Aristotle on Activity 'According to the Best and Most Final' Virtue
Matthew D. Walker
Apeiron 44: 91-110 (2011)

"Aristotle maintains (at VI 13, 1144b26-28) that virtue is not only a state of soul 'according to correct reason' (kata ton orthon logon), but one 'with correct reason' (meta tou orthou logou), where 'correct reason' is phronesis. In making the claim that virtue is 'with correct reason', however, Aristotle does not retract the thought that ethical virtue directively accords with phronesis: rather, he clarifies how ethical virtue so accords. As Gottlieb 2009, 99-102 suggests, the virtuous person's dispositions are 'with correct reason' in the sense that they (unlike the dispositions of the merely enkratic agent) are fully integrated with correct reason (such that they do not conflict with correct reason's prescriptions). Thus, when Aristotle maintains that virtue is a state not only 'according to correct reason', but 'with correct reason', I take Aristotle to say that virtue not only accords with correct reason, but accords *fully*." (WALKER-2011, p. 94, fn6) [PSA: this indicates that activity meta logou is another form or indication of completeness]

Note: Walker provides a close reading of how kata is used in the so-called function argument of EN I.7, but one should look also at the function argument in the EE.

"Aristotle's references in NE I.7 and I.13 to the way in which the reason-responsible element takes is *direction from* thinking also call attention to the way in which the thinking element has more *authority* than the reason-responsive element, which is *subject to that authority*. So even if the activity of the reason-responsive element is not rational in the authoritative sense, reason-responsive desire can nevertheless *accord with* reason insofar as thinking has authority over and directs such desire. Moreover, Aristote suggests just this directive sense of the accordance relation in other passages that highlight how the reason-responsive element is subject to the authoritative direction of reason. In NE III.12, 1119b13-15, for instance, he insists that just as a child should 'live according to the order of [his] tutor' (kata to prostigma tou paidagogou zen), so too the appetitive element sould live 'according to reason' (to epithumetikon kata ton logon). Likewise, in EE I.2, 1220b5-7, Aristotle insists that character (ethos) is an aspect of soul 'according to ordering reason, capable of following reason' (kata epitaktikon logon dunamenou d' akolouthein toi logoi poiotes)." (WALKER-2011, p. 98)

"On my proposal, then, Aristotle in NE 1.7 identifies the human function with a complex of activities: one activity (thinking) offers authoritative direction, other activities (reason-responsive desiderative activities) are subordinate and follow. But *both* constitute the human function because *both* count as activity of soul that accords directively with the authoritative element, i.e., with rational thinking." (WALKER-2011, p. 99)

"In Aristotle's reference to activity of soul 'according to the best and most final' virtue, Aristotle allows that there exists a *hierarchy* of virtues, one of whicih will have a certain supreme value and finality. Such a virtue, however, would stand to be *authoritative over* the other less valuable and less final virtues subordinate to it (and the modes of psychic activity that accord with them). Such a virtue, in other words, would stand to possess a kind of *supreme authority* over activity of soul. It would be natural, then, for Aristotle to identify activity of soul 'according to the best and most final' virtue not only with activity of soul that exercises the best and most final virtue, but also with activity *authoritatively directed by* the exercise of that virtue. Eudaimonia, then, would be an inclusive notion: it would consist in the wide range of activity of soul that *accords directively with* the best and most final virtue." (WALKER-2011, pp. 100-101)

"NE I.7's discussion of the human function and the human good is rife with metaphors of ruling and subordination, authority and obedience. To this extent, Aristotle's discussion has a distinctly political ring to it, and it invites us to consider the ways in which eudaimonia, like a city and a soul, is a complex organization (sustema). Aristotle is clear that a complex organization is 'most of all' (malista) identifiable with its 'most authoritative' (kuriotaton) element (EN IX.8, 1168b31-32). But to say that a complex organization is 'most of all' this ruling element does not imply that that organization is *exclusively* that element." (WALKER-2011, p. 102)

"NE III.12, 1119b13-15 and EE II.2, 1220b5-7 both provide independent evidence that Aristotle does use kata directively in certain contexts, e.g., those that articulate relations between subordinates and authorities." (WALKER-2011, p. 102)

"[O]n Aristotle's view, a whole has teleological priority over its parts (Metaphysics VII.10, 1034b28-32; Politics I.3, 1253a18-29). Hence, even if the exercise of sophia is the most final end *within* the system of virtuous activities constitutive of eudaimonia ... one can still point to an end even more final than it, viz., the whole complex system of which the exercise of sophia is ultimately only a part." (WALKER-2011, p. 106)

As further evidence for his distinction between relative and absolute senses of supreme value and finality, Walker adduces MM I.2, 1184a34-38: "'Someone might say wisdom to be the best of all the goods, comparing them together individually (kath' hen sunkrinomenon). But perhaps it is not in this way [that] one ought to search for the best good. For we are searching for the final good. But wisdom, taken on its own (mone ousa), is not final. This, then, is not the best for which we are searching, nor [do we search for] what is in this way best.' This passage supposes hypothetically that the exercise of wisdom (here, as in NE I.6, 1096b24, phronesis) is the best member of a certain structure of goods (which presumably includes the exercise of the other virtues). Further, this passage allows that the exercise of wisdom may well be the best (and most final) of goods in a certain relative and qualified way - viz., if we compare the exercise of wisdom with other goods within the structure to which it belongs. But for the author of the Magna Moralia, this point does not show that the exercise of wisdom is the best (and most final) of all goods in the relevant sense, i.e., without qualification. For the exercise of wisdom by itself - 'taken on its own' - is too lacking in finality (and self-sufficiency) for us to identify it as the best (and most final) good absolutely speaking." (WALKER-2011, p. 107) [PSA: this is further evidence that the complete good is the best *life*, not the best or most authoritative aspect of that life or of human beings]

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