Fall 2015

6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 42 / Issue 1
of the possibility of rationality achieving victory over the irrational or subrational.
On the other hand it would also seem to mean that we are not morally
responsible for our failings in the way that we often believe ourselves to be.
Aristotle’s putative agreement with Socrates would seem not only to further
the depreciation of moral virtue, but also and more importantly to replace
moral virtue with a new kind of virtue, governed by knowledge. This new virtue
promises to be the source of right and good action, thereby pointing to an
intellectual life that is superior to and distinct from the life of moral virtue.
The analysis provided in our essay takes a different approach. While we
too think that Aristotle affirms the Socratic thesis as having these implications
for incontinence, we also think that Aristotle’s argument contains a
subtle questioning of continence itself; his discussion offers little reason to
think that continence can be achieved or that it is good. Aristotle shows that a
continence that is superior or identical to virtue would require the possession
of a scientific knowledge (epistēmē). This scientific knowledge would allow for
continence insofar as “we all suppose that what we know scientifically does
not admit of being otherwise” (1139b20). And if such a precise knowledge is
possible, then it could become the foundation of right human action, for it
could perfect the formerly less than exacting judgment of moral virtue under
the guidance of prudence. 5 It is therefore fitting that Aristotle begins and
ends his presentation of continence and incontinence with a discussion of
the place of the human in relation to the divine, for if a scientific knowledge
of human action could be achieved, then it might even provide the grounds
for human action to reach completion in a way that permits it to become an
object of contemplation.
We will show, however, that although Aristotle’s analysis of the Socratic
thesis means to raise these possibilities, it is ultimately designed to demonstrate
the difficulty of human beings achieving this scientific knowledge, or of
using it to direct their actions. In other words, while we agree that his account
of incontinence sides with the Socratic position insofar as it shows the impossibility
of acting against scientific knowledge, we argue that his analysis
also suggests the need to question the continence that that same scientific
knowledge would require. Aristotle shows the need to question not only
incontinence, but also the possibility of continence, and therefore to wonder
whether our desire to bind science to human action is good. Underscoring and
5
Schaefer writes: “The start of Book VII entails not only a consideration of moral possibilities other
than virtue and vice, but also a reconsideration of moral virtue itself, taking into account its newly
articulated connection with prudence” (“Wisdom and Morality,” 225).