As we have seen in Chapter 3, the pain condition figures in Aristotle’s account of violence (bia): Aristotle claims that what is done through violence (bia[i]) is painful.1 And as we shall see in what follows, the pain condition also figures in his account of factual error (di’ agnoian): Aristotle seems to suggest that an action done through factual error is only involuntary (akousia) if the agent subsequently regrets it (EN 1110b18-24, 1111a19-21). In spite of the obvious differences in the way the pain condition is connected to factual error and to violence (differences of a temporal order), there are reasons to think that it is the same condition Aristotle is referring to in both accounts, carrying the same ethical significance. In fact, Aristotle wants to say in the EN that the involuntary (to akousion) is painful (EN 1111a32). This latter claim suggests indeed that the pain condition is applied uniformly across the different sorts of involuntary action, but it is misleading – or so I shall argue – in that it suggests that the pain condition is a condition that affects the status of the action, and thus that it is relevant for ethical ascription only in so far as the actions as affected by this condition are involuntary. In this section I want to argue that, on the contrary, the pain condition is relevant for ethical ascription, not because it affects
1 MM 1188a2-3; EE 1224a30-31, 1224a36-8, 1224b15-21; EN 1110b12; Phys. 230b3-8; Met. 1015a26-
185 the voluntary status of the action, but rather directly affects the voluntary status of
the agent.
We saw in Chapter 3 that the pain condition and the contrariety condition, according to which behaviour brought about through violence is contrary to the organism’s impulse (hormê), are mutually entailing. Nonetheless, we also saw that Aristotle is committed to recognize a core notion of violence, one based solely on the externality condition, so that a necessary and sufficient condition for violent motion is that the source of that motion be external to its subject. So the question arises: What is the point of the robust definition of violence, the one taking the contrariety and pain conditions into account?2 I want to argue that the best way to understand this robust notion of violence is to see it as conjoining two different conditions into one, the pain condition, affecting the status of the agent, and the externality condition, affecting the status of the action; and that it is better to regard the pain condition as a separate condition of ethical ascription – i.e. to regard pain as directly affecting the status of the agent.
I think the same can be said about factual error, so let me start by justifying these claims with regard to it. Just as with cases of violence, there is the case of someone, e.g. Aeschylus, who sincerely regrets (a regret which Aristotle explicitly equates with pain, EN 1110b19) having revealed the mysteries, and there is the case of someone who does not regret having revealed them at all. In the Ethica Nicomachea the Stagirite distinguishes these two ‘types’ of acting di’agnoian:
What comes about through factual error is all ouch hekousion, whereas what is akousion is what causes pain and involves regret; for the person who has done (praxas) whatever action through factual error, if he is not displeased at his past action, has not acted (ou pepraxen) hekôn, in so far as it was something he didn’t know <he was doing>, but he has not acted akôn either, in so far as he is not pained <at his having done it>. What comes about through factual error, then, seems to fall into two types: someone who feels regret (ho en metameleia[i]) seems to be akôn, while the one who does not feel regret – well, since he is different from the former, let him be a ouch hekôn agent’;3 for since he is different, it is better that he should have a name to himself. EN 1110b18-24
2 See the definition V2* in Chapter 3, Section C: X‟s motion or rest is by violence iff (1) its source is in
something external to X‟s whole motivational set and (2) is against X’s natural tendency (hormê).
3 I follow here most commentators in taking the negation „ouch‟with „hekôn‟ rather than with „estô‟
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Aristotle’s use of ‘ouch hekousion’ (lit. ‘non-voluntary’) and ‘akousion’ (‘involuntary’) in this passage is unprecedented (this is why I have left them un-translated, for the purposes of this section), and it equips him to make a crucial distinction. To see this, however, it is important to resist one interpretation of this passage. On this interpretation, Aristotle is arguing that there is “a tripartition of actions into the voluntary, the non-voluntary [ouch hekousion], and the involuntary [akousion]”,4 the latter two being his focus in this passage. On this interpretation, Aristotle is using ‘ouch hekousion’ only as one of two categories of actions due to factual error, namely, the one encompassing those actions due to factual error that are not
subsequently accompanied by pain, and using ‘akousion’ simply as the other, namely, the one encompassing those actions due to factual error that are thus accompanied by pain.
` But this is not what Aristotle is saying. First, he is saying that every action that is the result of factual error is ouch hekousion (b18). ‘Ouch hekousion’ here designates the genus of actions due to factual error that are involuntary regardless of whether they are or not subsequently followed by pain. This genus is the one that contrasts with the voluntary (hekousion), so that, strictly speaking, there is no tripartition of actions, but a bipartition: hekousion and ouch hekousion. Now, someone may object to this ‘bipartition view’ that it is incorrect, because later in the passage Aristotle uses the phrases ‘ou peprachen hekôn’ (‘has not acted voluntarily’ or ‘has acted non-voluntarily’) and ‘ouch hekôn’ (1110a20-21 and a23 respectively) to designate the action due to factual error that is not subsequently followed by regret (i.e. the action done ‘non-voluntarily’).5 If this is correct, then the bipartition view seems wrong, because it would imply that Aristotle is just using the same phrase, ‘ouch hekousion’ to designate both the genus (i.e. what is due to factual error regardless of whether it is subsequently followed by pain) and one of its
4 Sauvé-Meyer, S. (1988), p. 129.Her interpretation is partly supported by her taking the ouch at a18
with „estin‟ (“is not voluntary”, ibid. p. 127) rather than with „hekousion‟ (“is non-voluntary”, as Rowe
translates it). The latter is much more plausible given the position of the words.
5 Sauvé-Meyer, for instance, reads „ouch hekôn‟ at a23 adverbially (“[he acts] non-voluntarily”, ibid. p.
187 species (i.e. what is due to factual error and not subsequently accompanied by pain); but this is surely implausible.
In spite of these appearances, this is not what Aristotle is doing with these phrases. First, Aristotle is using ‘ouch hekôn’ to designate, not the action, but the agent (i.e. non-voluntary agent) who does not feel subsequent regret for having
acted through factual error, when learning the relevant facts (ho mê
metamelomenos, b23); likewise, he is using ‘akôn’ the designate the agent who feels subsequent regret for having acted through factual error (ho en metameleia[i], b22).6 Accordingly, in my view, Aristotle is: (i) using ‘ouch hekousion’ to qualify all
those actions that are involuntary through factual error, regardless of whether they are followed by pain and (ii) using ‘akôn’ and ‘ouch hekôn’ to characterize the agent
on the basis of his attitude towards that involuntary action. He can do this because the Greek terms ‘akôn’ and ‘hekôn’ are only predicated of agents, and agents can be ‘open’ or ‘closed’ to evaluation.
Secondly, in a way Aristotle is also pointing at the voluntary status of the
agent when he says that “the person who has done (praxas) x through factual error, if he is not displeased at his having done x, has not acted (ou pepraxen) hekôn … but has not acted akôn either, in so far as he is not pained at his having done x” (b19-22). Admittedly, Aristotle is here using ‘akôn’ and ‘ouch hekôn’ to qualify actions (i.e. as adverbs). But notice his careful use of the perfect.7 Aristotle is not saying that the person having or lacking regret about a past action done through factual error, did
something akôn or ouch hekôn. This is presumably because the involuntary status of
what the agent did (aorist) is immune to the subsequent negative or positive attitudes towards it. We could say that in cases of acting through factual error what the agent did is involuntary (genus) regardless of how he happens to feel about it. By contrast, I think that the use of the perfect tense to refer to the action now indicates, as Aristotle makes clear, that the present status of the agent has been affected by his subsequent attitude towards his past action (aorist).
Let me insist on this. It is tempting for an English speaker to think that the perfect in Aristotle’s Greek corresponds to a past tense, but this would be a hasty
6
Ross‟ translation captures this nicely.
7On Aristotle‟s use of the perfect in this connection see also
188 assumption to make.8 For whereas it is true that ‘S has Fed’ can be merely used to report past experiences (as in ‘S has been to Chile a couple of times’), thus referring to past occasions of Fing, it does not have to be so used. This is because of the importance of the aspect in Greek. The perfective aspect, as its name in Greek and English implies, indicates “that the action or state to which it refers is complete; ‘I have built the house’ implies that there is no more of the house left to build, while ‘Johnny has been a good boy’ implies that Johnny has left unfulfilled none of the conditions necessary for being a good boy”.9 Thus understood, sentences of the form ‘S has Fed’ are sentences that can be true only in virtue of present conditions. In the case of ‘S has Fed akôn/ouch hekôn’ these present conditions include the agent’s present attitude towards his past action. The use of the perfect then indicates the fact that we now judge the agent differently with regard to his past action, because of his present attitude towards it: ‘what the agent has done’ (as opposed to what he did) is then a complex whole encompassing what he did (the isolated piece of behaviour that is now gone) and our subsequent judgement (our judgement now) of the agent as ‘akôn’ or ‘ouch hekôn’ on the basis of his present attitudes towards it.
Accordingly, I don´t see any serious objections to the bipartition view. On this view, Aristotle is saying that (i) there is a generic category of actions (to ouch hekousion) that are involuntary (I see no problem in so translating ‘ouch hekousion’) due to factual error regardless of the agent’s subsequent attitude towards them, after he has learned the relevant facts; and (ii) there is a distinction between agents
(‘ouch hekôn’ and ‘akôn’) depending on their subsequent attitude towards them. This having been established, it is also important to my argument that these two claims, (i) and (ii), hold true of involuntary actions in general, and not only of those that are involuntary due to factual error. I think that the category of the ‘akôn-agent’ (from now on, ‘the involuntary agent’) can be easily extended10 so as to cover all
agents who feel (the relevant sort of) pain for having acted involuntarily, where ‘pain’ stands for a whole range of simultaneous and subsequent avoidance-attitudes like distress, reluctance, disgust, and of course, regret (metameleia). Likewise, the
8
See Potts, T. C. (1965), p. 68.
9 Taylor, C. C. W. (1965), p. 86-7.
189 category of the ‘ouch hekôn-agent’ (from now on, ‘the non-voluntary agent’) could be extended to cover all those agents who do not feel (the relevant sort of) pain for having acted involuntarily. No doubt, the legitimacy of this extension can be disputed by the fact that such distinction between these two agents is never drawn in connection with violence (bia). It has been argued, for instance, that the reason “why Aristotle does not acknowledge the possibility of non-voluntary action [in my terminology, ‘of the non-voluntary agent with regard to his involuntary action’] except in cases involving ignorance” is that “it is part of the definition of force that you cannot be forced to do something which is not contrary to your internal impulses, so there is no room for non-voluntary action due to force”.11 I have argued in Chapter 3 that this is not so (Section F): Aristotle recognizes, and is committed to recognize, a core definition of violence. Because of this, he is plainly committed to acknowledge a distinction analogous to the one between the two ‘subcategories of the involuntary through factual error’, or rather, analogous to the two categories of the agent’s status with regard to his involuntary action, as I want to argue.
Given then that a piece of behaviour (i.e. ‘what the agent did’) is involuntary (genus) regardless of how the agent happens to feel about it, and keeping in mind Aristotle’s suggestion that there is a further distinction between agents depending on their attitude towards this involuntary action, we can now formulate the pain condition (PC) as follows:
PC: For any piece of behaviour B that is performed involuntarily, an agent S is now involuntary (akôn) with regard to B if he now feels pain for causing or having caused
B; and S is now non-voluntary (ouch hekôn) with regard to B if he now feels no pain for causing or having caused B.
Now, when I suggested at the beginning that the robust notion of violence should be understood as conjoining two different conditions, the pain condition and the externality condition, what I meant is this: (i) the externality condition (Aristotle’s core notion of violence) and what we could now call ‘the core notion of factual
190 error’, tell us whether the piece of behaviour B is involuntary in the first place; that is, the significance of the core definition of violence and core definition of factual error is that they answer the demand for a sense in which actions are involuntary (genus); whereas (ii) the contrariety and pain conditions tell us whether the agent is now involuntary or non-voluntary with regard to B - the robust definition of violence misleadingly conjoins (i) and (ii).
The precise meaning of this principle, PC, won’t become clear until Section D. Next, we must turn to an account of the sort of pain that defines an involuntary agent, according to Aristotle, but before we must polish our account of the pain condition.