Bush, Stephen - Divine and Human Happiness in Nicomachean Ethics

02/11/2011

Philosophical Review, Vol 117 No 1, 2008

This paper discusses the ostensibly contradictory position by Aristotle that in the Nichomachean Ethics happiness consists in contemplation (the exercise of theoretic reason) and, also, that happiness consists in the exercise of the political virtues. Author's position is that Aristotle takes a dualistic approach to happiness, one activity of a human is divine happiness, another activity of a human being human happiness. This is contrary to two other interpretations, one he considers "monistic" and another is 'inclusive', or aggregate. The monistic version tries to have the contemplative activity as the good and argues that the civic virtues are somehow related, approximating, or subservient to theoretical reason. The inclusive or aggregate view author believes is an unnatural reading of the text, so it is largely ignored (pg50).

The monist interpretation, after reading book 10 of NE, becomes an intellectualist interpretation since contemplation, or exercise of theoretic reason, is the highest good. The trouble is what the status of the civic virtues like generosity, courage, justice are if they are not human goods in themselves. Author reviews the recent attempts by three authors to show how the civic virtues are related to the intellecualist position. The authors are Gabriel Richardson Lear, John Cooper, and Richard Kraut.

Richardson Lear argues that there are mid-level ends that are both goods-in-themselves but also for some other good. The way that the civic virtues are goods for the sake of happiness is a good-by-approximation. "If a middle-level end approximates the final end in some significant manner, that relation of approximation endows the middle-level end with intrinsic value that is derived from the value of the final end." (pg52) Another author, Cooper, argues differently. For Cooper, contemplation is an activity that is kind-of the progenitor of the exercise of civic virtues, since they are properly executed using practical reason. Since practical reason resembles theoretic reason and practical reason is the executive for the civic virtues, the intrinsic value of theoretic reason is conferred to practical reason and the exercise of the civic virtues. The final author considered here, Kraut, gives a kind-of first-choice, second-choice answer: the highest happiness is contemplation, but failing that, the second-best is civic virtue. (pg54-5) Author gives the problem for each of the intellectual monists: civic virtue and contemplation are two distinct activities; if both constitute happiness, then the view can't be monistic. "While Richardson Lear and Cooper spend proportionately a great deal of time demonstrating that the morally virtuous life is choiceworthy and valuable, neither gives much attention to how we can properly call that life happy." (pg53) Author presents his inconsistent tetrad: (pg54)
a) happiness is monistic
b) contemplative activity is exclusively happiness
c) contemplative activity and morally virtuous activity are distinct from each other
d) morally virtuous activity is happiness
What Cooper and Richardson Lear seem to advocate is that one can have a happy life without practicing theoretic reason since civic virtue approximates (Richardson Leer) or is related to (Cooper) theoretic reason. But this means a life of civic virtue can be a happy one but it lacks the activity of happiness, that is, contemplation. So author takes an interlude through the text of NE to discover whether Aristotle believed that one could be happy without the activity of happiness (pg56-8), or whether Aristotle believed that there was a robust condition of happiness that was separate from the good activity. (Author concludes: no)

Author believes Aristotle is clear that practicing the civic virtues is happiness, and that practicing contemplation is happiness. While this indicts monism, it does not lead him to an aggregate or inclusivist theory; rather, author advances a dualist theory of happiness. Other dualist theories have come from writers like Dominic Scott, whose work author reviews (pg60-1). Scott believes that Aristotle has primary happiness, in the strict sense, as contemplation, but derivative, secondary, happiness in the civic virtues. This is because humans have a bifocal nature-- one of contemplation but also one of practical reason and emotion. Author finds this particular take unconvincing because of the paradigmatic/secondary aspect of happiness.

Instead, author proposes a distinction between the 'characteristic human good' and 'the highest good that humans can obtain'. (pg61-2) The concept is that humans can reach human happiness based on their characteristic human good (practical reason), but that humans also possess theoretic reason, which will allow them to engage in an activity of divine happiness (contemplation). The characteristic human activity is to have its emotions conform to reason (the compound of reason and emotion)-- in the civic virtues. Yet, "The characteristic or peculiar good of a species is not necessarily the highest good that a species can obtain." (pg62) Author takes this thesis through the text of the NE (pg62-68). Along the way author pulls the strands of characteristic human-goods and human-happiness and of divine-goods and divine-happiness (pg64). So, on this reading, the highest human good is civic virtue, but humans can still access even a higher good-- though not a human one (a divine one)-- in contemplation. (pg67)

The interpretive difficulty in author's dualistic theory is a question about whether Aristotle implies that humans are 'mostly theoretic', and so the highest human good should be identified by the practice of their characteristic activity-- their theoretic capacities, contemplation. This would throw the divine element back into the human compound, destroying the dualistic distinction. (pg69-70) This is a question of how Aristotle sees the identity of the human-- what is the distinctive quality for humans? Author favors a reading of 'mostly' (malista) not as 'strictly' but 'especially'. (pg71) Author supposes Aristotle favors a distinction between what is 'merely human' and what is human and also divine. (pg72)