The Relevance of Aristotle’s Ethics for Today

(by Rodger L. Jackson of Stockton College)

    Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics is considered a classic of philosophy, but is it significant only as a product of a bygone era or can it help us today? I argue that his theoretical framework is an excellent method for examining ethical questions today and that in many ways Aristotle has constructed a superior approach to the reigning systems of Kantianism and Utilitarianism. Both Kantianism and Utilitarianism are outgrowths of the modern era and as such share a belief in the possibility of a morality that resembles the science of the age. They place primary emphasis on the power of rational thought, a focus on individual actions rather than character traits, the search for and application of moral principles in order to resolve ethical problems that would result in an identical solution, and perhaps most importantly a belief that all morality is reducible to a single moral insight. For Kant this was the categorical imperative(i.e., one should only act on that maxim that one can at the same time will to be a universal law) and for the Utilitarians the principle of utility (i.e., for any given action one should do what will ever maximize overall pleasure/happiness of everyone affected).

    Aristotle begins with a number of assumptions that are either downplayed or denigrated in contemporary discourse. First, he stresses the interrelationship between the individual and the community in which that individual lives; for Aristotle it makes no sense to speak of an individual as somehow abstracted from the community in which he lives. He would therefore strongly denounce the contemporary focus on individual as a kind of atomic unit that exists independently of any social structure. However, he does not go so far as to say that the individual is unimportant or that individuals must always be sacrificed for the greater good of the society. Rather, he argues that we can have no sense of who we are, of our identity, unless we can understand that we obtain that identity from within a web of relationships: familial, political, social, and so on.

    Second, he argues that Eudamoneia, (often translated as "happiness" or "the well lived life") is what each of us seeks and that this is not reducible to some single thing such as pleasure or fame or wealth. However, he does not fall into the error of assuming that these are irrelevant to the well lived life, only that no one of them alone will create the well lived life. Furthermore, since we are members of a community a critical aspect of our happiness will be our behaving in an excellent fashion, or virtuously, within the community. For this reason he examines in detail what it means to be a person of good character, to be courageous, honest, generous, and just.

    Third, that the right thing to do in any given instance is highly situational, that there is no mechanical procedure for calculating what we should do. What courage in combat means will depend upon the number of enemies we face, the stakes of the battle, our own strength, and a number of other factors. Yet, this is not entirely subjective because we must judge these situations according to a rational principle of moderation between two extremes.

    Fourth, Aristotle believes that without a proper education in morality, we could not even engage ethical reflection. Many contemporary theorists believe that moral education is in someway secondary to ethical theory. For Aristotle, rational thought or understanding alone would not be adequate for ethical theory, we must first have individuals who have a sense of moral judgment already in place. This requires an important commitment to thinking about how we would inculcate a sense of moral judgment into individuals early on.

    I would argue that these features of Aristotle’s system are not simply historically interesting but provide us with an excellent approach to the questions of today. As a brief example, we can consider how Aristotle’s system might guide us with regard to questions in medical ethics. Far too often the present approach is simply to hand physicians a set of moral principles and say to them , "Go forth and apply these to ethical dilemmas you face". This approach frequently fails for at least four reasons: ethical dilemmas do not come neatly packaged ready to have ethical principles applied to them, physicians with disreputable characters manipulate the principles to come out the way they want, there is too much focus on the individual situation without an adequate understanding of how this situation affects the community, and the context of a given situation makes a previous suggestion inapplicable to this new instance. With Aristotle’s approach we would work as assiduously on moral education as we do the biomechanical aspect of medicine and help physicians to develop moral judgement which would allow them to consider the context of a given situation, and render decisions that take account of the individuals’ relationship to their larger community. Such an approach seems hardly a historical curiosity; it strikes me as an excellent plan for the future.