1

CHAPTER TWO

Nicoletta Scotti Muth

Prohairesis as a possible instance of metaphysical implication in Aristotle’s ethics

“…not initiated are those who think nothing is except what they can hold firmly with their hands, and who don’t

acknowledge that actions and generations and all that is invisible also belong to being as its part.”

(Plato, Theaet. 155 E)

Aristotle’s ethics – as his physics – is not bare of metaphysical implications. My purpose is

to clarify some central topics of Book I and II of the Eudemian Ethics1 in which this nexus exhibits

particular evidence. They will prove to be all intrinsically connected with the concept of purposive

choice (prohairesis). This will lead us to challenge some paramount contemporary interpreters who

consider Aristotle’s ethics as substantially disjoint from his metaphysics.

The nexus between ethics and metaphysics was regarded as structural in the scholastic

tradition, a philosophical mainstream which started to grow at the beginning of the Christian era,

and soon absorbed some main conceptions of the then recently rediscovered esoteric works of

Aristotle in a systematic complex with broad Platonic coordinates. Typical of the scholastic

tradition were some basic conceptual distinctions as visible-invisible, sensible-immaterial,

corporeal-spiritual, as related to different but not unconnected realms of being. Man, situated as he

is on the crossing of the roads should, in this context, takes a behavior which enables him to

assimilate himself as much as possible to the superior realm.

“Nothing of this interpretation was really Aristotelian” – maintains the majority of the

contemporary scholars of Aristotle – convinced as they are that his ethics is bare of any

metaphysical implications2. This statement has been for a long time simply assumed as a theoretical

starting point in further discussion of Aristotle’s ethical topics, without taking notice of the

historical hermeneutics it presupposes, which was separately discussed in more philological

1References to the Eudemian Ethics (EE) are made according to the following edition and with regard to the following

translations: Aristotelis Ethica Eudemia recognoverunt brevique adnotatione instruxerunt R.R. Walzer et J.M. Mingay,

praefatione auxit J.M. Mingay, “Oxford Classical Texts”, Oxford 1991; Aristotle, The Eudemian Ethics, Introduction

and Translation by H. Rackham, Cambridge-London 1996; Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics Books I, II, and VIII Translated

with a Commentary by Michael Woods, Clarendon Press, Oxford 19922; Aristotele, Le tre etiche, saggio introduttivo,

traduzione, note e apparati di Arianna Fermani, Milano 2008; Aristotle, The Eudemian ethics, a new translation by

Anthony Kenny, Oxford 2011; Aristotele, Etica Eudemia, introduzione, traduzione e note di Marcello Zanatta, Milano

2012. 2As reported by Julius Moravcsik, this was the opinion of J.L.Austin (cf. J.M.E. Moravcsik, Aristotle. A Collection of

Critical Essays, London 1968, p. 10). According to D.J. Allan “[Aristotle] was more concerned to state the conditions

under which an action may seem to express the fixed character of the agent, than to consider in a metaphysical spirit,

what forces have contributed to its formation” (cf. D.J. Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle, Oxford University Press,

London-Oxford-New York 19702, p. 131). Amélie Rorty writes: “[Aristotle’s] emphasis is on character and its proper

development rather than on the rules for the propriety of rational motives or for the evaluation of the consequences of

actions (…) We cannot deduce moral truths from universal necessary premises.” (cf. A.O. Rorty [ed.], Essays on

Aristotle’s Ethics, University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, pp. 2-3). More recently Hellmut

Flashar has confirmed this reading: “Die Grundkonzeption [der aristotelischen Ethik] ist einfach und natürlich. Es ist

keine Pflicht-ethik, keine Ethik, die die Umkehr von allen gewohnten Anschauungen fordert, sondern eine Ethik ohne

Metaphysik für den normalen Bürger“, (cf. H. Flashar, Aritoteles. Lehrer des Abendlandes, C.H. Beck, München 2013,

p. 71). Quite different is to stress that – as Enrico Berti does – “Aristotele può essere considerato il fondatore del

concetto della filosofia pratica, intesa come scienza diversa da quella teoretica, ma tuttavia fornita di una propria

razionalità” (Cf. E. Berti, Profilo di Aristotele, Studium, Roma 1985, p. 244). Berti’s comment follows from Aristotle’s

famous distinction among theoretical, practical and poietical sciences in Met. 1025 b 25 f.

2

contexts.

According to this hermeneutic, the story should sound as follows: when he abandoned the Academy,

Aristotle was not a Platonist any more, having overcome metaphysics as such, that is the

metaphysics of ideas. The treatise which bears this name should therefore be divided in two

different parts – a theological and an ontological one –, reciprocally unconnected, as they belong to

two contradictory phases of Aristotle’s thought. This interpretation has evident consequences also

for his ethical treatises: it is all the more possible that some concepts of a descriptive ontology

found application in the Nicomachaen Ethics or even in the Eudemian. But if residual traces of

theology can be found in them, we have to conclude either that they don’t suit in the context (bright

as Aristotle was, his arguments still need not be all equally sound and coherent), or that they are

something such as relicts of a dismissed view. And if ancient and medieval interpreters tell us, on

the contrary, that in Aristotle ethics and metaphysics were related, we have to cast doubt upon such

a statement, because the picture it draws is conceived by means of neoplatonic glasses. The true

face of Aristotle would rather exhibit unequivocally naturalistic features and was rediscovered in

the Renaissance. As a matter of fact, it was just then that some people began to doubt the

speculative unity of Metaphysics, considering senseless and empty its effort to put together what

has to be set apart3.

Are there any better means than philology in order to demonstrate a doubt taken as an axiom?

Werner Jaeger’s enterprise crowned this secular effort, tracing the ambitious project of splitting both

the metaphysical and ethical treatises in order to gain different evolutionary phases of Aristotle’s

thought4. The question whether such a method is suitable to our philosopher was not asked; had it

been, the answer would probably have sounded “it isn’t”, in so far as this method understands

genesis as not developmental. To assume that the succeeding moment abolishes the preceding one is

the same as to break one of Aristotelian basic principles, according to which you can become only

what you, to some extent, already are: “something of what [already] is coming to be has come to be

and in general something of what is changing has [already] changed”5. If we assume, on the

contrary, that Aristotle was not a rhapsodic thinker, this implies an effort to grasp anew his reasons

to maintain the relationship between ontology and theology. From what I’m going to say it will

follow that our understanding of ethics as such is something quite different in respect to Aristotle’s

one, not so much because he purported an eudaimonistic conception and we a normative one6, but

rather because our ontology, deprived as it is from any theological reference, is unable to identify

man’s specific features, a point which seems to be central in Aristotelian ethical discourse. Not only

this: his conception of metaphysics as inquiry about both the structure of reality and its last

justification was so essential to Greek philosophical tradition that it wasn’t abandoned even in the

Hellenistic aftermath. Against widespread opinion, it could be argued that Stoicism and

Epicureanism were not some sort of modern ethics ante litteram: insofar as their point of departure

always consisted in stating the human place in the cosmos, they were rather consequence of a

metaphysics.

These premises stated I will now approach the central target of my enquiry: to show that an

adequate understanding of prohairesis implies some important references to metaphysics.

1. Prohairesis: what is it about?

3Aristotle’s Metaphysiscs exhibits a double intention, which was keenly defined as onto-theological. Whether this

duplicity is a mark of the epistemological structure which is peculiar to metaphysics as such or is the result of a bad

juxtaposition is still an open question. In the sixteenth century Scholastic metaphysics had already been split in a

metaphysica generalis (ontology) and a metaphysica specialis (theology and cosmology). 4In modern times, Hans von Arnim made a large use of the three ethical treatises to reconstruct the order of composition

of the Metaphysics. He put the “Urmetaphysik” between Magna Moralia (MM) and EE, and the second draft

between EE and the Nicomachean Ethics (NE). Cf. H. v. Arnim, Eudemische Ethik und Metaphysik, “Akademie der

Wissenschaften in Wien. Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historische Klasse, 207, 5. Abh.”, Wien-Leipzig 1928. 5Cf. the description of movement in Met. IX 8, 1049 b 35-37. Cf. also Phys. III 1, 201 a27-29.

6For us “the sphere in which happiness is to be pursued is sharply distinguished from the sphere of morality” cf. A.

MacIntyre, After Virtue. A study on moral theory, London 19852, p.45.

3

Prohairesis stays at the core of Aristotle’s reconstruction of human agency and is discussed

at length in NE III 2-4 and EE 10-117. Besides eudaimonia, arête, and hekousion, it could be

considered the fourth technical term which is fundamental to understand Aristotle’s ethical concerns:

it constitutes the synthetic expression of the main factors interwoven in human action (praxis).

According to current English translations of Aristotle, the term is rendered as preference, choice

(Ross), or decision (Rowe), but according to the ancient use it rather means aim, purpose, plan8.

Aristotle seems to assume it from its juridical application and makes of it a technical term of his

anthropology9.

The philosophical employment of prohairesis didn’t come to an end with Aristotle. The term

still figures in Stoicism, and Epictetus will impose it anew as a the turning point in ethical

discernment, followed by Plotinus, Gregory of Nyssa, Proclus and Maximus the Confessor10

.

In his own hermeneutic Aristotle understands prohairesis also etymologically, as he says

“The name too seems to indicate that it is something chosen before other things”11

. Purposive

choice, reasoned choice followed by decision, enterprise, intention seem therefore all adequate

candidates: we usually need a whole range of meanings in order to express – often by means of

locutions – the faceting of Aristotelian technical terms.

In traditional consideration of Aristotelian ethics prohaireses took a relative modest place, if

compared with the attention paid to the couple voluntary/involuntary (hekousion/akousion), or self-

control/intemperance (enkrateia/akrasia). More recently, it has been paid increasing attention, in the

context of Aristotelian theory of action12

. The reason for this disregard may consist in a tendency to

consider praxis more in its broader than in its narrower sense: according to the first, it is given a

physical explanation as a sort of movement (kinesis) which admits no leap between the animal and

the human13

; according to the second, praxis is characteristic only of man and is a consequence of

prohairesis, which has a strong rational component.

7Consider also MM I 17. References to NE have been made with regard of following editions and translations:

Aristoteles Ethica Nicomachea, recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit L. Bywater, “Oxford Classical Texts”,

Oxford 1894; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Translation (with historical introduction) by Christopher Rowe,

Philosophical Introduction and Commentary by Sarah Broadie, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York 2002;

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Books II-IV, Translated with a Commentary by C.C.W. Taylor, Clarendon Press, Oxford

2006; Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, translated by David Ross, Revised with an Introduction and Notes by Lesley

Brown, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York 2009. 8Cf. Plat. Parm. 143, but also juridical jargon, in order to state the degree of consciousness and therefore of guilty of a

criminal act. 9Reference to this point in EE II 10, 1226 b 36 – 1227 a 1, where pronoia means the same as prohairesis; Aristotle will

speak about this in his examination of justice in NE 1135 a 16 ff. 10

Cf. J.M. Rist, Prohairesis: Proclus, Plotinus et alii, in: De Jamblique à Proclus. Neuf exposés suivis de discussions,

Entretiens préparés et présidés par Heinrich Dörrie, Vandoeuvres-Genéve 1975, pp. 103-117; Giampietro Dal Toso,

La nozione di prohairesis in Gregorio di Nissa: Analisi semiotico-linguistica e prospettive antropologiche, Frankfurt

1998; J.D. Madden, The Authenticity of Early Definitions of Will, in: Maximus Confessor. Actes du Symposium sur

Maxime le Confesseur, édités par F. Heinzer et C. Schönborn, Fribourg (Suisse) 1982, pp. 61-79. It is worthwhile to

stress that Gregory and Maximus made recourse to the Aristotelian conception of prohairesis rather than to the

Plotinian one. 11

NE III 2, 1112 a 17, on pro heteron haireton. (Translation Taylor). 12

For recent analysis of prohairesis cf. Christof Rapp, Freiwilligkeit, Entscheidung und Verantwortlichkeit (III 1-7), in

Otfried Höffe (hg.), Aristoteles. Die Nikomachische Ethik, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1995 pp. 109-133; Idem, What

use in Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean?, in Burkhard Reis (ed.), The virtuous life in Greek Ethics, Cambridge 2006,

pp. 99-125; Michael-Thomas Liske, Unter welchen Bedingungen sind wir für unsere Handlungen verantwortlich?,

in Klaus Corcilius and Christof Rapp (Hg.), Beiträge zur Aristotelischen Handlungstheorie, Stuttgart 2008, pp. 83-

103; For previous influential discussions of the problem cf. also T.H. Irwin, Reason and Responsibility in Aristotle,

in A.O. Rorty (ed.), Essays…, pp. 117-155. The problem of responsibility has been discussed at length in R.R.K.

Sorabji, Necessity, Cause and Blame, Ithaca and London 1980 and in A.J.P. Kenny, Aristotle’s Theory of the Will,

London and New Haven 1979. An older but interesting study is offered by Helmut Kuhn, Der Begriff der

Prohairesis in der Nikomachischen Ethik, in Die Gegenwart der Griechen im neueren Denken. Festschrift für H.G.

Gadamer zun 60. Geburtstag, Tübingen 1960, pp. 123-40. 13

Quite influential in this regard: Martha C. Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De motu Animalium, with translation, commentary

and interpretative essays, Princeton 1978.

4

In the first books of both the Nicomachean and the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle develops an

impressive phenomenology of human action (praxis). His argumentation follows in each of the

treatises a different pattern, but it is noteworthy that both culminate in an accurate attempt to define

the essence (ti esti) of prohairesis14

. This will disclose a proper mark (idion) of man: man is that

sort of being which acts for the sake of something.

Although the single steps leading to the treatment of prohairesis (happiness, action, virtue,

voluntary) are better analyzed in NE, and interpreters usually make reference to this work, EE pays

more attention to prohairesis itself15

. Moreover, in EE we find frequent references to a global vision

of reality in which also the foundations of morals are to be found. All this presents, as it has been

noticed, some implicit bond with Plato, even terminologically. Thirdly, with regard to the

displacement of the arguments developed, the Eudemian Ethics seems to offer a better opportunity

to ask if is it possible to assign ethical treatment a proper place in the Aristotelian map of reality16

.

And this will give us the opportunity to ask if the meaning we give to the word “ethics” is the same

as Aristotle’s.

It is sound first to sketch the development of EE according to the three successive “new

departures” taken by Aristotle in the first two books. They exhibit a striking reminiscence of the

three waves of Plato’s Republic17

and signalize well Aristotle’s ontological emplacement of ethics.

The opening remarks are of methodological character: Aristotle declares that the present

enquiry aims at gaining the specific genos of reality in which human life and its activities are

included. This inquiry will require a specific approach18

. Notwithstanding, it will remain

philosophical, no less no more than all the others, insofar as it aims at finding the dia ti, the “why”;

and its method will be dialectic, insofar as it builds a circularity between solving aporiai and

verifying the results obtained through recourse to phainomena19

. As stated in Metaphysics (IV 4,

1006 a 15-18) this circular procedure will supply us with some principles (archai) to start with20

.

By means of it we will try to catch man in the moment of action and to distinguish the many

interrelated elements which are so difficult to disentangle.

The first start consists in identifying happiness as something to obtain (ktesis) through action

(praxis). As we all want to be happy, it must in principle be possible to everybody to gain happiness.

The question to be answered in EE is not so much in what does happiness consist21

, but rather how

is it to be caused?

14

Cf. NE III 2 and I-III, passim; EE II 10. 15

EE is presently made object of increasing study, cf. Fiona Leigh (ed.), The Eudemian Ethics on the Voluntary,

Friendship and Luck, Leiden 2012. The Eudemian Ethics had a strange destiny: the accurate research of Harfinger

and Kenny about its documentary tradition has shown that it was considered as the ethical treatise par exellence up

to the 3rd

century A.D., but that subsequently predominance passed to Nicomachean, to the point that Eudemian was

considered spurious in the nineteenth century. 16

If we avoid strictly dividing the topics of Aristotelian philosophy according to the titles of his main works, we will

notice that connected themes are developed in different works. This has to be taken as a token of the fact that

Aristotle conceived his work as an open unity. 17

The three waves in the Republic mean a progressive change of perspective. They consist in women’s education (457

B); the community of women and children (457 C); the philosopher as right king (473 D). For the three departures

in EE cfr. infra, n. 22 and 27. 18

The difference between knowledge and action doesn’t mean, as we’ll see, that the second is deprived of any cognitive

dimension. The distinction rests, rather, on a metaphysical basis. But they have also something fundamental in

common: “All knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good” (pasa gnosis kai prohairesis agathou tinos oregetai,

NE I 4, 1095 a 14-15). 19

Which in this case are both opinion of the wisest and data of inner-experience. 20

“The principles are primary in relation to everything else, and it is necessary to deal with them through the generally

accepted opinions on each point” (Topics, I 2,101 b 1-2). “If we are able to raise difficulties on both sides, we shall

more easily discern both truth and falsehood on every point” (Ibid, I, 2 101 a 35-37). As MacIntyre says:

“Demonstration is dependent on dialectic for the acquisition of the premises which provide it with a starting point.

And this … is equally true of theoretical enquiry and of practical reasoning, unsurprisingly perhaps since the first

principles of theoretical enquiry into the nature of practical reasoning and of the practical reasoning which issues in

action are one and the same” (cf. A. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, University of Notre Dame Press,

Notre Dame, Indiana 1988, pp. 91-92). 21

This question is solved in NE I 7.

5

The second start22

is introduced as follows: “next we must contemplate the psyche” (1219 b

27)23

. This will enable us to better understand what virtue is. Soul has a bipartite structure: both

parts partake of reason “one having the capacity to give orders, and the other to obey and listen”24

,

and the second has to be “persuaded” by the first. Psyche can accomplish its work (ergon) only if its

two parts are in accordance with each other. To accomplish one’s ergon well means to be virtuous;

as the ergon of psyche is life, it follows that its virtue consists in living well (kalos zen). The recall

to Plato’s Republic is even less remote here25

, but the treatment of virtue is fully Aristotelian,

insofar as it is stressed that virtue consists not so much in a condition (hexis,) as in an activity

(energeia)26

.

2. Man as principle of being The “third beginning”

27 is typically Aristotelian and typically metaphysical: Psyche is a

substance (ousia) and as such a sort of cause. The point to disclose is: what is psyche the cause of?

An unequivocal reminder of Metaphysics is to characterize “substance (ousia) as principle of

generation and movement”. Every substance is “able to generate many things of the same sort as

itself” (EE II 6, 1222b 17). But man is a peculiar substance: “man alone among living beings is

principle of actions as well” (b 20). This statement makes clear that stricto sensu to speak of animal

action is a sort of abuse. We have to keep in mind that Metaphysics is a progressive search (zetesis)

for principles and causes of all things. In Met. IV Aristotle breaks, with a keen insight, the tenor of

the preceding books, and states that what whose principles we are seeking is being as being (archai

tou ontos he on, Met. IV 1, 1003 a 29-31); among the many meanings of being, he identifies

substance (ousia) both as principle and as the new object whose causes and principles we have

anew to seek. This recollection of Metaphysics enables us to better understand why this “third start”

in EE attains the core of ethics, which consists in a study of man as ousia, and more deeply of the

ousia of man, which is psyche, as cause28

. All the other sections of ethics will follow as a

consequence to this fundamental question: how does man’s soul exercise its causality? The

treatment of prohairesis is placed at the top of this third “ascent”.

We already know from the Physics and Metaphysics that nature, necessity and chance are

each causes of some sort of reality, and we are indirectly reminded of this now29

. We now have to

ask “what is man cause of”? In fact if man as ousia is a principle, a principle is a cause: “the first

principle is a cause of what is or comes into existence because of it” (EE II 6, 1222b 30-31.

22

“After that we must take another starting-point” (EE I 8, 1218 b 27, meta tauta allen labousin arche). 23

As G.E.M. Anscombe remarked in her pioneer study Modern Moral Philosophy, “it is not profitable for us at present

to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in

which we are conspicuously lacking”. Cfr. Human Life, Action and Ethics. Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe, edited by

M. Geach and L. Gormally, Exeter 2005 , p. 170. 24

Cf. EE II 1, 1219 b 30-31. “The parts that we have mentioned are the special properties (idia) of the human spirit”

(1219 b 39). Aristotle stresses that he has abstracted any other parts which are not the special property of man. For

recent remarks about what is proper of man cf. Rémi Brague, Le proper de l’homme. Sur une légitimité menace,

Paris 2013. 25

It emerges a possible bound with some central themes examined in the Republic, a dialogue which represents a sort of

watershed in Plato’s philosophical work. In his effort to overcome the aporetic treatment of virtue, which was typical

of his earlier dialogues, he states the necessity of introducing an internal division in the preceding monistic

conception of the psyche as opposed to the body. Moreover, in this dialogue Plato begins to interweave the threads

of anthropology and metaphysics, an aim which can be accomplished only by means of a critical reconsideration of

Eleatism, further to be developed in the Thaetetus and in the Sophist. On this problem it is still worth reading

Michael Woods, Plato’s division of the soul, “Proceedings of the British Academy”, 73 (1987), pp. 23-48. 26

Discussion of this point in NE brings the reader to a different conclusion, as it is said that virtues are “states” (hexeis)

in so far as they cannot be neither feelings nor capacities (dynameis): “we are capable of things by nature, but we do

not become good or bad by nature”, (cf. NE II 5, 1106 a 9-10?, trans. Taylor). For a discussion of this point cf.

Eugene Garver, Aristotle’s Metaphysics of Morals, «Journal of the History of Philosophy», 27 (1989), pp. 7-28. 27

“Let us take another starting point” (II 6, 1222 b 15, allen archen). 28

This seems to be a proof of the fact that the division and organization of the esoteric treatises is judicious but not rigid.

Aristotle expects from his hearers that they keep always a telescopic glance above his entire work. 29

Apasai gar geneseis schedon piptousin eis tautas tas archas (1214 a 29).

6

Considering prohairesis has much to do with considering how man is inserted in the order of the

causes, that is to ask about the place he takes in reality as a whole.

3. Human possibilities “Hence if in fact there are among existing things some that admit of the opposite state, their

first principles also must necessarily have the same quality; for of things that are of necessity the

result is necessary (…). And the things that depend on man themselves in many cases belong to

[the] class of variable, and men are themselves the first principle of things of this sort” (EE II 6,

1222 b 41 - 1223 a 4)30

.

This sort of things are actions (praxeis):

“Hence it is clear that all the actions of which a man is the first principle and controller may

either happen or not happen, and that it depends on himself for them to happen or not, as he controls

their existence or non-existence” (EE II 6, 1223 a 4-7).

That’s why his actions can be praiseworthy or blameworthy: both goodness and badness

have to do with the fact that man is himself the cause and origin of his actions31

. But there are two

conditions for affirming that someone is the cause of his acts. They have first to be voluntary

(hekousion), secondly purposive (kata prohairesin): in fact these two elements “enter into the

definition of goodness and badness” (EE II 7, 1223 a 22) .

The investigation of hekousion shows how far it has to do with appetition (orexis), purposive

choice (prohairesis) and thought (dianoia). We’ll confine here to a short investigation of orexis.

Appetition is tripartite, and this internal configuration is pretty revealing. Orexis consists in wish

(boulesis), passion (thumos) and desire (epithumia). This plurality carries in itself a seed of

dissension, for what is in accordance with passion and desire is often not in accordance with wish.

An action can be committed not in accordance with all the three parts of orexis, but this doesn’t

impede it from being free and spontaneous32

. Aristotle insists that hekousia are also those acts

committed according to passion and desire but against wish: in spite of this dualism internal to the

appetitive dimension man remains undivided, and fully responsible of his deeds33

.

But actions stricto sensu are something more.

After the voluntary now begins the investigation of prohairesis. The preliminary distinction

genos/eidos is as always abiding. In which genus is prohairesis to be included? It seems to pertain

to hekousion as its species: all actions performed according to purposive chioce (kata prohairesin)

are voluntary (hekousia) but the opposite doesn’t hold. This is typical of the relation genus/species:

a species always denotes something whose meaning is included but not exhausted in the concept of

its genus34

.

Current opinion explains prohairesis as either doxa (opinion) or orexis (appetition). That it

hardly can be the second already follows from our preceding analysis of orexis. Some further

30

Plato has reformulated in the Republic Parmenides’ distinction among the spheres of Being, not-Being and appearance,

conferring to this last one an intermediate and proper ontological status: It is the realm of intermediate being

(metaxy). This opens a new continent to explore, in which both physis and techne are included. Man is placed in the

middle of it as a two-faced Janus, opened towards material realities and immaterial ones. 31

The core of the problem for Aristotle seems not to consist in the fact that good and bad in the moral sphere have

nothing to do with true/false – as Hume suggests – but that the morally good/bad is intrinsically

praiseworthy/blameworthy, in so far as it is caused by the agent. 32

“When the source of action is from within, we do not speak of the act as done under force” (1224 b 15). 33

We cannot consider at this place under which conditions an action can be esteemed as involuntary (akousion) (on this

point cf. EE II 7). Once again the terminology used by Plato in order to denote human interiority and the complexity

of its faculties, which seem to impair its unity (cf. Rep.IV, 443), will be maintained by Aristotle. Plato says: justice

in the polis, which we have just considered, was something similar to the justice of the soul, which we are in search

of. And the tripartition of the soul will be affirmed in accordance with the principle of non-contradiction. But the

fundamental difference between the polis and the psyche is that we are here in a different realm in respect to

materiality, as plurality does not impair identity and unity (of man): a man who doesn’t afford one “class” to

accomplish the role of the other “bonds together all his faculties…” Plato expressly speaks of internal behavior (peri

ten entos) which fully involves the individual and his faculties (heauton kai ta heautou). 34

The reference of the genus is more extensive, that of the species more intensive.

7

remarks may still be added: animals possess desire and passion too, but “they do not have purposive

choice” (EE II 10,1225 b 3). In addition, purposive choice decisions are often taken without pain,

which mostly accompanies passion and desire. Neither does it coincide with wish, although boulesis

essentially consists in desiring the good. This is due to two reasons: first, “many things that we wish

we do suddenly, whereas nobody makes a purposive choice suddenly” (EE II 8,1224 a 3-4).

Secondly, wish holds also for things that one knows to be impossible (such as never to die), but

“nobody purposively chooses a thing knowing it to be impossible, nor in general a thing that,

though possible, he does not think in his own power (eph’auto) to do or not to do” (1225 b 35-36).

“So that this much is clear”: Actions made through purposive choice are related more with wish

than with desire and passion, but they differ from it because they are not extemporary and “must

necessarily be something that rests with oneself” (1225 b 38).

That prohairesis is the same as doxa will also be negated. Aristotle states that “purposive

choice is not opinion either, nor something that one simply thinks (oietai) (…) for we have opinions

as to many things that do not depend on us” (necessary things, object of nature, etc.); and again,

choice is not true or false; nor is it an opinion that makes us think that we ought to do or not to do

something (dein ti prattein h ou prattein, 1226 a 6).

It follows that purposive choice arises from both opinion and wish, but it doesn’t consist in

them:

“As to purposive choice, it is clear that this is not absolutely (aplos) identical with boulesis

nor with doxa” (1227 a 3).

Objects of wish and opinion are rather the ends:

“Clearly it is specially the end (to telos) that man wishes (bouletai), and he opines (doxazei)

that he ought to be healthy (hugiainei) and to do well (eu prattein)” (II 10, 1226 a 14-15).

As to purposive choice, no one purposively chooses to be happy (or healthy), but to do something

in order to be happy (or healthy), therefore purposive choice is not of the end, but of the means to

the end. In order to choose the means (what to do to attain an end) one has to deliberate

(bouleuesthai). The object of deliberation (boule) deserves an ontological explanation:

“Now, of things that can both be and not be, some are such that it is possible to deliberate

about them, but about others it is not possible. Some things can either be or not be but their coming

into being does not rest with us (all'ouk eph'hemin autou he genesis estin), but in some cases is due

to the operation of nature and in others to other causes. And about these things nobody would

deliberate unless in ignorance of the facts” (1226 a 19-26).

Things which it’s up to us to choose and to realize (ta prohaireta kai prakta ton eph’hemin)

seem therefore to build a double possibility: not only their existence or non-existence is possible,

but they are also possible in dependence to us. Through deliberation we come to formulate a doxa

about what is practicable and what is not35

.

But what is deliberation itself? According to some interpreters it simply consists in

considering two alternatives, and in choosing one of them36

. And in fact Aristotle says: Prohairesis

hairesis heterou pro heterou, (1226 b 8). But he also adds that it is not the same as doxasai ei

poieteon he me poieteon, 1226 b 24: “it is quite possible that many men may possess the faculty of

forming an opinion whether to do or not to do a thing without also having the power of forming this

opinion by process of reasoning” (1226 b 24-25). To say it with other words: “we deliberate about

everything that we choose, although we do not choose everything that we deliberate about” (1226 b

35

Of the intermediate realm of being we can find an earlier characterizations in Rhet I 4, when Aristotle already speaks

of a realm of being which can happen and not happen (cf. endechetai kai genesthai kai me), of a realm of

possibilities (ton endechemonon) among which one deliberates. This forms a sort of gender amidst metaxy, of what

is subjected to movement. For the mature reflection about this point cf. Met XII 2. The similarities and differences

which Aristotle further draws between physis, techne and praxis are in debt to Plato: In the realm of intermediate

realities the principle of becoming (of the going from potency to act) can be nature, necessity and chance, but in the

realm of poiesis and in which of praxis the principle of becoming is man. Cf., on this regard, the fundamental

platonic distinction, between techne poietike and techne ktetike in Soph. 219 C 36

Cf. Christof Rapp, Freiwilligkeit… „etwas anstelle von etwas anderen zu wählen anti-(prohairein), beschreibt nun

gerade den Vorgang der prohairesis, was wir als Entscheidung, Wahl, o.Ä. übersetzen“ (pp.112-3).

8

17-19).

What makes the difference? The turning point in purposive choice seems to be that only in

this case we choose to do something because we recognize that it is the most adequate means to

obtain a particular end; this is the same as to say that we acknowledge having a good reason to do it

(hypolepsis tou dia ti, 1226 b 23):

“For the deliberative faculty is the soul’s power of contemplating a kind of cause – for one

sort of cause is the what for the sake of”: to bouleutikon tes psyches to theoretikon aitias tinos he ou

heneka mia ton aition estin (1226 b 26-27).

Our analysis of prohairesis will come to a conclusion showing how the result of deliberation

eventually becomes the object of will. Before considering this, let us dwell shortly upon the last

point mentioned. Aristotle stresses that the cause he means is the final cause: “what for the sake of

is a sort of cause (aitia), and the cause is a reason (dia ti) and anything for the sake of which a thing

becomes, we especially designate as its cause” (1226 b 26-28). This brings us back to the “first

start”.

4. Well living (kalos zen) as skopon We may now throw a retrospective glance at the first book, where we already found the idea

of man as cause (of his happiness). The argument had two levels. First, it was stated that good

living (eu zen) is something which we obtain and exercise (kteseis kai praxais) and not simply

which we know (gnonai). Things being so, neither nature, necessity nor chance could be its causes.

And divine power no more. As the desire to be happy pertains to our nature (elpis), to obtain

eudaimonia should be in principle possible for everyone – as nature does nothing in vain37

. This can

be the case only under the condition that we ourselves can somehow be the cause of it.

The second step was to show in which eudaimonia consists: the most chosen candidates

(airetotata 1214 a 32) were wisdom (phronesis), virtue (arête), pleasure (hedone). But are these

candidates legitimate? We know from NE that each of them exhibits good credentials to be reputed

a good in so far as it is chosen for its own sake38

, but this not in a definitive way: each of them is

chosen in order to attain eudaimonia. Appearances seem therefore to indicate that none of these

candidates is the same as eudemonia, a problem which is not explicitly discussed in EE. Given that

only eudaimonia is a perfect end, (telon), this implies that we choose everything else in order to

attain it and that we don’t choose it in order to attain something else. A perfect end is a skopon and

to be happy seems to be such a thing.

In Book II it will be stated that to have an end which is a skopon is essential to perform a

good deliberation: “people who have no skopon are not given to deliberation” (II 10, 1226 b 30).

And true actions (praxis kai prohairesis) are only those done for the sake of an end39

,

“generally, one who makes a choice always makes it clear both what his choice is and what its

object is, object meaning that for the sake of which (tinos heneka) he chooses something else and

choice meaning that which he chooses for the sake of something else” (EE II 10, 1226 a 12-14).

Aristotle speaks here of end as a ou tinos heneka and not as a ou tini heneka40

. The Latin translation

of the terms makes it clear that a finis quo (ou tini heneka) is to be intended as a target, that is

37

This the second premise being only implicit. 38

Some criteria to ascertain whether something is a good are given in Rhet. I 6. For a discussion of the different

meanings of the good cf. EE I 8 e NE I 6. Human good must be attainable through praxis. This is somewhat

polemically stated against the supposed Platonic conception of the “ethical” good as a condition of the soul. 39

Everybody able to live according to his own purposive choice should set before him some object (skopon) for noble

living to aim at (…) on which he will keep his eyes fixed in all his conduct since clearly it is a mark of folly to not

have one’s life regulated with regard to some end. It is therefore most necessary first to decide within oneself (en

hauto diorisasthai, 1214 b 11) in which of the things that belong to us the good life consists (en tini ton hemeteron

to zen eu … hyparchein) and what the indispensable conditions for man’s possessing it are” (EE I 2, 1214 b 7-14).

About this topic cf. also NE I 7, 1097 a 2-22: About eudaimonia as perfect end (telos teleion) in NE, cf. N. Scotti

Muth, Si può essere felici senza virtù?La risposta di Aristotele (guardando a Platone),”Philosophical News”, 4

(2012), pp. 126-154. For the hendiadys praxis kai prohairesis cf. Lexicon III. Aristoteles, edited by Roberto Radice,

electronic edition by R. Bombacigno, Milano 2005. 40

For this distinction cf. Met. XII 7, 1072 b 1-3.

9

something which is attained only when the process of becoming has come to a rest. It functions as a

limit (peras). On the contrary, a finis cuius gratia (ou tinos heneka), is the “for the sake of” of

something, and as such immanent to each process of becoming (genesis). But it functions

analogically in each different realm of being: when it pertains to human actions (praxeis) as a whole,

the proper finis cuius gratia is eudaimonia.

This finis cuius gratia constitutes the proper good in the realm of human action, and its

coincidence with eudaimonia is expressly stated in NE:

“since there are evidently more than one end, and we choose some of these (…) for the sake

of something else, clearly not all ends are final ends: but the chief good is evidently something final.

Therefore, if there is only one final end, this will be what we are seeking … we call that which is

never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are desirable both in

themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification that

which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. Now such a thing

happiness, above all else, is held to be” (NE 1097 a 21 ff.).

Eudaimonia is the telos for the sake of which we do everything (toutou gar heneka ta loipa

prattousi pantes, ibid, ll. 21-22). “Praxis and prohairesis” in a narrow sense are only those which

are performed for the sake of such a telos. And we know that this telos is eudaimonia even before

we can precisely tell in what does eudaimonia consist.

That’s why eudaimonia runs in ethics as a principle. And this telos runs as a principle in the

prohairesis in analogy to the premises running as a principle in syllogismus. (NE I 7, 1098 b 1-3):

Only eudaimonia holds a mark of completeness and is, as the end, the proper mover “for the sake of

which” we ultimately do all what we do. In virtue of its striking analogy to the Prime Mover – both

are principles through being last ends – it brings something “divine” in human life41

.

To conclude this point we can say that the proper human good is something we can obtain

through action and that it coincides with the end of all we perform through action. And as true

action is made according to purposive choice (kata prohairesin), things chosen by means of

prohairesis are not chosen in and for itself, but for the sake of something else. If this is a skopon it

makes possible that the process of choosing something for the sake of something else doesn’t go on

indefinitely. If it were not so, there would be no place left for the good but only for the useful in the

field of human agency.

5. Action and desire We have now to consider briefly how Aristotle concludes his analysis of prohairesis. As

we’ve seen to deliberate means to seek the proper means in order to get an end42

. When one sees the

connection between a concrete means and the end – which is, as we know, object of boulesis and

doxa – the process of deliberation has come to a rest and the chosen means has become the object of

will. As soon as deliberation is accomplished we desire what we have chosen and decide to do it.

That’s why purposive choice constitutes a new sort of orexis:

“I call appetition deliberative when its origin or cause is deliberation, and when a man

desires because of having deliberated” (II 10, 1226 b 19-20)43

.

41

That eudaimonia is something divine is said in NE I 9, 1099 b b 11-17, “Now if there is any gift of the gods to men,

it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is

the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, (…) to

be among the most godlike things (…) [it] seems to be the best thing in the world and something godlike and

blessed” (trans. Ross). For God (theos) as the “for the sake of” of the movement of the celestial spheres cf. Met.

XII7 , 1072 b 7-10 . 42

This point is well expressed as follows: “Das Ende bestimmt die Wahl, die Ergreifung und unter Umständen die

Variation der entsprechenden Mitte und das bei allen Wegen und Umwegen zu seiner Erreichung doch stets unverändert

im Auge behält.” Cf. Rolf Schönberger, Abhängige Selbstständigkeit, in Appel/Weber/Langthaler/Müller (Hg.),

Naturalisierung des Geistes? Beiträge zur gegenwärtigen Debatte um den Geist, Könighausen und Neumann,

Würzburg 2008 pp, 171-20, p. 179. 43

“The object of choice being one of the things in our own power which is desired after deliberation, choice will be

deliberate desire of things in our own power: for when we have reached a judgement as a result of deliberation, we

10

Deliberative appetition is the will. At this point we can better understand what does it mean

that prohairesis “is doxa plus orexis when these follow as a conclusion44

from deliberation” (1227 a

5).

A further point follows: someone deliberates if he has considered (eskeptai) from the

standpoint of the end (telos) either what tends to enable him to bring the end to himself or how he

can himself go to the end (1227 a 16) (…) and by nature the end is always a good and a thing about

which man deliberate step by step (1227 a 19).

As we already know, deliberative appetition is always “of things within one’s power” (orexis

ton eph'auto bouleutike, 1226 b 17).

By asking “does this or this contribute to it, and how will that be procured?” we all pursue

this deliberation until we have carried the starting-point in the process of producing the end back to

ourselves45

. In order to let the end be ours we have to choose the appropriate means, that is to act:

the only way we have at our disposal to obtain our good in life is through action. That’s why all our

actions contribute in realizing some concrete way of life46

and to identify one’s end properly is the

main question of human life47

.

A further point analyzed is the difference between good and bad ends and the role played by

a virtuous character in identifying the right end. The possibility to err rests on the fact that rational

potency – which is proper to man – knows both the good and the bad, that is both contraries48

. But

virtue is a disposition (ethike hexin) to fulfill purposive choice appropriately, in so far as it doesn’t

allow pleasure and pain to corrupt the rational part of the soul: arête poiei ten proaireton orthon :

the agent chooses the end he ought to according to the logos. And the enkrateia saves the rational

principle from corruption (EE II 11, 1227 b 16).

On the other hand, virtues are not only dispositions, but chiefly consist in being actualized through

praxis. That’s why virtuous actions are also the object of prohairesis. This is stated in NE, where

Aristotle says: “We are angry or afraid without choosing it, but the virtues are choices and not

without choice”49

.

6. Some concluding remarks

We have pointed out on several occasions the debt of Aristotle in regard to Plato. This is an

important indicator of the fact that his ethical discussion has a remote origin and is embedded in an

ontological background.

From a careful parallel reading of some mature works of Plato, especially the Republic and

the Sophist, and of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics as well as Metaphysics it has emerged that Aristotle

succeeded in subsuming the old basic distinction material-immaterial in the new one potential-

actual. This afforded him to implement the plexus corporeal-spiritual, visible-invisible whose

validity proves itself especially inside human psyche.

desire in accordance with our deliberation” NE III 3, 1113 a 9 -11.

44 Sumperanthosin = to infer, to conclude; the term is taken from the logic.

45For the parallel in NE cf. III 3 1112 b 18-20: “they consider how it will be achieved by this and by what means this

will be achieved, till they come to the first cause, which in the order of discovery is last”. This procedure is here

compared with that of geometry: “as though he were analyzing a geometrical construction (…) all deliberation is

enquiry, and what is last in the order of analysis seems to be first in the order of becoming, (23-24). But it has also a

striking similarity with the method pursued in the techne, which is discussed in Met. VII 7 1032 b 6-9. An important

analogy between techne and praxis we find in NE I 1, 1094 a 1-2: prohairesis plays in the praxis the same role as

the method in the techne. This is the same as to say: no praxis without prohairesis. 46

The telos is principle and assumption (arche and hypothesis), like the postulates in the theoretic sciences, cf. Anal post.

72 a 20, and Met. IV 3, 1005 b 5-9. It is not object of deliberation and we have not to seek it anew every time we act,

but it must be assumed as a hypothesis in order to deliberate about the means. That this is de facto the case in each

human life is showed by the many different ways of life there are, each developing according to the respective end

which has been taken. On this point, Cf. EE I 4, 1215 a27-28. 47

As maintained by Socrates in Plato’s Gorgias 550 B. 48

On this point cf. Met. Q 2, 1046 b 5 . 49

Cf. NE II 5, 1106 a 4-5). “Chi persegue gli eccessi nelle cose piacevoli o le cose necessarie in maniera eccessiva e lo

fa per sua scelta…( dia prohairesin) NE VII 7, 1150 a 20.

11

In Plato the nexus between ethics and metaphysics was dependent on acknowledging man as

a corporeal and at the same time as a spiritual substance, with all the logical aporiai but also with

the evidence which oblige us to stand on such an apparently contradictory admission. Ethics has

chiefly to do with the question which sort of being man is, and not, as many suppose, with what he

ought to do, because what he ought to do is a consequence of whom he is. This guideline is

fundamental in both Plato’s and Aristotle’s treatment of arête.

Furthermore Aristotle tries to insert the investigation about man in his larger research about

the realm of genesis. As we know, this was also Plato’s interest in his later years, as he came to

understand man as the junction between intermediate (metaxy) and transcendent reality50

.

Developing Plato’s idea of metaxy, which he reads as the huge area of coming-to-be and passing-

away (genesis), Aristotle makes an effort to distinguish different realms inside it. Besides the three

main causes of genesis which are nature, necessity and fortune, he makes clear that techne and

praxis are also causes of their own and form a further area of objects whose being depends upon

man.

Being a natural substance, man engenders other individuals of the same species. But in the

realm of genesis he is also cause of activities (praxeis). In a broader sense praxis means simply the

way in which man is active, which includes knowledge (gnome), art (techne) and action (praxis) in

a narrower sense. It is possible to deduce both from EE and NE a sort of triangle of gnosis-techne-

praxis. Everybody knows that techne and praxis aim at a good (NE I 1), but this is true for gnome as

well (NE I 4). Still, it’s not a matter of a generic good (which is denied in NE I 6 and in EE I 8), but

of different sorts of good proper to each activity. To speak about goods is the same as to speak about

ends (telos): actions which have an end in themselves are called energeiai (activities), actions which

have an end besides (para) themselves can be sciences, arts and also actions. But in a proper sense

it is art which has an end external to itself: that is the work (ergon).

As we have seen, the proper object/end/good of action is eudaimonia, The analogy between

techne and praxis at the very beginning of NE has shown that prohairesis is the method of praxis,

that is the way through which praxis reaches its own good51

.

This sort of action is not impulsive nor immediate but holds in advance a sort of intellectual

mark, attested by the “recognition” of a human good as the best, by the intellectual desire of it and

by the decision to obtain it through the suitable means which stand at ones disposal. Prohairesis is

the result of a deliberation which is led by the following question: how is it now possible for me to

get the last good which is the proper object of my desire?

It is therefore the turning point in the analysis of human agency, in which six main streams

of ethical investigation converge. As a matter of fact prohairesis seems to be connected with: 1.

eudaimonia as perfect end (telos teleion), 2. boule (wish) as the best part of the orexis; 3. the part of

the soul gifted with logos; 4. man as cause of what is up to him (ta eph’emin); 5. actions as

activities; 6. arête.

We have to acknowledge that Aristotle, besides his unequalled effort to describe animal

movements, was also able to intercept the peculiarity of human movements. Human causality

cannot be reduced to the capacity of moving in space, but it involves intention. Neither can it be

reduced to a tendency (appetition as horme) but must include a moment of initiative, that is of will,

which is not passively subjected to passions and feelings, and is conscious in so far as it can adduce

the last “why” of his acts.

50

Cf. Tim. 27 D: to gignomenon, Cf. Rep. 477 A and passim: metaxy as the in-between of being and not-being. Rather

of One and Dyad. On this respect cf. Eric Voegelin, Order and History vol III: Plato and Aristotle, Columbia-

London 2000, p. 120. 51

NE I 1, 1094 a 1. Also from EE I 1 1214 a 12-13 we can infer a narrow parallelism between techne and praxis, as

opposed to gnome, and we are reminded of the distinction between poetical and acquisitive arts in the Sophist. On

this subject cf. Robert Spaemann, Was heißt Kunst ahmt die Natur nach?, «Philosophisches Jahrbuch», 114 (2007),

pp. 247-263.

12