Ethics

Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics PL 360

Ethics as Practical Philosophy

Aristotle distinguished the study of ethics from other theoretical disciplines.

Theoretical Disciplines, like metaphysics, were cognitive and primarily concerned with the acquisition of intellectual virtue (knowledge).

Practical disciplines concerned themselves with “human affairs” (Aristotle, 1962, p. 157).

Ethics was a practical discipline because it entailed the cultivation of moral virtue through practice.

Starting Assumption: To be ethical, one had to

be habituated into the good as a child.

Teleological Ethical System

Ultimate telos or purpose of life:

Happiness or Eudaimonia

Actions/Habits

Ethics is a matter of practicing actions that put one on the path to the telos.

What is Happiness? Happiness as an Ultimate or Final End

Happiness as an “activity of the soul in accordance with complete excellence [or virtue]” (Aristotle, 1894/1995), p. 1741).

Two Types of Virtue Intellectual: Requires sophia or theoretical wisdom. One learns and then applies the knowledge.

Moral: Requires phronesis or practical wisdom. One is habituated into the good and draws on that experience to make ethical judgments.

Moral Excellence/Virtue as the Golden Mean

Excellence: The Mean Between Two

Opposing VicesVice of Excess

Vice of Deficiency

Moral excellence “is a mean between two vices, the one involving excess, the other deficiency, and that is such because its character is

to aim at what is intermediate in passions and in actions” (Aristotle, 1894/1995, p. 1751).

“[I]t is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle…that is why goodness is both rare and laudable and notable”

(Aristotle, 1894/1995), p. 1751).

Practical Wisdon

Finding the golden mean requires phronesis,” a practical reasoning that involves drawing on experience to determine the proper course of action (Aristotle, 1894/1748, p. 1803).

Example

Excellence: Courage

Vice of Excess:

Cowardice

Vice of Deficiency:

Recklessness

Once the proper course of action is determined, one practices the action until it becomes a virtue or

one’s second nature.

“A habit, friend, is of long practice born and practice ends in fashioning man’s nature”

(Aristotle, 1962, p. 202).

Photo Credits & References Slide 1: http://news.wfu.edu/files/2012/12/620x350.20121207.virtue-460x260.jp g 3: http://www.mom- psych.com/Images/MoralIntelligence.jpg

Slide 2: Aristotle, (1962). Nicomachean ethics. M. Ostwald, (Trans.), Nicomachean ethics. New York, NY: MacMillan Publishing, Co.

Slide 3: http://www.mom-psych.com/Images/MoralIntelligence.jpg

Slide 5: Aristotle. (1894/1005). Nicomachean ethics. In J. Barnes, (ed.), The complete works of Aristotle, v. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Slide 6: Aristotle. (1894/1005). Nicomachean ethics. In J. Barnes, (ed.), The complete works of Aristotle, v. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Slide 7: Aristotle. (1894/1005). Nicomachean ethics. In J. Barnes, (ed.), The complete works of Aristotle, v. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

8: http://therecordingrevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/balance-300x199.jpg and Aristotle. (1894/1005). Nicomachean ethics. In J. Barnes, (ed.), The complete works of Aristotle, v. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Slide 10: http://topendsports.com/sport/archery/images/target-practice.gif

Slide 12:Aristotle, (1962). Nicomachean ethics. M. Ostwald, (Trans.), Nicomachean ethics. New York, NY: MacMillan Publishing, Co.