Aquinas, of course, accepts the doctrine of the mean, at least for intellectual and moral virtues. Let's set the intellectual virtues aside for a moment and focus on the moral virtues. The doctrine of the mean indicates that a virtue lies on a mean, determined by right reason, between excess and defect; thus each moral virtue is opposed by at least two vices, one of excess, one of defect. I say "at least" because Aquinas is very clear in a number of cases that a virtue can be opposed by multiple vices of excess or defect that each involve some excess or defect merely of some aspect of what is involved in the virtue. To take an example, magnanimity has at least three distinguishable vices that oppose it by excess: presumption, ambition, and vainglory. Presumption exceeds the mean of magnanimity by going beyond what is appropriate to one's ability; ambition exceeds it by excessive attention to honor, which is the material, so to speak, of magnanimity; and vainglory exceeds it by excessive desire for glory, another form of material for magnanimity.
However, there are vices identified by Aquinas whose relations to virtues are slightly harder to pin down. These are vices by simulation: vices that oppose virtues by falsely resembling them. One of his examples is pride, which is directly opposed, by excess, to the virtue of humility. It is also, however, opposed to magnanimity by being a mere simulacra of it. What this appears to indicate is that, just as a single virtue may oppose several vices by excess or by defect, depending on the aspect considered, so too may a single vice of excess (or defect) may oppose more than one virtue and more than one vice of defect (or excess). Pride is the vice of excess for humility, because it exceeds reasonable bounds, and the vice of excess for magnanimity, because it seeks great things in an excessive way. These two oppositions are not equally relevant for understanding pride; St. Thomas is clear that pride is more properly and directly opposed to humility than to magnanimity. So there are at least two kinds of opposition by excess or by defect: direct opposition and opposition by false appearance, which in cases of excess occurs (I think) when a vice opposes a virtue not by exceeding the rational bounds of its activity but by exceeding the way its activity is done (mutatis mutandis, things are the same for cases of defect).
Actually, of course, there is a sense in which every vice, directly or indirectly, opposes every virtue, either by excess or defect of something essential to that virtue, or by excess or defect of something helpful to it. And the virtue of prudence, to which all vices are opposed insofar as they are moral disorders, throws an additional complication into the mix, because in a sense every other virtue is merely a potential part of prudence -- that is, every other virtue presupposes prudence in some way or other, so that in a way what is involved in a virtue is not virtuous at all, being merely material for virtue, unless it is given shape and form by prudence. It is the form of the moral virtues. Charity throws in an additional complication by being the form of the virtues in yet another way; and so, too, charity opposes all vices.
There is more involved in the doctrine of the mean than one might at first think.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
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Anonymous
0 points
14 years ago
I have a hard time buying this sentiment as authentically Ryle's (and Google doesn't show anything substantiating it). Ryle wrote a generally positive review of "Being and Time", and when asked about SuZ later he didn't have much to say other than "Oh, yeah, I read that a long time ago and wrote a book review, which I worked hard on but no one ever asked me about. Haven't really thought of it since. Dunno whether it influenced me or not. I liked logical positivism more, at the time, but I might've found appealing anti-Cartesian/proto-behaviorist stuff in SuZ." (I paraphrase; the full quote is in the appendix on p. 290 of Heidegger and Modern Philosophy, which also reprints Ryle's book review from Mind.)
I also don't see what's wrong with the sentiment Ryle genuinely had about SuZ: There're helpful things to be gleaned from it, but the project as a whole isn't the way to go.
I don't know what his character has to do with whether, say, his criticisms of Husserl hit their mark, despite the fact that Being is all over the place in a lot of those; the fact that a Nazi says that everything he's done with his work had to do with his Nazism doesn't make it so. I've never seen a defense of Husserl which takes the form "But this criticism only holds water if you're a Nazi, ergo Husserl escapes the charge."
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Anonymous
0 points
14 years ago
I doubt it's Ryle's, as well; it's a Rylean-like summation, though, even if it's not Ryle's own opinion. But Polt doesn't get into questions of provenance.
Since Ryle's sentiment in the comment really doesn't tell us anything about how to handle the question of Heidegger's Nazism, I'm not sure how it's relevant. Likewise, whether or not Heidegger's criticisms of Husserl are untowardly connected is something that has to be determined, not assumed. The fact that a Nazi says something doesn't make it false, true, but it also doesn't make it non-Nazi in attitude, formulation, or substance; given that we are quite literally talking about a Nazi, that there is nothing about it that is Nazi has to be shown, not insisted upon a priori. As I say, it has to be unwound and then rewound in such a way as to show that there is no Nazi distortion in it. If we can do that, fine and dandy; before we do it, though, we have no license to pretend that all is obviously safe.
Much of the problem lies precisely in reasoning by analogy here, which generally involves merely fooling ourselves by glossing over obviously significant differences. Nazism isn't a limited foible like drinking too much or sexual perversion, that might affect some philosophical fringes here and there but no more. It is a large-scale commitment; and, contrary to the tendency to insist on it as 'politics', it's not a merely political commitment like deciding one will support the Green Party in local elections. It carries a vision of technology, society, humanity. And this is undeniably so in Heidegger's case; Heidegger's own characterizations of his involvement, vague and weasely though they often are, links it with some of this major philosophical concerns. We should not fall into the hubris of pretending to know prior to all evidence what distortions such a commitment may or may not introduce into a philosophical approach, method, position, or system.