Philosopher’s aim: doing justice to Aristotle’s ethics
Ancient Greek philosophers, including Aristotle, are depicted in this fresco by Raphael. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Lee hopes to use NEH fellowship to break new philosophical ground
Aristotle may be the most influential philosopher in history, a cornerstone of Western philosophy. But at a time when many see the pursuit of money as a virtue in itself, some might dismiss him as an old Greek hippie.
“He offered one of the great answers to the question, ‘What should a good life look like?’ His answer was that pursuit of money by itself, pursuit of fame and power by themselves, are not enough to make a life well lived,” says , associate professor of . “Instead, it must be a life in which you realize your human capacities—make the most of yourself, as we would put it.”
Mi-Kyoung “Mitzi” Lee. Photo by Lisa Gunther
“Although Aristotle on justice is a very old topic, it remains a very mysterious one. It is hard to understand exactly what Aristotle’s view is, and hard to connect it with our modern thinking about justice,” says , professor of philosophy at -Boulder.
“Mitzi has developed some extremely creative and persuasive ideas about how to understand Aristotle’s view, and has made his thinking seem much more relevant to our modern concerns than the prevailing interpretations would have it.”
“Contrary to a common understanding of Aristotle, virtue, not justice, is at the core of his moral and political writings,” Lee says.
"Contrary to a common understanding of Aristotle, virtue, not justice, is at the core of his moral and political writings.”
It all starts with shaky translation. The Greek word “dikaiosunê,” often translated as “justice,” is perhaps better understood as “righteousness” or even “moral goodness,” says Lee, who fell in love with philosophy as an undergraduate at Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in ancient Greek philosophy from Harvard.
“In English, it’s a little bit odd to call a person ‘just,’” she says. “We tend to associate justice with institutions, justice as fairness.”
But for the Greeks, the notion included the idea of being a law-abiding citizen who acts with respect toward others in society—“It’s actually a lot closer to what we think of as morality,” Lee says.
Scholars and students have long steered clear of approaching justice in Aristotle. His treatment of the subject in his famous Nicomachean Ethics seems cursory, cryptic and inconsistent—“like a first draft,” Lee says. Meanwhile, his Politics is widely deemed a product of its time in its treatment of women, slaves and the poor.
But in Justice in Aristotle’s Ethics and Political Philosophy, the working title for the new book, Lee wants to make clear how critical the idea of justice is to the philosopher’s ethical theory.
“I’m trying to show the connections between his ethical and political theories, what our relations with others should be, are much tighter than what people want to give him credit for,” Lee says.
Despite the fact that more Americans, including policymakers, seem to view higher education as primarily a place for students to hone their resumes in a quest for a better paycheck, such questions, and philosophy itself, are key to making good citizens.
“Most college students never studied philosophy in high school, and they tend to think it’s the preserve of novelists or ministers, religious thinkers and psychologists,” Lee says.
“But philosophy is devoted to making good arguments, what it is to have knowledge, versus mere opinion, and those are critical skills. My colleagues and I like to think that a good humanities degree, or science degree, will serve students better than if they are only thinking about how much money they are going to make.”
Clay Evans is director of communications for Presents.