1 What does it mean to act from a firm and unchanging disposition?

Christiana Olfert, Columbia University In a famous passage from the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that a good person acts from a firm and unchanging disposition (1105a35a) 1. This claim is often thought to occupy a central place in Aristotles ethical theory, or at least, in his theory of excellence of character. However, both in Aristotles text and in the secondary literature, it remains rather ambiguous 1) what the qualities of firmness and unchangingness amount to when applied to dispositions, and consequently, 2) which agents can have dispositions of this kind. In this paper, I will argue that firm and unchanging are different qualities: unchanging (ametakintos) refers to the stability of an agents disposition or dispositions across time, while firm (bebais) refers to the internal cohesion or unity, at any given time, of an agents non-rational motivations, and also between her non-rational and rational psychological faculties. I will then argue that surprisingly, and perhaps counter-intuitively, this leads to the conclusion that only excellent agents have firm and unchanging dispositions. That is, in Aristotles terminology from NE II.4, only a good person can act as a certain kind of person. I. Firmness and Unchangingness: the context The claim that the excellent person has a firm and unchanging disposition is, most basically, part of Aristotles solution to a famous objection that he raises against his own theory of habituation. Throughout the first four chapters of Book II, Aristotles view is that we become good (just, moderate, etc.) by performing good (just, moderate, etc.) actions. The objection he raises, at the beginning of II.4, begins with the seemingly intuitive idea that one needs to be good in order to perform good actions, and it attempts to show that this intuitive idea and the Aristotelian view of habituation cannot be held together. The heart of the conflict between these
1

All translations are from Broadie & Rowe, 2002, unless otherwise indicated.

2 two claims could be briefly sketched as follows. Aristotles view of habituation requires that one can perform just actions (in some sense) without yet being just. If someone is to start out as not yet a just person, and to end up a just one through a routine of just actions, there must be some space between just actions, and acting justly, i.e., the actions of a just person. But the objection takes precisely this to be impossible, as a consequence of the intuitive idea stated above: if just action (in some sense) is dependent on being just, the objection assumes that, further, there will be nothing we could sensibly call just action in the absence of being just. And if this were true, it would amount to a denial of Aristotles claim that we can perform just actions without yet being fully just people. Without this foundational claim, his view of habituation would crumble. In his own defence against this objection, Aristotles attempts to motivate and explain a distinction between describing actions as of the sort that the just or the moderate person would do (toiauta oia an ho dikaios  ho sphrn praxeien), and describing them as being done as just and moderate people do (hs hoi dikaioi kai hoi sphrones prattousin) (1105b7-9, my translations). We might capture the distinction by saying that acting as a just person acting justly in the second sense is only possible for an agent who has come to the end of her moral education, who has a fully internalized disposition to act in this way. Precisely what this disposition is, and how it is to be activated, is elaborated as follows: the fully educated, excellent agent is one who acts knowingly (eids), who acts from choice, and choosing the action for itself (prohairoumenos kai prohairoumenos diauta), and who acts from a firm and unchanging disposition (bebais kai ametakints echn pratti) (1105a31-1105b1). Thus, these three conditions allow Aristotle to say that someone could do just or literate things at the beginning of, and during, a learning process, while still maintaining that these actions are not just or literate in the same sense as a finished experts or good persons would be.

3 So far, the general outline of Aristotles solution seems fairly clear. However, several ambiguities still lurk in the details. One thing that remains rather unclear is what, exactly, the qualities of firmness and unchangingness come to when applied to dispositions or psychological states. For instance, what relationship do these qualities have to the quality of excellence of character, or to the more particular virtues? This question, it turns out, is rather difficult to answer because of another ambiguity. As we have seen, Aristotle responds to his own objection in II.4 by listing a set of conditions that distinguish acting as a just person from merely performing just acts. But now we might wonder: do these conditions apply to all those actions that, as John McDowell puts it, manifest ethical character in any way whatsoever, or do they apply exclusively to the actions of good agents (McDowell 1998, 25)? That is, do all adults satisfy the condition of having some firm and unchanging character, or is this part of Aristotles definition of excellence of character in particular? My strategy in what follows will be to examine some meanings of firm and unchanging, in the hopes of clarifying which types of agents have dispositions of this kind, and furthermore, what role this kind of disposition plays in Aristotles theory of virtue in general. II. Two Candidate Readings of Firmness and Unchangingness On the one hand, from both an interpretative and a broader philosophical perspective, we might think that both the problem of N.E. II.4 and its solution are meant to apply to both virtue and vice. After all, throughout early chapters of Book II, we seem to find ample evidence that Aristotle is equally concerned with virtue and vice and how they arise in the non-rational part of the soul. In fact, as he elaborates his view of habituation, he almost always treats virtue and vice symmetrically, as two possible, opposite outcomes of that process (1103b7-17, 1104b4-5, 1104b8-12, 1104a20-23, 1105a12-13). Doesnt this suggest that one fundamental claim of Aristotles ethical theory is that all adult agents have a character a stable, affective disposition

4 that explains their actions and reactions? The answer certainly seems to be yes, at least on two plausible readings of firm and unchanging. One thing we might mean by calling a disposition firm and unchanging is that the disposition is such as to make a persons behaviour predictable for the most part. Now, there seems to be no reason to believe that, for example, a self-indulgent persons pursuit of bodily pleasure would be any less predictable than the moderate persons abstinence, or that a cowardly persons avoidance of danger would be less predictable than a courageous persons tolerance of it. But, as John Cooper points out, we might also think that there is a sense in which even an akratic persons behaviour is predictable in much the same way (Cooper 4-5; see also fn.3). It is of course true that an akratic person sometimes acts contrary to her decision, and at other times, she does what she knows she ought to do (1150b35). For if she always acted contrary to her decision, we would wonder whether or not she really had the good starting-points that Aristotle says she has (1151a26). But it could nevertheless be fairly predictable when a certain person will give in to temptation, and when she will be able to withstand it. Perhaps at certain times of day, the akratic will be more likely to overeat; or in certain situations, say, at a bar while having a casual drink, she will be more likely to smoke when she knows she ought not to2. Insofar as this predictability is possible, then, we might be able to attribute a firm and unchanging disposition even to an akratic person: hers will be a disposition to act according to her decision in such-andsuch circumstances, and to act contrary to her decision in such-and-such other circumstances3.

We could also add: depending on her stress-level, the quality or quantity of the pleasure available, the ease of accessibility, etc., and each of these considerations, when taken into account, could make it quite predictable whether or not she will be able to stick to her decision to do or not to do the thing in question. 3 In fact, it may be a general desideratum of our moral psychological framework that it should not merely explain why an akratic goes wrong, when she does, but that it should also explain why she acts well, when she does. Failure to have a persistent character having a vacillating character might explain the irresoluteness and failures that characterize akratic behaviour, but it does not explain the other, controlled side of the same agents behaviour in other circumstances. For this explanation, we might think, we need to attribute some persistent disposition to the agent. Thanks to Katja Vogt for this suggestion.

5 Yet another possible understanding of firm and unchanging, perhaps in addition to predictability, is that an agents tendencies to feel, think and act are very difficult to alter. But surely this could also be true of a bad or an akratic agent. Common experience should tell us that there are many examples of people who, despite their best intentions and efforts to change, nevertheless remain weak-willed with respect to some particular pleasure or set of pleasures. In this case, their bad, strong desires are simply too ingrained or to use Aristotles phrase dyed into their natures for them to be changed. True, Aristotle does argue that an akratic person is more easily reformed than someone who is self-indulgent (1150b31ff.). But it is not at all clear whether, in this context, he means for his arguments to apply at any and all stages of life, or whether he means, more specifically, that a young person with akratic tendencies is more easily trained out of them than one with self-indulgent tendencies, where this leaves open the possibility that neither has much chance of changing their dispositions as adults. If this is right, and Aristotles arguments about educability apply first and foremost to young people, then on this second way of understanding firm and unchanging, it also seems plausible that characters other than a good one can meet Aristotles third condition. III. Firmness Reconsidered Now, it is surely true that Aristotle wants to use the dispositions of a good person to explain the difference between occasionally acting well, and acting well on a reliable and consistent basis, as the result of some process of education or habituation. And if this is the only philosophical work that firm and unchanging dispositions do for Aristotles theory, then there seems to be no reason to restrict the third condition (the having of firm and unchanging dispositions) to good people alone. But are these the only two possible ways to understand the firmness and unchangingness of a disposition? After all, Aristotles third condition is stated using two different adverbs bebais, usually translated as firmly, and ametakints, which

6 more literally means unmovingly or unchangingly and predictability and indelibility, as described above, seem to be quite easily captured by the idea of somethings being ametakints, or unchanging. Since change happens over time, it seems reasonable to infer that a dispositions being unchanging, like its being predictable and indelible, is a property implying consistency over time, or diachronic stability. But if ametakints itself captures the idea of diachronic stability usually associated with Aristotles conception of a disposition, then what does bebais add to the meaning of the third condition? Furthermore, several prominent commentators seem to assume that the three conditions in II.4 are articulated precisely so as not to apply to non-excellent agents (Broadie 58; Burnyeat 8788; McDowell 1988, p. 97 and 1998, p. 25) 4. As we have seen, this view would not sit very well with the previous interpretation of the third condition as merely requiring that an agents patterns of behaviour are predictable and difficult to change. However, given that there might yet be another way to understand the firmness of a disposition, my next task will be to examine the notion of firmness more closely, in the hopes that it will give some credence to the idea that only the virtuous have firm and unchanging dispositions.

For example, Sarah Broadie thinks she needs [t]o avoid the conclusion that [a] greedy agent fulfils Aristotles second condition; and her interpretation of acting from a firm and unchanging disposition, in terms of not being easily put off by difficulties, temptations or the persuasion of others and being prepared to stand by what one does, seems designed to exclude both self-controlled (enkratic) and un-self-controlled (akratic) agents (Broadie 58). After all, the enkratic person experiences temptations that draw her away from the right course of action, and the akratic agent would in no way stand by her actions in the sense of endorsing their rectitude; as such, both fail to have properly firm and unchanging dispositions. Myles Burnyeat takes a similar view of the third condition, claiming that Aristotle needs a condition beyond the second one, because choice by itself is compatible with incontinence and indeed continence. The further condition is that all this must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character, which, supposedly, neither the akratic nor the enkratic person can satisfy (Burnyeat 87-88). John McDowell, too, claims that the passage at 1105a31 and following describes the case of virtue, which is not surprising given his picture of akratic as being swayed and sidetracked by his desires a decidedly unsteady and changeable character, compared to the good persons singleness of motivational focus (McDowell 1988, 97; McDowell 1998, 25).

7 One helpful starting-point in this regard is to note that the adverb, bebais, and its adjective are generally acknowledged to have a strong positive connotation in the Greek5, which, unfortunately, is perhaps not fully captured by its translation with firm. And furthermore, Aristotles other uses of the term seem consistent with the common usage. So, for example, in explaining the benefits of friendship between siblings, Aristotle says that their scrutiny of each other over time will have been longest and most secure (bebaiotat) (1162a15-16). Here, the security of their knowledge of each other is clearly supposed to be a good thing, since it makes them good candidates for being the best kind of friends, and the best friendship requires time for the parties to grow acquainted with each others character (1156b26-27). A second use of a cognate term that we find in the N.E. comes in Aristotles description of the pleasures of contemplation: love of it [philosophia] is thought to bring with it pleasures amazing in purity and stability (ti bebaii) (1177a25-26). Again, it seems that both purity and stability are used here in an honorific sense. It is supposed to recommend these pleasures that they are pure and stable. Finally, probably precisely because stability and security, like purity, are supposed to be good qualities, Aristotle can make the following bold claim: in explaining why friendship between bad people cannot be lasting (as opposed to the enduring friendships among the virtuous), he says that [t]he bad do not have stability (to bebaion), since they do not remain similar even to themselves (1159b8-9, my emphasis). If lack of stability or firmness is a mark of the bad person, then it seems that bebaios, according to Aristotle, is a quality that is partly definitive of a good character, or possibly, is itself a positive and a good quality for a character to have.

I am indebted to Elizabeth Scharffenberger and Jim Coulter for pointing this out to me in an email exchange, Oct. 12, 2007.

8 Furthermore, this last claim about the instability of bad people is suggestive of a more precise sense in which firmness can be a good quality. In contrast to bad people, who are not even similar to themselves, we get a picture of the good person as having a sort of integrity or unity to her character: she is, in a way, single-minded, sure, true to herself. In this connection, bebaios is maybe better conveyed in English by steadfast, sure, or constant, which invoke a character that is unreserved, wholehearted and resolute. These translations would, I think, do the job of capturing the positive connotations that Aristotle associates with the Greek. However, this is not to say that these other terms are completely divorced from any intelligible sense of firmness. Firm still has an identifiable meaning as a quality of something that is (potentially) a complex whole, when its various aspects have been completely harmonized and unified. This alternative meaning that I am recommending is supposed to invoke solidity, coherence, soundness and definiteness, as opposed to diffuseness, discord, fissure and indeterminateness. These other concepts, I think, share three features with firmness that are worth discussing in some detail. First, they suggest a meaning of bebaios as a synchronic relational property, as opposed to the apparently diachronic properties outlined above. Synchronic firmness, I would like to suggest, is a unifying relation, at a given moment, between different elements or aspects of a thing that can potentially separate or conflict with one another. Secondly, firmness or unity in this sense is necessary to a composite things being the whole that it is; the degree to which something is unified and fissured (unsteady and not firm) is the degree to which it fails or threatens to fail to be a single thing at all. And thirdly, this kind of firmness has clearly positive or honorific connotations; the unity created by somethings firmness is meant to be partly constitutive of a good state of that thing. So, for example, a friendship might be bebaios, a firm friendship, insofar as the friends share in a mutually acknowledged agreement, commonality or harmony; and the relationships

9 firmness or steadiness in the synchronic sense will increase as their agreement or sharing increase (either in degree or into different areas of their lives). On this picture of friendship, I think it would not be entirely counter-intuitive to say that a firm friendship in some sense a good friendship, and that a firmer friendship is in some sense a better friendship. And furthermore, we might think that the harmony or the agreement between the friends is a relation that constitutes the friendship itself, so that, insofar as the relation dissolves or fails to be firm, either because of conflict or simple lack of interest, the existence of the friendship itself (and not just its goodness) is threatened. This last point captures the rather intuitive idea that there are, strictly speaking, no bad friendships: bad friends, in the end, are really not friends at all. This synchronic conception of firmness, with its positive connotations, is therefore a good candidate for at least part of what Aristotle has in mind by a firm and unchanging character. But it is also a mark of having a good disposition as opposed to the ability to perform good actions accidentally or on someone elses orders if someone is motivated, and acts and reacts consistently in the right ways. So, we might want to think of Aristotles third condition as placing two, equally important requirements on the good persons disposition: the first describes this disposition in terms of synchronic unity, and the second describes it in terms of a kind of diachronic unity, or consistency across time. IV. Firmness as Motivational Coherence But now we might ask: what could it mean to have a synchronically firm disposition, if this implies the coherence of internal parts? What parts of a state of character could be more or less firmly unified? In explaining how the synchronic sense of bebaios applies to things like states of character, it will also become clearer that only the good person has a truly bebaios disposition.

10 A first reaction to these questions might be to say that a character can be bebaios insofar as an agents non-rational dispositions are responsive to reason; that is, a bebaios character is one that does its part to bind together the different motivational forces in the soul. However, I would also like to suggest a second and perhaps stricter sense in which a character itself can be bebaios. In this second sense, firmness is a structure of parts internal to an agents non-rational dispositions, meaning that her non-rational reactions and motives are coherent and, in important ways, unconflicted. This idea, of a state that unifies or makes coherent ones non-rational desires, is admittedly seldom mentioned either by Aristotle, or by commentators in their characterizations of the good person6. Nevertheless, I will argue that this feature of a good persons character is in fact implied by some aspects of Aristotles own view of decision, and his description of enkrateia or self-control. In particular, a close look at the contrast between the self-controlled and the good person should serve both to expand on the sense of coherence at issue, and to motivate the claim that it is a peculiarity of the good persons non-rational desires that they cohere in this bebaios way. The first step in my argument will be to point out, briefly, some features of Aristotles view of the relationship between non-rational dispositions and decision or prohairesis. Decision, for Aristotle, seems to be a merger or coordination of rational and non-rational psychic activity. On the one hand, he says that character excellence is a disposition issuing in decisions, and it both finds and chooses the intermediate (1106b35-1107a6, cf. 1106a4). That is, character excellences participate in both the formation and the content of the decision itself (Broadie, Introduction 44) 7. And then, in Books III and VI, Aristotle expands his picture of decision so

The exception, as I say below, is Sarah Broadie. Unfortunately, although she identifies the seeds of this idea, she does not expand on it or draw out some of its more interesting consequences. 7 But it cannot be that only excellent non-rational dispositions play these roles in decision. The self-indulgent person, too, acts from decision, and does so in part because of her affective state that is, because of a badness of

11 that it also turns out to be the result of deliberation, which is of course an activity of the actively, practically rational part of the soul (1112a15-17,1139a23ff.). This dual nature of decisions, I think, has important consequences for how we understand the difference between an excellent, and at least some non-excellent dispositions. As Sarah Broadie puts it, this view of decision implies that: If a decision confronts a recalcitrant element in the soul in such a way that the agent is actually torn between conflicting practical tendencies, this can only be because the non-rational part already to some extent sides with reason. (Introduction 43, my emphasis) In other words, whenever an agent has non-rational desires that conflict with her decision, this will result, not only in a conflict between the rational and the non-rational parts of her soul, but also in some kind of conflict within the non-rational part itself. Non-rational conflict of this kind is perhaps best exemplified by the self-controlled person. This type of person is one who has made a decision and who executes this decision in action, but in whom there still remain some strong and bad appetites, which are temptations to act contrary to what she has decided (1111b15-16, 1146a10-17). Now, given that decision is partly a result of ones non-rational disposition, it must be the case that the self-controlled person in some respects desires (non-rationally) to act well, and to pursue or avoid what reason has recommended. Insofar as the self-controlled persons decision is motivationally sufficient for action, and is not in some way overcome or dragged around by her wayward desires, there is no reason to think that she has ever lost her decision-desire, or the non-rational motivational aspect of her decision. She may still want to act according to what reason has determined is

character (1148a18-20, 1150b29-35, 1151a19-25). And even the decision of the akratic person is thought to be an expression of the fact that the best in him, the fundamental starting point, remains healthy, where this startingpoint is something resulting from habit-training, and which excellence and badness respectively keep healthy, and corrupt (1151a15, 19, 26). Thus, it seems reasonable to define decision, in part, as an activity of the non-rational part of the soul, and an expression of ethical disposition (Broadie, Introduction 45).

12 overall the best thing to do. And still, insofar as she is merely self-controlled, the temptation to do otherwise persists. So it seems that, at the moment of acting on her decision, the selfcontrolled person is the subject of two occurrent, conflicting, non-rational desires: a non-rational decision-desire a desire which has been harmonized with what reason recommends and also a second desire to do something else8. But the good and moderate person, in contrast to the enkratic, does not suffer from these same strong and bad desires (1146a10-12). In a direct comparison between the good person and the self-controlled person, the latters strong and bad desires are clearly at the heart of her failure to be fully moderate. This, in turn, tells us something important about the good persons disposition. The moderate person will be someone whose non-rational desires are unified and unconflicted when compared to those of an enkratic, and probably also an akratic or a selfindulgent person. When the good person has formed a decision-desire, there is no rebellious faction that still wants to do something other than what she has decided to do. Her desires, we might figuratively say, speak as one: where there is the potential for internal conflict, the good person instead demonstrates coherence, wholeheartedness and integrity9,10. In this sense, I think, we can understand what it means for a character a non-rational disposition to be bebaios.

These must, of course, be importantly different kinds of conflict. After all, the conflict between reason and non-rational desire is grounds for distinguishing between different parts or motivational powers of the soul, while we would not want to make a similar division on the basis of a conflict between different non-rational desires (1102b24-29). That is, when we have a conflict between decision and desire, it cannot be the case that we both (non-rationally) desire and do not desire the same thing in the same respect at the same time. Perhaps this could be explained by the fact that the decision-desire is, in part, a desire to avoid something because avoidance is recommended by reason what it desires about this is, in part, its reasonableness (see 1104b45, for the kind of pleasure and pain that can supervene on action) while the conflicting desire wants to pursue that very thing because it is pleasant, and regardless of what reason recommends. In other words, the conflicting desires are not exactly for the same thing in the same respect: one is a desire for something in respect to its relationship to reason (in some cases, it may simply be a desire to follow reason), and the other is a desire for this irrespective of any such relationship. The possibility of this kind of conflict between desires, I think, is introduced by Aristotles description of the non-rational part of the soul as obedient to reason (1098a5, 1102b30-1103a1) 9 Admittedly, I have not discussed vice as fully here as I might have. Since the self-indulgent person is also one who acts completely in harmony with their decision, it might seem that they also have a bebaios character. But Aristotle

13 From here, it begins to seem more plausible that only the good person is able to have firmness of character in this sense, since her non-rational motivational system seems to be the best candidate for one that lacks internal disorganization. The good persons disposition produces desires that are, in important ways, synchronized with each other; and as such, we might begin to think that only she is able to have a firm and unchanging character. V. Implications I have attempted to argue that acting from a firm and unchanging disposition involves much more than having educated tendencies to act that are persistent across time. It also involves acting in a psychologically coordinated way that could be described as wholeheartedness or integrity, which are themselves marks of virtue. This further understanding of Aristotles theory of character excellence, I think, has interesting implications for this theory of virtue in general. First, it is worth noting that in N.E. II.4, Aristotle gives us a convenient and illuminating locution for acting from a firm and unchanging disposition: the just and moderate person acts as just and moderate people do, as opposed to non-excellent agents, who at best can perform actions of the same general kind as the good person (1105a30-b9). But since acting as a just and moderate person requires acting from a firm and unchanging disposition, and only just and moderate people have dispositions of this quality, it looks like only excellent people will act as a certain kind of person. There is, for Aristotle, no such thing as acting as a bad, an akratic or an
has claimed that they do not (see above). My response to this charge will be explained more fully in the next Chapter; for our purposes here, we might simply note that, while the self-indulgent person in some sense has harmonized her appetites with her reason, leading a life in pursuit of pleasure is sure to generate conflicts within the non-rational part of her soul. Part of my argument in the following Chapter will involve a further examination of this claim. 10 There is yet another, significant way to think about the good persons singular and focused non-rational desires. Even without reference to the problems of weakness of will, Aristotles view of intermediate affections holds that there are many ways of going astray, but there is only one way of getting it right (1106b29-30). Though this does not mean that an agent can have multiple non-rational desires at once, the singularity of the intermediate does suggest, at the very least, that the good persons excellent dispositions will produce only a single desire or cluster of consistent desires in any given situation. The standard of the intermediate, then, is another way to think about the coherence and organization of ones desires; desiring the intermediate prevents the agent from having multiple, and so possibly conflicting, desires at any one time.

14 enkratic agent. This suggests that, partly as a result of acting from a firm and unchanging disposition, there is a way of acting that is only available to the good person; she is able to own her actions that is, to have her actions belong to her in a way that is not possible for nonexcellent, psychologically disorganized agents. This point, I think, also suggests something more general about Aristotles theory of human agency: namely, that excellent action is a different kind of action than non-excellent action. On this view, the differences between adult moral agents are not entirely a matter of the content of their dispositions, deliberations and decisions. It is not simply the case that good and bad people desire and decide in the same ways, but bad people desire and decide to do bad things, and good people desire and decide to do good things. In addition, my suggestion is that, for Aristotle, human agency itself takes a new shape in the good person. When she acts as a good person, she performs and owns her actions in an importantly different way from the way in which non-excellent agents do. The specific virtues (whichever list of them we recognize) put the agent in a position to act in a new way, wholeheartedly and with integrity. In this sense, integrity is not a virtue, on the same level as courage and justice. Instead, it is a quality that describes a kind of agency that is particular to a good person, when she, as an agent, comes into being as a system of excellent dispositions.

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Works Cited Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Ed. Sarah Broadie, Christopher Rowe. Toronoto: Oxford University Press, 2002. Broadie, Sarah. Ethics With Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Burnyeat, M.F. Aristotle on Learning to Be Good In Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg, ed. Essays on Aristotles Ethics. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980. McDowell, John. Some Issues in Aristotles Moral Psychology. Mind, Value and Reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. McDowell, John. Comments on T. H. Irwins Some Rational Aspects of Incontinence. Southern Journal of Philosophy xxvii, Supplement (1988), 89-102. McKeon, Richard. The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House, Inc., 2001.