Virtuous Activity Is Sufficient for Happiness and Some Minimally Favorable Circumstances Are Necessary for Virtuous Activity
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Virtuous Activity Is Sufficient for Happiness and Some Minimally Favorable Circumstances Are Necessary for Virtuous Activity Benjamin Hole A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2016 Reading Committee: Stephen M. Gardiner, Chair Sara L. Goering William J. Talbott Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Philosophy © Copyright 2016 Benjamin Hole University of Washington Abstract Virtuous Activity Is Sufficient for Happiness and Some Minimally Favorable Circumstances Are Necessary for Virtuous Activity Benjamin Hole Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Stephen M. Gardiner Department of Philosophy I argue for a nontraditional sufficiency thesis: virtuous activity is sufficient for happiness and some minimally favorable circumstances are necessary for virtuous activity. This view satisfies two intuitions from the ancient dispute that might at first seem in tension. Happiness depends on favorable external circumstances, and virtuous activity guarantees happiness. Acknowledgements I owe thanks to the UW Philosophy department for funding my graduate research and to my PhD committee for supervising the dissertation. Also, a very early draft of Chapter 1 was presented at the 2013 Gonzaga University Graduate Conference in Philosophy, where it won the Outstanding Paper Hutchins Award and benefitted from discussion. I would also like to thank the many people who helped support me while I went through the tough psychological process of writing a dissertation, from writing groups that held me accountable to the friends who encouraged me. There are too many people to thank individually. Table of Contents Chapter Page CHAPTER 1 – Introduction: Traditional Aristotelian and Stoic Approaches to Happiness, as well as a Nontraditional Sufficiency Thesis ............................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 – Annas’s Framing and the Traditional Dispute: Living versus Materials .............26 CHAPTER 3 – Russell’s Reframing of the Dispute: Formalized versus Embodied .....................50 CHAPTER 4 – A Nontraditional Sufficiency Thesis: Virtuous Activity Is Sufficient for Happiness and Minimally Favorable Circumstances Are Necessary for that Activity .................61 CHAPTER 5 – A Minimum Threshold of Favorable Circumstances Necessary for Virtuous Activity and Happiness ..................................................................................................................91 CHAPTER 6 – Conclusion: Different Theoretical Approaches and what we want from a Virtue Ethical Theory ..............................................................................................................................104 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................117 Chapter 1 Introduction: Traditional Aristotelian and Stoic Approaches to Happiness, as well as a Nontraditional Sufficiency Thesis What is virtue ethics? … The simple answer … is that virtue ethics is what Aristotle did. Here Aristotelian ethics is contrasted with the familiar moral theories which became dominant during and after the Enlightenment: Kantianism, on the one hand, and utilitarianism, on the other.1 §1. Introduction: Why Care about an Ancient Dispute? Virtue-oriented approaches to ethical theory are distinct from deontological ones, which focus on rules or duties, and from consequentialist ones, which focus on states of affairs. Aristotle’s virtue ethical theory famously lays out two central concepts, virtue and happiness. This concept of happiness (eudaimonia) is distinct from the present-day sense of the term that denotes a positive state of mind such as a joyful one. It is the idea from ancient philosophy of a good life, a life that flourishes, or a life that goes well. The basic idea is that a happy life involves exercising moral virtues. On this view, the virtues are robust character traits, or sets of disposition for properly acting. Ancient philosophers agree that exercising these virtues is necessary for happiness, but disagree over whether favorable circumstances are also necessary. This divide marks a deep tension in eudaimonist approaches to virtue ethics. As traditionally framed, the dispute is over the relationship between virtue and happiness. The paradigm case used to distinguish the two approaches is the fable of Priam (EN.1.9- 10). He was King of Troy and suffered devastating losses during the Trojan War, including the loss of family and the destruction of his city. However, Aristotle suggests Priam’s virtuous character was able to “shine through” (dialampei to kalon) despite these tragedies (EN.1.10). The question is whether Priam remains happy. On a more Stoic approach, virtue is sufficient for happiness.2 So, if we accept that Priam remains virtuous after the tragedy, then we must also accept that he remains happy. Similarly, someone living in poverty could be said to flourish or live well, despite her limited opportunities, so long as she remains virtuous. One attraction of this view is that it makes happiness universally accessible to everyone who can be virtuous. By contrast, on a more Aristotelian approach, virtue and some circumstances are both necessary for happiness, but neither one of them is alone sufficient. Priam cannot remain happy because 1 Ruth Anna Putnam 1988, 379. 2 Although I use the labels of “necessity thesis” and “sufficiency thesis” to refer to positions, my discussion is limited to views that hold that virtue is necessary for happiness. This is a common assumption in eudaimonist approaches to virtue ethical theory. In this respect, “necessity thesis” and “sufficiency thesis” are terms of art in this discourse. The sufficiency thesis refers to the claim that virtuous activity is both necessary and sufficient for happiness. 1 tragedy has stolen his city and family. The main attraction of this view is that it captures our intuition that happiness is vulnerable to the world. The traditional Aristotelian approach has long been the default for virtue-oriented approaches to ethical theory, but Julia Annas argues that the Stoic approach is a viable alternative for present-day virtue ethicists, with certain advantages which have yet to be fully explored in the literature (1996; 2005; 2011). In her recent book, Intelligent Virtue, Annas advances the view that virtue and happiness involve how you live your life and not its circumstances. She claims it “is not a matter of the stuff you have, whether you are beautiful, healthy, powerful or rich” (2011, 129). Rather virtue and happiness consist in dealing well with whatever circumstances may occasion your life. For Annas, a Stoic approach has an advantage over an Aristotelian one because it can guide one about how to live in any context, regardless of circumstances. The virtuous person necessarily lives a happy life, even if she is impoverished, ugly, sick, and poor. It is impossible for the virtuous person to fail to flourish for reasons outside of her control. However, this immunity from factors also underlies an obvious disadvantage for the Stoic approach. It is intuitively implausible to claim that you can be happy in extremely unfavorable circumstances. In order to express the general dispute between virtue ethical approaches, we can represent caricatures of both traditional views diagrammatically (Figures 1 and 2 below). To be clear, all views in this discourse agree that virtue is necessary for happiness. Also, the views described here are oversimplifications, given that Aristotelian and Stoic approaches are usually far more nuanced and that there are many different versions of each, which I will explore in the dissertation. Figure 1 depicts the traditional Stoic sufficiency thesis that virtue is sufficient for living a happy life. So, for example, if we were to accept that Priam remains virtuous, on the Stoic approach, then it would follow that he must also be happy. Figure 2, by contrast, depicts the traditional Aristotelian necessity thesis. On this picture, virtue and some favorable circumstances are both necessary for happiness, but neither one of them is alone sufficient. The virtuous person needs favorable circumstances, just as the lucky person needs virtue, in order to be happy. It might be the case that virtuous activity and favorable circumstances are jointly sufficient for living a happy life, on an Aristotelian approach, as there is an open question whether anything else contributes to happiness.3 Figure 1: The Traditional Stoic Sufficiency Thesis Virtue Sufficient Happiness 3 For example, we might think that health is another necessary condition for happiness. However, some might argue that any other ingredient could be attributed to virtuous activity or favorable circumstances. Living healthily might be attributed to temperance or to good luck. 2 Figure 2: The Traditional Aristotelian Necessity Thesis Happiness Favorable Virtue Circumstances Even at first pass, these figures raise questions. In terms of Figure 1, is it reasonable to claim that circumstances play no role whatsoever in virtue and happiness? This simplified view is open to the intuitive counterexamples. For example, imagine that your entire family dies from the 2014 West African Ebola Epidemic. Surely, you cannot be happy (i.e., flourish) after suffering such a devastating tragedy. It is also obvious to claim that circumstances such as having enough air to breathe and enough calories