Abstract
Aristotelian theory, as found in Michael Thompson and Philippa Foot, claims that to be good is to be good as a member of that kind, and so there are varying standards of goodness dependent on an individual’s kind-membership. It is a perhaps little noticed feature of Foot’s project, in particular, that it aims to provide more than just a kind-relative account, but seeks an exhaustive account of goodness. She concludes, in effect, that goodness admits of only the kind-based sort. Accordingly, an individual’s goodness obtains solely in virtue of its satisfying kind-based standards. However, Mark Murphy has argued that a hypothetical “ignorant being” could satisfy its kind-relative standards by being ignorant, but we plausibly judge it to be bad when it does. Thus, an individual’s goodness does not obtain solely in virtue of meeting kind-based standards. In this sense, the ignorant being is a counterexample to any Aristotelian account similar to Foot’s. Unfortunately, Murphy’s counterexample fails because (for an Aristotelian) kind-based standards cannot require the lack of something. Nonetheless, I develop Murphy’s insight that something can satisfy kind-relative standards but nonetheless be bad—I propose a hypothetical Ebola-like microbe that meets its kind-standards of being destructive for its own sake, but it would plausibly be bad for doing so. In defending my counterexample, I challenge the Aristotelian contention that evaluations should only be made from “within” the standpoint of a particular lifeform conception, rather than an “external” one from which that kind itself can be judged to be bad.
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Notes
See, for example, Foot (2001: 49), and the title of that book, respectively.
For instance, something’s being a red car is partly in virtue of that thing’s being red. The former is also partly in virtue of the thing’s being a car.
A member’s being good, and its satisfying the categoricals are facts (things in the world making true propositions true). However, in this essay I will often also express the former as a member’s goodness, intending this as shorthand for the relevant fact.
Thus, for Foot it appears that the categoricals are explanatorily prior to the standards.
As failing to satisfy any of the categoricals is a defect, satisfying them is also necessary for goodness. Thus, it is plausible (that Foot contends) that necessarily, the goodness of a member is solely in virtue of satisfying the categoricals. In no metaphysically possible world does a member that fails to satisfy the categoricals avoid defect.
“Life will be at the centre of my discussion, and the fact that a human action or disposition is good of its kind will be taken to be simply a fact about a given feature of a certain kind of living thing” (Foot 2001: 5). Hence, Micah Lott interprets Foot as holding that “moral goodness is a form of natural goodness in human beings” (2012: 354).
Foot does not refute deontology in her essay, but one may presume this is due to deontology usually being a theory of the right rather than the good. She does not discuss platonism, likely since it was (and remains) not a popular position.
The reason to introduce this terminology of ‘function of K’ in addition to the function of a body part of a K is that we are assessing the Aristotelian theory as an account of the goodness of individual things instead of merely their parts. At any rate, categoricals for the individual things as a whole are not foreign to Foot, given her examples regarding the deer’s swiftness for eluding predators and cooperative hunting of the wolf (2001 34). Some motivation for both the priority of the individual’s functions, and for functions as activities, can be found in James Lennox’s (2017 42–44) reading of Aristotle’s focus on the whole organism and its “certain complete actions.".
The function of a given K is a set of several activities, but loosely speaking each of those activities is a function.
In the terminology of Christine Korsgaard’s “Two Distinctions in Goodness” (1983), such goodness would be properly called “final” goodness, as contrasted with instrumental goodness.
Using this insight as a springboard, Murphy’s own proposal is that in addition to meeting its kind-based standards, there is a further condition for something’s goodness: “So I say that the best theistic account of the good will take what constitutes a thing’s goodness to be jointly fixed by Godlikeness and by its kind –- being like God in ways that belong to the kind to be like God” (Murphy 2011, 160).
What, then, of static categoricals such as the tiger has four legs? Unlike the wolf hunts in packs, the former does not express an activity. Perhaps the static trait may be more properly expressed as a particular way by which the lifeform performs its activities, such as the tiger hunts four-leggedly (and the tiger defends itself four-leggedly, etc.).
The guise of the good thesis (see, e.g. Tenenbaum [2010]), which asserts that desire or intentional action seek what the subject believes to be good, might be thought to be at odds with destruction for its own sake, if the latter cannot be good or thought to be so. Now, the microbe does not have beliefs. However, an analogous form of the thesis would be that all creatures seek what appears good for them. How can destruction for its own sake appear good for the microbe? I contend that the microbe is naturally inclined to seek such destruction as one of its goods, and so such destruction appears good to the microbe. In a later section, I will explain why a lifeform’s function and good need not be limited to seeking self-maintenance and reproduction.
If an Aristotelian believes that microbes are also merely borderline substances, then let the Ebola-like thing be an insect, like the smallest known insect S. musawasensis beetle (Polilov 2015) which is as small as some single-celled organisms. In this case, the Ebola-like thing’s method of transmission (infestation) would be slightly different from actual Ebola’s, although its power to destroy and effectiveness of transmission could remain similar to it.
For the same reason, the counterexample I offer should be contrasted with the bottlenose dolphin, whose mating practices (perhaps similar to sexual assault) may be disturbing to the reader. Shane Glackin (2008) points out that male bottlenoses form alliances with other males, usually relatives, to coerce unwilling females into sexual intercourse. However, the sort of counterexample I offer is significantly different from the bottlenose, since it is arguable the latter’s coercive copulation is not for the sake of coercion or injury but for the sake of reproduction.
Its badness cannot be accounted for by neo-Aristotelians like Foot, at least (see also footnote 24). But one of Foot’s defenders, Micah Lott, recognizes that there is some basis to a similar sort of judgment of badness. However, it can nonetheless be accounted for by Foot’s theory, particularly from the perspective of the benevolent human (Lott 2012). I show at the end of this article that his response is not successful.
The Ebola-like microbe's function is a set of activities, one of them being, say, to secrete toxins so as to destroy an organism’s vascular system. The activity here is secreting toxins while the species-teleology is the destructive effect on organisms. In this way, the destructive effect constitutes (i.e. is part of) the function. And the function includes (i.e. is constituted by) that effect.
E.g. avoiding being targeted by a totalitarian government because the being is ignorant.
See footnote 11 about Korsgaard’s use of ‘final’ goodness as the contrast to ‘instrumental’ goodness.
My preferred account of the K’s function is that it is determined by the essence of K (essence of the individual as member of K). I follow Shields’ and Pasnau’s (2004) reading of Aquinas that the essence of material beings is identified with the K’s substantial form and common matter (52–9).
There is of course a vast literature about function from the philosophy of biology (e.g. Wright, L. [1973], Boorse, C. [1976], or Bigelow and Pargetter [1987]). True, an evolutionary-etiological account will not account for an activity’s function to destroy for its own sake, since on that account the function of an activity is the adaptive feature for which the trait was selected. All adaptive features have the end of fitness and reproductive success rather than destruction. Nevertheless, most of these contemporary accounts of biological function are not compatible with Aristotelianism, and any neo-Aristotelian account of biological function will likely need to (re)introduce notions such as form and powers (see Lennox [47–49] for instance) and function will not be restricted to being accounted for merely by the adaptive feature for which a trait was selected. Later I address neo-Aristotelian worries about destruction being a function.
For instance, on an account based on the essence of the K (see footnote 21), the microbe example would be modified from one having an essence whose associated function is to provide carcass meat to a few scavengers, to that whose function is to destroy.
I challenge Aristotelian theories seeking an exhaustive account of goodness that make room only for “intrinsic” teleology. Some scholastics distinguish intrinsic from extrinsic ends. Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I, q.65, a.2, c), for instance, writes about a) creatures existing for their own individual end. But he also contends b), that “less noble” creatures exist for the sake of more noble ones. Further, c) each creature exists for the sake of the perfection of the whole universe, and d) the universe for the sake of God. Intrinsic ends are described in (a), and extrinsic ends in (b)-(d). An Aristotelian positing extrinsic ends could reject the goodness of the Ebola-like microbe because it does not exist for the perfection of the universe and sake of God (although this would concede there is more than merely kind-based goodness). It is thus a weakness of Foot’s Aristotelianism that it has no room for extrinsic teleology.
One might, I suppose, support this partly-in-virtue claim by deploying Foot’s point that cooperative hunting is required for the wolf, and swiftness for the deer (2001: 34). One could then go on to argue that activities good-making for the wolf (e.g. cooperative hunting) are not so for the deer, and so something’s goodness is partly in virtue of satisfying its kind-based standards. William Fitzpatrick (2008: 186) and Mark Murphy (2011: 155–9) each offer similar arguments for the partly-in-virtue claim.
Here I have in mind hypothetical kinds of lifeforms which are immortal, and so may not reproduce but whose species-teleology will nevertheless include self-maintenance. But this point is not crucial to my argument.
Foot writes that in the botanical and zoological worlds, once a species’ feature or operation has been related to survival and reproduction, “questions of ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’ and ‘What for?’ come to an end. But clearly this is not true when we come to human beings” (Foot 2001: 42). “Natural goodness in reason following is as much a form of goodness in humans as is proper instinctive behavior in animals” (2004: 11–12). MacIntyre (1999) argues that even dolphins can participate in a certain degree of practical reasoning.
See MacIntyre (1999)’s Chapter 3, and Chapter 8, (especially [21] and [85]).
This is an example due to William Fitzpatrick. He argues that a benevolent designer would not design such a practice, and even if the Aristotelian “natural goodness” account says that members of a kind which practices such mating rituals are good, Fitzpatrick would reject the account [2000: 72, 79].
Perhaps they could be retrained to allow fighting but only until the loser indicated submission (like in mixed martial arts), and so very few competitors would be maimed or killed. In this way such a ritual could still encourage the fittest genes to be passed on.
See also footnote 25.
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Chan, B. An Ebola-Like Microbe and The Limits of Kind-Based Goodness. Philosophia 50, 451–471 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00392-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00392-w