Burnyeat (1980) Aristotle on Learning to Be Good

Burnyeat, Myles (1980). Aristotle on learning to be good. In Amélie Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics. University of California Press. pp. 69–92.

 

The question "Can virtue be taught" is perhaps the oldest question in moral philosophy. Recall the opening of Plato's Meno (70a): "Can you tell me, Socrates—can virtue be taught, or is it rather to be acquired by practice? Or is it neither to be practiced nor to be learned but something that comes to men by nature or in some other way?"

Socrates' characteristic but still simple reply is that until one knows what virtue is, one cannot know how it is (to be) acquired (Meno 71ab). I want to reverse the order, asking how, according to Aristotle, virtue is acquired, so as to bring to light certain features in his conception of what virtue is which are not ordinarily much attended to.

Intellectualism, a one-sided preoccupation [집착] with reason and reasoning, is a perennial [아주 오랫동안 지속되는] failing in moral philosophy. The very subject of moral philosophy is sometimes defined or delimited as the study of moral reasoning, thereby excluding the greater part of what is important in the initial—and, I think, continuing —moral development of a person. Aristotle knew intellectualism in the form of Socrates' doctrine that virtue is knowledge. He reacted by emphasizing the importance of beginnings and the gradual development of good habits of feeling.

For while one must begin from what is familiar, this may be taken in two ways: some things are familiar to us, others familiar without qualification. Presumably, then, what we should begin from is things familiar to us. This is the reason why one should have been well brought up in good habits if one is going to listen ade quately to lectures about things noble and just, and in general about political (social) affairs. For the beginning (starting point) is "the that," and if this is sufficiently apparent to a person, he will not in addition have a need for "the because." Such a person has, or can easily get hold of, beginnings (starting points), whereas he who has neither [sc. neither "the that" nor "the because"], let him hearken to the words of Hesiod: The best man of all is he who knows everything himself, Good also the man who accepts another's sound advice; But the man who neither knows himself nor takes to heart What another says, he is no good at all.

The contrast here, between having only "the that" and having both "the that" and "the because" as well, is a contrast between knowing or believ ing that something is so and understanding why it is so, and I would sup pose that Aristotle quotes the Hesiodic verses in all seriousness. The man who knows for himself is someone with "the because"—in Aristotle's terms he is a man of practical wisdom equipped with the understanding to work out for himself what to do in the varied circumstances of life— while the one who takes to heart sound advice learns "the that" and be comes the sort of person who can profit from Aristotle's lectures. These lectures are no doubt designed to give him a reasoned understanding of "the because" which explains and justifies "the that" which he already has or can easily get hold of. What, then, is "the that"?

The ancient commentators are agreed that Aristotle has in mind knowledge about actions in accordance with the virtues; these actions are the things familiar to us from which we must start, and what we know about them is that they are noble or just.3 This fits an earlier statement (1.3. 1095a2-4, quoted below) that the lectures assume on the part of their audience a certain experience in the actions of life, because they are concerned with these actions and start from them. It also conforms to what 1.4 says is the subject matter of the lectures for which knowledge of "the that" is a prerequisite: things noble and just.

Now the noble and the just do not, in Aristotle's view, admit of neat formulation in rules or traditional precepts (cf. 1.3 1094bl4-16; 2.2. 1104a3-10; 5.10. 1137bl3-32; 9.2. 1165al2-14). It takes an educated per ception, a capacity going beyond the application of general rules, to tell what is required for the practice of the virtues in specific circumstances (2.9.1109b23; 4.5.1126b2-4). That being so, if the student is to have "the that" for which the doctrines in Aristotle's lectures provide the explana tory "because," if he is to be starting out on a path which will lead to his acquiring that educated perception, the emphasis had better be on his knowing of specific actions that they are noble or just in specific circum stances. I put it as a matter of emphasis only, of degree, because often, no doubt, moral advice will come to him in fairly general terms; a spot of dialectic may be needed to bring home to the young man the limitations and imprecision of what he has learned. But even where the advice is gen eral, this need not mean he is taught that there are certain rules of justice, say, which are to be followed as a matter of principle, without regard for the spirit of justice and the ways in which circumstances alter cases. What Aristotle is pointing to is our ability to internalize from a scattered range of particular cases a general evaluative attitude which is not reduc ible to rules or precepts. It is with this process in view that he emphasizes in 1.4 that the necessary beginnings or starting points, which I have argued to be correct ideas about what actions are noble and just, are not available to anyone who has not had the benefit of an upbringing in good habits.

We can put this together with some further remarks about "the that" at the end of 1.7 (1098a33-b4):

We must not demand explanation [sc. any more than precision] in all matters alike, but it is sufficient in some cases to have "the that" shown properly, just as in the case of starting points. "The that" is a first thing and a starting point. Of starting points some are seen by induction, some by perception, some by a cer tain habituation, and others in other ways again.

 

This time the wider context points to the outline definition of happiness or the good for man as the particular "that" which Aristotle has initially in mind. The search for a satisfactory specification of happiness and the good for man has just been completed, and Aristotle is reflecting on the extent to which he should claim precision and proof for his answer: it has the status of "the that" merely, and, being general, no more precision than the subject matter allows. Thus it would obviously be wrong to think of the notion of "the that" as intrinsically tied to particular low level facts. Nevertheless, in this passage the thesis that we have to start from "the that" without an explanation, without "the because," is re asserted for starting points quite generally, and is complemented by a brief survey of various ways in which we acquire starting points. We already know that in ethics good habits are a prerequisite for grasping "the that." It is now added that habituation is actually a way of grasping it, on a par with, though different from, induction, perception, and other modes of acquisition which Aristotle does not specify (the ancient com mentators fill out the list for him by mentioning intellectual intuition and experience). Each kind of starting point comes with a mode of acquisi tion appropriate to it; to give a couple of examples from the ancient com mentators, we learn by induction that all men breathe, by perception that fire is hot. In ethics the appropriate mode for at least some starting points is habituation, and in the light of 1.4 it is not difficult to see which start ing points these must be. The thesis is that we first learn (come to see) what is noble and just not by experience of or induction from a series of instances, nor by intuition (intellectual or perceptual), but by learning to do noble and just things, by being habituated to noble and just conduct.

Thus the picture forms as follows. You need a good upbringing not simply in order that you may have someone around to tell you what is noble and just—you do need that (recall the Hesiodic verses), and in 10.9 and again in the Politics 8.1 Aristotle discusses whether the job is best done by one's father or by community arrangements—but you need also to be guided in your conduct so that by doing the things you are told are noble and just you will discover that what you have been told is true. What you may begin by taking on trust you can come to know for your self. This is not yet to know why it is true, but it is to have learned that it is true in the sense of having made the judgment your own, second nature to you—Hesiod's taking to heart. Nor is it yet to have acquired any of the virtues, for which practical wisdom is required (6.13; 10.8 1178al6 19), that understanding of "the because" which alone can accomplish the final correcting and perfecting of your perception of "the that." But it is to have made a beginning. You can say, perhaps, "I have learned that it is just to share my belongings with others," and mean it in a way that some one who has merely been told this cannot, even if he believes it—except in the weak sense in which "I have learned such and such" means simply that such and such was the content of the instruction given by parent or teacher.

He is one who has learned what is noble ("the that") and, as we now see, thus come to love it. He loves it because it is what is truly or by nature pleasant. Compare 1.8 1099al3-15: Lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that these are pleasant for such men as well in their own nature.

And the point he is making is that what you love in this sense is what you enjoy or take pleasure in. But equally he insists (10.9 1179b24-26) that the capacity for "noble joy and noble hatred" grows from habituation. I should now like to suggest that the prominence given to pleasure in these passages is the key to our problem about how practice can lead to knowledge.

We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate, while the man who is annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward.10 For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought;11 this is the right eduction. [Cf. 1.8 1099al7-21; 2.9 1109bl-5; 3.4 1113a31-33; 4.1 1120a26-27; 10.1 1172a20-23]

Next, recall once more the statement in 2.4 that virtue involves choos ing virtuous actions for their own sake, for what they are. If we are asked what virtuous actions are, an important part of the answer must be that they are just, courageous, temperate, and so forth, and in all cases noble (It is common to all virtuous actions that they are chosen because they are noble: 3.7.1115bl2-13; 4.1.1120a23-24; 4.2.1122b6-7;12 EE 1230a27 29.) Accordingly, if learning to do and to take (proper) enjoyment in doing just actions is learning to do and to enjoy them for their own sake, for what they are, namely, just, and this is not to be distinguished from learning that they are enjoyable for themselves and their intrinsic value, namely, their justice and nobility, then perhaps we can give intelligible sense to the thesis that practice leads to knowledge, as follows. I may be told, and may believe, that such and such actions are just and noble, but I have not really learned for myself (taken to heart, made second nature to me) that they have this intrinsic value until I have learned to value (love) them for it, with the consequence that I take pleasure in doing them. To understand and appreciate the value that makes them enjoy able in themselves I must learn for myself to enjoy them, and that does take time and practice—in short, habituation.