Statement on Research  

            My research focuses on the nature of rational and non-rational motivation in Aristotle’s ethical and psychological works. The overarching theme of my research is that Aristotle’s views violate the orthodox understanding of rationality as an all-or-nothing property, whether that is understood in terms of presence vs. absence or in terms of a threshold above which something counts as fully rational and below which it counts as non-rational. As I understand him, Aristotle thinks there are multiple functions that rationality can play, and something can have the ability to perform some of these functions while lacking others. Furthermore, these functions form at least a partial hierarchy, so that we can describe one thing as more rational than another insofar as the former can perform all of the rational functions of the latter but the latter cannot perform all of the rational functions of which the former is capable. Thus, for example, I have argued that the species of desire that Aristotle describes as “non-rational” (alogon) are, in adult humans, better understood as “qualifiedly rational”, for when we move from entirely non-rational animals to rational adult humans, the nature of these desires changes as well, allowing them to be sensitive to reasons as such, though they lack the ability to manipulate reasons in the way that our rational faculty itself can. This view makes Aristotle significantly different from authors who think that all desires are simply motivational urges which reason shapes only by rerouting them from one target to another, and also significantly different from those who think that rational motivation is a product of purely rational judgment about what we have most reason to do.

            Another line of inquiry I have followed regards the necessity of deliberation for rational choice. Aristotle says that we must deliberate prior to choosing and acting in the distinctively human way, but if, as I argue, the desires come to be sensitive to reasons as such, we might wonder why we need a strictly rational process to intervene whenever we act as humans rather than mere animals: are we not already, just in our desires, more than mere animals? Indeed, many authors before me have thought that given Aristotle’s theory of moral development and the virtues as reliable dispositions of the non-rational (or qualifiedly rational) part of the psyche, he was wrong to say that deliberation must precede every instance of choice and proper human action. Some, further, argue that he does not really stay committed to this thesis at all, despite repeating it a number of times. I disagree, arguing that Aristotle is committed to the necessity of deliberation in every instance of genuine choice and action (as opposed to non-chosen mere animal behavior), and provide an explanation of why he is so committed (and right to be so committed) grounded in an analysis of the rational functions that desire can and cannot play. If I am right, despite the cognitive and rational sophistication Aristotle attributes to desire, it cannot aggregate putative reasons in the way necessary for rational choice; that activity is exclusively the province of the strictly rational faculty.

            I have a number of other projects in or adjacent to Aristotle’s ethics and psychology in the works: I intend to examine Aristotle’s claim that deliberation is the efficient cause of choice, and also why he claims not merely that the combination of deliberation and desire is necessary for virtuous action, but deliberation and dispositions of character. I am also interested in defending the view that Aristotle is a particularist, a project which will combine ancient scholarship with engagement of contemporary criticisms of particularism, particularly with respect to its moral epistemology. Currently, though, I am working on a book on Aristotle’s moral psychology detailing the sequence of psychological faculties involved in rational action and expanding on my notion of desire as a qualifiedly rational faculty.