Aristotle

Aristotle's Virtue Ethics

Page 2: Aristotle’s Ideas about Existence

  • Telos: "End Goal," purpose for being

    • Examples: bird's telos is to fly, grass' telos is to grow and oxygenate

  • For Humans: eudaimonia

    • Eudaimonia: Happiness, wellbeing

    • Not pleasure

    • Flourishing, contentedness in being

Page 3: Happiness and Objectivity

  • Idea of eudaimonia is that all humans have eudaimonia as our telos

  • What eudaimonia looks like might differ from person to person

  • Examples:

    • For cellist: playing the perfect performance after hours of practice

    • For builder: having a job come together as planned

    • For all: about the process as much as the outcome

Page 5: Character

  • Central to Aristotle’s understanding of who humans are

  • A fairly stable set of attitudes and dispositions, patterns or ways of acting

  • We can characterize a person by the patterns of their behavior

Page 6: Parts of a Human

  • Rational: Reason, intellect, what a person knows to be right/wrong

  • Non-Rational:

    • Vegetative: uncontrollable reactions/responses (e.g., breathing)

    • Appetitive: what we desire, what we want to do

Page 10: Character Types

  • Virtuous: Intellect + Appetites aligned, does the right thing

  • Continent/Enduring: Intellect + Appetites not aligned, does right thing after struggle

  • Incontinent/Soft: Intellect + Appetites not aligned, does wrong thing after struggle

  • Vicious: Intellect + Appetites aligned to wrong thing, intellect either doesn’t know what’s right or doesn’t care

Page 11: A note about Character Types

  • Aristotle mostly believed that character types were fluid

  • A continent person could become virtuous by continuing to do the right thing or become incontinent/vicious by allowing appetites to rule

  • Exception: Some people are so vicious they could not change their character

Page 13: Golden Mean of Moderation

  • For almost every desire & action, the virtuous person tries to find the middle or moderate ground

  • Excess: The vice of having or doing too much of something

  • Deficiency: The vice of having too little of something

Page 14: Golden Mean continued

  • The Golden Mean of Moderation applies to most actions, but not all

  • There are some actions that we would never want to be moderate in doing

  • Examples: Murder, Rape, Bigotry

Page 17: LIFE - How to 1/2 Be Virtuous HACKS

Page 18: 1. Look to Virtuous People

  • Find people of virtue

  • Find out what they do, what they avoid

  • Model actions and habits on them

Page 19: 2. Avoid Extremes Opposed to the Mean

  • Seek the middle road in indulgences

  • Try to be measured, especially when indulging in pleasure

  • Be aware of how much is too much or too little

  • Examples?

Page 20: 3. Know yourself JOURNAL

  • What vices (of excess or deficiency) do you see in yourself?

  • What vices have you overcome and feel more virtuous than you did in the past?

  • What groups, activities, or places tend to tempt you to practice vices more than virtue?

Page 21: 4. Always be Wary of Pleasure

  • Pleasures are usually a signal for vices

  • Be suspicious of those things that bring fleeting enjoyment

  • Can do them, but realize when too much

Page 22: 5. The Bent Stick Remedy

  • Identify what’s wrong

  • Do the opposite

  • Brings you to a better middle ground

  • Why does Aristotle think this is a good idea?

  • Examples?

Page 23: Similarities between Aristotle and Christian Ethics

  • Humans are what their actions make them

  • Humans have a Telos

  • People can change to become virtuous or vicious

Page 24: Differences between Aristotle & Christian Ethics

  • Catholic/Christian Ethics: Telos = Eternal Life with God, Universal Love of Neighbor, Humility is a virtue, Christ and the Church can be a guide for ethics/virtuous living

  • Aristotle: Telos = Happiness, Nope to the other points

Page 28: Aristotle's Four Cardinal iCE Virtues

Page 29: Cardinal Virtues

  • Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude

Page 30: Opposing Vices

  • Examples of opposing vices for each cardinal virtue

Page 31: Prudence

  • Seen as different than other 3 virtues

  • Its purpose is to determine the circumstances which should be observed for each virtue

  • Seen as the “Mother” of the other virtues

Page 32: Aristotle’s Theory of Coherence

  • To have any single strength of character in full measure, a person must have the other ones as well

Page 33: Example: Fortitude and the Virtues

  • Courage without good judgment is blind

  • Courage without perseverance is short-lived

  • Courage without a clear sense of your own