Sovereign Virtue: Aristotle on the Relation between Happiness and Prosperity (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 333 pure pleasures (that are therefore neither good nor beautiful) reappears in a new form as the first principle of the good, the measure of the mean (211). The true message of the Philebus, according to Benardete, is then a Nietzschean one: not abstract principles but life wins, the mixed life, which for Benardete is symbolized by music: the song accompanied by the kithara, thought combined with pleasure (~34). Perhaps Plato should have taken such a Nietzschean turn and affirmed life as the higher good than abstract principles. It is highly implausible, however, that he d/d do so--in spite of all of Benardete's mastery of the Straussian art of reading between and behind the lines, and in spite of all his supplementary wealth of literary and philosophical allusions, which combine Cabalistic subtlety with Proustian finesse. The sober reader will find the dialogue's message the same as before: that for Plato human life is in constant need of restitution and that such restitution, pleasant as it often may be, can be no more than a remedial good, inferior to the imperturbed divine harmony of unchangeable being. N.B.: If it actually pains Benardete to read the Philebus, because for him in that dialogue Aristophanes emerges as the mocking victor over an erring Socrates who loses out against the tragedies and comedies of life (~o6), perhaps he could put his art to better use than the fruitless effort of making Plato unsay what he does seem to say. Might it not be more fruitful and less painful for him to rewrite Aristophanes and turn him into an admirer of Socrates, leaving sterile philosophy to those who like that kind of thing? DOROTHEA FREDE Universitgit Hamburg Stephen A. White. Sovereign Virtue: Aristotle on the Relation between Happiness and Prosperity . Stanford: Stanford University Press, 199a. Pp. xiv + 337- Cloth, $35.oo. The central concern of Stephen White's book is how Aristotle can think that virtue is the "sovereign" or "governing" factor in happiness when there are aspects of the good life which seem to be susceptible to sheer luck. White aims to address this concern by examining some central themes in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics with special attention to the history and culture of Aristotle's time. According to White, familiarity with the historical and cultural background is crucial for appreciating Aristotle's own views, since Aristotle's philosophical method, which White interprets and defends in Chap. I.ii, consists in critically examining contemporary opinions which have stood the test of time. Although White concludes that Aristotle's own views are in fact quite revisionary--he argues that Aristotle's comments about Sparta in the Politics constitute a serious critique of traditional moral ideals (IV.ii)--White aims to discuss the traditional opinions in more detail than is customary. Two examples will give the flavor of White's account. Before discussing Aristotle's treatment of Solon's famous dictum "Call no man happy till he be dead," White reviews at length the stories about Solon and Croesus preserved in Herodotus. Again, before discussing Aristotle's views on the virtue of liberality, White describes the state of the 334 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:2 APRIL 199 5 economy of the ancient world and Aristotle's views on it (IV.i). Surprisingly, White does not discuss the views about luck expressed in Plato's Euthydemus(~79c-28ob) and in Aristotle's own EudemianEthicsVIII (1246b37-1248b7). White's central topic raises a host of interesting philosophical questions: What exactly is happiness? Is it more than or equal to the mere sum of its parts? White at one point treats happiness as itself a composite end (18); at another he says that it is the organized pattern of one's final ends (15). How can virtuous activity be the "dominant end" in happiness (15) while the other parts of happiness are elements "on the plateau of reasons which jointly constitute one's final reason for everything one does" (13)? What exactly is prosperity? If prosperity is doing well in terms of material wealth, reputation, and health, is it necessarily completely beyond our control? White sometimes talks as if...