No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2009
The idea of flourishing has enjoyed a comeback in recent ethical theory, both from a historical and a systematic perspective. From a historical perspective, one finds a number of studies by scholars of ancient philosophy aiming to elucidate and defend the notion of flourishing; from a systematic perspective, the work of Thomas Hurka and Amartya Sen has contributed much toward the rehabilitation of the notion in contemporary ethical theory and discussion.
1 Hurka, Thomas, “The Well-Rounded Life,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 84 (1987), pp. 707–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hurka, , Perfectionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Sen, Amartya, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1970)Google Scholar; Sen, , “Capability and Well-Being,” in The Quality of Life, ed. Nussbaum, Martha and Sen, Amartya (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 30–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).Google Scholar
3 Rawls, John, “Social Unity and Primary Goods,” in Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; see also Rawls, , Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 173–211.Google Scholar
4 As Charles Larmore has aptly put it: “[B]y its very nature liberalism must be a philosophy of politics, and not a philosophy of man.…” Larmore, , Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 According to Hurka, , Perfectionism, pp. 37–39Google Scholar, perfectionism of physical attributes is one component of Aristotelian perfectionism. He claims that “Aristotelian perfectionism finds the highest physical good in great athletic feats.”
6 Rawls argues that perfecting certain capacities is rational and something that one's associates are likely to support as “promoting the common interest and also to take pleasure in … as displays of human excellence.” See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 429.Google Scholar
7 Hurka, , Perfectionism, p. 17.Google Scholar
8 Moravcsik, J. M. E., “The Nature of Ethical Theorizing in the Eudemian Ethics,” Topoi, vol. 5, no. 1 (03 1996).Google Scholar
9 The functional account is not the only account of the good in the Republic. In Book VI, Plato presents a metaphysical account in terms of his theory of the Form of the Good. But it is the functional account that is of relevance to human flourishing and perfectionism.
10 This was pointed out a few years ago by Sorabji, Richard, “Function,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 57 (10 1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Clearly, much depends here on how the levels of specificity are to be determined; it might be a rather complicated matter. Martha Nussbaum argues (in “Aristotelian Social Democracy,” in Douglass, R. Bruce, Mara, Gerald M., and Richardson, Henry S., eds., Liberalism and the Good [New York: Routledge, 1990])Google Scholar that even an Aristotelian version of perfectionism can allow for many flourishings.
12 Plato has often been interpreted as distinguishing between actual and “real” desires, the latter being those representing the agent's rational interests, which, of course, need not be the agent's actual desires. For a recent defense of the Platonic position, see Watson, Gary, “Free Agency,” in Watson, , ed., Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).Google Scholar
13 Nussbaum (in “Aristotelian Social Democracy”) argues that a thick but vague conception of the good along Aristotelian lines can be developed which is perfectionist in character and thus objective, but which allows for choice and a plurality of flourishings.
14 Some of the problems concerning the relation of uniqueness to function are discussed in Hurka, , Perfectionism, pp. 10–14.Google Scholar
15 Plato seems to hint that at least some notion of teleology or design underlies the notion of function. According to him, the reason trimming is the function of the pruning knife and not of the other cutting tools he mentions is the fact that only the former has been fashioned for this purpose, while the other tools have not (353A). Yet understanding function in terms of design may have its limitations. Reference to design may be useful in understanding the function of artifacts of the kind Plato cites, but its role in explaining the functions of bodily organs or individuals is questionable. The design conception of function would be of some value for Plato's political objectives only if he were to presuppose that individuals are in some way designed or fashioned for some uses or functions. Plato does, of course, advocate in both the Republic and the Statesman something like fashioning citizens for certain purposes, but it seems quite clear that his use of function in determining the specific activities of individuals or classes in the Republic does not rely on a conception of function in terms of design, at least not of the type relevant to artifacts.
16 See Broadie, Sarah, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Kraut, Richard, “The Peculiar Function of Human Beings,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 9 (1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraut, , Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Whiting, Jennifer, “Aristotle's Function Argument: A Defense,” Ancient Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 1 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The metaphysical presuppositions of Aristotle's claim that certain activities are unique or peculiar to certain functional things are altogether overlooked by Thomas Nagel's critical discussion of eudaimonia in his “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” in Rorty, Amélie, ed., Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).Google Scholar
17 Santas, Gerasimos, “Desire and Perfection in Aristotle's Theory of the Good,” Apeiron, vol. 22, no. 2 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 This objection was raised by Richard Kraut.
19 Austin, John L., “Agathon and Eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle,” in his Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 31.Google Scholar
20 This view of rationality is also shared by economists. Commenting on the economists' view, David Gauthier writes: “Rationality does not enter into what the individual considers to be a commodity or regards as a factor service. In this sense economic rationality is not concerned with the ends of action.… My greater good, or what has greater utility for me, is by definition what I prefer, and more of what is good is necessarily a greater good.” See Gauthier, , “Economic Rationality and Moral Constraints,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 3 (1978), p. 77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21 Of course, in the present context one thinks of Aristotle's unmoved mover; but in Metaphysics A, such cosmic teleology is suggested without any reference to any movers.
22 The transitivity of desire is considered by many as an axiom of choice, stating that if some agent A desires x for the sake of y and y for the sake of z, then A desires x for the sake of z. The asymmetry of desire states that if an agent A desires x for the sake of y, then A does not desire y for the sake of x. Aristotle hints at both these formal properties of desire in the first chapter of Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics and presupposes them in his subsequent discussion about the good. For a discussion of some of these formal features of desire and preference and a defense of the transitivity of preference and choice, see Jeffrey, R. C., “Preference among Preferences,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 71 (1974), pp. 377–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23 For a discussion of the relation of desire to the good in different conceptions of goodness (e.g., subjective versus objective), see Sen, Amartya, “Well-Being, Agency, and Freedom,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 82 (1985), pp. 192–200.Google Scholar
24 The term teleiotes, as almost all translators point out, can mean a variety of things, including “perfection.” If it means “perfection” in the present context, then Aristotle's finality test is not independent of perfectionism.
25 Keyt, David, “Intellectualism in Aristotle,” in Anton, John and Preus, Anthony, eds., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983).Google Scholar
26 Flutes seem to be a better example of a subservient end, one that Aristotle also finds paradigmatic of such ends. Some would say that it is even part of the meaning of the term “flute” that it is used for another final end, so that one cannot have the making of flutes as one's subordinate or final end. Wealth is clearly a much more complicated case, since so many — mistakenly, according to Aristotle — make it their subordinate or even final end.
27 Williams, Bernard, “Aristotle on the Good: A Formal Sketch,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 49 (10 1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 Ibid., p. 290.
29 See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 432–33Google Scholar; and Ackerman, Bruce, “Neutralities,” in Liberalism and the Good (supra note 11).Google Scholar
30 See, in this connection, Keyt, David, “The Meaning of Bios in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics,” Ancient Philosophy, vol. 9 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 According to Rawls, , “Social Unity and Primary Goods,” pp. 164–65:Google Scholar
[I]n formulating a conception of justice … we start by viewing each person as a moral person moved by two highest order interests, namely, the interests to realise the two powers of moral personality. These two powers are the capacity for a sense of justice … and the capacity to decide upon, to revise and rationally to pursue a conception of the good.
32 See Rawls, , A Theory of Justice, p. 554Google Scholar, where Rawls remarks:
Human good is heterogeneous because the aims of the self are heterogeneous. Although to subordinate all our aims to one end does not strictly speaking violate the principles of rational choice (not the counting principles anyway), it still strikes us as irrational, or more likely as mad. The self is disfigured and put in the service of one of its ends for the sake of system.
33 For a discussion of Aristotle's views on education and the end of the ideal state, see Depew, David, “Politics, Music, and Contemplation in Aristotle's Ideal State,” in Keyt, David and Miller, Fred D. Jr., eds., A Companion to Aristotle's “Politics” (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).Google Scholar
34 See, in this connection, Miller, Fred D. Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's “Politics” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), ch. 5.Google Scholar
35 Although most scholars agree on the teleological nature of Aristotle's ethical theory, those who take him to advocate a type of virtue ethics question the standard teleological reading of Aristotelian ethics. For a discussion of these issues, see Santas, Gerasimos, “The Structure of Aristotle's Ethical Theory: Is It Teleological or a Virtue Ethics?” Topoi, vol. 15, no. 1 (03 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 See note 3 above.
37 Rawls, , Political Liberalism (supra note 3), pp. 40–43.Google Scholar
38 Miller, , Nature, Justice, and Rights, pp. 45–56.Google Scholar
39 See ibid. for the most recent discussion and assessment of Aristotle's views on biology and their presuppositions. For a more lengthy discussion and defense of Aristotle's biology and its metaphysical presuppositions and implications, see Furth, Montgomery, Substance, Form, and Psyche: An Aristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 MacIntyre, , After Virtue, p. 183.Google Scholar For a recent assessment of MacIntyre's views, see Miller, , Nature, Justice, and Rights, esp. pp. 198, 336–46Google Scholar