Fortunate Freedom
On Freedom vs. Fate in Aristotle’s Ethics
It has been said, “Luck is when preparation and opportunity collide.” Could something similar be said for Aristotle’s conception of happiness — eudaimonia — in his Nicomachean Ethics?
Along with both hoi polloi and the sophos, Aristotle agrees that happiness is the “highest of all goods,” and consists of both “living well and acting well.” However, just what defines “well” is where they part company. Not only do the many and the wise disagree on its contents, but also the means by which it can be acquired. This arises mainly from the fact that “happiness seems to require some external prosperity in addition.” But what is the source from which we receive this subsidy: kalē tuchē or arête — is it god(s)-given or is it a product of free will? Aristotle undoubtedly emphasizes the latter cause; yet, he does not seem to wholly discount divine intervention either. How much, then, can we really be held responsible for the outcome of our lives when we do not control many of the elements that compose it?
Even from our earliest years, it is already apparent that some of us have been “blessed” with “natural gifts,” giving us an automatic advantage in life. Some are born stronger, smarter, more attractive, naturals at the cithara, which naturally commands esteem from those around us. As we mature, these seemingly divine gifts then bring us what most, according to Aristotle, view as happiness: “pleasure or wealth or honor.” Yet he maintains, it is not because of our blessedness that we are ensured a happy life, believing that “to entrust the greatest and noblest thing to chance would be excessively discordant.” In defiance of the gods, Aristotle refuses to throw his hands up and utter meekly — Do with me as you will.
This seems to follow from the way in which he defines happiness: “A certain activity of soul in accord with complete virtue.” An emphasis on soul here is the defining factor in Aristotle’s account of virtue, and thus happiness. Unlike the rest of nature, which cannot help but act according to its particular excellence, humans are divided beings: we are composites of body and soul. We are not simply beasts bound by bodily instinct, yet nor do we possess the freedom of gods. Rather, we seem to be torn between these two competing natures — one that pulls us down into the “base,” the other that directs us up toward the “noble.” He accounts for this partial participation in the divine by the fact that we possess logos, which enables us to overcome our animal, appetitive desires, and instead aim for higher goods (1098a8). This, however, is not an automatic process, but a conscious effort requiring hard work and determination that one must choose to do.
PRO-(H)AIRESIS IS GREEK for “choice,” but literally means “to select before-hand.” Aristotle contends that before we act, our souls must first decide in which direction our bodies will move — thus choice is the archē of deeds. Lead by our powers of forethought, we can be liberated from the tyranny of our stomachs (or any other member of our body). Rather than blindly following the passions stimulated by sense perception, our reason allows us to deliberate whether a certain endeavor is prudent, whether the ends available are truly choice-worthy. And when an “origin is in the person himself, who knows the particulars that constitute the action,” a deed is then said to be a “voluntary” choice. However, this necessarily raises the stakes of acting — it means that we are accountable, that we can be praised or blamed for the results.
Because we have the power of deliberative choice, our virtue — as well as our vice — is up to us; and similarly, whether we are good or bad, noble or base. In a word, our ēthos (from which the Ethics derives its name) is revealed by the choices we make. And the more we choose to do a particular activity, the more adept we become, till a certain character becomes almost a second nature. For as the lawgiver habituates his citizens through wise laws, so too does our internal lawgiver — logos — turn our souls in the proper direction: “By doing just things we become just; moderate things, moderate; and courageous things, courageous.” However, the opposite is also possible, and wickedness, like a disease, grows in the same way:
In the case of characteristics, we are in control [only] at the beginning of them, and at each moment, the growth (that results from the relevant activity) is not noticed, just as in the case of illnesses.
Therefore, it is essential for those who wish to become spoudaios to “fashion their longings in accord with reason and act accordingly.”
This seriousness of character becomes especially important when fortune is brought into the mix — for it will do with us as it wills. The vagaries of fortune are what cause the many to equate fortune with happiness and deem it impossible to be satisfied without the necessary “equipment”: health, wealth, or power. But because Aristotle believes happiness to be “wholly and in every way, an end and complete,” and to be “always chosen on account of itself and never on account of something else,” he denies that it can be so easily changed or be dependent solely on divine allotment:
[I]t is clear that if we should follow someone’s fortunes, we will often say that the same person is happy and then again wretched, declaring that the happy person is a sort of chameleon and on unsound footing.
For nothing, he contends, is so secure as that which pertains to virtue.
IF ONE CONTINUALLY chooses to do virtuous deeds, they become habit, and habit is what forms stable character, which has “authoritative control over happiness.” While the wheel of fortune spins round and round, happiness— if it is to be truly considered as such — must be long lasting; and even if one were to endure the fortunes of Priam, we would, at the very least, be able to suffer with dignity. “In the midst of bad fortune, nobility shines through,” Aristotle insists, and there is no greater marker of seriousness than one who is able to endure bad fortune well — or for that matter, good fortune, without becoming “haughty and hubristic.” Yet, despite the nobility he sees in being able to gracefully deal with whatever the gods may throw our way, there still seems to be an underlying doubt in Aristotle’s mind as to whether one is truly capable of maintaining happiness in the midst of bad fortune.
I find it especially telling the word Aristotle uses for happiness: eu-daimonia — good-fate or -spirit. Whether it is just his general reliance on beginning with popular opinions, or because he agrees with this assessment, the fact of the matter is: this is the word he chooses to describe the “highest of all goods.” There seems to be a specter haunting our pure autonomy. But does this ultimately undermine his perspective; do we not, then, actually have control over our lives?
Many times throughout his works, including four in the Ethics, Aristotle employs quotes from his philosophic predecessor Heraclitus. It is hard to tell exactly what Aristotle thinks of him, sometimes holding him up as an example of what he sees as the silly superficiality of the pre-Socratics, other times in seeming approbation. But one of Heraclitus’ hundred-some-odd fragments that have come down to us, I think points to a possible resolution to our problem. Yet, for some reason Aristotle does not mention it.
Ēthos anthropōi daimōn — A person’s character is their fate.
As with the majority of Heraclitus’ seemingly oracular pronouncements, this could be taken in many ways. But when in conjunction with Aristotle’s apparent wish to place responsibility squarely in our own hands, I think it takes on a particularly incisive sense: We determine our fate by how we construct our character. Fortune thus becomes a product of our own making — our choices and habits composing the path upon which opportunity and preparation unite to birth happiness. Virtuous choices place us in situations where good fortune will meet us. And by properly using the gifts with which we have been blessed, we become capable of seeing the signs revealed by the gods. For a sign reveals itself when it wishes, and we will only see it if our eyes are open
