Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics PDF
Preview Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics
Rational Man HenryBabcockVeatch Rational Man A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics Henry B. Veatch Preface and Annotated Bibliography by Douglas B. Rasmussen amagi Liberty Fund Indianapolis AmagibooksarepublishedbyLibertyFund,Inc., afoundationestablishedtoencouragestudyofthe idealofasocietyoffreeandresponsibleindividuals. Thecuneiforminscriptionthatappearsinthelogoand servesasadesignelementinallLibertyFundbooks istheearliest-knownwrittenappearanceoftheword ‘‘freedom’’(amagi),or‘‘liberty.’’Itistakenfromaclay documentwrittenabout..intheSumerian city-stateofLagash. ©byIndianaUniversityPress Prefaceandannotatedbibliography©byLibertyFund,Inc. Frontispiece©bytheInstituteforHumaneStudies Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Veatch,HenryBabcock. Rationalman:amoderninterpretationofAristotelianethics/ HenryB.Veatch;prefacebyDouglasB.Rasmussen. p. cm. Originallypublished:Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,. Withnewpref.andannotatedbibliography. Includesbibliographicalreferences(p. )andindex. ---(pbk.:alk.paper) . Ethics. . Aristotle. I. Title. . '.—dc ,. AllisonPointeTrail,Suite,Indianapolis,Indiana- . . . . . . . To and in the hope that some day ‘‘they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their hearts’’ Contents Preface ix AnnotatedBibliography xix Foreword xxiii . InQuestofEthicalKnowledge . TheExaminedLife: BacktoSocratesandAristotle . WhyNotRegardMoralsandEthicsas SimplyanArtofLiving? . WhyMoralsandEthicsAreNotSimplyanArtofLiving . FailureandUnhappiness: AreTheyOurOwnResponsibility? . BadLuckandtheForceofCircumstances astheCausesofFailure . ButWhatIfGodIsDead? . ExistentialismandtheClaimsofIrrationalMan Notes AnalyticalTableofContents Index Preface Rational Man, which first appeared in , brings Aristotelian ethics alive to the contemporary reader. Its author, Henry BabcockVeatch, wasaleadingneo-Aristotelianofthetwentiethcentury.BorninEvans- ville, Indiana, in , Veatch was educated at Harvard University, fromwhichhereceivedhisdoctoratein.HismentoratHarvard was John Wild, and he was influenced by the twentieth-century neo- Thomists Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson. Veatch taught for twenty-eightyearsatIndianaUniversity,foreightyearsatNorthwest- ernUniversity,andformorethantenyearsatGeorgetownUniversity. Veatchwasaprolificwriter,anoutstandingteacher,askillfuldebater, and,aboveall,aperceptivephilosopher.Atdifferenttimes,heserved as president of both the American Philosophical Association (West- ernDivision)andtheAmericanCatholicPhilosophicalAssociation.To those who knew him,Veatch was a man of energy, good humor, and graciousness. Most of all he was a gentleman. He retired in but was active philosophically throughout his retirement years. He died in . A Festschrift* appeared at the time of his retirement from GeorgetownUniversity. VeatchwasanAristotelianthroughandthrough,butanyonefamil- iar with his work would see immediately that he was conversant with the latest contemporary issues in philosophy.Veatch was well known forchampioninghisAristotelianismagainstcontemporaryphilosophi- cal fashions. Indeed, Rational Man is but one of a series of works in which Veatch challenged many of the prevailing beliefs of his time, especially those of Anglo-American philosophy. Those interested in Veatch’sothermajorbooksandarticlesmaywishtoconsulttheanno- *Rocco Porreco, ed., The Georgetown Symposium on Ethics: Essays in Honor of HenryBabcockVeatch(Lanham,Md.:UniversityPressofAmerica,). [x] Preface tated bibliography that follows this preface. These works reveal a thinker with an eye for what is crucial philosophically and a philoso- pherwhowasconcernedwiththetruthofthings—notthelatestintel- lectualstyles. Rational Man is, however, the most distinctive of all of Veatch’s works;itaccomplisheswhatisnearlyimpossibletoachieve.Itengages boththeexpertandthebeginner.Bothcanreadandprofitfromthis work.Thereissubstantialscholarshipandphilosophicalsophistication in these pages, but the work is never dry or heavy-handed.Veatch’s philosophicallearningdoesnotgetinthewayofthemessage.Thear- gumentsarecrisp;thereadingislively;andtheexamplesarenumer- ous,particularlythosefromliterature. Veatch’s arguments in Rational Man were not only in conflict with severaldominantphilosophicalviewsofhistime,buttheyalsoremain inconflictwithmanyofthosetoday.Hisargumentssoughttoestablish three claims: () that ethical knowledge is possible; () that ethical knowledge is grounded in human nature; and () that the purpose ofethicsistoshowtheindividualhumanbeinghowto‘‘self-perfect,’’ which was Veatch’s way of writing about eudaimonia in Aristotelian moral theory. Moreover, these moral claims were defended without appeal to religious revelation but ‘‘solely on what used to be known as the natural light of reason.’’ Veatch was an advocate of what is commonly called ‘‘natural law’’ moral theory; such a theory was for Veatch,however,nottobeconfusedwithwhatistodaycalled‘‘divine command theory.’’ Accordingly, ethics is based on the requirements for human moral development—what Veatch and others call ‘‘self- perfection’’—andnevermerelyonwhatiscommandedbyadeity.This does not mean, however, that ethics and religion were necessarily in- compatibleforVeatch;rather,itmeansonlythatRationalManissimply abookon‘‘ethicswithoutreligion.’’ Veatch’s use of the words ‘‘self-perfection,’’ ‘‘perfection,’’ and ‘‘per- fect’’ may not be familiar to contemporary readers. ‘‘Perfect’’ comes from the Latin perfectus and its Greek counterpartteleios. Perfectus im- plies that a thing is completed or finished; this involves the idea of a thing’s having a nature that is its end (telos) or function (ergon).Thus, itshouldbeclearthat,whenVeatchspokeofhowto‘‘perfect’’oneself, hedidnotmeanthatoneshouldbecomeGodlike,immunetodegen-
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