Table Of ContentRational Man
HenryBabcockVeatch
Rational Man
A Modern Interpretation
of Aristotelian Ethics
Henry B. Veatch
Preface and Annotated Bibliography
by Douglas B. Rasmussen
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Veatch,HenryBabcock.
Rationalman:amoderninterpretationofAristotelianethics/
HenryB.Veatch;prefacebyDouglasB.Rasmussen.
p. cm.
Originallypublished:Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,.
Withnewpref.andannotatedbibliography.
Includesbibliographicalreferences(p. )andindex.
---(pbk.:alk.paper)
. Ethics. . Aristotle. I. Title.
.
'.—dc
,.
AllisonPointeTrail,Suite,Indianapolis,Indiana-
. . . . . . .
To and
in the hope that some day
‘‘they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and should understand with their hearts’’
Contents
Preface ix
AnnotatedBibliography xix
Foreword xxiii
. InQuestofEthicalKnowledge
. TheExaminedLife:
BacktoSocratesandAristotle
. WhyNotRegardMoralsandEthicsas
SimplyanArtofLiving?
. WhyMoralsandEthicsAreNotSimplyanArtofLiving
. FailureandUnhappiness:
AreTheyOurOwnResponsibility?
. BadLuckandtheForceofCircumstances
astheCausesofFailure
. ButWhatIfGodIsDead?
. ExistentialismandtheClaimsofIrrationalMan
Notes
AnalyticalTableofContents
Index
Preface
Rational Man, which first appeared in , brings Aristotelian ethics
alive to the contemporary reader. Its author, Henry BabcockVeatch,
wasaleadingneo-Aristotelianofthetwentiethcentury.BorninEvans-
ville, Indiana, in , Veatch was educated at Harvard University,
fromwhichhereceivedhisdoctoratein.HismentoratHarvard
was John Wild, and he was influenced by the twentieth-century neo-
Thomists Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson. Veatch taught for
twenty-eightyearsatIndianaUniversity,foreightyearsatNorthwest-
ernUniversity,andformorethantenyearsatGeorgetownUniversity.
Veatchwasaprolificwriter,anoutstandingteacher,askillfuldebater,
and,aboveall,aperceptivephilosopher.Atdifferenttimes,heserved
as president of both the American Philosophical Association (West-
ernDivision)andtheAmericanCatholicPhilosophicalAssociation.To
those who knew him,Veatch was a man of energy, good humor, and
graciousness. Most of all he was a gentleman. He retired in but
was active philosophically throughout his retirement years. He died
in . A Festschrift* appeared at the time of his retirement from
GeorgetownUniversity.
VeatchwasanAristotelianthroughandthrough,butanyonefamil-
iar with his work would see immediately that he was conversant with
the latest contemporary issues in philosophy.Veatch was well known
forchampioninghisAristotelianismagainstcontemporaryphilosophi-
cal fashions. Indeed, Rational Man is but one of a series of works in
which Veatch challenged many of the prevailing beliefs of his time,
especially those of Anglo-American philosophy. Those interested in
Veatch’sothermajorbooksandarticlesmaywishtoconsulttheanno-
*Rocco Porreco, ed., The Georgetown Symposium on Ethics: Essays in Honor of
HenryBabcockVeatch(Lanham,Md.:UniversityPressofAmerica,).
[x] Preface
tated bibliography that follows this preface. These works reveal a
thinker with an eye for what is crucial philosophically and a philoso-
pherwhowasconcernedwiththetruthofthings—notthelatestintel-
lectualstyles.
Rational Man is, however, the most distinctive of all of Veatch’s
works;itaccomplisheswhatisnearlyimpossibletoachieve.Itengages
boththeexpertandthebeginner.Bothcanreadandprofitfromthis
work.Thereissubstantialscholarshipandphilosophicalsophistication
in these pages, but the work is never dry or heavy-handed.Veatch’s
philosophicallearningdoesnotgetinthewayofthemessage.Thear-
gumentsarecrisp;thereadingislively;andtheexamplesarenumer-
ous,particularlythosefromliterature.
Veatch’s arguments in Rational Man were not only in conflict with
severaldominantphilosophicalviewsofhistime,buttheyalsoremain
inconflictwithmanyofthosetoday.Hisargumentssoughttoestablish
three claims: () that ethical knowledge is possible; () that ethical
knowledge is grounded in human nature; and () that the purpose
ofethicsistoshowtheindividualhumanbeinghowto‘‘self-perfect,’’
which was Veatch’s way of writing about eudaimonia in Aristotelian
moral theory. Moreover, these moral claims were defended without
appeal to religious revelation but ‘‘solely on what used to be known
as the natural light of reason.’’ Veatch was an advocate of what is
commonly called ‘‘natural law’’ moral theory; such a theory was for
Veatch,however,nottobeconfusedwithwhatistodaycalled‘‘divine
command theory.’’ Accordingly, ethics is based on the requirements
for human moral development—what Veatch and others call ‘‘self-
perfection’’—andnevermerelyonwhatiscommandedbyadeity.This
does not mean, however, that ethics and religion were necessarily in-
compatibleforVeatch;rather,itmeansonlythatRationalManissimply
abookon‘‘ethicswithoutreligion.’’
Veatch’s use of the words ‘‘self-perfection,’’ ‘‘perfection,’’ and ‘‘per-
fect’’ may not be familiar to contemporary readers. ‘‘Perfect’’ comes
from the Latin perfectus and its Greek counterpartteleios. Perfectus im-
plies that a thing is completed or finished; this involves the idea of a
thing’s having a nature that is its end (telos) or function (ergon).Thus,
itshouldbeclearthat,whenVeatchspokeofhowto‘‘perfect’’oneself,
hedidnotmeanthatoneshouldbecomeGodlike,immunetodegen-
Description:This modern interpretation of Aristotelian ethics is ideally suited for undergraduate philosophy courses. It is also an engaging work for the expert and the beginner alike, offering a middle ground between existential and analytic ethics. Veatch argues for the existence of ethical knowledge, and he
