbaum, Martha C. “Non-relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach” in The

Quality of Life, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.