Deslauriers How to distinguish A´s virtues

How to Distinguish AristotleÕs Virtues

MARGUERITE DESLAURIERS

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the distinctions Aristotle draws (1) between the intellectualvirtue of phron� sis and the moral virtues and (2) among the moral virtues, inlight of his commitment to the reciprocity of the virtues. I argue that Aristotletakes the intellectual virtues to be numerically distinct hexeis from the moral virtues.By contrast, I argue, he treats the moral virtues as numerically one hexis,although he allows that they are many hexeis Ôin beingÕ. The paper has threeparts. In the � rst, I set out AristotleÕs account of the structure of the faculties ofthe soul, and determine that desire is a distinct faculty. The rationality of a desireis not then a question of whether or not the faculty that produces that desire isrational, but rather a question of whether or not the object of the desire is good.In the second section I show that the reciprocity of phron� sis and the moralvirtues requires this structure of the faculties. In the third section I show that theway in which Aristotle distinguishes the faculties requires that we individuatemoral virtues according to the objects of the desires that enter into a given virtue,and with reference to the circumstances in which these desires are generated. Ithen explore what it might mean for the moral virtues to be different in beingbut not in number, given the way in which the moral virtues are individuated. Iargue that Aristotle takes phron� sis and the political art to be a numerical unityin a particular way, and that he suggests that the moral virtues are, by analogy,the same kind of unity.

Aristotle attributes multiple virtues to the virtuous person. Some of thesevirtues are intellectual and some moral. The virtuous person has the intel-lectual virtue of phron� sis, which allows one to deliberate well, as wellas the moral virtues which include, among others, courage and justice. SoAristotle draws two different kinds of distinction within virtues: the moralvirtues are importantly different from the intellectual virtues, but the moralvirtues are also different one from another.1 Aristotle maintains both thatphron� sis and the moral virtues are distinct, and that the person who hasone of them will have all of them (this view of the relation among thevirtues has come to be called the reciprocity of the virtues).2 I want to

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Accepted September 20011 The intellectual virtues are also of course different one from another. I will focus

on the distinctions between the intellectual and the moral virtues, and among the moralvirtues, because these are the distinctions critical to the reciprocity of the virtues.

2 In calling AristotleÕs position the reciprocity of the virtues and the Socratic posi-tion the unity of the virtues I am using T. H. IrwinÕs terminology (ÒDisunity in the

examine how the claim that the virtues are reciprocally necessary affectsthe ways in which Aristotle tries to distinguish the different virtues. In par-ticular, I want to explore and clarify these two kinds of distinctions withinthe virtues, the distinction between the intellectual and the moral virtues,and the distinctions among the moral virtues, in the light of AristotleÕscommitment to the reciprocity of the virtues.

That commitment emerges when Aristotle distinguishes his position onthe relation among the moral virtues and between the moral virtues andthe intellectual virtue of phron� sis from the position that he attributes toSocrates. The Socratic position, as he understands it, is captured in hisobjection that on the Socratic view no peculiarly moral capacity (nocapacity having to do with desire and action) is necessary for virtue. Hecomplains that for Socrates a moral capacity is nothing more than a ratio-nal capacity (EN VI 3 1144b17-30) . Aristotle is then contrasting his viewof the relations among and between virtues with a view according towhich 1) there is no distinction between phron� sis and moral virtues, becausethe moral virtues are all instances of phron� sis and 2) there is no dis-tinction among the moral virtues, because each of them is (again) simplyphron� sis. Call this the unity of the virtues. Aristotle seems to believe both1) that phron� sis and the moral virtues are genuinely different althoughmutually necessary, and 2) that the moral virtues are genuinely differenteach from the other, although mutually necessary. Call this the reciproc-ity of the virtues.3 What interests me is AristotleÕs insistence on the dif-

Aristotelian Virtues,Ó Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, ed. Julia Annas, Supp.Vol. 1988). The position that I attribute to Aristotle is, however, somewhat different.

3 There is some disagreement about AristotleÕs position on the relation of thevirtues. Some commentators argue that Aristotle tries, but fails in the attempt, to arguefor the unity of the virtues, characterized as involving two claims: (1) Moral virtuesrequire practical wisdom and (2) The person with practical wisdom must have all themoral virtues. See Elizabeth Telfer, ÒThe Unity of the Moral Virtues in AristotleÕsNicomachean Ethics,Ó Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, LXXXX(1989/90), 35-48. Telfer argues that while AristotleÕs own argument does not succeed,he might have succeeded had he cast the argument in terms of ideal moral virtues.John Lemos has argued that the arguments for the unity of ideal moral virtues alsofail (ÒThe Unity of the Virtues and Its Defenses,Ó The Southern Journal of PhilosophyXXXII (1994), 85-105), although he is less interested in, and less familiar with, theargument as Aristotle presents it. The doubts about the argument focus on the secondof the two claims, that the person with practical wisdom must have all the virtues, or,alternatively, that anyone who possesses one of the moral virtues will possess themall. Two recent attempts to defend some understanding of the thesis of the reciproc-ity of the virtues are by Paula Gottlieb (ÒAristotle on Dividing the Soul and Unitingthe Virtues,Ó Phronesis XXXIX, No. 3 (1994), 275-290) and Edward Halper (ÒThe

102 MARGUERITE DESLAURIERS

ferences between virtues together with his insistence on the mutual neces-sity of these virtues. If we grant the mutual necessity, and the implicationthat in practice these virtues form a unity, we might wonder how exactlyAristotle proposes to differentiate the virtues.

I shall argue that AristotleÕs account of the parts of the soul and thevirtues peculiar to different parts makes most sense when we consider howthat account supports both the reciprocity of the virtues and the distinc-tions among the virtues. In particular, I argue that the way in whichAristotle divides the soul makes clear that the moral and intellectualvirtues must be numerically different hexeis, but that the moral virtues can-not be numerically different hexeis and must be distinguished in someother way. The argument is in three parts. In the � rst I set out AristotleÕsaccount of the structure of faculties of the soul, according to which desireis a distinct faculty, so that the rationality of a desire is not determinedby whether or not the faculty that produces it is rational, but ratherwhether or not the object of the desire is good. In the second I show thatthe reciprocity of the intellectual virtue of phron� sis and the moral virtuesrequires this structure of relations between the faculties of the soul. In thethird I show that this division of the faculties of the soul requires that weindividuate moral virtues according to the objects of the desires that enterinto a given virtue and with reference to the circumstances in which thesedesires are generated. I then examine the difference between phron� sis andthe political art in order to show that this way of individuating the moralvirtues requires that the account of the difference between them should bedifferent from the account of the difference between moral and intellec-tual virtues. I argue that Aristotle takes phron� sis and the political art tobe a numerical unity in a particular way, and that he suggests that themoral virtues are, by analogy, the same kind of unity.

1. Division of desires and the divisions of the soul

Moral virtue is generally distinguished by Aristotle from intellectual virtueby the element of desire: what it is to have moral virtue is to have a dis-position to desire what is good (as opposed to a disposition to truth) (EN

Unity of the Virtues in Aristotle,Ó Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, XVII (1999),115-43). Halper argues that the reciprocity of the virtues makes sense by arguing thatAristotle does not believe that the exercise of each virtue involves one or two pas-sions, but rather the appropriate exercise of every passion, and that practical wisdommust assess not only the circumstances a person � nds himself in but also the personÕsown abilities and virtues.

HOW TO DISTINGUISH ARISTOTLEÕS VIRTUES 103

VI 2 1139a21-31). Desire is essential to moral virtue because of the con-nection between desire, choice, action and virtue. Moral virtue itself is astate which disposes us to choose certain actions over others – it is a §jiwproairetik® (II 6 1106b 36). Actions require choices, so any morallyevaluable action will follow on some choice made by the agent. Choicesinvolve, but are not identical with, desires. Choices that manifest virtueinvolve, but are not identical with, rational desires which are desires forthe good. How then does Aristotle distinguish rational desires from othersorts of desires which might enter into a choice and hence motivate anaction? That is, how does he distinguish desires for the good from otherdesires? This leads to a second question: How can Aristotle distinguishone desire for the good from another? In order to individuate the moralvirtues, and to maintain that the virtues while reciprocal are not simplyone, Aristotle must draw distinctions within the desire for the good. I shalladdress the � rst of these questions – about distinguishing rational desiresfrom others – in this section; in the second section I shall show how theanswer to this question makes clear the way in which the intellectualvirtue of phron� sis and the moral virtues are mutually necessary but dis-tinct; and in the third section I shall answer the second question – aboutdistinguishing one desire for the good from another.

(i) What makes a desire rational?

The distinction between rational and irrational desires is not a distinctionin the faculties which give rise to the desires, but rather a distinction inthe objects of desire. To demonstrate this, we need to consider howAristotle characterizes rational desire. In III 2 of the EN choice is distin-guished from three sorts of desire: appetite, emotion and wish. Aristotlerecognizes that action requires some sort of desire, and will identify choiceas a certain kind of desire – bouleutik¯ örejiw (III 3 1113a10-11) or örejiwdianohtik® (VI 2 1139b4-5). He distinguishes in III 2 appetite (¤piyumÛa),emotion (yumñw) and wish (boælhsiw), as kinds of desire, from choice asa kind of desire. The point is not that choice will not involve any of thesekinds of desire, but that it will not be identical with any of these kinds.Aristotle remarks that wish is closest to choice and emotion farthest away(1111b18-20) . This is because, despite their differences, wish is a desirefor the good, and choice involves a desire for the good (1113a22-6) .Appetite and emotion are set apart as desires shared by non-rational ani-mals (and hence as non-rational desires which are not and do not involvedesires for the good) (1111b12-13).


This classi� cation of emotion and appetite as non-rational desires, andwish as a rational desire is reiterated at Rhetoric I 10 1368b37-1369a4 ,where Aristotle says that actions due to desire (as opposed to habit/char-acter) are caused either by rational or by non-rational desires (tŒ m¢n diŒlogistik¯n örejin t‹ d¢ diƒ �logon), that wishes, as desires for the good,are rational desires, and that anger (a species of emotion) and appetite areirrational desires. He says again, at de Anima I 3 414a32-b6, that any-thing with perception will have desire, and that desire includes or mayinclude appetite, emotion and wish. Aristotle adds Ò. . . for a wish is adesire, and whenever one is moved according to reason, one is also movedaccording to a wishÓ (de Anima III 10 433a23-25). Wishes seem then toexhaust desires for the good, so that any desire for the good will be awish. As desires for the good, wishes are distinguished from appetites inthat appetites have as their object the pleasant.

Aristotle is then de� ning wish as a kind of desire – a desire for thegood, and a rational desire. What is the connection between wishes asdesires for the good and wishes as rational? It might seem natural to sup-pose that the distinction between rational and non-rational desires is a dis-tinction between those desires which are produced by the use of reasonitself, on its own, and those which are not.4 This distinction would help

4 John Cooper argues that Òa rational desire or boulesis is the practical expressionof a course of thought about what is good for oneself, that is aimed at working outthe truth about what is in fact goodÓ while emotions and appetites are not such expres-sions (31). He adds Ò. . . a logos-thought and a logos-desire are about the good in away that lays claim to there being a reason for thinking this, and to thinking it forthat reason.Ó The passage Cooper takes as evidence for this is at EN VI-EE V 21139b12, where Aristotle says that both theoretical and practical reason have as theirfunction to pursue and attain truth. Cooper says ÒOne part of what he asserts in thispassage about practical reason is that its function is, not just to hold views to the effectthat something or other is good for us, but to do so, whether we are self-consciousabout this or not, as somehow part of or the result of a process of investigation intothe truth about what is goodÓ (30). On CooperÕs view ÒThis means that the non-ratio-nal desires, as such, can be conceived simply as ones that lack these special featuresthat their origin in reason gives to the rational desires. Accordingly, non-rationaldesires will be desires no part of the causal history of which is ever any process (self-conscious or not) of investigation into the truth about what is good for oneself Ó (31).See John M. Cooper, ÒSome Remarks on AristotleÕs Moral Psychology,Ó The SouthernJournal of Philosophy, XXVII, Supplement (1988), 25-42. This view seems to pre-suppose rather than to show that reason, as a faculty, produces rational desires. Moreover,as I argue below, Aristotle denies that the faculty of reason produces desires in thepassage at de Anima III 10 433a22-5.


to explain the claim that wishes as desires for the good are rational –where the link between being a rational wish and being a wish for thegood is that wishes are produced or caused by reason in the process ofinvestigating what is good for us. Moreover, distinguishing in this waybetween rational and non-rational desires accommodates AristotleÕs claimthat wishes may be for objects which are apparent, but not real, goods(EN III 4 1113a22-b2) . Aristotle does not, however, say that rationaldesires are produced by reason; indeed, he seems to deny this claim at deAnima III 10 433a22-5, when he says that nous or dianoia by itself doesnot produce movement, since if reason were producing desires it wouldproduce movement on its own.5 This clearly suggests that reason as a fac-ulty cannot produce desires; since reason can produce judgments, if itcould also produce desires, then reason by itself could produce movement,since movements are produced by some combination of judgment and desire.

A different account of the sense in which wishes as desires for the goodare rational avoids this dif� culty. An account that is more consistent withwhat Aristotle says is that wishes as desires for the good are rationalbecause desiring the good, under that description, as the good, will requirethat one can identify the good, or at least the apparent good. Desiring thegood will, then, require reason, even if reason does not produce the desire.On this view, reason must recognize desires which are in accordance withthe judgments of reason. This is consistent with AristotleÕs habit of speak-ing of desires as being in accordance with reason, rather than of desiresas produced or caused by reason (see, for example EN VI 2 1139a30-1).It is also consistent with the claim that desire is a separate faculty; if, asI am suggesting, desires – including rational desires – are produced by afaculty other than reason itself, then the question becomes how desire andthe judgment of reason can combine into a unity in choice. (I address thisquestion in the next section.)

The distinction, then, between rational and irrational desires is not adistinction in the faculties which give rise to the desires, but a distinctionin the objects of desire.6 Objects of desire are either what is (perceived to

5 Cooper says that the passage Òdoes not mean that reasoning about what to dodoes not lead to any movement toward acting except when it is coupled with some orother non-rational desireÓ (30), and that is right. But the passage does seem to meanthat reason itself is not producing desires – and that some distinct faculty of desire pro-duces both rational and non-rational desires.

6 Aristotle has de� ned the difference in desires in terms of their objects. Rational andnon-rational desires might on this account be produced by different faculties of thesoul; that is, it might be the case that while Aristotle distinguishes rational from non-


be) good or what is (perceived to be) pleasant. One might of course havea non-rational desire for something for which one also had a rationaldesire, insofar as the pleasant and the good might coincide. In such a case,however, the virtuous personÕs desire will not be for the object as pleas-ant, but for it as good.

(ii) Why posit a single faculty of desire?

How must the soul be divided in order to account for the production ofrational desires? The various faculties of the soul that Aristotle distin-guishes in most detail in the de Anima are, as he himself will acknowl-edge, dif� cult to map onto the divisions within the soul postulated in thesediscussions in the EN, where the rational and irrational parts of the soulare said each to be divided into two parts. The irrational part includes thenutritive part and a part which Ôshares in reasonÕ or at any rate can ÔobeyreasonÕ, although it does not always do so; this Aristotle calls the appet-itive or desiring part (EN I 13 1102b 25-31). In the EN the two parts ofthe rational part are not distinguished until VI 1, when the distinction isexpressed in terms of objects: one part of the rational part considersobjects whose origins do not admit of being otherwise, and one partobjects whose origins do admit of being otherwise (1139a 3-8). The for-mer Aristotle calls ¤pisthmonikñn, the latter logistikñn, or practical reason,which he identi� es with the capacity for deliberation (1139a 11-12).7

At Politics VII 14 the distinction between a rational and an irrationalpart of the soul, and the sub-divisions of these parts, are maintained. Aristotleagain says that one part has a rational principle in itself, while the otheris able to obey such a principle (1333a16-19). In the Politics, as in theNicomachean Ethics, the context is a discussion of virtue. The politicianneeds to know enough of the soul as is necessary for a knowledge ofvirtue, and since there are human virtues of both the rational and the


rational desires in terms of their objects, he believes that they are produced by differ-ent faculties of the soul. But again, the evidence that tells against this is the passageat de Anima III 10 433a22-5, which makes clear that reason does not produce desire.

7 Aristotle restricts action to those creatures which have the deliberative capacity.When, in VI 2, he says that animals, although they have perception, do not act, heseems to mean that they do not act because they do not make choices (1139a18-21) .If they do not make choices it is not because they lack the part of the soul that gen-erates desires, since animals with perceptual capacities share with us the capacity forappetites and emotions. Rather it is because they lack the rational element (and in par-ticular the deliberative faculty), a lack which prevents them from having the sort ofdesires that must enter into virtuous choices, namely desires for the good as such.

irrational parts of the soul, he needs to know these divisions (Politics VII14 1133a37-9; EN I 13 1102a 7-28).8 As in the EN, Aristotle assumes thatthe task of the politician is to inculcate virtues in people, that these virtuesare of two sorts (moral virtues and intellectual virtues) and that an under-standing of the two sorts requires an understanding of the structure of divi-sions within the soul. The suggestion is that these descriptions of the divisionswithin the soul are not suf� ciently accurate for some other investigator,for whom a knowledge of the soul is not background for the objects ofhis concern, but the object of concern itself. We � nd this more accuratedescription in the de Anima.

The account of the divisions of the soul in the de Anima is particularlyimportant for my purposes because it is here, in the course of calling intoquestion the standard division of faculties into rational and irrational, thatAristotle claims that both rational and irrational desires are generated bya single faculty. In the de Anima the consideration of the divisions of thesoul arises not as part of a discussion of virtue, but rather of movement.Aristotle asks what there is in the soul that is responsible for movement.There are two questions: 1) Is there some faculty of soul which is respon-sible for movement, or is it the whole soul which is responsible? and 2) Ifsome faculty is responsible is it a) separate either in number or inde� nition from other parts? and b) if it is separate, is it distinct from theparts of the soul already distinguished? (III 9 432a18-22).9 At III 10433a21 and again at 433b10-11, Aristotle announces by way of answersto these questions that the faculty of desire (rather than the whole soul)produces movement. This is because there is no movement without desire – and (since one might object that neither is there movement with-out some faculty of judgment or intellect, however primitive) becausedesire provides the source of the movement for reason, in providing theobject of desire (433a18-20). One might ask many questions about this pas-sage.10 I shall focus on one strand of AristotleÕs motivation for claiming


8 Aristotle tells us that the politician needs to know about the soul in the sameway that the ophthalmologist needs to know about the whole body. The analogy isthat the eyes are to the body as virtue is to the soul (1102a17-21) .

9 Some movements are brought about by the nutritive faculty (432b8-11) but it isnot these that are of interest so much as instances of locomotion, which include theactions on which we rely for moral assessments.

10 Hamlyn complains that Aristotle is arguing Ò. . . on the dubious grounds that therehas in the end to be just one causeÓ (D. W. Hamlyn, AristotleÕs De Anima Books IIand III (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 151). No doubt AristotleÕs motivation is in part togive an account of the origin of movement that will hold equally well for non-rationalanimal movements and human movements.

that desire alone is the source of movement, which concerns the useful-ness or accuracy of a division of the soul into rational and irrational parts.

When the question about the source of movement is � rst posed, Aris-totle begins with a criticism of the division of the soul into the rationaland irrational. This criticism seems to be aimed in the � rst instance at thePlatonic division of the soul into reason, emotion and appetite, but it bearson any division of the soul into a rational and an irrational part, includ-ing, then, AristotleÕs own division as we � nd it in the EN and the Politics.The main point of the criticism is that there are soul faculties which donot � t easily into the rational/irrational split – which seem, that is, to sharesomehow in reason, but not to have a rational principle. That there is (atleast one) faculty which somehow Ôshares inÕ reason without having arational principle is, as we have seen, a claim common to the EN and thePolitics, but in those works Aristotle treats it as unproblematic. Here inthe de Anima, however, he is no longer satis� ed to say that in order tocount as a rational faculty a part of the soul must have within itself theprinciple of reason, apparently because he no longer thinks it is obviousin all cases which parts do indeed have such principles.11

The objection to the division of the soul into rational and irrational partshas three components.12 The third, which concerns us here, is that thereare (as we have seen) both rational and irrational desires. Aristotle clearlybelieves that were one to commit oneself to a division of the soul intorational and irrational parts, one would have to account for the differencebetween rational and irrational desires in terms of the rationality or irra-tionality of the faculty that is the source of these desires (432b 3-7). Onsuch a view, deliberative reason (the rational part, of course) would gen-erate wishes, but the irrational part of the soul, including the facultiesresponsible for emotion and appetite, would generate emotions and appetites.If, on the other hand, all desires are generated by a single faculty, asAristotle argues, then that faculty can in itself be neither rational nor irra-tional, given that some desires will be rational and some irrational.13

11 Notice that a rejection of the division of the soul into a rational and an irrationalpart does not tell against a distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. So longas Aristotle maintains that there are faculties of 1) deliberation 2) scienti� c thoughtand 3) desire, he can maintain the distinctions he wants between kinds of virtue.

12 The � rst is obscure. The second is that imagination, in particular, is a facultythat can be classi� ed neither as rational nor as irrational (perhaps because it is notclear whether it has within it a rational principle).

13 In discussing the passage at EN 1139a21-31, where Aristotle describes choice asa deliberate desire, Sarah Broadie suggests that wishes must be generated or producedby reason itself, since Aristotle is not Òpositing a logos as an assertion of fact and the


Now, if all desires are generated by a single faculty which is neither ratio-nal nor irrational, then desires as a result are intrinsically neither rationalnor irrational. And if desires are not rational or irrational because the fac-ulty which generates them is rational or irrational, then Aristotle needs toprovide some other way of distinguishing rational from irrational desires.My suggestion is that he does this in offering the account that we havealready considered – the account in the EN, the Rhetoric and the de Animaof rational desires as desires for the good, as determined by phron� sis.And, again, if rational desires are rational insofar as their objects are goodas determined by deliberative reason, then we can make better sense ofAristotleÕs assertion that desire must be in accord with reason.

2. How Aristotle distinguishes the moral from the intellectual virtues

AristotleÕs account of the division of the soul, together with his claim thatall desires are produced by a single faculty, supports the view that desireand deliberation as elements of choice must be different. And if desire anddeliberation are different because they are produced by different faculties,then the virtues of those different faculties – the moral virtues and theintellectual virtues including phron� sis – are different. So the account ofthe division of the soul according to which desire is a single faculty sup-ports one part of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues over that of

evaluative aspect of choice as the function of a separate noncognitive faculty of desireor feelingÓ (Sarah Broadie, Ethics With Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1991), 213). She argues that Aristotle cannot hold Òa theory that parcels out thoughtand motivation between separate facultiesÓ because he holds (1) that desireÕs pursuitof its object is equivalent to af� rmation in the sphere of thought and (2) that in ratio-nal choice what is af� rmed and what is pursued are the same (216). As a result ÒAristotleÕsstatement that thought must af� rm the same as what desire pursues is simply a wayof saying that these are the same actÓ (217). Broadie allows that identity sits ill withAristotleÕs remark that thought and desire must agree (1139a29-31), but dismisses thisobjection with the claim that while we must think of choice as a composite of desireand thought, choice itself is a Ônatural unity.Õ She is led then to acknowledge that Òatthis point AristotleÕs division of the soul no longer makes sense except as a reminderthat the same thing can be viewed from different perspectivesÓ (218). I think thatAristotle does parcel out motivation between separate faculties, for reasons that I willconsider in the next section; but I agree with Broadie that AristotleÕs account of choiceas combining desire and reasoned judgment calls into question the division of the soulinto rational and non-rational faculties. Aristotle himself attempts to address this inthe de Anima, by abandoning the rigid classi� cation of soul faculties as rational ornon-rational, while preserving the division of soul into faculties.


the unity of the virtues, by supporting the view that the desiderative anddeliberative elements of a choice must be genuinely different.

Why does Aristotle assert that different kinds of desires are generatedby the same faculty? I am suggesting that he is motivated in part by a com-mitment to the reciprocity of phron� sis and the moral virtues, whichrequires that the desire and the deliberation that result in choice shouldnot occur in the same faculty. That is, desires must be generated by onefaculty, distinct from the faculty of reason, in order that the element ofdesire and the element of reason in a choice might be genuinely different.If, as the thesis of the unity of the virtues – the thesis that Aristotle rejectsin favour of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues – would seem torequire, different kinds of desire were generated by different faculties, thenrational desires would be generated by reason, and the deliberation anddesire that combine in choice and lead to movement (action) would occurin the same faculty of the soul.

Moreover, as we have seen, the divisions within the soul as describedin the EN and the Politics have as their context a discussion of the virtues,and indeed immediately precede discussions of the distinction between themoral and the intellectual virtues. Aristotle in both cases distinguishes thepart of the soul that has a rational principle, part of which is deliberative,from the part that can obey the rational principle, in order to claim a foun-dation for a distinction between moral and practical intellectual virtues.14

If there are different faculties involved in choice, then there must be dif-ferent virtues involved, so phron� sis and the moral virtues must be gen-uinely different. This of course is a rejection of the thesis of the unity ofthe virtues. By the same token, if desire as a faculty is the sole source ofmovement, but requires the involvement of the faculty of deliberation incases where the movement is produced by a choice, then desire, evenwhen it produces rational desires, is genuinely different from any intel-lectual faculty.

The account of the divisions in the soul and the role of the faculty ofdesire as the source of movement make clear not only why phron� sis andthe moral virtues are genuinely different, but also why phron� sis is neces-sary for the moral virtues and the moral virtues for phron� sis – another

14 The division of virtues is more detailed than this. The practical intellectual virtuesinclude, on the one hand, those which have to do with ÔjudgmentÕ and ÔdeliberationÕ,and, on the other, those which have to do with ÔcommandingÕ. So, phron� sis, as epi-taktik� , deliberates or judges and commands, while sunesis and gn™m� , as kritikai, onlydeliberate or judge (1143a8-10, 28-31).


part of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues. Aristotle cites desire asthe sole source of movement, and hence of action. The way in which heexplains this, and accommodates the view that practical reasoning or delib-eration is at least sometimes involved in the production of movements,makes clear that desire can be the sole source of movement only becauseof the relation it has to practical reason, when practical reason is involved.That is, desire in determining the object of desire also determines theobject and the terms of deliberation. So right desire is necessary for phro-n� sis, because right desire establishes the correct object of deliberation.And phron� sis is necessary for right desire because without phron� sis onecould not distinguish between desires for the good and other desires.

AristotleÕs reasoning seems to be: there must be one faculty that is thesource of movement.15 This faculty will have to bridge somehow the dis-tinction between the rational and irrational, because the source of somemovements will have to be both some judgment and some desire. The fac-ulty of desire is then a likely source of movement, both because it cansupply the motive for movement and because it is neither rational nor irra-tional. A rational desire counts as such only because it is in accordancewith phron� sis; so while there is no movement without desire, there arealso no desires for the good without phron� sis and hence without practi-cal reason. When we consider that for the faculty of desire to produce arational desire is for it to produce a desire in accordance with practicalreason, and that practical reason is provided with its object by the facultyof desire, then we can agree that rational desires and phron� sis are mutu-ally necessary.

More evidence for the importance of AristotleÕs division of the soul tothe thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues is provided by the passage atEN VI 13 1144b 17-30. Paula Gottlieb has argued that by dividing thesoul Aristotle is better able to unite the virtues than is Socrates, who unitesthe virtues only by con� ating moral and intellectual virtues.16 GottliebÕsargument is particularly persuasive insofar as it deals with the reciprocityof phron� sis and the moral virtues, rather than the reciprocity of the moralvirtues. This part of her argument rests on an interpretation of the dis-

15 AristotleÕs reason for claiming that there must be one faculty which is the sourceof movement is obscure: he says Ò. . . for if two [faculties] moved [the animal], thoughtand desire, they would move it according to some common formÓ (de Anima III 10433a21-2).

16 ÒAristotle on Dividing the Soul and Uniting the Virtues,Ó Phronesis, XXXIX, No. 3 (1994), 275-90.


tinction between acting metŒ toè öryou lñgou and acting katŒ tòn öryonlñgon, according to which when an agent acts metŒ toè öryou lñgou sheis acting with reason and motivation fully integrated. Phron� sis in factrequires this integration of parts of the soul, according to Gottlieb. And ifdesire is the sole source of movement, and desire is a genuinely differentfaculty from the faculty of deliberation, and yet virtuous action requiresthat the desire be metŒ toè öryou lñgou, then deliberation and desire willhave to inform one another.17

3. How Aristotle can distinguish one moral virtue from another

It is clear then (i) that any moral virtue will have to involve phron� sis,and that phron� sis will require moral virtue, since it will require thedesiderative element of choice, and (ii) that phron� sis and the moralvirtues are different hexeis, because they are hexeis that belong to differ-ent faculties of the soul. And because phron� sis requires moral virtue –because practical reason requires desires for the good – but is not the samehexis as moral virtue, we can understand why phron� sis and moral virtueare reciprocally necessary but not identical. Must then the moral virtuesalso be different hexeis in the same sense that phron� sis and moral virtueare different hexeis in order to make sense of the reciprocity of virtues?

We can begin to answer this by asking how Aristotle individuates moral virtues.18 The simplest answer is: according to the actions and feelings produced by a virtue (this is what the discussion of the differentmoral virtues in EN II 7 suggests). But which aspect of an action or afeeling makes it one which manifests courage rather than justice? Clearly

17 Gottlieb links the reciprocity of phron� sis and the moral virtues to the reciproc-ity of the moral virtues: ÒIt is precisely because of the connection between rationaland non-rational parts of the soul that a vice in any one area may undermine anAristotelian virtue in any otherÓ (288). This explains why if one has one of the moralvirtues, one must have them all (because to fail to have one is to have the corre-sponding vice, and vice in any sphere will undermine virtue in any other sphere). Whatremains to be explained is whether the moral virtues are distinct one from another inthe same way that phron� sis is distinct from the moral virtues.

18 Richard Kraut, discussing the dif� culty of distinguishing large-scale from small-scale virtues, says that we do not know much about how Aristotle intended to indi-viduate virtues. See Kraut, ÒComments on ÔDisunity in the Aristotelian VirtuesÕ by T. H. Irwin,Ó Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, ed. Julia Annas, Supp. Vol. 1988.I think we know something about this, as I will go on to show, but that the means ofindividuation Aristotle offers us suggest that he himself was not committed to makingthe distinctions on every occasion.


phron� sis cannot help to individuate virtues, since phron� sis is what allthe moral virtues share. So if the moral virtues are genuinely different, itwill have to be because there is something about the desiderative elementof one virtue that distinguishes it from all other virtues. Since Aristotlehas distinguished the most general kinds of desire in the discussions ofEN III 2, Rhetoric I 10 and de Anima I 3 according to the objects ofdesires, and since, more generally, he distinguishes faculties of the soulaccording to their objects, it seems likely that one kind of desire will dif-fer from another with respect to its object. Now, all desires that enter intovirtuous choices and actions will be wishes or rational desires, that is, theywill be desires for the good. A desire is a desire for the good because itis not a desire for something intrinsically bad, and because the circum-stances in which it occurs make it good.19 There will then be nothing aboutthe object of the desire as such which will make it a desire for the good,but rather something about the circumstances in which the agent produc-ing the desire � nds himself which will make the desire for that object, orthat kind of object, a desire for the good. As we have seen, desires arenot rational or irrational – hence not desires for the good or somethingelse – in virtue of the faculty that produces them but in virtue of their rela-tion to phron� sis, and more generally to the good. A desire, say, to givemoney away or to � ght may or may not be a rational desire, a desire forthe good.

Now, if we describe the desires which the morally virtuous person musthave simply as desires for the good, we cannot individuate the moralvirtues. Under the general description Ôdesires for the goodÕ we cannot ofcourse distinguish one kind of rational desire from another. That is, inso-far as the desire that enters into just choices is a desire for the good, itdiffers not at all from the desire that enters into generous or courageouschoices. But moral virtues, while they will all be desires for the good, willbe desires for different kinds of goods. Desires for different kinds of goodswill be such that the differences between the kinds will have to be char-acterized not only in terms of the objects, but also in terms of the cir-cumstances in which the desires occur, just as desires for the good mustbe distinguished from desires for, say, the pleasant, not only in terms oftheir objects but also in terms of their circumstances.

19 Of course, there are desires which could be desires for the good under no cir-cumstance – spite, shamelessness, envy are all emotions (p‹yh) which Aristotle claimsare always base because there can be no mean between extremes in such cases (1107a8-11). And if there is no mean in such cases, then the desires to which such emotionsgive rise cannot be desires for the good.


Aristotle characterizes the desires that enter into the moral virtues nei-ther as generally as, Ôdesires for the goodÕ nor as particularly as Ôdesiresto do XÕ, but rather as Ôdesires for the good that have to do with money(or anger, or honour)Õ, judging from his articulation of the various moralvirtues at EN II 3 1107a33-1108a 31. This still will not be adequate toindividuate the desires and thereby the virtues. The area of money, forexample, is particularly dif� cult. Suppose that we accept that a coarse-grained reading of the thesis of the reciprocity of the virtues is right – thatis, that if one has one virtue in some area one will have all the virtues insome area (so one will have generosity if not magni� cence).20 It will stillbe the case that Ôdesires for the good that have to do with moneyÕ might bethe desires of what Aristotle will call a generous action, or a magni� centaction or even a just action. In order to make more � ne-grained distinctionsamong virtues Aristotle will have to appeal to the external circumstancesin which the desires occur. So desires that correspond to the judgments ofphron� sis and have to do with the distribution of goods that are the spoilsof war to the citizens will be just desires, but desires that correspond tothe judgments of phron� sis and have to do with the distribution of goodsthat are the property of the agent will be generous desires.

My suggestion, then, is that Aristotle will have to try to individuate themoral virtues by distinguishing the kind of desire that enters into a deci-sion that expresses one moral virtue from the kind of desire that entersinto a decision expressing any other moral virtue. He will have to do thisby appealing � rst of all to the object of desire, which will be some kindof action, and then to the circumstances in which that action is an objectof desire.

Notice that one can individuate the moral virtues in this way withoutclaiming that the moral virtues are numerically different hexeis. That is,if Aristotle individuates the moral virtues by appeal to the object of desireand the circumstances in which it is an object of desire, he need not thinkthat the dispositions that are moral virtues are numerically different dis-positions. That he does not indeed think this is evident if we consider thecontrast between the difference between one moral virtue and another, onthe one hand, and the difference between moral virtues and phron� sis onthe other. As we have seen, Aristotle maintains that phron� sis and moralvirtue are hexeis that belong to different faculties. By contrast, I shall

20 Richard Kraut draws this distinction between a Ô� ne-grainedÕ and a Ôcoarse-grainedÕreading of the ÔallÕ in AristotleÕs claim that if one has phron� sis one will have all thevirtues (80).


argue, he considers the moral virtues to be numerically one hexis, althoughdifferent in being.

The textual evidence for this is largely negative. When Aristotle speaksof a distinction between virtues, he means the distinction between intel-lectual and moral virtues, and not the distinctions among the moral virtues.So, for example, at EN I 13 1103a3-7 Aristotle says that virtue is divided(diorÛzetai) according to the distinction between the part of the soul thathas reason, and the part that can obey reason. That is, some virtues areintellectual (tŒw m¢n dianohtikŒw) and some are moral (tŒw d¢ ±yik‹w). Andat EE II 1 1220a5, he says that there are two forms (eàdh) of virtue, theone moral and the other intellectual.21 The talk of dividing and of differ-ent forms does not appear in any discussion of the moral virtues. So thatwhile Aristotle does speak of moral virtues in the plural (as aß §jeiw at,for example, EN II 1 1103b23), the sense in which the moral virtues aredifferent seems less strong than the sense in which the moral virtues aredifferent from the intellectual virtues. Con� rmation of this comes fromAristotleÕs frequent treatment of the moral virtues as a unity as well as amultiplicity. So, for example, at EN 1103b27 he insists that the point ofthe inquiry is not to know what virtue (in the singular) is, but to becomegood, and then goes on immediately to speak of moral virtues in the pluralas tŒw §jeiw (at 1103b31).

I do not take this to be suf� cient evidence for the claim that the moralvirtues are distinguished from one another differently, and less rigorously,than are the moral virtues from the intellectual virtues. The argument thatthe moral virtues are numerically one §jiw depends on the claim Aristotlemakes at EN VI 8 1141b23-4 that the political art is the same §jiw asphron� sis, although they are not the same in being (tò m¡ntoi eänai oétaétòn aétaÝw). I want to establish a connection between this claim andcertain passages in the logical works and the Metaphysics that discussnumerical identity and what has come to be called Ôaccidental samenessÕ,in order to make clearer what I take to be AristotleÕs understanding of therelation among the moral virtues – the sense in which they are the sameand the sense in which they are different.22 It is not so much the onto-

21 See also EN II 1 1103a14-15: ÒSince then virtue is twofold (ditt°w), one sortintellectual and one moral . . .Ó

22 I take it that accidental unities are what Gareth Matthews, and many followinghim, have called Ôkooky objectsÕ and not simply different descriptions of non-kookyobjects. See Gareth B. Matthews, ÒAccidental Unities,Ó in Malcolm Scho� eld and MarthaCraven Nussbaum, eds. Language and Logos: Studies in ancient Greek philosophy


logical status of the unities that Aristotle calls numerically one but not thesame in being that concerns me here, as the usefulness of construing cer-tain intellectual virtues as constituting such unities, and the appropriate-ness of construing the moral virtues, by analogy, to constitute unities ofthe same kind.

In what follows I shall try to show that the moral virtues are a numer-ical unity, although different from one another in an important sense. Theargument for this has two parts. First, I shall establish what it means tosay that phron� sis and politik� are one hexis but different in being.23

Second, I shall argue that we ought to understand the relation among themoral virtues to be like the relation between phron� sis and politik� .

The claim that the political art is the same §jiw as phron� sis, althoughthey are not the same in being, has generally been interpreted without par-ticular attention to the logic of sameness.24 But an examination of what itmeans for two or more virtues to be different in being although numeri-cally a single hexis is useful in considering the relation among the moral

presented to G. E. L. Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 223-240.The unities formed by substances and properties would then also be kooky objects ofa sort.

23 Burnet thinks this means that the political art is an ÔapplicationÕ of phron� sis,just as is the art of running a household. See also the discussion at Politics III 4 con-cerning the relation between the good person and the good citizen. Eudemus, accord-ing to Grant (he means the author of the Eudemian Ethics), treats politik� not as adivision of the sciences, but as a state of the mind and a mode of phron� sis (A. Grant,The Ethics of Aristotle, Volume II (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1885), 168). Itake it that calling politik� a mode of phron� sis is like calling it an application. Theseinterpretations are consistent with understanding Aristotle to be distinguishing betweenone thing which is numerically one, and that same thing which is two with respect toessence, but they seem to � t less well with what Aristotle says about the sameness ofphronetik� and politik� in EN VI 8.

24 See, for example, Marie-Christine Bataillard, ÒThal� s, P� ricl� s et les poissons(ƒthique ˆ Nicomaque, VI, 6-9),Ó in La V� rit� Pratique: Aristote ƒthique Ë Nicomaque,Livre VI, textes r� unis par Jean-Yves Chateau (Paris: Vrin, 1997), 87-115 (97). Seealso Enrico Berti, ÒPhron� sis et science politique,Ó in Aristote Politique: ƒtudes surla Politique dÕAristote, sous la direction de Pierre Aubenque, publi� es par AlonsoTordesillas (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), 435-459. Interpreting thepassage, Berti says Ò. . . elles [ politik� and phron� sis] sont identiques du point de vuede la disposition subjective, cÕest-ˆ-dire quÕelles sont le m� me � tat dÕ‰me, mais dif-f� rent du point de vue de leurs objets, cÕest-ˆ-dire quÕelles ont des objets diff� rents et,par cons� quent, une d� � nition diff� rente . . . On peut conclure, par cons� quent, que laphr—n� sis et la politique sont la m� me vertu . . .Ó (p. 451). Neither Bataillard nor Bertimake any mention of the parallel passages I mention below which claim that certainitems are the same but different in being.


virtues. Some argue that the distinction between politik� and phron� sis isnot a distinction between two virtues, one more general and one morespeci� c, but an expression of the difference in the application of a singlevirtue according to the domain in which it is exercised.25 I want to sup-port this understanding by appealing to certain logical considerations.

Passages at which Aristotle makes the same claim about other thingssuggest that he means that the state of phron� sis and the state of politi-cal art are one in number but different in what they are – that they are oneand the same but not identical. At Topics V 4 133b31-6 Aristotle says,for example, ÒFor constructive purposes, however, you should say that thesubject of an accident is not different without quali� cation from the acci-dent taken along with its subject; although it is called another thingbecause what it is to be them is different; for it is not the same thing fora man to be a man and for a pale man to be a pale man.Ó 26 The point isthat a man and that same man taken with his pallor are not numericallytwo things, but one, although what it is to be a man in an unquali� edsense and what it is to be a man quali� ed by pallor are different. Thesame point is made at de Caelo IV 4 312a16-21, speaking of the matterof that which is heavy and light: Òas potentially possessing the one char-acter, it is matter for the heavy, and as potentially possessing the other,for the light. It is the same matter, but its being is different, as that whichis receptive of disease is the same as that which is receptive of health,though in being different from it, and therefore diseasedness is differentfrom healthiness.Ó In this passage what is the same is what underlies, andwhat is different are the quali� cations of what underlies. At de Memoria1 450b21-3 the point is reiterated. ÒA picture painted on a panel is at oncea picture and a likeness: that is, while one and the same, it is both ofthese, although the being of both is not the same, and one may contem-plate it either as a picture, or as a likeness.Ó Again, the picture and thelikeness are numerically the same, but not the same in what they are. So,when Aristotle says that the political art and phron� sis are the same statebut different in being, we can presume that he means the state is numer-ically one and the same, but not one in what it is and hence that the polit-ical art and phron� sis although they are the same are not identical.

25 See, for example, Bataillard, who claims that the distinction between politik� andphronetik� is not a distinction between two virtues, one more general and one morespeci� c but an expression of the difference in the application of a single virtue (seeabove, note 24).

26 See also Metaphysics VII 4 1029b21-1030a6 .


If we consider certain passages in the Metaphysics and the logicalworks (especially Topics, at I 7 103a23-32 and I 5 102a17-24), in whichAristotle discusses numerical oneness and properties, we see that Aristotletakes certain kinds of numerical unities to be the same although not thesame in being, in just the same way that he says phron� sis and the polit-ical art are the same and yet not the same in being.27 There is evidencethat we should understand the relation between phron� sis and politik� tobe an instance of the kind of numerical unity that holds between some-thing quali� ed by one property and that same thing quali� ed by anotherproperty. This will explain why Aristotle believes both that the practicalintellectual virtues on the one hand and the moral virtues on the other aredistinct and that they are reciprocally necessary.

At Topics 103a23-32 Aristotle distinguishes three ways in which some-thing can be numerically one. The primary way in which something can benumerically one is that in which two things are numerically one becausethey have the same de� nition (e.g. cloak and doublet are numerically onein this sense). The second way is that in which something and that samething under a description of it in terms of some property unique to it arenumerically one (so � re and what naturally travels upward are numeri-cally one). The third sense of numerical unity is that in which a thing andthat same thing described in terms of an accident are numerically one (e.g.the creature who is sitting is the same as Socrates in this sense).

This third sense of numerical unity is often called accidental unity. Theaccount of accidental unity is re� ned in two other passages. At de


27 These passages in which Aristotle discusses what it is to be numerically one butdifferent in being have been examined most often recently as evidence of a doctrineof accidental predication, accidental being, accidental unity and accidental sameness.Commentators have been particularly concerned with determining whether Aristotle is(and if he is, whether he should be) making claims about the nature of reality or thestructure of language; and concerned with the philosophical uses to which the doctrinemight be put – for example, to resolve dif� culties about knowledge and belief, or abouttime and change. See Nicholas P. White, ÒAristotle on Sameness and Oneness,Ó ThePhilosophical Review LXXX (April, 1971), 177-197 and ÒIdentity, Modal Individua-tion, and Matter in Aristotle,Ó Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XI (1986), 475-494;Alan Code, ÒAristotleÕs Response to QuineÕs Objections to Modal Logic,Ó Journal ofPhilosophical Logic 5 (1976), 159-86; Gareth B. Matthews, ÒAccidental Unities,Ó inMalcolm Scho� eld and Martha Craven Nussbaum, eds. Language and Logos: Studiesin ancient Greek philosophy presented to G. E. L. Owen, 223-240; C. J. F. Williams,ÒAristotleÕs Theory of Descriptions,Ó The Philosophical Review, XCIV, No. 1 (January1985) 63-80; Frank A. Lewis, Substance and Predication in Aristotle (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1991), especially 85-140.

Interpretatione 11 21a7-19 Aristotle distinguishes the relation betweenaccidents and the substances they qualify, on the one hand, and accidentsthat qualify the same substance, on the other. ÒOf things predicated, andthings they get predicated of, those which are said accidentally, either ofthe same thing or of one another, will not be one.Ó The point here con-cerns identity: in the case of a man who is both musical and white, themusical and the white are not identical, because they belong only acci-dentally to the same thing. Similarly, the cobbler who is good withoutquali� cation is not identical with his goodness, because it belongs acci-dentally to him. (By contrast, a two-footed animal and its two-footednessare identical, assuming that two-footedness is an essential feature, becausethe two-footedness does not belong accidentally to the animal.) AtMetaphysics V 6 1015b16-34 Aristotle makes explicit that the cases describedin the de Interpretatione passage are cases of the accidentally one.Aristotle again here distinguishes between cases where the accidental unityis a substance and an accident qualifying that substance (e.g. Coriscus andmusical), and cases where the accidental unity is constituted by two acci-dents of one substance (e.g. just and musical). These examples make clearthat two things are accidentally one, but not identical, when they are either(i) a substance and some accident of that substance or (ii) two accidentswhich belong to the same substance.

This re� nement on the concept of numerical unities constituted by acci-dents should also apply to the case of numerical unities constituted byproperties, the second sense of numerical unity described in the passageat Topics 103a23-32. That is, just as substance+accident and substanceconstitute one kind of accidental unity and accident+substance and acci-dent+same substance constitute another kind, so too property+substanceand property will constitute one kind of numerical unity and property+sub-stance and property+same substance will constitute another kind.

With this analysis of the ways in which something can be numericallyone, we can ask in which of these senses politik� and phron� sis are numer-ically one. Two things which have the same de� nition are of course thesame in being, so phron� sis and politik� cannot be numerically one in the� rst sense which would require that they were also one in being. Are thesevirtues then numerically one because they are related as substance to prop-erty (or two properties to the same substance) or because they are relatedas substance to accident (or two accidents to the same property)? Both thesecond and the third sense of numerical unity are cases where the elementsof the unity are not the same in being. In the case of numerical unitiesthat are accidental unities, Aristotle tells us that a substance quali� ed by


an accident is different in being from that same substance unquali� ed(Meta. VII 4 1029b16-18) . In the case of numerical unities constituted bya substance and its properties, the evidence that the elements of such uni-ties are not the same in being is at Topics I 5 102a17-19, where Aristotlede� nes a property as something which does not indicate the essence of athing but belongs to that thing alone, and is predicated convertibly of it(for example, a property of persons is possessing knowledge of grammar).Since it must not state the essence of the substance it quali� es, it mustalso be different in being from that substance; what it is to be a personand what it is to possess knowledge of grammar are different, althougheverything that is a person will possess knowledge of grammar and every-thing that possesses knowledge of grammar will be a person.28

My suggestion is that Aristotle believes both in the case of phron� sisand politik� and in the case of the moral virtues that there is an underly-ing §jiw, a disposition in the � rst case to see what is true, and in the sec-ond case to want what is good. In both cases there is a single hexismodi� ed by different properties, so that particular properties individuatethe various virtues. The advantages of such an interpretation are, � rst, thatit allows us to make sense of the claim that certain virtues are one in num-ber but different in being, and, second, that it allows us to understand whyAristotle believes that the moral virtues are reciprocally necessary, on log-ical grounds. On my understanding, then, phron� sis is to politik� as oneproperty+substance is to another property+same substance. This requiresthat a hexis, which of course is not a substance, can be logically equiva-lent to a substance, in the sense that it can be quali� ed by properties, andcan be what underlies those properties. It also requires that there be someunquali� ed hexis which Aristotle might recognize as the hexis whichunderlies (at least) two properties, where the hexis and those propertiesconstitute phron� sis on the one hand and politik� on the other.

The evidence that phron� sis and politik� form this kind of unity is inEN VI 8. We have already considered the claim that politik� and phron� -sis are the same hexis, although not the same in being. One implicationof this claim is that each of these virtues is, on AristotleÕs view, a hexisquali� ed in a certain way, namely by a property rather than an accident.That is, if politik� and phron� sis are a hexis, then they are not a property

28 At Metaphysics VI 2 1026b15-18 Aristotle treats knowledge of grammar as anaccident (along with musical) rather than as a property; this instance is anomalous. Ihope to show that there are signi� cant logical differences between accidental unitiesand the unities constituted by a substance and its properties.


of a hexis. So the kind of numerical unity that phron� sis and politik� formis of the form: Substance+property and same substance+property. Why thinkthat phron� sis and politik� are one hexis quali� ed in different ways byproperties rather than accidents? If Aristotle understood politik� andphron� sis to be the same hexis differently quali� ed by accidents, we wouldnot expect him to argue that to have the one is to have the other: ifphron� sis and politik� were analogous to Coriscus quali� ed as musicaland Coriscus quali� ed as just there would be no reason to expect this rec-iprocity. Yet at VI 8 Aristotle does argue that to have phron� sis is to havepolitik� . And the logic of the relation of properties to substances is suchthat because each property is predicated convertibly of the substance towhich it belongs, each property belongs necessarily and not accidentallyto that substance. So if there is a hexis to which belongs some propertysuch that the hexis quali� ed by that property constitutes politik� , and tothat same hexis belongs another property such that the hexis quali� ed bythat property constitutes phron� sis, then both the quali� cation that makesfor phron� sis and the quali� cation which makes for politik� will belongnecessarily to the hexis in question. The important implication is that ifthe hexis has one of these properties it will necessarily have the other; andthat means that if one has the quali� ed hexis that is politik� one will alsohave the quali� ed hexis that is phron� sis.

Consider now a few passages which offer some evidence that Aristotleunderstands the relation among the moral virtues (and not just the relationbetween phron� sis and politik� ) to be that of the elements of a numericalunity differentiated by certain properties. The similarity between passagesin which Aristotle speaks of politik� and phron� sis as the same virtue(quali� ed or unquali� ed) and passages in which he speaks of justice andmoral virtue tout court as the same virtue (quali� ed and unquali� ed), issome evidence that Aristotle not only might have thought of the relationamong the moral virtues on the model of the relation between phronetik�and phron� sis, but actually did think of the relation among the moralvirtues on that model.

To begin with the passages concerning the intellectual virtues, at EE I8 1218b 13-16 Aristotle says ÒThe political art, the art of household man-agement and phron� sis are the same. For these states differ with respectto all other states by being such [i.e. by being concerned with the end ofhuman conduct]. Whether they differ from one another, we will discusslater.Ó At EN VI 8 Aristotle seems to undertake the promised discussion.At 1141b29-33 he suggests that there is a contrast between Ôphron� sisconcerned with the individual himself (² peri aétòn kaÜ §na) and Ôgeneralphron� sisÕ, which Aristotle implies is often identi� ed with the phron� sis


concerned with the individual, but which in fact includes the political art(itself divided into the judicial and the deliberative), the legislative art,and the art of running a household.29 This passage then establishes a dis-tinction between an intellectual virtue unquali� ed ( phron� sis as such,which can be applied in many ways) and that same intellectual virtuequali� ed in a particular way (as it is applied to the self ). The aim of thepassage is to identify the various parts of phron� sis and politik� and toclarify the terms used commonly to identify those parts; this clari� cationis intended more generally to contribute to the account of phron� sis as avirtue distinct from other intellectual virtues. What is important is the sug-gestion that phron� sis and politik� are the same state (a certain kind ofability or disposition) and yet in some important sense different (becausethe objects of their concern are different).

I turn now to the passage concering moral virtues where we � nd thesame kind of distinction, and relation, between a virtue considered with-out quali� cation, or generally, and the same virtue considered in a par-ticular application. It occurs in the discussion of justice. At EN V 31130a12-13, after identifying ÔgeneralÕ justice with complete virtue, Aristotlehas said ÒAt the same time our discussion makes clear the difference betweenvirtue and this type of justice. For virtue is the same as justice, but whatit is to be virtue is not the same as what it is to be justice. Rather, in sofar as virtue is related to another (pròw §teron), it is justice, and in so faras it is a certain sort of state unconditionally (toi‹de §jiw �plÇw) it is virtue.Ó30

The contrast here is between what relates to another, and what is simple

29 Phron� sis is used then both as a general term to indicate an art which includesstate management and household management, along with self-management, and alsoto indicate self-management as opposed to state or household management. At thesame time state-management ( politik� ) is used both (i) at 1141b24-6 as a general termto include both legislative science (nomoyetik® which is �rxitektonik® and concernedwith universals) and political science (the part of state management concerned withparticulars rather than universals), which Aristotle likens to the part of phron� sis con-cerned with the individual self (1141b30), and (ii) at 1141b31-3 to indicate politicalscience (which itself includes an executive or deliberative function – bouleutik® – anda judicial function – dikastik®) as opposed to legislative science or household man-agement. See Grant, 169.

30 Joachim says ÒWe now learn that the intellectual virtue which they [phron� sisand politik� ? justice as a whole and virtue as a whole?] involve is one and the same.Political genius is moral genius in its fullest sphere of exercise. Moral genius, even ifconcerned with the happiness of a family – of private life – implies as its basis thequalities which create and plan the happiness of a whole pñliw.Ó Aristotle: TheNicomachean Ethics, a Commentary by H. H. Joachim, ed. D. A. Rees (Oxford: Clarendon,1955), 214.


or unconditional, i.e. unquali� ed by Ôrelated to anotherÕ. Notice that theclaim is that virtue (generally) and justice are numerically the same state;that must be what it means to say that virtue is the same as justice. Atthe same time, what it is to be virtue is not what it is to be justice, becausejustice is a particular application of virtue, an application of virtue rela-tive to another. The passage is most signi� cant for my purposes becauseit makes clear that Aristotle thinks that at least some moral virtues, andnot only some intellectual virtues, are the same in one sense (to have oneis to have the other, because they are the same hexis) and different inanother (different in what it is to be one or the other, because one is anapplication of the other). My suggestion is that Aristotle thinks more gen-erally that moral virtue is one hexis in number, but many in being, in thesense that each individual virtue is the same underlying hexis quali� ed bysome property. The underlying hexis will be a disposition to desire thegood, and the properties will be the different ways in which that desiremanifests itself, the different ways in which, as we have seen, Aristotle isaccustomed to individuate the virtues.

The contrasts in the passage at V 3 1130a12-13 and the passage at VI8 1141b30 are not exactly parallel, since one indicates a contrast betweenunquali� ed virtue and virtue quali� ed by its concern for others, where theother indicates a contrast between unquali� ed virtue and virtue quali� edby its concern for the self. Nonetheless, both passages suggest more gen-erally that the contrast is one between a state considered without respectto any particular exercise of that state, and a state considered with respectto some particular circumstance or object.31 If the §jiw of politik� and phron� -sis is the same in number but different in what politik� is and what phron� -sis is, then to have one will be to have the other, although not necessar-ily to exercise the other. That is, politik� and phron� sis will not be twoparts of virtue, but the same part exercised in different circumstances, withrespect to different objects. And the context of VI 8 gives us some ex-planation of the inseparability of phron� sis and politik� (as well asoikonomik� ). ÒPerhaps, however, the well-being of the self [does] not [occur]without household management and politicsÓ (1142a9-10). Aristotle goeson to say that the reason that the young can acquire a knowledge of math-ematics but not acquire phron� sis is that the young do not have experiencewhich gives us knowledge of particulars, and phron� sis is concerned with

31 The alternative would seem to be that both passages suggest a contrast betweenvirtue in all its parts, and virtue in some one part. That seems less likely, given thatthe claim is that the two items contrasted are the same §jiw.


particulars (1142a14-16). The point seems to be that an acquaintance withparticulars will bring with it phron� sis, which can then be used in differ-ent circumstances – in political contexts this will be the political art, in thecontext of the household it will be the art of household management.32

Politik� and phron� sis are of course intellectual virtues, but the relationbetween them suggests a model for the relation of moral virtues to oneanother, a model which I am suggesting we � nd con� rmed in the claimabout virtue and justice. In the same way that certain intellectual virtuesare one, the moral virtues are the same §jiw, not numerically differentstates, but different in practice, or in how the virtue manifests itself. Thepassage at EN V 3 is evidence that this is how Aristotle understands thedifferent moral virtues to be related: there is a hexis, call it moral virtuetout court, and that hexis is quali� ed in certain ways (by, I have argued,certain properties), where the quali� cations together with the hexis con-stitute the different moral virtues (for example, justice). This would allowAristotle to maintain the reciprocity of the virtues, of course, since thepossession of one would entail the possession of the others. It would notcommit him to any systematic individuation of the virtues apart from thecontexts or circumstances in which those virtues were manifested. If thisis right, then the account of the reciprocity of phron� sis with the moralvirtues is quite different from the account of the reciprocity of the moralvirtues, since the former relation is one between distinct hexeis of the souland the latter relation is one within the same hexis.

I have been arguing that Aristotle distinguishes moral from intellectualvirtues in one way, as two different hexeis, and that he distinguishes theindividual moral virtues differently, as the same hexis quali� ed in differentways. I have tried to show that AristotleÕs characterization of the practicalintellectual virtues as a certain hexis (one concerned with truth in a partic-ular way) and the moral virtues as a distinct hexis (one concerned withright desire) is motivated in part by a conception of virtue according towhich virtue must include some capacity other than reason. Because Aristotledistinguishes moral from intellectual virtues in one way and the individ-ual moral virtues in another, he has different reasons for believing, on the

32 Does the precise nature of the particulars matter? One might think that the polit-ical art could only be acquired through a familiarity with political particulars, and theart of household management through the particulars bearing on the household. ButAristotleÕs suggestion here seems to be that particulars of any sort will be useful tothe acquisition of phron� sis, which can then be used in different circumstances, andthat no special kind of particulars is necessary for the acquisition of phron� sis.


one hand, that phron� sis and the moral virtues are reciprocally necessary,and, on the other, that the individual moral virtues are reciprocally necessary.I have appealed to AristotleÕs conception of numerical unity in a particularform in order to uncover his reasons in the case of the individual moralvirtues. Of course, to give an account of the logical structure of the relationsamong the moral virtues does not exhaustively explain how Aristotle under-stands those relations; my aim has been to supplement recent accounts ofthose relations cast in terms of moral agency and the passions.33

McGill University

33 Again, see Paula Gottlieb (ÒAristotle on Dividing the Soul and Uniting theVirtues,Ó Phron� sis 1994. Vol. XXXIX, No. 3) and Edward Halper (ÒThe Unity of theVirtues in Aristotle,Ó Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. XVII (1999), 115-43).

I read an earlier version of this paper at the University of Ottawa and at the 14thAnnual Spring Conference (Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics and AristotleÕsTheory of Intellectual Virtue) of the Department of Philosophy at Virginia PolytechnicInstitute and State University, organized by Mark Gifford, and I am grateful to theaudience at Ottawa and to the participants at that conference for their comments. Iwish also to thank Eric Lewis for his philosophical help.


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Deslauriers How to distinguish A´s virtues