THE DEFINITION OF MORAL VIRTUE *
ni Yves Simon
New York: Fordham University Press, l986
Inilalathala nang may pahintulot mula sa Fordham University

From all of the preceding, it should be fairly clear where we are heading. This long series of distinctions and clarification of terms, combined with the arguments showing the inadequacies of what we have called the modern sustitutes for virtue, has taught us to the point where we are beginning to understand that the only way to face realistically the human problem is to acknowledge the need for a deliberate disposition of the dynamic parts of our psyche that would make us existentially ready to do the right thing at the right time. In other words, from what has already been said, we know that virtue must be both a qualitative and an existential disposition. The only problem is that not all qualitative existential dispositions are virtues, and so we have to distinguish and clarify some more.

Take, for instance, the case of a businessman who always pays his bills and fulfills every single provision of his contracts in the most scrupulous fashion. He always does the right thing at the right time, and he should be praised for it. But even though he is thus rightly disposed and quite dependable, he still may not possess the virtue of justice. He may be practicing honesty as "the best policy," which would make him a good businessman but not a good man without any qualifications. His readiness to deal fairly with everyone is socially very constructive, and if all businessmen did the same, the economic life of the nation would be greatly improved. Thus honesty as the best policy is strongly to be recommended in all social transactions. But if it is pursued exclusively for the sake of business, it does not constitute moral virtue, because virtues are supposed to make us not only dependable citizens but also good people. As St. Augustine puts it, virtue is the good quality of the soul by which we live rightly--qua recte vivemus--not in pursuit of our various occupations but as human beings.

Another problem with defining virtues as dispositions of both the qualitative and the existential type is that their opposites, too, are such dispositions. A vice would not be a vice, if it was not a stable disposition, which is why Aristotle himself in several places calls vice a hexis. The latter is not that much of a problem, because we know that Aristotle was sometimes careless with words. When he needed to be precise, he chose his terms very carefully. But on the very next page, you will find him using the same term in a looser and perhaps even opposite sense. While this is sometimes confusing, I personally believe that it is inevitable. Philosophy is not mathematics, and if we tried for mathematical precision in philosophical discourse we
could not stay in touch with what philosophy is supposed to illuminate, namely, real being. So I am not too worried about Aristotle calling vice a hexis, and I think that our distinction between habit and habitus settles this problem. Vice is a stable disposition not of the habitus but of the habit type, because the necessity involved in it is subjective rather than objective. Of course, the necessity felt by the person subject to a vice may well appear to him totally irresistible, and in some cases may actually be so--for him. But in the power of vice as such, there is no objective necessity.

Nevertheless, I would not dismiss vice as nothing but a bad habit made formidable by repetition. It is true that the original indulgence, which must be seen as the perversion, the accidental twisting of a particular tendency, became a vice because it was indulged over and over again. But we shall understand better both vice and virtue, if we acknowledge certain facts that constitute the common ground from which they both arise. I am referring to something we have not yet spoken of or mentioned directly, and that is the permanent possibility of a conflict between man's senses and his reason, which is absolutely normal. Let me repeat: in man, the conflict between senses and reason is not an abnormality; it is the way human beings are constituted by nature. And once we understand that, we shall neither wonder at the frequency of vices and the difficulty of suppressing them nor doubt the absolute need for virtues, that is, for bringing the diverse parts that constitute the human psyche in order according to reason.

Vices, then, may be said to result from a poor handling, a poor resolution of the conflict that normally exists between our senses and our reason. Properly managed, the potentially conflicting dynamic tendencies of the parts of our soul are brought under control by moral virtues. But notice please how, in talking in this manner about virtues and vices, one cannot avoid using the despised language of the so-called faculty psychology. This is an interesting point. While everyone speaks that language, its terms are also constantly denounced as unproved, unscientific, fictitious. No one could operate effectively in real life without distinguishing between a person's intelligence and his will. Thus everybody understands perfectly well what is meant when a person is described as "intelligent but unfortunately weak-willed." Likewise, concrete decisions are regularly made, and not only in academe, by finding out that a person's intelligence is not equal to his good will. But why, then, is there such opposition to the so-called faculty psychology? I suppose the main reasons are two, and once these are explained, I believe that we can use those controversial terms without any danger of being misunderstood.

One reason for the opposition to the faculty psychology is the mistaking of faculties for subjects. For instance, which is the true proposition: the intellect understands, or the person understands through his intellect? Well, the second, of course, because every operation is the operation of an existent whole. The objection to speaking of intellect, or reason, and will--and some even object to speaking of sight and hearing--becomes groundless the moment it is understood that the subject of any action is the existent whole, and that the faculty or power in question is not that which acts but that through which the agent acts. It is the person, not the intellect, who understands. But the man understands through his intellect, and if his intellect is restricted, we say that he is not a very intelligent fellow. He may, however, still be a man of good will, and thus do fairly well as a human being. Faculties are powers through which a person who always remains the subject of action, acts. It seems to me that once this is understood, one major objection to using the language of faculty psychology, which everyone uses anyway, is taken care of.

The second reason why there is so much opposition to faculty psychology is simply that identical terms used in experimental psychology do not have the same meaning in philosophical psychology. Intellect, instinct, imagination, memory,etc. do not mean the same to a clinical psychologist, or a rat psychologist, as to a philosopher considering intellect, imagination, instinct, memory, etc., even when they both call these things powers or faculties. Let us admit that psychology is a very poorly organized discipline and one whose disorderliness does not seem to be diminishing. Were I a little younger, I would consider dedicating my life to improving this situation, because the science of the soul is so important for morality. But sometimes I wonder if it is not already too late. The often conflicting findings of the innumerable experiments carried on in thousands of behavioral laboratories are not easily reconciled among themselves, let alone with the results of such other approaches as psychoanalysis or, say, Michotte's investigations into perception of causality. But be that as it may, and even though there is some philosophy and a great deal of ethics in the practice of clinical psychology, when those doctors speak of powers and faculties of a person, they do not--and should not--mean the same as someone who is using the same terms in a philosophical context.

Moreover, what does intelligence mean in rat psychology? The question makes perfectly good sense to behavioral psychologists (which proves that they have not done away with the notions of distinct faculties or powers). In rat psychology, rat intelligence is meaningfully set in contrast to rat instinct. But the precise definitions of intelligent behavior and instinctive behavior used in these experiments are hardly applicable to clinial psychology, let alone philosophical psychology. In the definition of rat intelligence, speed is quite important, and by this standard one may be justified in saying that rats are more intelligent than chickens. But in human and especially philosophical psychology it is depth rather than speed which is the more decisive and meaningful standard. Indeed, if quickness were the measure of intelligence, we would have to rewrite the history of philosophy, leaving some of the most profound thinkers out of it.

So the main thing is not to erect faculties, which are that through which a subject acts, into some kind of independent substances. And if we also remember that the meaning of these terms varies according to context, we shall not have to worry about using words like "understanding" and "will" in our discussion of moral virtues. These terms stand for distinct human faculties which are in practice recognized as such by all. And so we may repeat once again that, from all we know, we can safely infer that there is no solution to the human problem by merely cognitive ways. That seems to be what Socrates tried. He is famous for having tried to solve the problem of man and assure human salvation exclusively through the understanding of human affairs. But notice that all of us, and I definitely include myself, entertain the same tendency in various degrees. We would all like to believe that by just knowing more, we could perhaps assure the salvation of man. We never will, and yet such striving is not completely illusory. It is always good to know more about human problems, for we know so litte. We know so little about justice; we know so little about marriage; we know so little about the meaning of temperance and about the meaning of courage! It happens too often in the treatment of moral issues that a problem of temperance or of courage is reduced to a problem of justice, is boiled down to a problem of justice. We do this because we are baffled, because we understand so little about these things. Thus it is always good to learn more about them. And yet the problem will not be solved, because knowing more does not decide the problem of use. There are, after all, a few things about which we know exactly what we should and should not do, and we still do not do it, or do the wrong thing, precisely because action is not entirely an intellectual affair. The decisive factor in human affairs, which assures what we have called existential readiness in practice, is the will. About this there can be no doubt at all. Moral virtues either exist in the will, are dispositions of the will, or they are moral virtues insofar as they are dispositions of powers, abilities, faculties controlled by the will.

Traditional Moral Virtues

Let us, then, take a look at the traditional list of the main moral virtues, the so-called cardinal virtues, on which there is a truly remarkable consensus. The list is the same in Plato and in Aristotle, in the Stoics and in an eclectic like Cicero, in the medieval moralists and in the Renaissance moralists, and, insofar as they are interested in such subjects, even in the modern moralist writers. Such a consensus is not often found in the history of philosophy, and it gives this list a special weight. The main moral virtues are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Still holding off formal definition, we want to see how these qualities are related to existence.

The way Aristotle treats prudence is particularly significant, precisely because he does not try like Socrates to reduce it to science. Thus prudence for Aristotle is definitely a moral as well as one of the five so-called intellectual virtues. The latter are explained in Book VI of the Ethics and include, in addition to prudence, understanding, science, wisdom, and art. Briefly, understanding is the ability to perceive self-evidenct propositions, for instance, that every whole is greater than any of its parts. Science for Aristotle (as it is for Plato) is demonstrative knowledge, the ability to demonstrate conclusions. Wisdom is metaphysics, the supreme science that brings order to the rest of our knowledge. Of course, Aristotle did not call metaphysics metaphysics; that term was coined later. He designates this highest kind of knowledge by three terms, wisdom, first philosophy, and theological science. Finally, art (techne) is something like carpentry, or painting, or architecture, the knowing of how to make things--technology, we could say today--and prudence, is practical wisdom.

Practical wisdom is how W.D. Ross translates phronesis
which the Latin followers of Aristotle render as prudentia, and it is not a bad translation. Practical wisdom means wisdom in acting, wisdom in practice, wisdom in what we have referred to as human use. It is an intellectual virtue indeed, since its duty is to utter judgment. And yet, in contrast to the other four intellectual virtues, prudence is also a moral virtue. As Ross puts it, prudence is "a reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard to human goods." But let us not forget that the specific duty of prudence is to tell me what to do no matter how unprecedented the circumstances, no matter how unique the situation. If the circumstances are common, perhaps I can look up the answer in a manual and do what the book says. But in an unprecedented situation, which may be so constituted by the mere fact that there has never been a person exactly identical with my own self, as well as by the historical uniqueness of the circumstances in which I find myself at that particular moment, there are no answers to be found in any book. To know what I should do here and now, I must rely on the judgment of practical wisdom. And this judgment, reasoned as it may be, is ultimately determined not by the intellect but by the inclination of the will.

Many people would be happy if they could get a textbook of ethics which would tell them in great detail what to do under all circumstances. But even though it has been tried many times, no such book can ever be written, because the decisive circumstances under which moral judgement has to be uttered are characterized by uniqueness and contingency, and an objective response to those circumstances can come only from an appropriate inclination or disposition of the acting subject. For instance, people are usually taught that life is more important than property. So if my house is on fire with my family in it, I am fully justified using my neighbor's water to put the fire out. Is that stealing? Of course not, because in that extreme emergency the right of ownership is temporarily suspended. Likewise, if a mother has no money to pay for it, and her baby depends on it for survival, the mother is fully justified in taking some milk wherever she can find it. Now, when these things are explained to property-minded people, there is always someone raising his hand and asking, "But who is going to decide whther a particular situation is a case of extreme emergency?" Well, it is the person who finds himself in that situation. No book and nobody else can do that for him or her. In the second example, much would depend on how hungry the baby is, how old the baby is, and how available the milk is. In Greece, in 1946, taking a quart of milk was something very serious, because all babies were short of milk. When many people are near starvation, taking an ear of corn is a serious matter. But if strolling through the Wisconsin countryside next September you feel hungry, you do not have to be half-fainting before you pick an ear of corn from those immense fields. And a mother need not listen to her baby cry for a whole day before she takes some milk from a batch destined to be poured out in the gutter to keep up the price of milk. We can describe these circumstances in considerable detail, but no book can provide the existential answer to what to do in the actual situation. This answer can only come from the disposition or inclination of the person involved, and it will be the right answer only if that person is fully just and respectful of his neighbor's property, temperate and in control of his appetites, and courageous enough not to be afraid of the danger involved, one way or the other, in whatever judgment is handed down by his practical wisdom, by his prudence.

Again, prudence, according to Aristotle, is both an intellectual and a moral virtue. It is the only one of the so-called intellectual virtues that is also a function of the moral organization of personality. In fact, science, metaphysics, and art are called virtues only in a loose sense, because they embody only qualitative rather than both qualitative and existential readiness. But as Aristotle explains in Book VI of the Ethics (chapter 5), the readiness of prudence is both qualitative and existential. Unfortunately, the uninitiated reader will not get this distinction from W.D. Ross's translation, and I have had to explain it to my students year after year. After defining prudence, which he calls practical wisdom, as "a reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard to human goods," Ross goes on to translate Aristotle as follows: "But further, while there is such a thing as excellence in art, there is no such thing as excellence in practical wisdom." A truly puzzling sentence, behind which, however, there is a simple meaning. What Ross did is to translate arete, which means virtue, by an obviously related but much vaguer term, "excellence." In some other contexts, that would not be a crime, but here it renders the explanation of the nature of prudence completely unintelligible. Aristotle's meaning is this: When you have art, you still need virtue to make a good human use of it; but if you have prudence, you do not need an extra virtue to make good use of it, because prudence, being a moral as well as an intellectual virtue, supplies this good use of itself. And that is also why practical wisdom depends directly on a person's inclinations and disposition.

Next to prudence on the traditional list of moral virtues comes justice, which involves a relation to "another one." This expression is not the most felicitous, but it is the only available. The problem is that when I say "another one," you assume that this other is a person. That is not necessarily so, for this other may also be a community. For some reason, however, neither the Greek, the Latin, nor any other language that I am acquainted with has any expression that would convey this possibility unequivocally. So we have to stay with "another one," and, in order to correct the individualistic interpretation, explain that this other may well be a community. For instance, paying taxes is a matter of justice, but the other one in this relation is the political community, not a person. There is "otherness" here, but rather than one it involves the many in one. Both in the Aristotelian and in the Stoic tradition, the relation to the other is essential to justice, and in both it is understood that this other may be a community.

Aristotle discusses the diverse forms of justice in Book V of the Ethics, but not without a significant obscurity that also brings students to my office year after year. Thus, according to Aristotle, there is first of all general justice, an all-embracing justice which includes all virtues, and by which the parts of the community give the community its due. This justice is all-embracing, because when it comes to giving the community its due no virtue is completely irrelevant. For instance, while drug addiction is primarily a vice opposed to the virtue of temperance, it also withholds from the community what is its due. The citizens owe it to their community not to become drug addicts, as they also owe it to stand their ground on the battlefield with the fortitude one expects of citizens-soldiers.

Aristotle distinguishes this all-embracing general justice from particular justice, which he subdivides into distributive and what he will call commutative justice. Distributive justice is the rule by which the community renders their due to each and every one of its parts. It consists in the distribution not so much of the "social product" as of the "common good," and it thus includes the distribution of honors as well as material benefits in proportion to individual merits and needs. The second type of particular justice is commutative justice, that is, justice in exchange. But Aristotle confuses things by first speaking of something designated as corrective justice by some translators, and as rectificatory or remedial justice by others. Now, it took me some time before I could explain all these terms to my students (nobody explained it to me while I was a student). It is really rather simple. In book V of the Ethics, Aristotle is considering things in relation to the community. The relation of the parts to the whole is covered by the rules of general justice, which is all-embracing. This is also called later legal justice, because rendering to the community what is its due is regulated by law. The relation of the whole to the parts is covered by the rules of distributive justice, by which the community renders their due to its members, according to merit and need. What about commutative justice? Well, as long as its rules, which govern exchange among the members of the community, are observed, the community is not directly involved and has little to say about it. It is only when these rules are violated, say, when a contract is broken, that the community steps in with, yes, corrective action. The community is, of course, interested in the due observance of contracts at all times; but it has no reason to intervene except to rectify an injustice, e.g., a breach of contract. So in the context of community as such, commutative justice is, in a sense, taken for granted. And that leaves us with just three kinds of what we may call social justice: general justice, ruling the relations of the parts of the community to the community itself; distributive justice, governing the relations between the community and its members; and rectificatory or corrective justice, which is what the community must enforce when the rule of just exchange (which, incidentally, is strict equality) is not lived up to by individual citizens. One wishes that in explaining his theory of justice in Book V of the Ethics Aristotle had done a better job.

The remaining two moral virtues, fortitude and temperance, are virtues of the sense-appetite (as distinguished from justice, which resides in the rational appetite, the will). Fortitude is relative to the difficult, the arduous, the good which is hard to get and the evil which is hard to avoid, while temperance has to do with the drive toward pleasure and away from pain. All these notions are very close to common experience, but at the same time very deep and not without obscurities.

What do we refer temperance to? To things like eating and drinking, perhaps? We can all see here the possibility of excess--but excess of what? Excess in the drive toward the pleasurable, toward what is sensuously pleasurable, which in itself is both normal and good for man. Is it possible to be intemperate in intellectual pursuits? I suspect that it is, but that is not the focus of the traditional virtue of temperance. Its focus is on the drive toward sensual pleasure. Similarly, the focus of fortitude is on the fear of death. We all have all kinds of fears whose control requires much fortitude. But Aristotle focuses on the battlefield, where a man can show his mettle in a voluntary overcoming of the ultimate fear for the clearest of all good causes, namely, the preservation of the community.

Recalling the precautions with regard to the use of the language of faculty psychology, let us now consider again the place, the residence, as it were, of these dynamic powers of the soul. The intellectual virtues clearly are so called because they reside in the intellect alone; or rather, it resides in the intellect indeed, but as inclined by a virtuous heart. Although in no way an Aristotelian, Pascal came close to guessing the nature of prudence when he wrote about the reasons of the heart, of which, at least according to Pascal, reason knows nothing. Pascal implies that intellectual and affective knowledge are poles apart, perhaps even contradictory, which definitely is not Aristotle's position. Indeed, according to Aristotle, prudence is what brings the heart and the reason together.

A moral philosopher or a moral theologian can handle questions concerning moral essences regardless of whether he has or does not have prudence. Nevertheless, I would not advise you to take such questions to a known scoundrel, and for a very simple reason. Because his knowledge of the subject does not embody an unqualified commitment to righteousness, he may choose to give a wrong answer. Still, in theory at least, any moral philosopher should be able to handle scientifically questions pertaining to moral essences and tell you what is right and what is wrong in general. But if your question involves any amount of contingency, you can get a reliable answer only from a man who is himself completely reliable. A personally undependable philosopher could give you the right answer only by chance. For when the question is what to do here and now in a unique existential situation, a reliable, objective answer can come only from a person with true practical wisdom, which includes the proper disposition of the will as well as of the intellect.

For instance, if we ask this abstract, philosophical question about commerce, Is it lawful to take advantage of a change in the market value of a commodity? Any teacher of ethics should be able to give the correct theoretical answer. It is not un-lawful, but the act is not self-justifying. Thus such a transaction will have to be made good by something else, perhaps by making a righteous and generous use of the proceeds. Similarly, if we ask whether it is lawful to spread false rumors to influence the market prices to one's advantage, the answer is an unequivocal No, solidly based on theoretical premisses. But what about this question: Is it lawful to accept dividends from a company whose employees are not getting fair wages? We realize that if we were ourselves responsible for this company, we would have to pay the employees just wages before we give the shareholders any dividends (some states have laws to that effect, and the rule is certainly in accordance with natural justice). But if I own only a few shares of a company whose management, according to reliable sources, actually shortchanges its workers in favor of its shareholders, what am I supposed to do? Return the money to the company? Distribute it among unknown persons? Give it to the poor? Or should I conclude that, under the circumstances, that money lawfully belongs to me? The point is that a question like that cannot be answered by science, the second intellectual virtue. The only right answer to it can be given by the fifth intellectual and the first moral virtue, prudence, whose judgment will follow the inclination of a virtuous heart.

Justice, the second moral virtue, is the virtue of the will in the most excellent sense. But we must remember that the will in which justice resides is not the primitive but rather the rational will disciplined by the practice of other moral virtues located in the emotional part of the soul. Thus neither prudence nor justice can be completely separated from fortitude and temperance, the virtues that control our fears and desires. In Socrates' famous allegory in the Phaedrus, the will and the desires are represented by a charioteer and two steeds, one of whom is noble and spirited, the other mean. Clearly Plato's purpose in describing the nature of these animals is to analyse parts of the soul in terms of moral psychology; he is judging sense-appetites in terms of moral values. Now in Aristotle, these two horses become two perfectly respectable, normal, and natural parts of emotional life, which he treats in straightforward psychological terms before he considers their relation to moral life. The only problem is that the Latin followers of Aristotle have given these drives the impossible names of irascible and concupiscible appetites, presumably because anger is the distinguishing mark of the former and lust of the latter. You will find both these terms in any dictionary,but even though they are good old
English words, they simply will not do today. Irascible and concupiscible appetites! I doubt that these names can stir any thoughts in people's minds today, and we shall be better off if we just describe what they stand for.

In emotional life, there is a drive toward the pleasurable and away from the unpleasant. That is the mean horse of Plato. But why should he be mean? Well, lust can be that way--"crooked of frame, a massive jumble of a creature... hot-blooded, consorting with wantonness and vainglory... deaf and hard to control with whip and goad". (Phaedrus 253E) Aristotle treats it more even-handedly: the drive toward the pleasurable is for him a function of nature; it is normal, and it is good. But that does not mean that it does not have to be regulated. Moreover, as in the case of other such basic drives in man, the control of the drive toward the pleasurable (and away from the unpleasant) calls not just for a qualitative but also for an existential disposition. Here it is not enough just to know when it is enough; one must also be able actually to give up the excess pleasure (and not be pained by the renunciation). The person who can do that is called temperate. We say that he has the virtue, the habitus of temperance, which is but a rational disposition of the drive toward the pleasurable and away from the unpleasant.

Similarly, fortitude has to do with feelings of fear and confidence (but more with fear than confidence), which Aristotle again recognizes as natural but in need of regulation. What is terrible is not the same for all men, but there are things that one should be afraid of and other things with regard to which one should never be too confident. Thus a man fearless in the face of death on the battlefield may still fear disgrace; but if his feelings are the other way around, he is both a coward and a shameless person. He is not brave who fears, say, neither earthquakes nor storms at sea; and the man who makes it a point to display great confidence in dangerous situations is best described as rash--he wishes to appear courageous. The coward, the rash man, and the brave man, then, according to Aristotle, are all concerned with the same objects but are differently disposed toward them. For only he who has the virtue of fortitude will face and fear the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and at the right time, and will feel confidence under the corresponding conditions.

Again, lust and fear are parts of human emotional life, naturally useful for the procreation of the species and the self-preservation of individuals. But instead of being regulated by instinct as in other animals, these drives and feelings in human beings come under the control of the will which gives rise to the whole problem of morality. It is only as long as these drives are controlled or controllable by the will that we may speak of right and wrong conduct, of good and evil acts. When these emotions revert to being purely animal processes, as sometimes happens by accident, moralists no longer have anything to say, and the matter must be left in the hands of experts who have mastered the various disciplines of the fourth intellectual virtue, techne, or art. Thus when a person commits a violent act, having completely lost rational control of his emotions, the case belongs to those who are experienced in protecting society and those who might know how to restore this unfortunate person to sanity. Of course, it is never easy to tell when or if a person's passions and emotions are totally out of control, but I find it encouraging that in the evolution of modern law persistent efforts have been made to discriminate, to distinguish between a criminal act and an insane act. Perhaps it has always been recognized, in principle, that where there is no rational control there should be no punishment, and that questions of morality do not arise in such situations. But what is noticeable in the evolution of legal systems since the eighteenth century is an increasing awareness that these situations are incomparably more frequent than our ancestors believed. If a man kills someone while under some primeval irresistible compulsion, his case belongs neither to the field of morality nor to the field of criminal law but rather to the art and science of mental and emotional healing.


The Definition

Against these brief sketches of the traditional moral virtues, we may now at long last take a look at Aristotle's definition of what we have been talking about all along. Usually, I am diffident about using adjectives such as traditional, classical, or perennial, because more often than not they imply greater unity of views or principles than is actually found in the history of philosophy. But when Aristotle as well as Plato, the Stoics, and St. Augustine as well as St. Thomas accept prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance as the main moral virtues, I not only feel justified in using the term "traditional" but am inclined to assume that behind the layman's understanding of these notions there is great philosophical depth to be explored. We have said many times that moral virtue is characterized by unqualified existential readiness, and the above remarks should make it clearer how virtue makes the difference between to be and not to be. Lust and fear are no abstract ideas but living experiences calling not just for discussion but for appropriate action. it is the same with our relations to other people and to the community as a whole, in which under most circumstances even doing nothing has consequences to be judged right or wrong. And finally, in all cases, is it not that only if we actually do it can we justly claim to know what is right? I have no doubt that this is Aristotle's position on the unity of theory and practice in moral matters.

But can all this be condensed, compressed in a formal definition? Not too well, I am afraid, even though Aristotle does a fair job of it. Here is his definition: "Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it." To translate that kind of statement requires more than just the knowledge of the language. I like the translation of the Politics by Benjamin Jowett because, being an artist, Jowett not only rendered it faithfully but also made it readable. W.D. Ross is not an artist, and sometimes his translations of Aristotle, correct as they may be, turn out unreadable. Still, in this case, this may not be entirely his fault, which only confirms the rule that when the original text is short of artistry, the translator needs to have a surplus of it.

"Virtue is a state of character." Ross knows better than to translate hexis by "habit," but he is not familiar with "habitus," and so he settles for the second-best expression to convey a stable, objective disposition of the diverse parts of the soul, a state of character. Now, this state of character is indeed concerned with choice--of what to do--"lying in a mean," that is, avoiding both excesses and defects to which all our actions are liable. Thus in social intercourse we want to be neither obsequious nor churlish but friendly; in money matters, neither prodigal nor mean but generous; and in matters of honor neither vain nor humble but proud. The expression "the mean relative to us" may at first appear confusing, but its meaning is rather simple. Except in matters of justice, where "the mean" is in the thing itself, the correct choice of action truly depends on who and what we are. Sticking to the clearest possible examples, if I borrowed one hundred dollars from you, justice requires that I pay you back not ninety-nine or one hundred and one but one hundred dollars. If I gave you more, you could call me liberal, or generous, or even prodigal; but if I gave you less, you would have all the right to call me both mean and unjust. With regard to fortitude and temperance, however, there is nothing that says what the right mean is. For instance, there is no chart that can tell you the amount of alcoholic beverages you can drink per unit of time and stay within the limits of temperance. It depends on the subject. Thus while I am not sure whether or not Sir Winston S. Churchill qualifies as a temperate person when it comes to drinking, I am sure that he can celebrate his birthday with a lot more champagne than I can and still be judged sober. Similarly, a non-swimmer will not be denounded as a coward if he does not leap into a raging river to save a drowning child; but that is certainly what would be expected from a professional lifeguard. The mean has to be relative to us, because it is we and nobody else who have to decide what to do in a given situation. But notice how Aristotle continues by saying that this mean is "determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it." It is we who have to decide, but that does not make our decision unqualifiedly subjective. For if we have practical wisdom, we shall determine what is to be done, and do it, on the basis of a rational principle and objectively with regard to the circumstances.

At this point, however, we run into a serious gap in Aristotle's ethical theory. He defines virtue as a disposition relative to choice, and we understand that he includes in it what we have called existential readiness. But we also now realize that such a disposition relative to what makes a man good as man presupposes a system of moral axioms. A choice lying in a mean that makes the difference between a good man and a bad man clearly requires a general understanding of what makes men good or bad. Does Aristotle cover this by saying that the choice of the mean is determined "by a rational principle"? Perhaps, but the whole issue is rather ambiguous. Recall the five intellectual virtues of Aristotle. The first of them is indeed what he calls understanding (Ross translates this as intuitive reason), but there is little doubt that this refers to theoretical, not moral, principles. Does he have a comparable notion of understanding of practical first principles? Does he have a theory of how we know the basic premisses of the moral order? Aristotle is not very clear on this matter. Possibly these premisses are covered by the intellectual virtue of understanding secondarily. This is not excluded, but Aristotle does not make it explicit, and he thus leaves us with a problem. There is no point in talking about a wise choice, of choosing rightly in matters of temperance or fortitude, except in relation to what is good or what is bad--for man as man. But how do we know what makes man good as man, and consequently what is right and what is wrong for man to do?

In our time, this is called the problem of values, and it is a question of what is valuable for man, what makes for a happy human life. Still, we must be very cautious here, because more often than not consideration of "values" today takes place within the framework of an idealistic, mechanistic philosophy whose vision of the world excludes finality. In this vision, things, including man, have no ends and have, therefore, to be assigned "values" from outside. Without a nature of his own that would determine what is good and bad for him, man has no other choice but to let his imagination create his own "values." No wonder so many people today suffer from existentialistic despair of one kind or another. In a world devoid of finality, all values must of necessity be both subjective and artificial; and when these "values" collapse, despair is all that is left. By contrast, in a world of natures, values reside in the nature of things. Thus if man has a nature, he also has a destiny, and we can relate what is right and wrong for him to do to his nature and to his end objectively.


How do We Know Right from Wrong?

Now, it goes without saying that, even though in his philosophy Aristotle (and the same goes for Plato) did not work out fully a theory of the knowledge of the right and the wrong, this knowledge in his philosophy is plainly related to reality and to the finalities of things. To know what to do, one must consider the nature of things. For instance, man being what man is, suicide is wrong. Similarly, society being what it is by reason of what man is, it is clearly better not to lie than to lie. But even if we grant that there is such a thing as human nature, the understanding of which brings out the difference between right and wrong, we still have another extremely important question to consider. How do we come to know moral axioms? What is the mode of our apprehension of moral principles? Are they known rationally or by inclination? Or both rationally and by inclination? The ancient Greeks were not very explicit on this issue.

How do you know that it is better not to cut the throat of a child than to cut it? How do you know that it is wrong to steal, rape, burn? Do you grasp it rationally, or do you know it because you "feel" it? Or do you do both? On this subject I would recommend a few pages from a book by my old teacher and friend Jacques Maritain, entitled Man and the State. I cannot say that I like every part of that book, but its few pages on natural law are absolutely excellent. Natural law, Maritain explains, is known first of all by inclination. That does not mean, of course, that it cannot be known rationally, or that rational knowledge of its principles is not desirable. It is simply that primordially, primitively, and primarily, natural law, whose core is constituted by the premisses of the moral order, is known by inclination. I think that is indeed the case. We know these things first by a sort of instinct. For instance, why refrain from lying? How do you know that lying is wrong? You feel it. Is that irrational? Not at all. Irrational means extraneous and opposed to reason, which certainly does not apply to telling the truth. Thus what is known by inclination by a rational nature is not irrational, even though it may not yet be rational knowledge in the strict and full sense.

Now, what goes for moral axioms, principles, and laws, goes with even greater force for the particular decisions, the unique choices that have to be made with regard to those principles in given situations. When a choice is to be made, the determination of the right and the wrong is carried over into the world of contingency where formal rationality, formal logic, is not much help. By what, then, is this determination effected? It can be effected only by the virtue of prudence, which is both an intellectual and a moral virtue. Notice how Aristotle handles this in his definition of moral virtue. When he speaks of the choice of the mean between an excess and a defect, he says that this is determined by a rational principle. The word he uses is logos, a powerful word with a beautiful multiplicity of meaning. It means "word," it means "concept," it means "reason," it means "rational principle." Now, this mean clearly has to be the work of a rational principle, if the choice is to be properly a human choice, that is, conducive to what is good for man as man. But is there really room for "choice" in strict logic? We do not choose and pick in matters of rational principles. Yet in moral matters that is precisely what determines our action and makes it either right or wrong, and that is why Aristotle, having said that the mean is determined by a rational principle, goes on to specify "and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it."

To illustrate all this by simple examples, let us imagine a smart businessman, who is also a good, prudent man, being approached by a smart crook. The project he is offered to join looks perfect in every way: no risk to speak of, very little work, and great expectations. Because the plan is so attractive, our businessman goes over it again very carefully and still cannot find anything wrong with it. Nevertheless, he rejects the offer and tells the man not to call back. And when a friend puzzled by his decision asks what was wrong with the project, he says: "I did not see anything wrong, but I smelled it. The deal stinks." I am convinced that Aristotle had something like that in mind when he spoke of determination by the man of practical wisdom, by the prudent. It is the only way the right and the wrong can be determined in a contingent situation. " I smell a rat," is a very telling expression. For just as we use metaphors derived from the sense of sight when we speak of analysis, and metaphors derived from the sense of touch when we want to convey certainty, we come closest to describing knowledge by inclination in moral matters by comparing its feelings of attraction and repulsion to the sense of smell.

But let us take another, more difficult and complicated case. We shall assume that adultery is wrong, and that it is better not to commit adultery than to commit it. Ordinarily, there should be no problem here, because people know whom they are married to and whom they are not married to. But I remember a story from the last big war in which these things got somewhat mixed up. A man on the notorious Burma Road was reported killed, and after a decent interval his wife, in perfect good faith, married another man. Shortly thereafter, however, rumors began to spread that the man was not dead after all but was a prisoner of war. Now, in times of wars and revolutions all sorts of stories and rumors are constantly circulated, and it is not easy to know what deserves to be taken seriously. So what are our couple to do? If the first husband is actually alive, the only decent thing to do would be to separate immediately. But if the story of his being a prisoner is not true, going through the heartbreak as well as the hardship of a separation would definitely be wrong also. The couple would certainly want to investigate the rumor, but that might take quite a long time, and the question is what they are going to do in the meanwhile. Now this is plainly one of those contingent situations in which nothing can be done by pure logic, where the determination of the right choice cannot be effected by any derivation from rational principles. The decision has to be made by prudence, and only a man of practical wisdom will be able to make the right choice.

Does that mean that in the situation we have just described there should be only one objective answer? I do not think so, and I do not think that Aristotle would think so. For one thing, there is no way in the world to evaluate objectively the initial rumors about the first husband being alive; although he in fact is or is not, for all the others concerned this remains, until the final proof, a matter of opinion. But there is also another thoroughly contingent element in this situation: the choice would depend on who those people are, for as Aristotle would point out, the mean, albeit determined by a rational principle (adultery is wrong), is relative to them and them alone. So with the apparently same amount and the same kind of information on hand, one couple could conceivably separate immediately, while another couple stayed together until they found out more about the rumor. Now, clearly there is great temptation here to jump to the conclusion that what it all finally boils down to in "morality" are strictly subjective judgments. This temptation is not without a ground, because the ultimate moral decision is determined by the disposition of the subject. I recall Kierkegaard's famous saying, "In der Subjektivitat liegt die Wahrheit," "truth lies in subjectivity." What he wanted to convey by this striking proposition may not be altogether clear, but the formula can be used to support our examples. Think again of the honest businessman who flatly turns down a fabulous deal in which he himself can find no fault--except that "it stinks." His decision is determined by subjective disposition, as are all judgments by inclination. But this disposition, while belonging indeed to this man, this subject, has been built up from a consistent practice of honesty in business dealings over a long period of time and may therefore be said to have grown objective in matters of justice. In other words, the disposition of this particular subject inclines him toward justice in such a way that even without being able to tell what is wrong with it, a crooked deal causes in him a strong feeling of repugnance. So we can think about it as follows. In knowledge by inclination, subjectivity--that is, the constitution of a subject--works as a way of judgment in all cases, including the case of correct, right, good objective judgment. And then we, too, can say with Kierkegaard that "in der Subjektivitat liegt die Wahrheit."


Virtue and Objectivity

It does not look the same, and it does not work in the same way as scientific objectivity, but there is such a thing as prudental objectivity. While it is I who must choose the proper mean in a given situation, the determination of that choice is not necessarily the product of my whims. I can use my subjectivity as a way to judge about a certain object and to reach the truth about it that cannot be reached in any other way. Take again the case of an honest man who marries a woman officially certified as a war widow. Now rumors spread that her husband is alive, but they are just a part of all sorts of wild stories that always circulate in times of war and revolution. If one listened to all such rumors, life would become unbearable, and one would not be able to discharge the most elementary duties. So the rumor must be carefully weighed and evaluated before any action is taken. But who is to do the evaluating? The couple themselves, of course, for there is no one else. It is they who have to decide, subjectively, how much credence to give to various witnesses and their information. They have to use their subjectivity to determine what to do, for there is no other way. But if their subjectivity is shaped by moral virtues, they will arrive at the objectively right decision. If they are absolutely determined to do the right thing, if they are not blinded by passion, and if they are ready to face all possible difficulties one way or the other, they will make the right choice. Possessed of justice, temperance, and fortitude, their decision will be prudentially objective.
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