This sprawling volume addresses the problem of rules in Aristotle's ethical theory. Are there any ethical rules, according to that theory? Yes, contra proto-particularists like M.F. Burnyeat and J. McDowell, there are (see pp. 2 n. 2, 80–1, 186–7). But more particularly, how are such rules constructed and formulated? This is the focus of A.’s book.
Chapter 1 is an engaging historical treatment of ethical prescription before Aristotle, and mainly in Plato. A. argues plausibly that the Socratic dialogues do not propound determinate ethical rules, let alone a theory of them. Rather, Socrates exhorts his interlocutors to honour and abide by certain ends (pp. 30–3), summarised in the concept of aretê. True, the early dialogues hold out hope for a technê of aretê, but despite the efforts of the Protagoras, none is forthcoming (p. 8; cf. p. 78). It is only with the Statesman, and especially the Laws, that Plato expounds determinate rules of practice (albeit now at the political level, pp. 25–9). But still, there is no theory of how these are derived from the wider, common good.
Chapter 2 broaches Aristotle. A. dwells on the relation between deliberation and the practical syllogism, pointing out that no clear distinction is made between these until the mid-twentieth century (p. 56). Since her ultimate view is that deliberation can be ‘converted’ into syllogistic form (pp. 92–3, 128, § 3.8), she too basically shares this ‘unitarian’ view. But because she wants ethical rules to be third personal, rather than first personal, in force – such rules prescribe primarily to others – she must deny two key views well entrenched among Aristotle scholars. First, that the practical syllogism must issue in action (pp. 58, 66–7; cf. 155–7); and secondly, that action-conclusions presuppose desire on the part of the deliberator (pp. 60–1, 68; cf. 132–3, 157–9, 246–7).
Chapter 3 approaches practical reasoning through the prism of means-end deliberation, rather than the rule-case form of syllogistic. Here A. highlights the analogy between practical and theoretical reasoning (pp. 94–5, 99–100): practical ends, that is, are analogous to hypotheses (pp. 108–9, 112–15). She overplays the analogy, however, insisting that the immediacy of a practical conclusion is not temporal but merely logical (pp. 122, 155–7) and that desire can be absent from practical (just as it is from theoretical) reasoning (pp. 132–3, 153, 157–9; cf. 167, 179). Clearly, this fits her theory of third personal prescription (pp. 144–5), but – as I will argue below – it is difficult to find in Aristotle's texts themselves. It is, at best, a reconstructive reading.
Chapters 4–5 tackle phronêsis or practical wisdom, and specifically its political role. Phronêsis is important because it supplies deliberative capacity to politicians, viz. precisely to those whose prescriptions matter most (pp. 214, 216). It has this competence because, unlike poietic or purely technical reasoning, it can operate with a view to the common, architectonic good of the state, not simply the good of some limited domain. While it can and should arrange and direct such local goods, it need not effect them (pp. 218–20). Sounding a Platonic note, A. maintains that while those who are ruled (but never rule) may be capable of phronêsis, they are not so vis-à-vis the ends of state (pp. 240–1). With regard to these, non-ruling citizens are obliged to have no more than true opinion (pp. 236–9). Phronêsis nonetheless has its limits. When it prescribes to citizens who fail to heed it, coercion – rather than further persuasion – is in order (pp. 200–1). And phronêsis is structurally subordinate to sophia, viz. theoretical wisdom, for whose sake it prescribes (pp. 177, 180, 186–7, 190, 196–7). In addition to this material on phronêsis, there are some very interesting discussions of when and why judgement and prescription are formulated less well by experts than by non-experts (pp. 230–3) and of why (according to Aristotle) women and slaves can deliberate but not prescribe (pp. 238–9). These last two chapters are well argued and well taken, but also court little controversy.
Overall, this volume is to be commended for its ambition. It covers a far wider range of topics and arguments than I can convey here. And as I have indicated, some of these are handled very well. But equally, it does not make good on its central claims. The idea that practical conclusions do not consist in actions – and actions immediately carried out (if nothing intervenes) – is very hard to square with Aristotle's seminal texts on the practical syllogism (see De motu animalium 701a7–36, De anima 434a16–21 and Nicomachean Ethics 1147a25–b10). In the De motu we read: ‘at once [eutheôs] he takes a walk’, ‘at once [euthus] he remains at rest’, ‘at once [euthus] he makes a house’, ‘he does at once [euthus] what he desires’, ‘At once [euthus] he drinks’ etc. And Aristotle comments explicitly that ‘the conclusion, the “I have to make a cloak” [e.g.], is an action [praxis estin]’; ‘Now, that the action is the conclusion, is clear [phaneron estin]’. As he puts matters in the Eth. Nic., ‘Now when the two premises are combined, just as in theoretical reasoning the mind is compelled to affirm the resulting conclusion, so in the case of practical premises you are forced at once [euthus] to do it’; ‘you are bound, if able and not prevented, immediately [hama] to taste the thing’. Maybe a form of third personal practical syllogism can be constructed whose conclusions are not actions, i.e. actions that follow immediately – but this would be a marked departure from Aristotle. He never elaborates such a syllogism himself.
A.’s extrication of desire from the practical syllogism is a further theoretical innovation. For we read in the De motu that ‘he does at once what he desires [oregetai]’; ‘This, then, is the way that animals are impelled to move and act: the proximate reason for movement is desire [orexeôs], and this comes to be either through sense-perception or through phantasia and thought. With creatures that desire [oregomenôn] to act, it is sometimes from appetite [epithumian] or spiritedness and sometimes from [desire or] wish [boulêsin] that they make or act’. And in the Eth. Nic. Aristotle holds that ‘when desire [epithumia] is present … though the former universal judgement says “Avoid that thing”, the desire [epithumia] leads you to it since desire can put the various parts of the body in motion’. Evidently, whether desire is rational or irrational, it plays an overriding role in motivating us to act. And as to the very idea of third personal, universal prescription, I do not see why the major premise of the practical syllogism does not already fulfil this role. After all, both ‘All sweet things ought to be tasted’ and ‘a universal judgement forbidding you to taste [sweet things]’ are universally prescriptive, and could thus be dubbed ‘ethical rules’. In the same passage of the Eth. Nic., indeed, Aristotle speaks of the major premise ‘saying’ something: ‘the … universal judgement says [legei], “Avoid that thing”’. What could be more prescriptive than that? And what could be more universal?
To bolster the idea that universal prescriptions or ethical rules are embodied in the major premise or ‘universal judgement’ of the practical syllogism, one could point out that the De anima presents the latter as more effectual, or more motivating, than its minor counterpart. As Aristotle puts matters, ‘either it is the latter opinion [viz. minor premise], not the universal one [viz. major premise], which produces movement, or it is both, but the first is more static, while the other is not’. From this it seems clear that prescriptive force inhabits the major premise already, without the need to locate such force elsewhere, or by addition. As Aristotle expresses things in the De motu, ‘reason does not stop and consider at all the second of the two premises, the obvious one. For example, if taking walks is good for a man, it does not waste time considering that he is a man. Hence whatever we do without calculating, we do quickly’. Although the purchase of this passage is more oblique, the same lesson is in the offing: namely, that the major premise, with its universal, third personal content, already has prescriptive force, with the application to oneself being a relatively trivial matter. And if so, the search for universal, prescriptive rules in Aristotle seems to have found its quarry right at the start and without further ado. A.’s attempts, in other words, to liberate the practical syllogism from both action and desire would seem unnecessary – for what she seeks is already found.
