Aristotle Himself
The Complete Text of the Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle and Virtue Ethics
The Nicomachean Ethics:

One of the oldest normative moral theories of the Western philosophical tradition can be traced back to Aristotle (384-322 BCE), who was the student of Plato (c. 427-347 BCE), who, we've already discovered, was the student of Socrates (c. 470-399 BCE) who was himself probably the first moral philosophers of Greece. While Socrates, Plato and Aristotle offered significantly different accounts of moral obligation, they all employed the language of 'virtue' to explain our moral obligations. In fact most philosophers of the Ancient period (for the purposes of our discussion we'll consider the Ancient Period to last around 1000 years, from the mid Seventh Century BCE to the mid Seventh Century CE) spoke more about 'virtue' rather than 'moral obligation', more about 'goodness' than 'rightness'. This emphasis upon goodness and virtue gives us an interesting insight into the nature of what ethicists today call 'Virtue Ethics'. As a normative theory, Virtue Ethics differs from both Teleological and Deontological Ethics because of its emphasis on virtue.

What, then, is virtue, or a virtue? To understand Virtue Ethics, we must have a clear understanding of the nature of virtue.

Definition: 'Virtue' is any disposition of character, or personality, that we desire in ourselves or others.

Virtues, therefore, are those dispositions of character which we think are good. Virtue Ethics, therefore, will be a normative theory which emphasizes attaining those dispositions we think are good (i.e., the virtues). As such, this type of moral theory will emphasize character development rather than the articulation of abstract moral principles to guide all our actions (as we will see is the heart of both Teleological and Deontological Ethics).

So, Virtue Ethics is a type of normative theory which guides us in the development of good characteristics. But, what are good characteristics, and what makes them good? For the Greeks, this question was easy to answer, though for Modern philosophers it seems a little more ambiguous (we will return to this problem later).

  1. The Cardinal Virtues -

    In Greek culture there were four basic or cardinal virtues recognized as necessary for attaining the good life:

    1. Justice
    2. Temperance
    3. Courage
    4. Wisdom

    Thus, when someone like Aristotle speaks of a morally virtuous person, he (and his contemporaries) means a person who demonstrates all four of these basic virtues. And, the point of moral discourse, according to Aristotle, is to help us understand why these particular characteristics are desirable, and how best to attain them. These are the goals at the heart of Aristotle's book, the Nicomachean Ethics. But, we must understand that his moral theory is part of a larger philosophical enterprise and must, therefore, be seen in the context of Aristotle's overall method of doing philosophy.

  2. Aristotle's Method: Teleology and the Hierarchy of Goods - Every activity or action aims at some end ['telos'] which is its good

    1. Two types of ends -

      1. Intermediate - done for the sake of something else
      2. Final - done for its own sake

    2. The social Sciences/Inquiries/Knowledges ['episteme'] are activities which aim at an end

    3. Politics incorporates all the "social sciences" - it is therefore the greatest knowledge we can desire

  3. What is the goal of Politics? To Secure Happiness ['eudaimonia']

      Definition: 'Eudaimonia' is a state of complete fulfillment or well being. Flourishing.

      It is important to note that for the Greeks happiness (i.e., eudaimonia) is not a psychological state! A plant can be happy so long as it reaches a state of fulfillment or flourishing. This may sound strange to you, but it is essential to understand Aristotle's theory that to be happy has little to do with how you feel.

    1. How do we attain Happiness?

      Everyone, says Aristotle, agrees that the goal of human life is to be happy, but there is disagreement about how we actually attain happiness.

      1. The many say "pleasure" - but don't we want pleasure for the sake of happiness?
      2. The aristocrats say "honor" - but don't we want honor for the sake of power it brings?
      3. Some say "virtue" - but isn't it clear that virtue is only good instrumentally and therefore cannot be the ultimate goal of human life?
      4. The wealthy say "money" - but money is clearly only good as a means to some other end.

      In each of these cases we find something which is A goal, but not THE goal of human life. To really understand what the final goal of human life is, we must first understand what it is to be human! Only by understanding what a human being is, can we hope to know what the goal of human life is.

    2. What is a Human?

      Clearly, humans are living beings, but there are many different kinds of living things (i.e., 'psyche' or souls), so we must discover what is unique to the human soul as opposed to the non-human soul.

      1. Four types of lives (or souls):

        1. nutritive - plants
        2. sensate - animals
        3. political - social animals
        4. rational (life of thought) - humans!

      2. Man is the Rational Animal - To live according to reason is what it is to be human

    3. What is the Virtue/Excellence of Man?

      NOTE: It's important to note here the ambiguity in the meaning of 'virtue' in the Greek language. In Greek, 'virtue' is 'aretai' which literally translates "excellence." Anything which is excellent, is, in Greek, virtuous. Again, this may seem strange to us, but we have to remember that the English language has a much larger vocabulary than did Ancient Greek. With a smaller vocabulary, words were often more ambiguous and their precise meaning must be carefully extracted from the context. Fortunately, Aristotle is well aware of the ambiguity of the word and clearly distinguishes two distinct uses of 'aretai'.

      1. Intellectual Virtue - discipline of the thought acquired through education
      2. Moral Virtue - discipline of action acquired through habituated moral action

    4. Is acting morally the same as being moral? Is performing moral actions sufficient to be a moral person?

      NO!

      1. One must have knowledge of what is moral - ignorance is amoral
      2. One must Will the moral action - no accidental morality
      3. One must act out of a consistent character - no occasional morality

    5. How do we learn to act morally?

      1. What is human virtue? - the soul-state which enables achievement of the human function - three possible soul-states

        1. excess - vice
        2. deficiency - vice
        3. mean - virtue

      2. How do we achieve the moral skill? We Practice aiming for the Golden Mean.

Ultimately, for Aristotle, attaining virtue is a matter of disciplining oneself to live a balanced rational life guided by the mean which lies between the extremes of excess and deficiency. Moral virtue is a tool which is necessary for human beings, the rational political animal, to survive in political institutions. There is no significant morality outside the political context, because moral virtue only arises within the political context!

Now we must return to the question we raised at the beginning of our discussion of Aristotle. We said that the cardinal virtues were those dispositions which were considered good. We can now see why Aristotle thought these particular dispositions were good: they enable us to flourish in the political context. But notice that if we disagree with Aristotle's analysis of what a human being is, we loose the justification for holding up the four cardinal virtues as the tools for achieving a good life. And, many philosophers WILL disagree with Aristotle about human nature. If we agree with them, we are left without a clear guide to which virtues are the right ones to lead us to the good life. In fact, what's to stop us from saying that deception or cruelty are virtues if they correspond with our notion of what it is to be a human being?

It seems that any virtue-based moral theory must presuppose some more basic moral principle which tells us what the good is, and only then will we be able to identify those dispositions which help us to attain that goal. That is, it seems that Virtue Ethics ultimately depends upon some other kind of moral theory to guide it to a definition of THE GOOD.

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