Aristotle -Virtue and Continence
Sarah Bader Al-Din
6652179
Aristotle Essay
CLA/PHI3380A
Aristotle’s views have today come to shape the way in which people view things and how they think. In this essay I will be discussing the difference between continence and temperance and their relation to moral virtue and how it is possessed. I will explain what Aristotle’s view on knowledge, and how it the key to human life. When Aristotle describes moral virtue he describes it as something that “comes as a result of habit”(Nicomanchean Ethics I, xiii 1103a17) to state that “non of the moral virtues are in us by nature”( Nicomanchean Ethics I, xiii 1103a18) by saying this Aristotle is implying that moral virtue is acquired by the repetition of doing good deeds and acting with good habit, and goes to show that it cannot be acquired by nature by using the argument of attempting to teach a rock to go against its nature and not sink. Although an interesting statement at how he believes moral virtue could be obtained is when he states that “neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adopted by nature to receive them and they are made perfect by habit” (Nicomanchean Ethics I, xiii.1103a23-25) it is in this that he states that it is in our nature to pick things up by habit making it in our ability to become morally virtuous in the understanding of pleasures and pain. With this understanding of moral virtue, it has made the understanding of what temperance and continence possible for they are a part of moral virtue.
To begin with, there are two important pieces of information that must be acknowledged; the first is that temperance is a state within moral virtue, or a form of which a moral individual would be in while he is morally virtues, making a man temperate man a moral man. The second is in the way in which Aristotle describes and explains temperance and continence; he does so using most of the time their negations (so to speak) of self-indulgence and
6652179
Aristotle Essay
CLA/PHI3380A
Aristotle’s views have today come to shape the way in which people view things and how they think. In this essay I will be discussing the difference between continence and temperance and their relation to moral virtue and how it is possessed. I will explain what Aristotle’s view on knowledge, and how it the key to human life. When Aristotle describes moral virtue he describes it as something that “comes as a result of habit”(Nicomanchean Ethics I, xiii 1103a17) to state that “non of the moral virtues are in us by nature”( Nicomanchean Ethics I, xiii 1103a18) by saying this Aristotle is implying that moral virtue is acquired by the repetition of doing good deeds and acting with good habit, and goes to show that it cannot be acquired by nature by using the argument of attempting to teach a rock to go against its nature and not sink. Although an interesting statement at how he believes moral virtue could be obtained is when he states that “neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adopted by nature to receive them and they are made perfect by habit” (Nicomanchean Ethics I, xiii.1103a23-25) it is in this that he states that it is in our nature to pick things up by habit making it in our ability to become morally virtuous in the understanding of pleasures and pain. With this understanding of moral virtue, it has made the understanding of what temperance and continence possible for they are a part of moral virtue.
To begin with, there are two important pieces of information that must be acknowledged; the first is that temperance is a state within moral virtue, or a form of which a moral individual would be in while he is morally virtues, making a man temperate man a moral man. The second is in the way in which Aristotle describes and explains temperance and continence; he does so using most of the time their negations (so to speak) of self-indulgence and