The idea of virtue plays an important role in Aristotle’s ethics. Virtue has an important impact on making us the right kind of people who make the right kind of decisions in their lives. But not only are there more than one virtue, but there are more than one kind of virtue; namely, there are moral virtues and intellectual ones. Moral virtues are emotional dispositions that allow us to make the correct response to practical situations and intellectual virtues are what allow us to know the truth – these are important for Aristotle’s ethics because he stresses that we are rational creatures and that we are at our best when we use our reason in the best way. What is the best use of reason? To know the truth. Therefore, we need intellectual virtue to properly live up to our rational nature.
So intellectual virtues allow us to know the truth. What might some of these virtues be? In total, there are five intellectual virtues: Knowledge, Comprehension and Wisdom as well as Practical Wisdom and Skill. For some of the virtues Aristotle also includes the term “scientific” and so the virtue of “Knowledge” is sometimes referred to as “Scientific Knowledge”. However, I’ve decided to leave out the term “scientific” during this explanation because Aristotle’s conception of science is different enough from our modern system of science, which will confuse the definition, but it was only fair to mention.
The five intellectual virtues can also be separated into two categories: Knowledge, Comprehension and Wisdom are intellectual virtues that concern what cannot be changed, whereas Practical Wisdom and Skill concern what can be changed. This should become clearer once each virtue is unpacked.
And so, let’s begin with the virtue of Knowledge. Knowledge – as Aristotle conceives it as a virtue – involves being able to draw the right deductions from basic principles of nature. As one example we might consider that a basic principle of nature can be found in maths: the principle could be that – say – 2+2=4. A mathematician with the virtue of knowledge might be able to conclude from this principle that 4+4=8 and that 8+8=16. Or, as another example, let’s say that we recognise that it is a basic principle of nature that all things that live, if they are to continue living, need to behave in a way that helps them to survive. With the virtue of Knowledge, we might build upon this principle and make the correct deductions: we might for example deduce that the various behaviours we see in the animal kingdom, whether it be the flight of birds, the growth of bacteria or the way that wolves hunt are behaviours that tell us something about how these living creatures go about surviving. Of course, that’s assuming that we have correctly identified the basic principles of nature, whether they be that 2+2=4 or that living creatures try to survive, but the ability to recognise these principles itself is not the same as Knowledge which is the ability to draw the right deductions.
Instead, that virtue that allows us to recognise basic principles is called Comprehension, but this can also be called Intuition. Comprehension is the virtue that allows us to recognise what the basic principles of nature are. And so, someone who thinks that all living things are suicidal and are trying to die as quickly as possible might be lacking in the virtue of Comprehension compared to someone who sees their drive to survive. Someone with even more Comprehension might recognise that survival is not the most basic principle underlying the behaviour of living creatures and see that it is something more nuanced, perhaps like reproduction. In any case, Comprehension is the ability to peer into the basic building blocks – to recognise the basic mechanisms that allow the universe to tick, whether we see this in a scientific way or not – and again, the ability to draw the right conclusions about these basic mechanisms is the virtue of Knowledge.
Now, the third virtue: Wisdom, is a combination of Knowledge and Comprehension. If someone has Wisdom, they are not only able to make the right deductions but are also able to base those deductions on the right basic principles and vis-versa. If this is carried out to its maximum, Wisdom becomes the ability to have a complete and profound understanding of nature. We can also see why these first three virtues concern that which does not change because what Aristotle seems to be referring to here is possessing an understanding of the greater system of nature that we do not dictate and which is in some sense timeless. Therefore, to have Wisdom and a complete and profound understanding of nature would be to understand those timeless truths about it, even as they manifest themselves differently in the day-to-day changes that we see. Wisdom is not passive. It can be active, and the activity of Wisdom is called contemplation – it is the act of appreciating the truths that organise the universe in which we find ourselves. This is a broad activity because there are so many truths to organise and Contemplate. In the modern day, someone can be involved in Contemplation if they study Physics because there are truths to be known about fundamental physical forces and the arrangement of matter, they could Contemplate during the study of Medicine when they learn about what the universe does and does not allow in regards to physical health and they could even Contemplate during music when they discover the laws and makeup of melody. Whatever this act of Contemplation might be applied to, Aristotle calls it the finest activity that is available to us.
That covers the first three intellectual virtues, what about the other two? The other two intellectual virtues: Skill and Practical Wisdom concern things that can be changed.
The virtue of Skill or “Art” is similar to our common conception of it but Aristotle tightens up the definition. He explains that the virtue of Skill enables us to know what steps need to be taken to bring something into being. This will be familiar to anyone who has had to learn a skill or artform. The skill can be broken down into its component steps and each step has to be followed in the right way in order to bring something into being. Bringing something into being sounds abstract but Aristotle points out that what is brought into being can be something material (such as a meal or an artefact) or immaterial (such as mental health or a piece of music). Let’s take two examples. When someone employs the virtue of skill to become a good chef, they learn the steps required to make a good meal; they learn that particular ingredients have to be combined in a particular order with particular degrees of heat and time in order to produce the desired meal. Therefore, the chef learns the steps required to bring something material into being: a meal. In the second example, when someone employs the virtue of skill to become a good musician, they learn that particular notes need to be played in a particular sequence with particular spacing and tempo in order to produce the desired song. Therefore, the musician learns the steps required to bring something immaterial into being: a song. Of course, we could debate at this point whether something like a song is really “material” or “immaterial” and whether these things can really be separated but it might be beside the point. If they can be separated, Aristotle has covered them both and if not, the main points still apply by simply applying to one thing instead of two.
Anyway, that leaves us with the final intellectual virtue: Practical Wisdom. Practical Wisdom is the intellectual virtue that is of the most interest to Aristotle and can be defined as a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good and bad for us.
Let’s unpack that a bit. Practical Wisdom is a state of capacity; that means that when we are in the state of being Practically Wise, we are ready and able to act in the right way. Not only that, but it is a true and reasoned state which means we are ready to act in accordance with our reason; our rational nature and act in accordance with what is true. But we are able to act in regards to what is good and what is bad for us, which means that we will also be able to recognise and act against those things which are truly bad for us and act in favour of those things that are good. Given this, Practical Wisdom also involves an understanding of what is good even to the highest degree. Someone who is Practically Wise knows what the highest goods are and knows how to orient themselves and their actions towards them.
Now, Aristotle breaks Practical Wisdom down into two aspects: there is a general aspect and a specific one. What does this mean? Well, the general aspect means that someone who is Practically Wise knows what a general good is across all situations. For example, let’s say that they recognise that success is a general good that should be striven for in every situation. This is a good start, but this alone would not allow them to pursue it in every situation – depending on the situation that they are in, the Practically Wise would need to consider how to bring about success in each different instance – perhaps more courage is required in once instance, perhaps in another it requires more wisdom and this also depends on the facts of the particular situation. By analogy, we could think of food again: we could recognise that it’s a general goal to eat food, but what food we will actually eat depends on what’s available at the time and also on our skill at using what is available to us to make a meal. This is what is meant by the distinction between general and specific Practical Wisdom: the general kind allows us to recognise the good as-such across situations (such as knowing that eating is necessary) and the specific kind requires a specific understanding of how to bring about that good in a specific context as it relates to specific facts (such as how to make a meal from the ingredients that are available). This is also why older people tend to have more Practical Wisdom – young people might be able to learn about general goods such as success, but older people tend to simply know more facts about the world and how to act within it in order to bring success about. A young person might recognise that victory is to be striven for, but an older person will tend to have more experience and know more about how to read the enemy, manage an army and bring the victory about.
In all, Practical Wisdom involves an appreciation of what is good and bad for us right up to the highest level and is combined with the correct apprehension about the facts of our experience, combined with the skill to make the correct inferences about how to act and how to apply our general moral knowledge to a particular situation. Moreover, its best if we can do this quickly and reliably. Aristotle argues that this is so important that if one had perfect Practical Wisdom, they would always make the right decision and their life would be successful and happy.
Before we conclude it is worth stressing a point that Aristotle makes about the role of intellectual virtue. He points out that moral virtues are important because they can give us the right goals in life but it is the intellectual virtue that allow us to achieve those goals. Simply consider how you recognise that when a friend comes to visit, your right moral goal would be to be a hospitable host – this is what moral virtue gives you. However, it is intellectual virtue that allows you to understand that to be a good host you should offer your friend a cup of tea and that this requires hot water, milk and sugar. In a sense, moral virtues provide us with an outline which the intellectual virtues fill in and Aristotle argues that with only the right goals but not the knowledge of how to attain them we become morally clumsy.
And so, to summarise, intellectual virtue is important because it allows us to know the truth and it provides us with the understanding of the world and how to act within it that allows us to pursue the goals that our moral virtues orient us towards. There are five intellectual virtues: Knowledge, Comprehension, Wisdom, Skill and Practical Wisdom. Knowledge allows us to make the right deductions from basic principles of nature and Comprehension allows us to recognise what these principles are. Knowledge and Comprehension are combined in Wisdom which provides us with a profound understanding of nature that we reach through Contemplation. Skill is what allows us to follow the right sequence of steps to bring something into being whether that be material or immaterial, and Practical Wisdom is a kind of culmination of the intellectual virtues that allows us not only to recognise what is good but also allows us to take the right steps and make the right decisions to achieve that good, and of all five of the intellectual virtues, this is the one that Aristotle holds in the highest regard.
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