LIFE FORMS AND DELIBERATE CHOICE IN ARISTOTLE'S TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS

Abstract

By presenting happiness [εὐδαιμονία] within the framework of a properly human philosophy [ἀνθρωπίνη φιλοσοφία]2, Aristotle also clarifies the extent to which any attempt to access a finalistic understanding of acting well [εὖ πράττειν] in view of a well-living [εὖ ζῆν] will have to make its way through a compact tangle of fluid opinions and divergent perceptions as to its nature and extent. On the other hand, given the contingent cut-off of the action-not only because the possible course of its outcome is indeterminate [ἀδιόριστος] but also obscure [ἄδηλος] the possible outcome of its course - one can hardly conceal the praxeological impact of the glossed expression "we deliberate not about the ends, but about the means" [βουλευόμεθα δ'οὐ περὶ τῶν τελῶν ἀλλὰ περὶ τὸς τὰ τέλη: EN III, 3, 1112b 11-12] On the assumption that Aristotelian practical philosophy compagines a double teleological routing - one more tied to the practice of virtue [ἀρετή], the other more rooted in the exercise of deliberation [βούλευσις] -, the notion of end [τέλλος] acquires thickened ethical coloration in the multiple throws that bring into play the fundamental question that makes us wonder about the properly human good [τἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθόν]. Now, if in Plato the practice of virtue founded on a Good is what, at the end of the dialectical ascent, should finally make us happy [Res pub, 508 e], in Aristotle, on the other hand, it is important that happiness arises from the completion of a practical good [πρακτὸν ἀγαθόν] called supreme [μέγιστος] not because it is "above" or "beyond" all other goods, but because, in being "chosen-in-reason-of-itself" [αἰρετός καθ'αὑτό] needs mediation [μεσότης] either of "goods-perceived-as-total" [φαινόμενα ἀγαθά] according to which the elective appropriation of different modes of human life [ἀνθρώπινος βίος] takes place, or of prudential conditions by which a deliberate choice [προαίρεσις] is exercised on the basis of the judicious adjustment of a formal universalization of the norm to the contingent particularity of a limit situation.