II—Stephen Makin: Ethics, Fixity and Flux

Abstract

This paper engages with the idea at the core of my co-symposiast's paper ‘Ethics of Substance’ (Carpenter 2014): that the Aristotelian concept of substantial being has ethical implications, and an alternative understanding of existence in terms of affecting and being affected will help us more easily to accommodate relational values, which are thought to sit uneasily within the Aristotelian framework. I focus on two questions. First, is there really is a tension between an Aristotelian metaphysics of substance and concern for others? The answer depends on how we understand the relation between my valuing something indeterminate but determinable (e.g. my having a child or my living a life) and my valuing the particular way in which that determinable is contingently determined (e.g. my having a daughter or my living this life). I agree that Carpenter is correct in identifying the tension she does. Second, does the alternative Buddhist influenced view of what it is to exist shift our attention from ethical values such as independence and autonomy onto interpersonal and relational values? I consider an example which reflects another aspect of Aristotle's outlook: his account of the ontological status of the simple material elements. I suggest that once we abandon the idea that such elements exist in virtue of specific intrinsic structures, then questions about their persistence through the changes by reference to which they are identified at the very least admit of no determinate answer. This suggestion also supports the line taken in Carpenter's paper.