Dory Scaltsas Edinburgh University Extended Embodied Values External

Dory Scaltsas, Edinburgh University Extended Embodied Values

External Goods � What are external goods? � I would like to start with an aporia: How external are the ‘external goods’? � To what are they external? To the soul? To moral action? To the moral goodness achieved through moral action? 2

Aristotle: Virtue � Virtue, according to Aristotle, occurs in the soul. � It is moral character that can be judged to be good; actions are good derivatively. � Agent ethics, as opposed to action ethics. � Good moral characters are virtuous. � Virtue is a “hexis”, a “disposition” � a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have ‘appropriate’ feelings. “The dispositions are the formed states of character in virtue of which we are well or ill disposed in respect of the emotions” (1105 b 25– 6) 3

Practical Syllogism � A hint about the relation of character to action is given by Aristotle’s conception of the practical syllogism, which determines morally good actions. � Practical syllogisms have a starting-point, viz. “since the end, or what is best, is such-and-such”, whatever that may be… ’ (EN II 12, 1144 a 31 -3). � So the practical syllogism will lead us to the moral end through steps of appropriate means. � Accordingly, Aristotle says that the conclusion of the practical syllogism is an action. ‘I need a covering, a coat is a covering: I need a coat. What I need, I ought to make. I need a coat: I make a coat. And the conclusion, I must make a coat, is an action. ’ (De Motu Animalium 701 a 18 -22) � Action? The conclusion of the practical syllogism, which is the beginning of the moral action, is the decision of the agent to act. 4

Aristotle: Function Argument � Function Argument, EN 1. 7 � The ‘human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete’. � Significance of the Function Argument – it suggests but does not develop an enactive conception of goodness. � It is the ‘activity of the soul’ that we will try to understand; what that involves. Is this activity in the soul, or does it have a wider scope? 5

Soul Goodness – Worldly Activity � So how are goodness of character, in the soul, and moral action, in the world, related? � Aristotle explains: ‘…all virtue has a twofold effect on the thing to which it belongs: ‘it not only renders the thing itself good, but it also causes it to perform its function well. ▪ For example, the effect of excellence in the eye is that the eye is good and functions well; since having good eyes means having good sight. ▪ Similarly excellence in a horse makes it a good horse, and also good at galloping, at carrying its rider, and at facing the enemy. If therefore this is true of all things, excellence or virtue in a man will be the disposition which renders him a good man and also which will cause him to perform his function well. ’ (EN 1106 a) � Character feature performative feature. 6

Understanding virtues � So excellence of virtuous character comes along with the goodness of the agent’s actions, because the former is a disposition for the latter. � This is usually understood as: Virtues are a certain type of disposition in the moral agent, which cause actions. � So: goodness of character causes manifestation in action. � But the relation is even more intimate than cause and effect. � Virtues are behavioural dispositions. � The internal is manifested in the external. � So what is external about the ‘external’? 7

External goods � Let us look at Aristotle’s account of the external goods: ‘He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life. ’ (Nicomachean Ethics, 1101 a 10) � For Aristotle, external goods are all goods external to the soul: Bodily goods. Goods in the world. � They are necessary or effective instruments for the performance of virtuous actions (1099 a 32 -3). E. g. livelihood means: ‘it is manifest that happiness also requires external goods in addition, as we said; for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to play a noble part unless furnished with the necessary equipment. ’ E. g. for Aristotle: some form of bodily goodness; good birth; wealth; political power, good children, friends – all are required for Eudaimonia. Some external goods are more external than others: selling the antique furniture for money to exercise virtues. Replaceability: I believe there is a causal continuum of instrumental factors, some of which are more internal and some more external to virtuous activity, depending on how replaceable they are. Bodily features are less replaceable, but instruments and equipment are. 8

Extended Mind � To understand the relation of the manifestation of goodness to external goods, let us look at the contemporary theory of the Extended Mind. � The main criterion for Clark and Chalmers: the external objects must function with the same purpose as the internal processes. The notebook qualifies as such because it is constantly and immediately accessible to Otto, and it is automatically endorsed by him. � Famous conclusion: It is arbitrary to say that the mind is contained only within the boundaries of the skull. Mental functions are realised externally. 9

Causal Coupling � What is the relation between mind, body, environment? � CC: Mind and environment are a coupled cognitive system. � This coupling grounds the extension of the mind into the external world. � Clark and Chalmers: "parity principle": If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is … part of the cognitive process. (p. 29) � The mind and the environment act as a "coupled system". � This coupled system can be seen as a complete cognitive system of its own. 10

Externalism? � Menary: Simply to think of this emerging view of cognition as externalist is misleading. “This is because the payoff from extended mind style arguments is the integration of the bodily ‘internal’ and ‘external’ aspects of cognition into a whole. “Therefore, I will refer to this emerging approach to cognition as cognitive integration. ” � This integration is to be understood in terms of the manipulation of environmental vehicles. 11

Cognitive Integration � Neither coupling nor integration give us the ontological story. � Functional coupling, and parity Not like the gerbil case. Nor does functional parity describe the ontology other that say that this functional property is instantiated here. � Integration: part-whole relation. What is the whole? Cognitive whole: Menary (2007) argues that the manipulation of external vehicles constitutes cognitive processes and that cognition is hybrid: internal and external processes and vehicles complement one another in the completion of cognitive tasks. 12

Virtues = dispositions � Manifestation / activation � Realisation is interaction with other powers � Moral virtues and cognitive virtues are dispositions of the soul which are enactive qua active and extended qua active outside the brain. They are realised in action involving our bodily activities and external goods. � Aristotelian virtues can be thought of as follows: either as powers in potentiality, to be realised, e. g. magnetism Or, as a pendulum, always actively actualising its inexhaustible potentiality. ▪ Unity of moral and cognitive virtues: Natural state of the moral dispositions for Aristotle is activation. � The enactive aspect of the virtues is what requires the integration of the internal and the external. 13

‘External’ � External goods are objects which are used in the activation of cognitive and moral virtues. � In dedicated cases, their identity is bestowed upon the functionally, by their use. � Moral dispositions determine the goal of moral actions – the attainment of the good. � The goodness of the external goods: they are involved in the activation (manifestation) of the dispositions of the soul. � In what sense, then, are they ‘external’? The manifestation of the dispositions of the soul is not external to the soul or to the goodness of the soul. For Aristotle, externality was primarily a question of agent-control: Socrates vs Aristotle If we replace bits of the brain through expensive operations, even intelligence would become externa. – not in our power. 14

Health and Wellbeing � For Aristotle, health is an external good. � Health is not a causal agent, such as a power, in the way that properties are. E. g. weight – which interacts, creating an imprint in the sand. � Yet: Healthy items attain wellbeing, that non-healthy items cannot. � ‘Being healthy’ is explanatory. Heathy items attain things non-healthy items don’t, because of the condition they are in. � The healthy condition enables and explains their good performance. � What type of entity is health, as a vehicle in which goodness is realised? � Further examples of external goods from Aristotle and their role for wellbeing: ‘lacking certain things, people find their blessedness disfigured – e. g. good birth, good children, good looks. ‘For someone who is repulsive in appearance or low-born or solitary and childless is certainly not a very good candidate for happiness; and presumably even less so is one whose children … are totally bad or were good but died’ (1099 b 2 -6). 15

Extending to modifiers � The extension vehicles so far: “Algebras, alphabets, animations, architectural drawings, choreographic notations, computer interfaces, computer programming languages, computer models and simulations, diagrams, flow charts graphs, ideograms, knitting patterns, knowledge-representation formalisms, logical formalisms, maps, mathematical formalisms, mechanical models, musical notations, numeral systems, phonetic scripts, punctuation systems, tables and so on. ” (Peterson 1996, 7) How does “low birth” disfigure one’s eudaimonia? � What’s the ontological status of such factors of eudaimonia as health, or low birth? � Following Donald Davidson: ‘healthy’ is an adverbial modifier of bodily activity? � 16

Modifiers as vehicles � But what is an adverbial modifier ontologically? They are not causal enablers but aspects of them. � If so, virtuous activity is extended or enacted to an aspect of the activity of the external world. E. g. it is extended to the healthy mode in the performance of the agent, or it is extended to the low-birth status of the agent. � A new type of vehicle of extension: some external goods are ways of activities. � Aristotle seems to have gotten there first: enacting moral virtue in the healthy activities. 17

----- This second wave of arguments also takes a more enactive approach to VIRTUE cognition, seeing it as constituted by our bodily activities in the world in conjunction with neural processes and vehicles (Rowlands 1999, this volume. Alva Noe. Enactive perception. � However, we cannot make good on these claims without understanding the cognitive MORAL? norms by which we manipulate bodily external vehicles of cognition. � "parity principle": � If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is … part of the cognitive process. (p. 29) � 18