VIRTUE ETHICS

GE 8 - ETHICS
LESSON OUTLINE

Introduction: What is Virtue

Ethics?
On Aristotelian Ethics
EUDAIMONIA
On Virtue
The Doctrine of the Mean
Challenges to Virtue Ethics
WHAT IS VIRTUE ETHICS?

 It does not focus on the right or wrong

actions; it concentrates on the
CHARACTER of the actor.
 WHAT KIND OF PERSON SHOULD I
BE?
 It is more interested not with what
makes an act right, but what makes a
person good.
 The starting point of VIRTUE ETHICS:
what characters are virtuous or vicious?
CONT.

The virtuous person is

not simply one who
does the right act;
rather, the virtuous
person is one who
consistently does right
acts for the right
motives.
ON ARISTOTELIAN
ETHICS
Every art and every
inquiry, and similarly
every action and pursuit,
is thought to aim at some
good, and for this reason
the good has rightly been
declared to be that at
which all things aim.
CONT.

 But what is that we desire

for its own sake, an end
which determines all other
desires? What is
intrinsically and ultimately
good, and not merely
instrumental to some
other good?
 EUDAIMONIA

The ULTIMATE good, the

end of all human actions.
Eudaimonia – happiness,
well-being, flourishing,
or living well.
The fulfillment of one’s
nature is what leads to
happiness.
CONT.

 The proper end of human beings is to

live a life in accordance with reason.
 Human Beings can act based on reason.
 If happiness lies on fulfilling one’s nature
and function, the key to human
happiness is cultivating and enhancing
our rational faculty, making it prevail
over the lower faculties of desire and
passion.
 ON VIRTUE

If happiness is a
life in accordance
with reason, how
can we attain
such life?
CONT.

 ONE MUST DEVELOP

VIRTUES.
 Intellectual and Moral
Virtues
 IV – enables us to
think rationally.
 MV – enables us to
handle our desires
and emotions
rationally.
CONT.

We must practice

virtues before we
can acquire them.
Aristotle compared
the practice of
virtues to acquiring
skills in arts.
CONT.

For the things which we have to learn before

we can do them, we learn by doing. Men
become builders by building houses, and
harpists by playing the harp; similarly, we
become just by the practice of just actions, self-
controlled by exercising self-control, and
courageous by performing acts of courage.
CONT.

 To have a certain
character demands that it
becomes a part of one’s
nature or personality, and
thus can only be acquired
through time, by
continuous performance
of moral action.
 Moral Action and Virtue
CONT.

A virtuous person
must not only be
capable of acting
rightly, but he or she is
doing the right act
with a feeling of
pleasure and
contentment.
THE DOCTRINE OF
THE MEAN
 If virtue is a product of habit
and is a characteristic trait
the practice of which is
something we enjoy, how
does it differ from vice,
which is also acquired
through habit and is
considered a trait from
which people derive
pleasure?
CONT.

 VIRTUE – the mean

between the two
extremes of our emotions
and desires, as well as the
actions that they
motivate.
 VICE – the undesirable
character trait of either
the extreme of excess or
the extreme of deficiency.
 VIRTUE – THE MEAN
CONT.
CONT.

 Aristotle notes that the mean between extremes

does not lie in the act but is relative to the moral
agent. This means that what is excessive,
deficient, and moderate depends on the person.
 According to Aristotle, not every action nor every
emotion admits of a mean.
 Choosing the mean between extremes is the way
for reason to control the excesses of the
emotions and passions.
 A life of moderation is not a life of safety or
boredom, but a life where REASON IS
CONTROL.
 CHALLENGES TO ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS

It has no clear basis to determine what

we ought to do, and not to do.
The mean and situationism.
Humans have only one distinctive
function: reasoning.
 SUMMARY

 VIRTUE ETHICS concentrates on the character of the person;

not the act itself.
 VIRTUES are right actions done repeatedly, habitually.
 Intellectual Virtues – enable us to think rationally
 Moral Virtues – enable us to regulate our emotions and desires
 REASON is essential in living a virtuous life; living a virtuous life
will lead to the ultimate happiness (eudaimonia).
 VIRTUES are the mean; VICES are the excesses and deficiencies.