The Aristotelian Principle in Mill and Kant

John Rawls has identified a principle which he calls ‘The Aristotelian Principle (Rawls, 1971, p.427).’ Although it is not necessarily true for all people, generally we may say that most people will prefer to express in action those abilities which are more challenging to realize and that people will enjoy that expression even more, the more difficult that they are to realize. Furthermore they will find both respect for themselves and for others in a community of those who strive to develop such a challenging goal of advancing, for example, human knowledge of higher mathematics. This Aristotelian Principle is a general tendency of human nature which we can find in key aspects of the ethics of Mill and Kant. We can find the key points of the Aristotelian Principle in Mill’s conception of the moral community and the moral person. First, human beings prefer the higher pleasures rather than the lower pleasures. Second, among these higher pleasures we find especially the higher challenge of living the difficult and higher life of virtue for the sake of both others and the self. Just as Aristotle cannot prove that his Principle must be true, neither can Mill prove either of these two points he has affirmed. Kant’s consideration of the proposed action of failing to develop one’s talents allows us to see the Aristotelian Principle at work at the heart of Kant’s ethics because Kant undercuts his own a priori application of Humanity as an End-in-Itself because he sees no direct harm to humanity when one fails to develop one’s own talents. Consequently, in the ethics of both Kant and Mill, the Aristotelian Principle cannot be proven as an a priori principle, but is to be affirmed as a deeply felt preference rooted in human nature’s empirical desire to advance both self and others.