1B - Virtue Ethics

Question 1

Who does Virtue Ethics originate from?

Answer 1

Plato and Aristotle

Question 2

What does virtue ethics focus on?

Answer 2

It focuses on the person’s behaviour (Hexis) rather than laws or principles

Question 3

What type of ethical system is Virtue Ethics?

Answer 3

A teleological ethical system and focuses on a human’s end/purpose

Question 4

What type of approach is it?

Answer 4

Relativist. An idea of right or wrong changes due to the situation

Question 5

What is eudaimonia?

Answer 5

It means to flourish and gain happiness by improving as a person

Question 6

Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

Answer 6

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”

Question 7

What is the supreme good?

Answer 7

Eudaimonia

Question 8

Superior

Answer 8

The end result and aim

Question 9

Subordinate

Answer 9

An act which can help us to achieve our final aim

Question 10

Akrates

Answer 10

Hedonists, people who are weak-willed and cannot overcome temptation

Question 11

Enkrates

Answer 11

Those who have to work to be virtuous

Question 12

Sophron

Answer 12

Those who find it easy to be virtuous

Question 13

Aristotle quote - do something better for society than a selfish aim in life

Answer 13

“To do so in the case of a people or a state is something finer or more sublime”

Question 14

Tabula Rasa

Answer 14

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

Question 15

What is a virtue?

Answer 15

Nicomachean Ethics - A trait of character that is manifested in regular and consistent action

Question 16

What purpose do we reach when performing virtues?

Answer 16

Eudaimonia

Question 17

The 12 Moral Virtues

Answer 17

Characteristics of behaviour and attitude that contribute to appropriate behaviour,

This is learnt through habit

Question 18

The moral virtues - EXAMPLE

Answer 18

Excess - Rashness, Virtue - Courage, Deficiency - Cowardice
Excess - Shyness, Virtue - Modesty, Deficiency - Shamelessness
Excess - Boastfulness, Virtue - Truthfulness, Deficiency - Too honest

Question 19

Phronesis

Answer 19

Common sense - Aristotle believed that the virtues could be discovered through phronesis

Question 20

Aristotle quote - golden mean

Answer 20

“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

Question 21

The golden mean

Answer 21

The Golden Mean is never stationary, it moves depending on the situation. Thus, making the theory relativist.

Question 22

Phronesis - parents

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

Beautitudes

Answer 23

Blessed. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”

Question 24

Practical wisdom

Answer 24

Your character is developed through habituation - if you do a virtuous thing over and over again, eventually it will become part of your character

Question 25

Moral exemplars

Answer 25

Learn by watching those who perform virtues, and do virtues

Question 26

Eudaimonia - FURTHER

Answer 26

You always have more to do