Aristotle on The Cognition of Value

In my paper, I defend an interpretation according to which Aristotle thinks in Nicomachean Ethics ( EN ) that the rational aspect of soul is needed in discerning which ends of desire would be good. Many interpreters have traditionally supported this, ‘rationalist’ line of interpreting Aristotle’s theory of value cognition.The rationalist interpretation has, however, recently come under a novel challenge from Jessica Moss (2011, 2012), but has not yet received a defence. Moss attempts to resurrect now virtually abandoned ‘anti-rationalist’ interpretation, which claims, in a contrast to the rationalist one, that discerning good ends may require no activity from the rational aspect, but only well-habituated non-rational desire. Moss’ interpretation appeals to certain Aristotle’s claims in De Anima ( DA ) 3, which, she thinks, show that non-rational phantasia suffices for discerning good ends if only accompanied with the habituated desire. Although I admit that her interpretation can successfully avoid some problems that earlier anti-rationalist interpretations faced with certain passages of EN , I also argue, however that it introduces some new problems, and (probably inadvertently) attributes philosophically incoherent views about moral responsibility to Aristotle. Therefore I conclude that even after Moss’ improvements to the anti-rationalist interpretation, the rationalist interpretation remains overall more plausible.


INTRODUCTION
In my paper, I defend an interpretation of Aristotle, according to which the rational aspect of soul is needed in discerning which potential ends of desire would be good. 1 discerning that those ends are good⎯which requires phronesis. Many recent rationalist interpreters⎯e.g. John Cooper, Norman Dahl and Terence Irwin 26 ⎯have given their support for this interpretation on the basis of these conclusions. The antirationalist interpretation, introduced in the 19 th century as an alternative to this ancient line, first by Julius Walter and then in an expanded form by Eduard Zeller,27 has proved to be less enduring; as far as I know, no recent interpreter had endorsed it until Moss. The anti-rationalist interpretation, as presented by these scholars, is centred in EN 2.4, 3.3 and some passages in EN 6 and 7, which may indeed seem to present Aristotle as thinking that discerning good ends does not have to involve the rational aspect of soul. Let me quote those passages and show how an anti-rationalist reads them, and then how the rationalist interpreters could address these readings.
In EN 2.4, Aristotle, after remarking that acting well is not yet proper virtue, because we only become virtuous by acting well, lists the additional conditions of being a virtuous person. Someone is virtuous only if he, in addition to acting well: First, acts knowingly (proton men ean eidos), second, if he acts by choosing and by choosing the actions in question for themselves; and third, if he acts while being in a steady and unwavering state.
But, when it comes to virtues, knowledge (eidos) has no, or little, force, whereas the other two conditions amount to not a small part of but rather the whole affair⎯the conditions that are in fact met as a result of doing just and temperate things many times. 28 If acting knowingly is unimportant for moral virtue, as Aristotle seems to say above, and if we become virtuous only through habituation, by coming to enjoy acting well, then it may seem that discerning good ends does not require having any conception of end, the acquisition of which⎯at least the correct one⎯presupposes reason. This passage in EN 3.3 may seem to reinforce this anti-rationalist interpretation: We deliberate not about ends but about the things towards (pros) ends (tele). For a doctor does not deliberate (boulein) whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall produce law and order, nor does any one else deliberate about his end. They put in place the end (themenoi to telos) and consider how and by what things the end is to be attained. 29 In above passage, Aristotle claims that just as doctors do not deliberate whether to heal or not, so it could be that we do not deliberate (boulein) about whether to pursue some good end or not, but we put our ends in proper places in some other way. The following passages in EN 6 and 7 clarify that it is neither phronesis nor even logos, but moral virtue that correctly discerns which potential ends of desire would be good: It is not that reason (logos) teaches about (didaskalikos) the starting-points, but either natural or habituated virtue teaches the right belief (tou orthodoxein) about the starting-point. 32 The anti-rationalist interpreters have traditionally taken the above claims of EN 3.3, 6 and EE to imply together that habituated or natural virtue, instead of the rational aspect of soul, puts in place our ends, and at most we can use our phronesis to deliberate how to realise them. As Zeller famously concludes, 'the natural basis of insight [phronesis] is the intellectual acuteness that enables us to find and apply proper means to a given end.' 33 Hence it may seem that we do not need the activity of the rational aspect to discern good ends, but only to calculate how to realise them.
The problem with this interpretation, however, is that we have seen Aristotle to argue in EN 6.13 that proper virtue must involve phronesis and none of the above passages have to be read as contradicting this rationalist argument. EN 2.4 only denies the importance of one's knowledge being eidos, or, form, for moral virtue.
Our rational discernment of good ends would not, however, involve eidos in any 29 EN 3.3 1112b12-16. case, because, as Aristotle explains in EN 1.6, that (even) things that are good in themselves (e.g. 'phronesis, sight, certain pleasures and honour') do not seem to have any common eidos that could account for their goodness. 34 Likewise, EN 3.3 claims only that we do not deliberate (buolein) whether to pursue a certain end or not⎯a view with which many rationalist interpreters agree 35 ⎯for Aristotle's words, which leave open what puts our ends in place, does not preclude the rational aspect of our souls from discerning (krinein) good ends. Neither do the passages in EN 6, for rational krisis may not need to require using phronesis, or, be an act of deliberation, on the contrary, Aristotle speaks of it in DA as if krisis were analogous to visual perception instead. 36 Furthermore, with regard to the passage of EN 7.8, Aristotle claims in EN 6.11 that '[what discerns] both the first principles and the last things [in deliberation] is nous not logos.' 37 Now, if our intuitive reason, nous, discerns the ends of deliberation instead of logos, the inferential part of our reason, 38 discerning good ends must nevertheless require the activity of the rational aspect of soul.
We can therefore see that the passages that may initially seem to support the antirationalist interpreters can be compatible with the rationalist line of interpretation.
Since the former interpretation seems, however, unable to accommodate those of Aristotle's passages, in EN 1.13 and 6.13, that clearly seem to imply that discerning the good ends of desires require reason, the rationalist interpretation prevails today.

MOSS' ANTI-RATIONALIST CHALLENGE
In her 2012 book, Aristotle and the Apparent Good, and in a paper published in 2011, Jessica Moss has, however, challenged the conclusion that Aristotle must be rationalist on account of his views in EN 1.13 and 6.13. She suggests that Aristotle might only mean that reason is necessary for the pursuit of good ends⎯at least concepts, the use and formation of which requires reason, 'help us determine the 34 EN 1.6 1096b16-26. Aristotle uses the concepts of eidos and idea interchangeably in this passage. 35  contents of our perceptions'⎯but nevertheless think that moral virtue does not require also phronesis. It is therefore (very) unlikely, pace Moss, that Aristotle would imply in EN 6.13 that one can be morally virtuous without yet having phronesis. 91 The final and, I think, by far the most compelling reason, however, is that Moss' anti-rationalist interpretation about Aristotle's theory of value cognition seems to have a serious problem with his conception of moral responsibility. Moss does not, however, discuss this problem. Perhaps she tacitly assumes that since, according to Aristotle, an adult is responsible⎯subject to just praise or blame⎯for his actions if he performs them willingly (hekousion), 92 and since the voluntariness of an action does not require it's being (rationally) desired, 93 one could be responsible for one's actions even if one chose them non-rationally, by imagining them as pleasant. Such an assumption would, however, be mistaken. For Aristotle evidently thinks that mere 91 Recently, also Moss seems to have noticed the weakness of her analogy. In Moss 2014a, she admits that a rationalist interpreter 'has to hand a much more substantive explanation [than an anti-rationalist] of phronesis' difference to and superiority from cleverness [deinotes]: phronesis, she can say, is what gives one right end' (Moss 2014a, p. 230, cf. fn. 24 above for my alternative interpretation). Thus, she now says that 'it is reason's,' i.e. not only phantasia's, 'job to grasp what one's character has fixed a goal and also recognise it as a goal.' (p. 223) 'This means,' according to her, that desire obeys reason in the way that "someone obeys another when she says 'I want F things, but I do not know what kinds of things are really F, and so I do not know if I want x, y or z, therefore I will defer to the counsel of my wise parent, friend or teacher." (p. 239) These modifications prevent Aristotle's division of soul in EN 1.13 or his insistence for the necessity of phronesis for virtue in EN 6.13 from posing problems to Moss' interpretation. Even her modified interpretation, according to which non-rational habituation determines whether one wants e.g. F things or something else (p. 233), is, however, vulnerable to the problem with Aristotle's conception of moral responsibility that I introduce below. 92 Willingly performed, or, voluntary, actions are actions that elicit 'praise or blame', i.e., are subject to moral responsibility (EN 3.1 1109b34-5). In order to be voluntary, clarifies Aristotle, the action has be up to us (eph' hemin) and not performed in ignorance (EE 2.9 1225b9). Some interpreters (e.g. Destre 2012) think that being up to us means that the agent should have had an opportunity to act otherwise; some others (e.g. Everson 1990) stress that for an action to be called the agent's own, it is not necessary that she could have acted otherwise. However, whatever one thinks about the correct interpretation of eph' hemin, and the applicability of 'could have acted otherwise' -condition to Aristotle, that does not affect my thesis of the necessity of prohairesis for moral responsibility. 93  voluntariness does not yet make an action morally assessable. 94 In EN, the philosopher also says that both small children and animals act voluntarily, 95 but are not responsible for their actions, unlike adults. 96 Hence humans must achieve something in their moral development that animals cannot achieve, which renders them responsible for their voluntary actions. The most obvious candidate for this achievement would be developing a capability to choose what to do, independently of one's non-rational phantasia or any non-rational desires⎯this is, rational choice, or, prohairesis. Although Aristotle does not mention prohairesis while discussing just praise and blame in EN, he acknowledges it is needed for moral responsibility in EE: Since virtue and vice and the acts that spring from them are respectively praised or blamed -for we do not give praise or blame for what is due to necessity or change or nature, but only for what we ourselves are causes of […] it is clear that virtue and vice have to do with matters where the man himself is the source and cause of his acts. We must then ascertain of what actions he is himself the source and cause. Now, we all admit that of acts that are voluntary and done from the choice [prohairesis] of each man he is the cause, but of involuntary acts he is not himself the cause; and all that he does from choice, he does voluntarily. 97 Above passage establishes that prohairesis allows us to regard a person as the cause of his actions, and thus responsible of them. According to Aristotle, prohairesis is realised 'when discerning with deliberation, we choose [with our reason] according to our rational desire'. 98 Thus, a choice of action made without antecedent deliberation, and the rational discernment of an end to be desired, could not be prohairesis. This being the case, it would be impossible for one to become responsible for his actions 94 One might think that so-called mixed actions show this already: When a captain (see EN 3.1 1110a8-11) has to throw cargo away from his ship so as to save it from sinking does not justify blaming him of losing the cargo, despite he throws it away voluntarily. However, it justifies praising him of saving the ship. Therefore also he is responsible of what he did⎯apparently because his action was voluntary. 95 EN 3.2 1111b8. 96 Aristotle claims that a mark (semeion) of morally responsible agents is that their actions are subject to legal punishments (EN 3.1 1109b31-5), which is of course not the case with animals or children.
in the light of Moss' anti-rationalist interpretation. Assuming that habituation to virtue is a non-rational process and, moreover, that our discernment of ends is a form of non-rational cognition, phantasia, which operates by associating the sensations of pleasure and pain with concepts, and somehow synthesising the mental pictures of the most desirable ends from these associations, we could not genuinely choose our ends and actions. It would thus be unexplainable why we consider most humans to be responsible for their actions, and justifiably so according to Aristotle. Since the rationalist interpretation gives us a way to credit the philosopher with a justification of our moral responsibility unlike (even) Moss' anti-rationalist interpretation, we have a presumptive reason for taking Aristotle to think that discerning good ends involves the activity of the rational part of soul. When we consider this conclusion together with our earlier considerations against Moss' interpretation, we have, I think, a presumptive case for interpreting Aristotle as a rationalist about cognising value.

CONCLUSION
We have seen that if we did not need reason to discern good ends, but only phantasia that Moss interprets to be exclusively non-rational, we could not conclusively explain many things about Aristotle's theory of the cognition of value. For example: what is the reason for his division of human soul in EN 1.13? And if there is no reason related to moral improvement, what for we study ethics according to EN 2.2, why does he even divide the soul in EN? If he regarded any rational cognition of good ends unnecessary for moral virtue, why he considers proper virtue to involve phronesis⎯which has cognitive access to the correct conception of the end⎯not only obedience to it, as his view e.g. in EN 1.4, that the best is who himself thinks all things and does not only obey others, testify? He even explicitly justifies this view in EN 6.13: only people that have phronesis can act from orthos logos, perform good actions on account of their intrinsic goodness, which is what distinguishes virtue from merely acting well. The most important and difficult problem for Moss is, however, the question why Aristotle considers us responsible for our actions, if this responsibility, as the philosopher acknowledges in EE, presupposes the capacity of choice (prohairesis)? If the discernment of good ends would be non-rational, and depend therefore entirely upon non-rational habituation, as Moss thinks, we could not develop the capacity of choice and, hence, become responsible for our actions. Since