Marcella Linn

It is commonly supposed that one can build Aristotle’s account of luck (τύχη) and good fortune (εὐτυχία) from Ph. II 4–6 and Eth. Eud. VIII 2. Indeed, in these texts, he is concerned with providing a general account of each. There has, however, been some dispute on the relationship between the texts. Some argue that the two accounts conflict, and the notion of τύχη or εὐτυχία we find in the Ph. is not the one that Aristotle has in mind in Eth. Eud. Others argue that there are two notions of “luck” in Eth. Eud.: one that fits with the account in the Ph. and another that is more stable. Almost no one argues that εὐτυχία in Eth. Eud. VIII 2 is a subspecies of τύχη. I will argue that Aristotle does indeed have two notions of εὐτυχία, a narrow and a broad one. But I show that the distinction is set aside in Eth. Eud. VIII 2 where Aristotle only discusses εὐτυχία as a subspecies of τύχη. We see this especially if we compare the account in Eth. Eud. with what Aristotle says about εὐτυχία in his other ethical treatises. The upshot is that there is a narrower focus in Eth. Eud. than in the other treatises when it comes to εὐτυχία.

Contemporary theories of luck face problems when it comes to moral luck, that is, luck that nevertheless partially determines moral responsibility. Either they conceive of luck as chancy or modally fragile, which is too narrow and excludes cases such as choosing to do something that is unlikely for you to do or that you do not do in many nearby possible worlds. Others see luck as primarily a matter of lack of control, which is too broad and includes things like the sun’s rising, which is outside of our control, but certainly not a matter of luck. Some try to rescue the moral luck phenomenon by positing hybrid accounts or denying that moral luck is a species of luck. Very little has been written about how Aristotle’s conceptions of luck fit into modern conceptions. Yet, Aristotle has sophisticated accounts of luck and good fortune that shed light on certain problems. I will show how Aristotle fares compared to contemporary theories and what we can learn from his approach to luck and fortune when it comes to how lack of control, modal robustness, and probability factor into luck, the difference between luck and good fortune, and whether moral luck is a species of luck.

It is commonly supposed that one can build Aristotle’s account of luck (τύχη) and good fortune (εὐτυχία) from Ph. II 4–6 and Eth. Eud. VIII 2. Indeed, in these texts, he is concerned with providing a general account of each. There has, however, been some dispute on the relationship between the texts. Some argue that the two accounts conflict, and the notion of τύχη or εὐτυχία we find in the Ph. is not the one that Aristotle has in mind in Eth. Eud. Others argue that there are two notions of “luck” in Eth. Eud.: one that fits with the account in the Ph. and another that is more stable. Almost no one argues that εὐτυχία in Eth. Eud. VIII 2 is a subspecies of τύχη. I will argue that Aristotle does indeed have two notions of εὐτυχία, a narrow and a broad one. But I show that the distinction is set aside in Eth. Eud. VIII 2 where Aristotle only discusses εὐτυχία as a subspecies of τύχη. We see this especially if we compare the account in Eth. Eud. with what Aristotle says about εὐτυχία in his other ethical treatises. The upshot is that there is a narrower focus in Eth. Eud. than in the other treatises when it comes to εὐτυχία.

If responsibility for character requires (among other things) having knowledge of the quality of one’s character, and this knowledge requires having at least some good aspects of character, we seem to come to startling conclusions. First, as Neil Levy argues, the worse one is morally speaking, the less one is responsible for being morally bad. Second, the truly bad are excused for their bad characters. I present several arguments against Levy’s view. First, I argue that the initial conclusion does not follow. It is not the case that the worse a person is, the less responsible she is for her character. A person may still have other aspects of character that enable her to fulfill this part of the epistemic condition. Further, both Aristotle and empirical research on character indicate that most people have such aspects. Second, I consider the truly morally bad. I show that most people voluntarily develop their characters and so – aside from rare cases of abuse, neglect, or congenital disorders – the vicious become so voluntarily. In this vein, I thirdly show that partial moral understanding is sufficient to meet the epistemic condition for character responsibility and most people have this.

Aristotle often describes virtue in an idealized way, indicating that the virtuous person will never err or have a bad desire. Yet, drawing from empirical work on character and personality, many philosophers and psychologists believe that most people’s behavior stems from situational factors and that good behavior often stems from the wrong motives, such as maintaining a good mood or relieving feelings of guilt. Further, some suggest that the variability in most people’s behavior raises a challenge to traditional categories of character such as virtue, vice, continence, and incontinence. Thus, it may seem impossible to develop virtue and that people lack character as Aristotle conceived of it. Drawing from Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Politics, I develop accounts of actual virtue and the character of ordinary people and respond to these two concerns.

The globalism objection poses two distinct challenges to Aristotelian views of virtue. On the one hand, the consistency thesis demands that a virtue is behaviorally expressed in a wide range of trait-relevant situations. On the other hand, the evaluative integration thesis suggests that the presence of one virtue increases the probability of other, similar virtues, posing a problem for Aristotle’s reciprocity of the virtues thesis. I show that, by contrast to contemporary Aristotelian views and views attributed to Aristotle, Aristotle’s own theory of virtue escapes the globalism objection. I address the consistency thesis by showing that each of Aristotle’s moral virtues are narrower than commonly assumed. I then address the evaluative integration thesis through a discussion of practical wisdom, showing that Aristotle believed one could fall short of perfect virtue, while still being fully virtuous. The upshot is that, despite idealizations of virtue throughout the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle held a realistic account of virtue, one that is different from contemporary Aristotelian views, and one that is empirically adequate insofar as it allows for more than a few virtuous people.