This paper will discuss the ethical question, "if you had the choice of stealing food to give to a starving child, would you?" The question will be discussed from the perspective of three ethical philosophers, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Nietzsche.
Aristotle
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher of the 4th century BCE (Anonymous, n.d.). As explained by Sachs (n.d.), Aristotle believed "moral virtue is the only practical road to effective action." Practicing ethics, for Aristotle, is an active, conscious decision. Each decision should be meditated upon with the object of creating a virtuous life. Aristotle did not believe in strict, pre-determined rules that demand no thought process behind them. It is true he believed virtue ethics to be a habit, but not an instinctual one. Aristotle would say "choose an action knowingly, out of a stable equilibrium of the soul, and for its own sake" (Sachs, n.d.).
Approached with the quandary of stealing to feed a starving child, Aristotle would reflect upon several
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This is because the act of stealing would reflect poorly on his character; it is not a virtuous thing to do. He said "even in cases of urgent necessity, when there is a choice about whom to benefit, one should first decide whether the scale tips toward the necessary or the beautiful thing" (Sachs, n.d.). Feeding the starving child would be a beautiful act, of course, but in the grand scheme of things it would not be a lasting one. The child would be hungry again the next day, and if one choose to steal the first day, one would have to choose to steal every day, thereby marring one's character. I believe Aristotle would find a long-lasting solution to the starving child's situation. He would share his own food, giving happiness to them both, or he would procure help from another for the child, letting them both share in the virtue of assisting the less
Every day we are faced with certain situations that challenge us with how to act in an ethical manner. It can be human nature to feel unsure or conflicted with the correct moral choice. Some can say that one should know how to handle such dilemmas and others may say that there should be a reference of some sort to help guide through such conflicts. Sometimes we know the answers and sometimes we are unsure of how to handle certain situations. Most times we go through life wondering what we should do. As I become further educated on the different theories of ethics, I believe there are answers that are available in guiding one through an ethical dilemma and or judgment. I will discuss Vincent Ruggiero’s three basic criteria, Robert Kegan’s order of consciousness, the three schools of ethics and the correlation between all three.
The book starts to build up the framework for resolving right versus right based off of Aristotle’s view of sleep ethics. Sleep ethics relies on “insights, feelings, and instincts” (Badaracco, 42) to solve moral dilemma and is also known as ethics intuition. Aristotle highly view intuition because it is “more reliable in deliberation than detached intellectual judgments” (Badaracco, 52) and that it “could penetrate to the essence of the issue” (Badaracco, 52). Aristotle’s sleep ethics supplements criteria to denounce me-ism and support development of ethical character. He purposefully made the criteria vague for people “to reflect on who they are and what they hope to become, to feel and act on what they cares the most deeply about, to make commitments and try to live by them” (Badaracco,
Aristotle's assessment of an individual’s actions depends to some extent on whether those actions are voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary (37). Actions that are involuntary when it is executed under pressure and causes distress to the individual exploiting. One feels there are state cases, as when someone is compelled to do something dishonorable under threat, but we should reflect on such events voluntary since the individual is still in restraint of their behaviors. One believes if something is done in the case of ignorance may be called involuntary if the individual later recognizes that ignorance, but it is non-voluntary if the person does not understand or endure pain for such awareness (Aristotle 38-39). However, lack of knowledge
Next, I will show the 4 kinds of persons that Aristotle believes exist, they’re the virtuous, strong-willed, vicious, and weak-willed persons. The first person is the virtuous person, Aristotle believes that a virtuous person is a person that behaves in a highly well-mannered way. A virtuous person knows how to act as a mean within the deficiency (too little) and excess (too much). “Hence virtue is a sort of medial condition because it is able to aim at and hit the mean.” (2.6 1106b27-1106b28) The virtuous person often does things through habit and continuous practice rather than having someone teach them because it can’t be taught. “From this, it is also clear that none of the virtues of character comes about in you naturally, since nothing natural can be habituated to be otherwise.” (2.1 1103a18-1103a19) Virtuous persons don’t let things overcome who they truly are, meaning their attitudes are at an even level when it comes to pleasures and pains. Virtuous persons can’t let things get the best of them, which is why the mean is so important because it gives balance and clear judgement.
In this paper, I will discuss various ethical courses of action during ethical dilemmas. I will be examining how utilitarians and deontologists use different approaches to solve ethical dilemmas, by citing the text “Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues” and views of philosophers such as John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham. Using these, I will develop an argument for why I think the most ethical course of action varies from person to person, and why this is as a result of flaws in both utilitarianism and deontology
Aristotle believes that there are two kinds of virtue, one being intellectual and the other being moral virtue. He states that Intellectual virtue comes from being taught meaning we’re not born with it. Moral virtue on the other hand we develop as we grow and gain an understanding of life. “The stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times” (N.E. II.1) Right there he is talking about how if you are designed to do one thing, it is impossible to do the opposite no matter how hard you force it. He talks about how we gain our virtues by practicing them and using them on a regular basis. That is how we learn
In our society today, we are mostly challenged by two questions: ‘is it right to do this or that? And ‘how should I be living in society?’(Bessant, 2009). Similar questions were greatly discussed in the history by our ancestors in their philosophical discussions. The most ancient and long-lasting literature on moral principles and ethics were described by Greek philosopher Aristotle. He had an excellent command on various subjects ranging from sciences to mathematics and philosophy. He was also a student of a famous philosopher. His most important study on ethics, personal morality and virtues is ‘The Nicomachean Ethics’, which has been greatly influencing works of literature in ethics and heavily read for centuries, is believed to be
To Aristotle, ethics is not an exact science, it’s ruled by broad generalizations that work most of the time and are found with those of experience, the men of practical wisdom (Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b15-1095a10). We don’t need a focused study in the sciences to understand the good, all one needs is a proper understanding of how the external aspects of life: friendship, pleasure, honor, and wealth operate in concert. No aspects of friendship, pleasure, honor, and wealth ought to be practiced too much (excess) or too little (deficient); moral virtue is action performed between two extremes (Nic. Ethics, 1106b5-25). And it is by consultation that one may find the middle ground between excess and deficiency, The Golden Mean (Nic. Ethics, 1097b5-20; Nic. Ethics, 1104a10-25).
Aristotle outlined his theory of Virtue Ethics in his book Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle focused his idea of ethics on agents rather than acts. His main idea is focused on the idea of human character- how can you be a better person? In fact, Aristotle once said: “For we are enquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our enquiry would be of no use.” Aristotle is given the credit for developing the idea of virtue ethics, but many of Plato's cardinal values influenced his ideas. Virtue Ethics is focused on the person's actions, not the consequences of that action. Aristotle believed if you had good moral values, then your actions would be "good" in theory. Rather than defining good actions,
Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" generally focuses on living a virtuous life and having virtuous characteristics. In Book III Chapter II of "Nicomachean Ethics", Aristotle focuses on different types of actions. He divides actions into three categories: voluntary, involuntary and nonvoluntary. Aristotle makes this distinction mainly because his evaluation of someone's actions depends primarily on whether their actions are voluntary, involuntary, or nonvoluntary.
He said was also important to understand the acts performed towards virtue, because it directly related to the character of the resulting morals. Aristotle felt that fear and pain influenced ethics, as people would avoid that which he/she was scared of and/or that would cause pain. He believe friendships to be vital in order to be a good person, and that it required “reciprocal and explicit goodwill”. Aristotle taught that friendships were uncommon, but could be achieved requiring time to build familiarity and trust. He claimed that this perfect virtue must be achieved and maintained for the lifetime.
In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, every point, every major idea, and every argument made, is all connected back to the concept that every action seeks an ultimate good. Aristotle felt that there is an intrinsic good that humans aim for and that there is this "good life" we all mean to have. However, what does it mean to be good? That means something different to everyone; we all inhabit many different roles in our day to day lives, whether we strive to be a good parent, a good sibling, a good student, a good citizen, or a good leader. All emphasize the importance of our own well-being, as well as that of others, and the greater community as a whole. For the purpose of this paper, the focus will
In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics he accounts that humans should make sacrifices and should ultimately aim first and foremost for their own happiness . In the paper I will argue that it is really in a person’s best interest to be virtuous . I will do this by first describing Aristotle’s notion on both eudaimonia and virtue , as well as highlighting the intimate relationship between the two . Secondly I will talk about the human role in society. Thirdly I will describe the intrinsic tie between human actions . Finally I will share the importance of performing activities virtuously .
If a family struggles financially they may not have money for food to be put on the table and the child will be hungry, which has a knock of effect to a child’s learning. A child will struggle to focus and learn if they are hungry as food is needed in order for the brain to function well.
Plato believed that knowledge is the virtue, in and of itself. This means that to know the good is to do the good. For example, knowing the right thing to do will lead to one doing the right thing; this implied that virtue could be taught by teaching someone right from wrong, good from evil. Aristotle stated that knowing the good was not enough, that one had to choose to act in the proper manner and create the habit of doing good. This definition shows that Aristotelian ethics are practical, rather than the theoretical approach by