Abstract

This chapter addresses a major worry raised by the argument of Chapter 7: if wish is based on _phantasia_, why does Aristotle treat it as rational desire? The solution lies in understanding _how_ non-rational character can provide our goals. The key is to see that the parallels Aristotle draws between theoretical reasoning and practical reasoning extend further than he makes explicit: he thinks that our grasp of the starting-points of practical reasoning – that is, of our goals – relies on perception and _phantasia_ in the same way as does our grasp of the starting-points of theoretical reasoning. We grasp theoretical starting-points on the basis of induction; we grasp practical starting-points on the basis of ethical habituatio, which should be understood as practical induction. Habituation shapes character because it involves repeated pleasurable perception of virtuous activity: the pleasures of virtue are pleasures of (literally) perceiving oneself as good. These perceptions gives rise via _phantasia_ to a general appearance of virtuous activity as good. Intellect conceptualizes this general appearance, but the content comes from non-rational cognition. Chapters 6 through 8 thus show that even our most distinctively human and distinctively virtuous desires are grounded in _phantasia_ and thereby, ultimately, in evaluative perception – in pleasure. Aristotle is an empiricist in the practical realm just as much as in the theoretical.