Aristotle

Aristotle’s ethics are a form of ______

Virtue Theory

Virtue Theory

focuses on character or the type of person we are and how it reflects how we live our lives

The best end

eudaimonia

eudaimonia

life worth living/living well

Common Flawed favored lives

1) Life of pleasure: Too animalistic

2) Life of honor: Too reliant on other people

3)Life of wealth: money is a means to an end, not the end

Function of Humans

reason

Two kinds of virtue

1. Virtue of thought

2. Virtue of Character

Virtue of thought

Reasoning well; acquired through study; know what to do, do it

Virtue of Character

Navigating appetite through reason; acquired through habit; may know the correct thing to do but fail

Soul

form

Tri-part Soul

1. Reason

2. Biological instinct/appetite

3. Neutrative/vegitative

Virtue is a

Non arithmetic Mean

Virtue: Bravery

appetite=fear

Vice: excess=cowardice deficiency=rash

Virtue: Temperance

appetite: bodily pleasure

Vice: excess=intemperance, deficiency=insensitivity

Involuntary actions

1. external force

2. Done in ignorance

   1. person could not reasonably know

   2. state of ignorance not self caused

   3. wouldn’t have done if they had known

Aristotle fails to account for_____ in regards to involuntary actions

internal force like mental illness

Virtue: Calmness

Appetite=anger

Vice: excess=irascibility defficiency=inirascibility

Virtue: Justice

appetite=fairness

Vice=injustice

General Justice

Complete lawfullness in a just society

(all laws are correct and everyone follows the law)

Special Justice

Sense of fairness: connects to the idea that community should be structured so that everyone gets their fair share. (EQUITY AND FAIRNESS)

1. Dsitributive Justice

2. Rectifactory Justice

Distributive Justice

The allocation of various goods people get access to in society

(rights, privledges, socioeconomic stsuts, opportunities)

Each society allocates differently

Forward looking

The three different forms of government and how each, according to Aristotle, views

distributive justice

Democracy: open to all

Oligarchy: small group of wealthy

Aristocracy: small group based on virtuous

Rectifactory Justice

Provide restitution to whose who have been wronged by having the wrong doer pay back equivalent amount.

strict equivalence and proportional equivalence