Appendix: Can Unconditional Moral Principles Be Justified?

Appendix: Can Unconditional Moral Principles Be Justified?1 This attempt to justify unconditional moral principles in Aristotle’s ethics will make use of subject matter taken directly from the Nicomachean Ethics, but it will not rest on this material entirely. Some tools from contemporary model theory are imple- mented too. Constructing an axiomatic model for a portion of Aristotle’s ethics is not only possible, but helpful in making explicit relationships among concepts at the core of Aristotle’s theory. When its subject matter is understood from the perspec- tive of a deductive paradigm, this Aristotelian approach to ethics offers a promising basis for a realist ethical theory. Of course, a large portion of ethical subject matter would not fall within the scope of a science of ethics, but an important set of core ethical concepts can. Seeing how these concepts relate to one another puts us in a better position to understand the nature of the subject matter of ethics. Let us assume that it is legitimate to treat a significant portion of Aristotle’s ethics deductively. With this assumption in place we can ask how far a deductive paradigm of ethics would extend and how the basic concepts within Aristotle’s ethics are interrelated. The model developed below will offer a specific proposal about how we might get started. Methodological Considerations As we saw in Chapter 3, much of the subject matter in Aristotle’s ethics could be fit within the model of science that Aristotle proposes in the Posterior Analytics. That specific type of model will not be developed here because of the difficulties that come with working with such a cumbersome structure, which would be distracting. A more contemporary axiomatic approach is not only consistent with an Aristotelian approach to science, but has the advantage of being easier to work with. We shall consider a small set of principles related to concepts at the core of Aristotle’s ethical theory that can be used to generate an action-guiding moral principle serving as the major premises of a practical syllogism. There is a large network 1 This appendix is based on (Winter 2001). M. Winter, Rethinking Virtue Ethics, Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy 28, 169 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2193-7, C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 170 Appendix: Can Unconditional Moral Principles Be Justified? of necessary relationships holding among ethical concepts, and the principles pro- posed below embody some of them. One of the functions of a science of ethics is to make clear how these ethical concepts relate to one another. Since Aristotle treats some claims about happiness as first principles of ethics, a science of Aristotle’s ethics would extend from these principles about happiness down to action-guiding moral principles. On the other hand, a science of Aristotle’s ethics would not include minor premises of practical syllogisms in its scope since these premises are about particulars. Although much of the subject matter of ethics is classified by Aristotle as holding for the most part, we should wonder whether there are unconditionally true, action-guiding claims in ethics that do not hold only for the most part. If there are, how should we treat these claims? When deductive structures that support proposi- tions that hold for the most part are combined with those justifying conclusions that might be taken to hold unconditionally, the result is a rich network of inferences that can be arranged systematically. A systematic arrangement of necessary claims from Aristotle’s ethics would provide the basis for a deductive paradigm of the theory. Aristotle’s view is that every science treats a distinct genus or definite subject matter. In the case of ethics the subject matter involves a fairly broad class of features related to human beings seeking their good. Human actions, emotions, dispositions, and the like are examples of features that we would expect to encounter in a science of ethics. At NE 1107a10–12 Aristotle indicates that adultery has no mean. This is one of the few examples of a potentially action-guiding unconditional moral principle Aristotle offers in his ethics. In view of Aristotle’s analysis of moral reasoning, a rational agent’s belief about the inappropriateness of a married person becoming romantically involved with another should be grounded in the belief that adultery ought to be avoided. Understanding the practical syllogism as providing a rational justification for action gives us the following setup: Adultery ought to be avoided. Becoming involved with x is adulterous. Becoming involved with x ought to be avoided. A science of Aristotle’s ethics would include a justification for the major premise of this practical syllogism as well as any other. We would expect concepts involving happiness, adultery, virtue, and ideas about specific virtues to furnish a foundation for Aristotle’s idea that adultery is always to be avoided. We would expect these same concepts to ground the explicit prohibitions of theft and murder as well. Principles having to do with the acquisition of the human good are relevant to the subject matter of ethics. So, for example, we could expect to find in ethics a principle stating that what is conducive to happiness is to be pursued. Conversely, another ethical principle might state that what is detrimental to happiness ought to be avoided. Neither of these principles is spelled out directly in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, possibly because Aristotle believes that both are too obvious to require explicit statement, especially in view of the practical character of that treatise. Appendix: Can Unconditional Moral Principles Be Justified? 171 What comes below is intended to capture much of the spirit of Aristotle’s notion of scientific demonstration with the assistance of a more contemporary formal approach. Again, the purpose of constructing this series of inferences is to see how we might deduce a proposition about the prohibition of adultery from principles of Aristotle’s ethics. Having the inferential structure will enable us to see explicitly how such a principle is rationally grounded. Axiomatic Approach to Ethics We will need the following assignments: • Let the genus, G, of ethics be the set of all subjects of ethics. This is a way of being explicit about Aristotle’s idea that each science treats a distinct subject matter. • Let a subject of ethics, s, be any activity, state, desire, disposition, quality, rela- tion, et cetera that is relevant to human beings seeking their good. This condition is fairly broad, but the purpose of offering it is to capture Aristotle’s idea that the objects of study in a genus will include any feature of substances that are relevant to that genus. • Let an essential set, S, be defined as the finite set of elements {e1....en} that are necessary components of a subject, s, within G. The notion of an essential set is intended to encompass different types of definition without involving us in the complexities of sorting through these issues in Aristotle. One of the ben- efits of this approach is that sets of elements may be only partially specified to make deductions and demonstrations possible. A partially specified set will be an incomplete list of elements that are related necessarily to a subject. A com- pletely specified set will include as a subset all elements that would constitute the essence of the subject. An optimally ordered set would be a complete set that begins with features closest to the essence moving toward those features more remote from the essence. • Let an element of a subject be any member of G. This idea is based on Aristotle’s essentialist metaphysics. • Let P1–P4 be a subset of the principles pertaining to G. P1: For any two subjects s and s∗,sisinconsistent with s∗ iff some element in the set S is the negation of some element in S∗. P2: x is not conducive to happiness if and only if x ought not to be done. P3: x does not conform with virtue if and only if x is not conducive to happiness. P4: x does not conform with virtue if and only if x is not consistent with the human function. Let us say a bit about each of P1–P4. P1 makes explicit a notion of inconsistency that will be needed to show that two ethical concepts conflict with one another. This notion of inconsistency is defined in terms of subjects and essential sets as stipulated above. The intuitive idea is that two ethical concepts are inconsistent with 172 Appendix: Can Unconditional Moral Principles Be Justified? one another just in case a necessary feature of one is incompatible with a necessary feature of the other. 2 We might illustrate this point with an example outside of Aristotle’s ethics. Kant claims that making a lying promise is irrational because lying involves an insincere intention that conflicts with the sincerity underpinning the institution of promising. Assuming Kant is right, if we treat both a lie and a promise as subjects of ethics, then correctly specifying elements in the essential set for each notion should make clear that the two concepts are inconsistent, because some element in the essential set of one is inconsistent with some element in the essential set of the other. The notion of inconsistency as it is defined here is not spelled out explicitly in Aristotle, but it is useful for a more systematic treatment of the justification for ethical principles. P2 is taken for granted in Aristotle’s ethics. It seems fair and appropriate to treat this principle as an axiom, provided we understand the notion of an axiom broadly enough to cover principles specific to a subject genus.

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