For many years the writings of Aristotle have been translated and dissected by intellectuals from around the globe. Our textbook that we use in class also includes his ethical views because of how well known he is even though he lived around the time of 300 BC. Aristotle is among most notable and recognizable philosophers that are still being talked about to this day. For this epistolary essay, I want to discuss the views Aristotle had on habit, the mean, and the noble as told from the point of view of Joe Sachs, the writer of this particular entry, who inserts his opinion from time to time. Sachs first talks about Aristotle’s views on habit and how through habit people can become morally virtuous. There is one clear problem that Sachs …show more content…
For example, Sachs brings up the idea of sheep dogs and how they have to be the perfect distance away from the sheep, not too close and not too far, so that the sheep follow the dogs’ lead but don’t get scared and scatter. Pursuing the mean between two extremes allows sheep dogs to herd their flock easily; much like pursuing the mean in your life would allow you to live easily. In this pursuit of the mean, you become more virtuous because “moral virtue is always in its own nature a mean condition” (Sachs). However, Sachs says there is a difference in everyone in finding their own personal means, there is no set standard for everyone in the world to look to for guidance. People have different struggles and therefore different means. In addition, if there is a constant struggle between too little or too much indulgence then the anxiety caused by that struggle restricts them from becoming morally virtuous. “Virtue is a mean, first because it can only emerge out of the stand-off between opposite habits, but second because it chooses to take its stand not in either of those habits but between them” (Sachs). Finally defining why virtue is a mean Sachs tells us, there is still the need for a person to be in total control over their body in both the habit and mean for them to be considered truly virtuous. Having control clears our minds to see what’s ahead of us and choose proper actions to take. But why should people want to habitually pursue the
In Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics, the basic idea of virtue ethics is established. The most important points are that every action and decision that humans make is aimed at achieving the good or as Aristotle 's writes, “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at the good... (Aristotle 1094a). Aristotle further explains that this good aimed for is happiness.
Concluding his third book, Aristotle deems that self-indulgence is the more voluntarily chosen vice than cowardice, since intemperance seeks pleasure, while the latter avoids pain; which can derange a person’s choice. He compares intemperance to childish actions; exactly how the child requires instruction, the desiring soul must be fed by rational mind. Man’s desire without the presence of the rational mind can dangerously become unquenchable.
Aristotle’s psychological types, as described in “Nichomachean Ethics,” are a categorization of different internal moral characters. These categories are a comprehensive attempt - for ancient philosophy - at identifying which internal psychologies manifest virtuous or morally bad behaviour. His moral categories are somewhat obsolete in a post-modern world, where science and politics are far more developed than in Ancient Greece. However, moral psychological ethics and normative debate still holds a relevant position in the moral undercurrent of society – it is dispersed through legal, political, military and medical activity, in relationships and familial function. It is for this reason, that Immanuel Kant examined a similar issue in “Pure Practical Reason and the Moral Law,” and that it still makes for interesting philosophical discussion.
Grant, S., (2007). A defence of Aristotle on the good life. Richmond Journal of Philosophy (16) p. 1-8.
vanity, pride, and self - knowledge intervenes in the development of the virtue of the characters,
I chose to write about Aristotle and his beliefs about how the virtuous human being needs friends from Book VIII from Nicomachean Ethics. In this essay I will talk about the three different kinds of friendship that (Utility, Pleasure, and Goodness) that Aristotle claims exist. I will also discuss later in my paper why Aristotle believes that Goodness is the best type of friendship over Utility or Pleasure. In addition to that I will also talk about the similarities and differences that these three friendships share between one another. And lastly I will argue why I personally agree with Aristotle and his feelings on how friendship and virtue go hand in hand and depend on each other.
Contrary to Aristotle’s view that supreme happiness is related to earthly living, Augustine argues that supreme happiness is not truly found until one seeks eternal life with God. While both mostly agree on the definitions of the virtues, differences arise when one looks at their views on the ends that those virtues should be directed towards. In this essay, I will discuss both Aristotle and Augustine’s ideas of virtues and what each thinks humans should do in order to truly find and achieve the supreme good of happiness.
Aristotle, W. D. Ross, and Lesley Brown. The Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
Gakuran, Michael. "Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy | Gakuranman • Adventure First." Gakuranman Adventure First RSS. N.p., 21 May 2008. Web.
Lemos, J. (2007) ‘Foot and Aristotle on Virtues and Flourishing’ Philosophia, Volume 35, Issue 1, 43-62.
Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. David Ross, trans. J. L. Ackrill and J. O. Urmson, revisions. Oxford World’s Classics paperback, 1998.
Aristotle’s thoughts on ethics conclude that all humans must have a purpose in life in order to be happy. I believe that some of the basics of his ideas still hold true today. This essay points out some of those ideas.
...rts of the soul in order to find the function of human beings which is activity in accordance with reason. It is first in this function that men ought to be virtuous. It is thanks to the same distinction that Aristotle gives the different types of virtues. However while Aristotle dedicates most of his piece to the practical, active aspects of virtue it is necessary to keep in mind the virtues of the life of study which is reintroduced in the chapters 7 and 8 of book X. Thus what appears as a contradiction in these chapters is in fact a reminder and a justification of the honourable and divine aspect of the life of study which is necessary to reach complete happiness.
The distinct function of humans according to Aristotle is reasoning, and a worthy life is characterized by good reasoning. The agent based theory places emphasis on the fact that virtues are determined by common institutions people use to label traits in other people as admirable. According to Aristotle’s virtue ethics, a virtue like honesty does not necessarily refer to the tendency of people acting honestly, or the classification of the virtue as a desirable trait. Instead, Aristotle purports that the virtue of honesty is predisposed and entrenched in an individual (Bejczy 34). In virtue ethics, therefore, an individual cannot be labeled as honest since he is not cheating, or by observing the honesty in one’s dealings. In addi...
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.