Abstract
Aristotle apparently thought that work on virtue had a profoundly political aspect. According to Aristotle, our capacity to perceive good and bad is inextricably linked to the complexities of our sociality, and it is hard to imagine a sound reading of Aristotle (or any other good philosopher) on such topics as virtue and practical reason that did not involve our capacity to distinguish good from bad. Human beings, Aristotle thought, are at home in ordered communities, and our very capacity to track practical good and bad and right and wrong (even to engage in means-end reasoning, interestingly) is properly exercised in society:
I am grateful to the John Templeton Foundation grant, Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life, for providing the funding and the inspiration for this essay, and to the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues for inviting me to contribute to their work on varieties of virtue ethics and for allowing me to present a partial draft of this essay at the Centre in March, 2016. I have done my best to address some of their concerns in this essay.
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Notes
- 1.
Politics 1.2, 1253a2-18, B. Jowett, translator, in Jonathan Barnes, editor, The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 1987–88.
- 2.
See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics I.13, 1102b 33-35.
- 3.
For some discussion of the difficulty here, see Michael Thompson, “What is it to Wrong Someone? A Puzzle about Justice,” in R. Jay Wallace, Philip Pettit, Samuel Scheffler, and Michael Smith, editors, Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), pp. 338–339.
- 4.
I share many readers’ deep dissatisfaction with the so-called “new natural law” theories associated with work by John Finnis and Germain Grisez. The reading of Aquinas on the character of natural law in the background of this essay is rooted in Stephen Brock’s The Legal Character of Natural Law According to St. Thomas Aquinas (PhD thesis, University of Toronto, 1988) [stable URL: <http://bib26.pusc.it/fil/p_brock/naturallawthesis.pdf>].
- 5.
On Michael Thompson’s diagnosis, the hurdle that such a neo-Aristotelian account must surmount is epistemological—we need a good story about how the human being comes to recognize what he owes fellow human beings simply in virtue of their shared human nature. Again, Aquinas’s response to this difficulty takes us into the heart of his account of the way in which the natural law is promulgated to us in and by nature. Again, Stephen Brock’s account offers what I take to be exactly the sort of story needed for Thomist neo-Aristotelianism to meet the challenge Thompson sets for any account of justice. For the challenge, see Thompson, “What is it to Wrong Someone? A Puzzle about Justice,” pp. 376–379. For Brock’s account see The Legal Character of Natural Law According to St. Thomas Aquinas, pp. 96–175.
- 6.
Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
- 7.
See, e.g., Angela McKay Knobel, “Aquinas and the Pagan Virtues,” International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 51 (2011): 339–354.
- 8.
Some such research treats “transcendence” as a category of virtues; other research treats “transcendence” as the name of a distinctive virtue. Neither use of the term corresponds with self-transcendence in the way that seems most in keeping with Aquinas’s understanding of virtue.
- 9.
See, e.g., C. Robert Cloninger, Dragan M. Svrakic, and Thomas R. Przybeck, “A Psychobiological Model of Temperament and Character,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 50.12 (1993), p. 975.
- 10.
See, e.g., Douglas A. MacDonald and Daniel Holland, “Examination of the Psychometric Properties of the Temperament and Character Inventory Self-Transcendence Dimension,” Personality and Individual Differences, 32 (2002): 1013–1027.
- 11.
The aspect is taken from Alan Watts, Does it Matter? (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), pp. 76–83.
- 12.
Mark Kolto-Rivera, “Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” in Review of General Psychology (2006), Vol. 10, No. 4: 306–307.
- 13.
Pamela G. Reed, “Theory of Self-Transcendence,” in Mary Jane Smith and Patricia R. Liehr, (eds), Middle Range Theory for Nursing Second Edition (New York: Springer, 2014): 109–139.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
L. Tornstam, “Gero-transcendence: A theoretical and empirical exploration,” in L. E. Thomas & S. A. Eisenhandler, editors, Aging and the Religious Dimension, (London: Auburn House, 1994), pp. 203–225.
- 16.
For a good review of the various views and approaches involved, see Michael R. Levenson, Patricia A. Jennings, Carolyn M. Aldwin, & Ray W. Shirashi, “Self-Transcendence: Conceptualization and measurement,” International Journal of Aging and Human Development, Vol. 60, No. 2, (2005): 127–143.
Bibliography
Aristotle (1984). Nicomachean ethics and politics. In J. Barnes, (Ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2. Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Brock, Fr. S. (1988). The Legal Character of Natural Law According to St. Thomas Aquinas. Ph.D thesis, University of Toronto. [stable URL: <http://bib26.pusc.it/fil/p_brock/naturallawthesis.pdf>].
Cloninger, C. R., Svrakic, D. M. and Przybeck, T. R. (1993). A psychobiological model of temperament and character. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50 (12): 979–990.
Knobel, A. M. (2011). Aquinas and the pagan virtues. International Philosophical Quarterly, 51, 339–354.
Koltko-Rivera, M. (2006). Rediscovering the later version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Review of General Psychology,10 (4), 302–317.
Levenson, R., Jennings, P. A., Aldwin, C. and Shirashi, R. W. (2005). Self-transcendence: conceptualization and measurement. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 60 (2), 127–143.
MacDonald, D. A. and Holland, D. (2002). Examination of the psychometric properties of the temperament and character inventory self-transcendence dimension. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 1013–1027.
Peterson, C. & Seligman, M. (Eds.) (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reed, P. G. (2014). Theory of self-transcendence. In M. J. Smith and P. R. Liehr, (Eds.), Middle Range Theory for Nursing Second Edition (pp. 109–139). New York: Springer.
Thompson, M. (2004). What is it to wrong someone? A puzzle about justice. In R. J. Wallace, P. Pettit, S. Scheffler, and M. Smith, (Eds.), Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz (pp. 333–384). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Thornstam, L. (1994). Gero-transcendence: A theoretical and empirical exploration. In L. E. Thomas and S. A. Eisenhandler (Eds.), Aging and the Religious Dimension (pp. 203–225). London: Auburn House.
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Vogler, C. (2017). Virtue, the Common Good and Self-Transcendence. In: Carr, D., Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K. (eds) Varieties of Virtue Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59177-7_13
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