INVENTIO - Aristotle and Socrates on the Blessing of Death

Aristotle and Socrates on the Blessing of Death

by Graham Fassero

PROMPT: Courage and death. Should death be feared? Do we need to be courageous in the face of death, or do we need merely to change our thinking about what death is? Your essay must be an original, philosophical work that develops and supports a claim. Successful philosophy papers deal with problems, and so writing a good paper requires you first to problematize the text you are writing about: Find a question that the text raises, or prompts you to raise, and then attempt to resolve or at least grapple seriously with that question. Pick one or two of the philosophers we have read and write a paper that reads the relevant texts closely and carefully in support of a thesis. If you decide to write about two philosophers, make sure that your paper does more than just “compare and contrast” but also explains the similarities and differences by appealing to the various principles at work.

Aristotle, in the Nichomachean Ethics, tells us that death is an evil that is especially painful for a virtuous person.1 However, in the Apology Socrates tells us that death is a blessing for a good person.2 Why do these two thinkers disagree on whether death is an evil or a blessing? In this essay, I will argue that the difference lies in their beliefs on the origin of happiness: Socrates trusts the gods to give him a more certain and complete happiness in death than he has in life, while Aristotle believes that he has earned virtue and happiness for himself in life. Throughout this essay, I will draw no distinction between blessedness and happiness. Blessedness and happiness rarely appear in the Apology and the Meno, and Socrates never appears to draw a distinction between the two. Aristotle rarely mentions blessedness in the Nichomachean Ethics, but when he does, it appears to be synonymous with happiness.3

Socrates and Aristotle begin with similar definitions of happiness. For Socrates, happiness comes from all that the soul does or endures in accord with wisdom, and virtue is wisdom.4 For Aristotle, human good is the activity of the soul in accord with virtue, and the highest good is happiness.5

Socrates’ reasoning makes it impossible for a person to know whether he or she is virtuous or happy. Many unwise people wrongly believe while alive that they are wise, but this belief does not prove that one is actually wise.6 Thus, nobody can know while alive whether they are wise unless they have some means of knowing that does not depend on belief, which is absurd. Therefore, since virtue is wisdom, nobody, including those who possess virtue, can know while alive whether they are virtuous.7 Since virtue is required for happiness, nobody can know whether they are happy either.

Socrates’ virtue is not a part of human wisdom. Virtue is a good thing, but human wisdom is worthless, or even detrimental, so virtue is not a part of human wisdom, because no good thing can be worthless or detrimental.8

Socrates believes that death is either a sleep without perception or a move to the underworld.9 If death is sleep without perception, then Socrates will be free of all human wisdom, because no human wisdom can exist in such a sleep. This does not mean a loss of virtue, since virtue is not a part of human wisdom. Instead, freed from all human wisdom, Socrates will be better off, both in his own estimation and in that of the gods, presumably by becoming closer or more open to wisdom and virtue.10 If death is instead a move to the underworld, then Socrates will experience the greatest blessing: company with the gods and virtuous people. He will continue practicing philosophy, which is directed toward moving him closer to wisdom and virtue.11 Death, in either form, can only bring Socrates closer to wisdom, virtue, and happiness; while alive, however, Socrates can never be certain that he possesses any of these qualities.

Since in life Socrates cannot know whether he is happy, and because death can only make him more happy, happiness seems more attainable in death than in life. Socrates appears to fall back on this truth in both the Apology and the Meno, where he says that virtue (and thus happiness) is a gift from the gods, and that the gods will take care of him in his death.12 Socrates trusts the gods to give him a more certain and complete happiness in death than he has in life.

Unlike Socrates, Aristotle believes that death is evil and most painful for the virtuous and happy, as they have the most to lose.13 But what causes death to be evil, i.e., what will the virtuous person lose— virtue, happiness, or something else?

Certainly Aristotle has said nothing to indicate that virtue will be lost in death. Rather, by Aristotle’s definition of virtue, death ought to make all people virtuous. Aristotle’s virtue is a mean between the two vices of excess and deficiency, so we can argue that all the dead achieve virtue.14 For all the dead achieve one thing, that is, death. And since death (that is, the state of being dead) is the same for all people, death must be either vicious for all people or virtuous for all people. It is impossible for a vice to exist without its corresponding virtue, just as it is impossible for an extreme to exist without its corresponding mean. Therefore death, being the same for all, must allow only for the mean, i.e., for virtue. Because all the dead are alike, all the dead achieve virtue. Likewise, if death involves activity of the soul, then all the dead achieve happiness as well. But if death involves no activity of the soul, then none of the dead achieve happiness. In either case, happiness is irrelevant, for as Aristotle says, nothing is good or bad for the dead.15 So all the dead are alike in virtue (which all possess) and happiness (which either all possess or all do not possess), and these two distinctions are eliminated, both the distinction between the vicious and the virtuous and the distinction between the happy and the miserable. Therefore, Aristotle’s concern is not for his loss of virtue, for there is none. Nor is his concern for loss of happiness, for it is irrelevant if there is any happiness after death.

Instead, Aristotle’s concern is for his loss of distinction as one deserving of virtue and happiness, and we see this concern for distinction when he compares the virtuous person, who practices virtue “because that is fine or because failure is shameful,” to a boxer, competing for “the crown and the honours.”16 Since he believes that virtue is acquired by habit and is in our own power, it follows that those who possess virtue in life have earned it for themselves and deserve it.17 Conversely, those who do not possess virtue in life do not deserve it. Since those deserving virtue already possess it and the undeserving do not, then death, which brings all people to virtue, is unjust, for death gives virtue to the undeserving but gives nothing new to the deserving, who already possess virtue. In fact, this virtue that comes in death is the fortune of every person. Because it is worse to be virtuous by fortune than by habit, death will be worse than life for Aristotle, for in life he is virtuous by habit, but in death by mere fortune.18 So the person who was vicious in life becomes virtuous by fortune in death, which is a benefit, while the person who was virtuous by habit in life becomes virtuous by fortune in death, which is a loss.

Aristotle’s confidence in his own virtue contrasts sharply with Socrates’ acknowledgement of ignorance. Unlike Socrates, who trusts the gods to give him a more certain and complete happiness in death than he has in life, Aristotle believes that he has earned virtue and happiness for himself and that death will destroy his well-deserved distinction as a possessor of virtue. These different views on virtue explain why Socrates believes that death is a blessing for a good person, but Aristotle believes that death is an evil.

Notes

1. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indiana: Hackett, 1999), Bk. III, Ch. 6, §3; Bk. III, Ch. 9, §4.

2. Plato, “Apology,” in Five Dialogues, ed. John M. Cooper, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indiana: Hackett, 2002), 40c.

3. Nic. Ethics, Bk. I, Ch. 10, §7.

4. Plato, “Meno,” in Five Dialogues, ed. John M. Cooper, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indiana: Hackett, 2002), 88c-89a.

5. Nic. Ethics, Bk. I, Ch. 7, §15, §9.

6. “Apology,” 21d. 7. “Meno,” 89a.

8. “Meno,” 98e; “Apology,” 23a, 22e.

9. Ibid., 40c.

10. Ibid., 22e.

11. Ibid., 40e, 41b.

12. “Meno,” 100b; “Apology,” 41c-d.

13. Nic. Ethics, Bk. III, Ch. 6, §3; Bk. III, Ch. 9, §4.

14. Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 6, §15.

15. Ibid., Bk. III, Ch. 6, §6.

16. Ibid., Bk. III, Ch. 9, §3-4.

17. Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 1, §1; Bk. III, Ch. 5, §2.

18. Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. 9, §5.

Graham Fassero is a first-year seminarian studying for the Diocese of Richmond. He is in formation at St. John Paul II Seminary and studies at Catholic University with a major in philosophy. He enjoys reading G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, playing guitar and keyboard, and studying math.