1. ETHICS FOR THE PHILOSOPHER

In his writings, Pierre Hadot famously argued that in the classical idea of philosophy theoretical discourse was always intimately connected to a philosophical way of life.Footnote ¹ The first philosophers of the Islamic world certainly adopted the ideal of philosophical life, at least in the sense that being a philosopher implies certain ethical guidelines to which the philosopher should adhere.Footnote ² Within the Aristotelian division of philosophy into theoretical and practical parts, the latter is commonly understood not merely as the study of ethics, alongside economics and political philosophy, but also as a virtuous practice.Footnote ³ In the early Arabic philosophical tradition, it seems almost topical to define philosophy as both knowledge and virtue.Footnote ⁴ The ethical end of philosophy is also manifest in the definition of philosophy as “becoming like God,” one of the six standard Alexandrian definitions of philosophy, that was adopted by various Arabic authors.Footnote ⁵

The purpose of this study is to investigate this practical-ethical aspect of philosophy through the ethical writings of Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 925) and al-Fārābī (d. 950). Both al-Rāzī and in particular al-Fārābī devoted considerable attention to practical philosophy, and both are emphatic that the concept of philosopher involves a virtuous way of living. In both cases, moreover, their ethical writings appear to reflect a certain tension with respect to what the ethical goal of the philosopher consists of. In the following, I will argue that this apparent tension is relieved when their ethics is understood as a progression that the philosopher should follow in the formation of his character. Druart has suggested that the differences between the various ethical writings of al-Rāzī and al-Fārābī should be understood through the Neoplatonic distinction between pre-philosophical and philosophical ethics.Footnote ⁶ In the Neoplatonic philosophical curriculum, pre-philosophical character formation was often seen as an indispensable prerequisite for the study of philosophy, whereas philosophical ethics, requiring knowledge of logical argumentation, formed part of philosophy proper.Footnote ⁷ Both al-Rāzī and al-Fārābī clearly adopt the idea of the necessity of pre-philosophical character formation, and regard it as distinct from philosophical ethics.

In Greek Neoplatonism, there was a further ethical progression along the grades of virtue with respect to the control of passions through the intermediary stage of Aristotelian metriopatheia, rational moderation of passions, towards the Stoic-Neoplatonic goal of apatheia, freedom from passions.Footnote ⁸ The question regarding the conception that al-Rāzī and al-Fārābī have of the philosopher's ethical practice, then, is whether the ethical development of the philosopher also involves a progression similar to the Neoplatonic grades of virtue. In the following, I will argue that both al-Rāzī and al-Fārābī indeed think that the ethical formation of the philosopher involves a development in the degree of virtue, although in contrary directions, and that this helps explain their differing ethical ideals from one work to another.

2. AL-RĀZĪ

That al-Rāzī conceives philosophy to involve an ethical practice is evident in both of his surviving ethical treatises.Footnote ⁹ The goal of the Philosophical Life (Kitāb al-Sīra al-falsafiyya) is apologetic, to show that his way of life has been worthy of a philosopher, in response to the contrary claim of his anonymous opponents. His understanding of philosophy is one where philosophy consists of knowledge (ʿilm) and practice (ʿamal) equally,Footnote ¹⁰ where the latter refers to the actions of the philosopher, rather than practical philosophy as a discipline to be studied.Footnote ¹¹ In Philosophical Life, al-Rāzī repeatedly refers back to his earlier ethical tractate, Spiritual Medicine (Kitāb al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī). He claims that the six basic principles on which he founds his ethical doctrine are derived from a number of earlier works, “especially our book known as Spiritual Medicine, for it is indispensable in seeking to complete the aim of this treatise.”Footnote ¹² Later on, he states that whereas the principle of imitatio dei summarizes the idea of philosophical life, its details (tafāṣīl) are presented in Spiritual Medicine, “for there we have set down how to remove vices from the human soul, and how much effort the one who loves philosophy (mutafalsif) should apply in terms of pursuing, amassing, and spending wealth, and seeking out ranks of leadership.”Footnote ¹³ Al-Rāzī therefore seems to view the two treatises as forming a unified whole, together presenting the guidelines for the ethical conduct of the philosopher.

Despite al-Rāzī’s insistence on the unity of his two ethical works, many scholars have seen them as portraying notably distinct, even inconsistent, ethical doctrines.Footnote ¹⁴ They diverge in style: Spiritual Medicine employs many colourful anecdotes to prove its point while Philosophical Life relies on more sober philosophical argumentation. Doctrinally, Spiritual Medicine is ambivalent about the afterlife and silent about the principle of imitation of God, which represent the first two ethical principles in Philosophical Life. As for the standard of virtue set for the philosopher, the former appears to endorse an ascetic ideal and the latter a moderate one.Footnote ¹⁵

Druart has argued that many of the differences between the two works can be explained when fitted within the distinction of pre-philosophical and philosophical ethics.Footnote ¹⁶ When Spiritual Medicine is understood as an introductory work for aspiring philosophers, its reliance on persuasive arguments and anecdotes becomes understandable. The necessity of moral training before the study of philosophy is attested to in Spiritual Medicine through a story about Plato's amorous pupil, where Plato accuses the fellow students of neglecting to rectify the boy's appetitive soul before he proceeded to study philosophy in the first place.Footnote ¹⁷ In contrast, Philosophical Life outlines an ethical system and requires prior philosophical knowledge. This distinction between the two modes of ethical argumentation is made clear in the story about the over-indulgent date-eater who is persuaded about the folly of the unrestricted following of passions by a purely hedonistic argument. For the philosopher, who knows that pleasure is not man's highest end,Footnote ¹⁸ the same is evident based on Platonic psychology, and the ethical and eschatological goal of man:

Seeing the two works as successive stages within the philosopher's progression from pre-philosophical to philosophical ethics explains the differences in ethical argumentation, but how are the differing ethical standards to be explained? Although the two works in fact agree on man's ethical goal to a large extent,Footnote ²⁰ the tension in the standard of virtue still remains. The general ethical tone of Spiritual Medicine appears to be moderately, although not excessively, ascetic. The treatise presents itself as a guidebook for gradually training one's character towards the “suppression of desires” (qamʿ al-hawā) and “opposition in most cases to what nature (ṭibāʿ) urges us to do.”Footnote ²¹ Only the “virtuous philosopher” (al-rajul al-faylasūf al-fāḍil) is capable of attaining this virtue to the highest extent possible for human nature, and, in this regard, philosophers are with respect to common people (ʿawāmm) like men with respect to animals.Footnote ²²

As for the level of suppression required, according to al-Rāzī, for those philosophers who deny the soul's immortality, it is sufficient to reject desires to the extent that their gratification would result in greater overall pain than pleasure. But al-Rāzī clearly aligns himself with the second group of philosophers, the Platonists, who believe that the soul “employs the body as an instrument, and is not destroyed with the body, and hence they rise to a much higher degree in their reining of nature and fighting and opposing of desire.”Footnote ²³ Such people know that the rational soul is attached to a body only in order to gain knowledge enabling its well-being in the afterlife and “disdain and loathe this body and corporeal world altogether, knowing that as long as the sensitive soul is attached to any of it, it will always be afflicted by the pain and harm due to the alternations of generation and corruption in it.”Footnote ²⁴ Philosophical knowledge about the relation between the rational soul and body, and man's eschatological goal, then promotes an apathetic attitude towards the body and bodily desires.

In this context, al-Rāzī presents a brief summary of the three Platonic parts of the soul, and their corresponding mediate states, in what would at first glance amount to an ideal of moderation.Footnote ²⁵ But, with respect to the appetitive soul, the medium is between the defect (taqṣīr) of failing to nourish the body to a degree necessary for maintaining bodily health, and the excess (ifrāṭ) of providing the body with more than it needs.Footnote ²⁶ The resulting ethical ideal is a moderately ascetic one, where the bodily needs are fulfilled only to the minimal degree necessary for preserving mental and bodily health. In this context, al-Rāzī speaks in a rather positive tone of moderately ascetic practices:

Such a state of sufficiency (kafāf) appears as the goal for the philosopher elsewhere in the work as well. Al-Rāzī admonishes against pursuing material welfare beyond sufficiency (kafāf), which is the most restful state (rāḥa) for the soul.Footnote ²⁸ In the date-eater story he tells us that the philosopher will only nourish his body up to the degree of sufficiency, because he knows that the appetitive soul is merely a temporary instrument for the rational soul.Footnote ²⁹ A somewhat ascetic tone also emerges in the discussion of the specific vices. The prudent man should ideally avoid any attachments which cause grief upon loss, such as having children,Footnote ³⁰ and reject love (ʿishq),Footnote ³¹ shun intimacy (alf),Footnote ³² refrain from sex,Footnote ³³ and drink only for repelling anxiety, not for the sake of pleasure.Footnote ³⁴ The way of life that Spiritual Medicine endorses for the philosopher, then, is a moderately ascetic one, although not to the degree of causing pain or harm to oneself.

In contrast, Philosophical Life appears to set much more lenient standards for the philosopher. The ultimate purpose of the work is to define the boundaries within which the philosopher is allowed to pursue pleasure in order to refute al-Rāzī’s anonymous opponents who had accused him of not following Socrates’ example in this regard. Al-Rāzī claims that there were two Socrateses.Footnote ³⁵ The youthful one went to extremes in his asceticism, shunned the company of kings, entertainment (lahw), possessions, delicious food, and meat and wine, and instead dressed in shabby clothes, lived in a barrel, and had no children.Footnote ³⁶ In contrast, the mature Socrates lived a moderate life, ate delicious food – although remaining a vegetarian – drank moderately, attended sessions of entertainment (majālis al-lahw), fought in a war, and had children. According to al-Rāzī, the philosophers should emulate the moderate lifestyle of the latter Socrates, rather than the excessively ascetic one of the former.

Based on six primary ethical principles,Footnote ³⁷ the work proceeds to outline more precisely the boundaries of the philosophical life – defining the lower and upper limits with respect to gratification of desires. The lower limit consists of limiting oneself to the satisfaction of the basic human needs, but avoiding seeking pleasure for its own sake, that is, for example, that the philosopher “eats what does not cause him harm or make him ill, and does not go beyond that to desire and pursue what brings him the most pleasure, so that his aim becomes the pleasure and the desire and not the appeasement of hunger.”Footnote ³⁸ This would appear to be close to the level of sufficiency recommended in Spiritual Medicine, although al-Rāzī now explicitly attacks extreme ascetic practices among Hindus, Christians, Manicheans, and Muslims as pointless, since they cause pain without avoiding any greater pain.Footnote ³⁹ The upper limit, however, explicitly allows seeking all pleasure, except what can only be attained through “perpetrating oppression and murder and, in sum, anything that invites divine displeasure, or should be avoided according to the judgment of reason and justice.”Footnote ⁴⁰ This goes together with al-Rāzī’s previous statement that all pleasures, except those where the pain overweighs the pleasure in the long run, or which prevent salvation, are allowed.Footnote ⁴¹ Although al-Rāzī does state that it is better for the philosopher to gradually tune himself towards the lower limit,Footnote ⁴² there is no mention that the afterlife would necessitate further suppression of desires, or invoke a generic apathetic attitude towards the body and the appetites in the philosopher. Rather, one of al-Rāzī’s primary principles states that the rational soul attains salvation through knowledge and justice, which constitute man's ultimate ethical goal, instead of pleasure.Footnote ⁴³

If Spiritual Medicine represents the pre-philosophical, and Philosophical Life the philosophical, stage of the philosopher's ethical development, that would mean that with respect to the control of passions, the philosopher should progress from more ascetic towards more moderate requirements. But why would this be the case? Perhaps the progression in virtue can be explained as a method of spiritual training.Footnote ⁴⁴ The goal of character formation for al-Rāzī is suppressing the desires, so that they are subjected to reason, and not vice versa. This is done by means of gradually habituating oneself to fight against the appetites, and the nature that induces them, so that resisting them in the end becomes a firm disposition (khuluq), and the “appetitive soul becomes used to being guided by the rational soul.”Footnote ⁴⁵ For the purposes of training, the student of philosophy should sometimes reject even “licit” desires:

The harsher requirements of Spiritual Medicine would then correspond to the stage of character training where the aspiring philosopher fights against the desires arising from his nature in order to eventually attain a stable disposition where the rational soul is liberated from their control. In contrast, Philosophical Life portrays the ethical boundaries for the philosopher who ideally has already achieved such a disposition, and no longer needs to train his soul as harshly. The moderate asceticism of Spiritual Medicine is not an ethical goal in itself for the philosopher, but an instrument for achieving a relative freedom with respect to the desires induced by human nature. It is this ambivalence towards bodily desires that enables the considerably greater license emerging in Philosophical Life.Footnote ⁴⁷ The philosopher is allowed to gratify his desires to the degree that he is not enslaved by them and they are not antithetical to the goals of knowledge and justice.

When interpreted this way, the ethical progression of the student of philosophy would follow the stages of the life of Socrates as described at the beginning of Philosophical Life, proceeding from the passionate renunciation of everything but philosophy to a more stable moderate disposition. In the initial habituation of the soul, harsher means are necessary, whereas once the disposition has become established in the soul, more licence is possible:

3. AL-FĀRĀBĪ

While al-Fārābī – unlike al-Rāzī – did not write a treatise on the philosophical life, his later biographers believed him to have followed the ancients in living according to the philosophical ideals of virtue:

Al-Fārābī also attributes a philosophical way of life to the ancient philosophers. In Philosophy of Plato (Falsafat Aflaṭūn), he tells us that Socrates chose death over life when he realized that the corrupted opinions of his city would prevent him from living the rest of his life according to philosophical knowledge and virtue.Footnote ⁵⁰ The Agreement between the Opinions of the Two Philosophers Divine Plato and Aristotle (Kitāb al-Jamʿ bayna raʾyay al-ḥakīmayn Aflāṭun al-ilāhī wa-Arisṭūṭālīs) presents the divergence between the ways of life of Plato and Aristotle as one of the apparent contradictions between the two philosophers.Footnote ⁵¹ While Plato shunned most worldly things (al-asbāb al-dunyawiyya), and admonished against them, Aristotle married, had children, worked as Alexander's minister, and gathered worldly possessions. Al-Fārābī explains that the disagreement was not doctrinal, but temperamental. Both emphasized the communal virtues, Plato founded political philosophy, and Aristotle followed him in his political writings. When carrying out the ethical theory into practice, the deficient “natural faculties” (quwā al-ṭabīʿiyya) of Plato rendered him successful in purifying his own soul, while he failed in conveying his perfection to others, whereas Aristotle's excessive natural faculties caused him to fall short in the first and excel in the latter.

Al-Fārābī stresses this view of philosophy, that is, that virtuous practice forms an inseparable part of being a philosopher, in a number of writings. In his introduction to Aristotelian philosophy, the final goal of philosophical learning is stated to be two-fold: knowledge of the Creator as the culmination of theoretical knowledge on the one hand, and “becoming like God in one's actions as much as is possible for a human being” on the other.Footnote ⁵² The two-fold definition of philosophy as both knowledge and virtue is repeated in the Selected Aphorisms (Fuṣūl muntazaʿa).Footnote ⁵³ In the Attainment of Happiness (Kitāb Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda), al-Fārābī defines the true philosopher (al-faylasūf fī al-ḥaqīqa) as one who combines theoretical knowledge with moral virtue, as well as political capability, whereas those who lack one of the three characteristics form different classes of false philosophers.Footnote ⁵⁴

Since moral virtue clearly forms an indispensable part of being a philosopher, what are the ethical standards to which the philosopher should adhere? Druart has argued that al-Fārābī distinguishes between religious, pre-philosophical and philosophical levels of ethics, employing poetic-rhetorical, dialectic, and demonstrative arguments respectively, and each addressing distinct groups of people.Footnote ⁵⁵ Like al-Rāzī, al-Fārābī would then view the ethical education of the philosopher as a progression from a pre-philosophical to a philosophical level. This clearly seems to be the case, as al-Fārābī’s works accord ethics an ambiguous position as both the beginning and end of philosophy. But, in contrast to al-Rāzī, it also appears that the function of pre-philosophical character training is largely taken over by religious morality, as I will argue below, and the poetic-rhetorical and dialectical levels are not that sharply distinguished within the philosopher's moral education.

Al-Fārābī presents moral virtue as a necessary prerequisite for philosophical studies in a number of works. In the prolegomena, in the context of the question of the correct starting point of philosophy, al-Fārābī ends up supporting the view that the moral dispositions (akhlāq) of the appetitive soul must be corrected before the study of philosophy so that the appetites (shahwa) are oriented towards what is virtue in reality, as opposed to the false virtues related to the two lower parts of the soul.Footnote ⁵⁶ In Attainment of Happiness, al-Fārābī draws from The Republic to present the prerequisites for a student of philosophy, which include both intellectual and moral virtues:

The beginning of the passage gives the impression that al-Fārābī presumes that the philosopher should be disposed to disdain appetites and prefer virtue by inborn nature (bi-al-fiṭra). But clearly virtue is also the result of character formation since the text requires that the philosopher be brought up within a political community whose laws resemble his natural virtuous dispositions and that he should adhere to the religious and “generally accepted” virtues (al-faḍāʾil allatī hiya fī al-mashhūr faḍāʾil).Footnote ⁵⁸ Al-Fārābī would then seem to equate the pre-philosophical character formation either with religious ethics or the common opinions about virtue within the political community in which the student of philosophy lives, which would correspond to poetic-rhetorical and dialectic ethics respectively. This is also evident in the definition of the “vain philosopher” (al-faylasūf al-bahraj): “The vain philosopher is he who learns the theoretical sciences, but without going any further and without being habituated to doing the acts considered virtuous by a certain religion or the generally accepted noble acts. Instead he follows his own desires (hawan) and appetites (shahawāt) in everything, whatever they may happen to be.”Footnote ⁵⁹ While again the reformation of the appetitive soul is necessary for becoming a true philosopher, the character training takes place through conforming to the morality of the religious or political community.

In other contexts, al-Fārābī presents moral virtue as the culmination of theoretical sciences, and emphasizes the role of theoretical knowledge as an indispensable pre-condition for virtue. In the Prolegomena this idea is expressed through the maxim “perfection of knowledge is action” (tamām al-ʿilm al-ʿamal).Footnote ⁶⁰ In the Aphorisms, not only philosophical knowledge about virtue, but also knowledge about theoretical philosophy, is required for becoming truly virtuous:

Here al-Fārābī presents a strikingly distinct picture of virtue from the one above, that is, adherence to commonly shared morality. Philosophical virtue is based on theoretical knowledge, and is sharply distinguished from any common sense or religious notions of virtue. The position of virtue within the philosopher's intellectual and moral progression is moreover placed at the very end of the philosophical education, that is, after all of theoretical philosophy, corresponding to the position of ethics within the Arabic philosophical curriculum. After the completion of theoretical philosophy, then, the student of philosophy “progresses to the practical part, and may begin to act the way he is supposed to act.”Footnote ⁶² This is because, for al-Fārābī, ethical knowledge is founded on physical and metaphysical knowledge about the world, or the “degrees of existence and ranks of merit.” Ethical knowledge is essentially knowledge about happiness as man's telos, or ultimate perfection (kamāl), and knowledge about the perfection of any being requires knowledge about its position within the hierarchy of being.Footnote ⁶³ Therefore, in the Philosophy of Aristotle, al-Fārābī states that man's telos or happiness can only be discovered through finding his function within the whole of the cosmos, which requires physical and metaphysical knowledge about the world.Footnote ⁶⁴ In Principles of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City (Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila), al-Fārābī reiterates this idea of theoretical knowledge as a prerequisite for virtue in terms of the faculties of the soul: “When this happiness becomes known through theoretical reason and is set up as an aim and desired by the appetitive faculty, and when the deliberative faculty discovers what ought to be done in order to attain that with the assistance of the faculty of representation and the senses, and when those actions are performed by the instruments of the appetitive faculty, then the actions of man will be all good and noble.”Footnote ⁶⁵ Becoming virtuous then follows upon demonstrative knowledge about happiness as man's end, deliberation about the means to attain that end, and the reformation of the appetites, and other sub-rational faculties, to serve for attaining that end. In other words, moral virtue is wholly instrumental with respect to attaining happiness.

If pre-philosophical virtue is based on religious or commonly shared opinions, while philosophical virtue is founded on demonstrative knowledge, how are the two related to each other? In a further passage of Aphorisms, it becomes clear that the commonly shared and philosophical concepts of virtue are at least relatively close to each other:

For a devoted Aristotelian like al-Fārābī to claim that a virtuous but philosophically ignorant man is closer to being a philosopher than a non-virtuous man fully versed in Aristotelian philosophy is in itself surprising. But in addition, al-Fārābī defines the virtuous man as someone who adheres to the commonly shared notion of the good (jamīl). This is explained by the fact that, despite his theoretical knowledge, it is harder for the second man to habituate his soul towards what is good in reality (mā huwa fī al-ḥaqīqa jamīl) when his vicious actions are firmly established in him than it is for the virtuous man to acquire theoretical knowledge and philosophical virtue. Clearly, then, the commonly shared opinions about virtue are sufficiently close to the notion of virtue based on demonstrative knowledge, that the first is conducive to the latter. But why should the common-sense and philosophical ideas of virtue be harmonious with each other to such degree? One answer would be that ethical knowledge is inborn, which is a view that al-Fārābī holds to a degree.Footnote ⁶⁷ But while philosophical ethics may be founded on such primary knowledge, clearly people do not universally agree on the nature of virtue, and in particular the contents of happiness as man's ultimate ethical end.Footnote ⁶⁸

The intimate relationship between commonly shared and philosophical virtue makes more sense when it is situated within the context of al-Fārābī’s political thought. Al-Fārābī is more famous as a political than a moral philosopher, and for the most part he discusses ethics in a political context. Al-Fārābī is emphatic that happiness – or any kind of satisfactory existence for that matter – is only possible as part of a society.Footnote ⁶⁹ While ethics as a science has a universal and demonstrative part, its practical application to a particular time and place is imprecise, and is primarily the task of the political community through moral education (taʾdīb), by means of both persuasive and passionate arguments (al-aqāwīl al-iqnāʿiyya/infiʿāliyya) and coercive legislation.Footnote ⁷⁰ In the non-virtuous cities, the laws, customs, and opinions would habituate the would-be philosopher to non-virtuous dispositions, which is why Plato, according to al-Fārābī, decided that he must found a city based on philosophical principles.Footnote ⁷¹ In contrast, in al-Fārābī’s virtuous city (al-madīna al-fāḍila), around which his political philosophy revolves, the inhabitants’ shared opinion about virtue is ultimately founded on philosophical knowledge. This is ensured by the existence of the philosopher-prophet, who is the founder of al-Fārābī’s virtuous religion (milla fāḍila) and whose legislation is based on universal philosophical knowledge as well as a well-developed faculty of practical reasoning.Footnote ⁷² The philosopher-prophets are like doctors of the soul who are capable of legislating for each nation, and each group within the nation, the precise psychical remedies that are most suitable for their particular condition.Footnote ⁷³ The practical part of al-Fārābī’s virtuous religion is then essentially an application of philosophical ethics to a particular political context. Within it the commonly shared and philosophical opinions about virtue would be entirely harmonious with each other since the former are derived from the latter.

It would then appear that al-Fārābī sees an ethical progression for the philosopher in the sense of a transition from common sense or religious virtue to a philosophically grounded one. The pre-philosophical character formation takes place primarily through the philosopher's acceptance of the norms of the virtuous city or religion, whereas for the philosopher virtuous action is founded on demonstrative knowledge. But what is the more precise content of the virtuous life that the philosopher should live, and does it also involve a progression within the degree of virtue? Unlike al-Rāzī, al-Fārābī does not offer practical information on the degree to which the philosopher is allowed to satisfy his bodily desires and engage with the world. In fact, given al-Fārābī’s insistence on the necessity of moral virtue for the philosopher, his ethical writings are disappointingly meager in explaining what virtue is. In some texts, such as the Exhortation to the Way to Happiness (Kitāb al-Tanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda) and Aphorisms, he presents man's ethical goal as Aristotelian moderation, where virtue is defined as a mediate disposition between two excessive qualities.Footnote ⁷⁴ The list of specific virtues, such as courage (shajāʿa), temperance (ʿiffa), and generosity (sakhā’), are drawn routinely from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, without much further reflection. Given al-Fārābī’s understanding of ethics as an imprecise science in its practical application and his political emphasis, al-Fārābī’s terseness makes sense. Al-Fārābī himself states that the lists of virtues are only meant as an illustration (ʿalā sabīl al-tamthīl) of the general principle.Footnote ⁷⁵ In Exhortation, al-Fārābī does, however, offer some practical advice on how to gradually habituate the psychical dispositions towards virtuous mediate dispositions.Footnote ⁷⁶ Exhortation is a clearly pre-philosophical work, which al-Fārābī presents as being introductory to logic, the first part of the philosophical curriculum.Footnote ⁷⁷ This would imply, firstly, that, besides adherence to religious morality, al-Fārābī accords ethical self-governance a role within pre-philosophical character formation, and, secondly, that he attaches Aristotelian moderation at least to the pre-philosophical stage of character training.

To make al-Fārābī’s ethical ideal more difficult to assess, however, he does not seem to consistently commit himself to the Aristotelian ideal of moderation. In his more theoretical works, there is no trace of the definition of virtue as a mediate disposition, but virtue is defined instrumentally as the dispositions or actions that lead to happiness. Moreover, al-Fārābī’s concept of happiness is extremely intellectualist. In Virtuous City, Political Governance (Al-Siyāsa al-madaniyya), and Epistle on the Intellect (Al-Risāla fī al-ʿaql), al-Fārābī defines happiness – man's highest ethical goal – as purely contemplative:

For al-Fārābī, happiness is ultimately a state in the afterlife where the intellect is in any case liberated of the body. But al-Fārābī sets cutting off the dependence from body as a pre-condition for the soul becoming an immortal substance,Footnote ⁷⁹ meaning that, for the philosopher, the ‘afterlife’ should in fact start already in this life.Footnote ⁸⁰ Since for al-Fārābī the human essence is the theoretical intellect, this is primarily an epistemological state. Upon attaining its perfection, or the state of acquired intellect (al-ʿaql al-mustafād), the theoretical reason dispenses with senses and imagination for acquisition of intelligible knowledge.Footnote ⁸¹ But is the soul's independence of the body only an epistemological state, or does it also involve liberation from bodily affections more generally? Virtuous City defines virtue and virtuous actions as the means for reaching happiness without introducing the Aristotelian doctrine of moderation.Footnote ⁸² The state of ultimate happiness is further identified with becoming alike with the incorporeal Intellects of the celestial region, connected to the ideal of purely contemplative incorporeal existence. This would seem to involve an ideal of virtue going beyond Aristotelian moderation.

In the Aphorisms, al-Fārābī attributes to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle a sharp distinction between the physical and contemplative lives:

In this passage the two lives form a progression where virtuous actions and the Aristotelian ‘external goods’ only form part of the first life and are merely instrumental for attaining the ultimate perfection.Footnote ⁸⁵ The final stage of contemplative life is purely self-sufficient, and within it the external goods, or states related to the lower psychical faculties, have no independent value. Al-Fārābī does not, however, state that bodily desires or emotions should be completely eradicated. In another aphorism he rather states that the “accidents of the soul” (ʿawāriḍ al-nafs) are neither good nor bad in themselves, but only insofar as they are employed to gain either happiness or its contrary.Footnote ⁸⁶ As we have seen, for al-Fārābī virtue as the culmination of philosophy is founded on demonstrative knowledge about happiness, and it is that knowledge together with practical deliberation and directing of the appetites towards the goal of contemplative happiness that enables virtue. It would then appear that the virtuous actions leading to contemplative perfection would involve orienting the appetites wholly towards contemplation, the highest good, and only minimally towards nutrition and other bodily activities that enable theoretical activity.

Is the Aristotelian ideal of moderation then to be interpreted as only the first stage of ‘political virtue,’ which the philosopher, pursuing purely contemplative life, in the end surpasses? It is certainly interesting that al-Fārābī omits the Aristotelian doctrine of mediate dispositions in the passages where he discusses contemplative happiness. The idea of grades of virtue could be further supported by al-Fārābī’s political writings, where the seemingly unified ethical goal of happiness in fact diverges into a plurality of goals since each class within the city is oriented towards the perfection, or happiness, corresponding to its “degree in humanity.”Footnote ⁸⁷ Virtue is defined as means to happiness, and one could assume that different goals also imply different means. Philosophers are the only ones capable of attaining purely contemplative happiness, and their degree of virtue would be correspondingly higher. In any case, al-Fārābī’s view of the virtuous philosopher does not involve any such ascetic ideal that would imply social isolation, as he – on the contrary – requires that the philosopher should share his theoretical and moral perfection with others. But as O'Meara has shown, this is not at all contradictory with the Neoplatonic grades of virtue, which are accompanied by the necessity of the philosopher sacrificing his purely contemplative existence by returning to the “Platonic cave.”Footnote ⁸⁸