HEXIS
Hexis is a value that was formalised by Athenean philosophers, notably by Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics.
Its meaning is roughly “having” or “being”, and can be thought of as holding to an identity or a consistent disposition. There is an additional emphasis on stability, that what is held is not in a liminal or transitional state, but is rather a kind of basis or continuing pattern.
In this way, Hexis can be thought of as a guiding force or principle behind situational acts. It is the thing that remains true irrespective of context.
Hexis is divided into:
Embodiment, the physically consistent pattern of being.
Morals, the consistency of virtues held to.
Mindedness, the consistency of habits, decisions, and beliefs.
There are a number of main points raised in the Ethics that shape the idea of Hexis.
Virtue is a hexis.
Virtues are not just feelings of conscience (pathê), and they are more than involuntary psychological character traits; there is a deliberate choice being made to bring acts ‘in line’ with an ideal or desired state.We choose stable dispositions that are at a golden mean relative to us. In other words, for each individual person, there is a notion of what their behaviour is and how to bring it into a balance that avoids deficiency and excess.
Hexis is shaped by habituation.
Our principles are developed by repeated action: doing just acts makes one just, doing temperate acts makes one temperate. Repetition is key. When you perform an act often, you become skilled at it. So you can develop a skilfulness or ease in performing acts of virtue. This changes the landscape of what is considered as virtuous for each individual.Aiming for the Golden Mean
A hexis structures the mean between excess and deficiency, and it functions together with prohairesis (deliberative choice) and phronesis (practical wisdom).
Hexis offers reliablity, while Phronesis supplies the rational guidance about particular situations.Hexis is distinct from capacities and outcomes.
A capacity (dunamis) is potential; a form of power for making something happen. In acting, you can do the right thing and still fail. The attempt is a learning experience, and builds your skilfulness.
Over time, Hexis becomes an acquired, actualized disposition that makes capacity reliably manifest. In other words, consistency in practice leads to skilfulness and mastery, and mastery confers power.Hexis is durable, but not unchanging. It can be formed and re-formed through practice.
Intellect and Morality are different hexeis.
Scientific knowledge and practical wisdom are stable states, so they too are hexeis. But there is a distinction in that they are formed by teaching, instruction, and habituation.
Morality, on the other hand, does not advance through teaching or instruction, and purely requires habituation through practice. It can be thought of as tacit knowledge rather than explicit or implicit experience.
stability and agency
Hexis is framed as a deliberate choice, so it is only deliberate decisions that form moral character. If behaviour is coerced, or if they are purely reflexive, those behaviours do not count as virtuous.
Choices will also vary in their difficulty to commit to or see through. More difficult decisions ‘exercise’ the skill of Hexis more, while also having a greater risk of failure.
Hexis is not the same as unthinking habit, even at a high level of skilfulness. The role of thought and reasoning is necessary in Hexis; it requires thinking through ‘why’ a decision is correct, and aims at the attainment of good through correctness.
Relation to phronesis
Hexis and phronesis are complementary values:
Hexis provides a disposition to act well.
Phronesis supplies contextual judgments; the ability to discern what the right act in particular contexts.
Virtue requires both: courageous Hexis without situational judgments can misfire; Phronesis without stable dispositions produces indecisive reasoning.
Philosophical implications and critiques
Moral responsibility:
If virtues are learned dispositions, moral education and social institutions matter critically for character formation. In terms of self-directed learning, what you do on a daily basis matters as a form of cultivation.
Determinism:
In line with a position of Hard Determinism, and viewing morality as causal behaviour, we have a moral destiny that is fixed from birth by what we are to experience and encounter in life. Blame for moral failures are only ever useful in the educational sense, as a form of acknowledgement for later correction. People ‘chose’ due to situation and context.
Emotions:
Aristotle’s account of Hexis underplays emotions’ formative power; they must be rightly ordered by reason to be virtuous. But we are also emotion-driven at the base. Learning to love reason ends up being the ultimate way to join heart to mind.
Cultural and political dimensions:
What counts as the ‘mean’ can vary by context; selection of exemplars and laws influences what hexeis a person and a society cultivates. Alone, there is a degree of moral subjectivity to Hexis. It establishes stability and structure, but does not necessarily take into account the environment which that structure is meant to fit.
primary texts
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics — Book II (virtue as habituation/hexis), Book VI (practical wisdom).
Plato, Meno and other dialogues (for earlier uses of “habit/character”).