Bodies, Animals, and Minds 13 --- Quote from Ockham

From Quod. 2.11 (Freddoso/Kelley translation, p. 137):

"When a human being or a brute animal dies, numerically the same accidents remain as were there previously; therefore, they have numerically the same subject. The consequence is evident from the fact that an accident does not naturally migrate from subject to subject. But the subject in this case is not primary matter, since if it were, then primary matter would be the immediate recipient of absolute accidents --- which does not seem true. Therefore, some form that was there previously remains, and this form is not the sentient soul. Therefore, it is the [form of] corporeity.

The assumption, viz., that numerically the same accidents are in the living animal and the dead animal, I prove from the fact that if the accidents [of the dead animal] were different, they would at least be the same in species as the accidents of the living animal. This is evident from the fact that they are so similar that a human being is not able to discriminate between them."

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 12 --- Ockham 4

What about the mind? Ockham also thinks that is a distinct thing too. But here, his reasons are theological. Like most Latin-speaking scholastics of his day, Ockham was a Christian, so he believed that the mind (or soul) survives after death.

If I were to die in the next few seconds, my mind would continue to exist, as a free-floating mind of sorts. But the animal in me would not survive, for animals cannot survive without a body. Hence, the mind that is doing all this thinking here, and the animal that is standing here now --- these must be distinct things too, just as the body and the animal that are standing here must be distinct as well.

For Ockham then, there are three distinct things here, and they all occupy the same region of space. There’s a body, there’s an animal, and there’s a mind. And this allows Ockham to easily explain things like why we leave a corpse behind when we die.

On the other hand, Ockham’s view doesn’t do justice to the intuitions that Aquinas heeded, namely the idea that here in this region of space, we normally think that there is just one thing here, namely a living organism who goes by the name of JT. So both Ockham and Aquinas do justice to certain intuitions we have about human beings, but they fail to do justice to all our intuitions.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 11 --- Ockham 3

However, even though my body must survive my death, Ockham thinks the animal that is standing here right now --- that would not survive my death. When I die, the animal dies too. And again, Ockham thinks we have good reason to think this. When you look at the place where I am now standing, you can clearly see something that is sentient, but if I were to die, nothing sentient would be left.

For Ockham then, it seems obvious that the body standing up here would survive my death, but the animal standing up here would not. And that, thinks Ockham, means that the body and the animal up here cannot be the same thing.

This also captures a deep-seated intuition that we have. We tend to think that if two things are actually one and the same thing, then whatever is true of one must also be true of the other. For example, the great Roman senator Cicero also went by the name Tully. Now, if Cicero and Tully are indeed the very same person, then whatever is true of one must also be true of the other. If Cicero were speaking in the Roman senate at this very moment, then Tully would be too. Conversely, if Cicero were speaking in the senate, but Tully were off drinking at the pub, then we would assume that Cicero and Tully could not be the same person.

So also, thinks Ockham, would this apply to the body and the animal that occupy this region of space where I am now standing. If I were to die in a few seconds, then one of them would end up lying on the floor, but the other one would be gone altogether. So surely the body and the animal you see here cannot be the same thing. Ockham thus concludes that they must be distinct things altogether. For Ockham, there is, in fact, a distinct body and a distinct animal standing up here in this very same spot.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 10 --- Ockham 2

For Ockham, the fact that my living body and my corpse are so similar implies that they must be the very same body (not different bodies, as Aquinas would say).

This captures another intuition that we have about material objects. When we watch something over a period of time, we assume that if it looks much the same at the beginning and end of that block of time, it must be the same thing.

For instance, a rusty old Jaguar has been sitting in my driveway for the past three years, and it looks much the same now as it did three years ago. I’ve seen it change a little (it’s become more rusty and discolored), but for the most part, it looks very much the same. And I assume that it is, in fact, the very same car. I doubt very much that anybody has stealthily replaced it with another, nearly identical looking car overnight.

We make the same sorts of judgments about most things, including people. We watch our loved ones age, but none of us would think they ever get replaced by nearly identical clones. And the same goes for my corpse. Why would we ever think that it would be a different body from the one that is standing here now? Surely my body survives my death. Or so Ockham would say.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 9 --- Ockham 1

Aquinas was not the only medieval philosopher around back then, and his view about human beings was not the only view floating around either. In fact, it was a highly unpopular view. Most medieval philosophers disagreed entirely. Ockham, for example, finds the problem of the corpse decisive.

Suppose that I die a few seconds from now. As I said before, my body would fall lifeless to the floor, and you would be left with a corpse on your hands. But compare my body now with the soon-to-be corpse. How would they differ?

As Ockham sees it, they wouldn’t differ at all. On the contrary, they would be exactly similar in every way. They would have the same color, the same size, and so on. They would even have the same cells. Of course, the cells would start to decay after I die, but at the moment just before my death and the moment just after my death, there would be exactly the same cells (or very nearly). And that, thinks Ockham, gives us a very strong reason to think that they are, in fact, the very same body.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 8 --- Aquinas 6

On Aquinas’s view, when I die, I go away, and a new object (a corpse) pops into existence to fill the same region of space. That seems weird. Most people think that our bodies remain after we die, with the difference between my current body and the soon-to-be corpse on the floor being just that the one has life and the other does not. That is another deep-seated intuition many people have; when we die, most people think that what departs is my life, not my body.

Now, if you think that humans are composed of bodies and minds (or souls, as some call them), then you could easily explain this. For you could say that when I die, my soul goes away, but my body remains. And that would very nicely explain how my body continues to exist after I die.

But this is not an option that is open to Aquinas. Again, remember that he thinks there is just one thing occupying this region of space where I am now standing, not two. There are not two distinct things here, a body and a soul, one of which could go away at death and the other of which could remain.

Aquinas thinks there is just one thing here, and so when it goes away, there’s nothing else left to fill this region of space. Consequently, the corpse that we would see here would have to be something new, something that would have to pop into existence at the moment of my death, and which would fill the very same region of space.

Interestingly, Aquinas is aware of this consequence, and he doesn’t mind it. On the contrary, he completely accepts it. ‘Yes’, he would say, ‘when you die, you would cease to exist there (you would get whisked away to heaven), and a new thing --- a corpse --- would come into being’.

So there are some nice things about Aquinas, and some not so nice things. When he says that there is just one thing that fills this region of space where I am now standing, he does seem to do justice to many of our intutions about material objects and living organisms. On the other hand, his view does entail that when I die, a new thing (a corpse) pops into existence, and that seems odd.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 7 --- Aquinas 5

Even though Aquinas’s view does line up with certain intuitons we have about material objects and living organisms, Aquinas’s view does have some odd consequences. The most important of those runs as follows.

What would happen if I were to suddenly die in the next few seconds? Well, my body would fall lifeless to the floor, and you would be left with a corpse on your hands. But the question is: would that lifeless corpse be the same body as the living one that is standing here now?

Aquinas would have to say no. Remember: Aquinas maintains that here in this region of space that I am now occupying, there is just one thing, and that’s me. So, if I were to die, one of two things could happen. Either this one thing (me) would cease to exist altogether, or it would get whisked away to the ‘other side’ (heaven, hell, or wherever it is you think dead people go). Indeed, that’s what it means for something to die: it ceases to exist, or it goes away to the ‘other side’.

But either way, the thing that occupies this region of space right now would no longer be here. Consequently, the corpse would have to be something new, something that pops into existence at the moment of my death and then fills the exact same spot where I was standing a moment before. Crazy, eh?

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 6 --- Aquinas 4

A third intuition we have has to do with counting. Suppose I pointed to this region of space where I am now standing, and then I asked you, ‘how many things do you see here?’ Surely you would say ‘one’. If you said ‘two’ or ‘three’, I would probably think you weren’t seeing straight. I would think you were drunk and seeing doubles or triples. I would think that something was wrong with your vision.

So we tend to count each living organism as one thing, not more than one thing, and again, Aquinas really captures this intuition. You don’t count three objects standing here in this region of space. You just count one, and that’s me.

Henc, there is something very nice about Aquinas’s view that there is just one thing in this region of space where I am now standing. It certainly lines up with the three aforementioned intuitions we have about material objects and living organisms.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 5 --- Aquinas 3

Another deep-seated intuition we have is that two material objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time. Take any two material objects and try to get them into the same space. You can’t do it. They bounce off each other; they repel each other. And indeed, this is precisely why we don’t try to park our cars in spots that are already occupied by other cars.

The same goes for human beings. As Aquinas sees it, if there were a distinct body and a distinct animal in this region of space where I am now standing, then there would be two material objects in the same place at the same time, and surely that’s impossible. Aquinas’s view captures this intuition nicely as well: there can only be one thing here in this spot right now, and that’s me.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 4 --- Aquinas 2

In the last post, I explained that for Aquinas, there is just one thing occupying this region of space where I am now standing, and that’s me, a human being. Aquinas thinks it would be ludicrous to say that there is a distinct body, animal, and mind in this same region of space.

Now, at first sight, that probably sounds right to most people, and for good reason: it lines up with a number of intuitions that we have about material objects, and especially about living organisms.

For example, one intuition we have is that living organisms exhibit a very tight kind of internal unity. That is, the parts and functions of an organism are tied together very tightly and integrated into one single entity. It’s not as if I’m made of a bunch of lego bricks that can be pulled apart at will. If you pulled off my leg, it would be incredibly painful, and I would very likely die from blood loss, if the shock didn’t kill me first. I’m not a loose blob of parts; there’s a very tight connection between everything within me.

So we tend to think about living organisms as tightly unified individuals, and Aquinas’s view captures this intuition very well. When asked what it is that occupies this region of space where I am now standing, there’s got to be just one thing here, namely a single living organism (me).

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 3 --- Aquinas 1

In the last post, I pointed out that if we look at the region of space where I am now standing, we can identify at least three different sorts of things: an organic body, a living animal, and a mind. The question is, though, how are these three things related? Are they three distinct things in the same region of space, or is there just one thing here?

According to Aquinas, it would be ludicrous to say that here in this region of space that I now occupy, there are three entirely distinct things. As Aquinas sees it, there’s just one thing here, and it’s me, a human being.

Aquinas gives a number of arguments for why this must be so, but the one that really gets to the heart of his view is this: if a ‘human being’ were actually just a bunch of other individual things that just happened to occupy the same spot, then a ‘human being’ would really just be an aggregate of those other things. As Aquinas himself puts it:

‘Many . . . things do not make up one [larger] thing unless something unifies them and ties them together. So, for example, if Socrates were both an animal and a mind . . . , those two things would need to be united by some link that would make them into one thing. But since there is no such link [ex hypothesi], Socrates would just be an aggregate or a heap of many things’. --- From Quaestiones de Anima, in the Responsio to question 11.

And Aquinas clearly thinks that would be absurd. A human being is one individual thing, not a conglomerate of many things occupying the same region of space.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 2 --- The Aristotelian Background

As with most medieval issues, the place to start is Aristotle, for he really set the terms of the debate. To start, consider the spot where I am now standing. Now let’s ask this question: what occupies this region of space? Aristotle thinks we could give a number of different answers here.

(1) For instance, one thing that fills this region of space is a body, i.e., this chunky lump of tissue bumbling around up here. And this is not just any old body. It’s not made of clay, or steel, or any other sort of inorganic material. It’s made of flesh and blood, bones and organs. In short, it’s an organic body. So one option is that there’s an organic body in this region of space.

(2) A second answer might be that there’s an animal here. For Aristotle, the defining characteristic of animals is that they are sentient, which is to say that they are aware of and responsive to the outside world. And indeed, I have five senses through which I access the outside world: I can see things, smell things, touch things, and so on. So here we have another option: there’s an animal standing here in this region of space.

(3) A third answer you might give is that there is a mind here, i.e., something with an intellect and will. Of all the animals on our planet, only humans are able to think in complicated ways, love our spouses and children deeply, take stands on moral issues, and so on. These are the sorts of things that can only be done by a mind (or at least by a thinking thing). So here we have yet another option: that there’s a mind which in some sense or other resides in this region of space.

So Aristotle thinks we can identify at least three things in this region of space. At the very least, there’s a body here, there’s an animal here, and there’s a mind here (or at least a thinking thing).

But how are these three related? Are they three entirely distinct things that all occupy the same region of space simultaneously, perhaps like how if we look at a wet sponge, we could say that the water and the sponge occupy the same region of space as well? Or is there just one thing occupying this region of space, and it has the characteristics of a body, an animal, and a mind?

That’s the basic question. Next, I’ll turn to Aquinas.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 1

One of the things that medieval philosophers debated was this: how many substantial forms do material substances (especially human beings) have? This is known as the controversy over the plurality of forms. The debate can seem rather abstract and archaic, what with all the matter and form stuff. It may be abstract, but it’s not at all archaic. It still occupies philosophers today. In this series of posts, I want to introduce the topic in a way which I hope will make the basic problems and issues clear. So here goes.

One way into the debate is to think about this question: what exactly is a human being, or perhaps even a (human) person? Most of us would agree that we have bodies, we are all living animals, and we have minds. But which of those is crucial for being a (human) person? All of them? Just one of them? Some combination of them? Or perhaps none of them at all?

To help bring the issue into focus, consider the following. Sometimes people suffer severe head trauma, and as a result, they lapse into a vegetative state. Sometimes the damage is so bad that they require life support. They need machines to keep the heart beating and the lungs breathing.

What do we want to say about the person then? When I have my students deal with this question, many of them start off by arguing that when the mental activity stops, the person stops too, so to speak. And that suggests that the body is not that important for personhood. ‘It’s the mind that matters’, my students tell me.

But we can further push the point. Philosophers sometimes hypothesize about science-fiction sorts of scenarios, one of which is brain transplants. Imagine if we could take my mind --- all of its abilities, knowledge, memories, personal quirks, and so on --- and then transfer it into another body. Where would I be then? Would I go with my mind into the next body, or would I have left an important part of me behind in the old body?

In the next post, I’ll start digging into how the scholastics dealt with these sorts of questions.

More on Haecceities

The venerable blogger Ocham (curator of the Logic Museum) has put up some good posts on my questions about haecceities:

http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/09/paasch-on-haecceity.html
http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/09/is-haecceity-repeatable.html
http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/09/indivisibility-and-unrepeatability.html
http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-haecceity-is-not-repeatable_24.html

I thought I could do otherwise, but I was mistaken

Let's assume that an action is free if it could have been otherwise: 

(T1*)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x performs A freely = iff
x could have done other than A,
given the same history. 

Now imagine the following scenario. Suppose you live in a big mansion. You're sitting in your study, reading an excellent philosophy book. I sneak up outside the door and lock you in, but I do this so stealthily that you don't even notice that I've done it. Soon it hits your bedtime (which is probably 9 o'clock), but after looking at your watch, you decide to stay and read a bit longer.

Was that a free choice? You couldn't have left, even though you don't know it. Some people might say that it is a free choice, even though you couldn't have done otherwise. If so, then this would be a counter-example to the idea that an action is free if it could have been otherwise.

We could go even further here and introduce moral responsibility. Let's assume that a person is morally responsible for what she does if and only if she could have done otherwise:


(T3)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x can be held morally responsible for A = iff
x could have done other than A,
given the same history.

Now suppose that we are back in the days of the cold war, and you decide to kill President Reagen. I find out about your scheme, and being a KGB spy, I want to ensure that you go ahead with it. While you're sleeping, I implant a little device in your head that will make you kill Reagen when activated. You know, in case you loose your nerve, I can activate the device, and you'll kill Reagen. But again, you don't know this. In the end, I don't need to activate the device, because you go ahead and kill Reagen anyway.

Would you be morally responsible for this? This is very nearly parallel to the last example. You couldn't have done otherwise, but you don't know it. Some people might think that you would be morally responsible, even though you couldn't have done otherwise. If so, then this is a counter-example to the idea that moral responsibility requires that you could have done otherwise.

(Notice a difference between these two examples: in both cases you do not know that you could not have done otherwise, but in the one case the question is whether you're free, and in the other case the question is whether you're morally responsible.)

Moral responsibility and free will

In my last post, I mentioned that some people say that a person can be held morally responsible for their actions if and only if they perform those actions freely, by which we mean they could have done otherwise than they did:

(T3)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x can be held morally responsible for A = iff
x could have done other than A,
given the same history.

This might be too strong. I'm not sure, but maybe. I'm thinking about cases where we have a very strong impulse to do something bad --- e.g., if someone held a gun to my head and made me smash your favorite porcelain plates, or if I stole your favorite porcelain plates so I could sell them and feed my crack addiction.

In these cases, someone could say:

'Look, you're still free there, because you could have done otherwise. You could have opted to be shot instead of smashing those plates, and you could have opted to suffer withdrawal instead of stealing those plates'.

Okay, sure. I'll grant that. After all, I'm assuming for the moment that an agent acts freely if they could have done otherwise. So these would be cases of 'free acts' in that sense. 

Still, would I be morally responsible for these actions? Probably not in the first case. (Unless I said something to you like this: 'I did it at gunpoint, man! You can't hold me responsible for destroying those plates that I hate so much'.)


I guess I'm saying that there might be cases where the accused had the choice to do otherwise than they did (and so were 'free' in that sense), but yet are not morally responsible for doing what they did. So I'm not sure I'd buy T3, which says that 'moral responsibility' and 'free action' extend to exactly the same cases.  

Moral responsibility and could-have-done-otherwise

Sometimes people say that moral responsibility requires free will, i.e., that we can act freely.

(T2)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x can be held morally responsible for A = iff
x performs A freely. 

But we can go further. We might assume that moral responsibility requires the sort of free will where we could have done otherwise. After all, when we say 'you should not have done what you did do', or 'you should have done what you did not do', we seem to be implying that you could have done otherwise. So if we assume that free will is this:

(T1*)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x performs A freely = iff
x could have done other than A,
given the same history.

Then one could say:

(T3)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x can be held morally responsible for A = iff
x could have done other than A,
given the same history.

Free will, could-have-done otherwise, and causal determinism

One common notion of free will is the idea of choice: you have a number of options in front of you, and you pick one. Or, perhaps a better way to talk about this is like so: you have free will if you could have done otherwise than you did. A provisional definition could be this:

(T1)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x performs A freely = iff
x could have done other than A. 

But that's not really good enough, because a determinist who believes that our actions are causally determined by our prior histories could agree with it. Such a determinist might say: 'of course you could have done otherwise, if you had a different history.'

Well, sure, I could have done otherwise if I had a different history. But that's still deterministic: one history determines me to do certain things, and another history determines me to do other things. And that's not really what I mean when I say that I could have done otherwise. What I really mean is that I could have done otherwise, even with the same history. So we could revise T1 something like this:

(T1*)  For any person x who performs an action A,
x performs A freely = iff
x could have done other than A,
given the same history.

That seems a little better.

Powers and impossibility

One might think that powers necessarily involve some relation to the activities for which they are powers. After all, we do not say that 'Jane has the power' without stating (or at least implying) what Jane has the power for. Thus, it would seem that a connection with the relevant sort of activity is built into the very nature of a power.

Still, I wonder what that actually means, ontologically speaking. One theory would be this: something has the power to do an activity if it is possible for it do that sort of activity. And if that were the case, then something x would have the power to perform an activity A if there were some world W where x (or a sufficiently similar counterpart of x) actually performs A.

I don't know if I buy this particular view, but it seems to me rather intuitive. After all, if there were no worlds at all where x performs A, then it would be impossible that x performs A. That's just the definition of 'possible' and 'impossible': something is possible if it happens in some world, and it is impossible if it happens in no world. So also here: if x does A in some world, then it's possible, but if x doesn't do A in any world, then it's impossible. And if it's impossible, then surely x does not have the power to perform A, plain and simple.

On this view, one could say that a power (or at least a type of power) is essentially connected to its corresponding activity, for there will always be at least one world where the agent actually performs the activity in question.

Are Scotus's haecceities really unrepeatable?

In my last post, I explained that the only way I can see that a thisness (haecceity) would be unrepeatable would be if the thisness involved some identity reference to the individual in question. Otherwise, I can't see how cloning it would result in a contradiction.

Does Scotus think a thisness involves some identity reference to the individual in question? I don't see how he could think this. Two reasons.

(1) First, identity reference is a relation, and Scotus argues that thisnesses are absolute (non-relational) entities. So it's hard to see how Scotus could say that a thisness is constituted by any reference to the individual.

I wonder, then, if a thisness is supposed to be an absolute entity, why couldn't God clone it? Why couldn't God clone any absolute entity? I can't see why not.

(2) Second, Scotus believes that relations supervene on the things they relate. That is, they are posterior to the things they relate, so if they supervene on an individual, then the individual is already individuated. In short, relationships cannot do any individuating, for they show up on the scene too late, as it were, to do any individuating.

Indeed, to say that Socrateity is the property of being identical to Socrates already presupposes that Socrates is an individual. Otherwise it would make no sense to make an identity reference to Socrates as the individual that he is.

This, I think, is a particularly powerful desideratum here. Take the view of the venerable Robert Adams. He argues that a thisness is just the property of being identical to oneself, and this explains nicely why a thisness is non-qualitative (unrepeatable) property: reproducing it would generate a contradiction.

But what I don't understand is how it does not presuppose the individual in question. If Socrateity is the property of being identical to Socrates, then doesn't that presuppose that Socrates is already an individual? How could we say x is identical to Socrates if we didn't already think of Socrates as an individual?

As Scotus would put it, identity relationships (and in fact all relationships) are naturally posterior to the things they relate, so they show up on the scene too late, as it were, to do any explaining.

One might further suggest, I suppose, that identity relationships are just figments of the imagination. When I think 'Cicero is identical to Tully', I'm imagining Cicero and Tully as if they were different individuals: I have a picture of Cicero in my mind, and I have a picture of Tully in my mind too, and then I connect them and say 'those are the same person'. But in reality, there are not two persons there. There's just one dude, so the 'identity relationship' is really not some sort of entity that exists 'out there' in Cicero/Tully. It's just a (true) connection I've drawn in my mind.

So also with Socrateity: the fact that Socrates is identical to Socrates would be a fact that supervenes on the fact that Socrates is Socrates. But doesn't that already presuppose that Socrates is already the individual Socrates that he is? How could I possibly refer to him if he wasn't?

In any case, it seems to me that Scotus cannot answer any of these questions. He says a thisness is a positive, absolute entity, but if it is an absolute entity, why couldn't it be cloned (by God at least)? I think Scotus has to take thisnesses as entities that are just (somehow) primitively unrepeatable. And that doesn't really explain very much.

But perhaps that is the meat and potatoes of Scotus's position. If so, then Scotus would be saying: we simply cannot explain individuation, for we always presuppose the individual in question. Consequently, it must be the same in reality: there must be some sort of entities 'out there' in the world which are, in and of themselves, (somehow) unrepeatable.

What makes a haecceity unrepeatable?

My question is this: what is it about a thisness (haecceity) that makes it so unrepeatable? Take Socrateity. Why couldn't God create another one, an identical copy or clone?

As far as I can tell, if we assume that God is omnipotent (by which I mean that God can bring about anything that does not involve a contradiction), then the only way that a thisness could not be cloned is if doing so brought about a contradiction.

Suppose, for instance, that we assume (as some modern metaphysicians do) that a thisness is the property of being identical to oneself. In that case, Socrateity would be the property of being identical to Socrates. Now suppose that God created a clone of Socrates, and cloned his Socrateity as well. Let's call this clone 'Harold', and let's call the Socrateity-clone 'Haroldeity'.

Since Haroldeity is a clone of Socrateity, it would be the property of being identical to Socrates. Thus, Harold would be identical to Socrates. But Harold is not identical to Socrates. On the contrary, he is just a clone of Socrates. Thus, Harold would turn out to both be identical to and non-identical to Socrates, and that's a contradiction. So God could not clone Socrateity if it amounted to being identical to Socrates, for cloning that property would result in a contradiction.

One might take this example and generalize: the only way that cloning a thisness will result in a contradiction is if the thisness involves some sort of intrinsic reference to the individual in question. For ultimately, the contradiction is going to involve being identical to vs. not being identical to the individual in question. (It would be irrelevant if the resulting contradiction amounted to being identical and not being identical to Beulah the cow. We're talking about Socrates here, so the contradiction is going to have to pertain to him.)

So, one might think, if a thisness lacks any sort of reference to the individual in question, then it could be cloned after all.

What are haecceities?

One of the major questions that I wonder about is this: what is the difference between haecceities and quiddities (or 'thisnesses' and 'suchnesses')?

One option is to say this: a suchness is qualitative, whereas a thisness is not. But what does that mean? My pre-theoretical intuitions are this: something that is qualitative has some sort of content, whereas something that is non-qualitative does not (it's more abstract -- whatever that means). 

But it's hard to come up with examples for that sort of distinction, and that tells me that my pre-theoretical intuitions are just confused.

Another option is to say this: a suchness is repeatable, whereas a thisness is not. That is, a suchness can be instantiated more than once, whereas a thisness cannot. There can only be one of any given thisness.

That is how most analytic philosophers these days distinguish 'qualitative' and 'non-qualitative' properties. Anything that is repeatable is qualitative, and anything that is not is non-qualitative.

But still, what are some examples? It's hard to come up with an example of a non-qualitative property or constituent. Any entity I can think of is the sort of thing that could be repeated: God could create another identical copy of it, for instance.

So why couldn't God create an identical copy of a haecceity? What makes it so unrepeatable?

Scotus: haecceities must be some positive entity

Medieval philosophers offered a variety of theories about individuation -- that is, about the formal cause of individuation. Here are two popular medieval options.

(1) Some proposed that individuals are individuated by their unique set of incidental features. For instance, if we ask why you and I are different, the proponent of this theory would say that you and I have different heights, weights, shapes, colors, and so on, and this particular set of features that I have is unique: no other individual has these features, just as no other individual has your particular set of features.

This view obviously rests on the identity of indiscernibles: any things that have the exact same properties are indistinguishable, and hence the very same thing. So, for instance, if someone else looked exactly like me in all respects, you couldn't tell us apart, and for that reason we would be same individual.

One might object, of course, that we could easily distinguish me and my twin because I am sitting here, in this chair, and my twin is sitting there, in that chair. In other words, we occupy different regions of space-time.

But the advocate of the theory in question would say that space and time are also part of our incidental features, and so me and my twin would not have the very same features after all. We would have a lot of them in common, but we would not have our spatial and temporal features in common, and for that reason we would not be the same individuals.

Max Black famously questioned this theory. There's no reason, he proposes, that we couldn't imagine two exactly similar identical spheres in parallel dimensions. (I must admit that I have never understood this. Even if they have all the same features, they are still indexed to different dimensions, and so wouldn't they differ with respect to that? I confess that I don't get how Black's example is a genuine counter-example.)

(2) Others proposed that two individuals differ because they are made up of different chunks of materials. So, for instance, me and my twin might have all the same features, except I am made of this chunk of material, and he is made of that chunk of material.

(This theory seems to assume that different chunks of material are distinct -- either primitively, or in virtue of the fact that they occupy different regions of space. But again, couldn't one suppose: what if these two chunks of material had the same spatial and temporal properties? How would they be distinguished then? I think that most advocates of this theory would have to maintain that different chunks of material cannot occupy the same region of space-time simultaneously.)

Scotus argues that neither of these two theories actually explain individuation. For Scotus, each of these theories presupposes individual entities. The first theory assumes that incidental features are already individual, and the second theory assumes that chunks of material are individual. But that still leaves us wondering: how are incidental features or chunks of material individuated? So as Scotus sees it, neither of these theories have really explained individuation after all.

In fact, Scotus goes through all the major theories that he knows of and points out that they all presuppose some individual entity, and for that reason, he rejects all of them.

Scotus then concludes that we must assume that individuation comes about by some primitively individual entity -- and this is called a haecceity. We don't know what this entity is, but it must be a positively real thing, and it must be individual in and of itself. Since all of our theories about individuals assume individuality already, we must postulate some primitive individuator.

Individuation is a question of the formal cause

When scholastic philosophers discuss individuation, their basic question is this: which of a thing's constituents make it the individual that it is? This question deserves some comment. As the schoolmen see it, we are looking for what they call the 'formal cause', not the 'efficient cause'.

The efficient cause is the agent that brings the effect in question into being. For instance, when a sculptor makes a statue, the sculptor is the efficient cause here, for the sculptor is the person/agent who effectively brings the statue into being. In short, the efficient cause is the producer of the effect.

The formal cause, on the other hand, is some feature or constituent of the product itself that explains why it is the sort of thing it is. For instance, the formal cause of a statue being a statue is the shape of the statue. Without it's shape, it wouldn't be a statue, so that very shape is the 'formal cause' of the statue being a statue.

When the schoolmen talk about individuation, everybody agrees that the efficient cause of the individual is its producer. But that seems perfectly obvious. If you want to know who produced this particular statue, the answer is the sculptor who actually produced it.

But when it comes to the formal cause, the schoolmen disagree. Again, here they are looking for some feature or constituent (or combination thereof) in the individual itself that explains why it is the individual it is.

More precisely: here we are looking for some set of features or constituents that cannot exist in some other individual. Suppose I ask every member of a group to take a side on capital punishment. Some will be for it, others will be against it, but in this case, taking the 'for' or 'against' side will separate these individuals into distinct groups, for nobody can be 'for' and 'against' capital punishment at the same time.

Taking the 'for' or 'against' side here would be an example of something that is the 'formal cause' of distinction: it's the sort of thing that cannot exist in more than one individual at the same time, and so when individuals take the 'for' or 'against' side of capital punishment, they necessarily get separated into groups. So also when it comes to individuals. The schoolmen are looking for some feature that cannot exist in more than one individual at a time, much like how being 'for' or 'against' capital punishment cannot exist in one and the same individual at the same time.

Getting it right is very difficult

In Chapter 9, Aristotle points out that getting it "just right" is very difficult. Anyone can be angry, or anyone can spend money. But to do this just right, at the right person, at the right time, with the right motive, and so on --- that is not easy at all. So wherever someone does these things skillfully, that should be praised.

Thus, to learn how to get it "just right", we must first train ourselves to avoid the extremes. To do that, we can start avoiding the worst of the two extremes, and this will slowly help to train us and develop the right sorts of habits.

We must also consider our own proclivities, and try to over-correct for them. If I have a penchant for sex, then I should over-correct and avoid sex more than indulge in it. That will help to correct my penchant, and develop a habit for getting it "just right". It's like trying to straighten a curved stick. We bend it the other way even further, in the hopes that this will correct the curve that goes in the opposite direction.

We should especially watch out for pleasure. That is very tempting, and we do not go into with a cool head. So we can best develop moderation by aiming at the opposite extreme.

Nevertheless, we praise the man who deviates from "just the right amount" only a little bit, and we condemn the man who deviates from "just the right amount" a great deal. And indeed, we can err in degrees. If I slap my grandmother, that's much less worse than delivering a spinning air kick. Neither are good, but one is much worse than the other.

Still, it is not easy to determine the precise point where a man becomes culpable. Can I deviate from "just the right amount" only a little bit? A little bit more? A little bit more than that? How far before I am culpable for wrong-doing? This is tricky, and it takes wisdom to know how much is too much, and it takes skill to do just the right amount. 

And with that, we finally reach the end of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, book 2.

The scale of virtue

In Chapter 8, Aristotle discusses how all of these virtues and vices stand on a scale with respect to each other. So to begin, there are three kinds of dispositions: too much, too little, and just right. The "too much" and "too little "are vices, and the "just right" are skills/virtues.

Each of these are relative to each other. The "just right" is the excess of "too little", and the "just right" is too little with respect to the "too much". Further, the two extremes are the most opposed: "too little" is much farther away from "too much" than it is from "just right".

Sometimes, though, the "just right" is slightly closer to the "too little" than the "too much", and sometimes it is closer to the "too much" rather than the "too little". For instance, being courageous involves having a slight tendency to stand up to danger than to run from it. But moderation involves abstaining more often than indulging.

There are two reasons for this. Sometimes, the "just right" is actually more like the "too much" (or "too little"). For instance, being rash is a little bit more like being courageous than it is being cowardly, so the "just right" is closer to the "too much" in that case.

But sometimes, we are drawn to one of the extremes more than the other, in which case, we need to overcompensate a little bit and aim slightly in the other direction. For instance, pleasure is extremely attractive, so to teach us moderation, we want to err on the side of abstinence.

Some examples of virtues

In Chapter 7, Aristotle briefly runs through the various emotional skills that lead to a successful life. He discusses these skills in much more detail later in the Nicomachean Ethics, but here is his brief summary.

Courage

Courage involves just the right amount of fear and confidence.

(a) Too little fear makes you rash.
(b) Too much fear makes you a coward.

In short, being courageous involves knowing when to stand your ground, and when to run.


Moderation (Temperance)

Moderation involves just the right amount of indulgence and abstinence.

(a) Too much indulgence makes you self-indulgent.
(b) Too little indulgence makes you austere.

In short, enjoying pleasure with moderation involves knowing when to indulge, and when to abstain.


Financial Liberality

Financial liberality involves just the right amount of giving and taking money.

(a) If you give too much and take too little, you are prodigal. 
(b) If you take too much and give too little, you are mean. 

(Strictly speaking, Aristotle says that financial liberality has to do with small amounts of money. If we are talking about huge amounts of money, then we are talking about magnificence, and this too can have extremes: tastelessness and vulgarity is the excess, and stinginess is the deficiency.)

In short, financial liberty involves knowing when to give, and when to take.


Honor

Honor involves just the right amount of pride and humility.

(a) Too much pride is empty vanity.
(b) To little pride is undue humility.

(Like financial liberality, this deals with smaller amounts of pride. For huge amounts, we are talking about ambition, and there too one can have too much or too little.)

In short, honor involves knowing when to be proud of yourself, and when to be humble.


Good-temper

Being good-tempered involves just the right amount of anger.

(a) Too much anger makes you irascible.
(b) Too little anger makes you inirascible.

In short, being good-tempered involves knowing when to be angry, and when to not, and in just the right amount.


Truthfulness

Being truthful involves just the right amount of being truthful.

(a) Too much truthfulness makes you boastful.
(b) To little gives you false modesty.

In short, truthfulness involves just the right amount of saying what you did and what you are.


Witty

Being witty involves just the right amount of amusement.

(a) Giving too much amusement makes you a buffoon (a jokester).
(b) Giving too little amusement makes you boorish (a bore).

In short, being witty involves knowing when to crack a joke or tell a good story, and knowing when not too.


Friendly

Being friendly involves just the right amount of general pleasantry.

(a) If you are too friendly too often, you are obsequious (too agreeable) and a flatterer.
(b) If you are not friendly enough, you are quarrelsome and surly (no fun).

In short, friendliness involves knowing when to be agreeable, and when to disagree.


Modesty

Modesty involves just the right amount of shame and modesty.

(a) Too much shame makes you bashful.
(b) Too little shame makes you shameless.

In short, modesty involves knowing when to be ashamed, and when not to be.


Righteous Indignation

Righteous indignation involves feeling just the right amount of sympathy for the good and bad fortune of your neighbors.

(a) Too much sympathy makes you envious (I want what they have).
(b) Too little makes you spiteful (I don't care what they have).

In short, righteous indignation knows when to feel pleasure or pain for what happens to your neighbors.

Some things are just plain wrong

Aristotle admits, however, that some things have no 'middle ground', and they are just flat out bad and should always be avoided. For instance, spite, envy, adultery, theft, murder, and so on --- these are all bad. There is no "middle ground" to these; one cannot do "just the right amount" of adultery or murder or anything like that.

Similarly, there is no middle ground for the vices, for the vices are already the extremes. Being cowardly, for instance, is having a deficiency of fearlessness. It is, then, silly to think about the "middle ground" with cowardliness. You can't be "just the right amount" of cowardly, because being cowardly is already an extreme.

Likewise, the middle ground (a skill) does not have "just the right amount" or "not enough". Having just the right amount is precisely that: having just the right amount. You can't have "just the right amount of just the right amount". Either you have just the right amount, or you don't.

So: some things are just bad, and for them there is no "just the right amount". Other things (vices) are extremes all ready, so there is no "just the right amount" for them either. Finally, other things (virtues/skills) are "just the right amount" already, so there is no "just the right amount" of them either.

Two vices for every virtue

Since a skill (virtue) involves hitting the middle ground, there are two extremes that it avoids: excess and deficiency. These two extremes are called 'vices', so there are two for every virtue/skill. For instance, being courageous involves knowing when to stand up to the danger, and when to flee. But if I run to face every danger, then I have an excess of fearlessness, and that makes me rash. So rashness is a vice with respect to courage. Similarly, if I run from every sign of danger, then I have too little fearlessness, and that makes me a coward. So being a coward is a vice with respect to courage as well. For every skill, there are two vices: one involving excess (too much), the other involving deficiency (too little).

The Doctrine of the Mean Again

For anything that comes in degrees, there is too much, too little, and somewhere in the middle. If we consider just the spectrum or range of options itself, we can usually identify the exact middle. For instance, 6 is exactly between 2 and 10. However, if we consider what is the 'middle ground' for us, this may not be the exact middle. For instance, if I need to eat a certain number of apples each day, and 2 is too few and 10 is too many, the right amount may not always be 6 apples. It might be 4.5 on one day, or 7 on another. It really depends on the situation and just how much I might need at that time.

Choosing the middle ground is thus something of an art: knowing how much at a particular point in time. It's not a science, like choosing the exact middle in mathematics.

Crafting the perfect work of art is also like this. The perfect art work is such that we can't take away anything, but nor do we need to add anything. The artist has done just the right things, in just the right places, with just the right materials, and so on. Good artists know this. Too much or too little of something destroys quality work, while doing just the right amount preserves it. This "just the right amount", thinks Aristotle, is the standard by which we judge that a work is good. If I'm in a museum and I say, "too much red", I'm pointing to a fault in the work. But if I say, "that's a nice balance of red and blue", then I'm praising the work. Aristotle thinks this kind of "just the right amount" is what makes the work good.

Skills that help us live successfully are like this too. Good skills aim at just the right amount; not too much, not too little.

All our emotions can be felt in degrees, so we would want to learn to feel them in just the right amount, at just the right time, with just the right motive, and so on. Similarly, actions can be done in degrees as well, so again, we would want to do something to just the right degree, at just the right time, and so on.

The skills that help us live successfully are skills in this sense: when I know how to do just the right amount, at just the right time, with just the right people, with just the right motive, and so on --- then I am skilled at doing that sort of thing correctly. After all, if I do too much of it, or do too little of it, then I have failed. But if I do just the right amount, then I have succeeded. So doing things successfully takes skill. It is something of an art.

Hence, says Aristotle, these skills are aimed at the middle ground. This is Aristotle's famous "doctrine of the mean."

The good-making character of life skills

At the beginning of Chapter 6, Aristotle claims that these life skills are such that they both (i) make their possessors good, and (ii) make the activities of their possessors good. They firm up, so to speak, their possessors and the work they do.

As an analogy, Aristotle mentions the eye and a horse. When an eye is in excellent working order, it sees very well. So its fine character both makes the eye good, and it makes its vision good. Similarly, an excellent horse performs very well, so its fine character makes that horse good, and it makes it run well (or behave well in battle).

The skills that help us live successfully are like this too. They make a person good, and they make him or her do their work well.

What type of feature is a life skill?

In Chapter 5, Aristotle explains that the soul has three types of features:

(1) Emotions (anger, envy, joy, etc.).
(2) Capacities (the capacity to be angry, the capacity to be envious, etc.).
(3) Dispositions (tendencies to feel an emotion intensely or not, e.g., to be violently angry rather than barely angry, as when we say "he has an violent disposition").

(Note that in this context, "disposition" is not the technical term that analytic philosophers often use to mean a causal power. "Capacities" are more like powers here. Dispositions are more like tendencies.)

As for the skills that help us live successfully (and the contrary skills that help us live unsuccessfully), which type are they?

Aristotle first explains that they are not emotions. We are not good or bad because we have certain emotions. On the contrary, we are called good or bad because of our emotional skills. E.g., I am not a bad person just because I feel angry. I am a bad person if I don't handle my anger well.

Similarly, we don't choose to have certain emotions. Anger, envy, joy, and the like often arise quite naturally. But skills involve choice, so skills cannot be mere emotions.

For the same reasons, the skills that help us live un/successfully are not capacities either. We are not god or bad because we have the capacity to feel anger, envy, joy, and so on. We are good or bad because of how we handle our emotions.

That leaves option (3): dispositions. The skills that help us live un/successfully are therefore dispositions --- tendencies to feel emotions in particular ways and act accordingly. These skills belong to the genus of "disposition" (tendencies).

Learning emotional skills requires practice

At the beginning of Chapter 4, Aristotle raises an objection: if we develop our skills by practicing rightly, then aren't we already good at it? Aren't we already doing it right? For instance, if I train my skills to take things in moderation by actually taking things in moderation, then aren't I already doing it right in the first place?

Similarly, isn't this true for any other craft? If I speak according to the proper rules of grammar or play the piano according to the proper rules of music, don't I have the skill to speak with grammatical correctness, and don't I have the skill to play the piano correctly?

In response, Aristotle says that these other crafts are different from the skills that help us live successfully. The reason, he says, is this: the products that come about by these crafts are worthy in and of themselves. In order to "speak well" or "play well", I only need to produce the right thing. It doesn't matter how I do those things. The end result is all that matters. If the end result is right, then I did it right.

The skills that help us live successfully are not like this. Even if the end result is the 'right thing to do', that doesn't mean that I have done them skillfully. Why?

According to Aristotle, you must satisfy certain conditions when you do the right thing if your action is to be done skillfully:

(1) First of all, you need to have the knowledge that "this is how you do it correctly".

(2) Second, you must choose to do it.

(3) Third, your activity must proceed from a "firm and unchangeable character". That is, you must have a solid habit for doing that sort of thing. It can't just be that you choose to do the right thing this one time. You need to have done it so many times that you have developed a serious habit of doing that sort of thing. And then, your habit is so deeply instilled, as it were, that it is of a "firm and unchangeable character".

Without all three of these conditions, thinks Aristotle, doing the right thing doesn't count as skillful activity. Only when you meet all three conditions is your activity skillful.

The crucial bit is (3). That's the one that can only be developed through time and training. Without training, you can't develop a firm habit, and without a firm habit, you aren't acting skillfully.

For this reason, Aristotle claims that you become skillful by practicing the activity. Doing just things is what makes you just, for by doing just things over and over, you develop the habit that makes your activities just. Before you have that habit, you just happen to do the right thing out of chance, or even under instruction as part of a practice routine. But you don't have the habit yet, so you are not just. You only become just once you've practiced enough to develop the habit of being just.

(Of course, it is very difficult to see why the crafts wouldn't be like this too. It seems to me that all this stuff would apply just as well to say, sculpting, or building, or fixing cars, or whatever.)

Pleasure and pain

In chapter 3, Aristotle argues that doing things well or poorly involves pleasure and pain, and the pleasure or pain that is associated with any given activity is a sign of how developed one's skills are.

For instance, if I stand up to a danger and delight in that, I am courageous, but if I stand up to that danger and it pains me to do so, then I am a coward. The idea here seems to be this: when you delight in doing the right thing, you have developed your skills fairly well, but if it still pains you to do the right thing, then you need to keep working at it. 

This is a subtle point. Aristotle is not saying that we should decide which activities are good and which are bad based on whether they bring pleasure or pain. Now, sex (for instance) is always pleasurable, while doing the right thing often involves pain. Aristotle openly admits that we often do the wrong thing precisely because it is pleasurable, and we don't do the right thing because it might be painful.

But that doesn't mean (according to Aristotle) that we should always indulge in sex, or always avoid doing the right thing. On the contrary, thinks Aristotle, we should avoid excesses and do the right thing, even if it is not as pleasurable as indulging.

But Aristotle's point, I think, is that when we have developed our skills well enough, it will, in the end, bring us pleasure to exercise those skills correctly. Conversely, if our skills are underdeveloped, it may be painful to exercise them correctly. So the enjoyment we get from exercising our skills correctly is a sign of how developed they are. When we delight in the proper exercise of our skills, we know that our skills are reaching a high degree of development.

This is why I said earlier that developing skills to do the right thing involves emotional training. Doing the right thing is not simply doing the right thing but feeling something different. No, as Aristotle sees it, we need to bring our emotional responses in line with the right thing to do. So we should delight in the right thing to do, not feel conflicted about it.

Aristotle also makes the point that training from childhood is important, for otherwise, he seems to think, we would always just indulge in the pleasurable (like sex) and avoid the painful (like abstaining). We need, he says, to be trained from a very young age to delight in doing the right thing.

So, says Aristotle, pleasure and pain accompany all activities, but we need to be careful about following or avoiding the pleasurable or painful. It is easy to pursue the pleasurable, but this may be wrong. On the other hand, once we have developed our skills sufficiently, doing the right thing becomes pleasurable indeed.

This is about training, it is not about a rule

Aristotle's point here --- that choosing the middle ground is best --- is not intended as a moral rule. Rather, it is intended as a training principle. That is, it is not that you are 'good' if you choose the middle and 'bad' if you choose too much or too little. Aristotle is saying something quite different. He is saying that when you train your emotional skills, you need to aim (roughly) for the middle as you practice. If you always do too much in your training, or if you always do too little, you aren't habituating the middle ground. So this is about training, not a rule.

Also, Aristotle points out that the practice arena is alway the same, irrespective of whether you practice in the right way or the wrong way. For instance, if I were learning to play the piano, I would sit in a practice room and practice every day. However, I could still be practicing in the wrong ways there. So simply jumping into the practice arena and practicing is not enough to guarantee that I will develop my skills correctly. It takes the right kind of practice.

Generally, Aristotle believes that what makes you 'good' or 'bad' is not following a rule. You are 'good' or 'bad' if you more or less consistently do the right thing. You can slip up every once in a while, especially while you are training. But slip ups don't make you 'bad'. Excellent piano players can make mistakes once in a while. What makes you 'bad' is consistently doing the wrong thing. By Aristotle's reckoning, you are judged to be good or bad in accordance with how you live your whole life, not in accordance with how you enacted this or that particular thing.

The doctrine of the mean

Aristotle next points out that skills are destroyed by excess or deficiency. As analogies, Aristotle cites nutrition and strength. Take nutrition. Too much food and wine is bad for you, but so is too little. You need just the right amount. Doctors tell us it's helpful for our hearts if we have a glass of wine each day, but of course no wine will give you no benefits, and too much wine may kill you.

Now take strength. Too much exercise destroys your strength, and too little doesn't give you enough strength. (Over zealous body-builders can become so bulky that they can only move in very awkward ways, whereas wraith-like weaklings can barely lift a finger.)

This is how it is for the emotional skills that lead to a successful life. Consider, says Aristotle, courage. If we jump right into every sign of danger, we're rash. If we run like screaming rabbits from every sign of danger, we're cowards. But when we take the middle ground --- i.e., when we stand up to the dangers we should stand up to and flee from the dangers we should flee from (and let's pretend that this does not involve any circular reasoning) --- that's courage.

Similarly, consider moderation (or 'temperance', as some translations put it). We can over-indulge in pleasures, but we can also abstain totally. As Aristotle sees it, the middle ground is best. Running headlong (or perhaps handlong) into every pleasure is hedonist, and running from every pleasure is austerity. Taking your pleasures with moderation is the best way to go.

Ethics is not an exact science

The theory of conduct (i.e., doing the right thing) is not an exact science. The reason, says Aristotle, is that every theory needs to be as exact as its subject matter. In the realm of conduct though, there are no exact rules. Consequently, a theory of conduct cannot have any exact rules either.

As an analogy, Aristotle points to matters of health. There are no exact rules for making a sick person healthy. Sometimes it's good to do an organ transplant, but sometimes it is not. It really depends on the circumstances. And since circumstances can be infinitely variable, there simply cannot be any solid, steady rules about making sick people healthy. A good doctor is not one who always assigned the textbook prescribed medication. On the contrary, a good doctor is one who knows when and where to do certain things, and when and where to not do such things.

The same goes for a theory of conduct. Sometimes it's good to do X, but sometimes it's good to do Y. It really depends on the circumstances. So when it comes to matters of conduct, we need to pay attention to the circumstances.

Still, Aristotle says we can do something to help us understand good conduct, and that's what he tries to do in the rest of the Nicomachean Ethics.

Ethics is about conduct, not mere knowledge

Aristotle begins chapter 2 by claiming that ethics is different from other branches of philosophy because ethics is a practical discipline rather than a theoretical discipline. That is, it is concerned with doing the right thing, not just knowing the right thing. After all, one could know the right thing to do, but sit on a mountain top and do nothing, but then Aristotle would think that you aren't really living successfully.

So, says Aristotle, we need to look into our conduct: we have to ask how we are to live skillfully so as to live successfully. For as we have seen, the quality of our practice (i.e., the things we do day-in and day-out from a very young age) determines the quality of our skills.

Aristotle then brings up a principle: "to act in conformity with the right principle". This should be read like so: "be able to do the right thing at the right time, and know why you did such and thing and why it was the right thing to do at that time." Theo point here is this: doing the right thing does involve knowledge: it involves knowing what the right thing to do actually is, and knowing why it is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing, for Aristotle, is a reasoned course of action. We truly succeed at doing the right thing only when we have good reasons for doing so.

Hence, knowledge is involved here, even though ethics is a practical science. But of course, ethics also involves doing things, so it is ultimately a practical science, albeit a reasonable one.

Practice can lead to good or bad performers

However, Aristotle is aware that practice can lead to good or bad performers. For instance, if I practice playing the piano every day, I could still turn out to be a very good piano player, or I could turn out to be a very bad piano player. Similarly, even if I try to build something out of wood every day, I could turn out to be a great builder or a horrible builder. Which way it turns out depends on the quality of my practice routine. Good practice leads to good performance skills, bad practice leads to bad performance skills.

If this were not so, says Aristotle, we would not need any instruction. If I could be a good piano player just by sitting down and banging my fingers on the keys every day, then I would never need a piano teacher. But obviously, that sort of practice will not make me a maestro. I need a good teacher to guide my practice in the right ways.

The same goes for emotional skills. Take courage. According to Aristotle, being courageous means facing danger when it's appropriate, and fleeing when the danger is too great. Suppose, then, that I were training to be a ninja, and suppose that everyday my master put me in a ring with a sparring partner. Then suppose that every time the adjudicator yells "fight!", my master yells out, "run away!".

Would I develop any courage with that kind of training? Not unless my master were teaching me to run to another, even better sparring match. But assuming that my master were not doing that, he or she would really just be teaching me cowardice, not courage.

On the other hand, if my master always had me run headlong into my opponent's house --- and by 'house', I mean round house (a kind of spinning kick) --- would I be developing courage? Aristotle thinks not. On the contrary, I would be developing rashness, i.e., the kind of crazy fearlessness that would lead me to take on anything anytime, even if my opponent were a giant tank, or perhaps a stationary brick wall.

So, thinks Aristotle, we need good training and good practice. Otherwise we won't develop our skills correctly. And this is why, Aristotle explains, our childhood training is very important. Or, as Aristotle puts it, our upbringing makes all the difference.

Emotional skills are not naturally instilled in us

Aristotle next points out that emotional skills are not naturally instilled in us. The reason, he says, is that natural inclinations cannot be trained, whereas emotions can. Aristotle gives the following (amusing) example. Stones like to fall to the earth, and that's something they do naturally. Consequently, I could never train a stone to fall upwards, even if I spent half my life throwing the stone up in the air over and over again. The stone would never develop the habit of flying upwards, for it goes down naturally.

Emotional skills, on the other hand, can be trained, so they must not be natural proclivities in us. This is not to say that emotional skills are contrary to our nature. No, says Aristotle, we are naturally set up to develop these skills. But the point is that we won't develop these skills naturally. Rather, we need to develop them through training, namely by developing the right habits. 

Also, says Aristotle, natural proclivities are first potential and then actual, whereas emotional skills are first actual then potential. The idea here is that natural proclivities are already built-in, and so we can exercise them whenever we want because we already have them. Emotional skills, by contrast, are not built-in. Rather, they need to be developed first. And the only way to develop them is to start doing them: to practice them.

With emotional skills then, we have to start doing them first, and only after doing them for a while can we develop the skill to do them well. For instance, people become good builders by building, and they become good piano players by playing. The same goes for emotional skills: we develop them by practice. They are not built-in in the way that natural proclivities are.

(One might object: some emotions are natural proclivities. Take anger, jealousy, and so on --- surely these are natural responses to certain situations. I suppose, though, that Aristotle could say that although these may appear to us as 'natural responses', they are in fact trained responses; it's just that we have been trained in these ways from a very young age.)

Developing mental and emotional skills

Aristotle next says that we develop mental skills through instruction. The point, I take it, is that in order to become skilled at processing information, we need to be taught how to do so. Anybody can learn the basic theorems of arithmetic, but that doesn't mean they can work through an arithmetic problem very quickly. It takes someone like me a very long time to work through even basic addition and subtraction, so I am not skilled at arithmetic. But someone could probably teach me how to do that better. That would involve lots of practice of course, but it would still require some sort of instruction. And obviously, developing such mental skills takes experience and time, just like learning any other skill.

As for emotional skills, Aristotle says we develop them by developing habits. A habit is a tendency to act in a certain way rather than another way. For instance, I have developed the habit of never putting my wallet down. It goes in my pocket, or it stays in my hand, and nothing else. At first, this required conscious thought. But after doing this for a period of time, it became a habit, and now I just do it without even thinking about it. That's a habit. Emotional skills are like this, thinks Aristotle. We start our training early, in childhood, but we develop habits to feel certain things (anger, etc.) and hence to act accordingly in certain situations.

Two kinds of life skills

Aristotle opens Book 2 by claiming that the skills which help us live successfully come in two flavors: there are

(a) skills for thinking the right thing, and
(b) skills for doing the right thing.

(Note: older translations use the label 'intellectual' virtues for (a), and 'moral' or 'ethical' virtues for (b), but I think the way I have put it here captures the idea a little more clearly.)

Now, in order to have the skill to think the right thing, and we might call this a mental skill, we obviously need to know the correct facts about the world and our situation. So Aristotle lists (i) having good intuitions, and (ii) scientific knowledge among the mental skills we need for living successfully.

But thinking the right thing also involves being able to make the right judgments at the right time. Now, we make judgments about theories, and we make judgments about what to do, and these are two separate skills. Aristotle says that the ability to make the right judgment about theories is called 'theoretical wisdom', and the ability to make the right judgment about what to do is called 'practical wisdom'. As Aristotle sees it, these two kinds of wisdom are the most important mental skills, because they ultimately guide our thoughts and actions.

Skills for doing the right thing involve just that: having the skill or ability to do the right thing at the right time. However, Aristotle thinks this also involves emotional training. It does not simply amount to doing the right thing, it amounts to feeling the right thing as well. Hence, what we feel and what we do should not be out of whack.

For instance, suppose that you tred on the toe of my sheep, and that gets me super pissed. Still, I recognize that I shouldn't punch you in the forehead, so I decide to forgive you instead. In this case, I feel one thing (anger: I want to punch you in the forehead so badly), but I know that acting on that would be the wrong thing to do, so I end up doing the right thing.

Aristotle thinks that I wouldn't be very skillful at doing the right thing in this case, for having the skill to do the right thing involves not just doing the right thing, but also having the appropriate emotional response. And if punching you in the forehead is not the right thing to do, then feeling that I want to punch you in the forehead is not the right thing to feel either. I need to train my emotions so that I end up feeling an emotion that corresponds exactly to the action that I should do.

In other words, I need to train my emotions to feel the right things at the right times, and then act accordingly. That is what Aristotle thinks is involved with skills for doing the right thing. And since there is emotional training involved here, we might as well call these skills 'emotional skills' (though I mean to imply that we should also act on our (right) emotions, and not simply have the right emotions).

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2

In the next few posts, I'm going to put down some thoughts on book 2 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. This will be a sort of commentary, though I am no specialist, and so there are bound to be all sorts of things here that specialists could take up. But this is really just an attempt to put some thoughts of my own down and try to understand the text.

Before I dig in to book 2, I should say a little about what Aristotle says in Book 1. There, Aristotle argues that we can develop certain skills that help us live successfully --- i.e., live the best kind of life. (I sometimes call these skills 'life skills', though I'm still looking for a better term.)

Now, older translations use the word 'virtues' for these life skills, and they use the word 'happiness' for living successfully. I do not particularly like these labels. On the one hand, the word 'virtue' (in my mind anyway) seems to bring along with it some sense of morality. But that is not quite right. Aristotle is suggesting something much closer to 'skill' than 'morality'. These skills involve doing things well, in the way that a master calligrapher can make a very precise pen stroke. It is not simply following rules of right and wrong.

On the other hand, the term 'happiness' suggests a state of mind, something like 'contentment' or 'bliss'. One could be 'happy' in that sense and not do anything, e.g., by sitting on a mountain top meditating. But that is not what Aristotle has in mind either. Aristotle is thinking of doing things well. This is about activity, not sitting there contentedly. 

So the point Aristotle is making is this: living successfully involves certain skills. More precisely, by developing and using these skills, we can live a successful life. Or, to put it the other way around, the most successful life is one that is lived by exercising the skills in question.

But what exactly is the nature of these skills? That is the topic of Book 2 in the Nicomachean Ethics.

Christology and Heresy

I did a short and simple series of posts on the Incarnation over at trinities.org. Here are the links:

Christology and Heresy - 1 
Christology and Heresy - 2
Christology and Heresy - 3
Christology and Heresy - 4
Christology and Heresy - 5

Henry of Ghent on real relationships

According to Henry, all real relationships are ultimately based on the absolute features, parts, or constituents of the things that are related. For instance, the fact that Peter is taller than Paul is based on the fact that Peter and Paul have certain heights, and the fact that the chairs in my kitchen are similar in color is based on the fact that they are all white. The same goes for any relationship: there is always some absolute basis for it.

Nevertheless, Henry does not believe that a real relationship consists simply in some x and y having the right sorts of absolute features, parts, or constituents, for if that were the case, then the only connection between x and y would be something we draw in our minds. But as Henry sees it, real relationships are real, so there must be some sort of genuine ‘relatedness’ that exists outside the mind.

However, Henry does not think this relatedness can be a distinct thing in its own right. After all, if it were a distinct thing, then it would have to be related to its basis by some further relatedness, and if that relatedness were also a distinct thing, it too would have to be related by yet another relatedness, and so on ad infinitum. But that is absurd, so Henry concludes that the relatedness we are seeking cannot be a distinct thing in its own right.

Instead, says Henry, it is just a special ‘way of being’ for the absolute basis in question. In particular, it is a way of being which ‘looks outwards at’ (respicit), and so points towards, something else. And this outward-looking characteristic (respectus) transforms, as it were, the absolute basis into a ‘pointing thing’. Hence, on Henry’s view, some x is really related to some y because it really has something in it that points towards y.

More on Ockham against Henry's Solution to the Creation Problem

The interesting thing about Ockham’s argumentation here is that it highlights the precise point of comparison that Henry draws between the divine essence and matter. For Henry, the divine essence is like matter because it is not produced in the Son. But that’s the only reason that Henry really has to say that the divine essence is like matter at all.

Ockham points out that it is at least logically possible that the form is unproduced. God could take an already existing form, and create new matter under it.

I don’t know, let’s construct an example. Suppose an ancient king has his servants build a giant gold statue of himself. God doesn’t like the king’s arrogance, so he destroys the gold, and replaces it with rusty iron, but he keeps the statue’s shape throughout the whole process.

Then the king becomes the laughing stock of his people. They’re all standing around, pointing, pushing each other over in the bushes and laughing.

Maybe something like that.

There we would have a case where the matter is produced but the form is not! So as Ockham sees it, it’s at least logically possible that the form is the constituent that is unproduced, not the matter.

Consequently, thinks Ockham, Henry has no reason to say that the divine essence is like a lump of matter. It could just as well be like a form.

So Ockham rejects Henry’s view just like Scotus. But Ockham takes a different approach. He rejects the whole idea of drawing an analogy between the divine essence and matter. That’s just too slippery a slope for Ockham.

But again, what’s amazing here is that Ockham doesn’t label Henry as a heretic, neither does Scotus. I mean, in their day, Scotus and Ockham are the minority. They’re the dissentors. Henry’s view was fairly popular, and Scotus and Ockham were the ones sitting there telling their classmates, “you guys got it all wrong.”

Ockham against Henry on the Creation Problem

Now, let’s turn to Ockham. Ockham essentially agrees with Scotus’s conclusions. He agrees that the divine essence is not material, and he agrees that it is a pre-existing ingredient in the Son, and therefore the Son is not created from nothing.

But Ockham attacks Henry’s view in a different way than Scotus. Ockham points out, “Okay Henry, so you say the divine essence is a lump of matter. Either you mean that literally, or figuratively.”

Well, obviously the divine essence is not literally a lump of matter. Everybody agrees that the divine essence cannot possibly be material in any literal way. So Henry must mean that the divine essence is like a lump of matter.

But, says Ockham, if you want to say that two things are alike, they must have something in common, and that commonality is what you base your comparison on.

So, for instance, let’s suppose that Socrates had the embarassing social habit of chewing his cud. Well, then we could say that Socrates is like Beulah the cow, because both chew cuds.

So also in the divine case. If Henry wants to say that the divine essence is like a lump of matter, then Henry is going to have to identify some feature that the divine essence has in common with matter.

However, says Ockham, sometimes two things share their commonalities with other things too. For instance, it’s not just Socrates and Beulah that chew their cuds. Camels, llamas, giraffes, and other such things chew their cuds too.

So if the only basis of comparison that we have for Socrates and Beulah is that they chew their cuds, well then we could just as easily say Socrates is like Elsie the Giraffe, or Hank the Llama.

Likewise in the divine case, says Ockham. Everything imitates God in some way, so we could say that the divine essence is like all sorts of things. We could say the divine essence is like a stane, or a warrior, or a guardian angel, or whatever.

If we want to say that the divine essence is like a lump of matter rather than something else, we’ve got to identify something that the divine essence has in common only with a lump of matter.

So Ockham says: “Fine. Let’s suppose that we can identify something that the divine essence has in common only with a lump of matter.”

But then, what if the divine essence has something in common only with something else too? For instance, the divine essence has certain things in common only with forms. Forms make things certain kinds of things. A human form makes something human, a bovine form makes something a cow, and so on. Similarly, the divine essence makes the divine persons divine, so it’s like a form in that very sense. And that’s something the divine essence has in common only with forms.

So even if we can say identify something that the divine essence has in common with matter, we can also identify something that the divine essence has in common with forms. So why should we say that the divine essence is like a lump of matter? We have just as much reason to say it is like a form!

As Ockham sees it, Henry is really on a slippery slope. Ockham’s a very literal kind of guy. He doesn’t like this analogy stuff. It doesn’t really do much philosophical work. So Ockham not only rejects the idea that the divine essence is literally a lump of matter, he also rejects the analogy.

Scotus on the Creation Problem

As I explained in the last post, Scotus argues against Henry of Ghent: the divine essence is not like 'materials' that the Son is made from. It's more like a shared form. Still, that leaves the question that Henry was grappling with: what about the Creation problem? Wouldn't the Son be created if he were not produced without any 'pre-existing materials'?

To that, Scotus says that the Son is not created. In order for something to be created, Scotus says it must be produced with at least one pre-existing ingredient. But that doesn’t have to be some kind of material. It could be a form, or any other sort of constituent. What matters is simply that it is a pre-existing ingredient, so to speak.

So as Scotus sees it, we don’t need to say that the Son is produced with materials in order to avoid the Creation Problem. All we need to say is that the Son is produced with some sort of pre-existing ingredient. And of course, the divine essence is a pre-existing ingredient in the Son, because it already exists in the Father.

But it’s not like a lump of matter or any other sort of material. We don’t need to appeal to materials to solve the Creation Problem.

What’s interesting here is that Scotus accuses Henry of being incoherent. Scotus doesn’t say to Henry, “you’re a heretic,” or anything like that. There’s nothing religious about this. This is purely philosophical. Scotus rejects Henry’s view simply on philosophical grounds.

This is amazing to me. You would think that one of the first things people would say to Henry is that he is heretical. God is not material in any way. But that wasn’t the case. Henry garnered a healthy group of followers. So these scholastic Christians didn’t see Henry as a heretic or a nutjob. Henry’s view seemed to many as perfectly sane.

So this tells me that we need to be very careful about our pre-conceived ideas of medieval philosophy. We need to be careful about thinking of medieval philosophy as an era of superstition, or the Dark Ages, or everybody just bowing to the Pope. There was some really imaginative philosophical thinking going on here.

But again, this is all stuff that we’re just learning about. There’s a lot of really interesting stuff here in the medieval period, and we’re only just starting to learn about it.