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“Not without phronesis”:
Socrates and Aristotle on Virtue

A. W. Müller

1The Socratic position
judged from an Aristotelian point of view

In both the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle mentions Socrates several times; inter alia in the passage, from which my paper draws its title. Socrates, he there says, “was mistaken in thinking that all the virtues are forms of prudence [phroneseis], but he was quite right in asserting that they imply prudence [ouk aneu phroneseos]” (EN VI 1144b18-21; cf. EE I 1216b3-8, which has epistemai instead of phroneseis).

This and other passages suggest that Aristotle’s account of virtue may be read, in part, as a corrective response to a position that he attributes to the historical Socrates. About the notorious problems raised by attempts to identify such a position, I wish to say only two things: First, I take it for granted that Aristotle himself was in a position to have a pretty good idea of the actual Socrates’ views (cf. Guthrie 1969; Taylor 1998). Second, given this assumption, and the tenor of Aristotle’s brief references to Socrates on virtue and knowledge, it seems to me both justified and helpful to read these references in the light of the early (or better: Socratic) dialogues of Plato from which I am going to quote. And third, such a reading seems to be of interest even if the historical connexion is not what I am assuming it to be.

In what follows I wish to suggest that Aristotle’s account of the role of phronesis (practical knowledge) in a life of virtue can be viewed as an attempt, largely successful, to improve on the Socratic view that virtue is knowledge.

This view – I am going to call it the identity thesis – is developed, from various points of view, in various Platonic dialogues. In the Meno, for instance, Socrates distinguishes those qualities of the soul that are knowledge from those that are “different from it”. Of the latter he says that they “at times harm us, at other times benefit us” (88a-b). “If then virtue”, he concludes (c-d) “is something in the soul and it must be beneficial, it must be knowledge, since all the qualities of the soul are in themselves neither beneficial nor harmful, but accompanied by wisdom or folly they become harmful or beneficial. The argument shows that virtue, being beneficial, must be a kind of wisdom”.

EN VI 1144b18ff: “there are two qualities, natural virtue and virtue in the full sense; and of these the latter implies prudence. This is the reason why some people maintain that all the virtues are forms of prudence; and why Socrates, though partly right, was also partly wrong in his inquiries, because he was mistaken in thinking that all the virtues are forms of prudence (phroneseis), but he was quite right in asserting that they imply prudence (ouk aneu phroneseos). This is shown by the fact that even now all thinkers, when defining virtue, after first saying what state it is and what its objects are, add the qualification ‘in accordance with the right principle’; and the right principle is that which accords with prudence. So it appears that everybody as it were divines that virtue is a state of this kind, viz. in conformity with prudence. But we must go a little further than this, because virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence. So whereas Socrates thought that the virtues are principles (phroneseis) (because he said that they are all forms of knowledge), we say that they imply a principle (ouk aneu phroneseos). Thus we see from these arguments that it is not possible to be good in the true sense of the word without prudence, or to be prudent without moral goodness.”

The view thus arrived at raises a number of problems and questions. In the next section, I am going to mention four of the problems and indicate solutions to them that Aristotle’s account can be taken to provide. The third and last section is devoted to the question how the role of knowledge in the practice of virtue affects the nature of “moral motivation”. I am going to suggest that Aristotle’s conception of phronesis yields an account of virtuous motivationthat is, in some way, foreshadowed in RepublicI and II but not at all, as far as I can see, in the context of what Socrates has to say about virtue as a kind of knowledge.

2Four problems raised by the view that virtue is knowledge

2.1What is the good that the virtuous person knows?

Let us then turn to the first problem with which the identity thesis presents us. When we ask what virtue is knowledgeof, the answer is, of course: knowledge of the good. But this answer leads to an insoluble problem. As Christopher Taylor writes,“Socrates maintains both that virtue is knowledge of what the agent’s good is and that it is that good itself” (65). But this would mean that the knowledge in question is knowledge of this very knowledge – which makes no sense.

Cf. Taylor, p. 64 f.
65: “The incoherence of the theory thus consists in the fact that Socrates maintains both that virtue is knowledge of what the agent’s good is and that it is that good itself, whereas those two theses are inconsistent with one another.”
67: “If human good is to be identified with both knowledge and virtue, then that knowledge must have some object other than itself.”

67: “Plato’s eventual solution was to develop (in the Republic) a conception of human good as consisting in a state of the personality in which the non-rational impulses are directed by the intellect informed by knowledge, not of human good, but of goodness itself, a universal principle of rationality. On this conception (i) human good is virtue, (ii) virtue is, not identical with, but directed by, knowledge, and (iii) the knowledge in question is knowledge of the universal good.”
67: “Protagoras may be seen as an exploration of another solution to this puzzle, since in that dialogue Socrates sets out an account of goodness whose central theses are: (i) virtue is knowledge of human good (as in Meno); (ii) human good is an overall pleasant life.” 68: “[…]this theory, which retains the identity of virtue with knowledge while abandoning the identity of virtue with human good”

Aristotle’s account of the connexion between ethical virtue and phronesis is not circular in this way. But it escapes vacuity less easily than might be thought. True, he does not identify virtue with practical knowledge, he keeps the two conceptually apart; and this is an important step. But he also holds the view that the exercise of ethical virtue is both (1) constitutive of our overall telos, at least: of human good in the form of practicaleudaimonia(happiness), and (2) derived from and determined by a conception (hypolepsis – cf. NE VI 1142b33) which the phronimos has of this very good, i.e. of the exercise of ethical virtue itself. If we leave aside the precarious possibility of theoreticaleudaimonia, Aristotle’s position is, then, threatened by a circle that may be articulated as follows:

Human good consists in practising virtue;
to practise virtue is to do what right reason tells you to do;
right reason tells you to do
what it judges to be necessary for achieving human good.

Here three notions seem to be explained in terms of each other: goodrefers us to virtue, virtueto right reason, right reason to good; but good once more refers us to virtue, and so on.

What saves Aristotle from this kind of circle is not, primarily, the distinction between phronesis and ethical virtue but rather the distinction of the various ethical virtues from one another. This distinction allows Aristotle to attribute a specifictelos (purpose)to each virtue (cf. 2.3 below), and thereby content to phronesis. Without that distinction, we should not be able to give a satisfactory answer to the question: “What is the good of which the virtuous person has knowledge?” The answer would just have to be that he, or she, knows that acting well is this good, and to act well is to actualize ethical virtue. But of ethical virtue we only know that the phronimos has a correct conception of it – unless we are told which particular qualities make for a good character.

So how does Aristotle improve on the view that virtue is knowledge of the good and thereby of itself? On my account he takes two important steps. First, he teaches that virtue involves, rather than is identical with, knowledge. Thereby he makes sure that knowledge of what the good consists in can be knowledge of virtue without being knowledge of itself. And second, he teaches that the different virtues provide us with different (subordinate, or partial) tele; so the knowledge that human good is a life of ethical virtue amounts to knowledge that human good is a life of justice, and courage, and temperance etc.

1.2Is voluntary badness better than involuntary badness?

Our second problem is created by the fact that an explanation of virtue in terms of knowledge seems to imply that voluntary lack of it is better than involuntary.

Plato’s Hippias Minor reminds us that the kind of knowledge that virtue is supposed to be according to Socrates, is something akin to competence and technical expertise. The virtuous person knows not only what human good consists in but also how it is obtained. If, however, you know how to hit a target you will also know how to miss it. Hence, if you are a good archer, you will be able to miss it voluntarily, whereas the less competent or incompetent archer will miss it involuntarily (375a-b). And, quite generally, if in any craft you fail voluntarily you are better at it than if you fail involuntarily.

Socrates now moves from the case of the craft to that of ethical virtue: “As to the soul that plays the lyre and the flute better and does everything else better in the crafts and the sciences – doesn’t it accomplish bad and shameful things and miss the mark voluntarily, whereas the more worthless does this involuntarily? […] Would we not wish to possess our own soul in the best condition? […] So, will it be better if it acts badly and misses the mark voluntarily or involuntarily?” To which Hippias replies: “But it would be terrible, Socrates, if those who commit injustice voluntarily are to be better than those who do it involuntarily!” (375b-d)

How does Aristotle avoid this “terrible” conclusion? Above all, he insists on distinguishing ethike arete from techne(competence, skill, or craft) (e.g. EN VI 1140a1-6; b3f; cf. I 1094a3-5). Once this distinction is in place, he can agree with Socrates that voluntary as opposed to involuntary failure reveals superior competence(VI 1140b23f; cf. II 1105a26-33). Ethical virtue, however, is a matter of prohairesis (choice resulting from an abiding orientation towards an ultimate telos); it determines what you want to do rather than can do (1139a35-b4;). And while you may voluntarily fail to do what you can do, there is no such thing as voluntarily failing to do what you want to do. Or, rather: Where this may be said to be your failure, as in the case of akrasia (cf. 2.4 below), the voluntariness of the failure is no sign of either competence or any other kind of qualification.

2.3Do the ethical virtues together
constitute one single knowledge?

Laches 195a: Nicias says of courage “that it is the knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful in war and in every other situation”. A similar position is articulated, though not adopted, by Socrates himself in Protagoras 360d, in the words “wisdom about what is and is not to be feared is courage”.

In the LachesSocrates gets Nicias to agree that “courage is not knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful only, because it understands not simply future goods and evils, but those of the present and the past and all times, just as is the case with the other kinds of knowledge” (199b-c). And he concludes that, on Nicias’ definition, the courageous person is none other than the virtuous person.

As we have seen, however, Aristotledoes notcollapse the ethical virtues into a single one; instead he unites them by tying them all to a single intellectual virtue of phronesis.

The ethical virtues must not be identified with each other because they are specified and defined in terms not of their common telos (practical eudaimonia), but, roughly speaking, of the kind of passion that they serve to shape and put in order for the sake of that telos. The different ethical virtues are so many dispositions to feel and act in specific ways(cf. II 1104a33-b9; 1105b28-1106a1; b18-22; 1107b1-1108b6; EE II 1220b11-20).

Phronesis, by contrast, makes sure, inter alia, that actualizations of these various dispositions do not clash with each other. Thus, by virtue of phronesis, the ethical virtues delimit and support each other, in the service of the one embracing human good (Mueller 2004), whose correct conception is indeed the work of a single practical knowledge – of phronesis (cf. 2.1).

We may also say that Aristotlesolves the unity problem by distributing the conceptual demands which the Socratic view strives to satisfy in one stroke. The demand for respecting the difference in meaning of the virtue terms is met by the distinctness of the ethical virtues, while the demand for mutual inseparability is met by a kind of practical knowledge that integrates the various concerns, ortele, of those virtues in a single conception of eudaimonia, understood as acting well, or virtuously.

2.4Is all badness in conduct lack of knowledge
and therefore involuntary?

The most attended-to / popular problem raised by the identity thesis is, of course,the implication that no one willingly does wrong (Gorgias 509e), the so-called Socratic paradox. Protagoras 345e has Socrates say: “I am pretty sure that none of the wise men thinks that any human being willingly makes a mistake or willingly does anything wrong or bad. They know very well that anyone who does anything wrong or bad does so involuntarily” (cf. also Protagaras 352b and 358d). But, whatever the wise men say (we shall be tempted to reply), is it not obvious that we all sometimes do what we know we ought not to do? And isn’t that, in general, quite voluntary? – Aristotle’s reaction to the Socratic paradox is complex.

In VII 1145b23-27, Socrates is criticized for his denial of the possibility of incontinence. “What sort of right conception can a man have, and yet be incontinent? Some say that it is impossible for a man who knows, because it is a shocking idea, as Socrates thought, that when a man actually has knowledge in him something else should overmaster it and ‘drag it about like a slave’. For Socrates was utterly opposed to this theory, on the ground that there is no such thing as incontinence; because he said that nobody acts consciously against what is best – only through ignorance. Now this reasoning is glaringly inconsistent with observed facts; and it becomes necessary to inquire with regard to the condition in question: if it is due to ignorance, what is the manner of this ignorance? ………”

For one thing, he holds that even where an ethical defect betrays lack of knowledge, this need not signal involuntariness. He holds, in particular that ignorance of principle is not only blameworthy but indeed the essence of ethical depravation (EN III 1110b30-1111a1; cf. 1113b16 and 1114a11). This is a controversial thesis. But it has to be admitted that someone who has made it his principle, e.g., not to let himself be diverted from his projects by considerations of justice or benevolence, thinking this to be a good way of getting on, has a badcharacter. We are not going to say: But surely, he means well: his intention is to live as well as he can; he just happens to believe, mistakenly, that bloody mindedness and selfishness rather than justice and benevolence are the best means of achieving the good life.

There is another way – obvious, I think, but not elaborated by Aristotle – in which ignorance, and what is done ignorantly, may be voluntary and blameworthy: You may be unaware of empirical facts or conceptual connexions that you ought to be aware of. A host, e.g., acts blameworthy in offering his guests a dish that he can, and ought to, know is poisoned. If such a host can be said to act involuntarily, this is not, at any rate, the kind of involuntariness that excuses an action.

However, even where the relevant practical knowledge is not defective in either of the two ways that I have mentioned, ethical goodness is not, according to Aristotle, guaranteed – as it is according to Socrates. Aristotle holds that you may know what you ought to do and yet fail to do it – not because of any external hindrance but on account of an opposing inclination of your own. It is this kind of case that is discussed by him, and by innumerable philosophers after him, under the head of akrasia, or weakness of will.

It may be controversial what exactly Aristotle’s teaching is on this point, and to what extent his somewhat complex account is to be accepted as a solution to the problems that he is wrestling with. But he does think he is able to dispel Socrates’ worry that “when a man actually has knowledge in him something else should overmaster it and ‘drag it about like a slave’” (VII 1145b23-27). At least, there is one passage in his discussion of incontinence where he says that the knowledge that is ineffective in the acratic, “the knowledge that is present when the emotion occurs is not what is regarded as knowledge in the strict sense” (1147b16-18; cf. EE VIII 1246b34f.).

So Aristotle seems to concede to Socrates that, where there is discrepancy between practical knowledge and conduct, only a certain lower level of knowledge is affected, and the “best part” in man is not conquered by the passions. Nevertheless he does reject the Socratic position in that he classifies the defect as a voluntaryone.