Transcript What is Virtue Ethics

ETHICAL THEORIES
• Ethics = inquiry into the nature of morality,
codes and principles of moral action.
• Morality = actual practice of living
according to certain rules of conduct or
moral behavior.
• VIRTUE ETHICS (TELEOLOGICAL)
• UTILITARIAN (CONSEQUENTIALIST)
• DEONTOLOGICAL (DUTY-ORIENTED)
ARISTOTLE (384 - 322 B.C.E.)
Aristotle
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
• Ethics : a branch of Politics
• Moral virtues vs. intellectual virtues
• The morally virtuous life consists in living
in moderation : the “Golden Mean”
• arête = excellence, virtue
• phronesis = practical, moral wisdom
• eudaimonia = human flourishing,
happiness, well-being, supreme telos
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
BOOK I – CHAPTER 1
• TELOS = END, PURPOSE, GOAL,
FINALITY
• Every art and every inquiry, and similarly
every action and pursuit, is thought to aim
at some good.
• Now, as there are many actions, arts, and
sciences, their ends also are many.
CHAP. 2: ETHICS - POLITICS
If, then, there is some end of the things we
do, which we desire for its own sake
(everything else being desired for the sake
of this), and if we do not choose
everything for the sake of something else
(for at that rate the process would go on to
infinity, so that our desire would be empty
and vain), clearly this must be the good
and the chief good.
Ethics - Politics
• The Good is that at which all things aim
• The end of the science of medicine is
health, that of the art of shipbuilding a
vessel, that of strategy victory, that of
domestic economy wealth
• The ultimate End must be the Good not
subordinate to any other end, indeed the
Highest Good / the Supreme Good
Ethics - Politics
• Flute-playing as an instance of an art the
practice of which is an end in itself, in
contrast with the art of building, the end of
which is the house built
• We observe that even the most highly
esteemed of the faculties, such as
strategy, domestic economy, oratory, are
subordinate to the political science.
Political Science
• Inasmuch then as the rest of the sciences
are employed by this one, and as it
moreover lays down laws as to what
people shall do and what things they shall
refrain from doing, the end of this science
must include the ends of all the others.
Therefore, the Good of human beings
must be the end of the science of Politics.
• Moral Nobility (Beautiful/Good) and Justice
CHAP. 4: EUDAIMONIA
HUMAN FLOURISHING; WELL-BEING;
HAPPINESS; THE HIGHEST GOOD FOR
HUMAN LIFE
• All knowledge and every pursuit aims at
some good, what it is that we say political
science aims at and what is the highest of
all goods achievable by action.
• End of politics: honor > virtue > excellence
Raffaello’s The School of Athens
Aristotle’s Critique of Plato
• The Idea of a Universal Good (Plato)
• Theory of Forms / Ideas (eidos), Being of
beings / e.g. redness : red things :: justice
: just things (just society, just laws, fair
trade, fair actions, just prices)
• Plato's (cardinal) virtues: justice, courage,
temperance, practical wisdom / psychê
• 4 causes: material, formal, efficient, final
Ethics - Human Nature
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Chicken-egg question: which one came first ?
zoon logon /animal rationale ↔ zoon politikon
Rationality ↔ Sociability
Universal Goodness / empirical, particular
instances of good (people, constitutions, etc)
• In order to achieve eudaimonia, proper
social, political institutions are necessary.
• Moral virtues – Ethos – Perfectionism
• Book I, Ch. 5: theoria / praxis / poiesis ::
contemplation / politics / pleasure
CHAP. 7 – FUNCTION OF
HUMAN NATURE
• If we declare that the function of man is a certain form of
life, and define that form of life as the exercise of the
soul's faculties and activities in association with rational
principle, and say that the function of a good man is to
perform these activities well and rightly, and if a function
is well performed when it is performed in accordance
with its own proper excellence--from these premises it
follows, that the Good of man is the active exercise of his
soul’s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or
if there be several human excellences or virtues, in
conformity with the best and most perfect among them.
Book I, Ch. 8: 3 kinds of goods
• external, of the soul, of the body
• The end (telos) turns out to be a good of
the soul
• Happiness is living well (eu zen) and
acting well, it is the best, noblest, and
pleasantest thing
• Ch. 9: Happiness comes from learning and
training, is said to be divine (blessed).
Book I, Ch. 10
• The most enduring thing in life is
happiness, its realization of excellent
activities. Energeia / Dynamis
• Happy are those who are and will continue
to be in the future good and wise and
active in accordance with these qualities,
not for just a period of time, but over a
complete life.
Book I, Ch. 11-12
• The fortunes of one's descendants and
friends after one is dead can affect one to
an extent, but never enough and in the
right way to destroy one's happiness.
• Ch. 12: Virtue is praised, while happiness
is prized/honored, for that which is praised
is for the sake of what is prized, and virtue
(good potentiality) is for the sake of
virtuous activity (good actuality).
Book I, Ch. 13
• Happiness is a kind of activity of the soul
in accordance with complete virtue.
• We must thus consider the irrational and
rational elements of the soul (psychê).
• The tripartite conception of the soul:
nutritive (vegetative, that which causes
nutrition and growth, irrational); appetitive
(attentive to reasoning); intellectual
(rational in itself).
BOOK II - CHAP. 1 : VIRTUE
• Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual
and moral, intellectual virtue in the main
owes both its birth and its growth to
teaching (for which reason it requires
experience and time), while moral virtue
comes about as a result of habit, whence
also its name (ethike) is one that is formed
by a slight variation from the word ethos
(habit).
Virtuous Life = The Good Life
• Although the intellectual virtues can be
taught directly, the moral ones must be
lived to be learned. By living well, we
acquire the right habits. These habits are
in fact the virtues. The virtues are to be
sought as the best guarantee to the happy
life. Happiness requires that one be lucky
enough to live in a flourishing state.
CHAP. 6 : VIRTUE as MEAN
Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with
choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this
being determined by a rational principle, and by that
principle by which the man of practical wisdom would
determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that
which depends on excess and that which depends on
defect; and again it is a mean because the vices
respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both
passions and actions, while virtue both finds and
chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of
its substance and the definition which states its essence
virtue is a mean...
CHAP. 9 : it’s tough to be good
• That moral virtue is a mean, then, and in
what sense it is so, and that it is a mean
between two vices, the one involving
excess, the other deficiency, and that it is
such because its character is to aim at
what is intermediate in passions and in
actions, has been sufficiently stated.
Hence also it is no easy task to be good.
Quick Quiz !
• According to Aristotle…
1. We always desire happiness
a. as a means to something else.
b. for its own sake.
c. for the sake of honor.
d. for the sake of pleasure.
2. The function of man is
a. to be alive.
b. activity of the senses.
c. activity of the soul in accordance with
God’s law.
d. activity of the soul in accordance with
reason.
3. Moral virtues can best be acquired
through
a. study.
b. practice and habit.
c. physical exertion.
d. great teachers.
4. Virtues are
a. moral states.
b. emotions.
c. faculties.
d. physical conditions.
True / False
5. Aristotle thinks that the highest good is an
instrumental good (good for the sake of
something else).
6. Aristotle says that virtue is a mean lying
between two vices.
7. Aristotle believes that simply studying
philosophy will make one virtuous.
8. Aristotle thinks that it is easy to be good
because it is easy to find the mean in anything.
Answers:
1. b
5. False
2. d
6. True
3. b
7. False
4. a
8. False