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Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
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Virtue Ethics
The Ethics of Ethos (character)
Peter Baron
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Aims of this presentation
• To understand what is meant by virtue
(arete)
• To consider Aristotle’s goal, the
supreme good of flourishing
(eudaimonia)
• To discover the importance of practical
wisdom (phronesis) for the good life
• To evaluate virtue ethics
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Ethical
Theories
Teleological
Virtue
Deontological
Ends
Character
Rules
Consequences
Habits
Absolutes
Calculation
Living
Obedience
Action
Habit of character
Action
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We grow into the good life
• “The soul must first be conditioned by
good habits, as land must be cultivated
by good seed”.
Nicomachean Ethics
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What Is Virtue?
• What exactly can we define as
virtue?
• In this next exercise you will
need to pick 5 of the possible
characteristics of a virtuous
person
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Exercise 1: Pick 5
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Friendship
Justice
Courage
Temperance
Loyalty
Fortitude
(perseverance)
• Honesty
• Generosity
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Humour
Ambition
Wealth
Humility
Faithfulness
Hope
Agape (unconditional
love)
• Anger
• Obedience
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In the next few slides you will see some
characters……..
• What virtue or virtues would
you associate with each?
• What does the variety of
virtues tell us about virtue
ethics?
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Conclusion
• Virtue = skill or excellence
• Rooney is a “virtuous” footballer
• Jesus perfected virtue eg “perfect love casts
out fear”, “greater love has no man than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends” (John
14:13)
• So we distinguish between moral virtues and
intellectual (or other virtues, like footballing
skills), developed by training to produce
excellence.
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There are two categories of virtue
Intellectual Virtues
Intellectual virtues are
virtues of the mind.
Such as the ability to
understand, reason and
make sound judgement
Intellectual virtues may be
taught, like logic and
mathematics by teachers.
Moral Virtues
Not innate, rather they are
acquired through repetition
and practice, like learning a
music instrument.
It is through the practice
and the doing that one
becomes a type of person.
Over a period of time virtues
become second nature.
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Virtue summary
• Habit of Character
(arete in Greek)
• Involving both Feeling
and Action
• Seeks the mean between
excess and deficiency
• Promotes human
flourishing (eudaimonia
in Greek)
• Intellectual and moral
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Two Examples On Virtue
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Rudolph Giulliani
• “I think the most fundamental
change occurred when I dealt
with the prostate cancer (age
55). That was the first time
that required me to say, “ I
am going to die. Not
necessarily of cancer, but I
am gonna die.” So you realize
you’d better do something
with your life that makes you
happy with yourself. I decided
that politics was not my whole
life.”
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The lesson?
• Mayor Giuliani (Mayor of New York
on 9/11) discovered a need to
rebalance his life after a serious
illness. He was asking the virtue
ethics question: what makes the
good life?
• Or which goals will fulfil us and
make us flourish?
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Aristotle
• Some people believe that
nature makes people good,
others believe that it is habit,
and still others say that it is
teaching. Experience shows
that logical arguments and
teaching are not effective in
most cases. The soul of the
students must have been
conditioned by good habits
just as land must be cultivated
to nurture seed. For a person
whose life is guided by
emotion will not listen to a
rational argument, nor will he
understand it.
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Exercise: 2 What is happiness?
• In this next slide the author, James
O’Toole wonders if Aristotle is wrong in
arguing that we only find happiness by
pursuing the virtues of the good
character.
• How would you define happiness…and
what would your answer be to the
following quote?
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• Weren’t those famous gurus the very people the
world called successful? How on Earth was I to find
happiness if I ended up being a nobody… and the
impoverished one at that? Ergo, I concluded that
Aristotle must be wrong. And everything I read in
magazines and watched on the television argued
against Aristotle’s conclusions. According to
conventional wisdom, happiness is found, variously,
by way of:
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A new job
A new house
A new city
A new mate
An adventure in faraway climes
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Exercise 3: What is our end or telos?
• How would Aristotle reply to the
previous view that life was a pursuit of
certain material and personal ends?
• (Clue: he would talk about building
habits of character in order to flourish).
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How To Achieve Eudaimonia
Aristotle defined Good as something that
fulfils its ends purpose
The Telos of humanity is to be rational
The ergon (function) of practical reason
(phronesis) is to identify virtue
“The good for human beings is an activity of the
soul in accordance with arete”
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Aristotle: eudaimonia and the “complete life”
• “We state the function of man to be a certain kind of
life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul
implying a rational principle, and the function of a
good man to be the good and noble performance of
these, and any action is well performed when it is
performed in accordance with the appropriate
excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out
to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if
there is more than one virtue, in accordance with the
best and most complete. But we must add 'in a
complete life.' For one swallow does not make a
summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a
short time, does not make a man blessed and
happy.”
Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 part 6
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Person-centred
• The “ethics of dilemma” approach to morality
forgets an essential part of ethics – THE
PERSON’S CHARACTER and how personal
moral growth is encouraged
We are not concerned to
know what goodness is but
how to become good
people, since otherwise our
enquiry would be useless.
The ethical condition is not
the condition of having a
certain right theory; rather
the ethical condition is
having a certain character.
Aristotle
Alasdair Macintyre
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Golden Mean and eudaimonia
• Golden Mean does not entail
a denial of emotions.
• Rather what is at issue is
how, and to what extent,
reason
permits
the
expression of emotions.
• Aristotle developed Plato’s
three part teaching of the
soul
(reason,
emotions,
appetites)
by
attributing
virtues to each feature.
Reason = Phronesis
(Wisdom)
Emotions = Courage
Appetite = Temperance
(Self–control)
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Phronesis or practical wisdom
• A virtue of our rational selves
• It means judgement or prudence
• It is applied to our irrational appetites
and desires to make them “good”
• Phronesis is vital to achieve eudaimonia
(flourishing) or perfection of character
over the whole of our lives
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Aristotle’s argument
• Our emotions and desires are irrational
and need to be controlled by reason.
• In order to control them, we need to
apply the moral virtue of practical
wisdom.
• We need to find the mid-point or mean
between two vices.
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The Golden Mean – a balance point
Cowardice
courage
Deficiency
Recklessness
Excess
Mean
One must find the right balance between Cowardice and
Recklessness… Courage
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Applying the mean
• To ourselves (see next slide)
• To our family life (wider relationships)
• To our communal life (eg politics).
Aristotle saw friendship as a key virtue
to build the city state (the polis in
Greek)
What other virtues do you think would
cause the polis (politics) to flourish?
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Virtues and Spheres of Existence
Sphere of
existence
Attitude to
self
Deficiency
Mean
Excess
Servility
Undervaluing
Low self image
Pride
Self-respect
Self-appreciation
Arrogance
Egotism
vanity
Attitude
Towards
Others
Apathy
Doormat
Coldness
Right anger
Forgiveness
Empathy
Revenge
Grudge
Resentment
Attitude
Towards Our
Common Life
Indifference
Betrayal
Lies
Friendship
Loyalty
Honesty
Nosiness
Captiveness
Bluntness
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Phronesis builds character
• “Virtue is concerned with emotions and
actions, and here excess is an error and
deficiency a fault, whereas the mean is
commendable..determined as the
prudent man (phronimos) would
determine it”.
Nicomachean Ethics
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Aristotle's Concept Of Life And Death
Moral – by
training
1
Phronesis =
practical wisdom
3
Eudaimonia
Old Age
Birth
2
4
Intellectual – by
education
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Sophia =
skills
mastered
In other words…..
• We build character through experience
of life (the blue line goes round in
circles as we reflect on our choices)
• We also learn by EMULATION (following
our heroes) and EDUCATION (being
taught).
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Exercise 3: virtues and vices
• On a piece of paper draw three
columns.
• Write Aristotle’s list of virtues (next
slide) in the middle column.
• Look up what they mean and decide on
a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess
for each.
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Aristotle’s list of virtues
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Courage
Temperance
Honesty
Anger
Wittiness
Generosity
Friendliness
Patience
Modesty
Magnificence
Magnanimity
Ambition
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Key question:
• Would our list be the same?
• Do any of Aristotle’s virtues surprise
you?
• What does this list suggest about the
relative nature of Virtue Ethics?
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Three weaknesses of virtue ethics
• Culturally captive
The virtues reflect middle class Greek
values.
“Ethics appeals to the respectable middleaged..and has been used to suppress
the enthusiasm and ardour of the
young”. Bertrand Russell
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Three weaknesses contd
• Aristotle’s virtues cannot explain
weakness of will.
Experiments like the Milgram
experiment show that, under pressure,
individuals behave in very unvirtuous
ways (such as delivering deadly electric
shocks).
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Three weaknesses contd.
• Virtues cannot be separated from ends
and consequences.
You can be a courageous Nazi, or a
loyal Nazi, but if the end is evil then the
virtue itself becomes evil.
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Three strengths
• In stressing character and the end of
the good life, virtue ethics goes behind
the action and escapes the sterility of
utilitarianism or Kantian ethics.
Character lies behind action and so
virtues are key in determining good
actions.
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Three strengths contd.
• Virtues have a social dimension.
The Greeks believed that it is
impossible for the individual to flourish
without the community. To the Greeks,
friendship was a key virtue: they
avoided the individualism inherent in
(for example) utilitarianism.
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Three strengths contd.
• Virtue ethics sees eudaimonia as the
ultimate telos or end.
Eudaimonia means flourishing, and is a
much richer idea than happiness or
pleasure. It is something you grow into
over your life as you exercise the skill of
phronesis (practical wisdom).
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