Ethics of Maimonides

6. Practice and Performance: How (Not) to Walk in Middle Ways

6 Practice and Performance How (Not) to Walk in Middle Ways In this sixth chapter Cohen discusses the concept of human perfection in critical relation to the Aristotelian theory of virtues, according to which virtues are mere practical human skills rather than ideal vectors for human action. Cohen therefore rejects the traditional understanding of the “golden mean” or the “middle way” as a “medium between two vices,” trying to recontextualize the ideality of this teaching halakically and philosophically within the framework of Maimonides’ great rabbinic code, Mishneh Torah. Socrates and Plato: On Virtues and “The Good” 120. The concept of virtue originates in folk morality or mores; through the concept of virtue, folk morality expresses its standards of ethics. The distinction between ethics on the one hand, and good fortune and chance, force and power, nature and heredity, on the other, is articulated by the term virtue. [areth, Latin virtus> *vir suggests “manliness, manhood, strength, vigor, bravery, courage,” and also “worth, excellence, virtue.” See also RoR 402; RdV 466.] Even the distinction between ethics and piety, in which piety is (See 121.) Socrates defines the Good as a virtue. The Socratic ideal of moral perfection is thus prescribed within the relativist framework of a moral theory in which a hierarchy of virtues determines which of the many virtues embodies the highest virtue of all. This virtue therefore will play a privileged role in the practitioner’s pursuit of the highest happiness. “Thus it becomes understandable that the Socratic doctrine of the ‘good’ was unable to liberate itself from the ambiguities of utilitarianism and eudaemonia,”1 Cohen ethics of maimonides 128 says in his Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism. Plato, however, raises the Good above the realm of practical virtues in that he proclaims the Good to be foundational for human cognition as such. Plato thus subordinates the many virtues to the one idea of the Good in light of which ethics as theoretical knowledge first arises. From this perspective, from the perspective of an ethics predicated upon the cognition of the Good, the concept of virtue takes on a negative connotation , denoting mere practical skill. Aristotle, when removing the Platonic idea of the Good from the agenda of theoretical knowledge, holds precisely this against Plato: ethics has no share in the theoretical sciences, and virtue is therefore to be considered precisely that— mere skill or exi~.2 the conventional expression of civic religion, is thus defined. Nonetheless, there remains a naturalistic residue in the meaning of virtue, which is not surprising, considering the folkloristic origin of the term. Hellenic opinion distinguishes between virtue and cleverness (deinoth~); [Aristotle 1945, NE 1144b, 371; 1144a, 367–69, 1152a, 427.] however, even in this Hellenic opinion virtue has not yet lost its ambiguous connotation of prowess. After all, virtue originally denoted manliness (areth). 121. Socrates already conceives of virtue in all of its ethical precision and stringency; yet the concept of the Good remains at the side of any virtue, and thus connotes the superior term. In Plato the virtues recede to a preparatory stage of the idea of the Good. The idea of the Good sublimates the virtues, and they shed all of their naturalist accreditation, idealized as irradiations of the Good. Aristotle, however , rejecting the idea of the Good, must again equate the Good with virtue. [Aristotle 1945, NE 1106a, 89–91.] Since he does not acknowledge the one Good, he must assume a multiplicity of virtues. [ErW 488.] Aristotle’s ethics is not derived from principles , but represents a typology and classification based upon empirical , psychological, and historical data; thus his concept of virtue must also correspond to this psychologicoethical method. Virtue—Skills and Goodness (See 122.) Aristotle’s concept of skill. Aristotle defines virtue as any kind of practical skill. The medieval and modern Hebrew term toviut corresponding to the Greek areth (virtue), in contrast, is pred122 . The primary concern aroused by Aristotle’s definition of virtue relates to the concept of skill (exi~). [Aristotle 1945, NE 1098b, 39; Aristotle 1970, 169–73.] Aristotle must emphasize this concept, practice and performance 129 icated etymologically upon the Hebrew root *tov (good).3 Cohen himself could have availed himself of this etymological development as a linguistic indication of the Platonic bent of Hebrew culture. Most of the medieval references use the term toviut when referring to God’s goodness as a paradigm for human emulation.4...