ARISTOTLE AND

MORAL CHARACTER.

PRESENTED BY: SITI HAJAR BINTI

OTHMAN SIRU.
(1814174)
Aristotle’s Background.
 Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagira in northern Greece.
 At age 17 he was sent to Athens to enrol in Plato's Academy.
 He spent 20 years as a student and teacher at the school,
emerging with both a great respect and a good deal of
criticism for his teacher’s theories.
 In 342, Aristotle was summoned to Macedonia by King
Philip II to tutor his son, the future Alexander the Great.
 He made significant and lasting contributions to nearly
every aspect of human knowledge, from logic to biology to
ethics and aesthetics.
 One of his famous surviving works is: The “Organon” which
is a set of writings that provide a logical toolkit for use in any
philosophical or scientific investigation.
 Definition of Character:
 The English word “character” is derived from the
Greek word charaktêr, which was originally used
of a mark impressed upon a coin.
 Later and more generally, “character” came to
mean a distinctive mark by which one thing was
distinguished from others, and then primarily to
mean the assemblage of qualities that distinguish
one individual from another.
 In modern usage, this emphasis on distinctiveness
or individuality tends to merge “character” with
“personality.”
 We might say, for example, when thinking of
a person’s idiosyncratic mannerisms, social
gestures, or habits of dress, that “he has
personality” or that “he’s quite a character.”
 Virtue and Vice of Character
Aristotle distinguishes two different types of virtue or
human excellence:

1. Ethical virtue/virtue of character

 For example: generosity and temperance.

2. Virtue of intellect.
 For example: wisdom, understanding and
intelligence.
 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.

 We can only be held responsible for actions we perform

voluntarily and not for cases involving physical compulsion
or unavoidable ignorance.
1. The virtues and vices of character include, for example,
i. Justice and injustice
ii. Courage and cowardice
iii. Temperance and intemperance
iv. Generosity and meanness.

2. Agents are virtuous or vicious depending on whether

they are disposed to act and be motivated properly in
situations in which a particular sort of value (noble or
admirable) and its apposite, (base or shameful) are at
stake.

3. The virtuous person’s emotional responses are

appropriate to the situation indicates that her emotional
responses are in harmony with her correct reasoning
about what to do.
8. According to Aristotle, human beings can
reason in ways that non-human animals cannot.
They can deliberate about what to do, about
what kind of lives to live, about what sort of
persons to be.

9. Like Plato, Aristotle thinks that the education

of our emotional responses is crucial for the
development of virtuous character. If our
emotional responses are educated properly, we
will learn to take pleasure or pain in the right
things.
 Ultimate Happiness
 For Aristotle, happiness is a final end or goal that encompasses
the totality of one's life. It is not something that can be gained or
lost in a few hours, like pleasurable sensations. It is more like the
ultimate value of your life as lived up to this moment, measuring
how well you have lived up to your full potential as a human
being.

 As Aristotle says, "for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that
makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a
man blessed and happy." (Nicomachean Ethics, 1098a18)
 Cont.

“He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue

and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for
some chance period but throughout a complete life.”
(Nicomachean Ethics, 1101a10)

 According to Aristotle, happiness consists in achieving,

through the course of a whole lifetime, all the goods like
health, wealth, knowledge, friends, etc. that lead to the
perfection of human nature and to the enrichment of
human life.
 References:

Aristotle and Happiness. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pursuit-of-

happiness.org/history-of-happiness/aristotle/

Homiak, M. (2019, April15). Moral Character. The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Retrieved October 14, 2019 from
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral- character/

Meyer, S. S. (1993). Aristotle on Moral Responsibility. USA: Blackwell

Publishers.