CHAPTER SIX

Moral Virtue and To Kalon

IN NE I.7 Aristotle argued that the human good at which the happy person aims is virtuous activity of reason. And he opaquely hinted that “if there are many virtues, [the human good] is the activity of the soul in accordance with the best and most final virtue” (1098a16–18). By the time we finish NE VI, we understand that activity in accordance with theoretical rational virtue is superior to the excellent practical reasoning that guides the moral virtues Aristotle describes in NE II–V. Theoretical wisdom sets a standard of excellence that virtuous practical reason approximates in aiming to grasp the practical truth. However, approximation is a teleological relationship.

Thus, as readers of the Nicomachean Ethics we begin to suspect what Aristotle will in fact conclude in NE X: The happy person aims at excellent contemplation as his highest good, choosing all other good things, including morally virtuous actions, for its sake. His morally virtuous actions will also be worth choosing for their own sakes, for insofar as they succeed in approximating theoretical truthfulness, they inherit excellent contemplation’s intrinsic value.

But what are we to make of NE II–V, where Aristotle analyzes the nature of moral virtue in general and provides rich descriptions of many particular moral virtues? Even if he has not yet established the superiority of theoretical wisdom, surely there ought to be some hint that morally virtuous action is subordinated to theoretical knowing. In particular, if my interpretation of the nature of practical wisdom is correct, it ought to cohere in some way with Aristotle’s famous theory that moral virtue is a mean or intermediate state (NE II.6–9). Now, the doctrine of the intermediate is important because it seems to specify the intrinsic value of morally virtuous action. At least, Aristotle’s insistence that genuine morally virtuous actions are chosen for their own sakes (NE II.4 1105a32) immediately precedes his definition of such actions as intermediate. (Virtuous states are called intermediate because they are dispositions to perform intermediate actions, 1106b27–28.) It seems reasonable to assume, then, that when the virtuous person chooses his actions for themselves, he chooses them for their intermediacy. So if my solution to the problem of morally virtuous action as a middle-level end is correct, we might expect some indication in the description of these acts as intermediate that they are to that extent also worth choosing for the sake of contemplation.

Rather than approach the doctrine of the intermediate head-on, I want to examine what makes morally virtuous action kalon, that is fine, noble, or beautiful.¹ This is not really a different topic. I believe that what makes morally virtuous actions intermediate and thus worth choosing for their own sakes is, in Aristotle’s account, the very same thing that makes them fine. Myargument for this claim will have to come after a more general analysis of what it is for something to be fine, but for now we can at least notice that fittingness or appropriateness is a mark of beauty. (At Topics 135a13–14, Aristotle actually defines the fine as the fitting.) And of course intermediate virtuous actions are perfectly calibrated to suit the circumstances in which the agent finds himself. “Getting angry and giving and spending money are things anyone can do and are easy; but doing them in relation to the right person, in the right amount, at the right time, for the sake of the right thing, and in the right way—that is no longer something anyone can do, nor is it easy” (II.9 1109a26–29). Like a joiner, when the virtuous person scrupulously avoids excess and deficiency in his actions, he fits his choices to his situation. Indeed, Aristotle says the magnificent person is like a craftsman of the fitting (1122a34–35). So there is reason to hope that an examination of the beauty of virtuous action will shed light on Aristotle’s claim that it is intermediate.

There is another reason to attend to moral virtue’s beauty: Although in the general description of moral virtue Aristotle defines virtuous actions as ones that are chosen for their own sakes, in the discussions of the individual moral virtues he drops this part of the definition and says instead that the courageous or temperate or magnanimous action is chosen because it is kalon, or fine.² It seems safe to assume, then, that the virtuous agent’s disposition to choose actions for their own sakes is interchangeable with his disposition to choose them because they are fine.³ I do not mean that a virtuous action is choiceworthy for its own sake because it is beautiful, as if the virtuous agent were an aesthete (although Aristotle does compare the good person’s pleasure in fine actions to the delight a musical person takes in beautiful songs [1170a8–10]). For Aristotle, as for Plato, the good and the fine are related, but they are not the same.⁴ Rather, the reason for a virtuous action’s fineness is the same as that which explains its being choiceworthy for its own sake as the intermediate action it is. Since this is so, we can learn about the basis for the intrinsic value of morally virtuous actions by studying the way in which they are fine.

I will argue that, according to Aristotle, actions are fine when their determination By the human good makes the agent’s commitment to his good visible. Since Aristotle thinks that the human good is the most perfect use of reason, this means that morally virtuous actions are fine because, in being just as they are, they express the agent’s devotion to most excellent truthfulness. And in fact, an examination of three virtues will bear this hypothesis out (see chapter 7). Courage, temperance, and greatness of soul are fine because they show the agent’s commitment to the most excellent leisurely use of reason. In the press of practical affairs, the virtuous agent orients his actions—both in terms of the states of affairs they aim to produce and, more important, in what they celebrate—toward a conception of the human good that is both leisurely and excellently rational. This emphasis on the leisurely use of reason turns out to be significant. For when we get to book X, Aristotle will argue that the most leisurely use of reason, and therefore the use of reason most suited to be an end, is philosophical contemplation. Thus, even though Aristotle does not explicitly refer to the superiority of contemplation in his description of the moral virtues, this attitude turns out to be implicit in the virtuous person’s orientation. In grasping the practical truth on particular occasions, the morally virtuous person approximates and there by acts for the sake of contemplation. But in addition, the practical truth that he grasps itself points to the superiority of theoretical wisdom.

A person need not be aware of this in order to act finely, however. I have been careful to say that the phronimos chooses morally virtuous actions for features that point to the value of contemplation, rather than to say that he chooses these actions because theypoint to contemplation. In other words, I have been careful to put the reference to contemplation outside the description of the agent’s intention. Like Plato’s incompletely educated lover, Aristotle’s moral agent need not be fully aware of the source of the value and beauty of his actions. All that needs to be true is that the things about virtu necessary ous action that the agent finds choiceworthy for their own sakes are, in fact, from a broader point of view, intrinsicallychoiceworthy because they reflect the value of contemplation. Thus, even if he thinks the exercise of practical reason is the human good, as no doubt many in Aristotle’s well-bred audience do, so long as the agent chooses his actions because they are appropriate to a person who lives for the sake of excellent reasoning, his actions will be fine and choiceworthy for their own sakes. Of course, if the morally virtuous agent is also a philosopher and understands the value of contemplation as the highest human good, he will choose moral actions not only for themselves, but for the sake of excellent theoretical reasoning whose superior value they express.

After discussing what, in general, it means for an action to be fine and chosen for that reason, I will turn, in the next chapter, to Aristotle’s discussions of the individual moral virtues. I hope to show that, as expected, their fineness is connected to their being oriented toward the value of the most excellent use of reason.

1. TO KALON OUTSIDE HUMAN ACTION

It is unfortunate that Aristotle never explains in the Nicomachean Ethics what to kalon is. This omission is striking, for Aristotle repeatedly describes virtuous actions as kalon and describes the virtuous person as one who is fixed on to kalon.⁵ I will return, at the end of this chapter, to Aristotle’s odd silence on this issue. But for Aristotle beauty is not only of concern to human beings in their actions, art, and romantic attachments. As we saw in chapter 4, it is a cosmological and biological force. Thus, Aristotle’s nonpractical works yield clues about the nature of fineness. Let us begin with Aristotle’s description of beauty at the most general level. In Metaphysics M.3 Aristotle says the chief forms of beauty, in both the changeable and the unchangeable realms, are order (taxis), symmetry (summetria), and definiteness or boundedness (hôrismenon) (1078a36–78b1). Now, it is not so clear what Aristotle thinks these qualities are in the unmovable realm, and in particular among mathematicals, where, he nevertheless insists they are to be found. But in the changeable world of nature Aristotle is quite explicit about what order is. Order is the arrangement of parts with reference to or for the sake of a common end. As we know, this common end or telos is, in some sense, the good. So, for example, the whole of nature contains the good because it is ordered with reference to the good. Indeed, the goodness of this order depends on the fact that its telos is good (Meta. Ë.10 1075a11 ff.). In the changeable world, then, order is not a mere formal property, a relation of parts to each other . It is an effective teleological arrangement (i.e., it does not merelyaim at the good, it succeeds in so aiming). And, as we discover elsewhere, the beauty qua order of a thing lies precisely in its being well arranged for the sake of its end.⁶ For instance, in the Parts of Animals Aristotle says all living things, no matter how humble, reveal something beautiful and elicit in us the pleasure felt in the presence of the beautiful, because they are organized for the sake of an end (645a21–26).⁷ And in the Politics (VII.4 1326a33 ff.) Aristotle says that a beautiful city is one whose size is limited byits proper order. It is clear that the order Aristotle has in mind is the one realized in the city’s fulfilling its function (i.e., the happiness of its citizens).⁸ So one way changeable things—and this includes human action—are beautiful is by being ordered with reference to their telos or good.⁹

We may doubt whether this can be the general description of to kalon that Aristotle has in mind in Metaphysics M.3, however. For Aristotle says that, unlike to kalon , the good does not exist among the unmovables. Thus, mathematicals cannot be beautiful by being arranged for the sake of their good. What I am about to sayis speculative, but it does seem to me desirable that in interpreting this passage from Metaphysics M.3 we should not abandon the general account of beautiful order as an arrangement for the sake of the good. Unmovables do not have a good, of course, because they do not change (Meta. K.1 1059a35–38) and do not engage in action (Meta. M.3 1078a31). But that does not mean that their order has no principle. Numbers, for example, might be ordered with respect to the principle of unity, so that each number is analyzable into a collection of units.¹⁰ Geometrical solids might be ordered with respect to lines and planes. (At least, Aristotle says the arithmetician and the geometer deal with physical objects insofar as they are units and solids, respectively[ Meta. M.3 1078a21–8].) But if there is a principle of order, then, whatever it turns out to be, that principle will be metaphysically primary and, in this sense, better. Thus, while it may not be strictly speaking true to say that unmovables as well as natural objects are beautiful when arranged with respect to the good—that is, teleologically—there will be an extended sense in which this is correct. (We will also need to extend the teleological account of beauty to explain how the first principle of the physical world—the Prime Mover—is kalon. There is no separate principle higher than it with respect to which it displays order, symmetry, and boundedness. In fact, the Prime Mover does not even have parts to be ordered [Meta. Ë.7 1073a5–11]! However, Aristotle does say it is the pure activity of thought thinking “the most divine and honorable thing” [Meta . Ë.9, 1074b25–26], which turns out to be itself in some way[ Meta. Ë.9 1074b33–35]. And although Aristotle does not say so explicitly, it is possible that the perfection of divine thinking is due to the perfection of itself qua object.¹¹ If so, then the first mover qua contemplative activity would be fine because it is determined to be as it is By the best object of thought, namely itself. In other words, the cause of its beauty would be its teleological—in a nonhierarchical sense—order.)

Once we see that to kalon as order is effective teleological structure, at least in the physical and changing realm, we can see that the kalon as symmetryand as definiteness also consists in an object’s orientation to its good. According to Politics 1284b8–22, something displays symmetry or proportion (summetria) when the size of its parts conduces to its benefit. A sculptor may create a foot that taken by itself, is beautiful. He may model it perfectly, with instep neither too high nor too low, to be the image of a foot that could be stood upon. But if it is proportionally larger than all the other parts of the body he has sculpted, he will reject it on the grounds that it has no place in this particular sculpture. Likewise, if certain citizens acquire too much power, they should be ostracized from the city. But what determines proportionality? It is the well-functioning or good of the whole. Thus, Aristotle says a city can be well-proportioned even if it has a king, provided that his extraordinary power works to the benefit of the community (Pol . 1284b13– 15). Likewise, a ship that is two stades long is out of proportion (to its sail? the oars?) because it is too large to sail easily.¹² Symmetry, then, is very much like order. In both cases a thing possesses it when its parts are determined in a certain way with reference to the end of the whole. But while order is concerned with the arrangement of all the parts, symmetry is a matter of the properties of those parts taken singly. When each part of a thing is shaped and sized so that it can function in harmony with the other parts for their common good, then the thing as a whole has symmetry.

There is reason to think, too, that definiteness or boundedness (hôrismenon) is a property connected to the good. In Parts of Animals I.1 641b18– 19 Aristotle argues that the presence of order and definiteness in celestial bodies betrays the fact that they do not exist by chance. But since for Aristotle a chance event is one that appears to be, but is in fact not, for a genuine telos (Phys. 196b17–24), we can infer that the order of the celestial bodies reveals that they have a final good. The idea seems to be that when things have a boundary or limit that is a true horos, they are limited at just that point for the sake of fulfilling their function. So, in Politics 1326a5 ff. (cited in part above), Aristotle is concerned not just that the city be properly ordered but that its magnitude not exceed a certain limit in either direction (i.e., is neither too large nor too small). If it is too large or too small, it will not be able to function in such a manner as to secure the citizens’ happiness. Once again, this limit on magnitude is determined By the city’s end or good.¹³

In general, then, something is beautiful when it displays—through the order of its parts, the proportion of those parts, and the limitedness of the whole—effective teleological organization. A beautiful or fine thing is one arranged and determined for the sake of its good. But there must be more to beauty or fineness than the mere presence of teleological order, for the presence of order would show only that the thing is natural or the product of craft. If we examine other of Aristotle’s remarks about to kalon, we find that visibility or “showiness” is essential to Aristotle’s conception. At Poetics 7 1450b34–36, Aristotle says that “to be beautiful (to kalon echein) an animal and everything made up of parts must not only be ordered but must also be of a non-arbitrarysize.” It turns out that the proper size depends on what can be seen or in some analogous way comprehended. ¹⁴ If something is too large, its unity and wholeness (to hen kai to holon) will be lost on the people contemplating it; if it is minuscule, they will not be able to see it at all (Poet. 1450b38–1451a3). But even when the eye is literally capable of seeing an object, it may still be too small to be beautiful (NE IV.3 1123b7: small people cannot be beautiful). For it may be difficult to distinguish its different parts, and thus to discern their relationship to each other and to their common good.¹⁵ It seems, then, that in order to be beautiful or fine, not only must a thing be ordered with reference to its good, but this arrangement must also be manifest or apparent.¹⁶ The length of a plot, for instance, is finer “the longer it is consistently with its being comprehensible as a whole (sundêlos)” (1451a9–11). (Thus, the problem with small people is that their order, symmetry, and definiteness do not strike the senses immediately or as clearly as these properties do in larger [though not gargantuan] people.) Something is kalon, then, not simply when its arrangement is determined byits good. It is kalon when its orientation to the good is, in the relevant sense, visible. As we shall see, this aspect of the fine will be of particular importance to our understanding of why the morally virtuous agent values his fine actions for their own sakes.

2. TO KALON IN HUMAN ACTION

So far we have been talking about the fine as it appears in numbers and geometrical figures, in plants and animals, and in cities and stories. It is time now to examine what to kalon is in human action.¹⁷ When we recall that Aristotle defines moral virtues as intermediate dispositions, poised between two vices (NE II.6), it is clear that they have the formal characteristics of the fine we discovered in other kinds of beauty. The virtuous person feels and acts proportionately to his condition. Just like a skilled artisan, he takes neither too much nor too little (1106b8–14). Thus, virtuous actions display symmetry; their parts are scaled to each other proportionately to the task at hand. When a magnificent person gives money, for example, he gives the right amount of money to fund the right project in a way that is appropriate. The beginning of NE VI is even more explicit in attributing the formal properties of beauty to the intermediate, virtuous states.¹⁸ There, Aristotle says that he seeks the horos, or limit, of the intermediate virtuous states (1138b23–24). As it turns out, the standard of right reason—which, in the last chapter, I argued is wise contemplation—sets the boundaries of the virtues (1138b25, b34). Thus, there is a connection between a virtue’s being an intermediate state and its displaying (or rather, the actions to which it gives rise displaying) the formal properties of symmetry and boundedness constitutive of the fine.

Of course, in order to be beautiful, it is not enough that an action be ordered, determined, and made symmetrical by the human good. This effective teleological order must also be visible. In NE II.6, where Aristotle explains the doctrine of the intermediate, he does not emphasize the showiness or quasi-aesthetic appeal of virtue. But even there I am not sure it is altogether absent from Aristotle’s concerns. As we will see, the kalon produces a certain kind of pleasure. Now according to Aristotle we become virtuous by practicing, for example, eating neither too much nor too little, but just the right amount (1104a22–27). With sufficient practice, the child comes to take pleasure in the action itself, not merely in the expectation of reward for good behavior. It seems quite possible to me that the sort of pleasure the child learns to take is pleasure in the fineness of his action. Or consider Aristotle’s discussion in NE II.9 of how difficult striking the intermediate is. Anyone can get angry when provoked or give money to someone who asks, but not just anyone can do these things well. “Nor is it easy; for which reason it is rare, praiseworthy, and fine (kalon)” (1109a29–30). The difficulty of intermediate, virtuous actions makes them notable; it brings them into public view. So although the doctrine of the intermediate makes particularly clear that morally virtuous actions exhibit the formal features of order, symmetry, and boundedness, there is evidence to suggest that, by being intermediate, theyalso have the visibility that all fine things possess.

We need to establish, though, that according to Aristotle these are the very features that make morally virtuous actions fine. That is, we need to show that the visible teleological order, symmetry, and boundedness of virtuous actions makes them beautiful. It is difficult to know how to identify these abstract features in actual virtuous actions, however. Where do we see the boundedness, for example, in a courageous action?¹⁹ It would be helpful, then, to find a more complete description of the fine as it pertains to human action in particular. Now, there is much less evidence for Aristotle’s understanding of beauty in human actions than there is for his understanding of other kinds of beauty. But I believe what we do have shows that, as we would expect, for Aristotle actions are fine for the very same reasons that the rest of the world, both natural and unmoving, is. Namely, actions are fine when they display, in a noticeable way, orientation to and determination by their proper, human good.

In the remainder of this chapter I will support this general claim about what makes actions fine. I do not intend myremarks to prove the more specific claim that, according to Aristotle, actions are fine when they are oriented to the most excellent exercise of reason. That argument will come in the next chapter. However, I will sometimes assume that the human good is rational activity for the purposes of providing examples. Nevertheless, the general account of the fine I develop here is intended to stand independently of any specific account of eudaimonia.

One final remark: I claimed at the beginning of this chapter that the basis of the fineness of virtuous actions also explains their being worth choosing for their own sakes. Given the analysis of the fine I have now developed, this means virtuous actions are fine and worth choosing for themselves because they display their ordering, symmetry, and determination by the human good. In chapter 5, I argued that morally virtuous action is intrinsically valuable because its truthfulness approximates theoretical excellence. When we put these claims together, the conclusion is this: according to Aristotle, when morally virtuous (chosen) actions display their ordering, symmetry, and determination by the most excellent form of rational activity (i.e., By the human good), they grasp the practical truth and there by approximate theoretical truth. In other words, the virtuous person grasps the practical truth and there by approximates theoretical knowing when he acts in a way that shows his love of truth, the possession of which is the human good. The visibility of this commitment, as well as the commitment itself, is desirable and practically good. For in the press of practical life, where a person must feed himself, engage in business with other people, and fight battles, either verbal or physical, the virtuous agent will not have time to revel in the excellent reasoning he takes to be the source of his happiness. Indeed, his pursuit of food and other necessities might, in less competent hands, give the mistaken impression that he finds happiness in external goods. This is particularly true for the philosopher, who understands that the most excellent reasoning is theoretical and not practical at all. Since the demands of practical life literally keep him from contemplation, he has reason to act in a way that shows (if only to himself) how precious theoretical reasoning is to him. But the point holds also for those merely morally virtuous people who, when they think of the excellence of reason, think first of excellent practical reasoning. We use practical reason to get something done, and when the appropriate time arrives for action, the virtuous person must go ahead and act, and then go on to the next problem. There is no time (or at least there will not always be time) for him to dwell on the goodness of the reasoning by which he lives. He has reason, therefore, to choose morally virtuous actions for themselves. Since they are fine, they make clear that this—excellent reasoning, and not gloryor power or whatever else political action may bring—is what makes life worth living. Morally virtuous action, because it is fine, is a way to celebrate the agent’s conception of human flourishing amid the pressures of practical life. Thus, the visible order, symmetry, and boundedness of virtuous actions make them intrinsically, and not just derivatively, valuable.

3. THE ACCOUNT OF FINE ACTION AT RHETORIC I.9

The Rhetoric presents some of the clearest evidence we have for Aristotle’s understanding of the fine in action. There, he gives us two ways of approaching the fine:

Whatever is praiseworthy(praised?), being chosen (choiceworthy?) for its own sake, is kalon, or whatever, being good, is pleasant because it is good. (Rhet. I.9, 1366a33–34)²⁰

Let us take the second clause first. A fine action is one that is pleasant (to whom?) because it is good.²¹ Aristotle could mean one of two things. Either the goodness of a fine thing, X, causes it to be pleasant; or A takes pleasure in X because A thinks X is good. No doubt, Aristotle believes both. After all, the pleasant is the apparent good, and nothing is so persuasive as the truth. So if something is good, its goodness may well cause it to seem that way too. But I take it that what Aristotle wants to emphasize here, in the Rhetoric, is that fine actions are pleasant because they seem, to their agents and to those assessing them, to be good.We enjoy hearing about fine actions, or witnessing them firsthand precisely because they seem to us to be good. That is, Aristotle is defining the fine in terms of the peculiar kind of pleasure such items give rise to. The fine is what produces the pleasure we take in goodness.²² It is pleasant, but pleasant for this particular reason, that it is good. The fine is, we might say, the morally pleasant.

I do not mean to suggest that the fine is morally pleasant in too narrow a sense. What we find to praise in fine acts will not be limited to applications of universal rules of moralityor even particular benefit to others or to the common good. I mention this now to mark a contrast between my view and that of Terence Irwin (1985a). Relying in part on the passage we have been discussing from Rhetoric I.9 Irwin argues that virtuous actions are praiseworthy, and thus fine, because they aim at the good of the community. Since the definition of virtue that Aristotle gives in the Rhetoric is one that emphasizes its praiseworthy features, and “since the feature of virtue that is properly praised is its tendency to benefit others, this is also the feature that makes it fine” (Irwin 1985a, 127). Now Irwin is probably right that, in this passage of the Rhetoric, Aristotle describes virtue with an eye to those features that will strike the audience as fine. And I agree that the moral virtues do tend to promote the well-being of others.²³ The coincidence of individual flourishing and public happiness is, after all, no coincidence for political animals. And certainly in Rhetoric I.9 Aristotle describes virtue as a capacity to do well by others (1366b3–4). But it is not clear to me that the publicutility of morally virtuous actions is what makes them fine and praiseworthy, even as Aristotle describes them in the Rhetoric. The fine person, according to Aristotle, benefits others and does not seek his own profit, but his motivation does not appear to be altruistic. Rather, the fine person, according to the Rhetoric, benefits others for the sake of fame and honor (1366b34– 1367a17). It is this regard for fame and honor over vulgar profit that appears to draw the admiration of others, for it reveals the person’s worthier, we might almost say aristocratic, character.²⁴ Consider also the following:

And profitless possessions are fine; for they are more free (eleutheriôtera). And the peculiar characteristics of a people are fine, and the signs of the things praised By them, for example wearing one’s hair long in Sparta; for that’s a sign of the free man, since it’s not very easy for a person with long hair to do anymenial (thêtikon) work. And it’s fine not to do any mechanical (banauson) trade; for it’s characteristic of the free man not to live for another (prosallon). (Rhet. I.9 1367a27–33)

This passage ought to make us reconsider Irwin’s analysis of what is so note-worthy about the virtuous person’s tendency to help others, according to Aristotle or, more correctly, according to Aristotle’s assessment of popular opinion. If all fine choices have in common that they bene fit other people, why is it fine to wear one’s hair long? And why is there nothing in the least bit fine about menial labor? Making good horseshoes may not be as dramatic as leading a battle, but surely it does an awful lot of good. This suggests that, for Aristotle, the fineness of benefiting others is not just in the value of the benefit conferred, but in the freedom with which it is given. In giving, perhaps lavishly, the virtuous person demonstrates that he does not need to worry about providing himself with the necessities of life. Nor are his actions constrained by the obligation to further the interests of anyone else (as they are for a slave). But the generous person does not use his freedom to escape from society; rather, he uses his freedom to generate ties and create for himself a special place within society. The virtuous person is praised for his generosity not merely on account of its utility, then, but because it is a certain embodiment of freedom.²⁵ In other words, according to the Rhetoric, if doing good to others is fine, that is primarily because in doing good the agent rises above being a mere selfish animal and shows himself to be an excellent specimen of a political animal. But this, I will argue in the next chapter, is a feature actions could have even when they do not benefit others.²⁶ Thus, morally virtuous actions are not fine because they promote the common good. They are fine because they reflect the agent’s understanding of his own eudaimonia.

When we read Aristotle’s remarks in this light, we see that the account of the fine he offers in the Rhetoric is consistent with his account of the fine elsewhere. A person’s action is fine when it expresses the agent’s freedom as a political animal. When the virtuous person chooses for its own sake to act in just this way, doing neither too much nor too little, he shows his commitment to and value for his life as free. But in ancient Athens, this is tantamount to saying that fine actions are oriented in a visible way to the value of human flourishing or goodness. For according to the popular Athenian conception, the desirability of life in a democracy, particularly as compared with life under Persian rule, was closelytied to the citizens’ freedom (Pol. VI.2). Thus, the description of fine action in Rhetoric I.9 supports the view that actions are fine when they are determined to be as they are By the human good.²⁷ It is this manifest orientation to the human good that elicits praise.²⁸

When I said, then, that the fine is the good in its guise as pleasant, I do not mean to presuppose a specific, or a specifically moral, account of what this goodness is. Fine actions, just as all fine things, please us because they make apparent the appropriate good, in this case human flourishing.

Now I said that, elsewhere, Aristotle describes the pleasant as the apparent good. This might make Aristotle’s definition of the fine seem utterlyunin formative, for all it would be saying is that fine things are pleasant—that is, appear good—because, being fine, theyappear to us to be good. But this is to work ourselves into an unnecessary muddle. When Aristotle says that the pleasant is the apparent good, he does not mean that we take pleasure in all and only those things that we judge, rationally, to be good. Rather, he means that pleasant things demand our attention. When something strikes us as pleasant, it presents itself to us as to be taken. The pleasant, like the good, is naturally attractive whether or not, from the point of view of reason, it is really worth taking at all. Thus, in describing the fine as what is pleasant because it is good, Aristotle means that the apparent goodness of fine things—rather than some other qualities they might have—has the quasi-sensoryappeal of all pleasant things. It is the good in its guise as attractive.

What strikes us as kalon need not actually be good, however. We can be wrong about what really is kalon just as we can be wrong about what really is pleasant. This is the second point of Aristotle’s definition of the fine as what is pleasant because it is good. In describing our reaction to the fine as a species of pleasure, Aristotle is saying that the appearance of goodness we react to is not, primarily, a matter of rational judgment.²⁹ Rather to kalon strikes us (in the gut, so to speak) as desirable because it is good. Thus, it would be more correct to say that the fine is what is pleasant because it seems good.

We can see that already Aristotle’s description of the fine in human action corresponds to his definition of beauty in other contexts. In general, a thing is beautiful when it has an evident orientation to its good. Here, in the Rhetoric, fine actions are defined as those whose goodness strikes the sensibility of those who see them.

4. TO KALON AND SPIRITED DESIRE

Aristotle also says in this passage of the Rhetoric that the fine is whatever is praiseworthy when it is chosen for its own sake. Praise, of course, is the appropriate response to something that is manifestly, plainly good.³⁰ It is the public recognition that certain behavior was worth choosing. This is why virtuous deeds done on a grand scale are so deserving of praise; they are not just good, they are good in a way that all can admire. (Of course, once a good action is brought to our attention, it will be visible as good. Thus all good actions are, at least potentially, praiseworthy.)The fine, in other words, is what is esteemed. This connection Aristotle draws in the Rhetoric between to kalon and praise should alert us to another source of information about the nature of the fine in action. For praise and blame are important methods of moral education, at least for a child who is on the road to virtue and is not utterly intractable (NE 1128b15–19).³¹ Thus, praise and blame—the public acknowledgment that an action is or is not fine—are central to preparing a child to be virtuous. But moral education for Aristotle is a matter of shaping the child’s soul. Thus, the examination of the role praise and blame play in moral education may teach us what part of the soul is naturally receptive to the fine. And this, in turn, may teach us something about the fine itself.

Following Plato’s account in the Republic, Aristotle conceives of this education as a shaping through habituation of two kinds of desire—epithumia (appetite) and thumos (spirited desire)—to accept the eventual development and rule of reason.³² (Platonic education in poetry is an education through habituation since Plato thinks that in some sense children practice the behavior of fictional characters in the poetry they learn [Rep. 394d–398b].) That is to say, early moral education shapes the desire for pleasure (epithumia) and, as I believe, the desire for to kalon (thumos).³³ Aristotle does not say much more about spirited desire, but Plato had quite a bit to say.³⁴ According to Plato, the desire characteristic of thumos is competitive. It admires others and desires to be admired in turn. Thumos’s desire for the high regard of others develops into a desire for self-esteem as well.³⁵ As the proper object of thumos, the kalon must be the sort of thing to gratify those naturally competitive longings.

I have spoken just now as if it were obvious that for Plato, as for Aristotle, spirited desire aims at the fine. However, although Plato says thumos aims at things that are fine, such as honor and victory, he never says the fine is its object. I cannot give a full defense of my reading of the Republic here, but it is important to see that the Platonic account of moral education, adopted in its essential elements by Aristotle, depends on the connection between spirit and to kalon.³⁶

There is no doubt that, in the Republic, the moral education of the guardians ends in their love of the fine and beautiful (403c6–7).³⁷ The training in poetic and musical appreciation leads the young men “unwittingly, from childhood on, to resemblance, friendship, and harmony with the beauty of reason (tôi kalôi logôi)” (401d1–3).

Anyone who has been properly educated in music and poetry will sense it acutely when something has been omitted from a thing and when it hasn’t been finely (kalôs) crafted or finely (kalôs) made by nature. And since he has the right distastes, he’ll praise fine things (kala), be pleased By them, receive them into his soul, and, being nurtured By them, become fine (kalos) and good. (Rep. 401e1–402a1)³⁸

The question is, does this education train the spirited part of the soul to love the fine, or does it teach it to love what really is fine, as opposed to a false image of the fine?³⁹ The significance for our investigation into the nature of the fine is this. If moral education teaches children to love a true versus a false image of the fine, that suggests that spirited desires as such aim at the fine. All by themselves, they are oriented toward fineness and only lack a connection to a true versus a false image of it. Thus, we could use the nature of this sort of desire in general as a way of understanding the fine itself. Now prima facie it looks as if the moral education of the guardians molds a sensitivity to or interest in to kalon that is already present in children. After all, this education is an aesthetic education, and such education normally seeks to influence the student’s preexisting, or normally developing, sense of what is aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. No doubt aesthetic education does more than merely redirect a fully robust interest in the beautiful; it also strengthens this interest. But that is not to say that it creates an interest in beauty and the fine ex nihilo. If children did not already have some antecedent interest in the fine and beautiful, no amount of lambasting certain stories as shameful or praising others as fine would have any effect on their tendency to take pleasure in one sort of story rather than another. (This is why I say that Plato ought to have believed that there is a natural desire for the fine, even if he did not. His theory of moral education presupposes it.) Indeed, the fact that children take pleasure in stories at all suggests that a capacity for nonappetitive and quasi-rational pleasure is innate. (And the fact that children naturally take pleasure in praise suggests an innate interest in beauty, at least with respect to themselves.) But in addition to these general remarks on aesthetic-moral education, there is more specific evidence in the Republic that Plato’s moral education shapes an antecedent interest in the fine.

In the first place, the poetic education of books II–IV is a response to Adeimantus’s complaints about the quality of contemporary moral education. Whereas Glaucon’s challenge emphasizes the apparent fact that injustice is good or beneficial (362b5), Adeimantus faults the counterarguments available in the culture (362e1–4):

When fathers speak to their sons, they say that one must be just, as do all the others who have any charge of anyone. But they do n’t praise justice itself, only the high reputations it leads to and the consequences of being thought to be just, such as the public offices, marriages, and other things Glaucon listed. (Rep. 362e4–363a5)

This mode of praising justice is lent further authority by the poets, who claim that the reward of justice is in material luxury. “In their stories, they lead the just to Hades, seat them on couches, provide them with a symposium of pious people, crown them with wreaths, and make them spend all their time drinking—as if they thought drunkenness was the finest (kalliston) wage of virtue” (363c4–d2).⁴⁰ Adeimantus, like Aristotle, presumes that praise is of the fine. The problem, Adeimantus says, is that his culture does not find in justice anything fine and praiseworthy that cannot more readily and pleasantly be achieved by vice. People pay lip service to the fineness of justice and moderation, but in fact, Adeimantus says, people always praise those who are rich and powerful, regardless of whether or not they are virtuous (363e5– 364b2). The implication is that justice in itself is really not so fine after all. And poetry is in large part responsible for this impression.⁴¹

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the first step of Socrates’ educational reform is to excise from the repertoire all stories that have the effect Adeimantus complains of. Socrates says the criterion for choice among the stories is whether or not they are fine (377b11–c2). What soon emerges, however, is that Socrates rejects any stories that lionize a false image of the fine. So, for example, Socrates purges all stories that give a bad image of the gods (377e1–2). It cannot be that the traditional stories about the gods do not depict them as fine at all, for even though the gods are good, our first instinct is to think of them as glorious. Rather, it is in part because the traditional stories glorify the gods under a false conception of their nature that they must be censored. The gods almost by definition lead the most beautiful and noble lives. Thus, they are the ultimate standard for human glory, pride, and, on the other hand, shame.⁴² If children hear stories of these paragons of the fine cheating, lying, and otherwise behaving unjustly, they will come to find such behavior admirable (or at least not shameful), which is to say that they will come to think it is fine. Thus, Socrates says that the guardians may only hear and learn to delight in stories that depict the gods as acting in accordance with their goodness. Otherwise, the guardians will never come to find bad behavior shameful (378b1–e1). All of Socrates’ rules for proper stories about the gods, then, are not meant to direct our feelings of esteem toward the kalon rather than some other object; rather, Socrates wants (or ought to want) to mold our perception of the kalon, which we naturall yesteem, to fit the form of what is good. (Stories that do this will, in turn, be most beautiful [378e2].)

The same is true for stories about the heroes. The delight people take in listening to the Homeric legends is in part, at least, due to the pleasure of hearing about, admiring, and praising the glorious deeds of great men. But what Socrates reveals is that our admiration is not really justified By the virtuous behavior of the heroes. For example, Achilles’ lamentation is an unsuitable model for children. (This is not, perhaps, the first example of disgraceful behavior in the Iliad we would think of!) Nevertheless the ancient Greeks apparently did praise and admire Achilles. If their praise was based on anything, it can only have been based on a false sense that Achilles is kalon. The work of Socratic moral education, then, is to teach children to take aesthetic pleasure in—to perceive as fine—images of what is truly good and only them. ⁴³ Because they learn to perceive these images as fine, the images become role models with reference to which the children direct their competitive thumoeidic desires.

Now because the early molding of the future guardians’ sense of the fine is a training of thumos, it reveals a few things about the fine. First of all, if thumos is the natural human desire to be outstanding, then the kalon, insofar as it is the proper object of thumos, must be able to satisfy that desire. This suggests that fine actions are a somewhat narrower set than good actions, or actions choiceworthy for their own sakes. For if fine actions are not superior to ordinary decent (i.e., not shameful) behavior, then they will not satisfy our competitive desire. This confirms what we learned by examining Rhetoric I.9. There we saw that fine actions are good in a way that is apparent and appealing to our feelings. Related to this point, we saw in the Rhetoric that because the fine is the object of praise and blame, the fine is in some sense public. This too is implicit in the thought that to kalon is the proper object of thumos, for in Plato’s account it is characteristic of thumos to feel shame when the agent is caught being associated with ugliness, in a broad sense. (This is true even when, as in the case of a fully developed sense of shame, the public is internalized.) Thus, if the fine is to be the particular concern of spirited desire, it must be showy.

Notice that a person pursues what he takes to be fine as a way to satisfy his desire really to be outstanding, then he must think that the fine object really is good. And as we have seen, Plato does think that the truly fine is in some way a manifestation of the human good. Children can grope for the fine on their own, without the benefit of reason. But their thumos is trained when a reason external to them, embodied in their parents and the laws, trains their sense of beauty to correspond to the human good. This, then, is the second thing the Republic’s discussion of the training of thumos can teach us about the fine: The truly fine either is a modality of the good, or it points to what is good.

Finally, we do not praise fine actions so much as we praise fine people for their fine actions, and this points to the third feature of the kalon revealed by Plato’s Republic. According to Plato, spirited desires are connected to the agent’s self-esteem. When thumos succeeds in achieving its goal—the possession of what it considers to be fine—the agent feels he is an admirable person, worthy to be praised. This aspect of spirited desire is what makes it so important to give children the proper moral education, for the sense of the fine they develop in childhood determines what kind of person they take to be flourishing and worth becoming. Becoming this spirited ideal is no idle fantasy, either. Since thumos is connected to self-esteem, a person will not feel entirely satisfied with himself unless he is seen to be (or can see himself being) fine. (And when his failure to be fine is apparent, he will be ashamed.) So when Aristotle says that morally virtuous agents act for the sake of the fine, if he believes that the fine is the object of Platonic spirited desire, it is likely that he thinks actions of morally virtuous agents reveal their own sense of worthiness.⁴⁴ When a person chooses to act in a certain way for the sake of the fine, he thinks of his actions as appropriate to the kind of person he is (or aspires to become). I will return to this point in a moment.

The argument I have just made about the Republic—that thumos as such desires the fine—will undoubted lyseem a stretch to some. It cannot be denied that Plato nowhere in the Republic says that thumos seeks the fine.⁴⁵ So let me concede for the sake of argument—although I do not believe this is true—that Plato’s thumos desires fine things only after it has been properly educated. Still, the three points I made about the fine as it appears in the Republic stand.⁴⁶ For even if thumos only finds satisfaction in what the agent takes to be fine once it has been trained to do so, the fact remains that there must be something about the fine that naturally satisfies the general human desire to be outstanding. So let me repeat what Plato’s discussion of moral education can teach us about the fine. First, we can expect that the fine will in some way or other wear its desirability on its sleeve. For by possessing this quality, fine actions gratify the agent’s natural spirited desire to be victorious in competition. Second, if the fine person can be seen to be in possession of the good, then it must also be true that he seems, in virtue of possessing the fine, to have the good. Thus, the fine must point to the superior value of what is good. Third, the fine in action must be such as to satisfy the desire for self-esteem. We can expect, then, that it will be genuinely revealing of the sort of life the agent considers to be worth living. The fine action will seem to the agent to be worthy of his ideal self. The upshot is that, if Aristotle accepts Plato’s characterization of spirited desire and believes, as Plato does, that this desire is satisfied By the fine, then he must also think of the fine in human action as I have just described it. Fine actions are ones that are visibly appropriate to the agent’s ideal sense of himself.

It is important to notice that for Aristotle, as for Plato, actions are praised as fine when they are seen to be appropriate to the agent as fulfilling a human ideal. Aristotle often associates fine actions with what is fitting or appropriate (prepon, prosêkon, emmelês).⁴⁷ And at Topics 135a13 Aristotle actually say s that the fine is the fitting (cf. Topics 102a5–6). Now, Aristotle’s description of virtuous actions as ones that are performed “at the right time, with the right things, to the right people, for the right end, and as one ought” (NE 1106b21–22) emphasizes that the virtuous person fits his actions to his circumstances. But we should not infer from this that the virtuous person slavishly molds himself to meet the contingencies. For an important part of what makes virtuous actions fitting is that they are appropriate to the agent himself. This is particularly apparent in Aristotle’s discussion of the vices opposed to greatness of soul, the virtue concerned with the appropriate response to great honors (NE IV.3). We might expect that vain people, on the one hand, and the small-minded, on the other, go wrong in claiming too much or too little credit for themselves, respectively. But this is not the most important part of their error. The real problem with the small-minded person is that he does not attempt noble deeds because he does not think he is worthy of them (1125a19–27). The vain person, on the other hand, tries to perform actions that are more honored (entimoi) than his worth warrants. When he does, his actions are foolish; they are not fine (1125a27–29). This suggests that, in general, virtuous actions are fine because they are appropriate to the agent as well as to his circumstances. The virtuous agent is one who has the (or a) correct conception of human flourishing and achieves it. His actions are fine in part because, by being appropriate to him, they express his successful orientation to the human good.

Let us sum up what we have seen so far. All things are fine when they are visible as ordered, proportioned, and bounded By their good. We saw that morally virtuous actions have these formal features since they are, by definition, intermediate. Furthermore, since hitting the intermediate is such a hard thing to do, virtuous actions are praiseworthy. This link between the kalon and praise, reinforced By the Rhetoric, suggested that the agent’s desire for the fine is, in part at least, thumoeidic, or spirited. Thus, we saw that fine actions must be appropriate to the agent’s sense of his ideal self. But what is the conception of the human good to which the virtuous person aspires and that orders, proportions, and bounds morally virtuous action? The Rhetoric suggests that it is political independence that nevertheless affirms its ties to the community. The flourishing person is free within a community but does not make himself free of it. This is a part of the common conception of happiness which, I believe, Aristotle never rejects. But it is an incomplete conception. For what will the happy person do with his freedom in community? In this light, we ought not to forget Aristotle’s considered view that happiness is excellent activity of reason, and that the practically wise person is a lover of truthfulness.

If my account of the fine and my interpretation of Aristotle’s position on the human good are correct, the following ought to be true. When the morally virtuous person acts in a way that is appropriate to his sense of himself as a (successful) lover of truthfulness, his actions are determined to be just as they are By the human good, the most excellent activity of reason. And since the basis of their fineness is also the reason for their being choiceworthy for their own sakes, we can conclude that the intrinsic value of morally virtuous actions is in their orientation to a correct conception of the human good.

This point, though it should be obvious, bears repeating. In Aristotle’s account, moral virtue depends on a conception of the human good that is sufficiently distinct from particular occasions of morally virtuous action to serve as their principle of order, symmetry, and boundedness. For virtuous activity, insofar as it is fine and choiceworthy for its own sake, is just action—including deliberation—in appropriate relationship to the human good. The phronimos grasps the truth on a particular occasion by ordering his action in the precise way that is appropriate to himself as flourishing. Thus, he must have some vision of human flourishing with reference to which he can determine what is appropriate. This is not to say that excellent practical rationality cannot constitute the morally virtuous agent’s conception of happiness. (Indeed, Aristotle thinks some happy moral agents have just this conception [NE X.8].) But it does mean that he must have a way of thinking about practical excellence that is something more than or different from the appropriate acts themselves. He may, for example, think of practical excellence as a form of truthfulness and calibrate his particular acts against the standard of the practically truthful ideal.⁴⁸ To say that the human good is virtuous activity, then, although correct in its way, is not as informative as it might at first appear.⁴⁹ Of course, if we have been brought up well, we can use our intuition of which actions are virtuous as a way of discovering the truth about the human good. Indeed, this may be our only method of inquiry (NE I.4 1095b4–6: only those raised in fine habits should study the objects of politikê). But as Aristotle and Plato would say, that would be an inquiry toward first principles and not from them (1095a30–b8).

There is another consequence of Aristotle’s thinking that actions are fine when they are determined to be as they are By the human good. However acutely we may be able to recognize it, we cannot fully understand the fineness of virtuous actions without a substantive account of eudaimonia. This may be why Aristotle does not say anything informative about to kalon in the Nicomachean Ethics .He is not fully in the position to do so until he concludes his investigation.⁵⁰ The account of happiness sketched in NE I.7 as “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are many virtues, in accordance with the best and most final” is progressively developed—through the analysis of the moral virtues, the argument that theoretical wisdom is better than practical wisdom, and the discussion of our nature as social and political in the books on friendship—until finally he concludes in book X that contemplation is perfect happiness. This is not to say, however, that Aristotle wrote his chapters on the moral virtues in ignorance of his conclusion. I believe that a careful examination of those discussions will show (1) that Aristotle conceives of virtuous actions as pointing to the value of some good beyond themselves, that is, that they are ordered, made symmetrical, and bounded by some further good, and (2) that this good is activity in accordance with the highest form of rational excellence available to human beings. Since Aristotle believes that this is theôria, in the final analysis morally virtuous actions will be fine and worth choosing for their own sakes because they are appropriate to the philosopher, whether the virtuous agent understands this or not.

¹ Throughout this discussion I will usually translate kalon as ‘fine’ because I think it best captures the aesthetic and moral connotations present in the Greek word kalon as applied to action. In some contexts, however, I will translate it as ‘beautiful’. The reader should be aware that in my discussion of love in Meta. Ë and the Symposium, the word I translate as ‘beautiful’ is also kalon.

² I will discuss specific passages in chapter 7.

³ Tuozzo (1995, 130) is right to complain that scholars often “tacitlyassum[e] that choosing something for its own sake is equivalent to choosing it for the sake of the noble,” but neither is it right, I think, to suppose that these two ways of choosing virtuous actions are entirely disconnected. Aristotle often describes virtuous actions as fine, suggesting that they are fine by definition. Furthermore, whereas in NE II Aristotle emphasizes that virtuous actions are chosen for their own sakes, in the descriptions of the virtues in NE III–V he emphasizes that they are chosen for the sake of the fine. This suggests to me that drawing attention to their nobility and beauty is a more concrete way of showing what those features of the action are that make the virtuous agent choose them for their own sakes.

Tuozzo’s interpretation, although fascinating, has the unfortunate consequence that insofar as virtuous actions are fine they are not chosen for their own sakes. According to Tuozzo, actions are noble insofar as they express (virtuous) dispositions that promote the psychic leisure for happiness. But since their nobility is entirely instrumental, in what respect are they choiceworthy for themselves? (Presumably we are not free to choose just any instrument, direct or otherwise, for its own sake simply because we value it qua productive.)

⁴ Indeed, it would be preferable to say that, for Aristotle, a thing is beautiful because it is good, rather than that it is good because it is beautiful.

⁵ In saying this I echo the complaints of Cooper ([1996] 1999, 271) and Irwin (1985a, 122).

⁶ Halliwell (1986, 98) argues that in Aristotle’s discussion of beauty at Poet. 7, what’s beautiful about the appropriate magnitude is that it reveals the goal-directedness of the order. (For a less laudatory version of the same point, see Lucas 1968, 113 not. ad 1450b37.) I will discuss this passage from the Poetics in a moment. Also, at Rhet. 1361b7–14, Aristotle claims that physical beauty varies with time of life. In youth, it is the body of an athlete; in the prime of manhood, the body of a warrior; and in old age, a body capable of enduring the necessary toils and otherwise free from pain. The idea seems to be that, since what counts as a well-functioning body varies with what a body is expected to do at different stages of a person’s life, beauty will also vary. Again, beauty is a matter, at least in part, of suitability to the end.

⁷ Actually, Aristotle seems to say that the teleological structure of living things reveals beauty not because it is itself beautiful, but because the hou heneka, or for the sake of which, is the province (chôran) of the beautiful. That is, living things reveal beauty because their teleological structure points us to the beautiful. If this is correct, then the connection between beauty and goodness is even closer than I suggest in the body of this book, for the telos of a thing is also its good.

⁸ Kraut (1997, not. ad 1326a5–b25) argues that the beauty and good order of a city are not means to the city’s fulfilling its function. Rather, they are constituted By the city’s fulfilling its function. Thus, a city is beautiful when organized in such a way that it realizes its good.

⁹ So, while I agree with Cooper’s ([1996] 1999, 274) examples of order in virtuous action, I would insist that they possess order, and so beauty, not per se because the parts of a life fit with each other nicely, but because those parts are arranged for the sake of the human good.

¹⁰ I thank Jonathan Beere for suggesting this possibility. Allan (1971, 67) suggests that mathematicals are teleologically organized for the sake of the fine instead of for the sake of the good. In other words, mathematicals are arranged as they are for the sake of order, symmetry, and definiteness themselves. Thus, their order makes them beautiful, and it is on account of this beauty that they are arranged that way. There is no principle or good of their order other than order itself. This may be what Aristotle has in mind, but if so, there would be a question of whether order in the moveable realm is at all like order in the unmovable realm.

¹¹ Aristotle leaves the source of the value of divine thought as an aporia (1074b36–38); to use Ross’s (1924) paraphrase: “Is it in virtue of knowing or being known that [divine thought] is good?” Aristotle does say that if divine thought had something else as its object, and so was a potentiality, its value would depend on that other object (1074b28–33); but since divine thought is not a potentiality, and so does not think a separate object, we cannot directly infer that the value of divine thought depends on the value of its object, viz., itself. In thinking about Meta. Ë.9, I have depended heavily on the interpretations of that difficult chapter offered in Brunschwig (2000) and Kosman (2000). Both, however, believe that the goodness of divine thought is due to itself qua act of thinking, not qua excellent object of thought (Brunschwig 2000, 292–293; Kosman 2000, 312–317).

¹² Two stades = 1,200 feet, or approximately four football fields (Kraut 1997, not. ad 1326a5–b25). John Cooper has reminded me that many boats today, for example aircraft carriers, are more than two stades long. We need not think that Aristotle would find these ships out of proportion, however, for aircraft carriers have different technology and different purposes from those Aristotle knew. A very large size is in proportion to the technology and purpose of an aircraft carrier.

¹³ Ross 1924, not. ad 1078a35: “The megethos which is mentioned in the Poetics [1450b36] and in Pol. 1326a33 as an element in beauty answers to hôrismenon here [Meta M.3].” I will discuss this passage from the Poetics in a moment.

¹⁴ The Greek word is theôria, which can mean ‘looking at’ or ‘contemplation’. In the biological examples here, Aristotle seems literally to mean ‘sight’. But he must be making a point about an extended sense of theôria , since he intends his remarks to apply to the magnitude of a plot. The right size for a plot is one whose unity can be easily grasped by memory(1451a3–6).

¹⁵ Lucas 1968, not. ad 1450b38–39.

¹⁶ This does raise the question of whether, for Aristotle, beauty and fineness are relative to us in such a way that beauty would be different for different kinds of perceivers/cognizers. However, if Aristotle thinks we are paradigm perceivers of the kalon, as he surely does, then beauty would not be radically relative, although it would still be a relational property.

¹⁷ Aristotle discusses the fine in human action at length in Eudemian Ethics VIII.3, but what he says is obscure, particularly his claim that the fine person transforms ordinary goods into fine ones, and I cannot offer a satisfactory interpretation without presupposing the account of the fine I develop in this chapter. Since offering such an interpretation would not shed any independent light on what Aristotle’s basic notion of the fine in action is, I will set it aside for now. For discussions of to kalon in EE VIII.3, see Broadie 1991, 373–388; and Whiting 1996.

¹⁸ Although NE VI was probably composed separately from the rest of the NE, it is usually assumed that the first lines of the book are a new introduction to the material, composed specifically for the NE (Gauthier and Jolif 1970, not. ad VI.1).

¹⁹ See Cooper ([1996] 1999, 274–275) and Tuozzo (1995, 146–148) for further discussion.

²⁰ I am not certain whether the epaineton and haireton should be translated indicatively. (Roberts in Barnes 1984 translates both words normatively.) I am inclined to think that epaineton should be translated as ‘praiseworthy’ since otherwise the fineness of an action would be indeterminate until it is praised. Praise, however, is meant to be a response to the kalon. Haireton is a bit trickier, since Aristotle might mean that an action is kalon if it is praiseworthy, provided that the praiseworthy action has been chosen for its own sake. (Kennedy[1991] translates the passage this way, for example.) However, since Aristotle believes that actual choice ought to be guided by choiceworthiness, it is unlikely that he would commend an action’s being chosen for its own sake if it were not also choice worthy for its own sake.

²¹ Notice that Aristotle emphasizes that the pleasantness of fine things is grounded in their goodness by using two kinds of causal construction.

²² The implication, for students of rhetoric, is that orators should describe those they want to praise as fine in terms that correspond to the audience’s sense of the good.

²³ However, I think Irwin’s translation of NE 1120a11–12 is misleading in the support it seems to give for his position. Aristotle says there that it is more characteristic of virtue to do well (eu prattein) by others than to be done well (eu paschein ) by them. His point is that it is more characteristic of virtue to be active than to be passive (Gauthier and Jolif 1970, not. ad 1120a4–15). Rogers ([1993] 1999, 346–347) also notes that Aristotle implies here that being done well by is also appropriate to the virtuous person, just not as appropriate as doing well by others.

²⁴ Rogers ([1993] 1999) also denies that Rhet. I.9 supports Irwin’s altruistic interpretation of the fine in action on the grounds that there are passages, such as the one I cite above, that do not fit Irwin’s interpretation. However, she is more inclined than I am to read the Rhetoric as a hodgepodge of popular opinions about the fine, which Aristotle mayor may not endorse. Although I believe there is a certain truth in this interpretation—I agree that Aristotle is not here trying to present a systematic and philosophically defensible account of the fine—I do think it is possible to tease out a common thread in his examples of fine actions which he would, with some qualifications, endorse as an analysis of the fine.

²⁵ The Greek word for generosity is eleutheriotês, or ‘conduct befitting a free man, a man of good birth“ (Joachim 1951, not. ad 1119b22–1122a17). The association of the kalon with freedom is one Aristotle would probably accept as (part of) his considered opinion about all the moral virtues. Aristotle frequently contrasts the kalon with the necessary (anagkaion). Aristotle calls behavior necessary when it is compelled by punishment or the threat of punishment (NE 1116b2–3, 1180a4–5). Behavior (and the pleasure that may attend it) is also necessary when it is instrumentally, as opposed to intrinsically, valuable (1120b1, 1147b24, 1155a28– 29, 1171a24–26, 1176b3). Both kinds of necessity involve the idea that the agent is not directly pursuing his vision of the good, but is at most putting himself in the position to do so by gratifying his basic animal desires and providing himself with the social stability necessary for the happiness of any political animal (or, in the case of the liberal person, by supplying himself with the money necessary for virtuous giving; 1120b1). Slaves and the downtrodden live entirely under the yoke of necessity. People who are able to perform fine actions, on the other hand, act in a way that presupposes that they are free (enough) of the burden of meeting these needs. The contrast between the kalon and the necessary supports myclaim that, according to Aristotle, actions are fine because they show the agent to be in a flourishing condition, and not primarily because they benefit others. See also chapter 7, section 1, below, for a discussion of freedom, courage, and to kalon.

²⁶ Irwin’s (1985a, 137) interpretation of the fine has difficulties in explaining why self regarding virtues, such as temperance, also produce fine actions. He suggests that the generous person eats for the sake of health because he has an intermediate character formed by reflection on the fine. But how has reflection on the need to benefit the community established this disposition? Does the temperate person think that he needs to keep himself healthy so he won’t be a burden on the community, or so he will have the strength to help others? I see nothing in the NE to suggest that the temperate person must hold a utilitarian view of his own health.

It also is not clear to me even in the case of generosity (as Aristotle discusses it in NE IV.1) that the fine is determined by what conduces to the common good. The generous person hits the mean by giving the right amount to the right people at the right time (1120a24–26). Wasteful people, on the other hand, give excessively, since “sometimes they make rich those who ought to be poor, and would give nothing to those with moderate characters, but a lot to flatterers or providers of some other pleasure” (1121b5–7). The criterion for true generosity seems to be that the recipient has a character that deserves help. Giving in this fashion may in fact benefit society at large, but that consideration does not seem to be moving Aristotle’s generous person.

Finally, I do not believe Irwin’s altruistic interpretation of the fine is supported by Aristotle’s claim that the more people an action benefits, the finer it is (1094b9–10, 1121a27–30). Such actions may well be more beautiful because their teleological arrangement is more clearly visible.

The only place Irwin’s interpretation of the fine as benefiting the common good is explicitly endorsed by Aristotle is in the Politics. The beautiful city is one that is arranged for the benefit of the citizens. But since the happiness of the citizens is the end and good of a city, this conception of its beauty should come as no surprise, and in no way undermines my interpretation of the kalon in action. See Rogers ([1993] 1999) for a point-by-point response to Irwin’s position.

²⁷ We need not assume that Aristotle gives a specific account of the human good in the Rhetoric when he reports the popular sense that freedom is a mark of fine character. The discussion in the Rhetoric leaves it quite vague as to what this admired freedom is a freedom for. Popular imagination has it that the noble character lives as he chooses, but it does not specify what he chooses to do. Whatever use of this leisure is appropriate would, presumably, be happiness.

²⁸ Aquinas seems to hold the view about the fine in action that Irwin endorses. In his commentary on Aristotle’s discussion of courage, he explains that the dangers relevant to courage (the dangers of war) are most fine because they allow the brave man to act for the sake of the common good (III.xiv.538). Aquinas seems to justify this view on the grounds that, in acting for the sake of the common good and being the cause of a greater good, a person is most like God, the ultimate source of all goodness (I.ii.30). This is an excellent argument for supporters of the political life to make against supporters of the philosophical life. But it is interesting that, in NE X, Aristotle never says that people are godlike insofar as they cause goodness. Any godlikeness virtuous people may display is due to their exercise of reason (see chapter 8, below). I suspect Aristotle and Aquinas agree in thinking that being godlike is paradigmatically fine, but they disagree on the nature of the divine. Aristotle’s position reflects his belief that divine activity is essentially contemplative. Aquinas’s God is creative.

²⁹ We will return in a moment to what part of the soul to kalon does appeal to.

³⁰ Aristotle says praise is not the appropriate response to the best things, but only to those things in proper relation (to pros tipôs echein) to the best things (NE I.12 1101b12–23). If the kalon in actions is synonymous with the praiseworthy, notice that this passage from NE I.12 confirms my earlier claim that a kalon action is effectively oriented toward the human good. Notice, also, Aristotle’s implication that praised things are not most final (1102a1–4). We should remember this when, in NE X, Aristotle says that although virtuous activity is most fine (and thus most praiseworthy) it is not the highest good.

³¹ Or, as Burnyeat (1980, 78) puts it, “[S]hame is the semivirtue of the learner.”

³² Notice how Aristotle mentions with approval Plato’s claim that we ought to be trained from childhood to take pleasure in the right things (1104b11–13; cf. 1103b23–25). And though Aristotle does not mention in the NE the role poetry and music play in moral habituation, he does in Pol. VIII.5 1340a14 ff. See Burnyeat (1980, 79 ff.) for further discussion.

³³ There are two issues here: first, that Aristotle recognizes two species of nonrational desire, and second, that moral education shapes them both. As to the first, Cooper ([1996] 1999, 264– 266) has argued persuasively that when Aristotle lists the three objects of choice at NE II.3 1104b30–34 as the fine, the beneficial, and the pleasant, he is referring to the three kinds of desire hypostatized by Plato in the Republic: thumoeidic, rational, and appetitive. If Cooper is right about this, as I think he is, then we should conclude that the fine is the object of thumoeidic desire as such. For in the same passage Aristotle says the vicious person makes mistakes about all three kinds of object. But with respect to the pleasant and the beneficial, the vicious person goes wrong by thinking that things are genuinely pleasant or beneficial when in fact they are not. Likewise, then, the vicious person should mistake to kalon in the same fashion; he desiressome thing as kalon that is not, in fact, fine at all. Cf. Broadie (1991, 93) for the view that, according to Aristotle, there is an antecedent desire for the kalon that must be educated. Regarding the second issue, I have already suggested that moral education teaches delight in the fine when it teaches delight in the intermediate. Surely this pleasure can be nonrational, since we can imagine a young person delighting in good actions for themselves before having the understanding and experience necessary for practical wisdom. Below I will argue that this nonrational desire and pleasure is spirited (thumoeidic).

³⁴ In the Republic Plato says there are three parts of the soul corresponding to these three kinds of desire. Aristotle, on the other hand, attributes all these desires (or, rather, two of them) to a single part of the soul: the irrational part having a share in reason in a way. This is because, as we saw in NE VI.2, Aristotle thinks that all desire has the same function: to pursue the human good. The fact that different kinds of desire pursue the good under different descriptions is apparently irrelevant to the question of whether they are to be attributed to the same part of the soul. Consequently, whereas Plato attributes separate virtues to epithumia, thumos, and reason, Aristotle does not (Cooper [1996] 1999, 263). According to Aristotle, moral virtue (considered separately from phronêsis) is the virtue of the entire desiring part.

³⁵ Cooper [1984] 1999, 130–136.

³⁶ Cooper ([1996] 1999, 263) believes that Aristotle innovates when he says (or implies) that thumos aims at the fine. Plato, on the other hand, thinks that the proper objects of thumos are victory, honor, and so forth. Now clearly Plato does say that victory and honor are the objects of thumos (Rep. VIII–IX, passim). There are two things, though, that make me doubt that Aristotle is really innovating about the object of thumos. First, Aristotle presents the three objects of desire as a distinction with which his audience will be familiar. Since Plato’s three kinds of desire would have been familiar to Aristotle’s audience too, it would have been natural for them to link each object with its appropriate kind of desire, leaving thumos with to kalon (Cooper [1996] 1999, 265–266). Now if Aristotle thought he was contradicting Plato on this point, it would have been entirely typical of him to indicate that his thought was a new one. Furthermore, if the three objects of desire and the three kinds of desire were familiar distinctions in the Academy, it seems likely that someone before Aristotle would have thought to put them together. And if this mapping had been rejected by Plato, we could expect that Aristotle would feel the need to defend it. But he does not. Then, when we turn to the Republic, we see that the objects of thumos according to Plato—victory and honor—are typically associated with the kalon. Someone who is victorious is (apparently) outstandingly good, and that is why honor is his due. (See my discussion of greatness of soul in chapter 7, section 3, below.) Although Plato does not himself explicitly describe the object of thumos as to kalon, it seems to me that he would have had no objection to doing so.

³⁷ I thank Jonathan Beere and Zena Hitz for discussion of the following material on the Republic. I hope I have gone some way toward answering their objections to the general idea.

³⁸ This and all other translations from the Republic in this section are from Grube and Reeve (1992).

³⁹ Someone might object that the training in music and poetry does not train thumos since, at 410d–411e, Socrates suggests that this training affects the philosophical part of the soul, while the physical training affects thumos. We should not make too much of Socrates’ use of philosophos here, however, since earlier he called dogs philosophoi, as well (376b). All of the poetic training occurs before the children develop reason of their own (402a). A properly trained soul will, at this stage, love reason, but he will love it for its beauty (401d). Also, this is training of soldiers, the part of the city that later turns out to correspond to thumos in the soul.

⁴⁰ We see that Plato is ready to admit that people are attracted to things based on a false conception of the fine.

⁴¹ Contra Annas (1981, 65), what Adeimantus’s challenge adds is not “relatively minor .”

⁴² Evidence that the gods are the standards of what is kalon is in the tendency to describe heroes, such as Achilles, with the epithet “god-like.” (See also Rep . 390e–391e on Achilles.) And the heroes are, above all, kalon. Also, at Rep. 381c, Socrates says the gods are the most beautiful and best.

⁴³ The purification of images is not limited to the content of the poems. Socrates also asks Glaucon to choose musical modes and poetic meters that will imitate a moderate and ordered—i.e., a fine—life (Rep. 399c1–4, 399e8–400a7). See Rep. VIII 549c–550b, where the timocratic youth (the one ruled by his thumos) comes into being because his education in the praiseworthy and fine does not correspond to what really is good.

⁴⁴ Cf. Broadie (1991, 92–93, 127) for a discussion of the idea that, in the NE, acting for the sake of the fine is tied to the agent’s sense of self-esteem.

⁴⁵ Indeed, as Hobbes (2000, 4) reminds us, the typical complaint of commentators is that there seems to be no coherent goal of thumos at all.

⁴⁶ Nevertheless, I think my claim that we ought to try to understand to kalon as what satisfies spirited desire is stronger if this sort of desire as such aims at the fine.

⁴⁷ Rogers ([1993] 1999, 338) argues that when Aristotle says that the virtuous person acts “in accordance with worth (kat’ axian),” he means that the action is fitting.

⁴⁸ The correct conception of eudaimonia would not provide us with a precise rule for action. At some level the phronimos must just see what is appropriate at the particular moment to the flourishing human being.

⁴⁹ Aristotle’s definition of the human good in NE I.7 as “activity of soul in accordance with virtue” is somewhat more informative than this, since he has already made clear that the virtue in question is rational virtue.

⁵⁰ Of course, as I argued in the previous section, Aristotle thinks the horos, or limit, of the virtues is theoretical contemplation. Since fine things are bounded (horismena), NE VI implicitly contains an account of the fine in action.