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Happiness and Superlative Value in the Eudemian Ethics

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Happiness and Superlative Value in the Eudemian Ethics Happiness and Superlative Value in the Eudemian Ethics Giulia Bonasio Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2019 © 2018 Giulia Bonasio All rights reserved ABSTRACT Happiness and Superlative Value in the Eudemian Ethics Giulia Bonasio In my dissertation Happiness and Superlative Value in the Eudemian Ethics, I analyze dimensions of the Eudemian Ethics (EE) that, as I see it, make the EE a distinctive contribution to ethics. The EE discusses a superlative excellence called kalokagathia, the virtue of being-beautiful-and-good, which does not figure in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE). The agent who possesses kalokagathia is the best agent of Aristotle’s EE. Scholars tend to hold that the practically wise person, the phronimos, or the theoretically wise person, the sophos, are the best agents of the NE. If my reading of the EE is right, then the EE and the NE conceive differently of the best agent. This is salient in both treatises’ construals of the unity of the virtues. In the NE, the unity of the virtues includes the character virtues and phronêsis. In the EE, it additionally includes the virtues of theoretical thinking, or so I argue. The EE starts with what I call the Superlative Thesis (ST): happiness is what is best, most beautiful, and most pleasant of all. I take this beginning to be programmatic. Aristotle aims to show how these three kinds of value combine in the best human life, rather than coming apart. The Pleasure Thesis (PT) is the most contested aspect of ST: happiness is the most pleasant thing of all. On my reading, Aristotle fully embraces PT. In laying out his proposal for the best human life, the Aristotle of the EE develops a distinctive kind of naturalism, which I call Natural Goods Naturalism. I reconstruct this position in two steps: by interpreting the EE’s function argument; and by exploring the notion of natural goods, which is central to the EE, but does not figure in the NE. In sum, my dissertation argues that the EE contains a distinctive and under-appreciated option within ancient ethics, and that it contains ideas that are relevant to today’s virtue ethics and ethical naturalism. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: Introductory remarks on happiness and the Superlative Thesis 1 1 The state-of-the-art 5 2 Happiness: a substantive account 11 3 Happiness: a formal account 17 4 The Superlative Thesis 20 5 Theognis’ quote 25 6 Happiness and three kinds of values 29 7 Complete virtue 37 8 Chapter outline 46 CHAPTER TWO: Kalokagathia and the unity of the virtues in the EE 49 1 Kalokagathia and its relation to particular virtues 52 2 Kalokagathia as unified and complete virtue 56 3 Unity of the virtues and unity of the soul 59 4 Mutual entailment of practical wisdom and the character virtues 64 5 Intelligence as part of the unity of the virtues 69 6 Sophia and epistêmê as part of the unity of the virtues 72 7 Theoretical and practical wisdom 75 !i Conclusion 80 CHAPTER THREE: Natural goods in the EE 82 1 Natural goods and simpliciter-goods 85 2 Natural goods, dependent goods and external goods 88 3 Who are natural goods good for? 93 4 Good-for vs relative-goodness 101 5 A minimal notion of the standard state 104 6 For the most part and by nature 108 7 Formulation of Natural Goods Naturalism 111 Conclusion 113 CHAPTER FOUR: Function, human nature and contemplation in EE and in the NE 115 1 The Function Arguments 118 2 Subject and purpose of the Function Arguments 120 3 Structure of the Function Arguments 124 4 Parts of the soul and the human good 127 5 Virtue in the Function Arguments 130 6 Use in the Function Arguments 134 7 Fulfilling the function 137 !ii 8 Human function and the divine in the EE 140 9 Function, limit, and contemplation 149 10 Function and contemplation in the NE 154 Conclusion 156 CHAPTER FIVE: Pleasure in the EE. Against the view that pleasure is the apparent good 158 1 The Superlative Thesis and the Pleasure Thesis 162 2 What pleasure is 163 3 Pleasure by nature 168 4 The contingent identity: pleasure and happiness 172 5 The apparent good 174 6 Pleasure and the good 177 7 Apparent and true pleasure 184 8 Pleasure and the best agent 191 9 Pleasure and the divine 194 Conclusion 196 CONCLUSION 198 BIBLIOGRAPHY 202 !iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My deep thanks goes to my advisor, Katja Vogt, for precious, timely, and insightful feedback on my work during all these years at Columbia University. I owe her immense thanks for her direction. I am grateful to the members of my committee, Francesca Masi, Karen Margrethe Nielsen, Dhananjay Jagannathan, Gareth Williams, who commented on this project along the way and provided helpful and encouraging advice. The time and resources granted by the DAAD Fellowship and by the Chateaubriand Fellowship allowed me to work on my project for a year in Munich and in Paris. Thanks to Evan Jewell, Charles McNamara, Sam McVane, Mariana Beatriz Noé, and Joe Sheppard, for reading parts of the dissertation and providing comments. I am grateful to all my friends in New York, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands, who made my life more pleasant during all these years. Deep thanks to my parents who supported me and encouraged me from the beginning. Last, my deepest gratitude goes to my husband, Daniele, who taught me how to be patient and supported me in all possible ways. He followed me in New York too many times to count them and he allowed me to work on my project in all the beautiful places where life took us in these years. !iv To my husband To my parents !v CHAPTER ONE Introductory Remarks on Happiness and the Superlative Thesis A perennial question has been raised in antiquity and continues to be on our minds: how can we be happy? The answer to this question is difficult and there is no general agreement. What is more, it is not even clear that happiness is a unified and agreed upon notion. For Aristotle, eudaimonia - happiness, literally “to have a good daimon” - is the highest goal of human life.1 Aristotle’s philosophical proposal in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) has received considerable attention from antiquity on. Conversely, the Eudemian Ethics (EE) is still largely unexplored. It is my aim in this work to shed light on some aspects of Aristotle’s philosophical proposal in this treatise. Is the ethical theory of the EE largely the same as the theory of the NE, or are there important differences? Specifically, does the Aristotle of the EE propose a different view on happiness? Does he discuss a well-lived human life in terms that are familiar from the NE, or does he employ conceptual tools that are distinctively Eudemian? If we look at how the two treatises begin, something strikes us as profoundly different. From the very first lines of the work, the NE focuses on the good, while three value- properties take center stage in the EE: the good, the beautiful, and the pleasant. All three kinds of values are presented as immediately connected to happiness. Aristotle says that 1 Eudaimonia is translated “happiness” for lack of a better term: I use this translation for the sake of clarity insofar as it is ingrained in the literature on the topic. Other possible translations are “flourishing,” “well-being,” etc. Some important contributions on Aristotle’s notion of happiness are: W.F. R. Hardie, Aristotle ethical theory (Oxford, 1968); J. Cooper, Reason and the human good (Cambridge, 1975); J. McDowell, “The role of eudaimonia in Aristotle’s ethics,” in Essays on Aristotle's ethics, A.O. Rorty (ed.) (Berkeley, 1980); J. Dybikowski, “Is Aristotelian Eudaimonia happiness?”, Dialogue, 20, 1981, pp. 185-200; T. Nagel, “Aristotle on eudaimonia,” in Rorty; J.L. Ackrill, “Aristotle on eudaimonia,” in Rorty; R. Kraut, Aristotle on the human good (Princeton, 1989); A. Kenny, Aristotle on the perfect life (Oxford, 1992); S. Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (Oxford, 1994); N. Sherman (eds.), Aristotle’s Ethics: critical essays (Oxford, 1998); P. Destrée, Aristote, Bonheur et vertus (Paris, 2003); G. Lear, Happy lives and human good (Princeton, 2006); M. Pakaluk, G. Pearson, Moral psychology and human actions (Oxford, 2011); C.D.C. Reeve, Action, contemplation and happiness (Cambridge, 2012); P. Destrée, M. Zingano (eds.), Theoria, (Paris, 2015). For a history of happiness, F. De Luise, G. Farinetti, Storia della felicità. Gli antichi e i moderni (Torino, 2001). !1 happiness is the best, the most beautiful, and the most pleasant thing of all. Throughout this dissertation, I argue that the EE can be read as an extended argument. Aristotle aims to prove that happiness is the best, the most beautiful, and the most pleasant thing of all. I investigate the relation of the best agent to these three kinds of value. Aristotle calls this agent the kalos kagathos. The kalos kagathos is the agent who has kalokagathia, the complex virtue of being-beautiful-and-good. And on account of this high-level excellence, she lives a life that deserves to be called happy. Her happiness displays the superlative value mentioned in the first sentence of the EE: it is the best, the most beautiful, and the most pleasant thing of all. The route to happiness, I argue, admits a lot of variability regarding the specifics of a given person’s good life.
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