Phi 160
Aristotle one of a great thinkers left a great philosophical logic that is still being learned today. Born in Stagira, Greece Aristotle started as a student of Plato to become a tutor of Alexander the Great. In Nicomachean Ethics, book written by Aristotle’s, he explains virtues and how happiness is the means by which human beings have moral virtues. The debate whether virtue or vice should determine happiness is what Aristotle simplifies for us. Happiness should be determined by the activities human beings, virtuous or not, do in order to be happy within themselves. For Aristotle, virtue are those characteristics that allows an individual to live well. There are two kinds of virtues, the moral virtues and the intellectual virtues. Aristotle clarifies that moral virtues are different than intellectual virtues, because in order to have moral virtues one must live to learn them. On the other hand intellectual virtues are taught directly from someone else. For instance, one must practice how to play an instrument in order to be good at playing it. We can not teach an individual to be good at playing an instrument without practice. Aristotle agrees that “moral virtues, then, are engendered in us neither by nor contrary to nature; we are constituted by nature receive them, but their full development in us is due to habit (Rachels and Rachels, 2012).” Moral virtues must be practiced daily, it is not a one day thing. By practice, one can be a very virtuous human being. Having a virtuous moral life consist of not only living well, having health, or wealth, but it is to live in the state of the Golden Mean. What is meant by the Golden Mean is “the virtues are at a middle ground between excess and deficiency (Pojman and Fieser, 2012, p. 149).” One can have excess vice and be rash, in a situation of feeling fear and confidence, or be a coward and have deficiency vice. To be virtuous, also known as the mean, one must be courageous in confronting ones fear. Virtue has
Bibliography: APA Style Polman, L.P., & Fieser, J. (2012). Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth. Rachels, J., & Rachels, S. (2012). The Right Thing To Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.