If you want to quickly understand what I mean when I use the phrase “practical philosophy,” read this post.
While my take on the subject is indeed practical, a more academically inclined person would say that I am actually writing about “virtue ethics.”
Good Lord, though: is there anything that sounds worse than “virtue ethics?” Anyone who talks about virtue is bound to come across as pompous, and the subject of ethics is rightfully considered a bore. But these feelings are about the modern connotations of both words, each of which had quite a different meaning in ancient Greece and Rome, where the theory and practical application of virtue ethics first began.
So before you close your tab in disgust, let me explain why this way of looking at things is useful, if not downright transformative. You’ll have to learn two Greek words along the way, but other than that this post won’t even seem like philosophy at all.
Knowing Things Doesn’t Mean Squat
I know how to play the guitar. By that I mean: I know a handful of chords, I know a few different strumming patterns, and I know what tempo is.
But were I to play, I’d torture you with a cacophonous racket that no one could enjoy — I cannot actually make those chords consistently or smoothly enough to sound decent, and my strumming and sense of tempo are both terrible. So despite my knowledge of lots of facts about playing the guitar, I don’t actually “know” how to do so in any important sense of that word.
While we intuitively understand this distinction in arts and sports, we tend to forget this idea once we get involved in more “intellectual” pursuits (like philosophy). But the same contrast is equally true for crafts, professions, and even self-knowledge. Learning a bunch of facts about psychology or self-improvement or spiritual insights means nothing if you cannot actually apply them in your life.
The Ability To Do Is Critical
What separates the physically fit from the out of shape, and the alcoholic from the non-alcoholic, isn’t the knowledge that they should exercise and/or stop drinking, but the ability to actually do those things on a regular basis. This ability to “do” what you “know” is critical.
When you apply this ability to a difficult activity, like playing the guitar, you call it skill. Skill, unlike simple knowledge, requires a different kind of effort — one that takes a lot of dedicated practice. Because of this extra time and effort, we too often allow ourselves to lean on our “knowledge” of something as sufficient to actually do or stop doing it, which is a big mistake.
All Goals Lead To Eudaimonia
Having a skill implies a goal; skill is “the ability to do something well,” and that “something” is the goal, purpose, or end.
Some skills you have may be purely functional abilities to achieve interim goals in service of a higher-level goal, like being a skilled carpenter in order to make money to feed your family. Ultimately, though, if you followed each interim goal to the next one — repeatedly asking “why?” — you will reach an “ultimate goal” or “final end.” The ancient Greeks said that for humans this ultimate end was eudaimonia.
Often translated as “happiness,” eudaimonia actually meant something deeper and more meaningful: other translations are “flourishing” or “well-being.” Better yet might be the psychological concept known as “self-actualization,” which is essentially defined as the complete realization or fulfillment of one’s talents and potentialities.
According to the Greek philosophers who used the term eudaimonia, this ultimate goal should be the guiding factor in decisions. While you may have interim goals as well, no interim goals should ever override the end goal. Nor should you allow nonessential interim goals (like things, or money, or fame) to distract you from — or interfere with — your ultimate goal of eudaimonia/self-actualization.
Eudaimonic Skills Are Virtues
As stated above, skills are always in the service of a goal. And those skills in service of eudaimonia are referred to as “virtues.” The Greek word for virtue is arete. But unlike the prudish and stuffy overtones that the word virtue has for us moderns, arete just meant “excellence.” Virtue was a specific type of skill.
Great athletes had arete/virtue in the physical domain, great lyre players had musical arete/virtue, and great philosophers aimed to have arete/virtue in living well.
This idea of virtue still exists in our language: we often refer to great musicians and artists as virtuosos. But it’s possible to broaden this idea of a virtuoso to other realms: cooking, woodworking, even medical or legal practice. Most importantly, we should reclaim the word virtuoso as something to strive for in life in general: we should aim to be virtuosos at living well.
Skills Are Earned Through Practice
To become skilled at anything, you have to practice. You know this in many areas of your life: if you have a hobby you really love, or a job that brings meaning to your life, you know already that you get better and better at it by continually doing it. And you can only get really good through dedicated practice: training and exercise in specific areas and sub-skills until you can do them perfectly, and then working on the next set of harder skills.
It doesn’t matter if the skills are for an art, or a sport, or your career, or achieving a deep happiness. And it doesn’t matter if they are in the service of an interim or ultimate goal. If you have a goal, simply knowing theoretically how to achieve it is never enough, nor even the hard part. What you really need to focus on is developing skill.
For Eudaimonia, Train Arete
If you want the most out of life, then, you need to develop skills that help you achieve your ultimate goal. This means training and practicing “virtues.” This can be done in daily life, as well as — if you want to get even better — through specific exercises that target various virtues.
Almost all of us intellectually know that honesty makes life simpler, that kindness brings a deep satisfaction, that gratitude makes you happier, and that self-control brings long-term benefits that far outweigh short-term delights. Yet we all still have trouble actually doing those things on a day-to-day basis, and often especially when it matters the most. The issue isn’t knowledge, it’s lack of practice.
So, whether you’ve been simply ignoring the need to develop yourself in this way, or you’ve been spending lots of time reading and thinking about how to do so, why not take a different tack and try to increase some skills that will help you really living well?
It’s not really any different from getting stronger or faster or learning a craft. You simply need practice.
Thus: “practical philosophy.”