growing up wpy: aristotle's theory of moral education - T-Space

265 Pages·1999·15.75 MB·English

GROWING UP W P Y :
ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF MORAL EDUCATION
Lucia Randolph Dow
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Philosophy
University of Toronto
O Copyright by Lucia Randolph Dow 1998
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Growing Up Happy: Aristotle's Theory of Moral Education
Doctor of Philosophy, 1998
Lucia Randolph Dow
Department of Philosophy
University of Toronto
My thesis examines Aristotle' s ethics, focusing on his theory of moral education
and how it is influenced by his conception of moral excellence. Moral excellence is
complex and requires that the parts of the soul be in good condition and in the right
relation to each other. The excellent person achieves harmony of thought and desire,
which enables him to act consistently for the sake of the noble. Aristotle's model of the
acquisition of moral excellence is a developmental one in which the student gradually
progresses toward excellence. The child is naturally oriented toward excellence, but his
natural capacities must be guided by society and family in order for excellence to be
achieved. Aristotle's views on the chiid's nature and development make nature, habit and
teaching all necessary parts of the educational process. In my dissertation, I stress the
importance of Aristotle's teleology and concept of nature for his program of moral
education, the influence of family and the polis on the child's development, and the
interdependence of character and intellectual development.
Moral education occurs in two stages: initial habituation, which is found in the
process of education discussed in the Politics, and final habituation, which is found in the
lessons contained in the ethical works. The first stage of education exhibits a certain
naturalness and relies on a positive starting point and a good social context. The educator
uses the child's impulses toward pleasure and honor and his relationships with family and
friends to guide development. Several types of instruction are employed during initial
habituation, including musical training. play, imitation, tragedy and repetition of actions.
Moral education requires intellectual training as well as habitt ation. In addition to
helping him to acquire phronesis, philosophical justification of the nature of the best life
(of the sort found in the ethical works) motivates the student to try to achieve excellence
and helps him to perform those acts which will bring the non-rational part of his soul into
good condition. This knowledge unifies the student's desires and enables him to
consistently choose noble acts. to perform his function and to achieve moral excellence.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have amassed numerous debts, both academic and personal, during the time it
has taken me to write this thesis. I wish now to thank the people who have helped me in
various ways over the past several years. My supervisor and my advisor, Brad Inwood
and Judith Baker, have been unfailingly supportive and patient throughout the time it took
me to discover what I wanted to say and then to say it. Brad was everything one could
ask for in a supervisor. He was always available to discuss even trivial matters and was
able to be critical and encouraging at the same time. His insistence that I had to learn
Greek if I wanted to do justice to my topic and his help with that task gave me the
confidence to study AristotIe and to be sure of what I was saying. Brad's ability to reflect
on the philosophical issues involved in moral education as well as those related to ancient
philosophy helped me to develop my views about Aristotle and to see how his ideas
compared with those of other Greek philosophers. I only hope that I can successfully
emulate his example if I have an opportunity to supervise students.
Judith's capacity for analyzing the philosophical content of my thesis and for
raising challenging questions is remarkable. She has a unique ability to appreciate
Aristotle's positions and to evaluate them from the inside which combines sensitivity to
the history of philosophy with thoroughgoing knowledge of ethics. She was an
invaluable resource to me as I developed the central arguments in the thesis and continues
to be as I contemplate future work. I am truly fortunate to have had an opportunity to
work with two such good philosophers and pleasant people.
There are, of course, other intellectual debts. Although they came to my project
rather late in the game, I benefited from the involvement of both Lloyd Gerson and
Donald Ainslie. Lloyd's challenges to my interpretations and my efforts to respond to
them no doubt strengthened the arguments presented in my thesis and made me rethink
aspects of Aristotle's philosophy I had previously taken for granted. The few
conversations I had with Donald forced me to define my position on Aristotle against
those of other scholars in the field and helped me to clarify my own thinking about
Aristotle's moral psychology in particular. In addition, he asked interesting questions
throughout the process which have helped me to think of Aristotle not only as a figure to
be studied, but also as someone who can be questioned and criticized. There are others at
the University of Toronto who have helped me in various ways. Tony Kostroman sewed
as a sounding block and inevitably kept me on my toes, whether with respect to
Aristotle's ethics, analytic philosophy, or my attempts to make sense of continental
philosophy. Laura Shanner offered advice to me about numerous job related things and
solidified my interest in and respect for bioethics. The graduate department and various
graduate coordinators were unfailingly supportive, especially at some very difficult times.
(m.
I also owe a word of thanks to two people at Trinity College Helen Lang,
my undergraduate advisor, encouraged me to consider graduate school and offered her
advice and support at various points during my days as a graduate student. She set a fine
example for an undergraduate first learning about philosophy and continues to be a
source of support and information about the world of philosophy. I also wish to thank
John Williams, a professor of Classics at Trinity, who first recognized my interest in
philosophy and offered numerous words of wisdom as my freshman advisor.
My greatest debt of all is to my parents, Bob and Mimi DOW, who never
questioned my decision to pursue a doctorate in philosophy and who offered their
financial support during the last years of my degree. They have never pushed me to be
"practical" and have allowed me to pursue my dreams even when it was not obvious
where they would take me. I'm lucky to have parents who understand the important
things in life and who have taught me to do the same. My brother, despite his teasing me
about my head being in the clouds. appreciated the value of what I was doing and offered
his moral support abcut life in grad school. I only wish Robby were here to see the final
resul ts.
Next to my family, Tim has been the most important source of support to me. He
has stood by me through the worst times and it is wondetful to be able to share my
happiness with him now. His advice about how to finish a thesis, as well as other aspects
of being a graduate student, and his patience with me as I inevitably missed deadlines,
became fmstrated and questioned myself was extraordinary. I have a wonderful group of
friends both here in Toronto and elsewhere who have encouraged me and cheered me on:
Tom and Diane (the Friday night sanity check), Mary Leone (who was wise enough not to
offer Cristina as research experiment in moral education), Tony, Sheila, Paul, BoblRob
and Ande, Janice, Tamara, Catherine, Brian and Roni (our golfing partners), Kevin,
Kirsten, Rebecca, Aileen, Mary R., Steve, Rich and Toni, Sven and Suzanne, Mel, Shana,
Jenny, and others. The friendship of dl of these people, as well as that of those
mentioned above, has truly meant a lot to me as I've made my way through my degree.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE: MORAL EXCELLENCE AND EUDAIMONm 10
I. Introduction. ............... .... ......................................................................... -10
11 . Eudaimonia and Excellence. ......................................................................... 10
III . Moral Excellence. ....................................................................................... 29
A . Moral Excellence is a Hexis of Pathi!. ....... ........ . .. .. ... ............... 32
.-
B . Excellence Concerns Action ............................................................ 45
CHAPTER TWO: MORAL DEVELOPMENT 87
I. I ntroduction. ........... ......... . ......................................................................... 87
II . The Child's Nature ........................................................................................ 90
................................................................................................
III . Development 99
N . Problems in Development. ...................... ...... .......................................... 106
CHAPTER THREE INITIAL HABITUATION 121
I . Introduction. ................ .............. ................................................................... -121
II . Characteristics of Human Nature and Behavior Used in Habituation. ....... 122
A . Natural Reason ................................................................................ 123
B . Pleasure. .......................................................................................... 125
C . Honor and Shame .... ............. . ................................................. 1 3 1
D . Philial Relations and Imitation. .................................................... 142
III . Program of Education ............................................................................. 1 4 8
A . Pre-education ................................................................................ 150
B . Early Education ............................................................................... 154
C . Late Education .............................................................................. 167
CHAPTER FOUR: COMPLETION OF EDUCATION 192
I . Introduction. ................................................................................................. I92
II . Completion of Education. ........................................................................... 195
. .................................................
A Continuation of Initial Habituation 197
. ........................................................................
B Intellectual Training 209
CONCLUSION 240
INTRODUCTION
Although he lived in the fourth century BC, many of Aristotle's ideas about ethics
are still appealing to contemporary philosophers. This is likely at least in part due to his
important insights about the role of emotion and character in conduct. Many
philosophers, particularly virtue ethicists, look to Aristotle's theory as a starting point for
reasoning about human action and human relations despite the fact that several of the
ideas which underlie his claims about moral excellence and excellent action do not appear
to be viable today.' For example, his beliefs that humans are naturally oriented toward
the good and have a natural desire to learn are not widely accepted by contemporary
philosophers. In addition, his view of the teleological nature of pleasure would be
questioned todayS2 However, Aristotle's recognition of the complexity of human action
and the influence of both affective and intellectual responses on action make Aristotle's
views appealing and more realistic than many other approaches to ethics, which focus
primarily on only one aspect of human action. In this thesis, I will examine one aspect of
Aristotle's moral theory which reflects the integration of intellect and character and seems
to be particularly promising for contemporary ethics: his theory of moral education.
1 Anscornbe, Foot and McDowell pointed out the benefits of focusing on character and virtue many years
ago. More recently, ethicists such as MacIntyre, SIote, Stocker, Solomon and Hursthouse look to Aristotle
to ground their approaches to moral theory. The renewal of interest in virtue theories is attested to by such
recent collections as Virtue Theory, ed. Roger Crisp and Michael Slote (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997) and Virrue Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. Daniel Statman (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1997).
Aristotle held other views which might be considered objectionable by contemporary philosophers, like
his view about the defective nature of women and slaves. These beliefs, however, are not an integral part of
his system of moral education and rejecting them does not cll the rest of his theory into question.
Aristotle's theory of moral education is one aspect of his ethical theory which has
received comparatively littIe attention from scholars over the years.3 Initially, scholars
focused on Aristotle's statement that moral education proceeds through habituation and
offered a mechanical interpretation of Aristotle's theory of moral education which
sounded somewhat behavioristic. In the 1970's and 1980's this traditional interpretation
was challenged by scholars such as Bumyeat, Sorabji and Sherman.' They argue that
moral education must have an intellectual component in addition to habituation. More
recently, Cooper has explored the role of thumos in moral development.'
Bumyeat focuses on the role of pleasure in helping to account for how practice
leads to knowledge. He claims that coming to take pleasure in morally excellent acts
helps us to learn that they are excellent and to choose them for their own sakes. He
describes the process of habituation and suggests that moral education is really a process
of coming to find the same acts pleasant, noble and good. Although Bumyeat gives an
'
Aristotle's theory of moral education has enjoyed renewed interest from philosophers of education
recentIy. This attention is probably due to the desire to find alternatives to Kohlberg's intellectudly
oriented program. See, for example, David Carr, "After Kohlberg: Some Implications of an Ethics of
Virtue for the Theory of Moral Education and Development," Studies in Philosophy and Education, 15
( 1996), 353-370; Kevin McDonough, "The Importance of Examples for Moral Education: An Aristotelian
Perspective," Studies in Philosophy and Education, 14 (1994), 77-103; Deborah Kerdeman, "Educating
Ethical Behavior: Aristotle's Views on Akrasia," Philosophy of Education Society Proceedings 1992, pp.
81-89; Randall Curren, "Education and the Origins of Character in AristotIe," Philosophy of Education
Society Proceedings 1991, pp. 202-210; and Bernadette Tobin, "An Aristotelian Theory of Moral
Development," Journal of Philosophy of Education, 23 (1989). 195-21 1.
4 M.F. Burnyeat, "Aristotle on Learning to Be Good," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Arnelie Rorty
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 69-92; Richard Sorabji, "Aristotle on the Role of
Intellect in Virtue," in Essays On Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amelie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1980) pp. 201-219; Nancy Sherman, "Aristotle's Theory Of Morai Education," Diss. Haward
University, 1982 and The Fabric of Character: Aristotle 's Theory of Virtue (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1989).
'
John Cooper, "Reason, Moral Virtue and Moral Value," in Rationality in Greek Thought, ed. Michael
Frede and GiseIa Striker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 8 1- 114.