Point and Purpose



“Not without phronesis”:

Socrates and Aristotle on Virtue

A. W. Müller

1 The Socratic position

judged from an Aristotelian point of view

In both the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle mentions Socrates several times; inter alia in the passage, from which my paper draws its title. Socrates, he there says, “was mistaken in thinking that all the virtues are forms of prudence [phroneseis], but he was quite right in asserting that they imply prudence [ouk aneu phroneseos]” (EN VI 1144b18-21; cf. EE I 1216b3-8, which has epistemai instead of phroneseis).

This and other passages suggest that Aristotle’s account of virtue may be read, in part, as a corrective response to a position that he attributes to the historical Socrates. About the notorious problems raised by attempts to identify such a position, I wish to say only two things: First, I take it for granted that Aristotle himself was in a position to have a pretty good idea of the actual Socrates’ views (cf. Guthrie 1969; Taylor 1998). Second, given this assumption, and the tenor of Aristotle’s brief references to Socrates on virtue and knowledge, it seems to me both justified and helpful to read these references in the light of the early (or better: Socratic) dialogues of Plato from which I am going to quote. And third, such a reading seems to be of interest even if the historical connexion is not what I am assuming it to be.

In what follows I wish to suggest that Aristotle’s account of the role of phronesis (practical knowledge) in a life of virtue can be viewed as an attempt, largely successful, to improve on the Socratic view that virtue is knowledge.

This view – I am going to call it the identity thesis – is developed, from various points of view, in various Platonic dialogues. In the Meno, for instance, Socrates distinguishes those qualities of the soul that are knowledge from those that are “different from it”. Of the latter he says that they “at times harm us, at other times benefit us” (88a-b). “If then virtue”, he concludes (c-d) “is something in the soul and it must be beneficial, it must be knowledge, since all the qualities of the soul are in themselves neither beneficial nor harmful, but accompanied by wisdom or folly they become harmful or beneficial. The argument shows that virtue, being beneficial, must be a kind of wisdom”.

EN VI 1144b18ff: “there are two qualities, natural virtue and virtue in the full sense; and of these the latter implies prudence. This is the reason why some people maintain that all the virtues are forms of prudence; and why Socrates, though partly right, was also partly wrong in his inquiries, because he was mistaken in thinking that all the virtues are forms of prudence (phroneseis), but he was quite right in asserting that they imply prudence (ouk aneu phroneseos). This is shown by the fact that even now all thinkers, when defining virtue, after first saying what state it is and what its objects are, add the qualification ‘in accordance with the right principle’; and the right principle is that which accords with prudence. So it appears that everybody as it were divines that virtue is a state of this kind, viz. in conformity with prudence. But we must go a little further than this, because virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence. So whereas Socrates thought that the virtues are principles (phroneseis) (because he said that they are all forms of knowledge), we say that they imply a principle (ouk aneu phroneseos). Thus we see from these arguments that it is not possible to be good in the true sense of the word without prudence, or to be prudent without moral goodness.”

The view thus arrived at raises a number of problems and questions. In the next section, I am going to mention four of the problems and indicate solutions to them that Aristotle’s account can be taken to provide. The third and last section is devoted to the question how the role of knowledge in the practice of virtue affects the nature of “moral motivation”. I am going to suggest that Aristotle’s conception of phronesis yields an account of virtuous motivation that is, in some way, foreshadowed in Republic I and II but not at all, as far as I can see, in the context of what Socrates has to say about virtue as a kind of knowledge.

2 Four problems raised by the view that virtue is knowledge

2.1 What is the good that the virtuous person knows?

Let us then turn to the first problem with which the identity thesis presents us. When we ask what virtue is knowledge of, the answer is, of course: knowledge of the good. But this answer leads to an insoluble problem. As Christopher Taylor writes, “Socrates maintains both that virtue is knowledge of what the agent’s good is and that it is that good itself” (65). But this would mean that the knowledge in question is knowledge of this very knowledge – which makes no sense.

Cf. Taylor, p. 64 f.

65: “The incoherence of the theory thus consists in the fact that Socrates maintains both that virtue is knowledge of what the agent’s good is and that it is that good itself, whereas those two theses are inconsistent with one another.”

67: “If human good is to be identified with both knowledge and virtue, then that knowledge must have some object other than itself.”

67: “Plato’s eventual solution was to develop (in the Republic) a conception of human good as consisting in a state of the personality in which the non-rational impulses are directed by the intellect informed by knowledge, not of human good, but of goodness itself, a universal principle of rationality. On this conception (i) human good is virtue, (ii) virtue is, not identical with, but directed by, knowledge, and (iii) the knowledge in question is knowledge of the universal good.”

67: “Protagoras may be seen as an exploration of another solution to this puzzle, since in that dialogue Socrates sets out an account of goodness whose central theses are: (i) virtue is knowledge of human good (as in Meno); (ii) human good is an overall pleasant life.” 68: “[…]this theory, which retains the identity of virtue with knowledge while abandoning the identity of virtue with human good”

Aristotle’s account of the connexion between ethical virtue and phronesis is not circular in this way. But it escapes vacuity less easily than might be thought. True, he does not identify virtue with practical knowledge, he keeps the two conceptually apart; and this is an important step. But he also holds the view that the exercise of ethical virtue is both (1) constitutive of our overall telos, at least: of human good in the form of practical eudaimonia (happiness), and (2) derived from and determined by a conception (hypolepsis – cf. NE VI 1142b33) which the phronimos has of this very good, i.e. of the exercise of ethical virtue itself. If we leave aside the precarious possibility of theoretical eudaimonia, Aristotle’s position is, then, threatened by a circle that may be articulated as follows:

Human good consists in practising virtue;

to practise virtue is to do what right reason tells you to do;

right reason tells you to do

what it judges to be necessary for achieving human good.

Here three notions seem to be explained in terms of each other: good refers us to virtue, virtue to right reason, right reason to good; but good once more refers us to virtue, and so on.

What saves Aristotle from this kind of circle is not, primarily, the distinction between phronesis and ethical virtue but rather the distinction of the various ethical virtues from one another. This distinction allows Aristotle to attribute a specific telos (purpose) to each virtue (cf. 2.3 below), and thereby content to phronesis. Without that distinction, we should not be able to give a satisfactory answer to the question: “What is the good of which the virtuous person has knowledge?” The answer would just have to be that he, or she, knows that acting well is this good, and to act well is to actualize ethical virtue. But of ethical virtue we only know that the phronimos has a correct conception of it – unless we are told which particular qualities make for a good character.

So how does Aristotle improve on the view that virtue is knowledge of the good and thereby of itself? On my account he takes two important steps. First, he teaches that virtue involves, rather than is identical with, knowledge. Thereby he makes sure that knowledge of what the good consists in can be knowledge of virtue without being knowledge of itself. And second, he teaches that the different virtues provide us with different (subordinate, or partial) tele; so the knowledge that human good is a life of ethical virtue amounts to knowledge that human good is a life of justice, and courage, and temperance etc.

1.2 Is voluntary badness better than involuntary badness?

Our second problem is created by the fact that an explanation of virtue in terms of knowledge seems to imply that voluntary lack of it is better than involuntary.

Plato’s Hippias Minor reminds us that the kind of knowledge that virtue is supposed to be according to Socrates, is something akin to competence and technical expertise. The virtuous person knows not only what human good consists in but also how it is obtained. If, however, you know how to hit a target you will also know how to miss it. Hence, if you are a good archer, you will be able to miss it voluntarily, whereas the less competent or incompetent archer will miss it involuntarily (375a-b). And, quite generally, if in any craft you fail voluntarily you are better at it than if you fail involuntarily.

Socrates now moves from the case of the craft to that of ethical virtue: “As to the soul that plays the lyre and the flute better and does everything else better in the crafts and the sciences – doesn’t it accomplish bad and shameful things and miss the mark voluntarily, whereas the more worthless does this involuntarily? […] Would we not wish to possess our own soul in the best condition? […] So, will it be better if it acts badly and misses the mark voluntarily or involuntarily?” To which Hippias replies: “But it would be terrible, Socrates, if those who commit injustice voluntarily are to be better than those who do it involuntarily!” (375b-d)

How does Aristotle avoid this “terrible” conclusion? Above all, he insists on distinguishing ethike arete from techne (competence, skill, or craft) (e.g. EN VI 1140a1-6; b3f; cf. I 1094a3-5). Once this distinction is in place, he can agree with Socrates that voluntary as opposed to involuntary failure reveals superior competence (VI 1140b23f; cf. II 1105a26-33). Ethical virtue, however, is a matter of prohairesis (choice resulting from an abiding orientation towards an ultimate telos); it determines what you want to do rather than can do (1139a35-b4;). And while you may voluntarily fail to do what you can do, there is no such thing as voluntarily failing to do what you want to do. Or, rather: Where this may be said to be your failure, as in the case of akrasia (cf. 2.4 below), the voluntariness of the failure is no sign of either competence or any other kind of qualification.

2.3 Do the ethical virtues together

constitute one single knowledge?

Laches 195a: Nicias says of courage “that it is the knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful in war and in every other situation”. A similar position is articulated, though not adopted, by Socrates himself in Protagoras 360d, in the words “wisdom about what is and is not to be feared is courage”.

In the Laches Socrates gets Nicias to agree that “courage is not knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful only, because it understands not simply future goods and evils, but those of the present and the past and all times, just as is the case with the other kinds of knowledge” (199b-c). And he concludes that, on Nicias’ definition, the courageous person is none other than the virtuous person.

As we have seen, however, Aristotle does not collapse the ethical virtues into a single one; instead he unites them by tying them all to a single intellectual virtue of phronesis.

The ethical virtues must not be identified with each other because they are specified and defined in terms not of their common telos (practical eudaimonia), but, roughly speaking, of the kind of passion that they serve to shape and put in order for the sake of that telos. The different ethical virtues are so many dispositions to feel and act in specific ways (cf. II 1104a33-b9; 1105b28-1106a1; b18-22; 1107b1-1108b6; EE II 1220b11-20).

Phronesis, by contrast, makes sure, inter alia, that actualizations of these various dispositions do not clash with each other. Thus, by virtue of phronesis, the ethical virtues delimit and support each other, in the service of the one embracing human good (Mueller 2004), whose correct conception is indeed the work of a single practical knowledge – of phronesis (cf. 2.1).

We may also say that Aristotle solves the unity problem by distributing the conceptual demands which the Socratic view strives to satisfy in one stroke. The demand for respecting the difference in meaning of the virtue terms is met by the distinctness of the ethical virtues, while the demand for mutual inseparability is met by a kind of practical knowledge that integrates the various concerns, or tele, of those virtues in a single conception of eudaimonia, understood as acting well, or virtuously.

2.4 Is all badness in conduct lack of knowledge

and therefore involuntary?

The most attended-to / popular problem raised by the identity thesis is, of course, the implication that no one willingly does wrong (Gorgias 509e), the so-called Socratic paradox. Protagoras 345e has Socrates say: “I am pretty sure that none of the wise men thinks that any human being willingly makes a mistake or willingly does anything wrong or bad. They know very well that anyone who does anything wrong or bad does so involuntarily” (cf. also Protagaras 352b and 358d). But, whatever the wise men say (we shall be tempted to reply), is it not obvious that we all sometimes do what we know we ought not to do? And isn’t that, in general, quite voluntary? – Aristotle’s reaction to the Socratic paradox is complex.

In VII 1145b23-27, Socrates is criticized for his denial of the possibility of incontinence. “What sort of right conception can a man have, and yet be incontinent? Some say that it is impossible for a man who knows, because it is a shocking idea, as Socrates thought, that when a man actually has knowledge in him something else should overmaster it and ‘drag it about like a slave’. For Socrates was utterly opposed to this theory, on the ground that there is no such thing as incontinence; because he said that nobody acts consciously against what is best – only through ignorance. Now this reasoning is glaringly inconsistent with observed facts; and it becomes necessary to inquire with regard to the condition in question: if it is due to ignorance, what is the manner of this ignorance? ………”

For one thing, he holds that even where an ethical defect betrays lack of knowledge, this need not signal involuntariness. He holds, in particular that ignorance of principle is not only blameworthy but indeed the essence of ethical depravation (EN III 1110b30-1111a1; cf. 1113b16 and 1114a11). This is a controversial thesis. But it has to be admitted that someone who has made it his principle, e.g., not to let himself be diverted from his projects by considerations of justice or benevolence, thinking this to be a good way of getting on, has a bad character. We are not going to say: But surely, he means well: his intention is to live as well as he can; he just happens to believe, mistakenly, that bloody mindedness and selfishness rather than justice and benevolence are the best means of achieving the good life.

There is another way – obvious, I think, but not elaborated by Aristotle – in which ignorance, and what is done ignorantly, may be voluntary and blameworthy: You may be unaware of empirical facts or conceptual connexions that you ought to be aware of. A host, e.g., acts blameworthy in offering his guests a dish that he can, and ought to, know is poisoned. If such a host can be said to act involuntarily, this is not, at any rate, the kind of involuntariness that excuses an action.

However, even where the relevant practical knowledge is not defective in either of the two ways that I have mentioned, ethical goodness is not, according to Aristotle, guaranteed – as it is according to Socrates. Aristotle holds that you may know what you ought to do and yet fail to do it – not because of any external hindrance but on account of an opposing inclination of your own. It is this kind of case that is discussed by him, and by innumerable philosophers after him, under the head of akrasia, or weakness of will.

It may be controversial what exactly Aristotle’s teaching is on this point, and to what extent his somewhat complex account is to be accepted as a solution to the problems that he is wrestling with. But he does think he is able to dispel Socrates’ worry that “when a man actually has knowledge in him something else should overmaster it and ‘drag it about like a slave’” (VII 1145b23-27). At least, there is one passage in his discussion of incontinence where he says that the knowledge that is ineffective in the acratic, “the knowledge that is present when the emotion occurs is not what is regarded as knowledge in the strict sense” (1147b16-18; cf. EE VIII 1246b34f.).

So Aristotle seems to concede to Socrates that, where there is discrepancy between practical knowledge and conduct, only a certain lower level of knowledge is affected, and the “best part” in man is not conquered by the passions. Nevertheless he does reject the Socratic position in that he classifies the defect as a voluntary one.

1.5 Could true opinion

take the place of the virtuous person’s knowledge?

Meno 97b: ”So true opinion is in no way a worse guide to correct action than knowledge. It is this that we omitted in our investigation of the nature of virtue, when we said that only knowledge can lead to correct action, for true opinion can do so also.”

BUT 97e-98a: “… true opinions, as long as they remain, are a fine thing and all they do is good, but they are not willing to remain until one ties them down by (giving) an account of the reason why. And that, Meno my friend, is recollection, as we previously agreed. After they are tied down, in the first place they become knowledge, and then they remain in place”

Aristotle seems to agree with this → next section.

3 How does knowledge relate to motivation?

3.1 A question for rationalist accounts of virtue

If virtue is knowledge, inter alia, of what it is good to do, and knowledge requires a conviction that is justified by appropriate reasons, it follows that the virtuous are aware of the reasons why it is good to do this rather than that, to do, e.g., what is just, or courageous etc. rather than what is unjust or cowardly etc. Is it not plausible then to assume that these reasons will also motivate the virtuous actions that correspond to this knowledge?

I am not presupposing that reasons for thinking it good to Φ are necessarily reasons for Φ-ing. For just as there are reasons why it is good to perform certain actions, there are, in the same sense of “reason”, reasons why it is good to be treated in certain ways, or to be in certain situations; and here the question of motivation does not even arise. So even where “Φ” is read as a proxy for action verbs only, we should not straightaway exclude the possibility of reasons for thinking it good to Φ that are not reasons for Φ-ing.

Nevertheless, it does seem that, at least in general, the reason for which you think it good to Φ is, at the same time, your motive for Φ-ing – if you do Φ on the basis of ethical knowledge.

We should, however, take note of a further problem before we identify cognitive and motivational reasons in the way I am suggesting. The problem is concealed by an ambiguity in the phrase “reason for which it is thought good to Φ”. This may mean a) something that is thought to be a reason why it is good to Φ, or b) something that gives one a reason for thinking that it is good to Φ. And it is not clear whether the reason that motivates a good action has to be a reason in both senses.

I do not wish, at this point, to discuss the question whether practical knowledge requires, for its basis, a reason in sense (a). The concept of motivation, however, seems to require that the motivating reason be a reason for wanting to Φ, and thus a reason in the sense of (a) as well as (b) – a reason viewed as responsible for the goodness that elicits the wanting.

Suppose, for instance, you judge that it is good to give X some money because X is in need. If, then, X’s need motivates you to give him some money, you will be acting on a reason that actually renders your action good (is responsible for its goodness) – not something that just happens to be your evidence for the goodness of that action.

Let us then assume that, at least in general, if you know that it is good to Φ, and your reason for judging that it is good to Φ is the reason why Φ-ing is good, then that very same reason provides you with a motive for Φ-ing.

What do Socrates and Aristotle have to say about this motivational role of cognitive reasons?

3.2 What Socrates might have said

Socrates in particular may be expected to make much of it. For if to act from virtue is to act from knowledge, the kind of judgemental, or cognitive, reason that distinguishes imperturbable knowledge from shaky opinion must surely be responsible for the firmness of virtue – for its immunity to any kind of temptation from the threats of pain or the promises of pleasure. And Socrates should point to the coincidence between reasons for judging and reasons for acting in support of his thesis that if you really know what you ought to do you will infallibly do it: If that which secures the truth of the relevant judgement is the very same thing as what moves to the corresponding conduct, this would seem a very good basis indeed for the claim that no further factor beyond knowledge is needed to constitute virtue.

As far as I can see, however, we do not find any such consideration in Socrates’ discussions of virtue.

It may be that, unlike the word reason, the relevant Greek terms of which Socrates avails himself in these discussions are not suggestive of the connexion between cognitive and practical reasons. I admit that I have not tried to trace, under this aspect, any relevant occurrences of such words as aition, logos, dia, or heneka in the Socratic dialogues, or in other relevant sources. But whatever explanatory insight a search of this kind might reveal, it seems clear that, as a matter of fact, the Socratic identification of virtue with knowledge does not look for support in the direction of the twofold role of reasons.

In Meno 77b-79c the connexion between motivation and virtue is not made on these lines.

Socrates is here surprisingly open to replacing knowledge by opinion!

In Gorgias 467 ff we do find intention IN action opposed to FURTHER intention. And: What we really WANT, is not the action but its intended result. Conclusion: In some sense you do not want what is bad.

Can we leave it open whether (a) and (b) have to coincide for there to be ethical knowledge? No: not if we assume that, in general, cognitive reasons have a motivational function as well. Rather, we have to say: You know that it is good to Φ only if your reason for thinking that it is good to Φ is thought by you to be (and actually is) the, or a, reason why it is good to Φ. For, quite generally, a reason for judging that p may have nothing much to do with the content of “p”, and, in particular, a reason for judging that it is good to Φ may not relate to the quality of Φ-ing; but the motive of an action must surely relate to this action’s quality if the action is to be a good one.

On the other hand, the identity thesis amounts to saying: If you know what you have to do for the sake of your own good, you will inevitably do it; if you know that in order to live well you have to Φ, you will actually Φ. This thesis is naturally taken to imply that what you know there gives you an irresistible reason for Φ-ing. And this, in turn, is best understood as saying: That feature of Φ-ing which is the reason why Φ-ing is for your good, and hence (supposing you know this) your reason for judging that Φ-ing is for your good – that feature is also the motivating reason on which you will act, i.e.: actually Φ.

3.3 Real v. apparent virtue: Republic II on motivation

Let us apply this idea to Glaucon’s suggestion, in Republic II 359c ff., that just people act justly only for fear of being detected and punished if they do not: Could they make themselves invisible by the ring of Gyges, they would commit all manner of injustice, because that is what they would think to be for their overall good.

“one is never just willingly but only when compelled to be. No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept private, since, wherever either person thinks he can do injustice with impunity, he does it. Indeed, every man believes that injustice is far more profitable to himself than justice.” II 360c

Socrates is here being challenged to show that a person’s overall good is not in fact served by injustice, even if there is no danger of detection and punishment. Let us, however, concentrate on the question: What motivates an apparently just action, Φ, on the Glauconian, or rather devil’s advocate’s, account? The answer must be something like this: The “just” person, unable to avail him- or herself of the ring of Gyges, Φ-es in order to seem just; he wants to seem just in order to avoid trouble; and he wants to avoid trouble for the sake of his own good.

What about such a person’s epistemic situation? Not only may he be right in judging that Φ-ing makes him appear to be just, and that the appearance of justice keeps him out of trouble; he may even be right in judging that avoiding trouble serves his own good! And why should we not say that perhaps he knows these things, and therefore knows that Φ-ing is (by way of its apparent justice!) for his own good? Moreover – and here lies the relevance of the example to the present topic – he may also know that (real) justice is, or would be, good for him, and therefore know that (by way of its real justice) Φ-ing is, or would be, for his own good. So how does he differ, on Socrates’ account, from the really just man, who seems to know no more, or even less, than the Glauconion imposter?

A number of things may be said in answer to this question. For the purpose of this paper, however, I wish to concentrate on the obvious observation that the two characters are differently motivated. They Φ for different reasons. This is the perspective of Glaucon, too, when he instructs us to leave out, in our paradigmatic representation of the really just person, “his reputation, for a reputation for justice would bring him honour and rewards, so that it wouldn’t be clear whether he is just for the sake of justice itself or for the sake of those honours and rewards” (II 361b-c).

The expression, “for the sake of justice itself”, signals an important move in the discussion of the notion of virtue. As I have said, Socrates himself does not seem to entertain the idea that the reason why a virtuous action is good, and for which it is rightly judged to be good, also plays the role of a reason for performing it, and indeed must be your reason, your motive, for performing it, if your performance is to be an act of virtue. It is also doubtful to what extent considerations such as the Glauconian ones in Republic II were ever addressed by the actual Socrates.

If, however, it is in the nature of virtue to be, in some sense, a matter of knowledge, then, surely, this aspect of it must be related to the fact that your reason for doing something is relevant to its ethical quality? Let us then see what Aristotle has to say about this relationship.

3.4 Aristotle on virtuous motivation

In EN II 4, 1105a28-33 Aristotle, speaking about the requirements for the goodness of praxis, says that “the things that come about in accordance with the excellences count as done justly or moderately not merely because they themselves are of a certain kind, but also because of facts about the agent doing them – first, if he does them knowingly, secondly if he decides to do them for themselves, and thirdly if he does them from a firm and unchanging disposition.”

The second of these conditions is of special interest in the present context. We may say that a praxis is materially just, or moderate, or otherwise good if it is “of a certain kind” (ean auta pos echei); in order for it to be formally just, or moderate, or otherwise good, the agent must do it for its own sake (prohairoumenos di’ auta).

Cf. 1115b17ff for courage and dikaiopragein etc.

((Aristotle seems to be using the word dikaipragein as opposed to dikaia prattein in EN V 8, 1135b2-8 and 9, 1136a3-5. Cf. also 8, 1135a16-18 and I 8, 1099a18-20.))

EN VI 9, 1142b17-26 on euboulia.

The same distinction between material and formal goodness can be seen to be operative in EN VI 13, 1144a13-20: “Just as we say that in some cases people do what is just without being just themselves, e.g. those who are doing things that have been prescribed by the laws, but either counter-voluntarily, or because of ignorance, or because of some different consideration, not because of what the things themselves are (even though they are doing what one should, and everything consistent with being a person of excellence), so, it seems, it is possible to do the various sorts of things from a certain disposition, so as actually to be a good person: I mean e.g. doing them because of decision, and for the sake of the things being done themselves”.

If I have to get along without the ring of Gyges and, therefore, do from fear of detection etc. whatever the really just would also do, my motivation is an excellent example of Aristotle’s “because of some different consideration”, and my action a case of merely material justice.

3.5 The coincidence of cognitive and practical reasons

The ultimate reason for which I judge that it would be good for me to Φ, or that I ought to Φ, is represented, in Aristotle’s account, by the starting point (arche) of a practical syllogism (EN III, 1112b15f.). In the case of a virtuous person, this will be an arche of practical knowledge. But it is also the arche of his or her action – the telos for the sake of which that action is performed, its dia ti (cf. e.g. EN VII 9, 1151b19-22.).

In other words: With Aristotle we do find what we have not found with Socrates. He clearly teaches that my ultimate reason for thinking an action to be the thing to do, is at the same time to be my motive for performing it.

In the light of the distinction between material and formal goodness, we shall also understand better what Aristotle has in mind when he says, at EN VI 1144b26f.: “[…] virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle (((viz. phronesis))) – esti gar ou monon he kata ton orthon logon, all’ he meta tou orthou logou hexis arete estin)”. Phrased in my terminology, his point is this: Mere conformity with the demands of practical reason, viz. with the conclusions of correct practical syllogisms, is enough to confer material goodness on an action; its formal goodness, however, requires the agent her- or himself to judge that the telos assumed / presupposed by phronesis is the reason for which that action ought to be done. Moreoever, this judgement must be, in the case of the virtuous person, a practical judgement in this sense: It guarantees that what is judged to be the action’s proper telos, i.e. the virtuous motive, does in fact motivate the agent to do what phronesis requires.

Finally, a “choice” to Φ, in the sense of an Aristotelian prohairesis, may be interpreted as a mental operation ((energeia)) composed, as it were, of practical thought (dianoia) and striving (orexis), held together by a common purpose (telos) that is operative as a reason for both the practical thought and the striving. We might even say that this conception of prohairesis is Aristotle’s way of identifying not indeed virtue with knowledge, but the arche of virtue with the arche of knowledge, or, more precisely, the arche or logos that motivates the virtuous person’s action with the arche or logos that grounds his or her practical judgement.

So Aristotle, who does not hold the identity thesis, suggests a way of at least approaching it that Socrates, who does hold the thesis, fails to explore. But that may be just as well if Socrates was wrong to hold it in the first place.

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