What are the implications of this argument?

Aristotle on Improving One's Character

GLANLUCA DI MUZIO

ABSTRACT

Contrary to what most interpreters hold, in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle is

not committed to the view that people of established vicious character could

never become good. The present paper proves this result (1) by giving a better

reading of 1114 a 12-21, a passage which has traditionally been taken to assert

that unjust and self-indulgent people are doomed to a lifetime of vice; (2) by show-

ing that when Aristotle refers to self-indulgent people as "incurable", he does not

mean that they could never change, but only that they could not change as a result of external influences such as persuasion or punishment; (3) by proving

that although Aristotle regards the desires of vicious people as determined by

their character, there is room within Aristotelian moral psychology for the pos-

sibility that people of corrupt character become motivated to begin a process of moral reform.

In chapter 5 of Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues

that character is voluntary. He supports this conclusion by pointing out

that (1) engaging in activities of a certain kind produces corresponding

states of character (1114 a 7); and (2) everybody knows that (1) is true

(1114 a 9-10). In Aristotle's view, those who routinely do, say, unjust

actions tend to produce in themselves an unjust character. Since they are

aware of the long-term effects their actions will have on their character,

then if in the end they acquire a permanent disposition to act unjustly, they can fairly be said to have acquired it voluntarily. There is thus a clear

sense in which unjust or self-indulgent people wish to be unjust or self-

indulgent (1114 a 11-12).

Then comes a passage in which Aristotle appears to suggest that those

who have acquired a morally corrupt character cannot change it or act

contrary to it:

But if without being ignorant a man does the things which will make him unjust, he will be unjust voluntarily. Yet it does not follow that if he wishes he will

cease to be unjust and will be just. For neither does the man who is ill become

well on those terms. We may suppose a case in which he is ill voluntarily,

through living incontinently and disobeying his doctors. In that case it was then

open to him not to be ill, but not now, when he has thrown away his chance,

just as when you have let a stone go it is too late to recover it; but yet it was

in your power to throw it, since the moving principle was in you. So, too, to the

unjust and to the self-indulgent man it was open at the beginning not to become

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000 Phronesis XLV13

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206 GIANLUCA DI MUZIO

men of this kind, and so they are unjust and self-indulgent voluntarily; but now

that they have become so it is not possible for them not to be so (1114 a 12-21,

trans. Ross). '

In this passage Aristotle compares a man who has made himself unjust

with one who has made himself ill. To the two men it was open at the

outset to be just and healthy respectively. But now that the one has vol-

untarily become unjust and the other has voluntarily become ill, they can-

not escape the condition they have brought upon themselves through their

actions. They are like someone who has voluntarily thrown away a stone

and can no longer recover it. The passage, then, appears to seek to estab-

lish two propositions: (a) that those who have acquired a bad character

cannot subsequently change it, and (b) that people of established bad char-

acter can only act in character, since this, once acquired, is a prison from

which no one can escape.

A passage in the Categories, however, indicates that Aristotle regarded

moral reform as possible:

For the bad man, if led into better ways of living and talking, would progress,

if only a little, towards being better. And if he once made even a little progress

it is clear that he might either change completely or make really great progress.

For however slight the progress he made to begin with, he becomes ever more easily changed towards virtue, so that he is likely to make still more progress;

and when this keeps happening it brings him over completely into the contrary

state, provided time permits (Categories 13 a 23-31, trans. Ackrill).

Instead of treating the apparent conflict between the two passages as

an oddity within the Aristotelian corpus, William Bondeson tried to rec-

oncile them.2 The present paper aims to supplement Bondeson's discus-

Accepted February 2000

I In their commentary to this passage, Gauthier and Jolif quote from P. Mesnard's

La morale d'Aristote (Alger, 1942, pp. 24-25). Mesnard holds that for Aristotle the vicious cannot "remonter le courant", and remarks on how foreign the notion of conversion

was to the Greek mentality (R. A. Gauthier and J. Y. Jolif, eds., L'Ethique a Nico-

maque, Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1970, vol. H, pt. 1, pp. 214-215). See also discussions of the passage in D. Furley, Two studies in the Greek Atomists, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 190; R. Sorabji, Necessity, Cause, and Blame: Per- spectives on Aristotle's Theory, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980, p. 232; R. Curren, "The contribution of Nicomachean Ethics iii 5 to Aristotle's theory of responsibility", History of Philosophy Quarterly, 6 (1989), pp. 261-277 (esp. pp. 272-273).

2 W. Bondeson, "Aristotle on responsibility for one's character and the possibility of character change", Phronesis 19 (1974), pp. 59-65. In his interpretation of Aristotle's

position in the Nicomachean Ethics, Bondeson focused on 1114 a 9-10. These lines make the point that only a "thoroughly senseless" person would not know that "it is

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ARISTOTLE ON IMPROVING ONE'S CHARACTER 207

sion.3 By giving a close reading of the passage in the Nicomachean Ethics,

I will bring out certain features of Aristotle's argument that interpreters

have overlooked. It will emerge that Aristotle subscribed to only one view,

namely, that moral reform is possible, although difficult.

First of all, we need to place the Nicomachean passage in its proper

context. As we have seen, it comes right after 1114 a 11-12, a statement

to the effect that those who have acquired a certain character must wish

from the exercise of activities on particular objects that states of character are pro-

duced". In Bondeson's view, Aristotle would not stress that people usually know about

the character-forming power of their actions unless he also thought that character is

changeable. As Bondeson puts it, "If men do know that actions of certain kinds lead

to corresponding states of character, then that knowledge makes them responsible for

the states of character which they have acquired. But this is possible only if it is pos-

sible to act contrary to an established character. One could imagine a case in which

a man knew that the actions he performs will lead to a corresponding state of char-

acter but nevertheless he is unable to act contrary to his existing state of character"

(p. 64). Bondeson's point, as I understand it, is that Aristotle is issuing a reminder

("You know that your repeated actions shape your character. So you are responsible

for the kind of character you eventually acquire"). But this type of reminder implies

that those for whom it is issued are free to act as they please, even contrary to their

character. One would not warn others by saying: "Watch how you act" if one thought

that people's existing states of character rob them of any control over their actions. Is Bondeson's argument conclusive? Only if it can be proved that Aristotle's warn-

ing is intended both for people of established character and for people whose character

is in course of formation. The former have acquired stable dispositions through a long

process of habituation. Some of them may even be called "fully virtuous" or "fully

vicious". The latter are still in the process of shaping their dispositions to act virtu-

ously or viciously. Bondeson clearly thinks that Aristotle is speaking to both sets of

people (cf. note 12 on p. 64 of Bondeson's paper and the reference to acting contrary

to an established character in the above quote). But this requires argument. For given

the text, Aristotle may simply be addressing his warning to those who have not yet

acquired a set of stable dispositions and thus need to be reminded of the difference their future actions will make to those dispositions. In other words, Aristotle's warning

does not prove anything per se. If the warning is not also addressed to people of estab-

lished character, then issuing it is consistent with holding that those who have acquired

stable dispositions can no longer act contrary to them. My approach, unlike Bonde-

son's, does not focus exclusively on 1114 a 9-10. By looking at the whole of 1114 a

12-21, I show directly, and not by implication, that Aristotle does not there assert that

character is unchangeable. His point is that character cannot be changed simply by

wishing to do so. In my interpretation, then, Aristotle's warning is directed to those

who are in the process of forming their character. Aristotle reminds these people that

character, although voluntary and changeable, is not changeable at will and easily.

I I am also developing and providing textual support for a suggestion that comes in the very last paragraph of F. A. Siegler's paper "Voluntary and Involuntary", The Monist 52 (1968), pp. 268-287.

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208 GIANLUCA DI MUZIO

to be as they are. Now Aristotle is careful to prevent a possible misun-

derstanding of his position. To say that those who have a certain character

wish to be as they are is not to say that it is by wishing to be a certain type

of person that one becomes so. To say that character is voluntary, and that

we can control the character we acquire, is not to say that we can acquire

a character at will, just by wishing to do so. Put more formally, Aristotle

is committed to the conditional "If a person has an X-type character, that

person wishes to be an X-type person", but he wants to make it clear that this conditional does not entail its converse.

The phrasing of 1114 a 13-14 reveals precisely that Aristotle is nipping

in the bud a possible misunderstanding of his view: "ovO jiTlv Eav YE

Po)kXEal, aLtKOc xv i' c aetat KQi gata iat1KaLto;", which Ross translates "Yet it does not follow that if he wishes he will cease to be unjust and

will be just" (emphasis supplied). Aristotle's saying that people voluntar-

ily form their own character and wish to have it may encourage someone

to take him to be saying that people can change their character just by

wishing to do so. This, however, is not the case, Aristotle stresses. The

kind of change under discussion here does not happen merely as a result

of wish. It is to illustrate this point that Aristotle introduces the compar-

ison with the man who makes himself ill. Far from being intended to sup-

port the impossibility of character change for the bad man, the compari-

son is rather intended to clarify how that change could happen. The

wording of 1114 a 14-15 is particularly revealing: "For neither does the

man who is ill become well [by wishing to become well]". This sentence

is about a man who undergoes a change and becomes well from ill.

Aristotle reminds us that everybody would dismiss the suggestion that this

man became well just by wishing to become well. Now suppose that this

is a person who became ill voluntarily, by adopting a lifestyle contrary to

his doctors' recommendations (1 114 a 15-16). This supposition is intended

to create an analogy with the case of someone who becomes unjust. For

Aristotle has just told us that those who become unjust do so voluntarily.

So if Aristotle intends for there to be an analogy between the two men,

and the former is a voluntarily ill person who becomes well, the latter

must be a voluntarily unjust person who becomes just. The whole point

of the comparison is to show that just as an ill person does not become

healthy simply by wishing, so an unjust person does not become just sim-

ply by wishing. Through the former, familiar fact, Aristotle seeks to estab-

lish the latter, preventing a misunderstanding of his view. He does not

say, of the unjust man, that he could never change. Rather, he tries to per-

suade us, through the analogy with the voluntarily ill person, that an unjust

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ARISTOTLE ON IMPROVING ONE'S CHARACTER 209

man could not change simply by wishing to do so, even if there is a clear

sense in which people can control the character they have.

The simile of the stone, at 1114 a 17-19, supports Aristotle's position

with a further analogy. The analogy is between the state of being ill (when

one has become ill voluntarily) and the state of being unjust or self-indul-

gent. The act of throwing a stone serves as a common term of compari-

son to link these two states. One who is in the state of having become ill

voluntarily is exactly in the same predicament as someone who has thrown

a stone. At first, it was open to the individual not to throw the stone/ become ill. But after the throw/onset of the disease, the individual cannot

help being in the situation he is in (the situation of having thrown the

stone/being ill, with all the consequences the situation entails). No amount

of wishing can alter the individual's present predicament. Aristotle is not

asserting anything stronger than this. For it would be odd and uncharita-

ble to interpret the comparison with the throw of the stone as intended to

show that once one has voluntarily contracted an ailment, one can never

recover. This is contrary to fact, and, in addition, the passage was about

an ill man who becomes well all along (recall 1114 a 14-14: "For neither

does the man who is ill become well on those terms"). What reason would

we have, then, to think that when the focus of the analogy shifts to the

unjust or self-indulgent man, Aristotle means that once one has acquired

a corrupt character, moral reform is impossible? If this was Aristotle's

view, he would alert us to a difference between the ill and the unjust man,

instead of likening them to each other. The concluding lines of the pas-

sage cash out the analogy by asserting that, just as the voluntarily ill man,

the unjust man is similar to a man who has thrown a stone. Like the lat-

ter, who could have avoided throwing the stone (1114 a 18-19), the unjust

man could have avoided becoming unjust. But now he cannot help being

in the state he has brought upon himself. He cannot help being unjust, and

no amount of wishing (that he had not become unjust, that he become just now, etc.) will help him.

Perhaps interpreters were misled by the very last sentence in the pas-

sage: "but now that [the unjust and the self-indulgent man] have become

so it is not possible for them not to be so" (1114 a 21). Taken in isola-

tion, this sentence does seem to say that the vicious are doomed to a life-

time of vice. But notice that Aristotle simply says "it is not possible for

them not to be so" ("oV?cTi ETattfli eTvax", emphasis supplied). Lacking further indication from the context, this sentence should not be taken to make a claim about the whole of the unjust or incontinent person's future

life. For the negated infinitive "ti1 &Ivai" exactly parallels the earlier "gil

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210 GIANLUCA Di MUZIO

voasiv" ("not to be ill", said at 1114 a 15-17 to be open to a man when

he is still healthy, and then no longer open to him once he has made him-

self ill). In the earlier context, as we have seen, it would be odd to inter- pret Aristotle as saying that a man who contracted a disease because of

his incontinence will suffer from that disease for the rest of his life.

Likewise, lines 19-21, whose "gin eJvat" parallels the "gi' voieiv" of the earlier passage, are not plausibly taken to state that the unjust and the self- indulgent will never cease to be unjust and self-indulgent. The passage

states only that these people cannot help being unjust and self-indulgent

now that they have thrown away their chance of remaining free from vice

(just as the voluntarily ill man cannot help being ill now that he has

thrown away his chance of remaining healthy).

But what exactly is the point of Aristotle's remark? Am I not attribut-

ing to him an entirely trivial statement such as "those who have made

themselves vicious are vicious"? My reply is that this statement is far from

trivial if Aristotle uses it to counter the two points most likely to be raised

in relation to his theory of the voluntariness of character. (A) A philo-

sophically sophisticated opponent may object to Aristotle that by making

character voluntary he is in fact asserting that people can change charac-

ter at will. But the notion of character is typically associated with per-

manence and a certain lack of flexibility. (B) A person inclined towards

vice may use the doctrine of the voluntariness of character to object to all

attempts to convince him to become virtuous. Such a person may reason

that since character is voluntary, there are no major disadvantages to

becoming vicious. For one can always embrace a virtuous life at a later

time by wanting to become virtuous.4

In response to the reactions to his doctrine exemplified in (A) and (B),

Aristotle stresses that asserting the voluntariness of character does not

involve asserting that character is not a firm and lasting disposition to act

in a certain way. The disposition is a powerful one, and although it is

brought about voluntarily, it is extremely difficult to get rid of it. The point

of Aristotle's remark to the effect that people cannot help being unjust or

4 Joachim seems to have (B) in mind when he writes: "Notice the doctrine of 1114

a 11-21. The acts which form a moral state are willing - we can do or not do them.

But we cannot, when we have once formed a moral state, all at once act contrary to

it. [...) Character is formed by a long and gradual growth. It is only the fool who

supposes he can pursue his folly with impunity, relying on the miracle of a sudden

conversion", H. H. Joachim, The Nicomachean Ethics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955,

p. 106.

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ARISTOTLE ON IMPROVING ONE'S CHARACTER 211

self-indulgent once they have voluntarily become so lies precisely in

bringing out that although injustice and self-indulgence are voluntary

states, one cannot get rid of them at will. Character is not just a matter

of wishing. Once it has taken hold of an individual's soul, its grip is not

an easy one to break. Aristotle wants to make this clear by stressing that

mere wishing is causally ineffective when it comes to changes in moral

states, just as it is ineffective when it comes to changes in health.

What, then, is effective? In keeping with Aristotle's analogy between

injustice and disease, we can answer this question by pointing to the trans-

formational power of repeated and consistent action. Just as one can

recover health through engaging in therapy, diet, and exercise over a

period of time, so can one improve a state of character by acting in ways

apt to defeat the bad habits one has. After all, as Aristotle had remarked,

everybody knows that it is through the "exercise of activities on particu-

lar objects" (1114 a 9-10) that states of character are produced. The

process of character improvement is likely to be very difficult and labori-

ous for an unjust man, whose progress will constantly be jeopardized by

the ability his bad states of character have to incline him strongly towards

bad actions. But nothing of what Aristotle says at 1114 a 12-21 implies

that in his view this is an impossible process to complete. Aristotle's posi-

tion in the Nicomachean passage, then, is fully compatible with the one

expressed in the Categories passage, which insists precisely on the time-

consuming nature of moral reform.

One reason for resisting the interpretation I have been defending is that

elsewhere in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle calls the self-indulgent

man "avuaroq" (incorrigible, incurable). At 1150 a 21-22 he points out that self-indulgent people have no regrets, and people with no regrets cannot

be cured. At 1150 b 29-1151 a 5 he compares the self-indulgent and the

incontinent man in respect of the possibility of reform:

The self-indulgent man, as was said, has no regrets; for he stands by his choice;

but any incontinent man is subject to regrets. This is why the position is not as

it was expressed in the formulation of the problem, but the self-indulgent man is

incurable and the incontinent man curable; for wickedness is like a disease such

as dropsy or consumption, while incontinence is like epilepsy; the former is a

permanent, the latter an intermittent badness. And generally incontinence and vice

are different in kind; vice is unconscious of itself, incontinence is not (of incon- tinent men themselves, those who become temporarily beside themselves are bet-

ter than those who have the rational principle but do not abide by it, since the

latter are defeated by a weaker passion, and do not act without previous delib-

eration like the others); for the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk

quickly and on little wine, i.e. on less than most people (trans. Ross).

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212 GIANLUCA DI MUZIO

This passage clearly contains a verdict of incorrigibility for the self-

indulgent (and perhaps for the vicious in general). But it is worth asking

whether incorrigibility is to be equated with the impossibility to change.

Someone may be incorrigible in the literal sense of in-corrigible, i.e.

impervious to external means of correction. But being incorrigible in this

sense is compatible with being able to change if the process of change has

an internal origin. Indeed, some of the most meaningful changes in peo-

ple are produced from the inside and could not have been brought about

through mere correction and punishment. If we now return to the passage

in which Aristotle calls the self-indulgent person "incorrigible", we will

be able to see that all he has in mind is the literal sense of "incorrigible".

First, we should note that a remark in the passage ("the position is not

as it was expressed in the formulation of the problem", 1150 b 31) indi-

cates that Aristotle is solving a difficulty introduced earlier. The aporia,

presented towards the end of Chapter 2 of Book VII, consisted in the fact

that self-indulgent people would seem to be better than incontinent peo-

ple. For the former pursue pleasure by choice and on full conviction that

the unconditional enjoyment of pleasure is the right course to take. A self-

indulgent man would therefore appear to be "easier to cure since he may

be persuaded to change his mind" (UXaxt6oepo; &tb tOa ToUaEUOavat av,

1146 a 33-34). In other words, if being self-indulgent is a matter of being

wrong about pleasure, then one may reform a self-indulgent person by

persuading him to change his beliefs. The incontinent man, however, is

already persuaded that he should not yield to his wrong impulses. So

attempting to reform him by persuasion would be as futile as giving some-

one a drink of water to wash down the water that is choking him (1146

a 35). The puzzle here is that self-indulgence, which is a vice that pro-

ceeds from deliberate choice and calculation, and does not involve regrets

of any kind, would seem to be a morally less desperate condition than

incontinence, despite the fact that the incontinent struggles against his

impulses and would thus appear to have a better chance at reform.

In Chapter 8 of Book VII Aristotle solves this puzzle by reevaluating

what it means to say that self-indulgent people stand by their choices and

act on conviction that what they do is the right course to take. The self-

indulgent person's conviction is of the sort that destroys the person's abil-

ity to entertain right opinion about ends (1 151 a 15-19). Such a conviction

could not be changed through argument, since it stems from a fundamen-

tal corruption of judgment about moral matters. Contrary to what stated

in the aporia, then, the self-indulgent man is not morally better off than

the incontinent man. For his vice makes him impervious to all attempts

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ARISTOTLE ON IMPROVING ONE'S CHARACTER 213

to persuade him to change his ways. It is rather the incontinent man who

turns out to be "easily persuaded to change his mind" (6geaituLtato;, 1151 a 14). Aristotle does not elaborate on what exactly this means, but his

view can be gathered from his comparison between dropsy and consumption,

on the one hand, and epilepsy, on the other (1150 b 32-35). Incontinence

is like epilepsy in that it is an intermittent condition. The incontinent per-

son retains the ability to reason correctly about ends. It is only at certain

times that his judgment becomes clouded and his knowledge of the good

is overshadowed by passion. The incontinent man, then, is not impervi-

ous to persuasion, because when he is not in the grip of passion he is

responsive to guidance and can be persuaded to fight more vigorously

against his impulses. A vice like self-indulgence, on the other hand, is like

a disease that has no periods of spontaneous remission. Persuasion is

bound to fail because there are no times when the self-indulgent person

would be receptive to it.

The self-indulgent person, then, is incurable. But does the progression

of Aristotle's argument authorize us to attribute to him the view that the

self-indulgent person could never cease to be self-indulgent? No; at most

we can attribute to Aristotle the view that the self-indulgent person could

not cease to be self-indulgent as a result of persuasion. The aporia yielded

the odd result that a self-indulgent man would be "easier to cure since he

may be persuaded to change his mind" (1146 a 33-34, emphasis supplied).

The "cure" at issue is moral reform through persuasion. So when Aristotle

later turns the tables on the aporia and shows that it is the incontinent,

and not the self-indulgent man, who is Ev,ueraiEtato, he is saying only

that the vice of self-indulgence does not admit of correction through exter-

nal influences. But this leaves open the possibility that moral reform be

attained through a different process, which I shall try to elucidate below.

That in calling the self-indulgent man "incorrigible" Aristotle uses the

terrm in the limited sense of "unresponsive to correction" - a sense that

leaves open the possibility that the vice of self-indulgence be overcome

through means different from correction - can be confirmed from a variety

of angles. In a passage I have already referred to (1150 a 21-22), Aristotle

asserts that it is the self-indulgent man's lack of regret that makes him

&viaToq. Now it is important to remember that Aristotle takes an etymological approach to the notion of self-indulgence (aicoXacaia). The adcoko6Xao; is,

literally, the man without punishment (ico6aoa;). In the Eudemian Ethics (1230 a 37-b8), Aristotle explains that this may signify a man who has

not been cured through punishment or a man whose nature is impervious

to punishment. It is in the latter sense that people are called "a&c6oXkatot"

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214 GIANLUCA DI MUZIO

when they are hard to cure (6-aiaTot) or altogether incurable through pun-

ishment (aviarot natgnav &ta KOXcZGaSox, 1230 b 8). So when Aristotle designates the self-indulgent man as "incurable" on

account of his lack of regret (1150 a 21-22) and differentiates between the

curable incontinent and the incurable self-indulgent (1150 b 29 ff.), he

need not have in mind anything more than the fact that self-indulgent peo-

ple are impervious to correction. Thus we should be wary of attributing

to him the stronger thesis that it is impossible to cease to be self-indul-

gent.5 Further, at 1121 b 12-13, Aristotle calls a vice "incurable" on the

basis of contingent reasons and not purely on account of its being a vice,

as we would expect him to do if he were convinced that it is altogether

impossible to overcome vicious character states. In this passage, he states

that meanness is an incurable vice because old age and disabilities appear

to make people mean. Clearly, meanness is here said to be incurable not

insofar as it is a vice - for otherwise the reference to old age and dis-

ability would be superfluous - but because old age cuts short the time that

could be used to attain reform or the disability on which the vice depends

cannot be cured. So Aristotle is comfortable with calling a man "aviaTo;9 even when it is only de facto, but not intrinsically impossible for him to

be cured of his vice. Aristotle's use of the term does not per se commit

him to the thesis that vice is by nature insuperable. It only commits him

to the thesis that there are circumstances under which attempts at reform-

ing an individual are bound to fail. This thesis is consistent with the pos-

sibility of moral reform if this can be attained through a process that does

not rely on means such as persuasion or punishment.

To begin to explain how Aristotle understands such a process, it is use-

ful to focus on yet another passage in which "aviaxto;" occurs. At 1165 b 13-22, Aristotle takes up the question of how one should act towards a

friend who has become bad:

But if one accepts another man as good, and he turns out badly [y?v-tat 5 ioxOp6;] and is seen to do so, must one still love him? Surely it is impossible, since not everything can be loved, but only what is good. What is evil neither

can nor should be loved; for it is not one's duty to be a lover of evil, or to be- come like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear to like. Must the friend-

ship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all cases, but only when

one's friends are incurable in their wickedness [XvtaoTt; KcaTa Tiv AoGipiavJ? If they are capable of being reformed, one should come to the assistance of their

character even more than of their property, inasmuch as character is a better thing

I For another passage in which "aviato;" is clearly used in the sense of "unre- sponsive to punishment", cf. 1180 a 5-14.

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ARISTOTLE ON IMPROVING ONE'S CHARACTER 215

and bears a closer relation to friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friend- ship would seem to be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort

that he was a friend; when his friend has changed, therefore, and he is unable to

save him, he gives him up (trans. Ross, slightly modified).6

This passage implies that some of those who become bad are incurable.

But it also implies that some can be reformed.7 Now how does one help

those friends whose character has degenerated? Aristotle's answer is com-

pressed: we should come to the assistance of their character. What does

this mean? Given that Aristotle notoriously holds that arguments lack the

power to make people good (1179 b 4-31), it is unlikely that he has in

mind the argumentative course of trying to persuade the friend to become

better. Instead of an abstract attempt at persuasion, Aristotle seems to have

in mind the same kind of practical approach that would lead one to help

out a friend who is experiencing financial difficulties. As lines 19-20 sug-

gest, since we take action when a friend's substances are in trouble, then

a fortiori we should take action when a friend's character is in danger.

"Coming to the assistance of a friend's character" should thus be con-

strued as doing that action or set of actions which, in the circumstances,

would most effectively counter the degeneration of the friend's character

and its consequences in terms of actions. This may involve trying to limit

the friend's access to people or environments that exercise a bad influence

on him. Or it may simply take the for-m of approaching the friend to show

genuine concern for him and for the restoration of his virtue. The varia-

tions are probably infinite, since they would be dictated by the circum-

stances. But in all or most cases the friend turned bad will be exposed to

the virtuous behaviour of the rescuing friend, and to his noble concern

and readiness to help.

6 Lines 19-20 read: "CnavOpOoxv 5' 0Xouat ,&A.ov poi ,ov ci; xo 0o; i rrv oOiLav, OM() PkXttOV ca1C ptS tk'ta OiKtO'TEpOV". Ross translates: "If they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their

property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of friendship". But "gak- kov ...fi" clearly introduces a comparison between "zo i10o;" and "rr v oixsiav". The sense of the passage is that just as one should help one's friends in times of financial

hardship, so should one come to the rescue of a friend's character, which is so much

more precious than wealth.

I According to Gauthier and Jolif (L'thique a Nicomaque, vol. II, pt. 2, p. 724),

in this passage Aristotle distinguishes between friends who have become vicious and

friends who have become incontinent. It is only the latter, Gauthier and Jolif hold, that

Aristotle regards as curable. I see no basis in the text for this interpretation, given that

it is clear that the purpose of the whole passage is to discuss options for dealing with

a friend who has become goXrIpo'; (cf. 1165 b 13-14).

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216 GIANLUCA DI MUZIO

Of course Aristotle does not think that exposure to the virtue of a friend

is sufficient to reform a person's character. For clearly there are cases

where nothing will help. When it is impossible to save a friend, one is

justified in breaking off the friendship (1165 b 22). But Aristotle's point,

I believe, is that in certain cases exposure to virtue and to the noble con-

cern of a friend may trigger a process of moral reform in a person of bad

character. This process would take the form described in the Categories

passage (improvement of character in successive increments through action).

And the Categories passage, too, identifies the first-hand experience of

virtue - or at least the experience of a way of life better than vice - as

the point of departure of moral reform in those individuals who manage

to escape from vice. The bad man, Aristotle says, may become better if

he is "led into better ways of living and talking" ("ei; FeXtiov; 8tarptpta; ayo6evo; xait X6yov;", 13 a 23-24). A plausible way of understanding these lines is by thinking of someone who is exposed to the example of people

living virtuously and thus becomes attracted to the life of virtue, exactly

as a person turned bad may be attracted back to virtue by the virtuous

attitude and concern of a friend.

One may object to my overall enterprise of showing that Aristotle

admits of the possibility of moral reform on grounds that it is hard to see

how exposure to virtue could provide sufficient motivation for the vicious

to become virtuous. Actually, given certain facts about Aristotelian moral

psychology, it is hard to see how anything could provide that motivation.

Aristotle holds that vice is unconscious of itself (1150 b 36). He also holds

that a vicious character shapes the desires of the individual who possesses

it (1129 a 6-10). So if the vicious do not realize that they are vicious and

their character determines their desires, what in them could be the source

of a desire to change? Where could their motivation come from?

To answer this question, we should keep in mind that according to

Aristotle wicked people experience a misery that is characteristic of vice.

Nicomachean Ethics IX 4 draws a sharp contrast between the good per-

son's self-love and the bad person's self-loathing. Wicked men, Aristotle

points out, shun themselves and therefore dislike being by themselves.

They have no feelings of self-love, since there is nothing lovable in them.

So the life of the bad man is the most wretched (1166 b 13-29). Now in

the last few lines of this passage Aristotle remarks that the spectacle of

the bad man's wretchedness should affect us and serve as an impulse to

"strain every nerve to avoid wickedness and [. ..] endeavour to be good"

(1166 b 27-28). But Aristotle clearly believes that such a wretchedness

also affects the bad man himself. The bad man is aware of his unhappi-

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ARISTOTLE ON IMPROVING ONE'S CHARACTER 217

ness and is able not only to desire that it cease, but also to take concrete

steps to get away from it. As I pointed out above, Aristotle stresses that wicked people actively seek the company of others. They pursue this form of distraction in order to avoid the feelings they experience about their past and future evil deeds (1166 b 13-17). Aristotle also remarks that the

condition of wicked people is so unbearable that they sometimes take their own life (1166 b 11-13).

So it is clear that according to Aristotle wicked people can form the desire that some of their feelings cease, and can also act on it. Such a

desire is a "higher order" one, in the sense that it comes from stepping back and reflecting on the overall quality of one's life. Although one of the tenets of Aristotelian moral psychology is that a bad character can only produce desires for bad things, the "higher order" desire does not

proceed from an individual's moral character. For quite independently of their moral character, people can realize - through mere introspection - that certain unpleasant feelings are present in them; and this realization, in turn, can serve as a basis for a desire that those feelings cease. Even wicked people, then, can desire that something change in them. This is not necessarily a desire to become good, since for Aristotle vice is uncon- scious of itself, and a bad person may have no clear representation of what being good amounts to. Rather, it is a generic desire to change so as to reduce or eliminate one's feelings of self-loathing. It is at this stage that exposure to virtue, together with the realization that virtuous people are immune from feelings of self-loathing, may trigger a process of change and induce the vicious person to experiment with the actions virtuous peo- ple routinely engage in. Given an adequate amount of time, this process may in some cases lead to the kind of complete moral reform the Categories passage describes. Although a vicious person may start the process for reasons of mere self-interest, it is clear from the Categories passage that according to Aristotle making even a little progress at the beginning may lead to more dramatic changes in the long run.

In other words, by admitting of the possibility of moral reform, Aristotle admits that even a morally corrupt person could do good actions and little by little arrive at doing them in the way in which a good person does them. This qualification is necessary because there is a trivial sense in which any, say, unjust person could do just actions. Reasons of oppor- tunity often prompt immoral people to act morally. But an action done under these circumstances - for instance, returning a deposit simply for fear of the consequences of not doing so - would be just only incidentally (cf. Nicomachean Ethics V 8, 1135 b 2-6). Now Aristotle distinguishes

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218 GIANLUCA DI MUZIO

between actions of the sort a just person would perform and actions done in the way a just person does them (cf. Nicomachean Ethics H 4, 1105 b

5-12). The former may be performed by an unjust agent who is acting justly only in the incidental sense, whereas in order to do the latter it is necessary that the action be chosen for its own sake. If Aristotle allowed for the possibility of moral reform, he must have thought that even morally corrupt people could go beyond doing good for mere reasons of opportunity. He must have thought that even the unjust could in principle

do just actions for their own sake, and could in time - and after strug- gling considerably - acquire a stable disposition to act in this way.

Seeing that Aristotle does not regard it as impossible for people to act contrary to their character may serve to ease a worry some interpreters

have expressed about the doctrine of the voluntariness of character. On a certain traditional reading, in Nicomachean Ethics III 5 Aristotle distin-

guishes between two stages in the moral development of an individual. Before the formation of character, whenever a person acts, he or she could have taken some other course of action instead. But once a person has

acquired a certain character, this dictates a particular type of behaviour and robs the person of the ability to act otherwise.8 If this is Aristotle's theory, however, the actions of moral adolescents would oddly seem to be more directly voluntary than those of the morally mature. The actions of

the latter, necessitated as they are by character, would seem to be either downright involuntary or voluntary only in a weak, derivative sense (that is, merely as a consequence of their proceeding from a character that has been acquired through voluntary actions).9

I For an example of this reading, see D. Furley, Two studies in the Greek Atomists, pp. 189-190. Of course, even on this interpretation, a person's behaviour is not entirely determined by character. An unjust man retains the option of choosing wine or beer when he is offered a drink. But the point of the interpretation is that an unjust man can only act unjustly in a situation involving a moral choice.

I This would be odd in light of the fact that Aristotle's whole treatment of volun- tariness in Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics "makes actions explained by the char- acter of the agent paradigm examples of voluntary action", J. Roberts, "Aristotle on responsibility for action and character", Ancient Philosophy 9 (1989), p. 28. The difficulty is pointed out also by Siegler ("Voluntary and Involuntary", p. 285) and by Sarah Broadie, who articulates it thus: "The individual who habitually puts himself first will find a way of doing this whichever way he acts, and genuinely self-sacrificing alternatives would not be live options to him. It may depend on him whether he does precisely this or that, and in respect of detail he may be a contingent cause, but it seems that whatever he now does, it does not depend on him whether he behaves self- centredly. So, if some action of his mainly strikes us as an instance of selfish behav-

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ARISTOTLE ON IMPROVING ONE'S CHARACTER 219

This difficulty is done away with if one abandons the assumption that

Aristotle views character as necessitating certain types of action. He cer-

tainly views character as a source of very strong inclination to act in a

certain way. But his not ruling out the possibility of moral reform indi-

cates that he took even the unjust to be still equipped with the resources

for acting well. So having an established character does not rob a person

of the ability to act contrary to it. Those who see a difficulty in Aristotle's

doctrine of the voluntariness of character take it that an action cannot be

voluntary if the agent could not have refrained from doing it. It is not at

all clear that Aristotle understood voluntariness in this way.'0 But even if

he did, one should not be worried that his theory may entail that people

of established character act involuntarily. For in Aristotle's view they

retain the ability to act contrary to their character."

Department of Philosophy

University of Virginia

iour, is the action voluntary under that description, and is he to be reproached for it or blamed? It would be strange if not, since that would imply that a person of settled

character is a voluntary agent only (if at all) in respect of the ethically insignificant aspects of his action; yet the concept voluntary is above all relevant to ethics as set-

ting the formal condition under which an individual becomes subject to ethical judgment",

S. Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 160. 10 Furley, for instance, has argued that Aristotle does not frame the notion of vol-

untariness in terms of freedom to do otherwise. Cf. Two studies in the Greek Atomists, pp. 215-225.

" I would like to thank Dan Devereux for his advice and encouragement through-

out the realization of this project. I also profited from helpful discussions with Tom Brickhouse.

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