Irwin, Terence H. (2000). Ethics as an inexact science: Aristotle's ambitions for moral theory. In Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral particularism. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 100-29.
9. Perception and Prudence
So far I have suggested that Aristotle thinks of perception primarily as a means of applying general rules to particular cases, so that we recognize all the relevant aspects of a particular situation to which our generalizations apply. Particularist interpreters, however, believe that this claim about per ception cannot be all that Aristotle intends, since it fails to attribute to per ception the normative priority that Aristotle claims for it. McDowell takes Aristotle to be a particularist in so far as having the right conception of eudaimonia involves having a number of 'motivational susceptibilities'. These cannot be properly described as the acceptance of any general prin ciples—they are simply tendencies to focus on certain features of situations and to react to them in certain ways. These tendencies manifest a special perceptual capacity.
To explain what he means in speaking of a perceptual capacity, McDowell refers to the ability to see the relevant features in a particular sit uation and to concentrate on them. Here he follows Wiggins, who calls this capacity 'situational appreciation'. 28 For agents who have the appropriate sort of situational appreciation, the morally significant features of the situ ation are salient; these agents deliberate in the light of the fact that this sit uation provides an opportunity for (say) spending money for the public good rather than for displaying one's own wealth. This is the sort of situational appreciation we expect from an agent with the virtue of magnifi cence rather than the vice of ostentation.
Interpreters who emphasize situational appreciation believe that, as Wiggins implies, Aristotle has it in mind in the various passages in Book vi where he connects prudence with perception. I will assume, for the moment, that these interpreters are right. According to this view, virtuous people tend to see things differently from the way other people see them, because they tend to focus on features of situations that other people tend to miss.
Neither Wiggins nor Aristotle suggests, however, that situational appre ciation is normatively prior to general rules. On the contrary, we might suppose that virtuous people's acceptance of the right generalizations explains their ability to identify morally relevant features of situations. They have learnt, for instance, that it is wrong to make jokes that humiliate their innocent victims but amuse the audience; this is why they train them selves to notice the tendency of a joke to humiliate an innocent victim. This role for situational appreciation does not support particularism.
We will justifiably attribute particularism to Aristotle if we find that he treats generalizations as mere summaries of particular exercises of ethical perception or situational appreciation. A general principle, according to a particularist, constitutes 'a reminder of the sort of importance that a prop erty can have in suitable circumstances'.
Such generalizations may be practically useful. A team planning a game, or a general planning a campaign, may reasonably plan in accordance with strategic principles and tactical maxims that summarize the moves that have succeeded and seem likely to succeed in specific circumstances. These simply tell us the importance that a property can have, and not the impor tance it actually has, because we make no error, relative to the aim of win ning the game or the campaign, if we win the game or the campaign by violating the strategic principles.
Some of the generalizations involved in moral deliberation may be understood as strategic principles of this sort. But they cannot all be under stood this way. A team captain who treated the rules of the game, or the aim of helping his own side to win, as merely strategic principles, to be violated if he 'saw' that in this particular case it would be better to kick the oppos ing players or to help the other side to win, would be open to criticism. Similarly a general who 'saw' that it would be better in this case to kill thou sands of innocent civilians as a means to victory, or who 'saw' that it would be better to change sides because the other side seemed more likely to win, would not deserve congratulation for winning by unorthodox tactics or strategy.
For this reason, the examples of games or military campaigns do not help to illustrate the plausibility of particularism as an account of moral deliberation. For they do not provide cases in which we can treat all gener alizations as mere reminders of the sort of importance that a property can have. Indeed, some of the relevant generalizations seem to have a prescrip tive role that they would not have if they were simply reminders. We do not show that Aristotle is a particularist about moral generalizations if we merely show that he treats some generalizations as mere reminders; we must show that he treats all non-trivial generalizations as reminders that we are morally permitted to disregard if our perception of particular situ ations prompts us to act differently. Does anything commit Aristotle to this position?
He claims that prudence is about particulars, and therefore requires perception (1142a23-30). This claim does not support particularism; for it says nothing about priority. He also claims that universals are derived from particulars of which we have the special kind of perception that is a kind of understanding (nous) (1143a32—b5). Aristotle is a particularist if he believes that the general principles accepted by prudent people are sum maries of what they have noticed in particular cases. If they have been cor rectly brought up, they have been trained to notice that here and now they have an opportunity to repay a friend; they form the habit of focusing on that feature of a situation rather than on the fact that (say) they have some spare money that they could spend on their own amusement. From notic ing this fact about the reactions of virtuous people, the ethical theorist can form general principles about the obligations of friendship; but prudent people do not react to these situations as they do because they have them selves accepted the general principles.
We might interpret Aristotle in this way, if we focused simply on the claim that universals are derived from particulars. But such an interpreta tion faces at least two objections: (1) Even if this passage is taken out of context, as a general claim about the acquisition of universals, it does not support particularism. (2) It ought not to be taken out of context, and if it is taken in its context, it does not make a general claim about the acquisi tion of universals.
To understand the first objection, we must notice that not every sort of derivation of universals from particulars implies that generalizations are merely summaries of particular perceptual judgements, or that perception of particulars has normative priority. Aristotle believes that, in some sense that is difficult to explain precisely, all universal judgements, not just those in ethics, are derived from particular judgements. This claim about learn ing gives particular judgements some sort of priority 'to us. None the less, as we have seen, universal judgements are prior 'by nature'; if we under stand a scientific theory, we must recognize this priority of universals. If Aristotle affirms about ethical universals what he affirms about universals generally, he does not affirm particularism; for particularism does not assert simply the claim that particular judgements are 'prior to us' in learn ing, but the stronger claim that they are recognized as prior in the outlook of the virtuous person. Aristotle does not endorse this stronger claim.
To understand the second objection, we must notice that Aristotle ascribes situational appreciation to the prudent person, who is presumed to have deliberated well about what promotes the ultimate end. If this deliberation includes the application of generalizations with normative force, situational appreciation may depend on acceptance of these general izations. Such dependence does not conflict with Aristotle's claim that uni versals are derived from particulars. Aristotle might simply mean that prudent people revise their general principles in the light of their situa tional appreciation.30° If we apply several of our generalizations at once, we may see that they lead to unacceptable results; to see this, we may need to appeal to generalizations. If this is the point Aristotle refers to when he says that universals are derived from particulars, his claim makes good sense in its context, and falls far short of a particularist view about the role of theo retical generalizations.
What is the role of perception and situational appreciation in this process of revision? Perhaps we can see more clearly what Aristotle might and might not be committed to if we connect this discussion with the fre quent appeals to 'salience' in treatments of moral perception. We might think of a feature of a situation as being salient in two different ways: (1) Some features rather than others are salient in so far as they provide morally relevant considerations. If I am to deliberate properly, I must be able to ignore irrelevant and confusing considerations, and focus on rele vant ones; I must, for instance, keep in mind the fact that I have made a promise to A and that B needs my help urgently now, and I must ignore the fact that it would be slightly inconvenient for me either to keep my promise to A or to help B. I need some skill in recognizing salient features if I am to focus on what is relevant to my deliberation. 31' In these cases, then, salience is relevance. (2) One feature rather than other features may be thought to be decisive; it may be more important, for instance, that B needs my help urgently than that I have made a promise to A, so that I ought to help B even if I must also break my promise to A. In this case we might say that B's need rather than the promise to A ought to be salient to me; the relevant sort of salience is decisiveness.
Both relevant and decisive considerations might be described as 'salient, but an appeal to perception is not equally appropriate in both cases. In the first case, several features will often be relevant in a particular situation, and it is reasonable to suggest that perception is needed, since some selec tive awareness of relevant features is presupposed by deliberation in a par ticular case; we might say that correct deliberation requires us to see some things and not others in a situation. In the second case, however, only one feature is decisive, since the decisive feature is the one that matters most. In this case, in contrast to the first case, some of the `non-salient' (i.e., non decisive) features are morally relevant. We cannot say that we see only the `salient' (i.e., decisive) feature; for it would show a failure of moral aware ness if we did not recognize the moral relevance of considerations that we take to be relevant but not decisive. Moreover, it is more difficult to attribute the awareness of decisiveness to perception; the relevant aware ness follows, and does not precede, deliberation.
This division between two types of salience may help us to see how Wiggins's position falls short of particularism. He does not suggest that the same perception that is aware of relevance is also aware of decisiveness; hence he does not suggest that situational appreciation is the ability that we need to resolve conflicts or to settle our priorities in these situations. Indeed, it is not obvious why the same capacity that enables us to pick out relevant features of situations should also enable us to settle on their morally decisive features. Even if we were to claim that awareness of rele vance is normatively prior to acceptance of generalizations, we could not infer that awareness of decisiveness is normatively prior to acceptance of generalizations. We would still be free to claim that we can resolve conflicts and settle our priorities correctly only if we have grasped the appropriate generalizations and the ethical grounds for them.
I use Wiggins's views to clarify the issue about Aristotle, because Wiggins clearly believes that situational appreciation is an indispensable compo nent of virtue. Even if Aristotle agrees with Wiggins about the importance of situational appreciation, he need not be a particularist.
10. A Different Role for Perception
I have tried to make the issue about particularism clear by conceding for the sake of argument that Aristotle's remarks on perception are about situ ational appreciation. In conceding this point, I am making things easy for particularist interpreters, since this is how they interpret the remarks about perception. Having argued against a particularist interpretation on this assumption, I would like to express some doubts about whether Aristotle really has situational appreciation in mind. I do not deny that situational appreciation is important; I simply wonder whether Aristotle refers to it in his remarks on perception.
A different task for perception is suggested by Aristotle's examples of its role in deliberation (1112b34). 32 He mentions 'it's a loaf' and 'it's baked enough' as judgements we reach from perception. He adds that if we have to deliberate about everything, we will face an infinite regress. We must be able to make some judgements without deliberation, if our deliberation is to be a feasible task. Some of these are what we might call ordinary percep tual judgements—in this case, something that anyone can notice, whether or not they know how to bake bread. Others are judgements that have to be perceptual, but refer to features that we have to be trained to notice—in this case, the signs that a loaf is baked. This requires trained perception, because it cannot be replaced by an effective guide that can be applied by someone with ordinary perception.
How do these features show how universals might come out of these per ceptual judgements? Perceptual judgements can lead to the formulation of generalizations that still cannot be applied without the relevant training and experience. We might, for instance, learn how to cook an omelette. We notice that it is better not to allow it to cook completely in the pan. We form the generalization 'Take it out when it's still a little runny.' This, generalization, however, still cannot be applied by means of ordinary per ception alone; we need experience and trained perception to estimate how runny is a little runny.
The moral parallel is to be found, according to Aristotle, in generaliza tions that include 'too much, 'too far; and other qualifications that signal something not completely spelt out in all the relevant details. We can see how this might work in familiar cases. Perhaps, for instance, we should be concerned about our friends so that we neither seem indifferent nor seem too intrusive; we should be helpful without being interfering; teachers should make clear the faults in a student's work without being discourag ing, and should be encouraging without concealing important faults. These generalizations are useful, but they do not provide an effective pro cedure for just anyone, irrespective of their experience of such situations, to identify the actions that conform to them.
This would be an intelligible role for perception that fits Aristotle's examples, and it allows the formulation of generalizations. It may be a bet ter account of the passages in Book vi on perception than the account that appeals to situational appreciation.
Some argument for this view of perception, and against the view that relies on situational appreciation, may be found in Aristotle's casuistical discussions (ix 2). I have already described them briefly. We can now look back to them to see where situational appreciation might be applicable, and whether Aristotle seems to have it in mind. It is clearly relevant, since casu istry requires recognition of both relevance and decisiveness; Aristotle mentions both relevant and decisive features of situations, and he recog nizes that they require the modification of generalizations that we might have thoughtlessly accepted had we not considered the situations he men tions. At this point, we might take him to agree with Ross, for instance, who actually quotes Aristotle's claims about perception to explain how we can identify decisive features.
Aristotle, however, does not say what we might expect a particularist to say. Specifically, he does not suggest that perception has any special role in these cases; it seems especially significant that he does not suggest it has any special role in identifying either the relevant or the decisive features. Probably, then, he does not believe that the functions he ascribes to per ception involve situational appreciation.
If, however, he has in mind the role for perception that I have just illus trated from his own examples, it is intelligible that he does not mention perception in the discussion of casuistry. For the questions that he raises do not involve the sorts of discriminations in particular cases that Aristotle attributes to perception.
I do not suggest that this argument shows decisively that Aristotle's remarks about perception are not about situational appreciation. I mention it to show that the case for particularism may be even weaker than I suggested it was when I conceded that the remarks are about situational appreciation.
11. Conclusion
I have tried to show that the passages on prudence and perception do not require a particularist interpretation that assigns normative priority to per ception. We might be tempted to accept a particularist interpretation of these passages, if we were already convinced that the passages on inexact ness and on perception require a particularist interpretation. Equally, we might be tempted to accept a particularist interpretation of the passages on exactness and on perception, if we already believed that this is the only pos sible interpretation of the passages on prudence. The fact that several pas sages speak of particulars and of the necessity of perception reasonably leads us to interpret one group of passages in the light of the other group. I have argued that none of the three groups supports a particularist inter pretation, so that none of them creates a presumption in favour of a par ticularist interpretation of the other groups.
For these reasons, the evidence I have discussed does not support a par ticularist view. In ethics as in natural science, Aristotle believes he can find theoretically significant generalizations. He also believes that in ethics his generalizations are significant for the primarily practical purpose of ethical inquiry.