Existentialism

[Neo-Scholastic]

Existentialism is basically the concept that our actions and encounters throughout life are what define us.

In my Aristotle reading group this morning I came across a nice bit of proto-Existentialism. I was surprised how close this was to a more modern philosophy, since naturally we think that for Aristotle, essence is very much defined and unchangeable. Nonetheless he argues that our moral character, what we might call our mature form, is very much self-determined, and something for which we have to take full personal responsibility. 

The subheading to Book II, Moral Virtue, reads: "Moral virtue, like the arts, is acquired by the repetition of the corresponding acts." 

In other words, we become good people in the way that we might become good musicians: practice practice practice. At birth there is something of the luck of the draw, since it's usually our parents who give us our start in moral education, by telling us to behave as if we were moral, even though we don't know yet what we're doing. Eventually, though, we make our own choices and behave morally or we don't. At first we will make lots of mistakes, and we will learn from these or not. 

It's entirely through the habits we develop through practice that our moral character is determined. The habits come from an accumulation of choices. So by the time we're all grown up, our choices have formed us into good or bad people. When we choose various aims in our lives, the quality of our character will determine whether we see accurately whether the aims are good ones or not. Everyone aims at what he thinks is good, but the character we have built for ourselves determines whether we are correct in that assessment.

Now someone may say that all men aim at the apparent good, but have no control over the appearance, but the end appears to each man in a form answering to his character. We reply that if each man is somehow responsible for his state of character, he will also be himself somehow responsible for the appearance...

In other words, whether we choose good moral aims or not depends on whether we have trained ourselves properly. If we haven't, then we have to own it: we're just bad people. We have determined what we are through our own choices. 

So even though Aristotle would quibble with "existence precedes essence" (due to his definition of what "essence" is) he would agree that we make ourselves into what we become, through our own actions, for which we have full moral responsibility. 

I shouldn't be surprised to find, by this time, that absolutely everything in philosophy exists as a seed in Plato or Aristotle.

For examples of proto-existentialism, I would suggest Macus Aurelius and the Book of Ecclesiasties.