Nietzsche and Epicurus by Acharya Vinod; Johnson Ryan J.;

Author:Acharya, Vinod; Johnson, Ryan J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

9

Passionate individuation

Epicurean self-cultivation in Mill and Nietzsche

Matthew James Dennis

I Introduction

The same strong susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful, are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love of virtue, and the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation of these, that society both does its duty and protects its interests: not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows not how to make them. (Mill 2003: 125)

Contemporary virtue ethicists have not deeply scrutinized the topic of the individuation of character. Nevertheless, the question of which character traits distinguish us from others is a great source of everyday intrigue and speculation, one which motivates a whole spectrum of evaluative emotions from love to pride, from shame to disgust. When the character traits constituting individualized differences between persons have been discussed, commentators have tended to focus on traits connected to self-expression and creativity, traits that distinguish persons in a secondary sense insofar as they give rise to cultural artefacts or ways of living that are individually distinctive. While this kind of individual distinctiveness might furnish the content of a person’s creative oeuvre or the events constituting their life story, it does not pertain to the character traits that constitute character itself, and so could only be thought of as the individuation of character indirectly. Most significantly, however, virtue ethicists tend not to discuss the individuation of character in the context of human flourishing, which again is odd given that the free expression of individual character is often thought to be inextricably connected to living a choiceworthy life. Perhaps this is because philosophical accounts invariably seek to offer a model of the good life that applies to us all, one which is necessarily immune to what is taken to be irrelevant idiosyncratic quirks, but nonetheless such an oversight is striking. Furthermore, most contemporary accounts of human flourishing have been guided – or misguided – by a historical tradition from Socrates onwards that primarily understands flourishing in terms of exercising one’s moral virtues. Undoubtedly there are many reasons for this, but one might be tempted to ascribe it to the long-standing reliance of modern virtue ethicists on Aristotle, along with the moral and intellectual virtues he picks out as important. This is still so prevalent that most virtue ethicists who identify as neo-Aristotelians have not thought more deeply about individuation in other senses. While recent literature still grapples with questions of how individuals must use their practical wisdom (phronesis) imaginatively in the exercise of these virtues, according to changes in circumstances, there is widespread agreement that the virtues themselves must remain the same, and that there is little room for individual distinctiveness in the profile of character traits that lead to the flourishing life.

Of course, there are many ways to think about what distinguishes us from others, so to get this discussion into sharper focus I will specify in advance the kind of individuality in which I’m primarily interested: first, rather than moral obligations, I

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