Thinking of success & excellence as being entirely independent of other people only makes sense in an atomistic world. In reality, those we respect and admire are mirrors for our own values and ability to strive towards excellence.
I consider myself successful in an endeavor when other people I respect begin to respect me in that domain. This is not a sufficient condition for success or excellence in a given domain but has proven to be a damn good indicator that I am making positive progress in my striving. For those that know me, this may come as a surprise given my philosophical foundations in individualism and virtue ethics. Eudaimonia is not based off of being popular — Aristotle himself argued against this in the Nicomachean Ethics on the basis that the life of popularity (“the political life”) is too contingent on having property and the support of others when compared to the life of the mind (“the contemplative life”).
Yet, success need not be defined in terms of others and their conceptions of ourselves and it need not be defined in everybody else’s conceptions of ourselves. Rather, by carefully selecting those whom we respect (and with whom we associate via friendship), we indirectly and inadvertently get a benchmark against which we can measure our own virtuous progress.
How Is Excellence Defined? (Or, a (very) quick primer of virtue ethics)
I use “success” and “excellence” rather interchangeably here. It is best to think of “success” as achieving a milestone of excellence in a given endeavor. Excellence, generally, is living the fulfilled, virtuous life and is not something that can be declared on a single day. Nobody can sit back and say, “I am excellent!” but can see examples of excellence in given areas of life and attempt to emulate those in the path to an excellent life.
Virtues are signals of excellence. The man who habitually, under tough circumstances, shows resolve and makes the hard decisions rather than caving to pressure can be considered an example of courageous excellence in leadership. The woman who strives through, day in and day out, a difficult process in which the odds are stacked against her may be an example of excellence in resolve or resiliency.
We can only know that we are getting closer to general excellence by testing our habits and our resolve. The person who only acts virtuously once is not virtuous — instead, he must develop a habit of virtue to get closer to excellence. Only once this habit is developed and becomes like second nature to him can he be said to be virtuous.
Excellence is therefore removed from what others think of the situation. It is a state that is derived from using our ability as rational beings to live a life that reflects that rationality — to live more than a mere animal in a life of blunt hedonism or the “life” of a machine in pure utilitarianism — and ability to live at higher level and strive for something better. We, as human beings, have the ability to make sense of the world, to think of ourselves as existing over time, and to plan and act according to a set of values that we derive from our past experiences. We can reflect. We can introspect. We can make sense of seemingly-conflicting desires and drives. To squander that is to live a subpar life.
This system is unsatisfying to a lot of people who dabble in ethics — they want edicts and a black and white code demanding they act in a certain way whenever possible. Virtue ethics doesn’t offer us this but rather offers a way of thinking about what it means to live a good life. Virtues are cultivated in the context of a life, not just in a vacuum.
Respect, Values, and Reciprocity
It is intuitive enough that respecting those one considers morally reprehensible is a vice and indicts one’s own moral judgement. We respect those who embody the values we hold highly and strive to embody ourselves.
Sometimes, we respect these people in a local context. I admire certain athletes for the resolve and endurance they develop. I admire certain startup founders for the cunning and decisiveness they develop. I admire certain authors for their ability to produce high-quality work regularly. I may not admire the entire person — it could be possible that the athlete whose commitment to work I admire turns out to be an alcoholic, or that the startup founder I admire for her decisiveness is actually a terrible parent. These people are admired locally — and once we discover these other damning characteristics of them, the level of admiration for local traits tends to decrease in its strength.
Those we admire globally are those we would think of as virtuous people and respect. Even if they hold differences of opinion from us, so long as those opinions don’t indict their virtue, they are respectable people. When they also live out the values that we personally hold, they are people we think of as those with whom we would like to be friends. Nathaniel Branden, the eminent American psychologist of the late 20th century, wrote that we choose friends (and on a deeper level, lovers) based on shared values and the ability to speak a similar language with this foundation in mind.
Branden also noted a sense of psychological visibility we feel with those with whom we share values and whom we respect. This is the feeling that you get when you can feel a connection with another person after several conversations and getting an understanding for what this person values and for what they strive.
Without getting into the moral psychology of friendship, one can see how those with whom we share values and whom we respect can be a useful psychological mirror against which we can measure our own progress.
If excellence is defined by our ability to strive towards virtues and if virtues are an extension of our own values…
and
If we respect others based on shared values and their ability to live out those values virtuously…
and
If we assume that people do not respect those whom they consider vicious…
then
Being respected by those you respect is an excellent way of seeing into the “mirror” of virtue and excellence and is why you feel good when you learn somebody you respect respects you.
This doesn’t need to sound so academic. When you find out that one of the people you admire knows of your work or what you are doing without you needing to inform them, you get a rush of excitement and joy without thinking about it. When a student becomes a master, it is because the master, who lives out the values the student follows and strives to habituate, finally respects the student for the ability to live out these values virtuously. When a coming-of-age story reaches its climax, a respected member of the tribe (whether a hunter-gatherer tribe, a nuclear family, a group of soldiers, or a startup) treats a more-lowly member with respect. That these people have reached a point of success in their development need not be explained — it is intuitive across cultures.
Total success is never possible — we must continue to strive towards excellence until death — but the feeling of success you feel when somebody you respect respects you is a terrific indicator of progress towards excellence.
This piece originally appeared at The Mission.
Further reading:
The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
The Psychology of Romantic Love, Branden
“Psychological Visibility as a Source of Value in Friendship,” Baxi