Abstract
For Aristotle, some wrongdoers do not deserve blame, and the virtuous judge should extend sungnōmē, a correct judgment about what is equitable, under the appropriate excusing circumstances. Aristotle’s virtuous judge, however, does not forgive; the wrongdoer is excused from blame in the first place, rather than being forgiven precisely because she is blameworthy. Additionally, the judge does not fail to blame because she wishes to be merciful or from natural feeling, but instead, because that is the equitable action to take under the circumstances. Moreover, while Aristotle does claim in his discussions of the virtues of megalopsychia and praotēs that the virtuous person will sometimes fail to become angry at blameworthy wrongdoers, Aristotle’s reasons for repudiating anger or forestalling blame have little to do with the sorts of reasons that one would or could be forgiving for. Although an Aristotelian virtuous agent does let go of anger for her own reasons, she does not forgive. As a result, I argue that since Aristotle’s account of equity entails that forgiveness is positively vicious, forgivingness is not merely a virtue left out of Aristotle’s account, but is in fact incompatible with his account.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
As Curzer 2012 does.
- 3.
- 4.
As with many other conceptual definitions, alternative definitions have been proposed. Here, though, I rely on the most paradigmatic ways of understanding forgiveness. My definition bears a close definition to the one given in Hughes 2015.
- 5.
- 6.
That the forgiver may forgive rightly even when the wrongdoer does not deserve it is precisely what some object to about standard views of forgiveness. Some critics (e.g., see Griswold 2007, 121–122 and Konstan 2010, 5–14) do contend that the wrongdoer must take steps to show that he is committed to restoration, but this does not mean that he thereby deserves forgiveness on this view, only that he is a viable candidate for it. Even on these views, however, such a wrongdoer cannot be said to deserve the wronged party’s forgiveness, who does nothing wrong if she elects to withhold forgiveness.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
I use “wrongdoer” to refer to anyone who has done a wrong action (that is, an action that does not hit the mean and hence was not what an agent ought to do). However, as will become clear in my discussion of wrong action and wrongdoers, Aristotle does not think agents are always blameworthy for their wrong actions.
- 10.
I utilize Kennedy’s 2007 translation here. Kennedy’s translation prefers “fairness” for the Greek epieikeia, but I will use equity and fairness interchangeably since (in my view) “equity” captures the flavor a bit more precisely, but “fairness” sounds a bit more congenial to modern ears.
- 11.
This is a slightly revised version of Ross’s 1984 translation.
- 12.
See Phillips-Garrett 2017 for a detailed defense of the claim that sungnōmē is a cognitive judgment of excuse and a more thorough discussion of epieikeia and its relationship to sungnōmē.
- 13.
We usually expect adult human agents to be responsible, but some adults lack the capacity for decision altogether (e.g., those that Aristotle calls “bestial” in NE VII.5 = EE VI.5) or they may temporarily lack the capacity to choose (as Aristotle suggests happens with the agents who are overstrained in NE III.1, 1110a23-26).
- 14.
This brings to mind cases of tragic dilemmas, but seems to apply more broadly than just those cases. See also Rhet. I.13.16, 1374b4-6, where Aristotle extends sungnōmē to personal failings and mistakes since they are not the result of wickedness, but rather human weakness.
- 15.
It is also important to note that this does not simply let anyone off the hook for any emotions that might overwhelm her; the relevant passions are only those that are essential to human nature. Passions that are neither natural nor human do not justify excuse, as Aristotle explicitly states that ignorant actions that are caused by such passions are not to be offered sungnōmē (NE V.8 = EE IV.8, 1136a8-9).
- 16.
As suggested in Curzer 2012, 161n21.
- 17.
This and subsequent passages utilize Taylor’s 2006 translation.
- 18.
Cf. EE II.5, 1222b1-4.
- 19.
It is not merely even revenge (an eye for an eye) that the irascible person seeks, but punishment over and beyond that. As Aristotle explains in Rhet. II.2, an agent is angry in response to a slight, which is a particular kind of perceived injustice. Reclaiming what one is owed (whether that is property, honor, or something else) may require punishment or blame, but the demands of rectificatory justice require that an agent receive precisely what would make her even, and not more than that (NE V.4, 1132a6-20). Thus, the agent who gets angry in the right amount, towards the right people, in the right situations, and for the correct length of time is just; she knows what she deserves, and she demands no more and no less. Since good temper concerns justice in relation to anger and retaliation, it concerns whether a wronged person’s anger and retaliatory strategies are proportional to the wrong suffered, so that the wronged person will receive both her property (or whatever else has been damaged or taken) and her honor back. She, however, does not additionally gain from the wrong done; she is merely recompensed. To gain additionally (through additional acts of revenge, for instance) would not be just, and this is what the irascible person seeks.
- 20.
Cf. EE III.3, 1231b5-27.
- 21.
Curzer 2012, 160–161.
- 22.
Curzer 2012, 158 and 161.
- 23.
See also Rhet. I.9, 1367a19-20, where Aristotle says that it is noble (kalon) to avenge and not to come to terms with the one who has harmed you: “to retaliate is just, and the just is honorable, and not to be defeated is characteristic of a brave man.” And in EE III.4, 1231b11-15, Aristotle says the servile person is one who is “abject in the face of insults.”
- 24.
- 25.
Rhet. II.3, esp. II.3.5-6, 1380a14-26 and II.3.14, 1380b13-15.
- 26.
See Homer, Iliad 24.54.
- 27.
Konstan goes even further, claiming that the appeasing of anger in Aristotle’s account is “focused entirely on relations of status and power” (2010, 25).
- 28.
Cf. Aristotle, De Anima 403a29ff.
- 29.
This, of course, does not mean that his life is aimed exclusively at honor (Aristotle rejects this as the best sort of life at 1095b23 and 1159a22-25), nor that honor is the central thing the megalopsychos aims at rather than virtue. Rather, the megalopsychos certainly values and seeks virtue for its own sake, but he also recognizes that honor is the greatest of the external goods (1123b20), and as such, is worth pursuing.
- 30.
Along with these tendencies, Aristotle also describes the great-souled person as moving and speaking slowly and in a deep voice (1125a12-16), although it is hard to see directly why those characteristics are relevant. I suspect they are relevant because Aristotle is attempting to reconcile Homeric honor culture with his own theory of the virtues, and as a result, Aristotle is importing cultural values that were generally held then. My suggestion is not the stronger claim that Aristotle is simply importing cultural values without modification, but the weaker claim that Aristotle is attempting to combine what he sees as the good parts of those cultural factors with his own account of virtue.
- 31.
And more generally, 1124b9-15.
- 32.
Curzer 2012, 124–125.
- 33.
See Held 1993, 103.
- 34.
Curzer 2012, 127n17 and 161n21. Curzer takes the category of forgiveness to be quite broad, but it is unclear what exactly he takes Aristotle to be sanctioning here, since he immediately follows this by noting that forgiving or excusing the unforgivable (presumably as laid out by Aristotle’s conditions on sungnōmē) would be inirascible (the vice of deficiency in relation to good temper). This is in response to Griswold 2007, 8, who claims that the megalopsychos is not forgiving on the grounds that the megalopsychos has no need to be forgiven because he is morally perfect, and hence sees no role for forgiveness in an account of ethics.
- 35.
Taylor 2006, 225.
- 36.
- 37.
Dover 1974, 195.
- 38.
I am grateful for the written comments on earlier drafts of this paper from David Riesbeck, Don Morrison, Tim Schroeder, George Sher, Hilary Mackie, and Krisanna Scheiter, as well as the illuminating conversations about this material with Stephen White and Victor Saenz.
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Phillips-Garrett, C. (2022). Why Aristotle’s Virtuous Agent Won’t Forgive: Aristotle on Sungnōmē, Praotēs, and Megalopsychia. In: Satne, P., Scheiter, K.M. (eds) Conflict and Resolution: The Ethics of Forgiveness, Revenge, and Punishment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77807-1_10
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