Thesis--London, 1930. / Bibliographical notes at end of each chapter.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-98).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-98).

How to become morally virtuous? Among the students of Aristotle, it is often assumed that the philosopher does not have a fully worked-out theoretical answer to this question. Some interpreters (e.g. Burnyeat 1980, most recently Curzer 2012) have, however, recognised that Aristotle may have a comprehensive theory of moral development. However, even those interpreters have made only scarce attempts to study Aristotle’s theory in connection with the questions about his moral psychology. Unlike Aristotle’s theory of moral development as such, several of those questions are among the most debated issues in current Aristotle scholarship - for example, whether we need reason to identify good actions or whether habituated non-rational affects suffice; what makes us responsible for our actions, and how the philosopher conceives the relationship between phronesis and moral motivation. In my thesis, I aim at connecting these important questions with Aristotle’s theory of moral development. I hope to show that this approach will yield a picture on which Aristotle’s theory is divisible into two steps that one has to choose to take in order to become morally virtuous. I argue first that identifying good ends, and actions, requires reason. In order to become morally responsible, a person has thus to develop a rational ability to identify good actions. I show that Aristotle’s term for such ability is synesis. The first step to virtue, I conclude, is to use this ability well, to choose to become virtuous and habituate one’s character into acting well. The second step is to acquire phronesis, understanding why good actions are good, to complement a habituated character. Developing of phronesis requires both considerable experience in acting well and philosophical teaching about ethics, but it is necessary for moral virtue. Although a finely-habituated person is invulnerable to akrasia with regard to pleasures even if he did not have phronesis, Aristotle allows, I show, that he might still be prone to impetuous akrasia, whereas phronimos could avoid akratic behaviour in any situation.

In this thesis I provide an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of moral vice and argue (1) that Aristotle's account is consistent, and (2) that Aristotle is not committed to the view that all vicious agents are incapable of improving their characters. The main argument attempts to show that a proper interpretation of Aristotle's account of vice must observe a distinction between what Aristotle recognizes as two distinct sorts of vicious agents: those who are capable of change, and those who are not. I argue that this distinction amounts to the same thing as what I call the distinction between curably and incurably vicious agents. Recognizing this distinction and drawing out the ideas which ground it, I argue, shows that Aristotle's account of vice is consistent, and that he is not committed to the view that all vicious agents are incapable of improving their characters.

Justification of the State and Anarchist Alternatives aims to establish four key findings regarding the State and its justification according to a revised form of Aristotelian perfectionist ethics. The first finding is a proper definition of a State, and how that definition of the State compares to other definitions of the State, most notably, Max Weber’s definition. The second finding is the establishment of what parts of Aristotle’s ethics and politics are feasible and sound; this requires historical enquiry in addition to philosophical enquiry. The third finding is that this revised form of Aristotelian ethics does not justify the State. The fourth finding is that Aristotelian ethics would justify a non-state political structure (the modern polis), and objections to that structure are dealt with. The core of the thesis is that Aristotle’s ethics do not justify the state, but would justify a form of anarchism.

This project will contribute to our understanding of both Aristotle’s theory of friendship in particular and friendship as a philosophical topic in general. Chapter 1 focuses on explaining what Aristotle means when he says that friendship either is a virtue or is similar to virtue. Specifically, he claims that friendship is like a hexis prohairetikē (a state which chooses). This phrasing is remarkably similar to his description of the character virtues, and it invites comparison between the two kinds of states. In Chapter 2 I examine the common scholarly suggestion that Aristotle’s taxonomy of pleasure- utility- and virtue-based friendships is closely linked to the motivations that individuals have when they pursue friendship. By focusing on Aristotle’s remarks on the time it takes to properly establish a friendship, I develop a view of Aristotle on which the motivations that a person has for pursuing a friendship often uncouple from the kind of friendship they succeed in forming. In Chapter 3 I defend Aristotle’s account of friendship from three common contemporary objections. Some scholars believe that Aristotle is too strict in his account of friendship, that only truly good people can be friends, that many friendships on Aristotle’s account are not truly friendship, and that Aristotle is wrong about vicious peoples’ ability to form friendships. I reply to each objection. In chapter 4 I follow Aristotle in arguing that we should understand goodness of character as a necessary, grounding feature of friendship. In so doing, I disagree with those contemporary scholars who do not follow Aristotle on this point, insisting instead that two individuals can be friends without being good, and their friendship can be about bad or immoral things and activities. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In this dissertation, I explore and defend underappreciated and misunderstood features of Aristotle’s theory of friendship. Aristotle’s account of friendship is one of the foundational texts for contemporary philosophical discussions of friendship. Understanding Aristotle on his own terms is therefore important to carrying on these discussions. Furthermore, I argue that when his view is understood in the ways that I suggest, it is more philosophically defensible and psychologically plausible than is often supposed. I show that, for Aristotle, friendship and virtue are importantly connected; that his view on friendship’s development tracks with many of our contemporary intuitions; and that his view is defensible against several common contemporary objections. Finally, I defend Aristotle’s claim that goodness of character is an essential aspect of friendship and highlight the advantages this view offers contemporary discussions of friendship.

Aristotelian eudaimonism – as Daniel Russell puts it – is understood as two things at once: it is the final end for practical reasoning, and it is a good human life for the one living it. This understanding of Aristotelian eudaimonism, on which one’s ultimate reason for doing all that one does is one’s own eudaimonia, has given rise to what I call the “self-absorption objection.” Roughly, proponents of this objection state that the main problem with neo-Aristotelian accounts of moral motivation is that they prescribe that our ultimate reason for acting virtuously is the fact that doing so is good for us. In an attempt to adequately address this objection, I break with those contemporary neo-Aristotelian accounts of moral motivation that insist that the virtuous agent ought to be understood as performing virtuous actions ultimately for the sake of her own eudaimonia (enlarged, no doubt, to include the eudaimonia of others). On the alternative neo-Aristotelian account of moral motivation I go on to defend – what I call the altruistic account of motivation – the virtuous agent’s ultimate reason for acting virtuously is based on a desire to act in accordance with her particular conception of the good life, where what makes such a conception good is not that it is good for her, but rather good, qua human goodness. More specifically, on the altruistic account of motivation I advance, the virtuous agent may be understood as being motivated by human goodness, valuing objects and persons only insofar as they participate in human goodness, and where all of the virtuous agent’s reasons, values, motivations, and justifications are cashed out in terms of human goodness – as they say – “all the way down.” / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In this dissertation, I advance a neo-Aristotelian account of moral motivation that is immune from what I call the “self-absorption objection.” Roughly, proponents of this objection state that the main problem with neo-Aristotelian accounts of moral motivation is that they wrongly prescribe that our ultimate reason for acting virtuously is the fact that doing so is good for us. In an attempt to sidestep this objection, I offer what I call the altruistic account of motivation. On this account, the virtuous agent’s main reason for acting virtuously is based on her desire to act in accordance with a particular conception of the good life, where what makes such a conception good is not that it is good for her, but rather good, qua human goodness.

Department of Classics. Bibliography: leaves 330-355.

Recent interest and scholarship in the role of emotions in politics provide an opportunity for revisiting the idea of ancient Greek thumos as understood by Aristotle. In Aristotle’s Politics, thumos is a capacity of the soul for affection; it is most clearly seen in anger and righteous indignation; and it is indispensable for understanding the nature of politics. Aristotle shows that thumos motivates political actions that can be beneficial as well as destructive to the city. This ambivalence has an enormous impact on what is possible or desirable in political life and raises important questions about the extent to which thumos should be cultivated in society and in individuals. / text