Aristotle on virtue

topic posted Mon, June 27, 2005 - 7:43 AM by  Kanch
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What's the best book to read of Ari's on the subject of virtue?
posted by:
Kanch
Australia
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  • Re: Aristotle on virtue

    Mon, June 27, 2005 - 8:33 AM
    Turns out Google answers gives a complete reply for my question:

    Aristotle's theory of virtue is found in the Nichomachean Ethics. He
    cites two types of virtues, intellectual and moral. I'm assuming you
    are asking about moral virtues.
    classics.mit.edu/Aristotle...chaen.html

    When Aristotle talked about moral virtues he was talking about a man's
    character, the way he acted. He believed that character was not an
    innate trait but a learned trait. Basically his philosophy of moral
    virtue can be condensed to the phrase - virtue is the mean between two
    extremes.

    More specifically, Aristotle writes,

    "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, and by that principle by which the man of
    practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two
    vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect;
    and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or
    exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both
    finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its
    substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a
    mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme."

    You can find the complete discussion in Book II(6)
    classics.mit.edu/Aristotle...chaen.html

    What did Aristotle mean by this? He conceptualized virtues in
    pragmatic terms. They dealt with the actions and passions of people,
    what people do and how it makes them feel. He boiled down the feelings
    to basic pleasure and pain principles. He was trying to teach the
    Athenian citizenry a proper way to act, given that they all had
    choices. At once, he believed that there were no transedental rights
    and wrong ways to act and feel. He says,

    "For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and
    pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and
    too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right
    times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people,
    with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both
    intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue."

    Applying the mean principle to today's business world, one might
    provide and example from the stock market.

    Aristotle might posit that that there's no right or wrong in making
    money. The action of making money can be either good or bad depending
    on the feelings and actions involved. Certainly most everyone feels
    great pleasure making money and pain at losing money. However, the
    true test of virtue is how the money is made or lost. If business
    executives want to continue feeling great pleasure making money and do
    so by going to extremes, by doing something such as insider trading,
    then they are not acting with virtue. They are going to an extreme.
    The same would hold for losing money. If executives are trying to halt
    the pains associated with losing money (nothing wrong with that in and
    of itself), but they do so by going to extemes and using aggressive or
    fradulant accounting methods, then they are not acting with virute,
    they are going to an extreme.

    I realize that your clarification said provide an example from today's
    business world. However, the exmples from 100 years ago would look
    similar. Let's take the case of a state practicing expansion through
    empire, i.e., imperialism. The rules and people of a state would want
    to feel good about their strong and glorious state. There's nothing
    inherently wrong or non-virtuous about it. However, when they go to
    extremes by enslaving the peoples of another state, labeling them
    savages and without reason and providing them with rational for
    stealing their gold or whatever treasures they have, then it could be
    suggested that those states went to an extreme and were not acting
    virtuously.

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