The Role of Education

This chapter discusses the effects that education can have on a person’s receptiveness to argument. The main focus is upon two passages in the Republic about poetry and music. In book III, Socrates claims that exposure to beauty in the arts can prepare one to engage in rational argument. On the negative side, book X analyses the damage allegedly done by tragedy and comedy to the minds of the audience. Overall, I conclude that, although music and poetry have a significant effect on our susceptibility to argument, exposure to good art is not actually necessary for enabling one to follow the shorter route, and exposure to bad art does not necessarily disqualify one. At the end of the chapter I consider two further passages about the effects of education and upbringing, one about gymnastics in book III, the other about the use of dialectic on the young in book VII.

Women and Moral Argument

In the Republic, Plato famously admits women into the guardian class and expects them to have the same education as men. The question arises as to what sort of argument Aristotle thought suitable for women. Although the rational capacities of women are not mentioned in the NE, the issue does arise in the Politics. According to one widespread interpretation, women have similar rational capacities to men, but their deliberation is overpowered by emotion, rendering them essentially incontinent. Against this interpretation, I argue that Aristotle thought women’s rational capacity limited in a different way. The problem he has in mind here is not incontinence. Rather, they are able to deliberate well at the individual level and in the household, but not in the political sphere. But this means they would still benefit from rational discussion about eudaimonia and about most of the topics covered in the NE.

The Young

I now turn to the groups Aristotle excludes from the audience of the NE. The first consists of the young, whom I take to include anyone under the age of 30. What is puzzling is that Aristotle excludes them at the beginning of the work as being unable to benefit from argument (I 3), but then at the end talks about the conditions under which they can benefit from it (X 3). I resolve the tension by distinguishing two kinds of argument: the clinical analysis of eudaimonia found in the NE itself, and a rhetorical kind of discourse that would appeal to the more emotional nature of the young. I develop this reading by discussing Aristotle’s moral psychology and the way it was influenced by Plato’s views on the spirited part of the soul.

Aristotle and Moral Scepticism

This chapter continues to look for evidence of moral reinforcement in the NE. My attention focuses initially on the function argument of NE I 7, which shows remarkable similarities to an argument used at the end of Republic I to convince the moral sceptic Thrasymachus that justice is necessary for happiness. I show how Aristotle synthesized this argument with the doctrine of the mean to provide a new argument that what we intuitively think of as virtues are indeed the qualities required for eudaimonia. Again, he is not attempting to convert an actual sceptic, but targeting the sceptical position in order to reinforce the moral convictions of his audience. In the second part of the chapter, I contrast the approach of the NE with Politics VII, where Aristotle does appear interested in the more ambitious task of converting the sceptic.

Irrationality in Republic VIII–IX

According to the moral psychology of the Republic, one factor that might make people resistant to argument is the power of the non-rational parts: if sufficiently strong, they might prevent one from following arguments that advocate moral restraint. But how common does Socrates take such intransigence to be? Are most people too dominated by their non-rational parts to be able to follow even the shorter route? The best way of answering this question is to examine the account of the four degenerate characters in books VIII–IX, the section of the work that details what happens when the non-rational parts dominate the soul. In this chapter I examine the first two of these characters, the timocrat and the oligarch, concluding that the former might well be open to argument, but not the latter.

Conclusion

Although the point of this book has been to develop a comparison between the Republic and the Nicomachean Ethics, at certain points I have also looked across to Aristotle’s Politics. In the conclusion, I extend my remit further by looking briefly at Plato’s Laws, which invites comparison on several themes relevant to this book. In the Laws, the idea of the legislator philosophizing with the citizens at large is a major theme. I give a review of some of the recent scholarship on the Laws to develop a comparison with the Republic on a principal question of this book: what sort of discourse is needed to persuade the many of the value of justice? I shall also argue that the Laws most probably influenced Aristotle’s approach to the use of moral argument in political contexts.

Interim Conclusions

In chapter 3, I argued that the Republic was cautiously optimistic about people’s susceptibility to reason, although I acknowledged the difficulty of excluding a more pessimistic interpretation. Here I revisit the issue in the light of chapters 4–6. I emphasize that nothing in his educational theory or in his moral psychology gives definitive support for the pessimistic view. I then give a stronger argument against such pessimism by looking at the passage where Socrates tried to persuade the many of the need for philosopher-rulers (book VI). Here he is cautiously optimistic that he can convince them of his proposal, even though they are initially hostile. My argument is that, if he can make headway with as controversial a proposal as philosopher-rulers, he would surely think he could make them amenable to his views about the value of justice.

The Roles of Music and Habituation

Like Plato, Aristotle thought that early education affects one’s susceptibility to rational argument later in life. In the best case, the right education in childhood promotes a love of the kalon (the ‘beautiful’ or the ‘noble’) which makes one more receptive to moral argument in adulthood. However, when Plato describes early education in the Republic, he is mostly interested in music and poetry, whereas the NE focuses entirely on behavioural habituation. In this chapter I try to account for this difference by comparing their approaches to the kalon. Plato sees it as a property that is the same whether manifested in beautiful works of art or noble actions; hence the aesthetic can act directly as an introduction to the moral. For Aristotle, by contrast, they are distinct properties. So a musical training is a less direct way of introducing the young to moral value than habituation.

Further Exclusions

This chapter examines two more excluded groups, starting with the incontinent. As with the young, there is an apparent tension in the work, because in I 3 he states that argument will fail to benefit the incontinent (since they live by their feelings) and yet in VII 8 he says that, unlike intemperate people, they are open to persuasion, which I take to involve some sort of argument. I resolve the tension in the same way as the previous chapter, by distinguishing between analytical and rhetorical modes of argument. In the rest of the chapter I turn to Aristotle’s exclusion of the many even from rhetorical argument (X 9). I ask what justifies their exclusion and why Aristotle took a more severe line than Plato, who was still open to arguing with them in the Republic.

Irrationality in Republic VIII–IX

This chapter continues to examine the account of irrationality in books VIII–IX, focusing on the democrat and the tyrant. It argues that, like the oligarch, both would be intransigent to moral argument. (This is despite the fact that the democrat shows some interest in philosophy and the tyrant experiences some shame and regret about his lifestyle.) However, we cannot simply infer from this that the majority of people would be similarly intransigent and unable to benefit from following the shorter route. We could make such an inference if most people fall into one or other of these types (the oligarch, the democrat, or the tyrant). But the text never claims that most people fall squarely under one of these three types, but simply that these types (together with timocracy) constitute the most basic forms of vice. In reality most people are combinations of different character types.