Overview of Significant Ethical Approaches on how to

1
Overview of Significant Ethical Approaches on how
to find Moral Truth

1. Virtue Ethics
2. Plato
3. Aristotle
4. Misconceptions Regarding Virtue Ethics
5. John Dewey
6. Kant
7. Social Contract Ethics
8. Utilitarianism
9. John Stuart Mill
10. Rule vs. Act Utilitarianism
11. Act Utilitarianism
12. Kantian Utilitarianism (R. M. Hare)
13. G. E. Moores Utilitarianism
14. Intuitionism
15. Ethical Relativism
16. Moral Realism
17. Care Ethics
18. F. Nietzsche
19. David Hume

2
Welcome to Ethics

• Unless your faculties arent working properly,
  you have an interest in ethics and the reason why
  is simple
• Ethics is about what is right and what is wrong
  and how can we tell the difference.

3
Consider the following questions

• What does it mean to be moral?
• What are human beings really like selfish,
  greedy, noble, or good?
• Are some people better at being good than
  others? If so, how and why?
• What does it mean to be good?
• Are there good ways of teaching children to
  behave morally?
• Does anyone have the right to tell anyone else
  what is right from wrong?
• What is human nature?

4
Consider the following questions

• Why should I be a good person? What does it mean
  to be a good person?
• Is morality about obeying a set of rules or is it
  about thinking carefully about consequences?
• When people say cannibalism is wrong, do they
  know it is wrong or just believe it very
  strongly?
• Are there certain kinds of acts that are always
  wrong (e.g., torturing children, beating up your
  mother, lying)?
• Is it okay to ever break a law?
• Is it wrong to enjoy hurting others?
• Are human beings essentially good or essentially
  wicked?

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How do you find ethical, moral truth?
Plato Kant say the power of reason
Jainism says ascetic control/suppression of all
feelings.
Sir W. D. Ross says intuitions
H. Utilitarians say we discover the right act
calculating the balance of pleasure over pain
Virtue Ethics says in a virtuous character
whereby a person is able to realize the crucial
potentialities that constitute human excellence.
Its focus is on the person rather than the act.
Nonobject. say there is no truth
Social contract theorists say ethical principles
are made, not found, constructed by social
groups, and exists for the benefit of those
groups.
Care Ethics Narrative of relationships that
extend through time.
Natural/Special Revelation from God
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Overview of Ethical Systems Virtue Ethics
Rather than focusing on what we ought to do,
Virtue ethics offers a distinctive approach
whereby we focus on human character asking the
question, What should I be? Thus, ethical life
involves envisioning ideals for human life and
embodying those ideals in ones life. Virtues
are ways in which we embody those ideals.
Plato (c.427-347c) To be virtuous we must
understand what contributes to our overall good
have our desire (appetitive workers), spirit
(warriors), reason (ruler-guardians) educated
properly so they will aggregate with the guidance
provided by the rational part of the soul (Books
2 3 of Republic). When these 3 parts of the
soul conflict with each other, it might move us
to act in ways that go against the greater good
(become incontinent).
Virtue is an excellence of some sort. Originally
the word meant strength and referred to as
manliness. In Aristotles ethics (arete) is
used which is trans. as excellences of various
types.
Plato (c. 427-347) is concerned with the quality
of a persons inner state he prized beauty,
health, harmony, strength of a soul as the
virtues we should emulate. Aristotle (384-322)
The function of man is reason (the good of the
thing is when it performs its function well)
which is peculiar to him. Thus, the function of
man is reason and the life that is distinctive of
humans is the life in accordance with reason. If
the function of man is reason, then the good man
is the man who reasons well This is the life of
excellence (eudaimonia human flourishing
well-being). G.E.M. Anscombe (1919-2001) argues
we cant rely on moral obligation using a
non-religious ethic but we can rely on the Greek
notion of excellence because it is tied to
well-being appropriateness to the kind of
things we are. Philippa Foot (1920-) ethical
naturalist, grounds the virtues in what is good
for human beings the virtues are beneficial to
their possessor or to the community virtues are
valuable because they contribute to it.
Aristotle says there are 2 types of virtue
intellectual virtues excellences of the mind
(e.g., ability to understand, reason, judge
well) moral virtues learned by repetition
(e.g., practicing honesty we become honest. To be
virtuous requires knowledge, practice,
consistent effort at character building.
Aristotle Must have knowledge, second he must
choose the acts and choose them for their own
sakes, finally his actions must proceed from a
firm character (1105a).
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Basic Framework of Virtue Ethics

• Premise 1 An action is right iff it is what a
  virtuous agent would do in the circumstances.
• Premise 1a A virtuous agent is one who acts
  virtuously, i.e., one who has and exercises the
  virtues.
• Premise 2 A virtue is a character trait a human
  being needs to flourish or live well.

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3 Central Concepts

• Though there are several modern versions of
  virtue ethics, most models have their roots in
  ancient Greek philosophy by the employment of
  three concepts derived from it
• 1. arête (excellence or virtue)
• 2. phronesis (practical or moral wisdom)
• 3. eudaimonia (usually translated as human)
  flourishing successful living)

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Consider the following quote

• We are discussing no small matter, but how we
  ought to live.
• Socrates in Platos Republic

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Overview of Ethical Systems Plato (427-347
B.C.)
Plato believed our natural desires are greedy and
depraved. Thus, they must be held in tight
check by the powers of reason. He compared the
human soul to a city-state made up of
ruler-guardians, guardians, and the
peasants/artisans. Every reality is an
archetype of a corresponding eternal form. The
goal of life is to actualize ones true nature
together with ones many innate potentialities.
So long as the individual is governed by the
power of reason, and reason is assisted by
courage and will power (guardians), the unruly
desires can be suppressed.
If reason for a moment lets down its guard, then
the desires will exert their power, seize
control, and lead the person to corruption and
immorality.
The highest good is the well-ordered whole to
which each part contributes according to its own
capacity. A thing in reality is good insofar as
it participates in corresponds to the form of
the good (which is the high point of the forms).
4 primary integrated virtues Wisdom corresponds
to reason courage corresponds to the will
temperance, corresponds to desire justice
links individual to society.
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Essential Terms for Plato

• 1. teleology "everything in the universe has a
  proper function to perform within a harmonious
  hierarchy of purposes"
• 2. reason the intellectual component of the
  soul "calculates, measures and decides"
• 3. spirit "structural element of the soul" this
  is our passionate side that desires honor, glory,
  and respect
• appetite the part of the soul that desires
  things that help us to satisfy our biological and
  material desires
• moral balance situation in which reason governs
  the soul guarding against the excesses of spirit
  and appetite.
• 6. class system In Plato's Republic, a way of
  dividing individuals into different social groups
  based on their talents. There are three classes
  philosopher-kings (rulers reason ), auxiliaries
  (guardians spirit) who serve as warriors, and a
  combination of craftsmen, artisans, and traders
  who are driven mostly by appetite.
• 7. just society a society that functions
  harmoniously by allowing each individual to do
  the work suited to his/her talents.
• 8. philosopher kings rulers in Plato's just
  society from the Republic
• 9. guardian class warriors in Plato's just
  society from the Republic

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Main Points to Know

• Plato writes dialogues rather than philosophical
  treatises. Hence, most of his philosophical
  positions are voiced through the character of
  Socrates. Even though Socrates was Plato's actual
  teacher, the positions and doctrines
  traditionally attributed to Socrates are actually
  Plato's account of his teacher. Socrates never
  wrote anything.
• Plato advances a teleological conception of
  morality, "we live the good life insofar as we
  perform our distinctively human function well."

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Main Points to Know

• The soul is divided into three parts appetitive,
  spirit, and reason. Each part helps us to fulfill
  critical needs, but in Plato's view, only the
  rational part of the soul is fit to rule.
• In order to live a virtuous life, it is necessary
  for the individual to cultivate balance in
  his/her soul. Thus, persons ruled by appetite or
  spirit (emotion) are "out of balance" and their
  actions are apt to provoke personal or social
  disharmony.

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Main Points to Know

• Appetite In cases where appetite rules
  (oligarchic and tyrannical characters fit here)
  individuals are at the mercy of the their
  biological or material whims. Alcohol addiction
  fits this profile. Individuals who are addicted
  to self-destructive patterns of behavior are apt
  to feed their appetites at the expense of other
  life pursuits. People can also be ruled by
  material greed in much the same way. The key here
  is that desire is determinative these are
  cravings of the highest degree.

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Main Points to Know

• Spirit The emotional, passionate side of our
  character is centered on the idea of status on a
  social level. Ambition, desire for honor and
  glory, moral indignation, and cravings for
  admiration, all fit under the umbrella of spirit.
  Love relationships fit into this category as
  well. Our interactions with others provide core
  experiences that influence our emotional
  development.

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Main Points to Know

• Reason The intellectual, thinking part of the
  soul that must weigh options, decide between
  alternatives, and "suppress dangerous urges.
  Plato clearly puts reason in control of the soul
  because it acts as good counsel seeking
  understanding and insight before acting. Rational
  individuals possess a strong contemplative
  faculty. They think before they act and are
  unlikely to take rash action in any given
  situation.

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Know Thyself

• Plato contends that each one of us performs/does
  one thing best. We each have one best skill and
  it is the development of this skill that is of
  paramount importance in creating a harmonious
  existence. If we do not have insight into what
  we do best, the chances of achieving a balanced
  soul are likely reduced. Hence the Socratic
  imperative, "know thyself."
• Just Society First ask yourself is it possible
  to have a just society? What would it look like?
  How would we direct education, the economy,
  leisure, and social resources? What is fair?
• Plato wrestles with the idea of justice in his
  most famous work entitled, The Republic.

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Plato views social justice exactly parallels his
notion of individual justice. There are three
parts of the soul and three corresponding
divisions in the social order. The social order
is constructed as follows
SOCIETY
SOUL
Reason
Philosopher-King
Spirit
Auxiliaries/Guardians
Appetite
Craftsmen/Artisans/Traders
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Three Elements in the Soul that are distinguished
by their functions, goal, and activities

• Reason-calculation calculates calculation is
  concerned with the good (i.e., with the best
  course of action)
• Appetite-Desire desires Desire is concerned with
  pleasure
• Spirit gets spirited spirit reacts to perceived
  slights or wrong.
• When you revisit these elements in Books 8-8,
  they no longer look like faculties (as they did
  in book 4) they now seem more like drives. The
  desiring element is specified as the drive toward
  material satisfaction spirit as the drive to win
  and to amount to something calculation as the
  drive to discover truth.

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Interestingly

• By Book 9 the calculative element has a goal of
  its own seeks wisdom. Wisdom is a good, of
  course, arguably the highest good. But this
  element seeks wisdom because it is wisdom, not
  because it is good. It has turned out to be the
  philosophical element in the soul. For this
  reason we should not be content for the
  calculative element merely to supervise within
  us, not if we want to be happy. Its natural
  passion is directed at something different and
  better than this. Certainly, it is better that
  this element in each person should be supervisor
  than that it should fall under the control of the
  other elements of the soul and be reduced to a
  tool in their service, as described in Books 8
  and 9. But although it is appropriate that the
  calculative element should supervise the others
  (44Ie), this is not what it loves to do. As the
  philosophical element in the soul, it takes on
  the job of ruling the soul with a reserve
  comparable in some respects to that with which
  philosophers take on the job of ruling the city.
  Even with the soul, ruling is work.the
  philosophical element is divine and immortal, the
  other elements are mortal and animal, and only
  the necessity of incarnation thrusts them
  together.
• Cambridge Companion to Platos Republic,
  Three-Part Soul by G. R. F. Ferrari, pg. 166.

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An Ideal City

• Plato attempts to show that on justice is so
  great a good that it is worth any sacrifice. He
  portrays an ideal political community there we
  will see justice writ large, and so we will be
  better able to find justice in the individual
  soul. An ideal city must make radical
  innovations. It should be ruled by specially
  trained philosophers, since their understanding
  of the Form of the Good will give them greater
  insight into everyday affairs. Their education
  is compared to that of a prisoner who, having
  once gazed upon nothing but shadows in the
  artificial light of a cave, is released from
  bondage, leaves the cave, eventually learns to
  see the sun, and is thereby equipped to return to
  the cave and see the images there for what the
  are. Everything in the rulers lives is designed
  to promote their allegiance to the community
  they are forbidden private possessions, their
  sexual lives are regulated by eugenic
  considerations, and they are not to know who
  their children art. Positions of political power
  are open to women, since the physical differences
  between them and men do not in all cases deprive
  them of the intellectual or moral capacities
  needed for political office. The works of poets
  are to be carefully regulated, for the false
  moral notions of the traditional poets have had a
  powerful and deleterious impact on the general
  public. Philosophical reflection is to replace
  popular poetry as the force that guides moral
  education.

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An Ideal City

• What makes this city ideally just is the
  dedication of each of its components to one task
  for which it is naturally suited and specially
  trained. The rulers are ideally equipped to
  rule the soldiers are best able to enforce their
  commands and the economic class, composed of
  farmers, craftsmen, builders, etc. are content to
  do their work and to leave the tasks of making
  and enforcing the laws to others.

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What makes the soul of person just?

• What makes the soul of a human being just is the
  same principle each of its components must
  properly perform its own task. The part of us
  that is capable of understanding and reasoning is
  the part that must rule the assertive part that
  makes us capable of anger and competitive spirit
  must give our understanding the force it needs
  and our appetites for food and sex must be
  trained so that they seek only those objects that
  reason approves. It is not enough to educate
  someones reasons, for unless the emotions and
  appetites are properly trained they will
  overpower it. Just individuals are those who
  have fully integrated these elements of the soul.
  

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What makes the soul of person just?

• Just individuals are those who have fully
  integrated these elements of the soul. They do
  not unthinkingly follow a list of rules rather,
  their just treatment of others flow from their
  own balanced psychological condition. And the
  paradigm of a just person is a philosopher, for
  reason rules when it becomes passionately
  attached to the most intelligible object there
  are the Forms (which are eternal, changeless,
  and imperceptible). It emerges that justice pays
  because attachment to these supremely valuable
  objects is part of what true justice of the soul
  is. The worth of our lives depends on the worth
  of objects to which we devote ourselves. Those
  who think that injustice pays assume that wealth,
  domination, or the pleasures of the physical
  appetite are supremely valuable their mistake
  lies in their limited conception of what sorts of
  objects are worth loving.

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The Forms

• 1. Phaedo is the first dialogue in which Plato
  decisively posits the existence of the abstract
  objects that he often called Forms or
  Ideas-which exist independently of thought
  (eidos and idea).
• Forms are eternal, changeless, and incorporeal.
  Since they are imperceptible we can come to have
  knowledge of them only through thought.
• a. Beautiful roses is not Beauty itself.
• b. What every rose has in common with every
  other is that it bears a certain
  relationship-called participation-to one and
  the same thing, the Form of Beauty. Thus, what
  makes roses beautiful is the unchanging
  Form-beauty.
• 3. For Plato the Forms are not merely an unusual
  item to be added to our list of existing objects.
  Rather, they are a source of inspiration and
  their discovery is a decisive turning point in
  ones life.

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Example from Symposium Love.

• According to Diotimas account, those who are in
  love are searching for something they do not yet
  understand whether they realize it or not, they
  seek the eternal possession of the good, and they
  can obtain it only through productive activity of
  some sort. Physical love perpetuates the species
  and achieves a lower form of immortality, but a
  more beautiful kind of offspring is produced by
  those who govern cities and shape the moral
  characteristics of future generations.

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Example from Symposium Love.

• Best of all is the kind of love that eventually
  attaches itself to the Form of Beauty, since this
  is the most beautiful of objects and provides the
  greatest happiness to the lover. One develops a
  love for this Form by ascending through various
  stages of emotional attachment and understanding.
  Beginning with an attraction to the beauty of
  one persons body, one gradually develops an
  appreciation for the beauty present in all other
  beautiful bodies then ones recognition of the
  beauty in peoples souls takes on increasing
  strength, and leads to a deeper attachment to the
  beauty of customs, laws, and systems of
  knowledge and this process of emotional growth
  and deepening insight culminates in the discovery
  of the eternal and changeless beauty of Beauty
  itself.

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Aristotle Rejection of Plato

• Platos chief contribution consists in his
  conception of the observable world as an
  imperfect image of a realm of unobservable and
  unchanging Forms, and his conception of the
  best life as one centered on the love of these
  divine objects.
• Aristotle rejects Platos transcendental Form of
  the Good as irrelevant to the affairs of persons,
  and in general, had little sympathy with the
  notion of the absolute good. Rather, the goal of
  choice and action is the human good, namely,
  living well.

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Aristotle Rejection of Plato

• Platos general theory of knowledge, i.e., the
  theory of forms has much in common with the
  theories of innate ideas. What is known, at the
  highest and most general level, is a collection
  of objects, with which we have all had direct
  acquaintance prior to birth (the forms or
  ideas). All of us, therefore, may have some
  inkling of general truths but only those whose
  rational capacities are especially well
  developed-in short, philosophers-can fully
  reactivate their memories.
• Aristotle rejects Platos theory of knowledge.
  He locates the source of ethical insight in
  experience of life itself. Aristotle argues that
  we need to know how to act, possess practical
  wisdom (have an eye for solutions)and that can
  only be developed through a combination of
  training in the right habits and direct
  acquaintance with practical situations.

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Aristotles Differences with Plato

• Read in this way, Aristotle is engaged in a
  project similar in some respects to the one Plato
  carried out in the Republic. One of Plato's
  central points is that it is a great advantage to
  establish a hierarchical ordering of the elements
  in one's soul and he shows how the traditional
  virtues can be interpreted to foster or express
  the proper relation between reason and less
  rational elements of the psyche. Aristotle's
  approach is similar his function argument
  shows in a general way that our good lies in the
  dominance of reason, and the detailed studies of
  the particular virtues reveal how each of them
  involves the right kind of ordering of the soul.

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Aristotles Differences with Plato

• Aristotle's goal is to arrive at conclusions
  similar to Plato's, but without relying on the
  Platonic metaphysics that plays a central role in
  the argument of the Republic. He rejects the
  existence of Plato's forms in general and the
  form of the good in particular and he rejects
  the idea that in order to become fully virtuous
  one must study mathematics and the sciences, and
  see all branches of knowledge as a unified whole.
  Even though Aristotle's ethical theory sometimes
  relies on philosophical distinctions that are
  more fully developed in his other works, he never
  proposes that students of ethics need to engage
  in a specialized study of the natural world, or
  mathematics, or eternal and changing objects. His
  project is to make ethics an autonomous field,
  and to show why a full understanding of what is
  good does not require expertise in any other
  field.

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Aristotles Differences with Plato

• There is another contrast with Plato that should
  be emphasized In Book II of the Republic, we are
  told that the best type of good is one that is
  desirable both in itself and for the sake of its
  results (357d-358a). Plato argues that justice
  should be placed in this category, but since it
  is generally agreed that it is desirable for its
  consequences, he devotes most of his time to
  establishing his more controversial pointthat
  justice is to be sought for its own sake. By
  contrast, Aristotle assumes that if A is
  desirable for the sake of B, then B is better
  than A (1094a14-16) therefore, the highest kind
  of good must be one that is not desirable for the
  sake of anything else.

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Aristotles Differences with Plato

• To show that A deserves to be our ultimate end,
  one must show that all other goods are best
  thought of as instruments that promote A in some
  way or other. Accordingly, it would not serve
  Aristotle's purpose to consider virtuous activity
  in isolation from all other goods. He needs to
  discuss honor, wealth, pleasure, and friendship
  in order to show how these goods, properly
  understood, can be seen as resources that serve
  the higher goal of virtuous activity. He
  vindicates the centrality of virtue in a
  well-lived life by showing that in the normal
  course of things a virtuous person will not live
  a life devoid of friends, honor, wealth,
  pleasure, and the like.

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Aristotles Differences with Plato

• Virtuous activity makes a life happy not by
  guaranteeing happiness in all circumstances, but
  by serving as the goal for the sake of which
  lesser goods are to be pursued. Aristotle's
  methodology in ethics therefore pays more
  attention than does Plato's to the connections
  that normally obtain between virtue and other
  goods. That is why he stresses that in this sort
  of study one must be satisfied with conclusions
  that hold only for the most part (1094b11-22).
  Poverty, isolation, and dishonor are normally
  impediments to the exercise of virtue and
  therefore to happiness, although there may be
  special circumstances in which they are not. The
  possibility of exceptions does not undermine the
  point that, as a rule, to live well is to have
  sufficient resources for the pursuit of virtue
  over the course of a lifetime.

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Aristotles Differences with Plato

• Difference over what is virtue and vice.
• Aristotle differs with Platos notion (early
  dialogues) that virtue is nothing but a kind of
  knowledge and vice is nothing more but a lack of
  knowledge.
• The significance of Aristotle's characterization
  of these states as hexeis is his decisive
  rejection of that thesis. Aristotle insists that
  virtues differ from crafts and all branches of
  knowledge for they involve appropriate emotional
  responses rather than pure intellectual
  conditions.

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Some Similarities between Plato Aristotle

• Aristotle sees the human body as complex of
  soul and body whereas Plato sees souls
  temporarily united with bodies (Plato), they are
  like other things in the world for they have a
  function or activity which is peculiar to
  them.
• The good life, eudaimonia, will consist in the
  successful performance of that function.
• Nothing can perform its peculiar function
  successfully unless it possess the relevant
  arete, i.e., unless it is good of its kind (two
  platonic examples the only horses that will be
  able to win races the only pruning-knives which
  can successfully be used to cut vines-will be
  good ones).
• For both Plato and Aristotle the content of
  arete depends on some prior notion of what it is
  to be human.

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What is the function of human beings and what is
the arete which relates to that?

• 1. Platos answers are, respectively, governing
  and the like (i.e., the governing of the soul by
  its union with the body), and justice.
• 2. An active life of that which possesses
  reason, and the best of the arete.

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Overview of Ethical Systems Aristotle (384-322
B.C.)
Though we are naturally suited to moral goodness,
we dont automatically develop such inclinations
Your habits inclinations develop with practice
what you sow is what you reap.
Carefully cultivate moral goodness by rigorous
practice.
Ideal of virtue is doing the right thing because
you want to do the right thing you desire to
act virtuously.
In order to desire to act virtuously you must
carefully and consistently practice doing right
until it becomes habitual natural.
If you act selfishly then you will become a
selfish person. Eventually what feels right to
you may be very wrong.
With practice diligence you can develop the
habits inclinations of a virtuous person.
Thus, choose to be virtuous. Desire judgment
must agree.
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Closer Look at Virtue

• A virtue such as honesty or generosity is not
  just a tendency to do what is honest or generous,
  nor is it to be helpfully specified as a
  "desirable" or "morally valuable" character
  trait. It is, indeed a character trait that is,
  a disposition which is well entrenched in its
  possessor, something that, as we say "goes all
  the way down", unlike a habit such as being a
  tea-drinker but the disposition in question,
  far from being a single track disposition to do
  honest actions, or even honest actions for
  certain reasons, is multi-track. It is concerned
  with many other actions as well, with emotions
  and emotional reactions, choices, values,
  desires, perceptions, attitudes, interests,
  expectations and sensibilities. To possess a
  virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a
  certain complex mindset. (Hence the extreme
  recklessness of attributing a virtue on the basis
  of a single action) Stanford Encyclopedia

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Why do you want to be happy?

• For Aristotle, the ultimate aim of the best life
  is eudaimonia. If someone asks why you want to
  go to college, buy a car, or get a divorce, it
  makes sense to answer that you are doing these
  things as part of a long-term plan to achieve
  happiness. But if someone asks why you want to
  be happy, there is no answer because happiness is
  not a means to anything further. Happiness is
  valuable solely for its own sake. Now, the claim
  that everything else is valued for the sake of
  happiness is somewhat more controversial
• Mill agrees with Aristotle, but Kant thinks that
  duty is desirable solely for its own sake.
• There is much disagreement about what happiness
  is. Some people think happiness is sensual
  pleasure others think it is wealth, honor, good
  action, or contemplation.

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Virtue Ethics What kind of person should I be?

• What is a virtue?
• A virtue is a habit of excellence, a beneficial
  tendency, a skilled disposition that enables a
  person to realize the crucial potentialities that
  constitute proper human flourishing (eudaimonia).
• What is a habit? A disposition to think, feel,
  desire, and act in a certain way without having a
  tendency to consciously will to do so.
• What is a character The sum-total of ones
  habits, tendencies, and well-being.
• Four cardinal virtues temperance, courage,
  prudence, and justice. Piety (reverence to the
  gods) is sometimes considered a fifth virtue.

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On Becoming Agathos EudaimonFrom Aristotles
Point of ViewCited from Michael Boylan, Basic
Ethics (Upper Saddle River, N.J. Prentice Hall,
2000), 52.

• Step 1 Master the functional requirements within
  a given type of task or behavior.
• Step 2 Possess the habitual mastery of the
  functional requirements to an appropriate
  degree.
• Step 3 Steps 1 2 excellence in that task or
  behavior.
• Step 4 Possess habitual excellence in a number
  of key tasks or behavior.
• Step 5 Possess habitual excellence in those
  tasks or behavior that the common opinion judges
  to be the most worthy.
• Step 6 Steps 4 5 leads to agathos.
• Step 7 Possessing Agathos leads to eudaimon.
• Thus, on balance, excellent traits in human
  character generally produce excellent actions.

43
What is Virtue

• Aristotle characterizes virtue as follows
• Virtue, then, is a state of character, concerned
  with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean
  relative to us, this being determined by
  principle, that principle by which the man of
  practical wisdom would determine it (1106b-1107).

44

• The good for man, then, is activity in accordance
  with virtue or the highest virtue. Just like the
  excellence of an lies in cutting, a things
  excellence is a master of how well it performs
  its characteristic functions or, we might say,
  how well it realizes it nature.
• The natural functions of persons reside in their
  exercise of their natural cognitive faculties,
  most importantly, the faculty of reason. So
  human happiness consistence in activity in
  accordance with reason. However, persons can
  exercise reason in practical or in purely
  theoretical matters. The first suggest that
  happiness consists in the practical life of moral
  virtue, the second that is consists in the life
  of theoretical activity.
• Most of Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to moral
  virtues but final book appears to favor
  theoretical activity (theoria) as the highest and
  most choice-worthy end. It is mans closest
  approach to divine activity.
• The fully virtuous do what they should without a
  struggle against contrary desires the continent
  have to control a desire or temptation to do
  otherwise.

45
Character

• When Aristotle says that a virtuous persons
  virtuous acts proceed from a firm character, he
  means to distinguish virtue from other sorts of
  character. Consider
• The acts of a virtuous person do not arise out of
  some quirk of circumstances. Rather, a virtuous
  persons acts are typical of that person because
  virtue is his/her set of habits of passion,
  desire, pleasure, thoughts, the like.
  Therefore, he/she is not out-of-character. In
  other words, the virtuous person can be counted
  on to perform such acts.

46
Character

• 3. The acts are not the result of outside
  pressure or persuasion but come instead from
  within the person.
• The act should not be performed by an effort of
  will against temptation. The virtuous person is
  not conflicted-not pulled one way be desire and
  another by duty. He or she is in harmony with
  himself or herself. Thus even though the
  continent person is reliably good and internally
  motivated, his/her act does not proceed from a
  firm character.
• Consider the following chart of 6 different
  types of character

47
Aristotles Descriptions of the Various Sorts of
Characters
Character Passion/Desires
Principles/Choices Choices
Heroically virtuous very right very
right very right Virtuous right
right right Continent wrong
right right Incontinent wrong
right wrong Vicious wrong
wrong wrong Brutish very wrong
very wrong very wrong

• 1. Heroic person possesses supererogatory
  virtue, acting feeling even better than
  ordinary virtuous people
• 2. Virtuous person has right passions desires,
  makes right choices based on right principles,
  reliably performs right acts.
• 3. The continent person overcomes temptation by
  will power. He has wrong passions desires but
  makes right choices performs right acts.
• The incontinent fails to overcome temptation
  because of weakness of will he has wrong
  passions desires makes right choices but
  performs wrong acts (1150a15).
• 5. The vicious brutish characters need no
  further explanation.

48
Character

• Aristotle goes onto characterize virtue further
  when he states 1106b-1107
• Virtue, then is a state of character concerned
  with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean
  relative to us, this being determined by a
  rational principle, that principle by which the
  man of practical wisdom would determine it.

49
Character

• A State of Character is a set of
• 1. Habits,
• 2. Passion,
• 3. Pleasure,
• 4. Thoughts,
• 5. the like.
• Thus to say that virtue is a a state of
  character is to say that a virtuous person not
  only reliably performs virtuous acts but also
  feels the right passions, desires the right
  objects, enjoys the right things, and holds the
  right beliefs in the each situation.
• Consider the following example

50
Character

• A courageous person will not only stand firm in
  battle but will also feel the right amoun of fear
  and confidence and have the right goals. He will
  not be thinking, I cant run because I am so
  terrified that my legs are off-line, and besides
  if I stand firm, I may get to appear on CNN.
  Instead, he will be thinking, The situation is
  perilous, but I have a reasonable chance of
  surviving if I keep alert, and besides I must
  stand firm to keep my city free. It is the brave
  thing to do.

51
Character

• Is Aristotle demanding an unreasonably high
  level of perfection from his virtuous person?
• 1. Virtue is a matter of degree and Aristotle is
  sketching a perfect virtue. He is describing
  an ideal person so that we can have a mark at
  which to aim and a standard for judgment.
• 2. A person can be reasonably less than ideal
  and still be a virtuous person.
• The bottom line is that your passions and
  desires are under your control. To be sure, you
  cant change them quickly or easily, but over
  time you can modify your passions and desires.
  In fact, Aristotle says that you should use your
  reason to determine which passions and desires to
  have and then go on to develop these passions and
  desires. You should cultivate a taste for
  virtue, just as some people cultivate a taste for
  gourmet coffee (1113a-1114b).

52
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a hexis
  (state condition disposition)a tendency or
  disposition, induced by our habits, to have
  appropriate feelings (1105b25-6).
• Defective states of character are hexeis (plural
  of hexis) as well, but they are tendencies to
  have inappropriate feelings.
• The significance of Aristotle's characterization
  of these states as hexeis is his decisive
  rejection of the thesis, found throughout Plato's
  early dialogues, that virtue is nothing but a
  kind of knowledge and vice nothing but a lack of
  knowledge.
• Although Aristotle frequently draws analogies
  between the crafts and the virtues (and similarly
  between physical health and eudaimonia), he
  insists that the virtues differ from the crafts
  and all branches of knowledge in that the former
  involve appropriate emotional responses and are
  not purely intellectual conditions.

53
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• Every ethical virtue is a condition intermediate
  between two other states, one involving excess,
  and the other deficiency (1106a26-b28).
• 1. Virtues are no different from technical
  skills every skilled worker knows how to avoid
  excess and deficiency, and is in a condition
  intermediate between two extremes.
• 2. For example, the courageous person, for
  example, judges that some dangers are worth
  facing and others not, and experiences fear to a
  degree that is appropriate to his circumstances.
  He lies between the coward, who flees every
  danger and experiences excessive fear, and the
  rash person, who judges every danger worth
  facing and experiences little or no fear.

54
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• 2. Aristotle holds that this same topography
  applies to every ethical virtue all are
  located on a map that places the virtues between
  states of excess and deficiency.
• 3. The mean is to be determined in a way that
  takes into account the particular circumstances
  of the individual (1106a36-b7).
• Example The arithmetic mean between 10 and 2
  is 6, and this is so invariably, whatever is
  being counted. But the intermediate point that
  is chosen by an expert in any of the crafts will
  vary from one situation to another. There is no
  universal rule, for example, about how much food
  an athlete should eat, and it would be absurd to
  infer from the fact that 10 lbs. is too much and
  2 lbs. too little for me that I should eat 6
  lbs. Finding the mean in any given situation is
  not a mechanical or thoughtless procedure, but
  requires a full and detailed acquaintance with
  the circumstances

55
Virtue (courage)
People
Degree
Vice (cowardice)
Duration
Vice (Rashness)
Objects
Occasions
Brutish
56
A Character Trait is a Virtue IFF it is conducive
to eudaimonia
Virtue Excess
Deficiency Sphere
Courage Rashness Cowardice Danger Temperance S
elf-indulgence Insensibility Sensual
pleasure Liberality Wasteful Stinginess Money M
agnificence Vulgarity Penny pinching Great
wealth Pride Vanity Humility Honor
self-respect Right Ambition Overly
ambitious Lack of ambition Honor Good temper No
emotion Quick-temper Insult Ready
wit Buffoonishness Boorishness Humor Truthfulness
Boastfulness Modesty Self-description Friendlin
ess Flattery Quarrelsome Social
association Shame Bashfulness Pretense Wrongdoi
ng Righteous Spite Envy Fortune of
others Justice Greed ? Scarce goods
57
How does Aristotle Know which Traits are Virtues?

• It is not by uncritical adoption of values of his
  time for Aristotle is quite critical of certain
  institutions within society (e.g., slavery) is
  willing to state that certain traits are
  virtues/vices even though they have not been
  previously been identified as such by his
  society.
• Aristotle says that a character trait is a virtue
  IFF it is conducive to leading the happy life
  (eudaimonia).

58
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• It should be evident that Aristotle's treatment
  of virtues as mean states endorses the idea that
  we should sometimes have strong feelingswhen
  such feelings are called for by our situation.
  Sometimes only a small degree of anger is
  appropriate but at other times, circumstances
  call for great anger. The right amount is not
  some quantity between zero and the highest
  possible level, but rather the amount, whatever
  it happens to be, that is proportionate to the
  seriousness of the situation. Of course,
  Aristotle is committed to saying that anger
  should never reach the point at which it
  undermines reason and this means that our
  passion should always fall short of the extreme
  point at which we would lose control. But it is
  possible to be very angry without going to this
  extreme, and Aristotle does not intend to deny
  this.

59
2 Distinct Theories Regarding the Doctrine of the
Mean

• 1st There is the thesis that every virtue is a
  state that lies between two vices, one of excess
  and the other of deficiency.
• 2nd There is the idea that whenever a virtuous
  person chooses to perform a virtuous act, he
  can be described as aiming at an act that is in
  some way or other intermediate between
  alternatives that he rejects. I
• Second is more objectionable. A critic might
  concede that in some cases virtuous acts can be
  described in Aristotle's terms. If, for example,
  one is trying to decide how much to spend on a
  wedding present, one is looking for an amount
  that is neither excessive nor deficient. But
  surely many other problems that confront a
  virtuous agent are not susceptible to this
  quantitative analysis. If one must decide whether
  to attend a wedding or respect a competing
  obligation instead, it would not be illuminating
  to describe this as a search for a mean between
  extremesunless aiming at the mean simply
  becomes another phrase for trying to make the
  right decision. The objection, then, is that
  Aristotle's doctrine of the mean, taken as a
  doctrine about what the ethical agent does when
  he deliberates, is in many cases inapplicable or
  unilluminating.

60
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• A defense of Aristotle would have to say that the
  virtuous person does after all aim at a mean, if
  we allow for a broad enough notion of what sort
  of aiming is involved. For example, consider a
  juror who must determine whether a defendant is
  guilty as charged. He does not have before his
  mind a quantitative question he is trying to
  decide whether the accused committed the crime,
  and is not looking for some quantity of action
  intermediate between extremes. Nonetheless, an
  excellent juror can be described as someone who,
  in trying to arrive at the correct decision,
  seeks to express the right degree of concern for
  all relevant considerations. He searches for the
  verdict that results from a deliberative process
  that is neither overly credulous or unduly
  skeptical. Similarly, in facing situations that
  arouse anger, a virtuous agent must determine
  what action (if any) to take in response to an
  insult, and although this is not itself a
  quantitative question, his attempt to answer it
  properly requires him to have the right degree of
  concern for his standing as a member of the
  community. He aims at a mean in the sense that he
  looks for a response that avoids too much or too
  little attention to factors that must be taken
  into account in making a wise decision.

61
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• Perhaps a greater difficulty can be raised if we
  ask how Aristotle determines which emotions are
  governed by the doctrine of the mean. Consider
  someone who loves to wrestle, for example. Is
  this passion something that must be felt by every
  human being at appropriate times and to the right
  degree? Surely someone who never felt this
  emotion to any degree could still live a
  perfectly happy life. Why then should we not say
  the same about at least some of the emotions that
  Aristotle builds into his analysis of the
  ethically virtuous agent? Why should we
  experience anger at all, or fear, or the degree
  of concern for wealth and honor that Aristotle
  commends? These are precisely the questions that
  were asked in antiquity by the Stoics, and they
  came to the conclusion that such common emotions
  as anger and fear are always inappropriate.
  Aristotle assumes, on the contrary, not simply
  that these common passions are sometimes
  appropriate, but that it is essential that every
  human being learn how to master them and
  experience them in the right way at the right
  times. A defense of his position would have to
  show that the emotions that figure in his account
  of the virtues are valuable components of any
  well-lived human life, when they are experienced
  properly. Perhaps such a project could be carried
  out, but Aristotle himself does not attempt to do
  so.

62
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• He often says, in the course of his discussion,
  that when the good person chooses to act
  virtuously, he does so for the sake of the
  kalona word that can mean beautiful,
  noble, or fine. (See for example 1120a23-4.)
  This term indicates that Aristotle sees in
  ethical activity an attraction that is comparable
  to the beauty of well-crafted artifacts,
  including such artifacts as poetry, music, and
  drama. He draws this analogy in his discussion of
  the mean, when he says that every craft tries to
  produce a work from which nothing should be taken
  away and to which nothing further should be added
  (1106b5-14). A craft product, when well designed
  and produced by a good craftsman, is not merely
  useful, but also has such elements as balance,
  proportion and harmonyfor these are properties
  that help make it useful. Similarly, Aristotle
  holds that a well-executed project that expresses
  the ethical virtues will not merely be
  advantageous but kalon as wellfor the balance it
  strikes is part of what makes it advantageous.
  The young person learning to acquire the virtues
  must develop a love of doing what is kalon and a
  strong aversion to its oppositethe aischron, the
  shameful and ugly. Determining what is kalon is
  difficult (1106b28-33, 1109a24-30, and the normal
  human aversion to embracing difficulties helps
  account for the scarcity of virtue (1104b10-11).

63
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• It should be clear that neither the thesis that
  virtues lie between extremes nor the thesis that
  the good person aims at what is intermediate is
  intended as a procedure for making decisions.
  These doctrines of the mean help show what is
  attractive about the virtues, and they also help
  systematize our understanding of which qualities
  are virtues. Once we see that temperance,
  courage, and other generally recognized
  characteristics are mean states, we are in a
  position to generalize and to identify other mean
  states as virtues, even though they are not
  qualities for which we have a name. Aristotle
  remarks, for example, that the mean state with
  respect to anger has no name in Greek
  (1125b26-7). Though he is guided to some degree
  by distinctions captured by ordinary terms, his
  methodology allows him to recognize states for
  which no names exist.

64
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• So far from offering a decision procedure,
  Aristotle insists that this is something that no
  ethical theory can do. His theory elucidates the
  nature of virtue, but what must be done on any
  particular occasion by a virtuous agent depends
  on the circumstances, and these vary so much from
  one occasion to another that there is no
  possibility of stating a series of rules, however
  complicated, that collectively solve every
  practical problem. This feature of ethical theory
  is not unique Aristotle thinks it applies to
  many crafts, such as medicine and navigation
  (1104a7-10). He says that the virtuous person
  sees the truth in each case, being as it were a
  standard and measure of them (1113a32-3) but
  this appeal to the good person's vision should
  not be taken to mean that he has an inarticulate
  and incommunicable insight into the truth.

65
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• Aristotle thinks of the good person as someone
  who is good at deliberation, and he describes
  deliberation as a process of rational inquiry.
  The intermediate point that the good person tries
  to find is determined by logos (reason,
  account) and in the way that the person of
  practical reason would determine it (1107a1-2).
  To say that such a person sees what to do is
  simply a way of registering the point that the
  good person's reasoning does succeed in
  discovering what is best in each situation. He is
  as it were a standard and measure in the sense
  that his views should be regarded as
  authoritative by other members of the community.
  A standard or measure is something that settles
  disputes and because good people are so skilled
  at discovering the mean in difficult cases, their
  advice must be sought and heeded.

66
Relationship between Virtue and Vice

• Although there is no possibility of writing a
  book of rules, however long, that will serve as a
  complete guide to wise decision-making, it would
  be a mistake to attribute to Aristotle the
  opposite position, namely that every purported
  rule admits of exceptions, so that even a small
  rule-book that applies to a limited number of
  situations is an impossibility. He makes it clear
  that certain emotions (spite, shamelessness,
  envy) and actions (adultery, theft, murder) are
  always wrong, regardless of the circumstances
  (1107a8-12). Although he says that the names of
  these emotions and actions convey their
  wrongness, he should not be taken to mean that
  their wrongness derives from linguistic usage. He
  defends the family as a social institution
  against the criticisms of Plato (Politics
  II.3-4), and so when he says that adultery is
  always wrong, he is prepared to argue for his
  point by explaining why marriage is a valuable
  custom and why extra-marital intercourse
  undermines the relationship between husband and
  wife. He is not making the tautological claim
  that wrongful sexual activity is wrong, but the
  more specific and contentious point that
  marriages ought to be governed by a rule of
  strict fidelity. Similarly, when he says that
  murder and theft are always wrong, he does not
  mean that wrongful killing and taking are wrong,
  but that the current system of laws regarding
  these matters ought to be strictly enforced. So,
  although Aristotle holds that ethics cannot be
  reduced to a system of rules, however complex, he
  insists that some rules are inviolable.

67
Aristotles Starting Point

• We have seen that the decisions of a practically
  wise person are not mere intuitions, but can be
  justified by a chain of reasoning. (This is why
  Aristotle often talks in term of a practical
  syllogism, with a major premise that identifies
  some good to be achieved, and a minor premise
  that locates the good in some present-to-hand
  situation.) At the same time, he is acutely aware
  of the fact that reasoning can always be traced
  back to a starting point that is not itself
  justified by further reasoning. Neither good
  theoretical reasoning nor good practical
  reasoning moves in a circle true thinking always
  presupposes and progresses in linear fashion from
  proper starting points. And that leads him to ask
  for an account of how the proper starting points
  of reasoning are to be determined. Practical
  reasoning always presupposes that one has some
  end, some goal one is trying to achieve and the
  task of reasoning is determine how that goal is
  to be accomplished. (This need not be means-end
  reasoning in the conventional sense if, for
  example, our goal is the just resolution of a
  conflict, we must determine what constitutes
  justice in these particular circumstances. Here
  we are engaged in ethical inquiry, and are not
  asking a purely instrumental question.) But if
  practical reasoning is correct only if it begins
  from a correct premise, what is it that insures
  the correctness of its starting point?

68
Aristotles Starting Point

• Aristotle replies Virtue makes the goal right,
  practical wisdom the things leading to it
  (1144a7-8). By this he cannot mean that there is
  no room for reasoning about our ultimate end. For
  as we have seen, he gives a reasoned defense of
  his conception of happiness as virtuous activity.
  What he must have in mind, when he says that
  virtue makes the goal right, is that deliberation
  typically proceeds from a goal that is far more
  specific than the goal of attaining happiness by
  acting virtuously. To be sure, there may be
  occasions when a good person approaches an
  ethical problem by beginning with the premise
  that happiness consists in virtuous activity. But
  more often what happens is that a concrete goal
  presents itself as his starting pointhelping a
  friend in need, or supporting a worthwhile civic
  project. Which specific project we set for
  ourselves is determined by our character. A good
  person starts from worthwhile concrete ends
  because his habits and emotional orientation have
  given him the ability to recognize that such
  goals are within reach, here and now. Those who
  are defective in character may have the rational
  skill needed to achieve their endsthe skill
  Aristotle calls cleverness (1144a23-8)but often
  the ends they seek are worthless. The cause of
  this deficiency lies not in some impairment in
  their capacity to reasonfor we are assuming that
  they are normal in this respectbut in the
  training of their passions.

69

• Nicomachean Ethics was written not in order to
  know what virtue is, but in order to become
  good.
• The choices and actions will be free of the
  conflict pain that inevitably accompanies the
  aktratic and enkratic agent. This is because the
  part of the soul that governs choice and action
  is so disposed that desire and right judgment
  coincide. Thus, acquiring a stable disposition
  (hexis) of this sort amounts to acquiring moral
  virtue (ethike arete). This disposition is
  concerned with choices as would be determined by
  the person of practical wisdom (phronesis) these
  will be actions lying between extreme
  alternatives.

70

• In the virtuous person, desire and judgment agree
  whereby the choices and actions will be free of
  the conflict and pain that inevitably accompany
  those who are akratic and/or enkratic

The enkratic The enkratic is the morally strong
person who shares the akratic agents desire to
do other than what he knows ought to be done,
but acts in accordance with his better judgment.
The akratic The akratic is the morally weak
person who desires to do other than what he knows
ought to be done and acts on this desire against
his better judgment.
In neither kind of choice are desire and judgment
in harmony. In the virtuous desire and judgment
agree.
71
Why does desire and judgment agree for the
virtuous?

• The reason why the choices and actions will be
  free of the conflict and pain that inevitably
  accompanies those of the akratic and enkratic
  agent is because the part of their soul that
  governs choice and action is so disposed that
  desire and judgment coincide. The disposition is
  concerned with choices as would be determined by
  the person of practical wisdom (phronesis) these
  will be actions lying between extreme
  alternatives. They will lie in a man-popularly
  called the golden mean-relative to the talents
  and stores of the agent.

72
Why does desire and judgment agree for the
virtuous?

• Choosing in this way is not easily done. It
  involves, for instance, feeling anger or
  extending generosity at the right time, toward
  the right people, in the right way, and for the
  right reasons. Intellectual virtues, such as
  excellence at mathematics, can be acquired by
  teaching, but moral virtues cannot. I may know
  what ought to be done and even perform virtuous
  act without being able to act virtuously.
  Nonetheless, because moral virtue is a
  disposition concerning choice, deliberate
  performance of virtuous acts can, ultimately,
  instill a disposition to choose them in harmony
  and with pleasure, and hence, to act virtuously.

73
What does it take to be fully virtuous?

• The fully virtuous do what they should without a
  struggle against contrary desire possess
  practical wisdom (phronesis) which is the
  knowledge or understanding that enables its
  possessor to do just that in any given situation.
  Most contend that phronesis comes out of at
  least two sources
• 1. Comes only with the experience of life. The
  virtuous are mindful of the consequences of
  possible actions. How could they fail to be
  reckless, thoughtless and short-sighted if they
  were not?
• 2. They have the capacit