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Virtue ethics of aristotle vs. kant
The Ethics of Plato
The leviathan thomas hobbes ch 13
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A Hobbesian and Heroic Unreflective Citizenship
In Meno, Plato asks “what virtue itself is” (Plato 60). This dialogue on virtue between Socrates and Meno ably frames a wider dialogue on ethics between Thomas Hobbes, the Greek heroic tradition, and the sophists of 5th century Athens. Hobbes’ Leviathan and Aristophanes’ The Clouds introduce three classes of ethical actors to respond to Plato’s inquiry: Hobbes’ ethical lemmings, the heroic ethical traditionalists, and the sophist ethical opportunists. The Meno also helps capture the essence of contemporary discussion of the morality of desire and emotivism, as articulated by Roberto Mangabeira Unger in Knowledge and Politics and Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue. Finally, I will examine—and then problematize— the Hobbesian and heroic responses to ethical subjectivism.
SOCRATES: Meno, by the gods, what do you yourself say that virtue is?
MENO: …There is virtue for every action and every age, for every task of ours and every one of us.
(Meno 60-61)
Meno helps Plato articulate the implications of subjectivism and the arbitrary designation of value. Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s discussion of the “morality of desire” (Unger 49) and Alasdair MacIntyre’s description of emotivism formalize the ethical importance of Meno’s inability to disaggregate the self from a definition of virtue. According to Unger, “[t]he morality of desire defines the good as the satisfaction of desire, the reaching of the goals to which our appetites and aversions incline us. The task of ethics on this view is to teach us how to organize life so that we shall approach contentment” (49). In a similar vein, MacIntyre describes emotivism in After Virtue: “Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgme...
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...valuation, but can ensure the engagement of informed citizens and offer the choice and contrast between competing paradigms. Plato’s wisdom does not reside in his provision of definitions, but his understanding of the intrinsic good of an autonomous process of thinking, searching, and questioning—all of which absolute standards ignore.
Works Cited
Aristophanes. The Clouds. Trans. and foreword by William Arrowsmith.
Forrest, W.G. The Emergence of Greek Democracy.
Guthrie, W.C. A History of Greek Philosophy.
Hobbes. Leviathan. Trans. Herbert W. Schneider.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. 2nd Ed. University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, Indiana, 1984.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. A Short History of Ethics.
Plato. Five Dialogues : Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Trans G. M. A. Grube.
Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. Knowledge and Politics.
To highlight such differences between Aristotle and Hobbes we must first discuss the definition of virtue laid out by each. According to Aristotle virtue is a “mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency”. From what we already know about Aristotle’s ...
Socratic questioning challenges authority and assumptions of the individuals who claim that they completely understand topics such as justice, truth, and piety. Plato demonstrates in Euthyphro that in order to acquire truth, one must search for a deeper understanding of topics through questioning. When one questions ideas however, one must use rational thinking in order to get clearer explanations. Plato shows his readers that rational thought and standards must be applied when seeking truth when Socrates criticizes Euthyphro’s explanation of justice on the grounds that they fail to abide to the norms of rationality.
Kraut, R 2014, ‘Aristotle's Ethics’, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Summer Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), .
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Contrastingly, Plato's "Republic" gives little or no consideration to the individuals interests. Plato believes that the republic trumps all, and basic human interests such as the desire to improve one's station in life is disregarded as unnatural or even the desire not to be lied to are not even worthy of consideration.
For Aristotle happiness is the criteria through which the natural goal or telos of a man is assessed (Roberts and Sutch, 2004: 51). Although the Greek word commonly translated as “happiness” is eudaimonia, it is a far more intricate concept than physical pleasure. Barnes describes Aristotle’s highest human good, eudaimonia, as ‘the activity of the soul in accordance with excellence’ (Barnes, 1982: 78). However, it begs the question as to how one becomes virtuous or excellent. In this way, there are disagreements as to what constitutes eudaimonia and the role of the political participation in order to attain it (Duvall and Dotson, 1998: 23). By establishing happiness as an inadequate translation for eudaimonia, this essay seeks to establish that happiness or eudaimonia does not entirely depend ‘upon citizenship or full membership of political society’ (Roberts and Sutch, 2004: 53).
" American Literature 58.2 (May 1986): 181-202. Wright, Richard. A.
To achieve this topic, I have sectioned my paper into three main sections, in which I have subsections supporting. In the first section, I will provide much information about Aristotle and his beliefs in virtue and obtaining happiness. Using information from his book of ethics I will provide examples and quote on quote statements to support his views. In the second section, I will provide my agreements as to why I relate and very fond of Aristotle’s book of Nicomachean Ethics. In the third section, I will provide research as to why there are such objections to Aristotle’s book of ethics, and counter act as to why I disagree with them. Lastly I will conclude much of my and as well as Aristotle’s views on ethics and why I so strongly agree with this route of ethics for humans.
On the similarities and dissimilarities of the theories of human nature by Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Hobbes, there is a single common denominator that resonates throughout all of their works: in some way, shape, or form, they all attempt to outline and convey to the reader a sense of political understanding derived via a methodical approach to the interpretation of human society. Thomas Hobbes, author of The Leviathan, argues that mankind cannot be readily trusted to uphold the terms of certain covenants, and from this one can derive that Hobbes believes men to be fickle and capricious in their decisions, and that they should generally not be trusted. Hobbes also asserts that there exists a natural law that dictates that man will adhere to the policy of self-preservation above all else. These two arguments form the basis for what Hobbes refers to as the state of nature, in which the “will to contend by battle is sufficiently known” (Hobbes Ch. 13). The renowned Greek philosopher and author of Politics, Aristotle, contradicts Hobbes’s theory of human nature with his assumptions of man and the the polis. Aristotle’s belief that “man is a political animal”
Out of the confrontation with Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus, Socrates emerges as a reflective individual searching for the rational foundation of morality and human excellence. The views presented by the three men are invalid and limited as they present a biased understanding of justice and require a re-examination of the terminology. The nature in which the faulty arguments are presented, leave the reader longing to search for the rational foundations of morality and human virtue.
One of Aristotle’s conclusions in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics is that “human good turns out to be the soul’s activity that expresses virtue”(EN 1.7.1098a17). This conclusion can be explicated with Aristotle’s definitions and reasonings concerning good, activity of soul, and excellence through virtue; all with respect to happiness.
Hursthouse, R. (2003, July 18). Virtue Ethics. Stanford University. Retrieved March 6, 2014, from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/ethics-virtue
17, No. 3, p. 252-259. Urmson, J.O., (1988). Aristotle’s Ethics (Blackwell), ch.1. Wilkes, K.V., (1978). The Good Man and the Good for Man in Aristotle’s Ethics. Mind 87; repr.
I argue that Plato's psychological theories are motivated by concerns he had about moral theory. In particular, Plato rejects the modern account of rationality as the maximization of subjectively evaluated self-interest because, had he adopted such an account, his theory of justice would be subject to criticisms which he holds are fatal to the contractarian theory of justice. While formulating a theory to remain within ethical constraints sometimes violates the canons of scientific theorizing, Plato avoids this mistake.
The two concepts of Morality and Immorality can be discussed in many different ways, although Glaucon, brother to Plato and Adeimantus, and apprentice to Socrates takes a unique approach to showing the implications of both notions. Glaucon does this through his three-step argument that challenges Socrates by evaluating the benefits of being an immoral person versus one holding onto their morality. Glaucon’s argument dives into three separate segments, which in result leads to Glaucon’s conclusion that immorality is more beneficial than morality.