1B - Virtue Ethics Flashcards
Who does Virtue Ethics originate from?
Plato and Aristotle
What does virtue ethics focus on?
It focuses on the person’s behaviour (Hexis) rather than laws or principles
What type of ethical system is Virtue Ethics?
A teleological ethical system and focuses on a human’s end/purpose
What type of approach is it?
Relativist. An idea of right or wrong changes due to the situation
What is eudaimonia?
It means to flourish and gain happiness by improving as a person
Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics
Written in Nicomachean Ethics
Agreed with Plato, said all things have a purpose and to find out the purple meant we could begin attaining it
“Every art and every investigation and similarly every action and pursuit is considered to aim at some good”
What is the supreme good?
Eudaimonia
Superior
The end result and aim
Subordinate
An act which can help us to achieve our final aim
Akrates
Hedonists, people who are weak-willed and cannot overcome temptation
Enkrates
Those who have to work to be virtuous
Sophron
Those who find it easy to be virtuous
Aristotle quote - do something better for society than a selfish aim in life
“To do so in the case of a people or a state is something finer or more sublime”
Tabula Rasa
Aristotle believed in this philosophical view point from Empiricism
“What it thinks must be in just as characters may be said to be on a writing-tablet on which as yet nothing actually stands written: this is exactly what happens with mind”
You begin life as a blank slate
What is a virtue?
Nicomachean Ethics - A trait of character that is manifested in regular and consistent action
What purpose do we reach when performing virtues?
Eudaimonia
The 12 Moral Virtues
Characteristics of behaviour and attitude that contribute to appropriate behaviour,
This is learnt through habit
The moral virtues - EXAMPLE
Excess - Rashness, Virtue - Courage, Deficiency - Cowardice
Excess - Shyness, Virtue - Modesty, Deficiency - Shamelessness
Excess - Boastfulness, Virtue - Truthfulness, Deficiency - Too honest
Phronesis
Common sense - Aristotle believed that the virtues could be discovered through phronesis
Aristotle quote - golden mean
“Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency”
Vices - The direct opposite of virtue; doing something wrong
Golden mean - a balance between extremes (vices) leading to virtue
The golden mean
The Golden Mean is never stationary, it moves depending on the situation. Thus, making the theory relativist.
Phronesis - parents
Aristotle argued that we discover the virtue of each situation through Phronesis. This begins with how we are brought up and develops as we become older.
Beautitudes
Blessed. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”
Practical wisdom
Your character is developed through habituation - if you do a virtuous thing over and over again, eventually it will become part of your character
Moral exemplars
Learn by watching those who perform virtues, and do virtues
Eudaimonia - FURTHER
You always have more to do
