Aristotle's Virtue Ethics Essay
Studies in Religion and Ethics
1 Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is a theory concerned with the character development of a person, rather than the rules of how they behave or the consequences of their actions. A virtue ethicist will say that it is not the action which someone takes or the consequences of that action which are important, but rather what the decision to act says about that person’s moral character.
Virtue ethics was first associated with the great Greek philosopher Aristotle. In Nicomachean Ethics, he said that all people have a purpose or function, which he called ‘telos’. That telos, Aristotle argued, was for the person to fully realize their potential and to achieve their ultimate goal, which, in Aristotle’s view, …show more content…
The person who wants to live properly and realize their true potential must cultivate virtuous qualities in their lives. Most important of these was the quality of happiness, or Eudaimonia, which involves both being happy and living a good life. For Aristotle, everyone should aim to achieve Eudaimonia in their own lives, through leading the good life in their community and through friendships and interaction with others, because the society in which a person lives help them to develop their …show more content…
It means to act in the mid-point between extremes of excess, on the one hand, and deficiency on the other. Every virtue has a corresponding vice at either end of the spectrum – for instance, the mid-point between cowardice and foolhardiness (which are both vices) is courage, which is, therefore, the ‘golden mean’. Aristotle said that people discover what the golden mean for a particular virtue is and how to act accordingly by watching and learning good role models, and by training and developing the virtue until it becomes an automatic way of living and behaving, and part of a person’s character. In this way they will become virtuous people who will perform virtuous acts as their character gradually acquires the
1 Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is a theory concerned with the character development of a person, rather than the rules of how they behave or the consequences of their actions. A virtue ethicist will say that it is not the action which someone takes or the consequences of that action which are important, but rather what the decision to act says about that person’s moral character.
Virtue ethics was first associated with the great Greek philosopher Aristotle. In Nicomachean Ethics, he said that all people have a purpose or function, which he called ‘telos’. That telos, Aristotle argued, was for the person to fully realize their potential and to achieve their ultimate goal, which, in Aristotle’s view, …show more content…
The person who wants to live properly and realize their true potential must cultivate virtuous qualities in their lives. Most important of these was the quality of happiness, or Eudaimonia, which involves both being happy and living a good life. For Aristotle, everyone should aim to achieve Eudaimonia in their own lives, through leading the good life in their community and through friendships and interaction with others, because the society in which a person lives help them to develop their …show more content…
It means to act in the mid-point between extremes of excess, on the one hand, and deficiency on the other. Every virtue has a corresponding vice at either end of the spectrum – for instance, the mid-point between cowardice and foolhardiness (which are both vices) is courage, which is, therefore, the ‘golden mean’. Aristotle said that people discover what the golden mean for a particular virtue is and how to act accordingly by watching and learning good role models, and by training and developing the virtue until it becomes an automatic way of living and behaving, and part of a person’s character. In this way they will become virtuous people who will perform virtuous acts as their character gradually acquires the