Christopher-Marcus Gibson, Writing Sample 1
Christopher-Marcus Gibson
9 November 2013
What the Wise Only Know: The Unrealizability of Ethical Demonstration
A great deal of recent scholarship on Aristotelian ethics has debated questions of its rigor and
scientific status. Such work has claimed that the causes of inexactitude in ethics do not disqualify it as a
demonstrative science, whether by arguing for the viability of demonstrations with for-the-most-part
premises (Winter 1997) or by clarifying how for-the-most-part propositions relate to essence, necessity,
or statistical frequency (Irwin 2001; Henry 2012). Others have focused on the role which the search for
definitions plays in Aristotelian ethics, either to claim a more prominent place for scientific-knowledge in
ethics (Nielsen 2012) or to argue that the fluctuating character of ethical kinds preclude them from
being demonstrable (Witt 2012). In each case, the discussion of demonstrability in ethics has primarily
focused on the epistemic status of ethical universals and for-the-most-part propositions.
In this paper I aim to draw attention to a pivotal issue which the debate has thus far neglected:
the question of access to demonstrative starting points. I will frame this question by considering
whether at least some ethical reasoning could satisfy the requirements for demonstration, first
according to the requirements presented in the Posterior Analytics, then according to what I interpret as
the relaxed requirements of the biological works. Following this, I will argue my central claim: even if
we can formulate ethical demonstrations, only the phronimos could realize them, for two reasons. First,
a knowledge-producing act of demonstration requires grasp of the demonstrative starting point, but
APo 72a36-72b41 characterizes such grasp in a way that entails that the person who grasps the starting
point cannot be persuaded that it could be otherwise. (I will hereafter refer to such grasp as
1
All references to the works of Aristotle are to the 1984 Princeton University Press edition of The Complete Works
of Aristotle, edited by Jonathan Barnes.
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unshakeable certitude, and the requirement of such grasp for successful demonstration as the certitude
criterion.) Second, as the starting point of ethics, the definition of eudaimonia concerns human activity,
such that grasping it proceeds by way of ethismos or habituation. This process involves the
development of both correct view and correct desire. As I will argue, central to this process is learning
to view and experience virtuous activity as intrinsically choiceworthy, an aspect which previous accounts
of habituation such as Reeve’s (1992) have failed to recognize as indispensable. As a direct result of
learning virtue’s choiceworthiness through ethismos, unshakeable certitude about the starting point
would entail an unfailing desiderative commitment to what eudaimonia consists in, since otherwise one
would fail to have correct desire and could be persuaded away from the correct definition.
Since, however, everyone but the phronimos experiences at least some inclination away from
virtuous activity, only the phronimos would fulfill the certitude criterion of APo 72a36-72b4 and prove
capable of producing ethical knowledge. This is not to say that no one but the phronimos could
understand or make good use of the Nicomachean Ethics, nor that the phronimos, to be phronimos,
would have to engage in ethical theory and demonstration. It only means that, supposing there is
episteme in ethics, that cognitive state would require phronesis, and that conversely for someone to lack
full virtue would mean that she has at best only carefully examined true belief. Thus only the phronimos
could produce knowledge from an ethical demonstration.
I
Before discussing the realizability of ethical demonstration, I will first examine what it would
mean to say that ethics has demonstrable content and how this could be the case. Only then should we
ask whether we could produce knowledge from such demonstrations.
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Let me begin with a sketch of the concept and models of demonstration (apodeixis) shown in
Aristotle’s logical and biological works. According to the Posterior Analytics, a demonstration is a
syllogism chain whose conclusion is a non-accidental fact (hoti) to be demonstrated and whose middle
term is the cause (aition) which explains why that fact is the case (dioti). Such syllogism chains must
therefore contain only premises and conclusions which cannot be otherwise (APo 71b9-24). A realized
act of demonstration thus produces knowledge that the conclusion holds necessarily in terms of
premises which are prior in the order of explanation. The most prior, underivable premises serve as the
starting points of demonstration. Since they are explanatorily fundamental, they predicate attributes of
their subjects per se and qua the subjects themselves: no term truthfully applies to the subject which is
prior to the attribute and which could thus explain the relation of the attribute to the subject2. To
illustrate this model of demonstration, Aristotle famously provides the example of all triangles having
interior angles whose sum is equal to two rights (APo 71a19-20). We might formulate a demonstration
for this proposition as follows:
Syllogism Chain I
(1) All triangles satisfy the definition “triangle”.
(2) Whatever satisfies the definition “triangle” has interior angles whose sum is equal to the
sum of two rights.
(3) All triangles have interior angles whose sum is equal to the sum of two rights.
Here (1) and (2) explain (3) in terms of the necessary connection between satisfying the
definition “triangle” and having interior angles whose sum is equal to the sum of two rights. This latter
attribute is an idion or property (in the strict sense) which all triangles share qua triangle and which their
definition entails when coupled with other geometrical principles. According to this model of
2
Cf. Ferejohn 2013, 89-90.
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demonstration, essences or definitions serve as the ultimate basis on which the attributes of subjects
can be explained, through the expression of necessary, timeless relationships between universals.
Yet when Aristotle turns from timeless states of affairs to temporal ones, as in his biological
works, he makes use of a different concept of demonstration: one whose relaxed requirements make it
more suitable for explaining phenomena that do not occur always and by strict necessity. Such
phenomena (for instance, an acorn’s growth into an oak), though still scientifically explicable, involve
regular causal processes, so that the truth of premises expressing them depends on certain conditions
(sufficient sunlight, water, and nutrients, the absence of threats, etc.). This means that unlike the
propositions in the Analytics’ definition-based demonstrations, those used in the biological works do not
exhibit the same strict or unconditional necessity. Moreover, whereas essences or definitions played
the fundamental explanatory role in the model of the Analytics, in the biological works Aristotle instead
deploys his concept of nature (physis), understood as unities of teleologically-oriented potentialities
(dunameis) which serve as internal principles of motion and rest (Physics 192b13-16). Although a
nature, like an essence, is the ontological correlate of the definition for the kind in question,
nevertheless a nature goes beyond the strictly logical concept of essence in entailing efficient and
teleological capacities for change3. This inclusion of dunameis in the concept of nature allows for the
demonstration of regular causal processes. On this “natural model” of demonstration, the nature of the
kind in question—for instance, human nature, which a fully mature human being instantiates—is prior in
the order of explanation (PA 639b24-640a6; cf. Leunissen 50-2).
For instance, consider a biological
demonstration drawn from Aristotle’s example of respiration at PA 642a32-b2:
3
Cf. Ferejohn 2013, 160-3.
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Syllogism Chain II
(1) All human beings instantiate the nature “human”.
(2) Whatever instantiates the nature “human” requires respiration to flourish.
(3) All human beings require respiration to flourish.
(4) Whatever requires respiration to flourish develops a functioning respiratory system.
(5) All human beings develop a functioning respiratory system.
Although in this case the mature organism exemplifying the nature “human” comes later in the
chronological sequence, it explains the development of the human respiratory system, since respiration
is for the sake of human flourishing. Such demonstrations presuppose that the dunameis in natural
substances initiate processes of natural change, and that at least some of these dunameis develop into
the activities constitutive of each natural kind’s flourishing. Moreover, as the above example shows, the
propositions in such demonstrations need not hold in every case. A particular human being could fail to
develop a functioning respiratory system, though that would not change the connection between
respiration and human flourishing. (I will discuss why this should not disqualify such premises from
featuring in demonstrations in Section III, below.) The natural model of demonstration, with its relaxed
conditions and additional conceptual equipment, thus befits the explanation of certain phenomena as
preconditions for the flourishing of a natural kind.
II
If at least some ethical truths are demonstrable, such demonstrations would have to fit one of
these models. Of the two, the natural model appears more suitable thanks to its relaxed requirements
and implementation of physis and dunamis. Human lives, after all, are processes of development from
potentiality to actuality involving myriad causal regularities. In this respect, ethics is simply the focused
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study of the nature and conditions for the maturation of a particular biological kind (human beings).
Nevertheless, if there could be ethical demonstrations, some of them might still meet the requirements
for the essential model of the Posterior Analytics. Consider the following example, whose restricted
domain is the set of all possible lives and which demonstrates a feature of eudaimon lives:
Syllogism Chain III
(1) All complete lives of virtuous activity satisfy the definition “eudaimonia.”
(2) Whatever satisfies the definition “eudaimonia” is maximally beautiful.
(3) All complete lives of virtuous activity are maximally beautiful.
(4) Whatever is maximally beautiful is maximally pleasant.
(5) All complete lives of virtuous activity are maximally pleasant.
If there can be ethical demonstrations, this syllogism chain illustrates one form they could
conceivably take, explaining the truth of Aristotle’s claim in NE 1176a 15-29 that the pleasures of a
eudaimon life are pleasures in the fullest sense possible. This illustration derives from the essential
model presented in the Posterior Analytics: rather than explaining a causal process, it demonstrates why
its conclusion cannot be otherwise through a middle term that connects a set of particulars united by a
common definition, on the one hand, and an attribute to which that definition necessarily relates them,
on the other. However, most scientifically interesting ethical phenomena are processes of change and
development. A wider set of ethical propositions, if demonstrable, would therefore refer to the regular
causal processes better suited for the natural model. Such demonstrations would explain the
conditional necessity of this or that precondition for the sake of the mature, flourishing specimen—in
this case, a good human life:
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“For there is absolute necessity, manifested in eternal phenomena; and there is hypothetical
necessity, manifested in everything that is generated… the mode of necessity… and of
demonstration are different in natural science from what they are in the theoretical sciences…
For in the latter the starting-point is that which is; in the former that which is to be. For since
health, or man, is of such and such a character, it is necessary for this or that to exist or be
produced” (PA 639b24-640a6).
In this fashion one could start from the definition of eudaimonia to demonstrate necessary
conditions for its instantiation. Consider the following example, based on the natural model of
demonstration:
Syllogism Chain IV
(1) All flourishing human beings instantiate the nature “human”.
(2) Whatever instantiates the nature “human” flourishes by a complete life of virtuous activity.
(3) All flourishing human beings flourish by a complete life of virtuous activity.
(4) Whatever flourishes by a complete life of virtuous activity develops generosity.
(5) All flourishing human beings develop generosity.
(6) Whatever develops generosity makes good use of wealth.
(7) All flourishing human beings make good use of wealth.
Such a demonstration would explain how certain ethically relevant kinds relate to eudaimonia in
causally regular ways. That members of such kinds might not lead to eudaimonia, but might even bring
harm, would not necessarily jeopardize the possibility of such demonstrations. Wealth, though
productive of eudaimonia, may ruin those who have it (EN 1094b15-19, but this is not because of what
wealth is—generosity, a virtue and thus an essential component of eudaimonia, requires it—but
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because of how other internal or external conditions may interfere with wealth’s contribution to
eudaimonia. Ethical demonstration would therefore deal with how such kinds as virtue, wealth, or
friendship relate eudaimonia, rather than any particular instance of the kinds in question. Why
eudaimonia involves the use of wealth may therefore be demonstrable, even if the use of wealth often
undermines eudaimonia. A proposition of the form, “All eudaimon lives involve G,” would thus hold for
the most part (hos epi to polu) rather than in every possible case. We should therefore consider
whether demonstrations can be constructed from premises which hold for the most part.
III
In the previous section, I offered some illustrative examples of what ethical demonstration, if
possible, might look like. I did this on the basis of both “essential model” demonstration, typically
applied to mathematical phenomena, and “natural model” demonstration, typically applied to natural
phenomena. Although I made the case that at least a narrower set of ethical truths (such as the
attributes of eudaimonia) could turn out to be demonstrable on the essential model, the subject matter
of ethics would nevertheless include a broader set of truths better suited for the natural model, since
ethics concerns regular processes of change and development. This challenges the possibility of ethical
demonstration, however, since many of the relevant phenomena hold for the most part rather than
always and by strict necessity. A thorough account of ethical demonstration must therefore explain why
such phenomena are no less demonstrable than those suited to the essential model.
The exact epistemic status of for the most part (FMP) premises has for this reason figured
prominently in the debate over the scientific status of ethics. For it would only be possible to construct
demonstrations from FMP premises if they refer to truths which hold always and necessarily (APo
88b30-89a4), yet an FMP premise seems precisely to be one for whose subject the predicate will do
neither. I propose we could resolve this difficulty if we were to show that FMP premises of the kind, “All
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eudaimon lives involve G,” refer to regular causal processes which arise due to potentialities of the
natural kinds in question. On this view, the FMP premise “All eudaimon lives involve the good use of
wealth” differs from the premise “All humans are animals” only inasmuch as its necessity is conditional
rather than unconditional. That is, it refers to a kind of causal phenomenon, in which the subject
(eudaimon lives), qua itself and per se, entails a capacity (dunamis) for the good use of wealth. For this
dunamis to be actualized, however, requires the right conditions to be met.
To support this interpretation of FMP premises, first let us consider how the term “for the most
part” (hos epi to polu) is used. In contrast to what holds by chance (kata symbebekos), what holds for
the most part—like what holds always—is said to govern the processes of generation (De Gen et Corr
333b7-9). Likewise, holding for the most part characterizes natural phenomena, since “nature is the
cause of what is always or for the most part so, fortune the opposite” (EE 1247a32). What makes an
FMP premise true is therefore the essential nature of the subject, since otherwise there would be little
warrant for the distinction between what holds for the most part and what holds by chance. When
something which holds by chance fails to occur, nothing more need be said: the presence or absence of
the phenomenon makes no difference for scientific investigation and explanation. Not so with FMP
premises, however: when something which holds for the most part fails to occur, there is still something
to be investigated and explained scientifically, and this explanation will be in terms of the subject’s
essential nature and its potentialities. Though both kinds of phenomena may or may not occur, there
remains a pivotal difference between what holds for the most part and what holds by chance.
This difference is one between the demonstrable and the non-demonstrable, since “there is no
understanding through demonstration of what holds by chance. For what holds by chance is neither
necessary nor for the most part, but what comes about apart from these; and demonstration… is either
through necessary or through for the most part propositions” (APo 87b19-23). FMP propositions
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therefore fall within the purview of demonstration; but since demonstration can only be of what is
necessary rather than of what can be otherwise, holding for the most part must somehow be a variety
of the former. Particular members of the natural kinds cannot account for this, since any particular
which an FMP premise describes may fail to manifest the attribute. The necessity in question must
therefore concern relations between essential natures and the dunameis they entail.
We should therefore interpret FMP premises as having a kind of necessity corresponding to the
fourth variety of per se predication discussed in Posterior Analytics I.4, the variety concerning causal
regularities4. The premise “All eudaimon lives make generous expenditures” thus does not mean that
on every occasion any eudaimon life shall do so—on many occasions they may not. Rather, such
premises predicate of all eudaimones certain potentialities for activities like generous expenditure which
eudaimonia features. The activation of such dunameis requires the right conditions to be met. As with
Aristotle’s example of the sacrifice of an animal and the animal’s death, such activities come about
neither by chance nor by a strict necessity which holds in every case (APo 73b10-16). If the activities fail
to come about, however, this is not because the members of the natural kind lack the relevant
potentiality, but because its activation failed to occur on account of absent preconditions. Even if a
particular human being does not learn to speak a language, language-learning would still be a
potentiality proper to what human beings are. We should instead explain the case in terms of the
actualizing conditions which were not met.
On this basis, Winter (1997) proposes a premise (illustrated below) to explain FMP premises in
terms of the connections between regular causal processes, essential natures, and their proper
potentialities. This would account both for the strict necessity by which potentialities belong to natural
4
Cf. Ferejohn 1991, 122.
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substances and for the possible failure of such potentialities to actualize. We may express such an
axiom thusly:
The Axiom of Causal Regularity: For any natural substance S and attribute A, if the proposition
“S is A” holds for the most part, then the nature of any particular S entails a potentiality for A
such that, in the presence of the right efficient cause, barring external and internal
impediments, the potentiality will actualize and the S will be A (cf. Winter 183-4).
An axiom of this form would enable us to assemble syllogism chains about natural phenomena
whose conclusions hold always and necessarily. We may therefore conclude that FMP premises do not
by themselves disqualify ethics from having at least some demonstrable content. However, my present
aim is not to argue whether any ethical truths are demonstrable, but to claim that even in the event that
some are, only the phronimos could realize such demonstrations. This is because acquiring knowledge
from ethical demonstration would still require unshakeable certitude about the starting point, as
stipulated in APo 72a36-72b4. I will now show that there are serious reasons to believe that
unshakeable certitude about the ethical starting point would be possible only for the phronimos.
IV
Even if an advocate of ethical demonstration were successful, to produce knowledge from such
demonstrations would require us to have adequate grasp of the demonstration’s starting point: “for if it
is necessary to understand the things which are prior and on which the demonstration depends [i.e. the
starting points], and it comes to a stop at some time, it is necessary for these immediates to be nondemonstrable” (APo 72b20-24). In this respect, ethical demonstration would not differ at all from
mathematical or biological.
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Rather, ethical demonstration would contrast with other kinds in the way we come to grasp the
starting point: for “of first principles we see some by induction, some by perception, some by a certain
habituation, and others too in other ways. But each set of principles we must try to investigate in the
natural way, and we must take pains to determine them correctly, since they have a great influence on
what follows” (NE 1098b3-6). As with other starting points, we grasp the universal of eudaimonia or
eupraxia by something like an inductive process, repeatedly witnessing and participating in instances of
fine activity. However, the manner of this grasp differs from mere induction by involving attraction to
the universal’s particular instances. Since the particulars picked out by the essence of eudaimonia or
eupraxia are actions, perception of those particulars is practical, involving our emotions and desires as
well as our senses. Therefore accurate perception of particular phenomena as fine requires the right
kind of emotional and desiderative engagement with them. Otherwise, our perception of the particulars
that lead to our notion of eudaimonia will be impaired. We thus come to an accurate grasp of what fine
activity is by means of a process of habituation through which we simultaneously learn to desire and
enjoy the practice of fine action.
In other words, this variety of induction involves developing not only correct view but correct
desire—not only recognizing fine actions but enjoying them. Since virtue is what establishes these
patterns of attraction and repulsion, it turns out that “excellence either natural or produced by
habituation is what teaches right opinion about the first principle” (NE 1151a18-9). A predisposition to
take pleasure in fine things, and to feel disgust at shameful ones, plays a pivotal role in discovering the
account of what the fine is. Conversely, a failure to take pleasure in fine things, or a tendency toward
taking pleasure in shameful ones, leads to erroneous beliefs about the definition of eudaimonia, “for
vice perverts us and produces false views about the principles of actions” (NE 1144a35). As a result,
whether we recognize the true starting point or a pretender depends greatly on how nature,
environment, and education shape the non-rational, reason-attentive part of the soul.
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This entails nothing less than the overall trajectory of a character’s development. For this
reason the Nicomachean Ethics continually stresses the relevance of a good upbringing for arriving at
the right conclusions: our natural virtues lead us to form true beliefs about the fine, since they will lead
us—in fact entail—regarding and enjoying the right kinds of actions and practices as fine ones. A good
upbringing thus turns out to be more than half the battle: “anyone who is to listen intelligently to
lectures about what is noble and just and, generally, about the subjects of political science must have
been brought up in good habits. For the facts are the starting-point, and if they are sufficiently plain to
him, he will not need the reason as well; and the man who has been well brought up has or can easily
get starting-points” (NE 1095a28-b8). Thus the naturally virtuous, though they do not adequately
understand why ethical truths are what they are, nevertheless still incline toward true belief about
those truths. Similarly, the phronimos would understand the reason why well enough to act virtuously
without fail, and so would be capable of ethical demonstration, even if the phronimos never does so.
The phronimos need not be an ethical theorist, but an ethical theorist capable of demonstration would
have to be phronimos. Successful character development equips the phronimos with dispositions to
recognize particular instances of the universal, to desire them, and to enjoy them.
Yet why should our grasp of eudaimonia’s definition depend so heavily on character
development? Primarily for two reasons, corresponding to the required structures of desire and
enjoyment: without at least an inchoate desire for fine activity, we will never gain enough experience of
what fine actions are actually like from which to develop a grasp of the universal. Only by experiencing
such fine actions as enjoyable will we arrive at a rich understanding of the fine. If we cannot enjoy fine
actions, whether because of our desiderative makeup or other psychological factors, neither will we
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fully discern what fineness itself consists in5. This means that one element of habituation indispensable
for its success—one to which previous scholarship has paid insufficient attention—is learning to view
and experience virtuous activity as intrinsically choiceworthy. This is because eudaimonia, as the
ultimate end which is not for the sake of anything beyond itself, has intrinsic choiceworthiness par
excellence, so that adequately grasping its definition would entail adequately distinguishing what is
intrinsically choiceworthy (and so a feature of eudaimonia) from what is not.
Reeve’s (1992, 58-61) interpretation of habituation, though it accounts for much of what
distinguishes it from induction, provides one example of how contemporary discussions of habituation
have neglected the pivotal role of choiceworthiness. Reeve marks “the involvement of our will and
desires in practical belief” as why we grasp the fine by habituation rather than induction: experience of
fine action entails the right kinds of desire and pleasure or satisfaction (1992, 61). Yet in his description
of the process, Reeve focuses on influences like encouragement and external rewards or punishments as
the primary vehicles of habituation. This neglects the importance of learning to experience fine actions
as intrinsically choiceworthy or worthwhile. No doubt such extrinsic measures must play a significant
role, especially at earlier developmental stages, since virtues are correct dispositions toward pleasures
and pains. Nevertheless, acquiring virtues equally involves learning to desire and enjoy fine actions for
the correct reason (NE 1144b25-30), and having the correct reason entails an appreciation of fine
action’s intrinsic worthwhileness. Extrinsic methods like praise and blame, reward and punishment
certainly have effective application in producing this appreciation. Yet without the context of a more
complete moral education, they may obscure the correct reason to act finely. We see this whenever we
have, perhaps begrudgingly, pursued fine action merely from social pressures, such as when we make a
charitable donation only because a loved one will approve, or when we abstain from one more sweet to
5
Understanding this cognitive-desiderative inadequacy will help to account for some of the puzzles about how
knowledge and belief relate to akrasia and enkrasia, though a thorough examination of these issues lies beyond
the scope of my present argument; see Section V below.
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avoid a relative’s rebuke. In each of these cases, we fall short of a completely virtuous action because
we fail to recognize the intrinsic worthwhileness of a fine action and, by acting from this correct reason,
to enjoy the fineness of our activity for its own sake. In terms of an Aristotelian psychology, such a
moral education risks overemphasizing the non-rational appetite for honor and esteem, to the
detriment of the rational part of the soul which appreciates the correct reason to act finely. Someone
who only learned to associate certain kinds of activity with externally imposed goods like praise and
rewards would not be seeing the fineness that makes such activity choiceworthy for its own sake, and so
that person would not act from the correct reason either. A more faithful Aristotelian account of
character formation would prioritize the need to engage with our cognitive and appetitive capacities in
tandem as they develop, subordinating reward and punishment to the goal of persuasively showing how
fine activity is worth the trouble for its own sake. With these points in mind, we have a better view of
what would set ethical demonstration apart from other varieties: the habituation which leads to grasp
of the starting point involves the entirety of one’s character formation, which culminates in accurately
experiencing virtuous activity as intrinsically choiceworthy.
To have knowledge in ethics would therefore depend on the entire history of one’s character,
insofar as that history determines the relative degree to which one grasps the fine. Producing
knowledge from a demonstration requires that we have unshakeable certitude about the starting point,
not merely a carefully examined or well-reasoned view, since “anyone who is going to have
understanding through demonstration must not only be familiar with the principles and better
convinced of them than of what is being proved, but also there must be no other thing more convincing
to him or more familiar among the opposites of the principles on which a deduction of the contrary
error may depend” (APo 72a36-72b4). Producing knowledge from a demonstration therefore depends
on one’s inability to be persuaded away from the demonstrative starting point. Until the person seeking
knowledge has this kind of grasp, nothing has been demonstrated.
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The implications for ethical demonstration are quite clear: no one may be said to have produced
knowledge in ethics unless she has unshakeable certitude. Whether one has grasped the starting point
therefore depends on whether the entire history of one’s character development has led one to adhere
unfailingly to what fineness really consists in, in one’s knowledge and desire alike. In fact, to draw too
sharp a demarcation between the epistemic and the desiderative would miss the mark. Someone has
the knowledge of the fine required for demonstration if and only if she is unalterably committed to
pursuing the fine in her own practice, for these are the same cognitive state6. In other words, if any
ethical truths are demonstrable, they are so only to the person with the right character and cognitive
makeup to acquire knowledge from an ethical demonstration: the person indefectibly committed to fine
activity and therefore possessed of full virtue, i.e. the phronimos.
V
Let me sum up this connection between ethical demonstration and unshakeable certitude
thusly: if possible, episteme in ethical science would require phronesis. That episteme in ethics would
only result from fully successful character formation clarifies why this is so. Such a connection receives
further support from the light it sheds on the differences between full virtue or phronesis, on the one
hand, and natural virtue, self-control (enkrasia), and akrasia, on the other. Consider the implications of
Aristotle’s “certitude criterion” for how we should understand the relationship between grasp of the
fine and the nonrational, reason-attentive elements of the psychic economy. With both correct reason
and correct desire, someone with unshakeable certitude about the fine would never erroneously
entertain an alternative definition, nor would her desires incline her to any activities in competition with
fine ones. For someone to have such a grasp sufficient for demonstration in ethics would therefore
entail that person’s unwavering commitment to pursuing fine activities, without so much as the slightest
6
Charles (2012) provides an illuminating argument for the identity of cognitive and volitional states in the practical
sphere; however, a discussion of his argument would extend my own beyond its present limits.
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impulse to act shamefully. Conversely, anyone who so much as experiences inclinations away from fine
action, toward some shameful end, has not met the certitude criterion and so does not have grasp of
the fine necessary for demonstration. Such a person would therefore have not episteme about ethical
matters, but at best carefully examined true belief. Thus she in principle could still be persuaded away
from the definition of fine activity or from a particular fine action. Even if on any particular occasion she
remains committed to the pursuit of a fine end or activity, she may still fail to experience its fineness as
intrinsically choiceworthy to the exclusion of any shameful alternative, or she may still experience the
prospect of a shameful alternative as pleasant or desirable.
Both the enkratic and the akratic souls fit the latter psychological sketch. The enkratic or selfcontrolled person may successfully pursue virtuous activity and resist seeking vicious or shameful
activity. Nevertheless, she must still resist: her character education has not resulted in the unshakeable
certitude that would make her always experience the fine as pleasant and intrinsically choiceworthy. In
other words, her grasp of the fine has not molded the intellectual and motivational structures of her
psychology to the point of making her prefer fine action above all things contrary to it. Since this grasp
is the same cognitive state needed for episteme, it turns out that the enkratic soul falls short of full
virtue (phronesis) for the same reason she falls short of ethical knowledge (episteme). So too for the
akratic soul: even if a reader of the Nicomachean Ethics or a student of the Lyceum has a carefully
developed propositional awareness of ethical truths, without adequate habituation she will fail to
experience the relevant particulars as intrinsically choiceworthy and pleasant and so successfully pursue
them. Whatever ethical notions she develops remain at the level of true belief, because they rest on a
deficient grasp of the starting point, the essence of the fine: a deficiency which consists in the absence
(or incompleteness) of correct desire. This absence of correct desire for the fine creates a gap into
which shameful desires may intrude: experiences of shameful, vicious, or harmful particulars as
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desirable or pleasant, which “persuade” the soul toward an action (the conclusion of a practical
syllogism) inconsistent with the definition of eudaimonia.
Thus the unique position of ethics, between the unambiguously demonstrative sciences and the
stochastic arts: though at least some ethical truths might be demonstrable in principle, none but the
phronimos could produce knowledge from such demonstrations. What we have instead is a more or
less accurate approximation of the certitude of the phronimos, depending on how our sociocultural
influences, subsequent decisions, and life goals influence how we think, desire, and experience in the
practical sphere. Conditions like akrasia and enkrasia thus name different outcomes of that habituation,
insofar as its relative success or failure affects action and belief. This tight connection between
habituation and grasp of the fine suggests that our beliefs about the fine—or more generally about the
intrinsically choiceworthy—have what McDowell has called a “character-revelatory” function. Our
beliefs about the fine or choiceworthy, and the actions and projects we undertake on the basis of them,
result in large part from our character development, such that our actions and projects “reveal character
because they display in practice the agent’s conception of how a human being should conduct his life…
they are chosen under intrinsic specifications that reveal them as worth engaging in” (McDowell 1998,
26). The actions of someone with merely natural virtue thus reveal the agent’s accurate beliefs about
the fine. Nevertheless, inasmuch as character formation never fully succeeds in developing those beliefs
into unshakeable certitude, ethical demonstration remains in practice as unrealizable as full virtue.
VI
Although recent work on the connection between ethics and science suggests that ethics does have
at least some demonstrable content, I have sought to show that there are serious reasons for thinking
we could not produce knowledge from such demonstrations. I base this claim on two points about
demonstration and ethics: first, only someone with unshakeable certitude could acquire this knowledge.
Christopher-Marcus Gibson, Writing Sample 19
Second, such certitude about the ethical starting point would develop through habituation or character
formation. This starting point concerns the practical sphere, such that its grasp requires correct reason
as well as correct desire. The certitude criterion for demonstration thus indicates that demonstration
and episteme in ethics could only ever be realizable for the one who always enjoys virtue and never
inclines toward vicious activity. In other words, only the phronimos could demonstrate ethical truths.
By way of conclusion, I would like to identify a potentially fruitful line of investigation which this
interpretation suggests. If, per impossibile, one of us really achieved unshakeable certitude about the
definition of eudaimonia or eupraxia, would such a person not desire and seek fine action? Would her
practical perception not be configured to always experience fine actions as incontestably desirable and
pleasant? If so, then episteme in ethics would turn out to be a desire- or action-determining knowledge
of a very Socratic variety. Possessing such knowledge, as the Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues
supposed, would be the necessary and sufficient condition for full virtue. Conversely, the absence of full
virtue would turn out to be a symptom of ignorance about eudaimonia, whether that ignorance take the
form of true belief (parallel to Aristotle’s account of natural virtue) or of false belief (parallel to vice).
Yet such knowledge would entail not only having and defending the right account of fine activity, as
Socrates demanded, but also having one’s practical perception structured in such a way as to make
eminently manifest the desirability and choiceworthiness of such activities. In this light, the Socratic
search for definitions in ethics appears as a practice oriented toward approximating unshakeable
certitude about the ethical starting point and acquiring virtue insofar as the limits of habituation allow it.
Christopher-Marcus Gibson, Writing Sample 20
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