In this talk, I provide a brief and accessible overview of my current book project, Aristotle’s Vice, a comprehensive study of the Aristotelean vicious character. Of all characters, vice is the most perplexing. The person of virtue (ἀρετή) knows, promotes, and values the good appropriately. The continent (ἐγκρατής) recognizes the good and acts in accordance with it, but lacks harmony between reason and appetite. The incontinent (ἄκρατος) recognizes the good but fails to perform good actions. The vicious (κακός) is uniquely ignorant of the good. As a result, the vicious neither acts in accordance with nor feels appropriately towards the good.
Understanding the vicious person’s ignorance, I argue, is key to understanding Aristotle’s theory of vice. Aristotle distinguishes vicious ignorance from the everyday honest mistakes most humans make without malice. Unlike standard ignorance, which can often excuse bad behavior, vicious ignorance is pernicious and all-encompassing. Theirs is a culpable ignorance; far from being an excuse, vicious ignorance is itself an offense. In addition to surveying the book project as a whole (which necessarily involves detours into character development, moral perception, and similar but importantly distinct moral conditions (such as akrasia)), this talk will focus on the nature of vicious ignorance according to Aristotle, and how it is that the vicious are blameworthy for the very ignorance that makes them incurable.