The analysis of virtue

1. ‘Excellence’ and ‘habits’:

Aristotle locates ethical excellence within a general category of habits or ‘states of character.’

1.1.The practical virtue of courage is the right location on continuum of degrees of feeling fear.

1.2.The practical virtue of generosity is the right location on a continuum of degrees of sharing one’s material prosperity.

1.3.There is also an important ‘intellectual virtue,’ which, among other things, helps to co-ordinate the many practical virtues.

　

2. The virtue of justice:

One cannot do what is just without already being just, having the virtue of justice.

2.1.Where X is an excellence, we become X only by doing X actions.

1.1. Question: How can we do just acts without already being just?

3. Four important clauses in Aristotle’s account of ethical excellence:

Arete is a stable disposition to act or be affected

3.1. involving preference or choice;

3.2. lying in a mean relative to us;

3.3. determined by discursive thought (logos);

3.4. as a man of practical wisdom would determine.

　

Aristotle’s Teleological View

1. Aristotle’s question: What is the best sort of life for man to lead?

1.1. Our aim: To understand human life and human existence, including the fact that man is a rational being who can think, know, and understand.

1.2. What we want to get at is some understandings:

1.2.1.How a being of such nature may be expected to act and behave.

1.2.2.What a being will do and how he/her will live.

2.Aristotelian Basic principle:

Do those actions that would further one’s proper development as a human being.

3.Different versions of this approach:

3.1.each person can determine through the use of reason his or her proper development as a human being.

3.2.Religious traditions rely on revelation to guide people in their proper development as human beings.

It conflicts most radically with a Utilitarian Approach

The Strength and Weakness

1.The main strength of an Aristotelian Approach is that it limits the means that can be chosen in pursuit of good consequences. In particular, it absolutely prohibits intentionally doing evil that good may come of it.

2.The main weakness is that the limit it imposes is too strong. It lacks an effective decision-making procedure for resolving practical problems.