VIRTUE ETHICS

ARISTOTLE
VIRTUE ETHICS

is the ethical framework that is concerned

with understanding the good as a matter of
developing the virtuous character of a person.
 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Aristotle: 384-322 BCE

▪ Student of Plato in the Academia,
Athens
▪ Gave emphasis on reason as the
highest faculty of a person
(same with Socrates and Plato)
▪ Founded his own school, Lyceum
because of his intellectual
differences with Plato
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Works of Aristotle:
▪ 1. Theoretical Sciences (Metaphysics, Physics, De Caelo
(astronomy), De Generatione et Corruptione (biology), De
Anima (psychology)
▪2. Practical Sciences (Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics,
Politics)
▪3. Productive or Poetical Sciences (Rhetoric, Poetics)
▪ 4. Logic (Organon)
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS

▪ Aristotle departs from the Platonic theory that the real

is outside the realm of the sensory experience and is
in the world of forms.
▪ Aristotle: real as matter and form
▪ The good does not exist independent of the person’s
experience in the world.
TELOS: WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE
OF A PERSON?
There is a purpose in every action of a person which is perceived
as something good.
▪ There is a hierarchy of purpose
▪ Criteria for the ultimate telos
a. Final
b. Self-sufficient
c. Attainable
TELOS: WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE
OF A PERSON?

Eudaimonia: happiness
EUDAIMONIA: HIGHEST PURPOSE AND
HIGHEST GOOD

▪Not an emotion which is temporary

▪Not nirvana (state of liberation from

samsara) nor stoicism (rejection of emotion)
EUDAIMONIA: HIGHEST PURPOSE AND
HIGHEST GOOD

▪ “Activity of the soul in accordance with

virtue”

▪ Achieved by fulfilling a person’s ergon

(function)
ERGON: WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF A
PERSON?
▪Function is what distinguishes or characterizes
the thing from other beings (ex. umbrella used as
protection from heat and rain)
▪ Function of a person which sets her apart from
the rest: activity of reason
▪ To be a person is to act in accordance to reason
ERGON: WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF A
PERSON?

▪To be a good person is to perform her

rational activity well

▪ In a good or excellent way: arête (virtue,

birtud, kahusayan, maayo)
ARETE: VIRTUE

“But we must add “in a complete life”. For one swallow does not make a
summer…Also a happy man needs the external goods as well; for it is
impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment…as
good birth, goodly children, beauty…” (Bk. I, 1098, a19)

▪ Virtue cannot be accomplished by a single act

▪ Conditions in order to be happy

PSYCHE: SOUL OF A PERSON

1. Irrational: a. vegetative: growth, nutrition b. appetitive: desire

▪ Not dictated by reason
▪ Desire: does not arise from the rational faculty of the soul but is subject
to reason

2. Rational : a. Moral (acting) b. Intellectual (knowing) i. Practical wisdom

(phronesis) ii. Philosophic wisdom (sophia)
▪ Dictated by reason
▪ Aspect of the soul where virtue, that is, where human excellence
can be attained: moral and intellectual virtues
INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE

Act of knowing

▪ Intellectual virtue is seen in wisdom

▪ Acquired through teaching, learning
▪ Phronesis: excellence of knowing what to do
▪ Phronesis: necessary for moral virtue
MORAL VIRTUE

Determining the good and doing the right actions

▪ Moral virtue
▪ Acquired through habit
▪ Formation of one’s character: habitually
willing and doing the good (mabuting
pag-uugali)
WHAT COMPRISES MORAL VIRTUE?

Acting out the right feelings/passions?

▪ Most feelings/ passions are neutral. Neither good nor bad
(ex. being angry)
▪ Moral virtue is the excellent management of one’s
feelings and passions
▪ Ex. Being angry with the right person, time, reason,
manner, circumstance
▪ Right measurement: mesotes (mean)
MESOTES

Hence it is hard work to be virtuous, since in each case it

is hard work to find what is the mean (mesotes) …So also
getting angry, or giving and spending money, is easy and
anyone can do it; but doing it to the right person, in the
right amount, at the right time, for the right end, and in
the right way is no longer easy, nor can everyone do it.
Hence, (doing these things) well is rare, praiseworthy,
and fine. (Bk. II, 1109a24)
PHRONIMOS

a virtuous person does not even have

to control oneself because one’s
resolution has been so habituated to
always rightly act; self-possessed
DEFINITION OF MORAL VIRTUE

“Virtue, then, is a state of character

concerned with a choice, lying in a mean, i.e.,
the mean relative to us, this being
determined by a rational principle, and by
that principle by which the man of practical
wisdom would determine it.” (Bk II,
1106b36-1107a2)
VIRTUE IS THE MEAN IN BETWEEN TWO
VICES

Deficiency---------- Virtue ----------Excess

---------- mesotes
MORAL VIRTUE: MESOTES

Exactness of mesotes, or as the maximum act

(ex. not sobrang bait, not over sa tapang, not
medyo palakaibigan)

Wrong actions have no mesotes (ex. murder,

adultery, spite)