Aristotle's Ethics Flashcards

Flashcards on Aristotle's Ethics

Moral Exemplar

A person who serves as a model of virtuous behavior, someone we can look up to and emulate in our moral life.

The Golden Mean

Aristotle’s idea that virtue lies between two extremes (vices): excess and deficiency.

Teleology

The study of purpose or design in nature. Aristotle believed everything has a purpose (telos), and achieving that purpose is the key to flourishing.

Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics explores the nature of the good life and how humans can achieve eudaimonia (flourishing or happiness) through virtuous living.

Two Kinds of Activities

Some activities are ends in themselves (e.g., happiness). Others are means to other ends (e.g., wealth for happiness).

Image of the Archer

A metaphor showing that like an archer needs a target, humans need a clear aim or goal in life to achieve happiness.

Master Science

Politics is the master science because it directs all other activities toward the good of the city- state.

Three Lives Pursued

The life of pleasure (bodily gratification), the life of honor (politics), the contemplative life (philosophy – the highest form).

Function of Human

Humans are rational beings, and the good life involves using reason in accordance with virtue.

Eudaimonia

Not just feeling good—it is living well and fulfilling one’s potential through virtue.

Relationship Between External Goods and Happiness

While virtue is central, some external goods (like health, friends, wealth) support happiness. True happiness (supreme) relies on virtue but can be influenced by fortune.

Parts of the Soul

Rational part (guides behavior, develops virtues of thought), non-rational part (follows reason, develops moral virtues), vegetative part (not involved in virtue, handles growth and nutrition).

Virtues and the Soul

Rational part → intellectual virtues (e.g., wisdom). Non-rational part that listens to reason → moral virtues (e.g., courage).

Intellectual Virtues

Acquired through teaching.

Moral Virtues

Acquired through habit and practice.

Goods (Sought)

Pleasurable, beneficial, noble.

Evils (Avoided)

Painful, harmful, base.

Aspects of a Virtuous Agent

Know what they’re doing, choose it for its own sake, do it from a firm and unchanging character.

Virtue (Definition)

A state of character involving choice, lying in a mean relative to us, defined by reason and as a prudent person would define it.

Virtue as a Mean

Lies between two extremes (the Golden Mean).