Aristotle on Ethics
...ood and if the good is properly understood what is good for the person and what is ethically good will not conflict with one another. So then what is good? Good is defined as that which all human action is aimed. Thus he is concerned with the end results, theological. He says happiness is the activity of the soul in accordance to virtue or excellence. Which makes sense because we all want to be happy! But what is virtue or excellence you may ask? Aristotle says in order to find out what mans virtue is we must look at our nature to discover the proper function of a human and only by examining the nature of man we discover its excellence; which is living rationally. We live rationally by using our intelligence to plans ahead, think about which actions to perform, to control our feelings, to contemplate about things, and to understand reality. The ability to rationalize is thus unique to man. Aristotle ethical viewpoints are based on virtue or excellence. There are two types of virtues, moral virtues and intellectual virtues. The first type of virtue, moral virtue, is the part of the soul that listens to reason is concerned with actions and emotions and a result of habit or custom. According to Aristotle moral virtues consist of courage, temperance, gentleness, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, righteous indignation, justice and greatness of the soul. For one to become virtuous they must consistently perform virtuous acts in moderation and not in excess (over doing) or deficiency (under doing). All the moral virtues listed above are considered moderate and each have an excess and deficiency concerning an attitude. For instance, attitudes toward truth: the excess is boastfulness, the deficiency is self-deception and the moderation or mean is truthfulness. According to Aristotle perfection is moderation, do you agree? The second type of virtue, intellectual virtue, is the part of the soul that reasons and understands. Intellectual virtue is developed by instruction and training requiring time and experience. Intellectual virtue is said to be the highest virtue and possesses it’s own excellence. Its function is to obtain the truth. Truth consists of sense, reason and desire. Affirmation and negation are modes of reasoning and pursuit and avoidance are modes of desire and have to do with action. If man pursues and contemplates the truth of what is necessary and what’s the right thing to do in the circumstance he is said to be acting in the best faculty of man, the intellect. According to Aristotle we can live a virtuous life by following the doctrine of the mean. What is this you may ask! I’ve touched on the subject briefly when explaining moral virtues but I’ll fill you in even more. As stated earlier, a person becomes virtuous by consistently repeating and habitually performing virtuous acts hitting the mean between the two extremes avoiding excess and deficiency and virtues are also related to pleasure and pain. Take for example liberality, which is moderation of money. There are two ways of using money, spending and giving and two ways of acquiring money, taking and keeping. “The liberal man will spend the proper amount on the proper objects, alike in small things and in great, and that pleasure and will take the proper amount from the proper sources. (Aristotle, page 73)” Thus the liberal man exhibits moderation in giving and taking hitting the mean! The doctoring of the mean also takes into account pleasure and pain, as all virtues moral and intellectual have to do with pleasure and pain. “If a liberal man happen to spend anything in a manner contrary to what is right and noble, he will be pained, but in moderately and in due measure; for it is a characteristic of virtue to be pleased and pained on the right occasions and at the occasions and in due measure. (Aristotle, pg 73)” Habitually hitting the mean is hard and takes time to develop if one ever does! Aristotle suggests we try and stay between the two extremes by aiming for the mean but when unable to hit the mean it’s better to try and avoid the extremes or at least lean toward the less faulty of the two. The two extremes of liberality are prodigality and illiberality. Prodigality exceeds in giving and falls short of taking while illiberality exceeds in taking and falls short in giving. In this case it would be wise to lean more toward pr...