Aristotle Virtue Ethics

Aristotle had a few theories of ethics. Aristotle believed that one attains happiness by living a virtuous life and through the development of reason and the faculty of theoretical wisdom. He believed that moral virtue is a relative mean between extremes of excess and deficiency and in general the moral life is one of moderation in all things except virtue. He believed that virtuous acts require conscious choice and moral purpose or motivation. Finally, he believed that moral virtue cannot be achieved abstractly – it requires moral action in a social environment. The drawbacks to adopting Aristotle’s ethics would be …..
Virtue ethics is an approach that deemphasizes rules, consequences and particular acts and places the focus on the kind of
Every virtue can be used for immoral purposes. For example, you can use courage to assault someone, and you can use intelligence to plan a bank robbery. Aristotle fails to provide rules; virtues alone are insufficient because they could be used negatively, having virtues does not necessarily make one a good person. Virtue ethics can be unhelpful in making moral decisions. Aristotle does not provide rules to live by, which leaves us with little or no direction when it comes to answering specific moral questions. There are certain situation in which it is not very helpful to say ‘be brave’ or ‘be kind’ or ‘be wise’, as it is unclear which course of action is the most courageous, compassionate or sensible. The idea of having virtues is the idea of developing the habit of performing the right actions at the right times, and having the appropriate feelings to the right extent, but this is all very vague and is arguably unhelpful in actual decision making. Also, Aristotle’s theory is centered around the idea of having a strong character and developing your virtues. However, it can be argued that we have little to no control over our personality and habits, because there are certain factors that we cannot change, such as our DNA and upbringing. Our personalities cannot be easily
Aristotle argues that the only true form of friendship is his idea of the friendships of virtue, but human beings are arguably incapable of being completely unselfish. Every action undertaken by human beings is selfish as it is in the nature of a human being. In every action from a human being, there is a deep-rooted element of self-gratification. It is arguably impossible for human beings to be friends with someone solely for the sake of the friends, and not for our own sake. It is not in the human nature, there is always a degree of self-interest. It is arguably impossible for people to be friends without looking to satisfy some sort of