Aristotle
A virtues man is a man who feel good with himself and make choices that will bring him happiness and who has no
regrets after he has done an action. Aristotle argued that living in accordance with virtues was the key to achieving
EUDAIMONIA, happiness or fulfillment. Aristotle crucial insight here is that ethical virtue is not merely something
intellectual, but involves ingrained dispositions of character habits and action. Ethical excellence, Aristotle argues is
in this respect like musical excellence, you become good by constant practice. It is a mistake just to balance the
costs and benefits of various action. The virtues the individual will have been trained from an early age to have the
right kinds of desires and to behave in proper way at the appropriate time. Aristotle introduced his famous doctrine
of the mean: that lies between two extremes the vice excess and the vice of deficiency. The importance of his
account – Mean- represents the pattern of virtue which we aim to acquire and instill into our children are those
which reason can recognize as making for a maximally worthwhile human life, a life where we can develop our
human potentialities to the full. It follows that the good of humankind is an activity of the soul in accordance with
virtue. Virtue is of two kinds Intellectual and ethical. Ethical virtue is a set of skills that you train o get better by
exercising ur mind whereas Intellectual virtue involves only abilities to make decision. The disposition to make the
best choice in order to develop these abilities you need to face them daily .You make ethical decision when u have
experiences.Ethical virtues do not come about by nature but neither do they come about contrary to nature; we are
naturally constituted so as to acquire them, but it is by habit that they are fully developed.therefore it is by doing just
things that we become just and by acting temperately that we become temperate and by doing brave things that we
become brave.
Happiness is the highest good and the end at which all our activities ultimately aim. All our activities aim at some
end, though most of these ends are means toward other ends. For example, we go grocery shopping to buy food, but
buying food is itself a means toward the end of eating well and thriftily. Eating well and thriftily is also not an end in
itself but a means to other ends. Only happiness is an end in itself, so it is the ultimate end at which all our activities
aim. As such, it is the supreme good. The difficulty is that people don’t agree on what makes for a happy or good
life, so the purpose of the Ethics is to find an answer to this question. By its nature, the investigation is imprecise
because there are so many variables involved when considering a person’s life as a whole.
Aristotle defines the supreme good as an activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue. Virtue for
the Greeks is equivalent to excellence. A man has virtue as a flautist, for instance, if he plays the flute well, since
playing the flute is the distinctive activity of a flautist. A virtuous person is someone who performs the distinctive
activity of being human well. Rationality is our distinctive activity, that is, the activity that distinguishes us from
plants and animals. All living things have a nutritive soul, which governs growth and nutrition. Humans and animals
are distinct from plants in having a sensitive soul, which governs locomotion and instinct. Humans are distinct above
all for having also a rational soul, which governs thought. Since our rationality is our distinctive activity, its exercise
is the supreme good.
Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of
deficiency and excess, which are vices. We learn moral virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than
through reasoning and instruction. Virtue is a matter of having the appropriate attitude toward pain and pleasure. For
example, a coward will suffer undue fear in the face of danger, whereas a rash person will not suffer sufficient fear.
Aristotle lists the principle virtues along with their corresponding vices, as represented in the following table. A
virtuous person exhibits all of the virtues: they do not properly exist as distinct qualities but rather as different
aspects of a virtuous life.