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Вестник СПбГУ. Философия и конфликтология. 2017. Т. 33. Вып. 3
S. V. Nikonenko
THE ARISTOTELIAN WAY OF LIFE As coNTEMPoRARY MoRAL oNTOLoGY
The matter of the article is the study of the concept Aristotelian way of life as the concept of contemporary moral ontology. Several moral philosophers are considered: A. Flew, B. Williams, A. Macintyre, S. Hampshire, J. L. Mackie, R. M. Hare, etc. According to Flew, moral rationality is only the capacity to act and to be responsible in moral way. Moral rationality does not define the essence of moral acts. Williams treats Aristotle as a moral anti-realist. Macintyre proposes practical rationality, unlike the "theoretical" one, that depends on actions and not only on thoughts. Macintyre thinks that practical rationality is changeable in history. He calls the stage of practical rationality a tradition. S. Hampshire's criticism of Aristotelian way of life is considered. He thinks that Aristotle is a founder of moral sub-stantialism. The Aristotelian way of life is an ethics of individual perception. Ethical virtues must be conscious, but they are not rational in metaphysical sense. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is studied in the article. There are three main ideas of Aristotle that have been influenced the analytical moral philosophy: 1. The unity of all the virtues; 2. The practical character of morality; 3. The freedom of individual will. Aristotle taken in the mirror of analytic moral philosophy is an adept of practical thinking, incompatible with moral rationalism and substantialism. There are main characteristic features of the Aristotelian way of life: 1. It is an ethics of individual perception, 2. Individual perception is possible only in moral tradition, 3. Ethical virtues must be conscious, but they are not rational in metaphysical sense, 4. It is inseparable from analysis of moral actions, 5. It is in some aspects independent of language, 6. It is a possible standard of individual eudemonia. Ontology of the Aristotelian way of life is criticized here. It is an ontology of individual subject in his connection with tradition. Any practical moral rationality and Aristotelian way of life may be fulfilled only in society. Refs 18.
Keywords: morality, rationality, ontology, individuality, analytical philosophy, Aristotle.
С. В. Никоненко
«аристотелевский путь жизни» как концепт современной моральной онтологии
Предметом статьи, написанной на английском языке на основе непереведенных источников, выступает моральная онтология группы видных представителей аналитической этики (А. Флю, Б. Уильямс, А. Макинтайр, С. Хэмпшир, Дж. Л. Мэки, Р. М. Хеар и др.). Свое представление о моральном облике личности эти философы строят вокруг интерпретации этических трудов Аристотеля. В центре внимания стоит проблема моральной рациональности, решение вопроса о сущности добродетелей. Вышеназванные мыслители выступают критиками концепции всеобщей моральной рациональности. В статье проводится анализ положений «Ни-комаховой этики», которые повлияли на аналитическую моральную философию. Выделяются три ключевые идеи Аристотеля: 1) учение о единстве добродетелей; 2) практический характер этики; 3) учение о свободе воли. При этом выводится концепт «аристотелевский путь жизни» как форма практической рациональности личности, помещенной в определенную социальную среду и традицию. Согласно Флю, моральная рациональность — только способность к совершению поступков; она не определяет сущности этических императивов. Уильямс трактует Аристотеля в манере морального антиреализма. Макинтайр предлагает понятие «практической» рациональности, считая «теоретическую» рациональность неприменимой к проблемам этики. Макинтайр считает, что практическая рациональность зависит от традиции и изменяется в истории. В статье также рассматривается критика Хэмпшира, который был противни-
Nikonenko Sergey V. — Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, St. Petersburg State University, 7-9, Univer-sitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation; serg_nikonenko@rambler.ru
Никоненко Сергей Витальевич — доктор философских наук, профессор, Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, Российская Федерация, 199034, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 7-9; serg_nikonenko@rambler.ru
© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2017
ком концепции «аристотелевского пути жизни». Он считает Аристотеля основоположником этического субстанциализма. Установлено, что суть аристотелевского пути жизни состоит в следующем: 1. Это этика индивидуального субъекта. 2. Индивидуальный субъект всегда погружен в моральную традицию. 3. Этические добродетели осознанны, но они не рациональны в метафизическом смысле. 4. Любой моральный анализ должен учитывать человеческие поступки. 5. В некотором отношении мораль независима от лингвистических критериев. 6. Это лишь возможный стандарт достижения эвдемонии. Хотя концепт «аристотелевский путь жизни» и выражает современные аналитические представления об эвдемонии, его следует подвергнуть критике по двум причинам. Во-первых, этот концепт имеет довольно отдаленное отношение к теории Аристотеля; этика древнегреческого философа понимается в духе творческого переописания. Во-вторых, автор статьи подвергает критике моральный индивидуализм аналитических моральных философов, пытаясь показать, что подлинная «аристотелевская» моральная онтология личности возможна только в социальном смысле. Библиогр. 18 назв.
Ключевые слова: мораль, рациональность, онтология, личность, аналитическая философия, Аристотель.
1. Introduction
Aristotelian ethics is one of the main classical sources of analytic moral philosophy. H. Prichard in Moral Obligation thinks that Aristotle's ethics is based on the study of practice of moral life. He re-writes Kant as the practical moral thinker too and he separates Kant's The Critique of Practical Reason from Hegelian ethics (F. H. Bradley, etc.). G. E. Moore follows Prichard in his analysis of the effects of moral acts. It is moral analytic realism that Moore has founded. He thinks in Principia Ethica that good is a simple and not-analytic moral quality: so there is no metaphysical supervision on ethical laws. Moore agrees with Aristotle [1] when he supposes that Aristotle's virtue is a habitual disposition for any moral act. Moore argues that there are no moral obligations from the transcendental point of view. He writes: "I find it hard to believe that either the idea of moral obligation or the idea of intrinsic value is merely a psychological idea" [2, p. 339]. So there are three main characteristics of moral acts that should be analyzed:
— dispositions;
— verbal understanding;
— practical effects.
To sum up Moore's introduction I should propose that Moore's common sense is in main aspects equivalent to Aristotle's understanding of collective virtues. It is the tradition and the conscious choice that must lead us to moral perfection.
There are a lot of analytic moral philosophers who wrote on Aristotle: B. Russell, C. D. Broad, J. Austin, B. Williams, R. M. Hare, W. V. O. Quine, P. Geach, A. Flew, A. Mac-intyre, R. Wollheim etc. It is impossible to study all the analytic moral critics of Aristotle in this article; so we took only three of them: A. Flew, B. Williams and A. Macintyre. We try to present their grounds of Aristotle's understanding and we try to answer the question: What is Aristotelian way of life?
2. A. Flew's defense of moral Aristotelianism
Firstly, let us study A. Flew's defense of moral Aristotelianism. Flew supposes that Aristotle understands moral rationality in another way that New Time philosophers did. He writes: "Rational beings are agents capable of having and of giving their own reasons for choosing to act however they do choose to act" [3, p. 45]. He thinks that moral rationality
is only the capacity to act and to be responsible in moral way. Aristotle thinks the same when he writes: "Any study and art, any action and conscious choice are the reasons for good" [1, p. 54]. According to Flew moral rationality does not define the essence of moral acts. He calls "procrusteanism" any ethical theory which tries to find substantial grounds for any possible moral act. "Procrusteanism begins when, and so far as, such services are offered without change to all; and without any tax relief for those choosing to make their own independent provision. It is in full possession when and only when all provision has to be uniform and monopolistic" [3, p. 191]. He adds that ethical laws and norms must be separated from scientific understanding: "The causes of human actions are fundamentally and most relevantly different from the causes of all those events which are not human functions" [4, p. 82]. Ethics without procrusteanism is the ethics of choice and moral freedom. It is not sufficient to obey moral laws; we must make these laws a matter of our rational choice. It is rather impossible to be a moral agent without being conscious about his own moral acts and moral acts of other people.
Flew criticizes the idealistic ethical tradition. "A Platonic-Cartesian understanding of human nature insists that our most distinctive characteristics cannot belong to creatures of flesh and blood: the true me and the true you must be things essentially incorporeal" [5, p. 123]. So the core of Flew's criticism of rationalism is his refusal to look at a moral agent only as a spiritual being. I do not want to go away the matter of this speech; I only mention that Flew criticizes Cartesian ethics in the same manner as G. Ryle does it in his criticism of Descartes' Myth. It is more important that Flew proposes Aristotelian ethics as a positive ground for analytic moral philosophy. He writes: "What I shall be expounding and defending belongs to the Aristotelian as opposed to Platonic-Cartesian tradition; and that the emphasis throughout will be on the fundamental yet widely uncongenial fact that we can and cannot but make choice" [5, p. 1]. To sum up with Flew's ethics, he considers three main feartures of Aristotelian way of life:
1) conscious choice;
2) moral realism;
3) analyzing bodily not only spiritual motives.
3. B. williams' analysis of Aristotelian ethics
Secondly, I study B. Williams' analysis of Aristotelian ethics. For the beginning, I would like to discuss some William's views. He thinks that philosophy pursues ethical purposes: "Philosophy starts from questions that, at any view of it, it can and should ask, about chances we have of finding out how best to live; in the course of that it comes to see how much it itself may help, with discursive methods of analysis and argument critical discontent, and an imaginative comparison of possibilities, which are what it most characteristically tries to add to our resources of historical and personal knowledge" [6, p. 4]. Williams concerns Aristotle as a founder of a problem of the best way of living, not the ideal morality. Ethics puts practical reason. It is not an abstract theory. "The aim of ethical thought, however, is to help us to construct a world that will be our world, one in which we have a social, cultural, and personal life. That does not mean that we should forget that the natural world is not designed as our home such as Spinoza's <.. .> But this does not mean that it is the proper perspective of ethical thought itself" [6, p. 111]. Williams proposes to distinguish scientific reason and moral reason. He thinks that this dualism is not bridge-
able. He writes: "There would be a structure very different from that of the objectivity of science. There would be a radical difference between ethics and science, even if ethics were objective in the only way in which it intelligibly could be. However, this does not mean that there is a clear distinction between (any) fact and (any) value, nor does it mean that there is no ethical knowledge" [6, p. 155]. I should mention that there is ethical knowledge. But this knowledge is:
1. Radically different from any descriptive knowledge.
2. It is prima facie practical knowledge.
Williams puts forward pluralistic moral anti-realism. He calls "the moral luck point of view" the theory of the contingency of any possible moral perfection. He writes so: "I will be clear that when I say of something that it is a matter of luck, this is not meant to carry any implication that it is uncaused. My procedure in general will be to invite reflection about how to think and feel about some rather usual situations, in the light of an appeal to how we — many people — tend to think and feel about other more usual situations, not in terms of substantive moral opinions or 'intuitions' but in terms of experience of those kinds of situations" [7, p. 22]. Williams does not propose the view of the contingency of morality (like R. Rorty does). He thinks that individual moral life is full of contingency. People are in difficulty not only to choose the right moral way of life. They are in difficulty to evaluate his own level of perfection and they are in difficulty to reflect upon his moral choice. So there is no one decision of the problem of moral obligations. "I shall first consider the claim about moral obligation and shall argue that there is no reason to regard the ought of moral obligation as anything but a propositional operator. What we need to do <...> is to distinguish between different kinds of states and affairs that ought to be the case" [7, p. 115]. Williams turns to the J. Austin's problems of ought-sentences. He writes so: "The class of moral obligations in the wider sense just is the class of oughts about an agent's actions <. > The conclusion follows, for which I have tried to argue, that 'moral obligation' is not a category of oughts picked out by logical form" [7, p. 121]. Williams thinks that ought-sentences are not theoretical and descriptive sentences. They are practical and linguistic sentences. Williams's view is rather modernistic. He wants to show Aristotle as a "liberal" ethical theorist.
Williams proposes the paradigm of an approach trying to base ethics on considerations of well-being and of a life worth living. So, he tries to solve Socratic, Platonic and Aristotelian main moral question that is: What is the perfect life that it is worth living? Man should try reaching the life that as perfect as possible in moral sense. "I said that for Aristotle a virtue was an internalized disposition of action, desire and feeling. It is an intelligent disposition. It involves the agent's exercise of judgment, that same quality of practical reason, and so it is not simply a habit" [6, p. 35]. I would like to speak more about "agent's exercise". I think that there is no any fixed moral capacities in analytic moral Aristotelianism. Aristotle writes: "No moral virtue is naturally inborn because any natural capacity cannot be shaped for anything" [1, p. 78]. The quality "to be moral" depends on, as may be supposed, subjective agent's choice and moral tradition in this society. So, Aristotle taken in the mirror of analytic moral philosophy is an adept of practical thinking incompatible with moral rationalism and substantionalism.
Williams writes on Aristotle: "Aristotle saw a certain kind of ethical, cultural, and indeed political life as a harmonious culmination of human potentialities" [7, p. 52]. But Williams puts some criticism to Aristotle. He thinks that Aristotle is not interesting in
moral language. Aristotle's ethical thinking is linguistically restricted by his own tradition (we call it "ancient tradition"). Ancient ethical principles have collapsed. Williams adds that Aristotle's harmony of virtues is hardly acceptable in any human life and in any human society.
Williams calls not to overestimate the practical character of Aristotle's ethics. He thinks that Aristotle puts away individual ethics. Williams writes: "Aristotle thought of the critical life as a device that increased selfish satisfactions. Their outlook is formally egoistic, in the sense that they have to show to each person that he has good reasons to live ethically" [6, p. 32]. I may suppose that "critical life" is a kind of ethical skepticism that is incomparable with normal social communication. Williams thinks that Aristotle combines his political traditionalism with metaphysical universalism about the self. "Aristotle himself held a very strong theory of general ideology: each kind of thing had an ideal form of functioning, which fitted together with that other things. He believed that all the excellences of character had to fit together into a harmonious self" [6, p. 43]. There is the only ideal of harmonious self. But there are individual ways to reach this ideal.
To finish, I think that Williams treats Aristotle in a manner of moral anti-realism. I think that it is an opened question: Has Aristotle influenced moral anti-realism and moral pluralism? We may only be sure that Williams interprets Aristotle in another way than Tomas Aquinas and Spinoza did. He is closer to Hume's understanding of Aristotle's ethics.
4. A. Macintyre's concept of ethical rationality
Thirdly, I comment A. Macintyre's concept of ethical rationality in connection with his view on Aristotle. He defines practical rationality: "To know what justice is, so it may seem, we must first learn what rationality in practice required of us <.. .> To be practically rational <...> is to act on the basis of calculations of the costs and benefits to oneself of each possible alternative course of actions and its consequences" [8, p. 2]. So practical rationality, unlike "theoretical" one, depends on actions, not only on thoughts. As a matter of fact, there is no universal moral rationality. Macintyre thinks that practical rationality is changeable in history. He calls the stage of practical rationality a tradition. "I shall argue a conception of rational enquiry as embodied in the tradition, a conception according to which the standards of rational justification themselves emerge from and are part of history in which they are vindicated by the way in which they transcend the limitations of and provide remedies for the defects of their predecessors within the history of that same tradition" [8, p. 7]. Macintyre rejects Cartesian view on the universalism of cogito. He writes: "Traditions fail to Cartesian test of beginning from unassailable evident truths; not only do they begin from contingent positivity, but each begins from a point different from that of the others. Traditions also fail the Hegelian test of showing that their goal is some final rational state which they share with all other movements of thought. Traditions are always and inradically to some degree local, informed by particularities of language and social and natural environment" [8, p. 361]. Macintyre puts ethics into his general metaphysical conception of the relativity of rationality to the tradition. Any tradition has its own mode of rationality.
How has Aristotle influenced Macintyre's theory of tradition? He writes: "From a Platonic or an Aristotelian point of view <.> rationality is exercised in its own specific forms
of activity with its own goods, its own ends internal to that activity. From this point of view passions must indeed be educated and redirected so that the human being qua rational being may pursue these ends specific to that rationality" [8, p. 301] (Macintyre speaks more on Aristotle, not on Plato). Shortly speaking, we have changeable emotional nature that is important for any moral education. There are two main changes of human nature:
— individual development;
— transformation of tradition.
I suppose that Macintyre prefers traditional causality to any individual transformations. "What I am claiming is that each required the other and that un coming together they defined a new social and cultural artifact 'the individual'. In Aristotelian practical reasoning it is the individual qua citizen who reasons <.> But in the practical reasoning of liberal modernity it is the individual qua individual who reasons" [8, p. 339]. Macintyre condemns the Enlightenment moral philosophy for disturbing Aristotelian ethical principles. "This is the kind of post-Enlightenment person who responds to the failure of the Enlightenment to provide neutral, impersonal tradition-independent standards of rational judgment by concluding that no set of beliefs proposed for acceptance is therefore justifiable" [8, p. 395]. Of course, we may deny Aristotelian understanding of slavery society. But it is possible to agree with Aristotle in assuming that a good man is perfect from the point of view of his tradition, state and society.
Macintyre proposes traditionally dependent view on morality. "It is an illusion to suppose that there is some neutral standing ground, some locus for inquiry independent of all traditions <.> To be outside all traditions is to be a strange to inquiry; it is to be a state of intellectual and moral destitution, a condition from which it is impossible to issue the relativist challenge" [8, p. 367].There can arise a discrepancy between individual free will and the tradition-dependence. "Every individual is to be equally free to propose and to live by whatever conception of the good, he or she pleases, derived from whatever theory of tradition he or she may adhere to, unless that conception of the good involves reshaping the life of the rest of the community in accordance with it" [8, p. 335]. I think that Macintyre stays in dualistic situation because any tradition tends to state a monopolistic ethical standard that seems like the universal standard from a phenomenal perspective of a man staying inside this tradition. But there is one important question: Is man a toy of his tradition, is tradition like a fetish? I think that there is principal contradiction between traditional dependence and the freedom of individual choice. Macintyre argues that man's moral life cannot exist without thinking about his own tradition. Aristotelian way of life is a harmony of individual and social perfection; so it is impossible outside tradition. I want to mention that B. Russell calls not to try to dissolve this dualism when he writes: "I do not believe that a complete harmony of private and public interests is possible, and, where it is not possible, I fear that ethical arguments fails. But I think there is much less disharmony than is commonly supposed" [9, p. 87]. I suppose that Macintyre is far from the dualism of public and private life. But he is also a critic of the conception of unifying harmony of individual and social lives.
The main subject of Macintyre's After Virtue [10] is to compare Aristotelian moral rationality with contemporary one. The main characteristic feature of contemporary moral discourse is that it exists in fragmented mode. Aristotelian ethics defined his own tradition instead of modern moral philosophy that is a marginal discipline. Aristotle's eudai-monia may be a suitable ideal of private perfection in contemporary society too. Aristotle
defines eudaimonia: "Happiness is the practice of soul life inspired by virtue" [1, p. 281]. There must be some moral criteria that are independent of any opinion. But they should not be universal criteria.
5. other conceptions of Aristotelian way of life
We shall study some other ethical theories on Aristotelian way of life. As I have said earlier there is a tradition to think about the eudemonia in analytical moral philosophy. These works concern Aristotelian way of life indirectly, but they are important for reaching all the panoramic view on the private live and tradition.
I think that all the theories of Aristotelian way of life are influenced by R. M. Hare's prescriptivism. According to prescriptivism view on morals "These two requirements are, as will be recognized <...> — that moral principles have to be universal, and that they have to be prescriptive" [11, p. 47]. Hare's prescriptivism is in Harmony with Aristotle's ethics. But it is difficult to combine the relativity and individual choice with the claims of universal laws. So Hare proposes the combination of moral prescriptivism and uni-versalism. He writes: "I put forward in 'The Language of Morals', and still hold, 'universal prescriptivism' — a combination, that is to say, of universalism (the view that moral judgments are universalizable) and prescriptivism (the view that they are, at any rate typically, prescriptive)" [11, p. 16].
Hare tends to prescriptivism because he is a follower of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. All the moral prescriptions are firstly the linguistic ones. He argues the evaluative meaning of moral concepts that is relevant to language and traditions. But an moral agent is situated inside the traditional moral language; so he seems this language as a tool of universal rules. "We have knowledge of the evaluative meaning of 'good' from our earliest years; but we are constantly learning, to use it in new descriptive meanings, as the classes of objects whose virtues we learn to distinguish grow more numerous" [12, p. 118], — writes Hare. Hare proposes the way to escape the conflict between the individual choice and the requirements of morals. It is the way of individual moral development (the moral growth, in other words). Hare thinks on this matter: "To become morally adult is <.> to learn to use 'ought'-sentences in the realization that they can only be verified by reference to a standard or set of principles which we have by our own decision accepted and made our own" [12, p. 196]. What is the sense of English moral verb ought in analytical moral philosophy? I think that ought is quite different from must. The ought-sentences suppose the individual choice to follow any moral laws. This is not the way of "juridical morality" when a person only obeys moral laws. This the conscious way of moral conduct and evaluation. As Hare supposes: "Our method, because it is purely formal, relies on nothing but the choice between alternative prescriptions, some universal and some singular <.> These prescriptions are all the expressions of preferences. None has greater authority or dignity than another, so far as reasoning goes. The only advantage given to moral prescriptions over others is that the prescription finally chosen has to be uninversalizable; this is the requirement rejected by the amoralist" [13, p. 179]. To sum up, I could make a supposition that prescriptivism is very close to Aristotle's Ethics (maybe except linguistic sense). Prescriptivism is point of view of conscious choice of moral person to share the traditional and linguistic moral ways of conduct. It is a method of "weak" moral rules.
J. L. Mackie speaks on moral norms as the "internal" ones. "In speaking of 'norms' as well as of 'conventions', we are recognizing that what arise in this way are not only patterns of behavior but also rules or principles of action which are 'internalized' by the participants. The association of moral sentiments with the practices, in particular disapproval of violations, the feeling that they are wrong or not to be done, and a sense of guilt about one's own transgressions, is a major part of such internalization" [14, p. 159]. Mackie puts forward the moral anti-realistic point of view. All the moral laws and norms are relevant to the tradition; and any conscious choice is rather restricted. Mackie thinks that Aristotle had created the ethics without moral totalitarianism. He argues that: "There is no single view about what moral concepts coherently involve which will provide a good argument for the logical theses of all the stages of universalization" [14, p. 182]. Mackie is a participant of common analytical moral view that it is impossible to put forward "universal", "general", or "Platonic" conception of moral norms.
There is one important aspect of Aristotelian way of life. An ethical subject stays in neutral position to any moral laws and norms. He can choose such and such moral norms but these norms are not "essential" or "intrinsic" for him. A. Montefiore writes about this subject: "My own immediate hunch is to pursue the elusive notion of 'neutrality'. Not, of course, that of some 'absolute' neutrality, a neutrality with respect to all possible viewpoints at once <.> but rather a sense or senses of 'neutrality' which will depend in some way on the nature of the terms between which neutrality is sought" [15, p. 202]. I may add that moral neutrality is not only a freedom of will. Neutrality is a way of life full of individual conscious choice. This life is free from any moral oppression and it is possible in any society and any times. I may agree with D. Wiggins who writes about neutrality: "A social morality, as conceived here, is not even something which it is as if we have opted or contracted into. It is simply the sort of thing that we find ourselves in the midst of" [16, p. 35]. Aristotle says that man has a moral essence. But there is no inborn moral essence. We should get this essence by the way of conscious life.
6. s. Hampshire's criticism of Aristotelian way of life?
The matter of this article is to give all the panoramic view of studying Aristotle's Nikomachean Ethics in analytical moral philosophy. So we should speak not only of participant but the critics of Aristotelian way of life. I think that S. Hampshire is a leader of criticism of Aristotle's ethics in analytical moral philosophy. Firstly let us study Hampshire's moral views; secondly let us study his criticism of Aristotle.
Hampshire puts forward his moral theory from the point of view of radical pluralism. He writes: "The human soul is not throughout structured into universally ordered potentialities dictating a definite and highly specific way of life for any creature within the species" [17, p. 31]. Moral pluralism opposes to moral universalism. Hampshire thinks that the typical moral universalism is the point of moral view of the Enlighten. "The argument of this book are throughout directed against this Enlighten conception of a single substantial morality, including a conception of the good and the human virtue" [17, p. 107]. Moral substantial view proposes Reason as an ideal moral subject. This Moral Reason is an abstract, not concrete person. Hampshire tries to prove that Enlighten moral substantial-ism is a myth of the Rationalists.
What does Hampshire propose against Enlighten moral substantialism? He tries to argue the theory of plurality of moral standards. IE P. 179. "Ways of life evidently come to be and pass away, together with the conceptions of the good that animate them" [17, p. 179]. There are two main arguments against moral substantialism:
1. Substantialism ignores free will and the freedom of choosing the way of life. Hampshire writes: "There exist a multiplicity of coherent ways of life, held together by conventions and imitated habits, for such the same reasons that there is a multiplicity of natural languages, held together by conventions and imitated habits of speech" [18, p. 148].
2. Any morality (especially the conception of eudemonia) depends on historical situation. Moral laws and imperatives change in history.
As we have already seen, Flew, Williams, Macintyre and many other moralists think that Aristotelian way of life is oppose to Cartesian and Enlighten moral substantialism. But Hampshire holds this topic in different way. He supposes that Aristotle is a founder of moral substantialism. Hampshire confesses: "I leave Aristotle because he believed that the essential human potentialities are fixed <. > I shall argue that they are not fixed" [17, p. 32]. Hampshire understands morality as a process of the growth of moral self-consciousness. So Hampshire thinks that Aristotle is a substantialist about any moral capacity.
The second Hampshire's objection concerns the problem of moral standards. "The good for man, in the singular, is not one of the ways of life, specifically described to specific known conditions, which an individual has to choose or reject in a particular emergency <.> There can be no single supreme end in this particularized sense, as both social orders and human capabilities change" [18, p. 36]. He criticize Aristotle for his point of view that man is free, but he is free to choose the only reasonable moral standard. Hampshire proposes the plurality of moral standards.
Third Hampshire's objection concern the moral conflict. He writes: "Aristotle was in error in supposing ultimate conflict to be in principle, and with luck, avoidable <...> My claim rests on the indispensable and related notions of convention of ways of life, and on analogy between moralities and natural languages in respect of their plurality" [18, p. 159]. So there can be a co-existence of different moral ways of life. Aristotle thinks that Greek life is a synonymous life of any clever man. But Hampshire thinks that thus thesis opposes the social practice. So he looks at Aristotle as a founder of the conception of universal and substantial Moral Reason.
7. what is Aristotelian way of life?
Now I am going to come to conclusion. Aristotelian way of life is the interpretation of Aristotle's ethics in analytical moral philosophy. It is not historical or linguistic study but it is a re-writing of Aristotle's principles; it is an attempt to apply these principles to our own life. To sum up, there are main moral principles of Aristotelian way of life:
— It is an ethics of individual perception;
— Individual perception is possible only in moral tradition;
— Ethical virtues must be conscious, but they are not rational in metaphysical sense;
— It is inseparable from analysis of moral actions;
— It is in some aspects independent of language;
— It is a possible standard of individual eudemonia.
8. some critical remarks
A. Macintyre thinks that "Supreme good is central to Aristotle account of practical rationality" [4, p. 133]. What is Aristotle's practical rationality? I may suppose that his rationality emerges from the life of the polis. Aristotle writes: 'The just aristocracy can be only in the state where it is governed by the best men from the virtuous point of view" [1, p. 501]. Though perfect life is a life full of spirit of wisdom and philosophy this life is not completely private life of a perfect individual. It is social life too. My criticism to Macintyre, Flew and Williams is in supposition that it is impossible to apply analytical utilitarian morality to historical Aristotle's works. In my opinion, Aristotle writes nothing on possibility for tradition to be changeable or on the plurality of moral traditions. That is why I think that Aristotelian way of life is rather modernistic concept: and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics has been re-written in analytical manner. According this theory we may explain the essence of individual eudemonia. But what is about collective eudemonia? Contemporary practical rationality cannot be understood without a concept of collective moral intentionality. I may agree that Aristotelian way of life proposes new project of practical rationality without any kind of universalism. But Aristotelian problem of summum bonum may not be decided in the individual life beyond the tradition. In my opinion, any practical moral rationality and Aristotelian way of life may be fulfilled only in societas.
References
1. Aristotle. Nikomakhova etika [Nicomachean Ethics]. Aristotle. Sochineniia [Works], in 4 vols. Vol. 4. Moscow, Mysl', 1983, pp. 53-295. (In Russian)
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3. Flew A. Equality in Liberty and Justice. Routledge, 1989. 287 p.
4. Flew A. Apologia Pro Philosophia Mea. Philosophy in Britain Today. London, SUNY Press, 1986, pp. 71-85.
5. Flew A. A Rational Animal and Other Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press, 1978. 324 p.
6. Williams B. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Routledge, 2006. 297 p.
7. Williams B. Moral Luck. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981. 173 p.
8. Macintyre A. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Indiannopolis, University of Notre Dame, 1988. 421 p.
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10. Macintyre A. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Indiannopolis, University of Notre Dame Press, 1984. 243 p.
11. Hare R. M. Freedom and Reason. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963. 286 p.
12. Hare R. M. The Language of Morals. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1952. 258 p.
13. Hare R. M. Moral Thinking. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981. 314 p.
14. Mackie J. L. Selected Papers, vol. II. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985. 252 p.
15. Montefiore A. Fact, Value and Ideology. British Analytical Philosophy. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971, pp. 195-216.
16. Wiggins D. Needs, Values, Truth. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1987. 278 p.
17. Hampshire S. Innocence and Experience. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1989. 195 p.
18. Hampshire S. Morality and Conflict. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1983. 172 p.
For citation: Nikonenko S. V. The Aristotelian way of life as contemporary moral ontology. Vestnik SPbSU. Philosophy and Conflict studies, 2017, vol. 33, issue 3, pp. 326-335. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu17.2017.308.
Received 10.11.2016 Accepted 16.03.2017
