deliberation in aristotle's ethics and the hippocratic corpus

220 Pages·2014·2.46 MB·English

by  Anna M. Cremaldi

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Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations
Summer 2010
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Anna M. Cremaldi
University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations
Part of the History of Philosophy Commons
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Cremaldi, Anna M., "Deliberation in Aristotle’s Ethics and the Hippocratic Corpus" (2010). Publicly
Accessible Penn Dissertations. 192.
https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/192
This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/192
For more information, please contact [email protected].
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ABSTRACT
DELIBERATION IN ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS AND THE HIPPOCRATIC CORPUS Anna M. Cremaldi Supervisor:
Susan Sauvé Meyer
Many scholars view Aristotle as the source of the particularist position in modern ethics –the view that
action-guiding principles cannot capture the complexity of moral cases. John McDowell, Martha
Nussbaum, and other particularists have developed this aspect of Aristotle’s ethics. Rather than aiming to
provide an account of action-guiding principles – the view goes – moral philosophers should provide a
theory that focuses on situational sensitivity, judgment and moral perception. In this dissertation, I argue
that Aristotle was not a particularist. While he does highlight the importance of moral perception and the
complexity of moral cases, Aristotle’s claims are consistent with the endorsement of an important role for
action-guiding principles in deliberation.
The dissertation shows as much by taking a new methodological approach to the study of Aristotle’s
ethics. Scholars tend to focus on Aristotle’s texts alone to resolve interpretive questions. I approach
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as if it were part of a genre of treatises on practical sciences. This
methodological approach requires that we read Aristotle’s ethics in a new way, since it encourages us to
see trends that stand out only in relief against the backdrop of Aristotle’s intellectual context. Specifically,
I argue that studying the Hippocratic Corpus will help to resolve the interpretive debate about Aristotle’s
particularism. More generally, it will also help to resolve other outstanding interpretive problems
concerning, for example, the technê analogy, perception of particulars and the status of universals in
ethics.
Thus, in my dissertation I highlight the significant thematic overlap between Aristotle’s account of
deliberation and the Hippocratic Corpus’s presentation of medical deliberation. While Hippocratic
treatises express many of the same concerns and concepts that are found in textual evidence invoked by
the particularists, they do not support a particularist interpretation of medical practice. Rather, in the
Hippocratic Corpus, general theories and principles play an action-guiding role in medical deliberation,
and they help us to see how an analogous case may be true of ethical deliberation on Aristotle’s account.
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Dissertation
DDeeggrreeee NNaammee
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Philosophy
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Susan Sauvé Meyer
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Gary Hatfield
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Charles Kahn
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aristotle deliberation hippocratic medicine reasoning practical
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History of Philosophy
This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/192
DELIBERATION IN ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS AND THE
HIPPOCRATIC CORPUS
Anna M. Cremaldi
A DISSERTATION
in
PHILOSOPHY

Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania
in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
2010

Supervisor of Dissertation

Susan Sauvé Meyer, Professor and Chair of Philosophy
Graduate Group Chairperson

Kok-chor Tan, Associate Professor and Graduate Chair, Philosophy

Dissertation Committee:
Gary Hatfield, Seybert Professor of Philosophy
Charles Kahn, Professor of Philosophy
Susan Sauvé Meyer, Professor and Chair of Philosophy
DELIBERATION IN ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS AND THE
HIPPOCRATIC CORPUS
COPYRIGHT
2010
ANNA M. CREMALDI
iii

For Elaine
iv
ABSTRACT

DELIBERATION IN ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS AND THE
HIPPOCRATIC CORPUS
Anna M. Cremaldi
Supervisor: Susan Sauvé Meyer

Many scholars view Aristotle as the source of the particularist position in modern ethics –
the view that action-guiding principles cannot capture the complexity of moral cases.
John McDowell, Martha Nussbaum, and other particularists have developed this aspect of
Aristotle’s ethics. Rather than aiming to provide an account of action-guiding principles
– the view goes – moral philosophers should provide a theory that focuses on situational
sensitivity, judgment and moral perception. In this dissertation, I argue that Aristotle was
not a particularist. While he does highlight the importance of moral perception and the
complexity of moral cases, Aristotle’s claims are consistent with the endorsement of an
important role for action-guiding principles in deliberation.
The dissertation shows as much by taking a new methodological approach to the
study of Aristotle’s ethics. Scholars tend to focus on Aristotle’s texts alone to resolve
interpretive questions. I approach Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as if it were part of a
genre of treatises on practical sciences. This methodological approach requires that we
read Aristotle’s ethics in a new way, since it encourages us to see trends that stand out
only in relief against the backdrop of Aristotle’s intellectual context. Specifically, I argue
v
that studying the Hippocratic Corpus will help to resolve the interpretive debate about
Aristotle’s particularism. More generally, it will also help to resolve other outstanding
interpretive problems concerning, for example, the technê analogy, perception of
particulars and the status of universals in ethics.
Thus, in my dissertation I highlight the significant thematic overlap between
Aristotle’s account of deliberation and the Hippocratic Corpus’s presentation of medical
deliberation. While Hippocratic treatises express many of the same concerns and
concepts that are found in textual evidence invoked by the particularists, they do not
support a particularist interpretation of medical practice. Rather, in the Hippocratic
Corpus, general theories and principles play an action-guiding role in medical
deliberation, and they help us to see how an analogous case may be true of ethical
deliberation on Aristotle’s account.
vi
Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction: What the Phronimos Knows…………………………………...1
1. What the Phronimos Knows…………………………………………………..…..1
2. The Standard Views about Phronêsis......................................................................7
3. The Methodology of the Dissertation……………………………………………11
4. Outline of the Chapters…………………………………………………………..15
5. Texts ……………………………………………………………………………. 17

Chapter 2: Particularist Readings and their Alternatives………………………………..31
1. Aristotle’s Account of Deliberation……………………………………………...32
2. Interpretations of Deliberation………………………………………………….. 48

Chapter 3: Exact Science in the Nicomachean Ethics......................................................70
1. The Exact Sciences………………………………………………………………71
2. Aristotle and the Criteria of the Exact Science…………………………………. 75
3. Politikê as an Exact Science……………………………………………………..81
4. Diaphora and Akribeia…………………………………………………………..91
5. Terminology for Inexactness………………………………………………….....97

Chapter 4: Inexact Science in the Hippocratic Corpus………………………………...102
1. Inexactness in Medicine………………………………………………………..103
2. ‘For the Most Part’ Claims in the Hippocratic Corpus…………………………108
3. The Causes of Inexactness……………………………………………………...112
4. Diaphora………………………………………………………………………..117

Chapter 5: Principles in the Hippocratic Corpus………………………………………129
1. Skepticism about Medicine……………………………………………………..131
2. A Summary of the Claims about Inexactness…………………………………..136
3. Particularist Interpretations of the Evidence……………………………………137
4. On Ancient Medicine and Exactness……………………………………………143
5. Responses to Exactness…………………………………………………………148
6. Principles and Theory in On Ancient Medicine………………………………...158

Chapter 6: the Doctrine of the Mean in the Hippocratic Corpus………………………167
1. Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean…….…………………………………………168
2. The Doctrine of the Mean in On Ancient Medicine ……………………………179
3. Rules in the Hippocratic Corpus………………………………………………..191

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………...205
1

Chapter 1
Introduction
What the Phronimos Knows

1 What the Phronimos Knows
At the beginning of Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle suggests that one
must have a mark or goal (skopos) in light of which he makes decisions. In order to hit
the mean (meson)(EN 1138b18-9), the virtuous person must have a standard (horos) or
mark (skopos) with reference to which he aims (b22-3). “There is a mark to which the
man who possesses reason looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly” (b22-
4). Just as the doctor makes decisions about patients by consulting a standard – a
conception of health - the virtuous person also makes decisions by consulting a standard.
Having established that one must have such a standard to make good decisions,
Aristotle owns that it is unhelpful only to know as much. For if one knew only that he
should have a standard, he would be “no clearer” about the manner in which he should
act.
But such a statement, though true, is by no means illuminating…. If a man had only
this knowledge he would be none the wiser - e.g. we should not know what sort of
medicines to apply to our body is some one were to say ‘all those which the medical
art prescribes, and which agree with the practice of one who possesses the art’
(1138b26-29).1

1All translations are from the Barnes edition of Aristotle’s works, unless otherwise noted.
In Greek, the passage reads: e1sti de\ to_ me\n ei0pei=n ou3twj a)lhqe\j me/n, ou)qe\n de\
safe/j…. tou~to de\ mo&non e1xwn a1n tij ou)de\n a2n ei0dei/h ple/on, oi[on poi=a dei=
prosfe/resqai pro_j to_ sw~ma, ei1 tij ei1peien o3ti o3sa h( i0atrikh_ keleu&ei kai\ w(j o(
tau&thn e1xwn.