Ben Hole Winter 2016 Office hours after class

Ben Hole, Winter 2016 Office hours after class.

Week, Date Required Reading 1, 1/5 Syllabus for Phil 340 1, 1/7 Apology (all) 2, 1/12 Meno (70 -86); Phaedo (all) 2, 1/14 Republic Book 1 (all); Book 2 (357 -376) 3, 1/19 Republic Book 2 (357 -376); Book 4 (all) 3, 1/21 Republic Book 4 (all); Book 8 (all) 4, 1/26 Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 § Assignments 8, 9, and 10 4, 1/28 Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 -2 § Conference & Papers 5, 2/2 Nicomachean Ethics Book 2 -3; Book 6. 13 5, 2/5 Nicomachean Ethics Book 3 -4 6, 2/9 Nicomachean Ethics Book 4 6, 2/11 Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy, ” Nussbaum, “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach” 7, 2/16 Euthydemus (278 -281); Stoics (Primary texts, PDF form) 7, 2/18 Finish Stoics; Paper Outline Workshop 8, 2/23 Hursthouse, OVE Chapter 9; Annas, “Virtue Ethics: Which kind of naturalism? ” 8, 2/25 Driver, “Virtue Theory”; Hursthouse, “Are the Virtues the Proper Starting Place for Morality? " In-Class Paper Conference § Where we are and what we’re doing / Admin Stuff § Final Grades § Hursthouse § Break § Annas 9 & 10

1. Term Paper 50% § Rough 5% § Presentation 5% § Final 40% 1. Final Exam 20% 2. Writing Assignments 20% 3. Participation 10% § Total 100% Week, Date Required Reading 1, 1/5 Syllabus for Phil 340 1, 1/7 Apology (all) 2, 1/12 Meno (70 -86); Phaedo (all) 2, 1/14 Republic Book 1 (all); Book 2 (357 -376) 3, 1/19 Republic Book 2 (357 -376); Book 4 (all) 3, 1/21 Republic Book 4 (all); Book 8 (all) 4, 1/26 Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 4, 1/28 Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 -2 5, 2/2 Nicomachean Ethics Book 2 -3; Book 6. 13 5, 2/5 Nicomachean Ethics Book 3 -4 6, 2/9 Nicomachean Ethics Book 4 6, 2/11 Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy, ” Nussbaum, “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach” 7, 2/16 Euthydemus (278 -281); Stoics (Primary texts, PDF form) 7, 2/18 Finish Stoics; Paper Outline Workshop 8, 2/23 Hursthouse, OVE Chapter 9; Annas, “Virtue Ethics: Which kind of naturalism? ” 8, 2/25 Driver, “Virtue Theory”; Hursthouse, “Are the Virtues the Proper Starting Place for Morality? " In-Class Paper Conference 9 & 10

“commentators have often viewed the argument as consisting in two moves– first, the move from (a) what it is to be a man (or the function of man) to (b) what it means to be a good man; and second the move from (b) … to (c) what is good for man” (Whiting, 1988, 34) “Aristotle is attempting to move from purely descriptive and nonevaluative claims about what the human function is to explicitly normative conclusions about what is good for men and about how men ought to live very roughly, the worry that Aristotle attempt s to move from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought’” (Whiting, 1988, 35).

An Aristotelian Program This is Nussbaum’s response to the relativism worry. A two-stage inquiry 1. Isolate a sphere of human experience that figures in more or less any human life, in which nearly everyone will have to make some choices about how to act. 2. Find a correct fuller specification of what it is to act well in that sphere.

On Virtue Ethics, OUP, 1999

The Platonic Requirements: 1. “the virtues benefit their possessor. (They enable her to flourish, to be, and live a life that is, eudaimon. ) 2. the virtues make their possessor a good human being. (Human beings need the virtues in order to live well, to flourish as human beings, to live a characteristically good, eudaimon, human life. ) 3. the above two features of the virtues are interrelated. ” Hursthouse, 1999, 167

Horn One Horn Two § An ethical theory grounded in naturalism is morally indeterminate in naturalism is question begging

§ GEM Anscombe, Peter Geach, Philippa Foot: “good” is attributive adjective. § Describing something as ‘good’ is a “Now once we have the Neurathian ‘There’s no basing knowledge on an independent foundation’ firmly in mind, we can see the possibility of radical ethical reflection, the critical scrutiny of one’s ethical beliefs which could be genuinely revisionary and not merely a reiteration of an acquired outlook, despite proceeding form within it. ” descriptive claim, not a normative one; X is not good simpliciter, but only vis-à-vis some relevant description. That is, things are good “advisedly”. § We may evaluate members of a natural kind qua member of that natural kind. § The Free Rider Problem

Humans Conditions: • Aspects: • Parts • Operations • Ends: • Individual Survival • Continuance of the Species Social Animals Plants

Conditions: • Aspects: • Parts • Operations • Actions • Emotions/Desires • Ends: • Individual Survival • Continuance of the Species • Characteristic Pleasure/Characteristic Freedom from Pain Humans Social Animals Plants

Conditions: • Aspects: • Parts • Operations • Actions • Emotions/Desires • Ends: • Individual Survival • Continuance of the Species • Characteristic Pleasure/Characteristic Freedom from Pain • The Good Functioning of the Social Group Human Beings Social Animals Plants

• Aspects: • Parts* • Operations* • Actions • Emotions/Desires • Rationality • Ends: • Individual Survival* • Continuance of the Species* • Characteristic Pleasure/Characteristic Freedom from Pain • The Good Functioning of the Social Group *Not as important due to modern medicine/technology Human Beings Social Animals Plants

We can expect “the structure of our ethical evaluations of ourselves to resemble that of a sophisticated social animal with some differences necessitated by our being not only social but also rational. ” (206)

Courage § Survival and continuation § Virtues feed into the aspects/ends Honesty/Generosity § A form of mutual cooperation in social groups

Diversity of Good Human Beings § Variety of virtues § Virtue blends Role Dependent Virtuosity § Mothers § Leaders § Soldiers

• Plant Conditions: Aspects: Parts, Operations; Ends: Individual Survival. Continuance of the Species • Animal Conditions: Aspects: Parts, Operations, Actions, Emotions/Desires; Ends: Individual Survival, Continuance of the Species, Characteristic Pleasure/Characteristic Freedom from Pain • Social Animal Conditions: Aspects: Parts, Operations, Actions, Emotions/Desires; Ends: Individual Survival, Continuance of the Species, Characteristic Pleasure/Characteristic Freedom from Pain, The Good Functioning of the Social Group. • Human Conditions: Aspects: Parts*, Operations*, Actions, Emotions/Desires, Rationality; Ends: Individual Survival*, Continuance of the Species*, Characteristic Pleasure/Characteristic Freedom from Pain, The Good Functioning of the Social Group; *Not as important due to modern medicine/technology.

Horn One Horn Two § An ethical theory grounded in naturalism is morally indeterminate in naturalism is question begging

Two Kinds of Naturalism

Naturalistic approaches reject two possible alternatives: § “One is to base ethical theory on a religious or metaphysical theory which gives us an alternative grounding for the virtues. ” § “The other alternative approach is more radical, namely to take a meta-ethical approach which is non-naturalistic. ”

“The simple point that the goodness of roots has nothing to do with what we do or don’t choose enables us to see why virtue ethics, which makes the goodness of human lives central, is attracted not just to naturalism in general, but to naturalistic theories of an Aristotelian kind, for these locate us humans in the world in a way which makes us, as Rosalind Hursthouse has put it, ‘part of the natural, biological order of living things. ’ [OVE, 206] A scientific naturalism which talks in terms of physics is not helpful for ethical discourse, but the level of biology and ethology is one which helps us to make sense of ethics in a way that takes account of all of our nature – our biological nature which makes us part of the world of living things as well as our rational nature which makes us enquire and reflect about it. ”

§ “Now I agree wholeheartedly with both of these particular conclusions – that it is perfectly possible to practice the virtues in a celibate lifestyle, and that impersonal benevolence of a consequentialist kind could not be a virtue. But the point that Hursthouse defends both of them raises a problem here, or at least an issue which requires further thought. Reflecting about her position has pushed me to think further about the kind of naturalism that we are concerned with. . . ” § “I shall pose the issue by asking, what is the relation between the four ends which we have because we are social animals, and our human rationality, which enables us to choose and create so many different ways of life? I shall distinguish between the weaker and the stronger relation between them. ”

“is the one which is generally associated with, and expected from, Aristotelian forms of virtue ethics. These rely on a form of naturalism which puts us in our biological place and emphasises, as Foot and Hursthouse do, continuities between our ways of evaluating ourselves and the evaluative patterns to be found in the lives of animals and plants. ” “Is it strong enough for an ethics of virtue, one which will give our lives ideals to pursue in the face of all the selfishness and short-sightedness that characterize humans as they actually are? ”

“One is that on some points it looks as though we do have prima facie reason to worry whether the weaker relation will produce conclusions that are ethically strong enough. ” Watson’s Dilemma

“The second worry is more indirect. It concerns the result when we turn to the implications of the weaker view for the agent who raises the question of how living according to the virtues will benefit him as an individual. For the issue of how the virtues enable us to live good lives and flourish as human beings is connected to the issue of how the virtues benefit me, if I am virtuous. We can see this particularly clearly with Aristotelian forms of virtue ethics, which hold to the weaker relation, and also hold thesis that living virtuously is necessary, though not sufficient, for flourishing, living happily. I shall not here be concerned with arguments to show that living virtuously is necessary for flourishing. The worry here concerns the thought that for the Aristotelian view, virtue is not sufficient. ”

“This worry – that virtue does not guarantee flourishing – takes two forms, both problematic for the status of virtue ethics as an ethical theory. ” § “Firstly, is it good enough for an ethical theory to tell us that virtue is the only way to flourish, but that we may fail to flourish because of factors about human nature which are not our fault and which our rationality is powerless to alter? ” § “the second point… is that we expect that an ethical theory must be universal, by which I mean, fairly minimally, that it must apply equally to everyone, with no arbitrariness as to what beings are left outside it. ”

“On this view, our human nature is simply the material that our rationality has to work with. I put it in terms of material because of the usefulness here of a metaphor which is very common in ancient thinking on this topic. My practical rationality is seen as a skill or expertise which gets to work on the circumstances of my life, including of course the rest of my human nature, and makes something of it, in the way that a craftsperson makes an object from raw materials. Human nature does not have to be seen as wholly plastic and transformable into anything at all; after all, a good craftsperson will respect the potentials of the materials. This corresponds to the point that we are living beings of a distinctive kind, and that projects for living well have to work with this point. But what is distinctive about us is that our ways of living can be transformed as a whole by our rationality; we can choose and create new ways of living. ”

1. 2. Aristotle is committed to “the claim that there are three kinds of good – goods of the soul, goods of the body, and external goods – and happiness requires the agent to have all three” (248). “Aristotle takes morality to be a part of the world that is not essentially problematic in its relation to the rest of the world. He holds a view of the world in which there are no deep problems of principle as to how morality fits into the world and is explained as part of the world” (247) § Aristotelian: morality exists in the actual world, it is not mysterious. § Is naturalism enough? § The Stoic and Kantian objectors claim Aristotle lacks “a special kind of motivational authority” (252).

Week, Date Required Reading 1, 1/5 Syllabus for Phil 340 1, 1/7 Apology (all) 2, 1/12 Meno (70 -86); Phaedo (all) 2, 1/14 Republic Book 1 (all); Book 2 (357 -376) 3, 1/19 Republic Book 2 (357 -376); Book 4 (all) 3, 1/21 Republic Book 4 (all); Book 8 (all) 4, 1/26 Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 4, 1/28 Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 -2 5, 2/2 Nicomachean Ethics Book 2 -3; Book 6. 13 5, 2/5 Nicomachean Ethics Book 3 -4 6, 2/9 Nicomachean Ethics Book 4 6, 2/11 Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy, ” Nussbaum, “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach” 7, 2/16 Euthydemus (278 -281); Stoics (Primary texts, PDF form) 7, 2/18 Finish Stoics; Paper Outline Workshop 8, 2/23 Hursthouse, OVE Chapter 9; Annas, “Virtue Ethics: Which kind of naturalism? ” 8, 2/25 Driver, “Virtue Theory”; Hursthouse, “Are the Virtues the Proper Starting Place for Morality? " In-Class Paper Conference 9 & 10