Aristotle's Theory to a Decsion

¶ … Aristotle's theory to a decsion from Middlemarch and a decsion from "The Surronded" Rational Choice in Middlemarch and the Surrounded Aristotle's the Nicomachean Ethics is a long-standing philosophical work which discusses virtue and morality. According to Aristotle, virtue is directly connected with rational choice and the difference between a good and a bad character is given by the decisions an individual makes. In Middlemarch, Rosamond's decision to receive Dorothea's visit is a turning point in the plot.

Rosamond is a manipulative woman, who pursues solely social advancement and longs for a genteel life in the ranks of aristocracy. She marries Lydgate in the same pursuit of financial interest and she soon loses interest in him when she realizes she has plunged him deep into debt. When Rosamond's flirtatious advances are rejected by Will Ladislaw, she is shocked and her vanity is finally bent. Her decision to see her rival, Dorothea, is made out of psychological weakness rather than moral strength.

She is still shaken by her encounter with Will the previous day, and her pride is terribly wounded. As such, despite the fact that she fears more humiliation in her encounter with Dorothea, she accepts to see her in the hope that she might exonerate herself to a certain degree. Thus, she accepts the meeting simply because she is still dazzled by the recent, painful events. Catharine, is the mother of the main hero in the Surrounded.

Although an American Indian, she had been christened as a very young child and has strictly obeyed the rules of this religion for the most part of her life. However, she decides to relinquish the Christian religion and follow up the traditions of her own Salisha culture. Through her decision, she reverts to the cultural resources of her own people, as she feels impelled to identify herself with her own nation.

Her decision is prompted by a dream in which the god of the 'white' appears to her and tells her that she has to renounce her baptisms so that she might go to the 'Indian heaven'. Thus, she acts out of a natural impulse to rebuild her identity as part of her own culture. She thus tokens great moral strength as she returns to her own culture and traditions and becomes a part of it.

Rosamond's decision is insubstantial, since she only reacts the way she does because of her wounded vanity and her inability to face the events of the previous day and her confrontation with Will. On the other hand, Catharina's decision to change her religion and re-convert to her own traditional religion is a token of moral strength and of her ability to acknowledge her own traditions despite the white cultural heritage that 'surrounds' her people.

In the second book of the Ethics, Aristotle defines the relation between character and virtue as being mediated by or depending on the two antagonist feelings of pleasure and pain. Aristotle's proposition that virtue is about pleasure and pain implies that goodness is inevitably related to the feelings that accompany an action.

Moreover, according to Aristotle, rational decision or choice is the basis of a virtuous character: "Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice..."(Aristotle, 43) Rational choice distinguishes actually between the good and the bad characters of certain individuals. While every person searches for what is good for him or her, this may be nevertheless only the appearance of goodness. Rosamond's decision to see Dorothea is not based on a distinct rational choice.

Virtue is a mode of choice, but Rosamond hardly makes an ethical decision since she merely feels unable to say no when Lydgate announces the unexpected visit: "Rosamond dared not say no. She dared not with a tone of her voice touch the facts of yesterday."(Eliot, 850) Thus, while her decision is right, it is obviously that she does not token nobility in receiving Dorothea but only the inability to act differently or relive the humiliation she had passed through the previous day.

Thus, Rosamond's decision is taken merely because the agent is almost paralyzed with dread: "In her new humiliating uncertainty she dared do nothing but comply."(Eliot, 850) She cannot help but comply because she had been humiliated and wounded, and she feels morally guilty. Had Rosamond acted in abidance of Aristotle's Ethics, she would have received Dorothea but she would have done so as a result of her own determination.

A person is good if he or she is able to deliberate virtuously, according to the context and the circumstances of a certain situation. Rosamond on the contrary feels compelled to act the way she does, simply because she is in a state of psychological bafflement but she does not actually see the truth of the situation and neither is she able to act virtuously. She merely receives the good Dorothea tensely, endeavoring to guess the reason of her visit.

Catharine's conversion to her own traditional religion is determined by a very different motivation. She determines to become faithful to her own culture because she feels that she is closer to the old traditions than to the religion she had acquired through early conversion. She thus asks the elders of her village to give her a ceremonial whipping which, according to the Indian tradition, would release and purify her.

After she performs this ritual, she feels at peace with herself and with her word: "Those old people turned back on the path they had come and for a while their hearts were lightened. The old lady, with the red stripes of the whip on her back, slept without dreaming."(McNickle, 73) Thus, the old woman makes her decision impelled by her need to regain her cultural identity and feel close to her own people.

She had been respected in the village before as well, simply because she observed the rites of the Christian religion and at the same time performed her duties towards her old way of life: "[...] She is pleased with her duties in the way that only an old art or an old way of life, long disused, can please the hand and heart returning to it."(McNickle, 75) Her return to her own religion is thus performed as an act of searching for the real truth available for her.

She acts consciously and makes a rational choice between the two religions, deciding to be faithful to that which appealed to her.