Vicious Motivations in Aristotle

Abstract

Some interpreters hold that, for Aristotle, the pleasant is the primary de dicto goal of every vicious person. I argue that this is false and develop an alternative account of vicious motivation by self-interest ( to sumpheron ). In Nicomachean Ethics 2.3, Aristotle claims that the vicious person errs with respect to the objects of choice: the pleasant, the sumpheron , and the fine. I argue that the vicious person can commit conceptual errors, ordering errors, and errors of omission in her pursuit of these objects. I develop this reading by providing an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of the sumpheron on which it is both a means and an end.