Chapter 8
Relevant texts: Books VIII, IX, V Problems of interpretation
• Which relationships does Aristotle include?
• Is Aristotle an ethical egoist?
Critical issue
• Does Aristotle in effect abandon the link between morality and human nature?
Western ethics; or even to conclude that Aristotle held one or another version of ethical egoism. Neither conclusion would be justifiable; but the evidence for each needs to be discussed. So what does he say about relationships with others?
Aristotelian relationships
It is usual to speak of the section of the Ethicswhich includes Books VIII and IX as Aristotle’s discussion of friendship. As is so often the case, though, the common translation is slightly misleading. So in order to appreciate what he has to say, we have to think about the most appropriate translation for the term philia. The word appears in what is effectively the title for the long section of the Ethicswhich starts at 1155a3. It is clear enough that ‘friendship’ covers too narrow a range to be a good fit for the Greek term philia. Philia has many of the connotations of ‘relationship’ as we use the term in speaking of the relationships we have with people; and the corresponding verb philein means something like ‘to get on well with’, or ‘to like’. We might hope to get on well with a wide variety of people: our family, our close friends, our business partners, neighbours, fellow members of the cricket club, people at the leisure centre, mates down the pub, the local shopkeepers. We have different relationships with all these people, but they could all be described by Aristotle as our philoi– people we get on well with as distinct from merely have dealings with; and the various good relationships we have with them are relationships of what Aristotle would have called philia. The first thing to notice about Books VIII and IX, then, is the wide variety of relationships which Aristotle includes.1Philiaapplies to a rather broader spectrum of rela- tionships than ‘friendship’ does in English; and phileinsomeone is to like and get on well with them, but not necessarily to love them, or 1
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1A representative sample: young lovers (1156b2), lifelong friends (1156b12), cities with one another (1157a26), political or business contacts (1158a28), par- ents and children (1158b20), fellow-voyagers and fellow-soldiers (1159b28), members of the same religious society, or of the same dining club (1160a19), or of the same tribe (1161b14), a cobbler and the person who buys from him (1163b35).
even to think of them as friends in our sense of that word. Aristotle goes so far as to say that there is some kind of philiain any form of community (VIII, 9), by the mere fact of it being a community as distinct from a mere chance collection of people.
As minimally necessary conditions for philiaAristotle suggests that these relationships must be mutual, be mutually recognized, and involve mutual goodwill (VIII, 3, 1155b26–56a5). Aristotle is there- fore not willing to say that one can have a relationship of philia with an inanimate object – wine, for instance – since it cannot return one’s affection and there is no chance of the relationship being mutual. And (one of Aristotle’s comparatively rare jokes, perhaps) the only sense in which one could wish well to a bottle of wine would be to wish that it be well kept so that one could have it later. But he apparently leaves open the possibility of a properly mutual relationship with other ensouled things, such as one’s pet dog or cat (1155b27–31).2
In Book IV he gives an example which, I think, goes somewhat further. He makes a distinction between simply getting along with someone and liking them, and at least in this passage maintains that philia requires that we like someone rather than that we simply get along with them.3
Aristotle classifies relationships according to what they are based upon. He thinks there are three basic types:
(1) Relationships based on mutual advantage.
(2) Relationships based on mutual pleasure.
(3) Relationships based on mutual admiration.
He does not suggest that these never overlap; indeed, it is his view that the third type of relationship will also be an instance of each of
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2He has earlier dismissed as irrelevant to his present purpose scientific specula- tions about the role of Love and Strife in the Cosmos (1155b1ff); perhaps he regards such language as simply metaphorical, as we might speak metaphorically of gravitational or magnetic ‘attraction’ or ‘repulsion’.
31126b17–23, 1166b30–35. See also Cooper [1980] pp.305–08, and the refer- ences he collects in note 9 on p.336. I have the impression that on p.316 Cooper insists that philiarequires rather more in the way of feeling a liking for someone than I imply in the text.
the first two types as well, though its distinguishing feature is that it is based on an admiration for the qualities of the friend’s character.
This third type of relationship is the best and most perfect kind of friendship.
The reasons for saying this are several: (a) A friendship of this kind is based on the intrinsic qualities of the friend, and not on whether they happen to be good fun to be with, or useful. (b) Friendships based on admiration for someone’s personal qualities are more likely to endure than friendships based on pleasure or mutual advantage.
Whether someone can continue to give pleasure or offer other benefits depends very much upon changing circumstances. People can cease to be attractive; tastes and amusements can change; a person may no longer be in a position to do the kind of favours which were so useful.
But the virtues that characterize the good person are by their very nature enduring, and are admirable in all circumstances. (c) The basis of such friendships is admirable without qualification. In contrast, the members of a pornography ring may get on with one another on the basis of the pleasures they can provide for one another; and the members of a gang may find it worth working together for their share in the profits from drug smuggling. But the basis for these relationships is not good with- out qualification, and indeed is bad overall however good it might be from some limited standpoint. In contrast, those friendships which depend upon morally admirable characters cannot be criticized from any point of view (VIII, 3–6).
More tricky is how exactly we are to understand what Aristotle says about goodwill:
So people in a relationship must have goodwill for each other, know of each other’s goodwill, and wish good things for one another, on one of the three grounds already mentioned. These grounds differ from one another in kind. So then do the ways of relating, and the kinds of relationship. There are therefore three types of relationship, corresponding to the three grounds which are their objects.
(VIII, 2, 1156a3–8) The second half of this paragraph is clear enough from what we have already said. The first part is not so clear. Aristotle has already 1
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remarked that ‘it is commonly said that one should wish for good things for a friend for the friend’s sake’ (1155b31). How does that remark tie in with what is apparently said here, that people should wish good things for another because one’s friend is useful (or gives plea- sure, or is thoroughly admirable)?
There are several points to be made. (a) The grounds for the friendship appear in the answers which would be given to some ques- tion like ‘What is there between you and Tony?’ So it might be that Tony is a very useful person to know; or that he is good fun to play tennis with, or that he is someone I really like and trust and admire.
These answers both explain why I have any relationship with Tony at all, and define what kind of relationship it is. (b) Given that I have such a relationship and to that extent like and get on well with Tony, Aristotle assumes that there must be a certain degree of mutual good- will, since without goodwill there simply is no relationship at all. To have goodwill for someone is to wish them well and to be prepared to do things for them for their sake, although no doubt how much goodwill one can presume upon in any relationship will vary with the nature of the relationship itself. (c) To have goodwill towards Tony is a feature of the relationship which will naturally find expression from time to time. It does not necessarily follow that when I do something for Tony’s sake, I am doing it in order to maintain the relationship, or for the sake of some future advantage or pleasure to be obtained.
I therefore suggest that the final clause of the first sentence of the text I have cited above (‘on one of the three grounds already mentioned’) relates to the whole of the earlier part of the sentence, rather than explaining the immediately preceding clause about wishing good for the other person. That is to say, it suggests that the way in which allthe characteristics of the relationship work out will depend upon the basis on which the relationship as a whole is founded. The depth and extent and nature of my goodwill and the ways in which that goodwill is naturally expressed will all vary with the type of rela- tionship. But in each kind of friendship the goodwill is directed to the good of the other person, for that person’s sake.4
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4For a slightly different version of this, see Cooper [1980], especially pp.308–15.
Is Aristotle an ethical egoist?
In taking the line I have just suggested, I have by implication begun to make the case for saying that Aristotle at least cannot without qual- ification be described as an egoist in the modern sense. On the other hand, the considerable stress which he seems to lay on developing one’s capacities and living a fulfilled life might still suggest that the ultimate focus of ethics is indeed upon oneself rather than upon others.
So is Aristotle after all an egoist?
The question is not entirely clear, however, until we have tried to clarify what we might mean by ‘egoism’. One way to do this is to decide how best to use the term ‘altruism’, since egoism and altruism are nor- mally taken to be mutually exclusive. Consider, then, four possible accounts of an altruistic action:
(A1) An altruistic action is an action done to benefit another from which the agent derives no benefit.
(A2) An altruistic action is an action done to benefit another from which there is no foreseen benefit to the agent.
(A3) An altruistic action is an action which the agent performs to benefit someone else without considering whether he will benefit or not.
(A4) An altruistic action is an action which the agent performs principally for the sake of producing some benefit for someone else.
We may reasonably decide not to adopt (A1) on the grounds that it is too far from our normal usage, which would suggest that whether or not an action is altruistic depends on what the agent believes at the time. In contrast, the criterion offered in (A1) is independent of what the agent might think. (A2) avoids this objection, but might still be thought to be too restrictive on other grounds. On the basis of (A2), even the most unself-regarding parents could not perform an altruistic action towards their children, not even if they believed that no sacri- fice should be spared in order to bring them up well, if they also thought that to be good parents would be among the most fulfilling things they could possibly do. (A2) is so much more demanding than ordinary usage that it should be adopted as a definition only if there 1
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are good reasons for supposing ordinary usage is very confused or in some other way unhelpful.
On the other hand (A3) seems much closer to the way in which we would normally use the word. It is thus an improvement upon (A2). It also seems preferable to (A4) which I think is too weak. I therefore propose to define an altruistic action in terms of (A3). If one then defines ethical egoism as the view that denies that one ever has a duty to perform an altruistic action, then ethical egoism turns out to be:
(E1) One has a duty to perform an action only if it is believed to benefit oneself.
This, however, is a very weak form of ethical egoism. It does not even deny that it is permissible to act for the good of someone else; it merely says that one never has a duty to act solely for the benefit of someone else.
(E2) One may not perform an action unless one believes it will benefit oneself.
This is much stronger than (E1), in that it denies that the prospect of conferring some benefit on another can ever be a sufficient reason for doing something. It is incompatible with altruism as defined by (A2).
However (E2) is still weaker than:
(E3) One may perform only that action which one believes will maxi- mally benefit oneself.
There is no one correct account of egoism. Each of these different prin- ciples can be said to capture a plausible view which can reasonably be said to be egoist in spirit.5They are sufficiently different from one another to make it worth asking whether any of them corresponds to Aristotle’s account.
We need to recall what Aristotle says about eudaimonia. The only ultimately justifiable reason for doing anything is that acting in
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5For the sake of simplicity I am assuming that, in each of these three principles, we are speaking about the actions available to a particular agent in the circum- stances obtaining at that time.
that way will contribute to living a fulfilled life. We can, of course, be mistaken in our view of what a fulfilled life requires, as we can be mistaken in our view of what will in fact contribute to living such a life. We are unfortunately capable of deciding to act in a way which we know will not in fact contribute to living such a life. In these various ways our actions can be unjustifiable; and we may or may not be blameworthy for doing what cannot in the end be justified. Still, living a fulfilled life is not just something we should do, it is some- thing which we all naturally desire to do – indeed it would not bea fulfilled life were this not so. If, then, the word ‘benefit’ as it occurs in (E1), (E2) and (E3) is understood as ‘whatever contributes to living a fulfilled life’, then it seems that Aristotle subscribes at least to (E2), and hence to (E1). To act as one should is to act according to the intel- lectual and moral virtues: and to act virtuously is what living a fulfilled life consists in. Moreover, since the fulfilled life is complete and self- sufficient, nothing can possibly be an improvement upon it: so it seems that Aristotle must subscribe to (E3) as well. So he does, in just the sense we have outlined, and for the reasons we have given. Aristotle, in IX, 8 asks whether one ought to love oneself or others most of all (1168a28); his answer involves distinguishing between the vulgar sense of ‘looking after number one’, as we might put it, and true love of one’s self. The vulgar think of looking after themselves in terms of acquiring possessions and power and honours and pleasures; and since these goods are in limited supply, one person will acquire them only at the expense of others. Truly to love one’s self, in contrast, is to love the best and most controlling part of one’s self, that which most defines what a person is (1169a2). It comes as no surprise to discover that true self-love consists in respect for one’s mind.
The self-lover in the fullest sense is quite a different kind of person from the self-lover who comes in for criticism, just as a life lived in accordance with reason is quite different from one ruled by feelings, and desiring what is fine is quite different from desiring what seems to be to one’s advantage. Those who are outstanding in their eagerness to do what is fine are welcomed by everyone with praise. When everyone competes to do what is fine and tries to do the best actions, then everything will come 1
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about for the common good, and for each individual too there will be the greatest benefits, since that is just how virtue is.
(IX, 8, 1169a3–11) There are two key moves in this argument. One is the definition of what is truly beneficial for one’s self in terms of what is fine, noble and virtuous rather than in terms of riches, pleasures and honours; and the other is the consequent suggestion that there is no reason why true self-lovers should have to compete with one another for personal fulfil- ment in the way in which people might have to compete for other kinds of goods. There is nothing about the fulfilled life to suggest that it can be lived only at someone else’s expense.
To say that the fulfilled life is a life in which one pursues the noble and fine and lives according to the virtues in itself says nothing about what such a life consists in. One has to go on to fill in the details in terms of courage and honesty and temperance, and, in particular, of the virtues involved in liking people and getting on well with them. At this point, Aristotle, as we have clearly seen, insists on the importance of wishing someone well for their sake rather than one’s own. IX, 8 concludes with a long and beautiful account of the nobility of self- sacrifice for others’ sake even at the cost of one’s life, on the grounds that the person who is called upon to make such a sacrifice gains some- thing beyond price. Once he says that, Aristotle clearly accepts even (E3). But now (E3) seems very different, since it is explicitly shorn of what would normally be thought to be most characteristic of egoism, the claim that the egoist will at times be justified in promoting his own advantageat the expense of others.
Two criticisms will at once suggest themselves, the first based on Aristotle’s own account of why we do things, and the second based on a more pessimistic view of the inevitability of damaging competition.
Aristotle believes that everything we do is done for a purpose, and that fulfilment is the ultimate end for the sake of which we do everything we do. I have argued above (Chapter 3) that this is to be interpreted as meaning that the link to fulfilment explains why some- thing is worth doing, by giving the point of doing it. Well then, someone might argue, even the things one does out of goodwill towards one’s friends and the people one likes are not ultimatelydone for the
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