[MaFLa] Audrey Anton: The lesser of two evils (március 10., 15:30, CEU, Nádor utca 15., 103. terem)

[StB at elte.hu]

Central European University

Philosophy Departmental Colloquium

 

Audrey Anton

(Institute for Advanced Study, CEU)

 

The Lesser of Two Evils: Aristotle on Why Some Vices Are Worse Than Others

 

Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 3:30 pm - 5:10 pm

Nádor u. 15., Room 103

 

In Nicomachean Ethics (EN) II.6, we learn that virtue is a mean between two
vices-one of excess and one of deficiency. We also learn that, "in
everything continuous and divisible we can take more, less, and equal
amounts" (1106a27), and that "there are many ways to be in error-for badness
is proper to the indeterminate, as the Pythagoreans pictured it, and good to
the determinate (1106b31). This imagery of a mean between two extremes, all
three of which appear in relation to one another on a spectrum seems helpful
at first; for a person can be more or less cowardly, but one who is
courageous has achieved a fixed virtuous state. Furthermore, he who is more
cowardly than another who is less so is the worse of the two, as his
character deviates from the mean to a greater extent. However, Aristotle
complicates matters by adding that, though each extreme vice is opposed both
to virtue and the other, one vice is typically more opposed to virtue than
the other. Here, the metaphor of a mean breaks down slightly, and scholars
are left to discern what makes one vice worse than another. In this
presentation, I shall consider (and ultimately reject) one popular way to
understand why some vices are worse than others: it seems that one of the
vices resembles more the corresponding virtue, and that vice, by
association, is the lesser of the two evils. Ultimately, I shall replace
this solution with a more plausible and eclectic view, which takes into
consideration the nature of the vicious ignorance associated with the vice,
the motives behind the vicious behavior, and where these stand in relation
to our lesser or greater human nature. In conclusion, I find that some vices
associated with the animalistic aspect of the human soul are more
characteristic of persons with vicious character, whereas other vices,
though unpleasant, are more characteristic of agents who are merely bad, but
not vicious.



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