The Orthos Logos in Aristotle's Ethics

189 Pages·2017·3.11 MB·English

by  Jie Tian

Dissertation

The Orthos Logos in Aristotle’s Ethics

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doctor philosophiae
(Dr. phil.)

eingereicht
an der Philosophischen Fakultät I
der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Jie Tian, M.A.

Dekan der Philosophischen Fakultät I: Prof. Michael Seadle, PhD
Präsident der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Prof. Dr. Jan-Hendrik Olbertz

Gutachter: 1. Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmidt
2. Prof. Dr. Klaus Corcilius

Datum der Einreichung: 26.11.2013
Datum der Verteidigung: 24.03.2014
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
First and foremost I would like to thank my first advisor Thomas Schmidt. It was
unexpected good fortune to be able to study with him. He always made time for
reading and discussing my work, and I benefited from his acute criticism of my
writing. From him I learned much regarding philosophical thinking and writing. I also
express respectful thanks to my second advisor Klaus Corcilius. It has been an honor
to be his student. He taught me how to deal with the ancient writings, how to
rigorously do philosophy, and how to respect the readers you face. I appreciate his
contribution of time, ideas, and encouragement to get me through to the end. I am also
grateful to Jacob Rosen. As our academic coordinator, he has gone beyond the
ordinary for my sake. His insightful questions and comments, as well as his nice
behaviour, have been an inestimable influence on me.

I would also like to thank Carlo Natalie, Gabriel R. Lear, Richard Kraut, Ursula Wolf,
for their very helpful comments and discussion on various versions of chapters. Also
thanks to my colleagues in Graduate School, especially Wei Cheng, for giving helpful
comments on the later version. Thanks to Joshua Crone, Christopher Noble, and
Elizabeth Barfield for correcting the English in early versions.

Thanks also to the Graduate School of Ancient Philosophy in HU and the former
director Christopher Helmig. They made it possible for me to take part in conferences
and to visit other universities in North America which was really helpful for my work.
Thanks to the Chinese Scholarship Council for supporting me with a four year
scholarship, and to the Humboldt University for providing the Abschlussstipendium
to finish my last phase of study.

I
Acknowledgments
Lastly, I would like to thank my family for all their love and encouragement. To my
parents who gave me all kinds of support, thank you more than words can say. Finally,
I want to give special thanks to my wife, Minhua Jing, who provided me with
invaluable advice, encouragement and happiness during the studies. She takes care of
me patiently and carefully when I suffer from back pain and eye infection for several
months each year. She also brought our first son into the world in the later stage of my
PhD. In addition to all of these, she has been working hard on her own project PhD
project in Heidelberg. For me, she is the moral sage whom I searched for in this work.
So, I dedicate this to her.

I I
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments ..................................................................................... I

Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
1. Why the Orthos Logos? ...................................................................................... 1
2. The State of Research: A Brief Overview .......................................................... 2
3. Outline by Chapters ............................................................................................ 4

Chapter 1: Textual Analysis .................................................................... 9
1. The Division of Moral Stages ............................................................................. 9
2. Moral Features of the Orthos Logos ................................................................. 14
2.1. Πρὸς τὰς ἄλλας ἀρετάς ........................................................................... 15
2.2. From κατὰ τὸν ὀρθὸν λόγον to μετὰ τοῦ ὀρθοῦ λόγου ........................... 16
2.3. Ὡρισμένῃ λόγῳ ....................................................................................... 18
2.4. The σαφές Problem ................................................................................. 23
2.5. The OL in Akrates and Enkrates ............................................................. 27
2.6. Related Texts in EE ................................................................................ 29
2.7. Related Text in MM ................................................................................ 31

Chapter 2: Primary Interpretations ..................................................... 38
1. Cook Wilson’s View ......................................................................................... 38
2. Rule View ......................................................................................................... 41
II I
Contents
3. Particularist View.............................................................................................. 45
4. Revised Faculty View ....................................................................................... 54
5. Author’s Revision of the Philological Attack ................................................... 56
6. A Brief Summary .............................................................................................. 60

Chapter 3: The Orthos Logos in the Virtue-Acquiring Stage ............. 63
1. The Disadvantages of the Revised Faculty View: A Review ........................... 64
2. Nature, Habit, and Virtue .................................................................................. 67
2.1. Nature and Habituation ........................................................................... 67
2.2. By Nature, Against Nature, and According to Nature ............................ 69
2.3. Nature and Reason .................................................................................. 73
3. Reasoning and Virtue-Acquiring ...................................................................... 79
3.1. Repeatedly Practicing and Making Decisions ........................................ 79
3.2. Two Basic Positions ................................................................................ 83
3.3. Imitation, Pleasure, and Reasoning ......................................................... 89
3.4. Shame (αἰδώς) and Reasoning ................................................................ 95
4. Deliberation and Prohairesis .......................................................................... 107
4.1. The Means-End or the Constituents-End .............................................. 109
4.2. Deliberation and the Orthos Logos ....................................................... 112
5. Conclusive Suggestion .................................................................................... 117

Chapter 4: The Orthos Logos in the Virtue-Acquired Stage ............ 119
1. Phronesis: An Outline..................................................................................... 121
1.1 Phronesis and Ethical Virtue ................................................................. 122
1.2 Phronesis and True Logos ...................................................................... 126
2. Phronesis, Good Deliberation, and Practical Syllogism ................................. 129
2.1 Phronesis and Good Deliberation .......................................................... 129
2.2 Good Deliberation and Practical Syllogism ........................................... 134
IV
Contents
3. Good Deliberation qua the Orthos Logos ....................................................... 137
3.1 The Universal and the Particular ............................................................ 138
3.2 Objection to the Particularist View ........................................................ 141
3.3 Moral Perception, Experience, and Deliberation ................................... 145
3.4 Deliberation as Prescription and Explanation ........................................ 151
4. Advantages of Deliberation qua the Orthos Logos ......................................... 155

Conclusion ............................................................................................. 160

Bibliograhy ............................................................................................ 166

Erklärung über die selbstständige Abfassung meiner Dissertation 183

V
Introduction
Introduction
1. Why the Orthos Logos?1
The fundamental motivation behind my decision to focus on the orthos logos for my
dissertation project is the importance, despite the remaining ambiguity, of this concept
in Aristotle’s ethical context, particularly the teachings from Nicomachean Ethics.2
Said importance is characterized by Aristotle’s belief, as he says in the second book
of his Nicomachean Ethics, that the OL can determine the right action and that this
right action builds the characteristic state of ethical virtue. In other words, the right
action is in accordance with the OL; the virtuous state is formed by performing
virtue-like action, which is, I argue, one kind of right action. By virtue-like action, I
do not mean action that comes from a virtuous state, but rather action which comes
from imitating truly virtuous action. To this effect, the OL determines both right
action and also ethical virtue through determining the virtue-like action.

According to Aristotle, this ethical quandary aims at generating “good” people who
possess virtuous states and perform virtuous actions (EN II 2, 1103b26-34； II 6,
1106b36-1107a2). This makes the OL vital and decisive for his ethical framework as a
whole, but what the OL really is remains elusive—not only because the concept of
logos is ambiguous, but also because Aristotle seems to abandon the subject entirely
partway through the inquiry. In Book II 2, he raises the question of what the OL is and

1 I use OL as an abbreviation for orthos logos in this paper, but the abbreviation of OL does not imply that OL is
an entity nor a thing. It seems also possible that orthos is simply a modification of logos. If the latter is the case,
it would be possible for Aristotle to qualify the same logos differently in other passages: e.g., as alethê in
1139a22-6. The wording of line 1138b20, ho logos ho orthos, indicates that this latter interpretation is likely
correct.
2 In this project, I mainly focused on the Nichomachean Ethics, while other related passages in Eudeimian Ethics
and Magna Moralia are relatively briefly discussed. Throughout this paper, unless otherwise noted, “ethics”
refers to Nicomachean Ethics.
1
Introduction
mentions the moral function of the OL several times afterwards, paying considerable
attention to the concept. At the beginning of Book 6, there is a brief reiteration of the
function of the OL and again a question regarding its definition: he tells us that he will
discuss the OL, including its definition or limit (ὅρος) (EN VI 1, 1138b34), but goes
on to focus on intellectual virtue rather than the OL throughout the sixth Book, thus
failing to provide the complete definition of the OL as promised, (or at least failing to
provide it straight-forwardly.)

What is the OL? Why and how can the OL determine right action and ethical virtue?
To this day, the answers to these questions remain obscure. Indeed, if Aristotle
himself has not answered them, the soundness of his ethical framework is threatened
as it remains unclear how one can perform right action and build ethical virtue. If
Aristotle does have an answer but does not give it to us directly, (as is my argument,)
then it is our task not only to fully define the OL, but to determine why Aristotle did
not explicitly do so.
2. The State of Research: A Brief Overview
For centuries, commentators have disputed the nature and the content of the OL
without reaching a satisfactory solution. There are two basic standpoints from which
scholars typically address this problem: Some believe that Aristotle failed to present
us with the definition of the OL as he had originally planned, and so given the
importance of the OL, that he also failed to build a consistent ethical framework;3 the
other standpoint, more optimistically, asserts that Aristotle does define the OL but
only insofar as it can be extracted and reconstructed from his ethics.

One of the most influential interpretations of the latter approach was presented by
Cook Wilson (1912). He classifies the OL under the faculty of reason, i.e., the
principle of the soul. In this sense, the OL can guide other faculties of the human soul
such as desire or feeling. Furthermore, through moral training, the OL shapes the
veracity of the faculty, i.e., “right” reasoning, through which moral learners are

3 Ackrill (1974), pp. 339-59, also in Rorty (1980), pp. 15-34; Tugendhat (1993), pp. 239-49. Thanks to Klaus
Corcilius for pointing this out.
2
Introduction
instructed in rationality. Lastly, the expression of the OL becomes the law that good
people obey. As Cook Wilson says, “[the law] is not here thought of as a mere rule,
but as a rule in which reason expresses itself, with the implied opposition of reason to
desire and appetite.”(1912, p. 116) Cook Wilson’s view is that reason, as a faculty of
the human soul, is the root of these other two meanings: namely, reasoning or the
activity of the faculty, and the law, or the expression or production of the faculty. His
view can as such be called the “faculty view” in general, (although his interpretation
of the OL contains a broader sense than the pure rational faculty by encompassing the
activity and product of the faculty, as well.)

Later commentators have developed multiple interpretations based on their critiques
of Cook Wilson’s view. There seems to be a general consensus among them that the
OL should be an activity or product of the rational faculty of the human soul, rather
than of the rational faculty itself.4
Nevertheless, this consensus contains intricate and complex differences within
varying interpretations of the OL. There are two opposing groups (which criticize
each other rather severely, in fact.) The first insists that OL is a correct exercise of the
rational faculty, i.e., right deliberation or reasoning which is the activity of the
rational faculty, which I refer to here as the “revised faculty view”. The other group
favors the OL as a universal formulation, i.e., a defining rule, moral principle, or law
that is the result or product of reasoning or deliberation, which I call the “rule view”.
In short, the revised faculty view takes the OL as the right reasoning or deliberation,
while the rule view takes the OL as a rule that results from the reasoning. Each group
contains many prominent thinkers: in the former group, there are Dirlmeier (richtige
Planung), Urmson (right reason), Ursula Wolf (richtige Überlegung), Carlo Natali
(retta ragione), and Roger Crisp (right reason), while the latter group includes Grant

4 Actually, it is hard to find anyone who classifies the OL purely as a rational faculty. The first scholar to be
criticized as a faculty-view supporter was Cook Wilson, who considers the OL a combination of faculty,
exercise of faculty, and virtue of this faculty rather than a pure faculty. I discuss this point in detail later in this
thesis.
3
Introduction
(right law), Burnet (right rule), Ross (right rule or principle), Gauthier/Jolif (droite
regle), and Dorothea Frede (richtiges Prinzip), among others.5

Yet another interpretation has emerged within the past twenty years based on critique
of the two interpretations above: some scholars are not content with the OL being
conceptualized as a universal rule, and insist that the OL consists of the right
propositions about morally particular situations, e.g., “doing this thing today with
these friends is ‘generous’.” Gómez-Lobo (particular practical proposition or
particular proposition) and Sarah Broadie (right prescription) are particularly
representative of this view.6 I call this the “particularist view,” and in later chapters
when referring to such a proposition about particular situation, I follow
Gómez-Lobo’s definition of “particular proposition.” (I also use “proposition view”
as a general term which integrates the rule view and particularist view.) Klaus
Corcilius has also supported this way of thinking in terms of the OL, by arguing that it
is simply a placeholder for a particular description of one’s action in given situation,
and delivers no normative information for the moral agent; he further states that his
interpretation does not preclude the function of the rule from the OL.7 A detailed
analysis of these interpretations can be found in Chapter 2.
3. Outline by Chapters
My interpretation would express sympathy for the viewpoint that the OL is the right
reasoning or deliberation. Unfortunately, those who hold this view have given us
neither an adequate argument to support their interpretations, nor a strong response to
those who insist that the OL is propositional. I must point out that the proposition
view also plays a positive role in my interpretation, namely, I insist that we cannot
make good deliberation and decision for a concrete action without good
understanding and application of rule or proposition.

5 Irwin uses “right reason” in his translation, but later explains that he leaves it open to the reasoning or rule view.
See Irwin (1985), p. 423. This list is not comprehensive. Cf. Taylor (2006), pp. 65-6, Moss (2014), p. 182.
6 A similar interpretation had already been suggested by I. M. Crombie (1962), pp. 539-40; Gómez-Lobo, 1995, p.
15-21; Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe translate it as “correct prescription”.
7 Special thanks to Corcilius for letting me read and draw inspiration from his unpublished paper on this topic.
4