Vice and Virtue: Aristotle, Confucius, Aquinas, McIntyre

Theological Virtues

Faith, hope, and charity

Cardinal Virtues

prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude

Cardinal Vices

Hubris, greed, gluttony (lust), recklessnessThe

Theological Vices

Impiety, dispair, envy

Islam Virtues

Righteousness, generosity, gratitude, contentment, humility

Virtue- Aquinas

perfection of a power

In Confucian thought, one of the virtues to be cultivated, a love and respect for one's parents and ancestors.

Filial Piety

Wu Wei

Effortless action

"To study and at due times practice what one has studied, is this not a pleasure?"

Confucius

"To study and at due times practice what one has studied, is this not a pleasure? When friends come from distant places, is this not joy? To remain unsoured when his talents are unrecognized, is this not a junzi?"

Confucius

"Virtue is never alone it always has neighbors"

Confucius

Comprehensive, harmonious virtue.

Ren

"Noble person"; the refined human ideal of Confucianism

Junzi

The Way

Dao

"Devote care to life's end and pursue respect for the distant dead; in this way, the virtue of the people will return to fullness. "

Confucius

"A person who can bring new warmth to the old while under-standing the new is worthy to take as a teacher."

Confucius

"Yet there is always archery, is there not? They mount the dais bowing and yielding, they descend and toast one another. They compete at being junzis!"

Confucius

"People make errors according to the type of person they are. By observing their errors, you can understand ren."

Confucius

"To settle in ren is the fairest course. If one chooses not to dwell amidst ren, whence will come knowledge?"

Confucius

The Master said, Virtue is never alone; it always has neighbors.

Confucius

a certain kind of activity of the soul in accordance with virtue and of the other goods, some are necessary conditions of happiness, and others are naturally helpful and serve as useful means to it.

Aristotle

Happiness (Aristotle)- Eudaimonia

activity of the soul in accordance with reason.

Theory of Causality

Material, Formal, Efficient, Final

1. Be pursued for its own sake
2. We wish for other things for its sake
3. We don't wish for it on account of other things.
4. Chosen for itself
5. Self-sufficient

Final Goods: Aristotle

will not, then, be variable or easily subject to reversals of fortune, since he will not be easily shaken from his happiness by just any misfortunes that chance to come along but only by great and repeated ones.*

Aristotle

Virtue, then, is a state that decides, consisting in a mean, the mean relative to us, which is defined by reference to reason, that is to say, to the reason by reference to which the prudent person would define it. It is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency.

Aristotle- Golden Mean

virtue of thought and virtue of character. Virtue of thought arises and grows mostly from teaching; that is why it needs experience and time. ... And so the virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against nature. Rather, we are by nature able to acquire them, and we are completed through habit.*

Aristotle

Virtues, by contrast, we acquire, just as we acquire crafts, by having first activated them. Correct habituation distinguishes a good political system from a bad one. 19

Aristotle

For abstaining from pleasures makes us become temperate, and once we have become temperate we are most capable of abstaining from pleasures. It is similar with bravery; habituation in disdain for frightening situations and in standing firm against them makes us become brave and once we have become brave we shall be most capable of standing firm.

Aristotle

Such a course of treatment will not improve the state of the sick person's body; nor will the many improve the state of their souls by this attitude to philosophy.

Aristotle

I mean what is equidistant from each extremity; this is one and the same for all. But relative to us the intermediate is what is neither superfluous nor deficient; this is not one, and is not the same for all*

Aristotle

But there is only one way to be correct. That is why error is easy and correctness is difficult, since it is easy to miss the target and difficult to hit it. And so for this reason also excess and deficiency are proper to vice, the mean to virtue; 'for we are noble in only one way, but bad in all sorts of ways.*

Aristotle

Charity is not of course, from the biblical point of view, just one more virtue to be added to the list. Its inclusion alters the conception of the good for man in a radical way; for the community in which the good is achieved has to be one of reconciliation. It is thus a community with a history of a particular kind.

McIntyre

The notion of a final redemption of an almost entirely unregenerate life has no place in Aristotle's scheme; the story of the thief on the cross is unintelligible in Aristotelian terms. And it is unintelligible precisely because charity is not a virtue for Aristotle.

McIntyre

Unmoved Mover (Aristotle)

For the world to move there must have been a "First Mover" who started everything.

the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. The Stoic lives in accord with nature & virtue. Proof of this is his self-sufficiency

Stoicism

This interiorization of the moral life with its stress on will and law looks back not only to certain New Testament texts, but also to Stoicism.

McIntyre

"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Jesus-Stoicism-McIntyre

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

1 Corinthians 1:19

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

1 Corinthians 1:21

But it is always as part of an ordered community that I have to seek the human good, and in this sense of community the solitary anchorite or the shepherd on the remote mountainside is as much a member of a community as is a dweller in cities...The individual carries his communal roles with him as part of the definition of his self, even into his isolation.

McIntyre

The virtue exhibited in forgiveness is charity. There is no word in the Greek of Aristotle age correctly translated 'sin', 'repentance' or 'charity'.

McIntyre

Sin and Vices

defects of virtue

Where is the true arena of morality?

will

You are never alone, you have a community of believers.

McIntyre and Confucius

Charity is not a virtue for?

Aristotle