Reason has two domains of application in Aristotle: theoretical and practical. Practical reason is in good order when a rational being has acquired practical wisdom (phronesis) and virtue. (practical knowledge is an excellence of the ability to know what to do in particular situation, while virtue is an excellence of character). Practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand; this is a consequence of the unity of virtue and of the analysis of the process of practical deliberation. Hence, excellence in rationality -- practical and theoretical -- has virtue of character and practical wisdom as requirements. Nazis don't have either of those, arguably.

Practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand; — Pierre-Normand

Then they are surely the same thing! Or at least they/it has a name?

Interesting questions...

Does Aristotle also mean that morality is objective? — TheMadFool

I think he does think morality is what we would call objective. The nazis used rational means, sure, but having rationality doesn't make anyone virtuous by Aristotle's, or anyone's standards. In other words, rationality is necessary but not sufficient. There are lots of rational psychopaths, for example. In his view, there was a lot more that went into someone being virtuous than merely being rational. E.g., emotions, intention, disposition...

I think another interesting question to ask is: is morality merely just a cultural expression of contingent cultural norms, or is ethics grounded in something meta, and therefore something objective. If it is, what is this something? Why are we moral? Is it because we are all social conformists? This is my opinion currently by the way... I believe morality is groundless and that we are empty conformists. There is a strand of naturalism in 20th century virtue ethics that I don't think I agree with any more...

Reason has two domains of application in Aristotle: theoretical and practical. Practical reason is in good order when a rational being has acquired practical wisdom (phronesis) and virtue. (practical knowledge is an excellence of the ability to know what to do in particular situation, while virtue is an excellence of character). Practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand; this is a consequence of the unity of virtue and of the analysis of the process of practical deliberation. Hence, excellence in rationality -- practical and theoretical -- has virtue of character and practical wisdom as requirements. Nazis don't have either of those, arguably. — Pierre-Normand

What does it mean to say "practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand"? I take it one who is virtuous has practical wisdom, but some agents with practical wisdom are not virtuous. Is every agent of the latter sort an akratic, and is every akratic an agent of that sort?

What is the phrase "the unity of virtue" supposed to mean?

How do the unity of virtue and the analysis of practical deliberation entail that practical wisdom and virtue "go hand in hand"?

I might say that when we deliberate we reason; that most of our activity is not deliberation and is not guided by deliberation, but the activity of rational agents (or virtuous-phronetic agents) is typically consistent with results that would have obtained if deliberation had occurred. I suppose this way of speaking indicates some sort of view of the relation between rationality, action, and reasoning. Is this consistent with an Aristotelian view?

What is theoretical reasoning, according to Aristotle?

What is it that theoretical and practical reasoning have in common?

practical and theoretical — Pierre-Normand

What is practical isn't good e.g. it's practical to kill all old people since they're, well, useless (this isn't my view).

Theoretically, good hasn't been found. Isn't that why ethics isn't well established?

In other words, rationality is necessary but not sufficient. — bloodninja

Some would say the exact opposite is true. Being rational has obstructed people from being good. They lost faith in God, once a powerful motivator of goodness. Rationality has failed to ground morality on firm foundations, leaving us stranded in a confusing moral landscape. It seems, therefore, that, to some extent, rationality is an impediment to morality. There was a time, before the Age of Reason, when people had faith in God and divine morality held sway.

I believe morality is groundless and that we are empty conformists. — bloodninja

I have the same feeling. Reason has failed or rather, succeeded in unequivocally proving that morality has no foundation, at least nothing objectively perceivable.

I ran into this exact same problem with Plato.
Then Plato has the analogy of the eye which I posted on, but it relates here just as well.
The eye is the soul and reason, you can't see without a working eye. This is true.
Yet you also can not see without light. Elsewhere he talks about the eye of soul being lifted out of the muck that obscures its vision.
So virtue is reasonable and is perceived by reason (it requires logic and understanding to be applied). But it also requires Divine Illumination to discern goodness from evil.
Only illumined reason leads to virtue. Darkened reason leads to super villains (of which there are many clever but unscrupulous people of heroic strength but lacking moral direction).

The eye and light - reason and divine inspiration. I like that. But one could ask for the rational basis for divine morality. Socrates' divine command problem.

I did some brief digging into Divine Command Theory. There's lots there. More to add to my reading list :)

But I think asking for rational basis alone is like asking the eye to see without light. It goes back to the whole point of illumination. A common objection is how can atheists or agnostics be moral if morality comes from God alone.
Without being illuminated, this is true, one can only be moral by chance in a same way a blinded person might make their way in a large empty room only by luck.
However it's important to distinguish between illumination and intellectual belief. They are surely not the same. Even atheists have some illumination or perhaps even a great deal and may have a divinely inspired moral compass even if they don't attribute it as such. In fact, all of us, have some level of being illumined because God is the source of our very being. Without His presence we couldn't exist. So you can have morality come from God without requiring people to believe in Him to be moral nor make the mistaking morality for mere belief.

P.S. I have decided to start using the term God again. God illuminating us is an example of His/Her/It's active nature. It's not a passive, merely philosophical construct. I can use the word God without subscribing to any particular revealed religion.

What I find strange is that rationality is elevated to the highest position in the philosophical enterprise and all that it has shown is there is no real reason to be good or bad, for that matter.

Therefore, it looks like morality may require us to forfeit rationality.

By forfeit rationality do you mean following empathy and compassion over objective reason? In there is no divine guidance then perhaps your right.
Again some plato. If God exists then one's self interest and happiness ultimately depend on being good (not just because of heaven/hell but for its own sake because God is most desirable good there is). So being good is rational and being evil is irrational and against ones own happiness though this may not be obvious.
If however, God doesn't exist. Perhaps it is more rational to seek self interest and happiness may lie only in temporary or subjective matters. In that case it might be irrational to do the moral thing. Rational self interest should then be constrained to protect the common good.

So, is Aristotle wrong or have I not understood? — TheMadFool

It ought not to be forgotten that God was at the pinnacle of Aristotle's philosophy, and provided the first and final cause for everything that exists. Aristotle's exercise of reason wasn't in pursuit of today's 'fallbilistic hypotheses', but in pursuit of a final state of the contemplation of the eternal Forms of the Good.

It's no coincidence that as a consequence of his work, McIntyre converted to Catholicism and indeed the entry on McIntyre in Wikipedia is presented as part of a series on Catholic philosophy.

So it's not so much something you have not understood, as something that has been omitted from the account: that reason itself is grounded in a supreme good. Without that moral compass, then reason can indeed be employed for all manner of nefarious purposes.

What is practical isn't good e.g. it's practical to kill all old people since they're, well, useless (this isn't my view). — TheMadFool

You are confusing "practical" with "utilitarian" or "instrumental". Practical reason, as opposed to theoretical reason, is the part of reason that is concerned with determining what one ought to do rather than what one ought to believe.

Then they are surely the same thing! Or at least they/it has a name? — Jake Tarragon

They are co-extensive but they are not the same thing. They are co-extensive because they are inter-dependent. Someone who has picked up bad habits, or has defects of character (which is basically the same thing, for Aristotle) will have her process of practical deliberation biased or impeded by her vicious motivations. She will thereby not have the ability to recognize what it is that she must do in some range of specific situations. Conversely, if that person lacks an ability to reflect wisely about the requirement of her practical situation (because she hasn't thought things through or lacks a decent moral education) she will pick up bad habits and develop features of a vicious character since she won't be able to distinguish what it is desirable to do (what is rationally/morally good to do) from what she merely believes that it is desirable to do in specific situations. Thus, Aristotle defines desire as the (mere) appearance of the good.

To become virtuous is to develop motivational tendencies that don't stand in the way, and that indeed are partly constitutive, of an ability both to perceive clearly what it is that (rationally and morally) ought to be done and to do it.

By forfeit rationality do you mean following empathy and compassion over objective reason? — MysticMonist

Something like that. All I can say is that morality is a glue for social cohesion. I want there to be more to morality - something greater, more majestic, even cosmic. Perhaps my expectations are unrealistic and that's all there is to morality.

Practical reason, as opposed to theoretical reason, is the part of reason that is concerned with determining what one ought to do rather than what one ought to believe. — Pierre-Normand

Hence, excellence in rationality -- practical and theoretical -- has virtue of character and practical wisdom as requirements — Pierre-Normand

Yes, but rationality alone doesn't cut it. I mean it's not enough to be just rational. I can go even further and say that, sometimes, rationality impedes the good.

Sidgwick famously struggled with the dichotomy between agent-centered rationality and rationality used ethically. He thought there were good reasons for being self-centered and also good reasons for being oriented ethically.

What Nietzsche recognized, however, is that the choice to be moral cannot be a decision based on morality - for otherwise this would simply push the explanation back further. Why be moral? is a question not within ethics but outside of ethics.

This is why I think there really is no such thing as "choosing" to be ethical - because you either are or you are not. This works well with Nietzsche's theory of psychological types. Levinas spends tremendous effort explaining the "persecution" and "demand" of the Other - it's not something that we passively recognize and say "hmm, maybe I'll be moral", it's quite literally a non-negotiable pull, a reason that exists before reason.

When Aristotle talks about reason leading to the good, he is talking about a different sort of reasoning than simply being a calculated and sensing creature. Virtue ethics, however, has notoriously struggled with defining what the good is by appeal to reason (and virtue). Murder is wrong, according to the virtue ethicist, because a virtuous person would not murder. But that seems to get things backwards. Murder is wrong because it is wrong, and it's because it is wrong that virtuous people do not murder.

Yes, but rationality alone doesn't cut it. I mean it's not enough to be just rational. I can go even further and say that, sometimes, rationality impedes the good. — TheMadFool

That's true of "rationality" as it is commonly understood in modern times (maybe since the 17th century). But it's not true of rationality as Aristotle understands it. In modern times rationality tends to be understood in a restricted sense that only covers "logical thinking" (so called) and instrumental practical deliberation (how to determine means to our ends). It accords with Hume's dictum that "reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions", which makes it difficult to conceive that the passions, virtues and emotions can be regulated by reason or form constitutive parts of our rational faculty. It also makes it difficult to conceive of reason's internal-conceptual connection to morality.

What does it mean to say "practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand"? I take it one who is virtuous has practical wisdom, but some agents with practical wisdom are not virtuous. Is every agent of the latter sort an akratic, and is every akratic an agent of that sort? — Cabbage Farmer

Akrasia is a very difficult concept and my thoughts about it are far from definitive. In fact, two of my favorite philosophers -- John McDowell and David Wiggins -- who are fine interpreters of Aristotle, have had a dispute about its meaning and I have not yet managed to grasp the full significance of this dispute. But in any case, I think it can be argued that someone who lacks in virtue necessarily lacks in practical wisdom. The reason why it might seem that this is not the case is because, as you notice, the akratic agent seems to know what it is that she ought to do, and yet she lacks the motivation to do it. This indeed demonstrates a flaw in her character, and hence a lack of virtue. But the fact that her practical judgment (which is a singular act of her capacity of practical wisdom) is correct in this singular instance doesn't entail that her capacity of practical wisdom is intact. It only illustrates that her flawed capacity sometimes yields a correct judgment that matches what an agent who has both virtue and practical wisdom would judge and do in the same circumstances. It is easy to imagine different circumstances, though, where the flaw in her character will lead her not to be behaving akratically but rather lead to her practical judgment being clouded and hence to her rationalizing away her own bad or irrational action.

What is the phrase "the unity of virtue" supposed to mean? — Cabbage Farmer

The idea simply is that you can't have a virtue if you don't have them all. This thesis is not as extravagant as it may seem. The reason why the thesis makes sense is because you can always imagine practical situations where the demands from two different virtues (courage and modesty, say) appear to conflict. But each virtue, considered in isolation, consists in one's having a motivation to act that is in proportion with the rational demands of the situation. Hence, to exhibit courage is to face danger when the situation demands it and neither to fear too much (cowardice) or not enough (rashness). But in some situations, what it is that determines "too much" fear or "not enough" fear, in a fearful situation, and hence what it is that determines if an act is cowardly or rash, may be the demands from the virtue of modesty (not being either too shy nor shameless). Hence if the agent lacks in her virtue of modesty, she will also be led, in some circumstances, to display cowardice or rashness.

Reason -- logos -- thus mediates between the various virtues of character and unifies them in practical deliberation. Too much of one virtue can never lead to an act that is vicious in another respect. Hence, there is no such thing as too much of a virtue. (By analogy, you can't have a heart that is too healthy. If the functioning of your heart damages the health of your kidneys, say, then it's not a healthy heart. But in this case the unity of organic health rests on the teleological organization of the body rather than the form of practical rationality.)

He thought there were good reasons for being self-centered and also good reasons for being oriented ethically. — darthbarracuda

The balance - the middle path. Life, reduced to basics, is a balancing act between extremes, don't you think? Also, it depends a lot on perspective. Zoom in - the world is about you, to be brought under your will - satisfy your desires, whims and fancy. Zoom out - there's society, there's the Earth, then the Solar system, the milky way, the local cluster, and the universe itself...the self fades away until we realize our insignificance in the great scheme of things.

Why be moral? is a question not within ethics but outside of ethics. — darthbarracuda

I think morality only makes sense in a social context. As I said above, it's about realizing we're part of something bigger. The self loses importance...we give up our self and become part of a higher order of existence. What do you think?

This is why I think there really is no such thing as "choosing" to be ethical - because you either are or you are not. — darthbarracuda

I think you're correct, at least in the modern context where people have been stripped of Godly refuge. Without God, morality is a void and people are left confused, struggling between selfishness and altruism.

I also feel that people do choose between good and bad. Morality is imperfect and fails to provide us with a comprehensive guidelines and that, perhaps, can be misconstrued as morality not being a conscious, reasoned choice.

Virtue ethics, however, has notoriously struggled with defining what the good is by appeal to reason (and virtue). — darthbarracuda

I agree but for a different reason. I don't know how far this is true but in the present world the good, self-sacrifice, love, honor, fairness, honesty, etc. are equated with naivety, foolishness, even madness. Yes, the media and the government do give credit for virtuous acts but ask the man on the street and you'll get a different picture: good = a complete lack of understanding on human nature. It appears, therefore, that to be good requires us to ignore certain facts about the world (nonexistence of God, human nature to desire profit, power, money, and so on). So, reason actually forces us towards immorality, at least in self-defence if not for gain. Reason, alone, is inadequate.

Perhaps I misunderstood Aristotle. What I'm particularly hoping and looking for are the premises, the obvious truths that are necessary for Aristotle's idea on morality to make sense. He said it's enough to be rational to be good. Doesn't that imply that there are objective facts about the world that will, on applying reason, lead everyone to goodness?

Perhaps I misunderstood Aristotle. — TheMadFool

Aristotle if frequently misunderstood. That's because he talks with a rather thick Greek accent.

What I'm particularly hoping and looking for are the premises, the obvious truths that are necessary for Aristotle's idea on morality to make sense. He said it's enough to be rational to be good. Doesn't that imply that there are objective facts about the world that will, on applying reason, lead everyone to goodness?

I think this way of framing the question would be unintelligible to Aristotle. It might be correct to say that Aristotle's conception of ethics is realist (it's not up to us, or up to our conventions, whether some action is good or bad) and cognitivist (it is either true or false that we ought to do this or that). But modern ethical theories often are foundationalist in the sense that they purport to deduce truths about value jugements, or about the moral goodness of actions, from general principles. This wouldn't make sense for Aristotle.

David Wiggins has explained Aristotle's conception of practical deliberation (in view of determining what one ought to do; or what it is good to do) through contrasting it with the "blueprint model" of ethical knowledge. According to the blueprint conception, when you know what to do in a particular situation it is because you have a general idea of what it is that ought to be done in situations of that kind. This general knowledge is derived from the ethical theory conceived as a blueprint (it can be derived in a complicated manner from several ethical axioms). And from this general knowledge, and your specific knowledge of the situation, you can derive logically (deductively) what it is that you ought to do.

But Aristotle's explanation of practical deliberation doesn't work like that at all. Aristotle's practical "syllogism" is merely analogous to a theoretical syllogism since it has a major premise (stating a general truth regarding an end pursued in action) and a minor premise (identifying a particular means and opportunity to achieving that end). The conclusion of the practical syllogism, though, isn't a proposition. It is an action (or an intention for the future), and it isn't arrived at deductively. In fact, it can't logically be arrived at deductively since actions don't have a propositional form. Rather, in order to be valid, the practical syllogism must reflect the wisdom of the agent in selecting both premises in accordance with the morally salient features of the situation (the end that ought to be pursued) and the reasonableness of the action (as a means to achieving that end). That is, among many potentially conflicting ends, the practically wise agent must judge which one of those ends has precedence over the other ones in light of, in part, the means available. And there is no general blueprint for doing that.

Your post is confusing...

think this way of framing the question would be unintelligible to Aristotle. It might be correct to say that Aristotle's conception of ethics is realist (it's not up to us, or up to our conventions, whether some action is good or bad) and cognitivist (it is either true or false that we ought to do this or that). But modern ethical theories often are foundationalist in the sense that they purport to deduce truths about value jugements, or about the moral goodness of actions, from general principles. This wouldn't make sense for Aristotle. — Pierre-Normand

And then you say...

But Aristotle's explanation of practical deliberation doesn't work like that at all. Aristotle's practical "syllogism" is merely analogous to a theoretical syllogism since it has a major premise (stating a general truth regarding an end pursued in action) and a minor premise (identifying a particular means and opportunity to achieving that end). The conclusion of the practical syllogism, though, isn't a proposition. It is an action (or an intention for the future), and it isn't arrived at deductively. In fact, it can't logically be arrived at deductively since actions don't have a propositional form. Rather, in order to be valid, the practical syllogism must reflect the wisdom of the agent in selecting both premises in accordance with the morally salient features of the situation (the end that ought to be pursued) and the reasonableness of the action (as a means to achieving that end). That is, among many potentially conflicting ends, the practically wise agent must judge which one of those ends has precedence over the other ones in light of, in part, the means available. And there is no general blueprint for doing that. — Pierre-Normand

Your post is confusing... — TheMadFool

As I said, Aristotle's practical "syllogism" only is a syllogism by analogy to the theoretical syllogism. Unlike the latter it doesn't have a deductive form. This is sometimes noted through saying that it is defeasible (e.g. by Anthony Kenny). But this is misleading. That's because many philosophers, since the early efforts of the scholastics, have attempted to formalize practical reason through providing explicit rules of inference, and through devising the operator "ought to..." or "it is good to..." in order to form the proposition that expresses the general end signified by Aristotle's major premise. They have noted, though, that a conclusion of the form "therefore, I ought to A" can never be derived "undefeasibly", whatever rules of inference those philosophers had come up with, because in actual exercises of practical deliberation there might always come up a new general premise of the form "I ought not to A" or "I ought to B", where doing B is incompatible with doing A. This is why, also, Aristotle insisted that the "conclusion" of a practical syllogism isn't a proposition by rather an action. You can express it verbally with the sentence "I ought to A" or "it is good to A", in the present circumstances, but the terms "ought to" or "good" do not mark a function in deductive reasoning. They rather signify the form of practical reason (as opposed to "true", which marks the form of theoretical reason). And it belongs to the form of practical reason that you can't deduce what to do from general premises. You must be sensitive to the particulars of the situation in order to wisely select *both* the major and minor premises of the practical "syllogism".

Aristotle also characterized theoretical deliberation as a rational move from the specific towards universality (what is universally true in a general domain), whereas practical deliberation moves from the general (what is good in some respect) towards the specific (what must be done here and now). But an action never has been fully specified until it has been done (which is marked by the progressive/contrastive contrast in grammatical aspect). This is another reason why practical reason can't rest on deductively valid logical rules of inference. Actions are produced by ongoing practical reasoning and practical reasoning is a process of progressive rational specification that isn't over until the action has been done.

The balance - the middle path. — TheMadFool

This is one area where, while agreeing with Pierre-Normand on the whole, I would differ with him. Aristotle is famous for thinking there is some sort of mean in virtue and vice, with virtue as the mean and vice as the excess, so that for instance he doesn't think anger is wrong in itself: but the virtuous person will have the right sort of anger for the right reasons at the right object. Never to be angry would then be as non-virtuous as being irascible, for example.

There is also a triple underpinning to the Nicomachean Ethics which is never stated as a formal premiss but which is understood as the basis of the whole virtue enterprise. (a) Human beings just do aspire to the good, to flourishing (eudaimonia) which is achieved by practical reason engaged with virtue, using due deliberation which is practical, not theoretical in nature. (b) This good is not the individual good that modern ethical discussion tends to revolve around, it is the good that we aristocrats - Aristotle's audience - will pursue as part of creating and sustaining a good polis or state. (c) There is a social cement linking virtuous people to sustain the polis which takes the form of the philia or friendship between each person and a small number of other people.

This is one area where, while agreeing with Pierre-Normand on the whole, I would differ with him. Aristotle is famous for thinking there is some sort of mean in virtue and vice, with virtue as the mean and vice as the excess, so that for instance he doesn't think anger is wrong in itself: but the virtuous person will have the right sort of anger for the right reasons at the right object. Never to be angry would then be as non-virtuous as being irascible, for example. — mcdoodle

I don't see where it is that we have any disagreement. What you call "the right sort of anger" we might call the right sort of circumstance for expressing anger (the recognition of which is connected to the right sort of rational motivation, or virtue). There are four columns in an Aristotelian table of virtues. The first column label a form of behavior, or a sort of feeling. Corresponding to anger, there is the virtue of patience or good temper. To this virtue corresponds two vices, stemming from excess of deficit: irascibility or indifference ("lack of spirit"). My main point is that, owing to the fact of human virtue's internal connection with both practical wisdom (a practical cognitive ability) and practical deliberation, one can't have the virtue of good temper in excess relative to the demands from another virtue. The virtue of good temper is the general ability to strike a good balance in behavior between manifesting too much or not enough anger while the practically relevant features of the situation have been made properly salient in the mind of the agent by a proper exercise of all the other virtues of character.

I don't see where it is that we have any disagreement. — Pierre-Normand

It was something you wrote about how there can never be too much virtue, Pierre-Normand, but forgive me if I've misread you, I've ended up reading things rather late and may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

It was something you wrote about how there can never be too much virtue, Pierre-Normand, but forgive me if I've misread you, I've ended up reading things rather late and may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. — mcdoodle

No trouble. But this is indeed what I was saying. Once properly characterized, an Aristotelian virtue isn't something that anyone can have in excess. Any form of excess is a vice, per definition. And while a particular practical circumstance can make contrary ethical demands on one, and those demands would be made salient though the specific exercises of two different virtues, the rational ability to properly arbitrate between those two conflicting demands is a manifestation of both virtues rather than one of them being overruled by the other one.

That's true. There seems to be no general principles that can guide action. Those that have been proposed are deficient in some respect, making them inapplicable in some situations.

I'm still confused though. Why did Aristotle think reason is the, well, highest good? Did he think that it AND the facts of the world would lead us all to goodness? Perhaps by ''good'' he means something else, something other than morality? Or did he think goodness is part of Eudaimonia, the ''flourishing'' of a person?

(Y) Could you explain the difference between ''theoretical'' and ''practical'' reasoning of Aristotle?

Akrasia is a very difficult concept and my thoughts about it are far from definitive. In fact, two of my favorite philosophers -- John McDowell and David Wiggins -- who are fine interpreters of Aristotle, have had a dispute about its meaning and I have not yet managed to grasp the full significance of this dispute. — Pierre-Normand

Perhaps there's no contemporary philosopher whose work I've enjoyed more than McDowell's.

I see he's got a response to Wiggins on akrasia in essay four of The Engaged Intellect. I don't read much nowadays but maybe I'll give it a look.

But in any case, I think it can be argued that someone who lacks in virtue necessarily lacks in practical wisdom. — Pierre-Normand

The ideal of a wholly virtuous agent is a useful role-model. One may aim to be wholly virtuous, as one may aim to be Christ-like or Buddha-like. I reckon there are few if any wholly virtuous agents among us; most of us act sometimes like the wholly virtuous agent, sometimes like the enkratic, and sometimes like the akratic. Sometimes we don't even know what's good for us. At least some of us sometimes don't give a damn about doing what's right.

I'll agree that enkratic and akratic actions or agents are among those less than ideally virtuous and less than ideally wise.

The reason why it might seem that this is not the case is because, as you notice, the akratic agent seems to know what it is that she ought to do, and yet she lacks the motivation to do it. This indeed demonstrates a flaw in her character, and hence a lack of virtue. — Pierre-Normand

Does the phrase "seems to know" here suggest that the akratic does not in fact know what it is she ought to do, that her seeming good judgment is in fact something like an illusion of good judgment?

I'd say that's false insofar as, by definition, the akratic knows what sort of action she ought to perform, and has a motive to do what she ought. In that respect she resembles the wholly virtuous and enkratic agents. She has additional motives that conflict with her good judgment -- the sum of her motives is "discordant" with her better judgment -- and in this respect she is like the enkratic and unlike the wholly virtuous agent. She does not have the strength to resolve discordant motivation in keeping with good judgment, so she chooses a wrong action, one which conflicts with her good judgment, and in this respect she is unlike the enkratic and quite unlike the wholly virtuous agent.

There's another sense in which the akratic does not know what sort of action she ought to perform. For she does not know how to align her volition with her own best judgment and thus to do what she thinks is in her own best interest. She does not know how to force herself to prefer what she believes she ought to prefer -- what she would prefer to prefer -- in a given context.

By contrast, the enkratic specializes in preferring what's right even in the face of strong opposition from competing motives; while the fully virtuous agent's motives are so robustly aligned with her judgment of what's right, that for her there is no contest.

It seems to me the relevant difference concerns in the first place a sort of knack or skill or competency, a capacity or power, that is not aptly characterized as a knowing-that or a judging-that.

It seems clear enough that the akratic acts unreasonably. But if we go so far as to call his action irrational, I'll suggest this is a weak sense of "irrationality", for it seems there is nothing strictly illogical or absurd in the form of akratic action.

But the fact that her practical judgment (which is a singular act of her capacity of practical wisdom) is correct in this singular instance doesn't entail that her capacity of practical wisdom is intact. It only illustrates that her flawed capacity sometimes yields a correct judgment that matches what an agent who has both virtue and practical wisdom would judge and do in the same circumstances. It is easy to imagine different circumstances, though, where the flaw in her character will lead her not to be behaving akratically but rather lead to her practical judgment being clouded and hence to her rationalizing away her own bad or irrational action. — Pierre-Normand

I'm not sure I follow.

How does this arrangement of the terms "practical wisdom" and "practical judgment" inform an account of the similarities and differences of the akratic, enkratic, and wholly virtuous agents?

What does it mean to call a capacity for practical wisdom "flawed" or "intact"?

The idea simply is that you can't have a virtue if you don't have them all.[...] — Pierre-Normand

It seems perhaps extravagant to suppose that there's a finite list of clearly distinguished human values that belong to human nature, or to suppose that each agent must have a definitive list of such values at any given time. Accordingly, I'm not sure what to make of the thesis that having all virtues is required for having any one virtue. For it's not clear that there is such a thing as "having all virtues".

It seems a fine idea that there should be balance and harmony among the values of a rational agent. It makes sense that excess or deficiency in one value may correspond to excess or deficiency in other values, and that the most virtuous agent is one who most often strikes a fair balance.

The ideal of perfect balance among values is a useful heuristic, but I suppose it's unlikely that any real human agent is perfect in the way you've indicated. To say nobody's perfect is not to say nobody's modest or brave. In a given instance of action in context, an excess of bravery might correspond to a deficiency of modesty. I'll agree this instance signals an imperfection of both bravery and modesty in the agent. That doesn't entail that the agent utterly lacks bravery and modesty, but only that the agent is imperfectly brave and modest (in this instance).

Moreover, to agree that bravery and modesty are linked in this way is not to agree that bravery is linked in an analogous way with each other virtue. Can we call such a link a relation of "countervailing", or is there a better or more conventional term for it? More generally, the fact that some values "countervail" each other would not mean that each value countervails all others, nor that any one value countervails all others. Allowing that some values countervail each other in some cases does not establish a full-blown "unity of virtue". I don't expect it's an easy task to demonstrate that each value is connected to every other in the relevant way.

If true virtue in bravery entails perfect moderation in every context with respect to bravery and with respect to every value that countervails bravery, then it seems reasonable to expect that no real human being is truly brave. If true virtue of character entails perfect moderation in every context with respect to every conceivable value, then it seems reasonable to expect that no real human being is truly virtuous. Nevertheless, it seems appropriate to speak of bravery among us, and to call some people more brave than others, and the others more cowardly or more rash. Likewise, it seems appropriate to speak of virtue among us, and to call some people more virtuous than others, and each of the others more excessive with respect to some values and more deficient with respect to other values.

I might agree that reason "mediates" among an agent's values and "unifies them in practical deliberation". But I'd take care to distinguish between special cases of conscious deliberation, judgment, and reasoning that conclude in intentional action, on the one hand, and ordinary cases of intentional action, in which the agent gets down to it with little or no conscious reasoning. I prefer to say it's a sort of metaphor by which we use phrases like "deliberation" to characterize the subconscious or nonconscious cognitive activity underlying ordinary cases of intentional action. Of course we make judgments about the rationality or reasonableness of an agent's intentions, regardless of whether the relevant intention-setting processes operate in part above or wholly below the fuzzy boundary of introspective awareness.