As a musician learns to play an instrument, we learn virtue by practicing, not by thinking about it. Because practical circumstances vary a great deal, there are no absolute rules of conduct to follow. Instead, we can only observe that right conduct consists of some sort of mean between the extremes of deficiency and excess. For instance, courage consists in finding a mean between the extremes of cowardice and rashness, though the appropriate amount of courage varies from one situation to another.
An appropriate attitude toward pleasure and pain is one of the most important habits to develop for moral virtue. While a glutton might feel inappropriate pleasure when presented with food and inappropriate pain when deprived of food, a temperate person will gain pleasure from abstaining from such indulgence.
I might also say that the driver violated my rights—specifically, my right not to be physically attacked. Maclntyre believes that today we have only fragments of conflicting moral traditions:. We continue to use many of the key expressions [of morality]. But we have— very largely, if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality. Contrary to Maclntyre, though, it is not reasonable to simply dismiss most of our moral vocabulary simply because it does not draw on virtue theory.
More importantly, it is not even possible for us today to abandon these other moral notions in exclusive favor of virtue theory. Notions of moral rights are firmly imbedded into American moral consciousness, particularly the natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as endorsed by the Declaration of Independence.
To best understand and theorize about morality, we should begin by acknowledging the wide range of approaches that people actually do take to the subject. Virtue theory is only one of many approaches. Whereas Aristotle stopped at a dozen virtues, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century virtue theorists expanded the list to include as many as distinct virtues.
Today, we should modify the list even more. As social trends shift and we become more receptive to racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, we should adopt virtues of social tolerance and acceptance.
With growing interest in animal rights and environmental issues, we should cultivate virtues that display a sensitivity to these concerns.
Part of the task of moral philosophers is to sift through social trends and update moral theories in this way. Imagine that, as a parent, you want to teach your child that it is wrong to become inappropriately enraged. When your child is older, you do not want him to give in to aggressive driving, beat his wife, or perform any other action that is the consequence of inappropriate anger.
Imagine further that you have two teaching methods available. The first method established meticulous rules for what counts as inappropriate anger in virtually every circumstance. It also included rules describing the kinds of punishments that are justified for each type of violation. According to this first teaching method, your child memorizes all these rules so that, for each situation that arises, your child immediately knows the right thing to do. The second method does not involve memorizing specific rules but instead focuses on instilling good habits.
Using various techniques, such as behavior modification, you teach your child to avoid inappropriate expressions of anger and become habituated toward a more appropriate response. You also give him techniques so he can properly modify his angry behavior on his own, without your constant monitoring. All other factors being equal, which of these two methods would work best in preventing inappropriate anger? The habit-instilling method appears to be the winner.
Virtue theorists capitalize on the benefits of teaching morality through creating virtuous habits. They argue that the most important thing about studying ethics is its impact on conduct. Focusing on habits is the best way to teach morality to the young, and it is through the continual practice of good habits that they become moral saints.
In our actual lives as we raise our children, we will likely adopt a hybrid approach moral instruction that involves both teaching rules and instilling good habits. The fact remains, though, that it is a mistake to completely ignore the benefits of virtue theory in moral instruction.
Society needs all the help it can get in improving its moral climate. To that end, moral philosophers of all traditions should welcome the contributions of virtue theory. Aristotle offered the view that morality consists of developing virtuous habits that regulate the desires of our appetitive nature.
Most virtues are at a mean between two vicious habits and our practical wisdom guides us in developing moral virtues by gradually informing us of our ultimate function and showing us the best means of attaining it. Kant criticized that some virtues—such as cool-headedness— might become vices if they are not guided by higher moral principles. Contemporary discussions of virtue assess the relative merits of virtue-based versus rule-based morality.
Care ethics, which emphasizes the female capacity of nurturing, tells us that there is a moral need to care for people who are in situations of vulnerability and dependency.
Many defenders reject the rule-based approach to ethics and that virtue theory is the best way of understanding the moral capacity to care. We can distinguish between strong virtue theory, which rejects all rules, and weak virtue theory, which involves some rules. Aristotle himself is a weak virtue theorist, and weak virtue theory sidesteps many common criticisms against virtue theory in general.
In any case, virtue theory is only one of many approaches to moral philosophy, although virtue theory is uniquely suited for teaching morality. Introduction: Aristotle holds that virtues occupy a middle ground between vices of excess and deficiency.
Regarding our desire for pleasures such as food and sexual activity, the virtue of temperance lies at a middle ground between over-indulgence the vice of excess and insensibility vice of deficiency. We will now consider temperance, for it seems that courage and temperance are the virtues of the irrational parts of human nature. We have already said that temperance is a mean or middle state regarding pleasures for it is not in the same degree or manner concerned with pains.
Pleasure is also the sphere in which over-indulgence displays itself. Let us therefore now define the character of these pleasures. We will accept the distinction which is commonly made between bodily and mental pleasures such as ambition and the love of learning. For he who is ambitious or fond of learning takes pleasure in the object of which he is fond, although it is not his body which is affected but his mind. But where pleasures of this kind are in question people are not called either temperate or over-indulgent.
It is the same with all such other pleasures as are not bodily. Temperance then will apply to only bodily pleasures, but not even to all of these. For if people take pleasure in gratifications of vision, for example in colors, forms, and painting, they are not called either temperate or over-indulgent. Yet it would seem possible to take a proper pleasure or an excessive or insufficient pleasure in these things as well as in others.
It is the same with gratifications of hearing. Nobody speaks of such people as taking an excessive pleasure in music or acting over-indulgently, or of people who take a proper pleasure as acting temperately. Nor again do we speak of people who enjoy gratifications of the smell as over-indulgent or temperate, except accidentally.
For example, we do not call people over-indulgent if they take pleasure in the smell of apples or roses or incense, but rather if they take pleasure in the smell of sauces and relishes. For an over-indulgent person takes pleasure in these since they remind him of the objects of his desire.
It is true that we may see other people, when they are hungry, taking pleasure in the smell of food. But it is only an over-indulgent person who habitually takes pleasure in these things, as they are the objects of his desire. Again, the lower animals in general are not capable of the pleasures of these senses, except accidentally. Also, a lion does not take pleasure in hearing an ox's lowing, but in devouring the ox, although, as it is the lowing by which he perceived that the ox is near, he appears to take pleasure in the lowing.
Similarly, it is not the sight or discovery of a deer or wild goat that gives him pleasure, but the prospect of a meal. Temperance and over-indulgence, then, concern pleasures of such a kind as the lower animals generally are capable of. Accordingly, these pleasures appear slavish and animalistic. They are the pleasures of touch and taste. It appears that the taste comes little, if at all, into question. For, it is the taste which judges flavors, as when people test wines or season dishes, but it is in no sense this judgment of flavors which gives pleasure, at least to such people as are over-indulgent, but rather the actual enjoyment of them, and the medium of enjoyment is invariably the sense of touch, whether in food, drink or sexual activity.
This was the reason why a certain gluttonous connoisseur prayed that his throat might become longer than a crane's, showing that his pleasure was derived from the sense of touch. Thus, the sensory faculty with which over-indulgence is connected is the most universal of the senses. It would seem too that over-indulgence is justly criticized, since it is a characteristic of our animal nature, and not of our human nature. Thus, it is animalistic to take delight and great satisfaction in such things.
For the most respectable of the pleasures arising from touch have been set aside, such as those which occur during gymnastic training from the rubbing and the warm bath. For, for the contact that is characteristic of the over-indulgent man does not affect the whole body but only particular parts of it. It seems that some desires are universal and others are individual and acquired.
Thus, the desire of food is a natural desire. Everybody who feels also desires food or drink or perhaps both. Also, Homer says, a young man in the prime of life desires the love of a woman. But it is not equally true that everybody desires a particular form of gratification, or the same forms. Hence particular desires are unique to ourselves and individual.
Nevertheless, there is something natural in it; for although different people are pleased by different things, yet there are some things which are more pleasant to all people than others. Now with natural desires, there are only a few people who make a mistake, and their mistake is always on one side, namely, that of excess. For to eat or drink anything to the point of excess is to exceed the natural limit of quantity, since the natural desire does not go beyond the satisfaction of our desire.
Accordingly, such persons are called gluttons because they go beyond what is right in satisfying their desire. It is only excessively slavish people who behave in this way. Regarding such pleasures as are individual, there are many people who go wrong, and they go wrong in many different ways.
For if people are said to be excessively fond of particular things, either as taking pleasure in wrong things or as taking more pleasure than ordinary people or as taking pleasure in a wrong way, the excess of which the over-indulgent are guilty may assume all these forms.
For they take pleasure in some things which are detestable and therefore wrong. If these are things in which it is right to take pleasure, then they take a greater pleasure in them than is right or than most people take. It is clear then that excess regarding pleasures is over-indulgence, and that it properly is a subject of criticism.
But with pains, there is this difference between temperance and courage. A person is not called temperate if he bears pains bravely, and over-indulgent if he does not.
But a person is called over-indulgent because he feels more pain than is right at not obtaining pleasures, his pleasure being the cause of his pain, and the temperate man is so called because he is not pained at the absence of pleasure and at his abstinence from it. The over-indulgent man then desires all pleasures, or the greatest pleasures, and is led by his desire to prefer these to anything else.
He thus feels a double pain, namely, the pain of failing to obtain them and the pain of desiring them, since all desire is attended by pain.
Yet it seems paradoxical to assert that his pleasure is the cause of his pain. We never find people whose love of pleasures is deficient and whose delight in them is less than it ought to be. Such insensibility to pleasures is not human. For even the lower animals distinguish different kinds of food, liking some and disliking others. A being who should not take pleasure in anything, nor make any difference between one thing and another, would be far from being human.
But there is no name for such a being, since he never exists. The temperate man holds a mean position regarding pleasures. He takes no pleasure in the things in which the over-indulgent man takes most pleasure; instead, he dislikes them. Nor does he take pleasure at all in wrong things, nor an excessive pleasure in anything that is pleasant, nor is he pained at the absence of such things, nor does he desire them, except perhaps in moderation, nor does he desire them more than is right, or at the wrong time, and so on.
But he will be eager in a moderate and right spirit for all such things as are pleasant and at the same time conducive to health or to a sound bodily condition, and for all other pleasures, so long as they are not prejudicial to these or inconsistent with proper conduct or extravagant beyond his means. For, unless a person limits himself in this way, he pursues such pleasures more than is proper, whereas the temperate man follows the guidance of right reason.
Over-indulgence seems to be more the character of a voluntary action than with cowardice since over-indulgence is due to pleasure, and the cowardice to pain. Also, pleasure is something that we choose, whereas pain is something that we avoid. Further, while pain distracts and destroys the nature of one who suffers it, pleasure has no such effect, but rather leaves the will free.
Hence over-indulgence deserves more severe criticism than cowardice; for it is easier to train oneself to meet its temptations as they frequently occur in life, nor does the training involve any danger, whereas the contrary is the case with cowardice and facing fearful situations.
It would also seem cowardice as a general moral state is more voluntary than particular acts of cowardice. For general cowardice in itself is painless, but particular acts of cowardice occur because people are so utterly driven out of their minds by pain that they throw away their weapons and disgrace themselves.
This is the reason why such acts have the appearance of being compulsory. On the other hand, with the over-indulgent person the particular acts are voluntary since he eagerly desires them.
However, over-indulgence as a whole is not so voluntary, since nobody desires to be over-indulgent. We apply the term "over-indulgence" to the faults of children as well as to those of grownups, since there is a certain similarity between them. It does not matter to my present purpose which of the two kinds of faults is named after the other; but it is clear that grownup over-indulgence is named after the earlier child over-indulgence. For, that which is prone to disgraceful things, and capable of rapid growth, stands in need of pruning or chastisement.
But such proneness and such growth are principally characteristic of desire and of childhood. For, children, like over-indulgent people, live by desire and not by reason, and the longing for pleasure is stronger in them than anywhere else. If, then, this tendency is not obedient and subject to authority, it will greatly develop.
For, the desire for pleasure which a foolish person has is insatiable and universal, and the active exercise of the desire increases its natural strength, until the desires, if they are strong or passionate, actually expel the reasoning power.
They ought therefore to be moderate and few, and in no way contrary to reason. In the temperate person, then, the appetitive element should live in harmony with the reason, since the object of them both is that which is right. The temperate person desires what is right, and desires it in the right way, and at the right time, that is, according to the law of reason.
We may now bring our discussion of temperance to a close. According to Aristotle, what are the three divisions of the psyche and the theory of the virtuous mean? List the 12 virtues that Aristotle covers. For Aristotle, what are the two contributions of practical wisdom in the development of virtues? Grotius criticized that some virtues are not a mean between extremes.
Aristotle's Virtue Ethics Aristotle in his virtue ethics states that a virtuous individual is someone with ideal traits. After they are cultivated, these character traits supposedly become stable in an individual.
Moral consequentilaists and deontologists are normally concerned with universal doctrines that can be utilized in any situation that requires moral interpretation. This doctrine claimed that having the right amount of a characteristic would be virtuous and most often is in between having too much or too little of The moral virtue as it relates to virtue in general must be an excellent making characteristic. That is, someone who is morally virtuous will be able to perform moral duties well.
For Aristotle the doctrine of the mean is a way to categorize one of his favorite activities moral virtue; however, there are some exceptions, as Aristotle noted, leaving a gap that must be filled. The life of fame and fortune is not the life for Aristotle. Happiness is synonymous for living well. To live well is to live with virtue.
He believes that our soul is the principle of living because it is inside of us. Therefore, for Aristotle the soul was morally which is where we are given the right reason.
Courage is a moral virtue. This paper will demonstrate how Aristotle thought that the life of moral virtue is part of the best human life and how he is incorrect in his account.
I will do so by, first outlining what Aristotle defines as the life of moral virtue, next I will describe what he thinks to be the best human life, then I will prove how Aristotle does think that the life of moral virtue fits with the best human life and I will conclude by establishing why Aristotle's premise is incorrect. Aristotle's theory of moral virtue is that one's main purpose in life is to reach eudaimonia, the state of being happy.
There is something important here. Your reasons for overcoming fear matter. They can be the difference between courage, cowardice and recklessness. In World War I, soldiers who deserted were executed.
Were these soldiers courageous? The fear of death is still what drives them. More courageous, says Aristotle, is the soldier who freely chooses to fight despite having no personal reason to do so besides honour and nobility. In fact, for Aristotle, this is the highest form of courage — it faces the greatest fear death for the most selfless reason the nation.
Of course, Aristotle was an Ancient Greek bloke, so we should take his prioritising of military virtue with a grain of salt. Is death at war really to be so highly prized?
For one thing, in a culture like Ancient Greece or Troy, the failure to be an excellent warrior would be met with enormous dishonour. How many soldiers went to war for fear of dishonour? Is dishonour something to be rightly feared? And if so, whose dishonour should we fear?
Surely not that of a society whose moral compass prioritises victory over justice — risking your life to support a cause like that is reckless. If courage means fearing dishonour from those who are morally corrupt, then a courageous enemy is worse than a cowardly one.
Courage becomes like a superpower — making some people into heroes and others villains.
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