Jordan Virtues

     When talking about happiness and goodness, there must be an important quality present. According to Aristotle, people need to practice balance and moderation in their every day lives. Achieving this middle ground, or mean, translates into being virtuous in Aristotle’s mind. If virtue is present, so is its opposite vise. For every virtue, there are two vices. One vice is excessive while the other is deficiency. Courage works as a great example because it is virtuous. The excessive vise is recklessness and the

Accepting these premises, it follows that virtue is necessary for happiness. Aristotle notes that studying virtues will likely help in studying happiness and he begins this study by defining a virtue. A virtue is the mean between two extremes of deficiency and excess. For example, the virtue of

Unlike happiness, virtue is not an activity, but a disposition and a state of being. More precisely, it is a disposition to behave in the right manner. In Aristotle’s description, virtues are the “means” and intermediate states between what he considers vicious states (excess and deficiency). In other words, they are the moderation of desiring too much and desiring too little. For example, the state of being courageous is considered a virtuous disposition because it moderates the states of being cowardly (deficit) and rash (excess). Furthermore, Aristotle describes the virtuous person as one whose passions and deliberation are aligned; someone whose possession of goodness allows their acts to be guided by the balance of their “means” and their rationality. This means that to achieve a virtuous state one has to consistently aim for the “mean” of their actions to the point where it’s instinctive. (Nic. Ethics II 6).

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

Therefore, happiness is the highest act of virtue because it is the only end in every action we preform. A person that preforms an action for the sake of being happy requires many steps to eventually reach the stage of happiness. When there are steps involved to reach happiness, then the action is preformed for the sake of something else and not in itself. Such as a person who wants to eat healthier because their end motive is to be happy. Therefore, the action is not preformed for the sake of just to eat healthy but to reach happiness. However, to become virtuous, a person will preform actions that make them virtuous with a firm and unchangeable character. It is a skill that is made through a habit, Aristotle states, “legislators make the citizens good by preforming habits in them”(NE, P.23), such as preforming acts of bravery. But, a brave person needs to find a balance because being too brave will lead to excess

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 argues that virtue, which is a trained faculty of habit, leads to happiness. This follows that the act of choosing a thing that makes a person good results in happiness. Equilibrium and moderation of virtues lead to happiness and contemplation, which involves discovering, and refining virtues assist individuals to be happy. In contrast, Mill provides that moral actions promote the achievement of happiness. Actions are right if they tend to promote happiness and wrong if they produce pain or suffering. Mill notes that the achievement of virtuous living can be considered happiness.

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle define happiness as the ‘highest good’. Aristotle states that everyone agrees that this highest good is happiness, but often disagree about what happiness really is. Many would believe that happiness is gained from material possessions, wealth or high social status, but Aristotle states that this is not the highest good. Aristotle believed that to obtain happiness, we must have virtue. Virtue is defined as a state of being and acting in the correct manner with high moral standards, neither acting in

The philosophy of virtue ethics, which primarily deals with the ways in which a person should live, has puzzled philosophers from the beginning of time. There are many contrasting interpretations regarding how one should live his or her life in the best way possible. It is in my opinion that the Greeks, especially Aristotle, have exhibited the most logical explanation of how to live the "good life". The following paper will attempt to offer a detailed understanding of Aristotle's reasoning relating to his theory of virtue ethics.

Aristotle lists honor, pleasure, and wealth as the things believed to make humans happy. He believed that because honor could be easily taken away it was superficial and that pleasure, although enjoyable, was merely an “animal like quality”. Wealth was described as a vehicle to achieve greater status. The moderation of the three vices could be achieved but would not, in-itself produce or guarantee eudaimonia. Instead, Aristotle was of the opinion that wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, would better lead person to happiness.

The discussion of happiness leads to Aristotle's next major ideas, those of the virtues and deliberation. A happy person will be someone who lives in accordance with the virtues. He is neither too much of one thing, or not enough of another, he is in the middle of two extremes. Aristotle explained the virtues to be a perception of the right thing to do or the appropriate response when faced with a certain situations. The good decision lies in the virtue that is between what Aristotle called the "vices of excess" and the "vices of deficiency." For example, cowardliness would be a vice of deficiency, foolhardiness would be a vice of excess, and

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, at an absolute basic sense, aims at the title of this course: the good life. In an age where philosophy and ethics were not largely developed, Aristotle aims to provide a universal standard for human flourishing and happiness, or the good life. His main argument is that all of our actions and goals are aiming towards human flourishment, but that each action falls into a range of virtues, where excess is one extreme and deficiency is the other extreme. The virtue that we all strive for, he states, is in the middle of these. For example, temperance is a universal human virtue, with pleasures and pains as the excess and deficiency. He states that virtues can be developed and learned over time and through practice,

Many philosophers through history have dealt with happiness, pleasure, justice, and virtues. In this essay there will given facts on virtues between two philosophers who have different views on the topic. Aristotle and Kant have two totally different views on virtue, one being based on the soul and how you character depicts you virtue and the other which is based of the fact that anyone has a chance of being morally good, even bad people. There is a lot of disagreement between Aristotle and Kant, which has examples to back the disagreements. Aristotle takes virtue as an excellence, while Kant takes it more to being a person doing something morally good in the society and for them as a person. One similarity between these two philosophers though, is that these two descriptions of virtue lead back to happiness in the individual. At the end of this essay, the reader should be capable of understanding that Aristotle’s theory is more supported than Kant’s theory. Of course, explanations for both sides will be given thoroughly throughout this comparison.

Virtue ethics was written by a Greek philosopher names Aristotle. Aristotle believed that every human’s goal was happiness. Some philosophers argued that happiness only came from following a set of rules, while Aristotle argued that the best way to have happiness is to cultivate a virtuous character. The two kinds of virtues he recognized were moral virtue and intellectual virtue. The virtue that should be focused on to develop a virtuous character is moral virtue. According to Aristotle, while we are born with a capacity to be virtuous, being virtuous is like a skill that we need to learn and practice to be good at. The key element to being virtuous is being able to find the mean or right amount of our various emotions, dispositions, and actions. Aristotle wrote: “Anybody can become angry- that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for

Virtue Ethics is neither deontological nor teleological, since it is concerned with neither duty nor consequences, but rather the state of the person acting. Aristotle believed that once you are good, good actions will necessarily follow, and this belief is at the centre of Virtue Ethics. Rather than defining good actions, Virtue Ethics looks at good people and the qualities that make them good. The non-normative theory, although very effective in determining the morality of individuals, is particularly flawed when applied to whole societies. This weakness is largely due to its imprecision and abstraction; however, before these weaknesses can be considered, it is necessary to give an account of the theory itself.