Maher, Daniel P.

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Digital Commons @ Assumption University Philosophy Department Faculty Works Philosophy Department 2013 Review of The 'Eudemian Ethics' on the Voluntary, Friendship, and Luck: The Sixth S.V. Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy by Fiona Leigh Daniel P. Maher Assumption College, dmaher@assumption.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.assumption.edu/philosophy-faculty  Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Maher, D. P. (2013). Review of The 'Eudemian Ethics' on the Voluntary, Friendship, and Luck: The Sixth S.V. Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy by Fiona Leigh. Bryn Mawr Classical Review: https://www.bmcreview.org/2013/07/20130716.html. This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy Department at Digital Commons @ Assumption University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Department Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Assumption University. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@assumption.edu. 9/5/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.07.16http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-07-16.html 1/4BMCR 2013.07.16 on the BMCR blog Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.07.16Fiona Leigh (ed.), The 'Eudemian Ethics' on the Voluntary, Friendship,and Luck: The Sixth S.V. Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy.Philosophia Antiqua, 132.   Leiden; Boston:  Brill, 2012.  Pp. xxix, 197. ISBN 9789004225367.  $144.00.     Reviewed by Daniel P. Maher, Assumption College (dmaher@assumption.edu) PreviewThe Sixth S.V. Keeling Colloquium was organized by Robert Heinaman and held in 2006at University College London (“2005” on page xxiv appears to be a slip). In 2009, Brillpublished papers from the Seventh Keeling Colloquium (Particulars in GreekPhilosophy, ed. R. W. Sharples), and it is not clear why this collection from the earliercolloquium did not appear until 2012. Whatever may have delayed the book, its arrival ismost welcome. The essays contained here will surely stimulate interest in the EudemianEthics (hereafter“EE”), which has recently been translated and published in completeform for the first time twice, as it were, by Anthony Kenny in 2011 (Oxford) and by BradInwood and Raphael Woolf in 2013 (Cambridge). In the volume under review, each ofthe five essays targets an important but relatively circumscribed issue, and together theyshould convince anyone of the desirability of fresh and serious investigation of the EE.To varying degrees, these essays explore differences between Aristotle’s Eudemian andNicomachean texts, and they do so primarily “from the bottom up”, i.e. on the basis ofclose textual analysis rather than on the basis of claims that a distinctive or integrated“Eudemian” project somehow leads Aristotle to positions that differ from what we findin the Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter “NE”). Indeed, apart from a quick sketch in theintroduction (by Fiona Leigh and Brad Inwood), there is little effort toward acomprehensive view of EE, and certainly the essays do not pretend to “cover” the wholetext. Instead, we have one essay on the voluntary, one on good will in friendship, two onself-sufficiency and friendship, and one on good fortune in relation to excellence andhappiness. The two essays on self-sufficiency are periodically engaged with one another,but otherwise the papers show no signs of belonging to the same colloquium. They arepublished without the professional responses that were provided at the colloquium.The center of gravity in this volume is established by the two essays treating self-sufficiency and friendship: “With Mirrors or Without? Self-Perception in EudemianEthics VII.12”, by Mary Margaret McCabe, and “The Pleasure of Thinking Together:Prolegomenon to a Complete Reading of EE VII.12”, by Jennifer Whiting. Eachprovides a detailed reading of Aristotle’s aporia concerning whether the self-sufficienthuman being will have friends. Whereas McCabe sees Aristotle asserting “man’s failureto be self-sufficient” (53) and emphasizing the joint activity of friendship as properlyhuman, in distinction from the best divine life (64), Whiting argues that such a readingremoves rather than solves the aporia because it makes a friend necessary for achieving9/5/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.07.16http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-07-16.html 2/4one’s end. According to Whiting, the self-sufficient agent takes pleasure in the“experiences and actions of her friend”, and this pleasure (rather than any genuine need)explains why she wants to live and act with friends. Yet this does not become afriendship on account of pleasure (dia hêdonên) because the pleasure in question is thepleasure proper to virtue (81). In a later passage, Whiting seems to reformulate her view:these are friends primarily on account of virtue but also on account of pleasure (99-100).It is fascinating to follow two opposed, careful readings of this troubled and troublesometext.To return for a moment to McCabe’s essay: she understands Aristotle to be making ateleological argument according to which human fulfillment lies in a kind of self-awareness attainable only in common with a friend. The requisite self- perception is notsimply the “natural and immediate accompaniment of first-order perceiving” (68); thathappens without effort. Nor is this self-perception achieved merely by observing a friendin actuality and as analogous to oneself; that might be the picture given in NE. Accordingto McCabe, in EE Aristotle gives a more radical view of individual insufficiency to attainthe human end. “God may be alone, but we are not: instead, in the best case, we actualisetogether with our friends” (64). Only in friendship, in “genuinely joint activity” (70), is itpossible to perceive the self precisely as perceiving in a peculiar sense: not as a privateawareness one friend achieves in parallel with another, but as a joint, reflectiveperception in a self that is somehow composed of both friends (73).Whiting offers an alternative interpretation of the same text. In fact, she sees herself asundertaking two interdependent tasks: “that of establishing what text to read and that ofmaking sense of this portion of the text as a whole” (82). Whiting reads EE VII.12 as apartial response to the Philebus and as best understood in light of Metaphysics XII,chapters 7 and 9, and Aristotle’s doctrine from De Anima according to which “perceivingsome object involves in some sense becoming like the object” (141 n. 110, Whiting’sitalics). The connection with De Anima is central but less fully developed than is theconnection with Metaphysics. Whiting offers a division of the text and proceeds throughit sequentially, discussing textual variants, providing a translation, and defending herinterpretation. Once she begins parsing the text, it is no longer possible to read this as anordinary essay; one must study it closely to follow her thorough consideration of an arrayof textual and interpretive possibilities. The result is demanding, but not quitebewildering. And there is no reason to blame Whiting for the complexity here; her paperis remarkable for its clarity. Nevertheless, it probably would have been helpful to presentthe text and translation in their entirety (whether at the beginning or in an appendix). Atleast this would facilitate comprehension when Whiting discusses one passage in relationto one or more other passages, which, as things stand, requires frequent flipping, nowforward and now backward, to identify the texts in question.Whiting’s essay tips the scales at nearly eighty pages and will likely become a referencepoint for future scholarship on Aristotle’s view of friendship. It certainly deserves thatsort of prominence because of her patient analysis of conjectural readings and alternativeinterpretations. It is not quite clear to what she considers this a “prolegomenon”:although she does leave some questions open, there is little that is tentative about herreading. Her textual reconstruction, translation, and interpretation form an impressiveand valuable scholarly achievement. On more than one occasion in the Cambridgeedition of EE, Inwood and Woolf note their indebtedness to discussions with her. Still, itwould be unfortunate if her essay were to eclipse McCabe’s, which presents aninterpretation of “self-perception” that, even if it remains somewhat obscure, is moreintriguing than the view of friendship to be found in Whiting’s reading. On McCabe’sview, union with a friend is utterly unlike anything else, but Whiting has anindividualistic view of koinônia (135) and speaks of friends as “common objects of9/5/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.07.16http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-07-16.html 3/4human perceiving and knowing” (124; cf. 89), as if a friend were little more than one ofthe pleasant objects lying in one’s field of awareness. McCabe displays greatersensitivity to the phenomena that led Aristotle to devote so much attention to friendship,and it would have been nice to see McCabe’s essay expanded to eighty pages as well.Christopher Rowe’s essay, “Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics on Loving People and Things”,concentrates on good will (eunoia), which he understands (following Sarah Broadie’sanalysis of good will in NE) to have two possible senses. In the wide sense, good willinvolves “wishing good for another for his own sake” in the sense that one wishes whatis genuinely good for someone, as distinct from merely wishing that the person be able toserve some advantage for oneself. In the narrow sense, good will involves “wishing goodfor another for his own sake” in the sense that one has this good will on account of whothis person is and not due to some incidental feature of the person. The latter sense isclearly found in EE, and is proper to the primary form of friendship. Rowe’s concern isto establish that in EE also, despite some indications to the contrary, Aristotleunderstands good will in the broader sense as integral to each of the three canonicalsenses of friendship. The key text is found in EE VII.7, in relation to which Rowedevelops the distinction between loving the useful and pleasant things attainable fromothers and actually having good will for a person who is useful or pleasant. He then goeson to investigate how Aristotle understands it to be possible for one person to loveanother on account of that other person’s excellence, which brings him to a briefconsideration of the same themes occupying McCabe and Whiting.The first essay in this book is “The Eudemian Ethics on the ‘Voluntary,’” by DavidCharles, who contrasts Aristotle’s analysis of to hekousion in EE with what we find inNE and with what is meant in ordinary English by voluntary. He argues that, accordingto the doctrine in NE, the term hekousion should not be translated as “voluntary” becauseAristotle extends his term more widely (including actions performed under coercion)than is customary with the English term. Accordingly, Charles uses asterisks around theword voluntary (like so: *voluntary*) in order to indicate when he uses it as Aristotleuses hekousion in the two texts (a device that is not followed with perfect consistency:see 11). According to Charles, in EE “nature” figures prominently while “choice” isabsent, but the reverse is true in NE. He works out the details of Aristotle’s twotreatments, arguing that in EE the agent or the agent’s nature is conceived as “the soleand complete controller” of those actions that qualify as *voluntary*, whereas in NEagents have more limited control over their *voluntary* actions. Charles also tries tonegotiate the differences between EE and NE on this score by reference to chapter eightof the common book NE V.Friedemann Buddensiek’s essay, “Does Good Fortune Matter? Eudemian Ethics onEutuchia”, is the most difficult essay to summarize and evaluate. Aristotle’s text in EEVIII.2 could be described as dialectical, but also as evasive or even cryptic, andBuddensiek is willing to introduce features for which he finds no textual warrant.Buddensiek takes certain theses from the text as fixed points of reference (good fortuneis non-rational, good fortune is somehow natural, those with good fortune have impulsesthat lead to success, and so on) and works through the logical possibilities for piecingtogether “what Aristotle may have thought” (179) about the relationship between goodfortune and happiness. According to Buddensiek, good fortune does matter “insofar as itmakes it easier to obtain some of those external goods that are required for eudaimonia”(160). Good fortune is consistent with and even conducive of happiness, but it is notessential for it. He articulates a sense of good fortune that is rooted in the nature of theindividual, independent of gods and luck, but still we have no reason to think goodfortune is closely connected with natural excellence although it is closely connected withvirtuous actions (176–80).9/5/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.07.16http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-07-16.html 4/4A few words on the nuts and bolts of publication: There are almost no typographicalerrors (none of any apparent consequence), except in the essay by David Charles, wherenumerous mistakes, all of which seem insignificant, give the impression of unusualcarelessness. A bibliography accompanies each essay, and there is a general index and avery helpful index of passages cited.Read comments on this review or add a comment on the BMCR blogHome ReadLatest ArchivesBMCRBlogAboutBMCRReview forBMCR CommentariesSupportBMCR BMCR, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010

Review of \u3cem\u3eThe \u27Eudemian Ethics\u27 on the Voluntary, Friendship, and Luck: The Sixth S.V. Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy\u3c/em\u3e by Fiona Leigh

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Review of \u3cem\u3eThe \u27Eudemian Ethics\u27 on the Voluntary, Friendship, and Luck: The Sixth S.V. Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy\u3c/em\u3e by Fiona Leigh

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