Discipline and Weakness of Will: NE 7.1–10

NE 7 is a textbook example of the endoxic method (NE 7.1). Aristotle canvases existing opinions (endoxa; NE 7.2), spins out puzzles (aporiai; NE 7.3), and works through those puzzles by drawing a slew of distinctions, looking back to the initial opinions (NE 7.4–14). The particular opinions he lays out rely on nuances of the Greek language that are hard to translate short of working through a text such as NE 7 itself. Let our opening reflections on practice therefore stand in as endoxa, so that we may jump straight into the puzzles.

Socrates famously argued that it was impossible for someone to know better but do something anyway. Aristotle sees Socrates’s position as puzzling, simply because people do it all the time (NE 7.2). Plato agrees. In Republic Plato uses the inner conflict that comes about in moments of weak will (akrasia) to divide the soul into three. Aristotle sides with Plato on this, but he builds weakness of will into his broader theory in a different way.

In NE 2’s account of character virtues, Aristotle argues that to have a virtue, one must know the mean, act on the mean, and enjoy acting on the mean. These three criteria, taken together, produce four options for how one might relate to the mean in any given sphere of action. These four options, which present Aristotle’s attempt to systematize the endoxa laid out in NE 7.1, provide the underlying structure for NE 7.4–12’s long list of distinctions (see table 6).

Let us walk through this list, using a key example provided by Aristotle that is applicable for anyone training for elite sports: avoiding excessive sweets (1147a24-b9). Offer a triple-frosted cupcake to the average four-year-old, and you will not run into conflicting motivations. He does not have any concept of sugar being bad and will wholeheartedly want to eat the cupcake. This child is undisciplined about avoiding sweets. At some point, perhaps through a combination of belly aches and parental explanation, he will develop the belief that he should not eat triple-frosted cupcakes. Despite this belief, he along with many adults will give in and eat them anyway. This child is now weak-willed about sweets. Given more time, and practice at turning down cupcakes, he may finally come to resist temptation. But he resents it. He is now strong-willed about sweets. Given even more time and practice, however, he can lose a taste for sweets and enjoy a low-sugar diet, happily eating fruit for dessert. He is, at last, disciplined about excessive sweets.

If you had to choose between these four stages, which one would you want to be at? Which presents the fullest life for a human being? Granted, there is a certain bad-boy attraction in knowing better and doing things anyway (weakness of will). But Aristotle’s point is that such behavior is ultimately self-destructive. Likewise, what is the point of doing everything right but gritting your teeth while you do it (strength of will)? And while we might say that ignorance is bliss, do you really want to be so out of touch with reality that you are constantly acting against your own self-interest without realizing it (undisciplined)? While talk of virtue may sound dreary when held up against unbridled pleasures, Aristotle’s point is that the ultimate goal of virtue is the most consistently pleasant life over the long haul. Meanwhile, cupcakes are just one example, one that actually involves a pleasure of touch. Aristotle applies this same four-stage scheme to the development of any virtue of character.¹

What is going on in the mind of the weak-willed person? For Plato, this is a simple victory of the soul’s appetitive part over its rational part. Cupcakes taste great: long-term, overall goods be damned! In NE 7, Aristotle spells out the mechanisms of inner conflict in more literal terms. Central to all of this is his account of conditions and training. Given that conditions are acquired through pleasure and pain (NE 2) but also involve rational calculation (NE 3.1–5 and NE 6), he approaches the matter from the perspectives of both emotion and reasoning.

From the perspective of rationality, Aristotle analyzes actions as conclusions to what he calls a “practical syllogism” (NE 7.3).² These consist of a general premise, a particular premise, and a particular conclusion. While the jargon is cumbersome, the point is fairly simple, as can be seen in the following example:

• General Premise: Human beings should not consume very sweet things.
• Particular Premise: I am a human being, and this cupcake is very sweet.
• Conclusion: I should not consume this cupcake.

Each premise here refers to the person performing the action (human/me) as well as the opportunity for action (sweet things/cupcake). This suggests at least four opportunities for error to slip in. I may, for instance, not realize that what I am consuming is a sweet: people looking to eat healthy will often opt for salad rather than fries without realizing that some salad dressings contain up to 12 grams of sugar. But unless I am somehow unaware of the sugar content of frosting, this does not explain our cupcake case. In such a case, perhaps, I know about the sugar in frosting or salad dressing, but for some reason I fail to call it to mind. While this may seem implausible, recall that practical reasoning often involves setting individual actions within our broader hierarchy of goals, as here:

• General Premise: People who want to stay lean should not consume very sweet things.
• Particular Premise: I want to stay lean, and this salad is very sweet.
• Conclusion: I should not consume this salad.³

Cupcakes wear their sweetness on their sleeves, so when I am confronted with a cupcake, my desire for washboard abs springs immediately to mind. By contrast, salads seem healthy, so I may let down my guard and not call to mind what I have learned about the sugar content of certain dressings. This makes even more sense if we bring in additional virtues, as here:

• General Premise: Job applicants should not post offensive content on social media.
• Particular Premise: I am a job applicant, and this political meme is offensive.
• Conclusion: I should not post this meme.

The general premise embodies the social virtue friendliness, which regulates how we interact with people we do not know well. Given that I do not know my potential employers, or their political leanings, I might not realize that what I find funny may be offensive to them. All I am thinking is that the meme is funny and that my friends will find it funny. Since I interact with my friends on social media, posting this meme is an instance of another social virtue: wit. Thus in pursuing one social virtue, wit, I transgress the boundaries of another, friendliness. This sort of thing is easier to imagine actually happening, particularly for people whose character is still under development. But it cannot account for people who actively think at the time, “I should not eat this cupcake,” and do it, anyway.⁴

One way to salvage this line of thinking is to be more precise about what it means to know something. In our cupcake case, I might be aware of the relevant facts and have them all currently called to mind, yet I do not really understand the biology behind the general premise, and as a result I merely believe it. Knowledge, by contrast, requires that this premise is integrated into my overall body of knowledge in the holistic way that practical wisdom brings about.⁵ Yet, as we have seen, no one obtains practical wisdom without also acquiring all the virtues of character, so we may rightly wonder whether it is the practically wise person’s knowledge or his conditioned emotional response that is really at work here.

How do emotions figure into NE 7’s account of weakness of will? While most scholars analyze Aristotle’s account of habit in the context of developing virtues, Rachel Barney looks to the role of habit in the formation of vice.⁶ On her reading, being undisciplined is not merely an absence of knowledge but a condition brought about through improper training. Vice, like virtue, requires practice.⁷ What is more, she argues, the intemperate person’s bad habits are not the result of following a flawed theory of virtue. Just the opposite: it is only after repeatedly engaging in immoderate acts that a person acquires immoderate character and then seeks to justify that immoderation through rationalizations that twist and pervert practical reasoning. By setting practical reasoning in the passenger’s seat, so to speak, Barney highlights the nonrational forces that go into the formation of any condition, be it virtuous or vicious. First, there are pleasures inherent in the act itself, such as the natural pleasures of touch. Second, there are external rewards and punishments that coaches employ to guide habituation. Third, there is what Barney calls “pleasures of habit as such.” If, as a child, I am given a candy every time I put my dirty clothes in the laundry bin, putting clothes in the bin will eventually become “second nature” for me. As an adult, well after the supply of candy rewards has dried up, I may simply enjoy having my dirty clothes neatly stored away and not in piles all over the floor. Conversely, I may develop my salad habit before learning about the perils of certain vinaigrettes and keep at it, simply because having a salad with a meal feels right to me.

Given all that, should we understand giving in to cupcakes as a failure of reason, a failure of emotional conditioning, or some combination of the two? Aristotle’s answer, I suspect, is that it depends on the circumstances. The broader payoff, however, is a rich and varied account of human motivation. Having worked through these puzzles, let us return to our opening question: What does it take to become an elite performer or, more broadly, to become disciplined in any of the virtues of character?

Pleasure and Unimpeded Activity: NE 7.11–14

A standard reading of NE stresses the role of pleasure in acquiring virtues of character.⁸ This approach looks to passages scattered throughout NE to create a context for understanding NE 7.11–14’s discussion of pleasure. Here, Aristotle contrasts pleasures that result from need, such as drinking water when thirsty, with pleasures that arise from “unimpeded activity.” While the terminology is new, this builds on NE 1’s argument that excellent activity is pleasant, and people who think that happiness consists in pleasure are not completely mistaken. The idea of unimpeded activity returns in NE 10.3’s more famous discussion of flow, where it sets the stage for the much-debated suggestion that happiness consists in study.⁹ Here in NE 7, Aristotle presents the more general idea that by mastering new skills and putting that mastery to work in unimpeded activity, we expand our understanding of the range of pleasures we are capable of experiencing. This is clearest in music or sports, where people who have developed beyond the beginning stages take joy in actively engaging in their respective spheres of virtuosity. Likewise for the other virtues. A person who has a more-than-basic mastery of the social virtues takes pleasure in interacting with others. A brave person enjoys stepping up when called upon. A big spender or person of great spirit takes joy in pursuing their various projects. Such people have “acquired a taste for, a capacity to enjoy for their own sake, things that are in fact noble and enjoyable for their own sake.”¹⁰

This standard reading, according to which moral development proceeds by experiencing higher-quality pleasures, has been criticized.¹¹ According to this rival reading of NE, “on Aristotle’s considered view, virtuous acts are not typically overall pleasant even for the virtuous, let alone for the learners.”¹² The standard reading compares learning virtue to learning to ski. The rival reading denies the sports analogy. Instead, it reads NE 2.1, which likens training in moral virtues to learning to play the kithara, in light of Politics 8.5, where Aristotle claims that learning to play music “is no amusement but is accompanied by pain.”¹³ I take issue with the rival reading for several reasons. First, to contrast sports as fun and music as hard work gets wrong both Greek culture and Aristotle’s understanding of it (to say nothing of the truth!). Both sports and music, if pursued seriously, involve both pleasure and pain. If the standard reading goes too far by stressing pleasure over pain, the rival reading goes too far by stressing pain over pleasure.

The first point of disagreement, I suspect, is how to understand kalon. Miles Burnyeat, who defends the standard reading, translates kalon as “noble,” yet his discussion of acquiring a taste for the noble suggests that he also embraces aesthetic dimensions of kalon. We, like Herakles or Olympic athletes, pursue certain things because they are just obviously awesome. Howard Curzer, who advances the rival reading, sees this line of thought as “residual elements of an older, Homeric value system, coexisting uneasily alongside Aristotle’s newer system of values.”¹⁴ In short, what I see as the key to making sense of NE’s aspirational ethic modeled after elite performers, Curzer sees as an obstacle in need of removal. This leaves the rival reading a thoroughly moralistic understanding of kalon, in which not even virtuous people take much pleasure in acting on their virtue. While Curzer’s rival reading downplays pleasure in moral development, it does make room for pleasure in two forms.¹⁵ First is the “warm glow stemming from the belief that he or she is acting rightly,” but this is merely an internalized version of external rewards. The second is “pleasures proper to virtuous acts,” but the example given is a moderate meal, which Aristotle considers a pleasure of touch. By denying the sports analogies, the rival reading makes no room for people who come to experience new, higher-quality pleasures as they advance in their development. In short, Curzer’s rival reading leaves out flow.

The second point of disagreement is how to understand the relative timing in how we develop emotionally and intellectually. The standard and rival readings agree that developing virtues of character comes first and developing virtues of thought comes second. Yet the standard reading takes this to mean that people begin developing character virtues before they begin developing virtues of thought.¹⁶ This seems right to me. The rival reading argues that people must finish developing moral virtue before they can begin developing practical wisdom and the virtues of thought.¹⁷ Curzer admits that this goes against the most obvious reading of various passages, yet he argues that it is the more “charitable” reading insofar as it supplies Aristotle with a more attractive view.¹⁸ What is actually going on in NE, as I argued in my discussion of NE 3.1–5, is that after the very earliest stages, virtues of character and virtues of thought are developed in tandem. Sports and music provide helpful points of reference. Technique is developed through a sort of muscle memory arising from a combination of repeated actions and rational reflection. The cycle may begin with isolated elements: how to stand, how to breathe, how to position parts of one’s body. Over time, these elements are coordinated into larger and larger skills as one gains mastery of an instrument or sport. This makes room for NE 7.3’s exploration of people who in some sense know (or, more accurately, believe) what they should be doing but have not yet fully integrated this information and made it second nature.

As for the question of pleasure versus pain, contemporary psychology suggests that the question is not so much which as when. William Damon is a leading expert on how children develop a sense of vocation in life. His empirical studies have shown that in the earlier years, children make the most progress when given the ability to play around with ideas in supportive, low-stakes environments. It is only after a child has sufficiently advanced that constructive criticism is useful.¹⁹ This criticism, however, is not negative but part of what Anders Ericsson calls deliberate practice.²⁰ This is not merely repeating an action, but identifying areas of improvement, setting specific goals, and pursuing them in systematic ways. At the very least, deliberate practice is something other than unimpeded activity and tends to be tiring. Angela Duckworth points to musicians who nap between practice sessions.

As a personal aside, I am a fairly accomplished organist/pianist, and decided during COVID-19 quarantine that it would be fun to learn to play classical guitar. While I have no trouble reading music, I did not appreciate how different the techniques would be. As a keyboard player, I am accustomed to pushing a key and getting a sound. With the guitar, to play any given note, I must figure out which spot at the intersection of six strings and twenty or so frets to depress with which of four fingers of my left hand, while simultaneously identifying which of five fingers of my right hand to use to pluck which of the six strings. All that to play a single note. Add to this that keyboard music numbers fingers of the left hand starting with the thumb, and guitar music starts with the index finger, and what was meant to be a relaxing diversion during quarantine ended up being an intellectually draining activity that I could manage for about twenty minutes before setting the guitar aside.

In contrast to my failed foray into guitar playing, Duckworth argues that in cases of elite performers across a range of fields we find a virtuous cycle as the pleasures of flow provide motivation for the pains of deliberate practice, which, in turn, unlock ever greater pleasures of flow. As with virtuosos, so with virtues. So, in one sense, the rival reading is right to focus on the role of pain in moral development. Yet, if the parallel with elite performers is valid, the rival reading is wrong to focus on the pains of shame and punishment. Positive reinforcement works. In the right circumstances, critical feedback works. Punishment is, at best, a last resort. The main role of pain is the flip side of flow: it is the effort put in neither by the beginner nor by the expert but by someone at an intermediate stage, the strong-willed person who is still mastering the relevant virtue or skill, while having made sufficient progress to be motivated to push on further to disciplined, unimpeded activity. In this, the standard reading is right. But its defender, Burnyeat, could go further in embracing athletic notions, looking to the kalon not merely in moral terms of the noble but more clearly embracing the aesthetic aspects of some acts as simply awesome.