Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

James Ner Pajaron

 Virtue Ethics
• The moral theory of Aristotle, like that of Plato, focuses on virtue,
recommending the virtuous way of life by its relation to
happiness. 
• Happiness TIES Excellent activity of the soul

TIES
Moral Virtue (practical wisdom)
 Proponent
• Aristotle (384 B.C. to 322 B.C.)

• He was a student of Plato’s, and the personal tutor

of Alexander the Great.

• He wrote on a wide range of a philosophical and

nonphilosophical subjects, including biology,
literature, politics, logic, metaphysics, and ethics.
His famous work, the Nicomachean Ethics,
contains his theory of the virtues.
• Eudaimonia

• Virtues

• The Golden Mean

• Aristotle’s theory begins with the assumption that “all actions aim at a good”.

• Aristotle later poses a simple question: what is the good and what is the
highest of the goods achievable by action?

HAPPINESS “EUDAIMONIA”
 Virtue = Happiness
• Aristotle suggests that to better understand the nature of
happiness we must investigate the nature of virtue, since
happiness is “the active exercise of the mind in conformity
with perfect goodness of virtue”.
 The Golden Mean
• Moral behavior is the mean between two extremes – at
one end is excess, at the other deficiency.
 Criticisms of Virtue Theory
• Some vices (murder, adultery) don’t have a “mean” or
a virtue-correlate.

• Possessing the requisite virtues does not guarantee

how one will act in a given situation.
 Reflection
• Human happiness, flourishing, stem from cultivation of proper
virtues

• This is an ongoing, life-long task

• Social practice:
– Experienced veterans provide “mentorship” and constraints (laws)
 Reference
• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/#4