1. Introduction
근대 윤리학의 두 경향, 의무론과 결과주의에 대한 비판으로 현대에 들어서 덕윤리 이론이 발달하였지만, 그 기원이 되는 서양 고대철학에서는 덕을 행복이라는 개념이 지배하는 더 큰 구조의 부분으로 간주하였다. Annas 서양 고대철학에서 말하는 덕과 행복의 관계를 살펴야 하는 이유로, 1) 덕으로는 모든 것을 설명할 수 없기 때문에 서양 고대철학의 덕을 더 큰 구조 하에 두는 논의를 참고해야 하며, 2) 서양 고대철학의 체계적인 논의 하에서 덕이 어떠한 위치를 점하는지를 확인하면 현대 덕윤리가 더욱 정교해질 수 있음을 제시한다. (H 발제문)
*문제의식
: And there has indeed been considerable interest in developing modern forms of ethics which draw inspiration, to a greater or lesser extent, from the ancient theories. However, there is an asymmetry here. Modern theories which take their inspiration from Aristotle and other ancient theorists are standardly called virtue ethics, not happiness ethics. We have rediscovered the appeal of aretē, but eudaimonia is still, it appears, problematic for us. [...] If we focus on virtue alone and ignore its relation to happiness, we are missing a large part of the interest that study of the ancient theories can offer.
*논지
: It is perfectly consistent to be interested in virtue but to consider ancient ethical theories to be too remote from ours to offer us any guidance. Without offering a full argument against this position, I think it worth pointing out two things. [1] One is that few if any have thought that virtue can do all the work in a theory; the question arises at some point as to how we are to locate it in a wider structure. And ancient theories at least offer us examples of such structures, which ought to be of some use to us. [2] Scondly, one reason why much modern discussion of virtue ethics has remained at a relatively discursive and vague level has been reluctance to explore the ways in which virtue might be located in a systematic ethical theory.
2. Virtue, Modern and Ancient
현대인들이 덕에 대하여 가지고 있는 견해는 매우 다양하여 서로 상충되기까지 하지만 공통적으로는 억압적인, 규칙을 따르는 요소가 있음을 인정하고 있다. 현대의 도덕 이론에서는 덕을 올바른 일을 하려는 혹은 하는 편인 경향성disposition으로 이해하여, 덕을 사소하거나 흥미롭지 않은 것으로 낮추어버린다. 철학자들은 반복되는 일과보다 비일상적인 상황에서 특별한 선택을 하는 반례를 얼마든지 구성할 수 있으며, 특히 덕윤리에서 정의하는 올바름의 내용에 의무론이나 결과주의가 들어가 버리면 덕은 부차적인 문제로 밀려나게 된다. 이와 달리 서양 고대에서 덕은 학파마다 견해가 조금씩 다를지라도 경향성 혹은 상태로 개인의 인격과 관련되어 있다. 구체적으로 덕은 1) 도덕적으로 올바른 방식으로 반성적으로 사유할 수 있는 능력이자 2) 올바른 사유에 따르는 올바른 감정과 반응을 습관화함으로써 길러지는 것이다. 나아가 덕은 “탁월한excellent” 경향성을 가리킨다기보다 우리가 도덕성이라 부르는 것의 핵심이다. 따라서 서양 고대의 덕이라는 개념은 현대에 비하여 분명하고, 정합적이며, 복잡하다. (H 발제문)
*현대 문화에서 그려지는 덕
- George 잡지의 인터뷰
: do-gooding, other-directed; conservatism, self-righteousness
- Calvin and Hobbes 만화
: tidying one’s room, shovelling the snow, taking out the garbage → re-pressed, rule-following kind
*현대적 덕 개념
: Virtues have typically been seen merely as dispositions to do the right thing, or to do the right thing reliably, and this has led to two predictable results. [1] Virtues have been seen as trivial or uninteresting. [...] stress on virtues can even seem dubious, displaying an ungrounded preference for the routine over the exceptional, for the rule-follower over the person who is always ready to apply the theory from scratch in every new situation. [2] Moreover, if virtues are seen as dispositions to do the right thing, whatever that is, and if that is determined by the theory, then virtues can be reshaped to accommodate whatever is, according to the theory, the right thing, and their content just falls mechanically out of the theory.
*고대적 덕 개념
: Virtue is a disposition or state (something which, in turn, is the object of some attention in the metaphysical and logical parts of the ancient theories). It is something which goes deep in the person, and is a matter of their character, not a particular style of acting or living. The disposition involves two things, which develop together and are intertwined in practice. [1] One is the ability to reason reflectively in the morally right way. [...] [2] The other thing involved in virtue is a developed habit of feeling and reacting in the right way, that is, the way that accords with the correct reasoning.
*virtue vs. excellence
: Moreover, virtue is not the disposition to be "excellent" in some way; ancient virtues are the moral virtues—bravery, "temperance" or self-control, justice, and practical wisdom. Virtue is in ancient theories the locus of what we call morality. Forms of modern virtue ethics which miss this point, and erase the difference between moral virtue and nonmoral excellence lose contact with the ancient theories, and so do some modern translations of ancient texts which use "excellence" to translate aretē.
3. Happiness, Modern and Ancient
서양 고대의 논의에서 덕은 행복의 수단이거나, 부분 혹은 전체를 구성하는 것이었다. 이들의 주장의 공통분모는 ‘덕이 있으면 행복하다[virtue’s sufficiency for happiness]’인데, 이는 벤담이 반대한 이래로 현대인들이 받아들이기 어려운 주장이다. Annas는 이러한 근현대의 거부가 어디에 기인하는지 확인하기 위하여 먼저 서양 고대인들이 생각하는 행복을 분석한다.
Annas에 따르면 서양 고대 사람들에게도 덕이 행복의 충분조건이라는 말은 받아들이기 어려운 말이었지만 말도 안 되는 소리는 아니었다. 플라톤과 아리스토텔레스에서 행복은 인간의 최종 목적으로 상정되었다. Euthydemus에서 소크라테스는 모든 사람은 행복해지기를 바라며, 행복은 사람을 이롭게 하는 모든 것들을 가지고 있는 것이라 주장한다. 나아가 소크라테스는 오직 덕만이 진정으로 좋은 것이고, 세속적인 좋은 것들 -건강, 부, 권력 등- 은 덕에 의해 사용될 때에만 좋은 것이라 주장한다. 이러한 소크라테스의 주장이 후에 스토아 학파로 계승된다. 플라톤의 주장은 아리스토텔레스에게서도 발견되는 데, EN에서는 모든 사람의 최종 목적이 행복이라 말하되 다수의 사람들이 생각하는 행복과 현명한 이들이 생각하는 행복을 구분한다.
Annas는 형식적으로는 좋음에 대하여 논하지만 실질적으로는 우리가 추구하는 것이 인간의 삶을 행복하게 만드는 것이라는 Philebus를 가져온다. 이 대화편에서 소크라테스와 쾌락주의자인 프로타르코스는 (아리스토텔레스와 마찬가지로) 좋음이 우리가 추구하는 것이며, 이는 완전하고 자족적이라는 점에서 동의한다. [...] Annas는 다시 Philebus에서 쾌락주의자인 프로타르코스와 소크라테스가 행복의 완전성에 대하여 합의하고 있음을 강조하며, 이와 달리 현대인들은 행복을 인생의 최종 목표로 상정하기보다 행복 외의 다른 여러 목표를 상정하는 경향을 보인다고 덧붙인다. (H 발제문)
*행복에 대한 고대인과 현대인의 관점
- [in Plato’s Euthydemus] Socrates begins from assumptions which are well-marked as being shared by all parties to the discussion. Everyone, he claims, wants to be happy; actually, it is a silly question to ask if everyone wants to be happy, since it would be absurd to deny it. Further, it would also be absurd to deny that being happy requires having many good things, and, moreover, good things which must benefit us.
- Aristotle does not think that any argument is needed to show that all agree that our final good is happiness; clearly to him it seems as absurd to deny this as it does to Plato. Moreover, he immediately says that there is wide disagreement as to what happiness is, thus showing that disagreement about what is good, and so a way of achieving happiness, is normal; he never envisages an argument to replace happiness as our final end.
- Is it similarly platitudinous for us that happiness is our final end, what we seek in everything we do? This turns out to be complex. On the onehand, there is a certain undeniable appeal to the idea. [...] there is undoubtedly some thought easily available to us which to some extent mirrors Aristotle's readiness to move from final end to happiness.
*행복의 완전성에 대한 고대인과 현대인의 관점
- [in Plato’s Philebus] Formally the argument is about the good, but it is clearly said that what is being sought is what will make a human life happy. Socrates and his interlocutor, Protarchus, agree that this good is what everything seeks, and that it must be perfect and sufficient. [...] If the good is complete, then nothing need be added to it for it to make the good life good.
- It is much more likely that, if we had a plausible candidate for happiness, but it were pointed out that this candidate lacked something important to human life, the response would be that there is more to life than happiness. A modern analogue to Protarchus might claim that if pleasure lacks something important, this shows not that a life cannot be made happy by pleasure but rather that happiness is not the only reasonable aim in life.
⇒ We seem in fact to have divided intuitions about happiness, and they divide on the issue of completeness. We can agree that happiness is what we seek in everything that we do; but we also seem to have a more limited and demarcated notion of happiness, given which it could be reasonable to aim at other things in life as well. Obviously pleasure, enjoyment, and so on will be more plausible candidates for this limited notion of happiness than they can be for happiness if that is defined as complete.
4. The Transformative Role of Virtue
*플라톤
: Socrates holds, as we have seen from the Euthydemus passage above, that happiness is our final end, and that we achieve this by having good things, which benefit us. What is striking in passages in other dialogues is the way in which Socrates stresses the idea that virtue is the only thing worth having, in a particularly strong and uncompromising way.
*스토아 (플라톤과 연결됨)
: The Stoics hold explicitly that virtue is not only necessary but also sufficient for happiness. [...] Hence it is a mistake even to let these things enter into one's deliberations and be weighed up against the prospect of wrongdoing; this is what Socrates rejects so violently in the above passages.
Moreover, we can make sense of the counterintuitive position of the Gorgias: if virtue is indeed sufficient for happiness, then the wicked person is, in being wicked, harming himself; hence the conventional evil of punishment may actually improve his life, by giving him the chance to change and become virtuous, which is the only way to achieve happiness. Thus, conventional evils may be good for the bad person. And conventional good things can add nothing toward happiness.
*덕 이외의 것
: why should the virtuous person have any interest in anything other than virtue? Why should he have any reason to choose health over illness, wealth over poverty? Annas에 따르면 소크라테스는 이에 대하여 침묵하고, 스토아 학파는 덕은 “선택해야 하는choosing” 특별한 가치가 있는 것이며 세속적 좋음은 “그저그런[무차별한]indifferent 것”이자, “선호할 만한preferred” [이유가 있는] 것으로, “선택적selective” 가치가 있는 것이라 용어부터 구분하였다. The point of the special terminology is to make the point that the two kinds of value are different in kind. When the question arises, whether the virtuous person would have any reason to go for preferred indifferents, such as health and wealth, the answer takes up and extends the suggestion in the Euthydemus that things other than virtue are good only as put to use by virtue. Annas는 스토아 학파의 구분을 소크라테스가 제시한 기술technē로서의 덕이라는 생각을 발전시킨 것으로 이해하여, 스토아 학파 사람들도 소크라테스와 마찬가지로 행복한 삶을 위한 기술로서 세속적인 좋음을 덕에 따라 활용하였다고 본다. (한글은 H 발제문)
*행복관을, 나아가 인생을 변혁시키는 덕
: Virtue is of more importance than other things in your life because it controls the value that they have for you. Virtue, in a word, can transform a human life. It can do so because it can transform your view of what happiness is. The virtuous person is not tempted to identify happiness with something like having a lot of money, for virtue enables you to correct ordinary valuations and arrive at a true estimate of value. [...] Only the virtuous person properly knows how to put money to use and do the right things with it; and thus only in the virtuous person's life does money make a contribution to happiness.
We are familiar with the idea that money does not, just on its own, make a life happy. Many lives of the rich and famous are spectacularly unhappy because the person cares so much about money that he piles it up without taking thought as to the use to which to put it, and then finds himself at a loss.
하지만 플라톤과 스토아 학파는 자신들의 견해를 한 발 더 밀고나간다. We are open to the idea that money just as such will not improve the life of the vicious person, and that getting rid of the relevant vices is the first step to take. [또한,] Apology에서 소크라테스는 유덕한 사람의 행복을 손상시킬만큼 중요한 영향을 미치는 고통이나 상실은 없다고 단언한다. 이와 달리 아리스토텔레스는 세속적 좋음이 [그 자체로] 행복에 일정 [부분을 형성하여] 영향을 끼칠 수 있다고 본다. (한글은 H 발제문)
*덕의 변혁적 역할을 포함하는 행복론에 대한 고대인과 현대인의 관점
: Even if we are willing to grant the starting point, that our final end is happiness, we find great difficulty in the idea that, by the time we allow that virtue can transform a life, we are still talking about happiness. 아리스토텔레스 학파는 스토아 학파에 대하여 비현실적이라, 스토아 학파는 아리스토텔레스 학파에 대하여 나약하다 공격한다. 그러나 Annas는 현대인과 달리 서양 고대인들이 스토아 학파의 덕에 기반한 행복에 대한 이해를 여전히 행복에 대한 이론으로 인정하고 있었음에 주목해야 한다. However, many people now do tend to find the Stoic theory unacceptable as a theory of happiness, not just too demanding a theory, and this shows us that important modern assumptions about happiness are playing a role. (한글은 H 발제문)
5. Happiness Transformed
*현대인의 행복관
: Happiness is the continuing goal we have, but it can be transformed by virtue; we go on seeking happiness, but our conception of where to look for it and how we have to be to get it can be utterly reconfigured.
Here, however, we run up against two aspects of the modern idea of happiness. 여태까지 살펴본 서양 고대인들의 행복 이해와 달리, 현대인들은 행복을 1) 주관적이고 2) 내용의 핵심적인 변화를 인정하지 않는 경직된 것으로 이해하고 있다.
1)에 반박하기 위하여 Annas는 과거에는 세속적인 좋음을 추구하였다가 현재는 덕만이 진정으로 좋은 것이라 생각을 고쳐먹은 사람의 예시를 가져온다. 서양 고대인들은 conclude that, when he was living the unenlightened life of wealth and power, he thought he was happy at the time, but was not. 그러나 현대인들은 그 사람이 과거에도, 현재에도 주관적으로 행복을 누리고 있었다고 볼 것이다. (← if I think I am happy at a given time, then I am, and if I find out later that my happiness was based on mistakes of various kinds, then, while I can regret the mistakes, I cannot deny that I was happy.) 하지만 Annas는 남편의 부정을 발견한 여자의 사례에 근거해 현대인이 생각하는 행복에도 객관적 요소가 있을 수 있음을 지적한다.
2)와 관련하여 Annas는 서양 고대에는 행복이라는 목표를 그대로 두면서도 덕에 의한 근본적인 내용의 변화를 인정하였지만, 현대 철학은 행복을 즐거움, 복지, 욕구 충족 등으로 설명하지 내용의 변화를 인정하지는 않는다고 설명한다. It is a rigidity of form rather than content: although there are competing accounts of the content, once we have settled on it we are reluctant to allow that there could be radical change while thinking that we are still talking about happiness. We have problems with the idea that happiness might alter in content while retaining its role as our goal. (한글은 H 발제문)
*고대의 변혁적 행복론의 도덕 실재론적 성격
: It goes without saying that this presupposes a fairly strong version of moral realism, for the transformation in question is not like that which results in the changed worlds of the deluded or the psychopathic: it is a development which reveals to the person what true values are. Thus, it might be rejected by those who reject moral realism. [...]
If we cannot adjust our ideas of virtue and happiness to accommodate the transformative power of virtue on the person's happiness, then it seems that we have to forgo the prospect of a form of eudaimonism within which there is a certain conception of morality. This is a conception familiar to us since Kant, but it can also be seen in the uncompromising statement of Socrates quoted earlier in the essay: morality embodies a value different in kind from the values that nonmoral things have, and cannot be weighed up against these other values, but overrides them. It is commonly assumed that eudaimonism cannot accommodate this conception of morality, and indeed sometimes this is turned into an advantage by those who dislike this conception of morality, but find eudaimonism appealing.