UCLA

This dissertation investigates two forms of bad dispositions (hexeis), namely incontinence and vice, and two forms of the highest dispositions, namely magnanimity and contemplative excellence.The first chapter argues the ‘unqualifiedly’ incontinent agent is one whose acquired rational dispositions for psychic pleasures match those of the virtuous, but who nevertheless acts badly due to the presence of non-rational innate dispositions for inappropriate bodily pleasures. Such an agent is supposed to threaten the Socratic thesis that a possessor of ethical knowledge ii ought not to be able to behave badly. To defend his thesis, Socrates denied the existence of incontinence altogether. But Aristotle thinks this flies in the face of common sense. So, his proposal is that an incontinent agent lacks the ability to resist inappropriate non-rational bodily pleasures whereas the virtuous agent is disposed to resist such pleasures and so cannot act incontinently.The second chapter proposes some vices are less bad than opposing vices because they resemble the manifestation of the virtue, i.e. the part of virtuous activity that is essential to virtue, more so than the opposing vice. Moreover, manifestations of virtue give rise to rational ethical pleasures whereas the non-manifestations of virtue give rise to no such pleasure. Further, the pleasures of the lesser vice are of the same species as the pleasures of the manifestation of virtue.The third chapter argues honor has a special conceptual connection to excellence which is reflected in the special kind of self-knowledge the magnanimous agent must have to be able to appropriately accept honors. And since Aristotle has two mutually exclusive honor-relating virtues, there must be two levels of virtue in the Aristotelian framework, one for the statesman and the other for the philosopher.The fourth chapter elucidates type-identical theories of human and divine contemplation. After making room for type-identical views, it canvasses three such views based on sameness of act, of actuality, and of form. It concludes that, though not without its difficulties, the view based on sameness of actuality is the most plausible.