In this chapter, I consider Aristotle’s discussion of moral education in both Ni-comachean Ethics and Politics. My aim is to answer the question ‘Does education lessen our responsibility for the characters formed? And this question is related to an-other question that ‘whether we are affected by things not up to us?’ Thus, I shall also touch on the question that whether or not our responsibility for character is qualified by things that are not up to us, e.g., luck or fortune?
In what follows, I shall first review Aristotle’s discussion about moral educa-tion EN. I suggest that instead of taking it as educaeduca-tion, the discussion shows that Ar-istotle actually has a view of moral reformation through nudging in EN. I then will review Aristotle’s discussion about moral education in Politics. Everyone who reads Politics knows that Aristotle proposes a musical education for his best constitution. I shall argue that this musical education is beneficial to forming characters. A student who receive this musical education will end up developing certain taste for music, and this taste will help condition the student’s soul. As the next sections will show, this molding or conditioning process helps: it makes forming habits easier. Finally, I shall argue that although the education is in place, the best it can do is to make the process of forming characters easier, but the education itself does not determine which char-acter to form—the job of forming good charchar-acters are still up to the students. There-fore, our responsibility is not lessened.
Finally, I shall consider the objection which draws on Nussbaum’s insight about human goodness (εὐδαιµονία/eudaimonia): that my interpretation might, in ef-fect, make eudaimonia too strong so as to be immune to all external changes. I reply to this objection by pointing out that it confuses eudaimonia with responsibility for
character. I will further clarify that I am arguing for one’s responsibility, and I do not commit myself to any view about eudaimonia and its fragility.
I
Aristotle first mentions moral education in EN II 3, where he states that
But we must take someone’s pleasure or pain following on his cations to be a sign of his state. For if someone who abstains from bodily pleasures enjoys the abstinence itself, he is temperate; if he is grieved by it, he is intemperate. Again, if he stands firm against terrifying situations and enjoys it, or at least does not find it painful, he is brave; if he finds it painful, he is cowardly. For virtue of character is about pleasures and pains. For pleasure causes us to do base actions, and pain causes us to abstain from fine ones. That is why we need to have had the appropriate upbringing—right from early youth, as Plato says—57to make us find enjoyment or pain in the right things; for this is the correct education.
(1104b5-13)
Here, Aristotle affirms that moral virtues are concerned with and accompanied by pleasures and pains. Naturally, we will do actions that can bring about pleasures and avoid that brings about pains. So, it would be natural for us to indulge in all kinds of bodily pleasures and avoid abstaining from these pleasures, since keeping ourselves from enjoying pleasures is itself a kind of pain.
However, even though these lines seem to suggest that virtues are pleasurable, virtues are not all about pleasure—for example, courage is to have the correct amount
57 See Plato, Republic 410e-402a; Laws 653e.
of fear, whereas fear is not a pleasurable feeling. The emotions involved in virtues are not necessarily pleasure; rather, it is both pleasure and pain. But what Aristotle has in mind is perhaps some peculiar kind of pleasure and pain, which he turns to in EN VII.
All we have to know for present inquiry is that Aristotle here is talking about different kinds of pleasure and pain, and, as we shall later see, these feelings have the power to motivate us to do different things.
Following this point on pleasure and pain, Aristotle goes on to argue that a part of this education should be about inflicting pain, namely, punishment:
Further, virtues are concerned with actions and feelings; but every feeling and every action implies pleasure or pain; hence, for this reason too, virtue is about pleasures and pains. Punishments (κόλασις)58 also indicate this, since they use pleasures and pains; for correction is a form of medical treatment, and medical treatment naturally operates through contraries. (1104b14-18).
Here, again, Aristotle reiterates the point that virtues are about pleasures and pains.
But he further indicates that punishments, especially, are powerful enough to change peoples’ behavior through its function of inflicting pains. The rationale is this: since one is incline to do what is most pleasurable, and if one were enjoying this pleasure in a wrongful way, she would then be doing something that is un-virtuous.59 Now, since she is doing something un-virtuous due to her indulgence in pleasures, Aristotle pro-poses that she be punished, that is, be inflicted with some pain. Through pain, one is, in a way, learning to avoid doing the same things again and again. Punishments are
58 Following Ross and Reeve to translate κόλασις as punishment. Though there are other translations that try to capture the corrective sense in this word: e.g. Irwin 1999 takes it as ‘corrective treatment’, and Rowe and Broadie render it ‘forcible correction.’
59 I use un-virtuous to denote those actions that are not regarded virtuous; they might not be outright vicious, but just not virtuous.
therefore a curative treatment, since it can cure one of her un-virtuous-ness.
Here, it is worthy to note that when Aristotle is talking about punishment, he does not think of punishing for the wrong deeds—that is, this punishment is not a backward-looking one; it is not meant for the wrong doer to pay his due. The meaning of punishment is for the person not to make the same mistake again—more so, it is meant for the person to do the right thing, to act differently in similar situations in the future. And this is why Aristotle wants to change the way this person used to act. Af-ter all, it is this wrong doer who is facing the choices of life and making decisions, it is therefore much more important for him not to do the same, wrong thing again than penalize him.
Having said that, it is now possible to see why punishments are important. Peo-ple are motivated to do certain things, and peoPeo-ple are primitively motivated by Peo- pleas-ures and pains. According to Aristotle, one is virtuous only when she has developed a stable state of character, and during the process of development that stable state of character, she will development a different set of motivation. One will be rightly mo-tivated,60 and that means she is no longer simply motivated by pleasures and pains.
But how could one be correctly motivated? Aristotle here suggests a possible answer:
through punishments. With the power of inflicting pains, punishments can function as a way to force one to conform to certain rules, and act according to that rule. In a way, punishments force one not to be motivated simply by pleasures, and start to be moti-vated by some further reflections. But what kind of reflections are they? I suggest that this is some very simple reflections: reflections on our further actions, “whether or not I should do such and such” or “is it lawful to do such and such”, and so on. It is these very reflections that further invite the discussion of practical wisdom, and presumably,
60 For example, see Kosman 1980, or Joachim 1951.
of which the development is the project of Nicomachean Ethics.61
Thus far, what Aristotle has in mind is something more like moral reformation.
The point of punishment, as I noted earlier, is not to teach the wrong doers what are the right thing to do; rather, it aims at changing the way he acts by nudging people in the right direction. Now, we can turn to EN X 9, where Aristotle further explain what he has in mind about moral education.
At the start of the chapter, Aristotle reminds the audience that the purpose of this political inquiry is not merely to know what is good but to become good (1179a31-b4).
There are two ways to be good: by speech or by fear (1179b7-12).
The first way cannot make everyone good, but only those who already has a
“wellborn character and is truly a lover of what is noble” (1179b9-10). The second way can make the many, who are not “naturally obedient to the governance supplied by a sense of shame”, but are “rather to that supplied by fear” (1179b10-12). Since these people are not a lover of what is noble, they therefore “do not naturally abstain from base things because of the shamefulness involved but do so rather because of the vengeance that may be exacted” (1179b12-14). Moreover, as Aristotle points out, the only way for them to be virtuous, or become good, is to appropriate them by laws, by the threat to inflict greater pain. As Kamtekar points out, the need for laws to confine human action arises from the fact that virtuous conduct requires people to act in a way that is contrary to our natural desires, and laws are present as a means to obligate people to act in a certain way which is in line with virtues.62
With the laws in place, Aristotle believes, the
[R]earing and the regular practices involved must have already been put into the
61 For a similar point, see Kamtekar 2014.
62 Kamtekar 2014, 370.
proper order, for once these become habitual, they will not be painful. And, in like manner, it is not sufficient if people when they are young attain the correct rearing and care; rather, once they have reached adulthood, they must also make a practice of these things and be thus habituated. (1179b35-1180a3)
It is through the regulations of the laws that the many are habituated. The proper ac-tions become habitual not because these acac-tions are in any deep sense theirs, but be-cause these actions are regulated by law. These actions gradually become less and less painful because the many is used to these kinds of actions. But that does not im-ply people are therefore virtuous. They are acting according to the law, not neces-sarily acting according to virtues.63 And, again, it is us as agents that are performing the actions, so we are the ones who can decide what to do and how to do it. The best case is to be so habituated that people become virtuous; if not, at least people can be habituated to act according to the law.
Next, Aristotle concludes that
Hence some suppose that legislators ought to encourage people in the direction of virtue and exhort them to act for the sake of what is noble, on the grounds that those who have been decently guided beforehand by means of habits will be obedient, where as for those who are disobedient and too deficient in nature, they suppose the legislators ought to inflict on them various chastisements as well as acts of vengeance; the wholly incurable, they ought to banish. (1180a6-10)
Here Aristotle concludes that it is indeed legislators’ job to set up laws that would
63 But for a virtuous person, she is acting according to virtue, which will be lawful.
courage people to act virtuously, and for the sake of noble, but I would suggest that this is only legislators’ job, not what they should achieve. What I mean in this: what Aristotle set for the legislators to do is to set up laws that will regulate people’s ac-tions so that these acac-tions would appears to be virtuous. However, there is a gap be-tween acting virtuously and acting in a way that seems to be virtuous. What Aristotle envisions in EN X 9 can at best support that view that laws should be given to nudge people into acting virtuous-like, not acting virtuously.64 He probably knows that limit of laws, so he says that laws can only encourage (παρακαλεῖν) people to act in the direction of virtue (ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν) but not according to virtues (κατ᾽ ἀρετήν).
ΙΙ
The interpretation I gave out above suggests that what Aristotle talks about in EN is more like moral reformation than education. Since what I am suggesting, in effect, is that in EN X 9, Aristotle is talking about a kind of moral education that cannot really make people moral, and that punishment is meant to motivate people into changing their usual course of action, the picture we have in EN is therefore less like an educa-tion. What reformation can do is make people to be apparently moral, not to be moral.
Aristotle implicitly acknowledges a limitation of the laws: namely, laws cannot have someone learn how to be good. Laws can only regulate one’s actions, but cannot reg-ulate one’s motivations for actions—that is, we cannot change the entire set of
64 On the idea of nudging, some readers might immediately have in mind Thaler and Sunstein’s work in 2009. Indeed, I am inspired by their work. In that book, they define a nudge as such: “a nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any option or significantly changing their economic incentives. To count as a mere nudge, the interven-tion must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates. Putting the fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not.” (p.6) What I’m suggesting here is not that Aristotle employs this economic idea when he is talking about law’s function on changing people’s behavior. What I’m argu-ing here is that Aristotle does think that laws can change people’s behavior, and the effect of which is similar to nudging—the functioning of the laws is also indirect in that laws do not ban one from doing this or that, but it does provide an incentive for people to avoid doing certain things in the future.
vation on a person simply through law. But we can nudge them into doing things we want them to do, and this appears to be what Aristotle means in EN. This view is much more practical when we take the audience he is talking to into consideration.
We have to bear in mind that Aristotle has something to say about his students:
Hence of the political art, a young person is not an appropriate student, for he is inexperienced in the actions pertaining to life, and the arguments are based on these actions and concern them. Further, because he is disposed to follow the passions, he will listen pointlessly and unprofitably, since the end involved is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference at all whether he is young in age or immature in character: the deficiency is not related to time but instead arises on account of living in accord with passion and pursuing each passion in turn. For to people of that sort, just as to those lacking self-restraint, knowledge is without benefit. (1094b28-1095a10)
Aristotle expects his students to be people who are old enough to have some living experiences and not following passions. In reality, this might be a quite practical standard for choosing students. After all, EN is dealing with some real-life problems, and Aristotle, in a way, is telling his students how to lead a good life in this imperfect world. And for these students who have already developed some habituated ways of responding to the live world, it might be hard to ask them to change the established way of acting. Nudging them into doing what is better might be a more practical ap-proach.
However, Aristotle’s narrative changes in Politics. There, Aristotle is no longer dealing just with realities; he also talks about the best possible constitutions. Which is
no longer about what actually is, but steps into the realm of what can possibly be. And there, when talking about what can possibly be, Aristotle appears to have a different view on education.
In Politics, Aristotle tells us that a city must be a self-sufficient community, and for that matter it will need “a multitude of farmers to provide the food; and craftsmen;
and a fighting element and a rich element and priests and judges of necessary matters and advantageous ones” (Pol. VII 8, 1328b20-23).65 The best constitution is the one that assign these things to the appropriate persons, so he sets the tone for further in-vestigation:
For, as we said, it is possible both for all to participate in everything and for all not to participate in everything, but some in some things. These things too make regimes different: in democracies all take part in everything, while in oligarchies it is the opposite. Since we happen to be investigating concerning the best regime, and this is the one in accordance with which the city would be happy above all, and since it was said earlier that happiness cannot be present apart from virtue, it is evident from these things that in the city that is most finely governed—one possessing men who are just unqualifiedly and not rela-tive to a presupposition—the citizens should not live a worker’s or a mer-chant’s way of life, for this sort of way of life is ignoble and contrary to virtue.
Nor, indeed, should those who are going to be citizens in such a regime be farmers; for there is a need for leisure both with a view to the creation of vir-tue and with a view to political activities. But since both the military element and the element that deliberates concerning the advantageous things and
65 All translations of Politics are taken from Lord 2013
es concerning the just things inhere in the city and are evidently parts of it above all, must these too be regarded as different, or are both to be assigned to the same persons? This too is evident: in a manner it should be to the same persons, and in a manner to different persons. Insofar as each of these tasks belongs to a different prime of life, the one requiring prudence (φρονήσεως), the other power, it should be to different persons; but insofar as it is impossi-ble that those who are capaimpossi-ble of using compulsion and preventing its being used against them will always put up with being ruled, to this extent they should be the same persons. For those who have authority over arms also have
es concerning the just things inhere in the city and are evidently parts of it above all, must these too be regarded as different, or are both to be assigned to the same persons? This too is evident: in a manner it should be to the same persons, and in a manner to different persons. Insofar as each of these tasks belongs to a different prime of life, the one requiring prudence (φρονήσεως), the other power, it should be to different persons; but insofar as it is impossi-ble that those who are capaimpossi-ble of using compulsion and preventing its being used against them will always put up with being ruled, to this extent they should be the same persons. For those who have authority over arms also have