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... to a conception of its object as something pleasant; in this sense both have their "reasons. " 20 These "reasons, " of course, are very low-level. They are primitive, Burnyeat tells us, because they do not invariably or immediately lose efficacy in the face of contrary considerations. They are, in short, "pockets" of thought that remain relatively unaffected by our overall view of things. Thus, while appetite and instinct may be evaluations, they do not signify logical or analytical reasoning. To denote this idea, Burnyeat calls appetites and instincts, "unreasoned evaluative responses. " Insofar as basic evaluations are non-analytical, they do not distinguish "good" objects from "bad" ones.
Instead, they pursue whatever happens to be pleasant at the time. Because of this, unreasoned evaluative responses must be directed towards good objects by means of guided practice and habituation. "The underlying idea, " Burnyeat observes, "is that the child's sense of pleasure, which to begin with and for a long while is his only motive, should be hooked up with just and noble things so that his unreasoned evaluative responses may be developed in connection with right objects. " 21 An Aristotelian approach to moral education thus begins by matching the child's natural desire for pleasant experiences with behaviors that are deemed virtuous. Behavioral shaping alone, however, will not develop continence. As Burnyeat points out, learning to act correctly is one thing; it is quite a different matter to accept that a particular act is virtuous. In the former sense, learning is simply the acquisition of neutral information. This kind of learning is "weak, " Burnyeat explains: its objects do not affect the child in any lasting way.
To "really" learn, by contrast, one must come to endorse the behavior one performs. As Aristotle puts it, the behavior must "grow into" the child, become accepted by the child as something people do. 22 In this regard, learning is "strong. " The child is internally motivated to continue acting virtuously. 23 How is the transition from practice to acceptance achieved? How can children be educated not simply to perform virtuous acts but to accept certain acts as virtuous? On Burnyeat's reading of Aristotle, opportunities to behave ethically must continue to be offered and associated with pleasurable feelings.
Eventually, children will come to see that with respect to certain acts, pleasure is not merely a contingent consequence: these acts always produce pleasure. They are, in effect, intrinsically pleasurable. Children therefore continue to perform them, simply because they enjoy doing so. We might expect that once children reach the stage of acceptance, they will act virtuously for the rest of their lives. Insofar as they encounter familiar situations, this expectation holds. What happens, however, when a new situation is confronted?
The correct course of action is not always clear; children cannot depend on their tutors to guide them forever. Children instead must develop the capacity to discriminate virtue from vice, to judge for themselves what a given set of circumstances requires. How, exactly, does reflective reason take hold of a person's motivational patterns, transforming them from pre-dispositions into considered principles for ethical conduct? The whole of the Nicomachea n Ethics, Burnyeat explains, is a response to this question. In Burnyeat's view, Aristotle intends the Ethics to be "a course in practical thinking (that can) enable someone who already wants to be virtuous to understand better what he should do and why. " 24 The Ethics, in short, is a guide which can assist those persons who already act virtuously to become more reflective about the judgments which drive their behavior. What, in sum, can we say about Aristotle's model of moral education as articulated by Burnyeat?
Of the three instructional stages, the third - the stage of reasoned reflection - is at once the most complex and also the least critical. Reflection alone, Aristotle insists, cannot promote ethical conduct. Long before the capacity for analysis develops, the propensity to embrace virtue must already have taken hold. The ground from which this proclivity springs is seeded very early, during the first two stages of the child's education. During the first stage, two principles are crucial to the development of continence.
First, right action is not self-evident to the untutored child. The good instead must be pointed out by those who know better. Second, no attempt is made during the process of habituation to eliminate the child's feelings. Feelings instead are elicited and then modified. During the second stage of instruction, a key transformation takes place. No longer is virtuous conduct viewed simply as an external principle which children identify and exhibit.
Through continued association of pleasurable feelings and good behavior, virtuous acts come to be identified as intrinsically pleasurable. Children repeat them because they want to; acting virtuously becomes "second nature. " Thus unlike an actor who recites Empedocles without endorsing the words, the child educated on Aristotle's model does more than simply assert the good and assent to do it. The good, rather, is assimilated into the child's very being; the child comes to see virtuous conduct as an integral part of who he or she is. In the end, moral education for Aristotle is profoundly integrative. Pleasurable feelings are articulated to correct conduct; ethical conduct thereby is internalized and becomes constitutive of one's character. In effect, personal desires and social norms form a seamless tapestry.
One wants to do what ought to be done; conduct accords with knowledge. The situation of arabia displays most vividly what happens when the integration of moral education is not achieved. In the incontinent individual, the match between appetite and correct behavior has not been completely articulated or habituated. Aristotle does not stipulate how, exactly, a person "gets stuck" in incontinence. Presumably, early associations between pleasurable feelings and virtuous behaviors either were insufficient or inconsistent.
At any rate, enough repetition seems to have occurred for the incontinent to be able to recognize ethical behavior, but not enough for this behavior to have become internalized. As a consequence, the incontinent possesses knowledge of the good, but this knowledge is not personally compelling. Pleasure continues to pursue its own ends, and the potential for conflict is born. The conflict of arabia, Aristotle observes, is maddeningly intractable.
He writes: It is hard, if not impossible, to remove by argument the traits that have long been incorporated into the character... For he who lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it if it does; and how can we persuade one in such a state to change his ways? And in general passion seems to yield not to argument but to force. The character, then, must somehow be there already with a kinship to virtue, loving what is noble and hating what is base. 25 Not even his own lectures, Aristotle concludes, can redeem the arabic from conflict. Unless an individual sees him or herself as a person who acts virtuously, no amount of argument or analysis can compel ethical conduct. The road to cont...
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Research essay sample on Ethical Conduct Moral Education
