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Chapter Seven defending individualistic perfectionism [The] genus signifies some form, though not determinately this or that [form] which difference expresses determinately, which is none other than that [form] which is signi fied indeterminately through genus. —aquinas, concerning being and essence, trans. george g. leckie There are many objections and difficulties that confront Aristotelian perfectionism , but most of these pertain to an impersonal or agent-neutral conception of human flourishing.1 We do not seek to defend such a conception, regardless of how traditional or familiar it may seem to some. Our concern is instead with a personal or agent-relative view of human flourishing. This view is able, as we will see when we consider John Gray’s dismissal of perfectionism in the final section of this chapter, to avoid many of the important criticisms leveled at the agent-neutral view. For now, however, we need to consider the objections and difficulties that seem to apply to our personal or agent-relative account of human flourishing. We will state each objection and offer a response. Universality and Agent-Relativity2 Objection: Can we speak of human flourishing or the human good ‘‘as such’’ and still describe this good as agent-relative? In other words, does not the ability to 1. For example, see Thomas Hurka, Perfectionism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 55–68. 2. Parts of this chapter are adapted from Douglas B. Rasmussen, ‘‘Human Flourishing and the Appeal to Human Nature,’’ Social Philosophy & Policy 16, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 1–43. 154 a new deep structure for liberalism know what human flourishing universally is—that is, our ability to consider generic ingredients or constituents of human flourishing abstractly— conflict with the claim that it is agent-relative? Are we not, after all, required to adopt an agent-neutral conception of human flourishing? Reply: Much depends on what abstraction is, which is a fundamental issue for us. To think of the human good without regard to whose good it is, is plainly possible, but does this entail holding that the human good is not necessarily the good for some person or other? Or does considering the human good as such only mean that one can think of the human good without thinking of whose good it is? If it is the latter, then it can still be the case that the good is always and necessarily the good for some person or other. There need not be conflict. The questions in this objection assume that the mode or manner of thinking something thus-and-so must determine the mode or manner of something’s being thus-and-so. Yet there is no reason to accept such a view of abstraction. As Anthony Kenny has noted, To think a thing to be otherwise than it is, is certainly to think falsely. But if all that is meant by ‘‘thinking a thing other than it is’’ is that the way it is with our thinking is different from the way it is with the thing we are thinking about, in its own existence, then there need be no falsehood involved. To think that Henry VIII had no weight is to think a false thought; but there is no falsehood in thinking of Henry VIII without thinking of his weight. Henry VIII could never exist without having some weight or other, but a thought of Henry VIII can certainly exist without any thought at all about his weight.3 3. Anthony Kenny, The Metaphysics of Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 134. Theories of abstraction are a complicated matter, however, and we cannot explore them in detail here. But for our purposes, we should simply note that there are two basic kinds of abstraction: nonprecisive abstraction (that is, abstraction without precision) and precisive abstraction. Nonprecisive abstraction, as opposed to precisive abstraction, occurs when we focus on the form of an existent so as not to exclude its individual differences from consideration, but rather merely not to express them—that is, its individual differences are treated as implicit. Such a consideration is made possible by focusing on the entire form in an indeterminate manner, so that its individual differences are not specified but are nonetheless regarded as requiring specific determination. The form must—within a range—be specified or determined. Thus, when we consider human flourishing abstractly, but without precision, we focus on its form, without regard to its specification or determination (or manner of existence...

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