Aristotle's virtue ethics

Question 1

whats aristotles virtue ethics

Answer 1

agent-centred, addresses the question ‘what sort of person should I be?’, defining good actions as those done by good people

Question 2

whats eudaimonia

Answer 2

good for human beings and what they aim for. its the state of flourishing or living well and is an objective property of someone’s life as a whole, being the final end for humans.

Question 3

whats ergon & arête

Answer 3

ergon - the function or characteristic activity of something e.g ergon of a knife is to cut something
arete - a property or virtue that enables something to achieve its ergon

Question 4

whats the function argument

Answer 4

aristotles argument that the human good (eudamonia) can be achieved by performing our characteristic activity (ergon) well. traits that enable us to fulfill our ergon, which is rational activity, are virtues (arete)

Question 5

what are virtues

knife example

Answer 5

character traits that enable us to choose our actions according to good reason e.g the arete of sharpness allows a knife to fulfill its ergon to cut things, the same as the arete of virtues allows humans to fulfill their ergon of choosing actions according to reason

Question 6

how do virtues help us achieve eudaimonia

Answer 6

virtues are character traits that enable us to fulfill our ergon
our ergon is to use reason
choosing actions based on reason allows us to achieve eudaimonia
eudaimonia is the final end

Question 7

whats the doctrine of the mean

Answer 7

says that virtues are the average (the mean) between two extremes

Question 8

what are examples of the doctrine of the mean

Answer 8

if you never spend money or give to charity, you could have the vice of defiency of being stingy, but if you go too far and spend money on everyone, leaving you homeless you’d be foolish, a vice of excess. a virtuous character - e.g spending money wisely would give you the virtue of being generous.

Question 9

whats the skill analogy

Answer 9

the idea that aquiring virtues is similar to aquiring skills like learning to play an instrument - no ones born knowing how to e.g play the piano, but we’re born with the capacity to know this and similarly, we’re born with the capacity to become virtuous, not born with it

Question 10

whats phronesis

Answer 10

translates to practical wisdom and is a general understanding of good and allows someone to understand and act accordingly to what good is

Question 11

what are the components of phronesis

Answer 11

idea of whats good and the ability to apply this idea to specific situations, thinking through whats required in terms of action and attitude and then act on this

Question 12

whats an example of phronesis

Answer 12

we must use our practical wisdom to know when to be generous and when not to be, understanding what we can afford and who we can be generous to

Question 13

whats voluntary actions

Answer 13

acting with full knowledge and intention
people are only morally responsible for these actions and is the only action that should be praised or condemned

Question 14

what are involuntary actions and the two types

Answer 14

compulsion/involuntary - being forced to do something you dont want to do e.g sailors throwing things overboard in order to save a boat during a storm
ignorance/non-voluntary - doing something you dont want to do accidentaly e.g slipping on something and spilling a drink onto someone
people acting unvirtuously cant be criticised if their actions werent freely chosen

Question 15

virtue ethics responses - whats the no clear guidance argument

Answer 15

virtues are the mean between the vices of excess and deficiency and that this varies depending on the situation. but how is this clear guidance on how to act - e.g aristotle says is virtuous to act angrily in some situations, but when exactly, and how do we know when it crosses over from virtue to vice? aristotle gives no criteria to judge which course of action is better than the other, the doctrine of the mean only gives vague ideas of ‘too much’ or ‘too little’ rather than actual quanitites

Question 16

whats the circularity argument against AVE

Answer 16

aristotle tell us a moral action is the exercise of virtue but not what virtue consists of - a virtuous act is the act performed by a virtuous person, a virtuous person is a person who performs virtuous acts. this is a circular defenition as the term we seek to define (virtuousness of an act) is defined in terms of itself (the virtuousness of a person)

Question 17

whats the competing virtues argument against AVE

Answer 17

aristotle argues the right course of action is always the exercise of a virtue but its possible in many situations for there to be two or more different courses of action that both express virtue

Question 18

whats an example of competing virtues

Answer 18

if youre a judge sentencing a thief youd have to choose between the virtue of justice (punishing the crime)
or the virtue of mercy (letting the thief go)
youre unable to do both, and so whichever one is chosen will make you unvirtuous in some way

Question 19

whats the issue of no difference between moral good and eudaimonia

Answer 19

aristotle says the good life for a human being is eudaimonia. yet he doesnt make a clear distinction between whats morally good and whats a good life for me (eudaimonia). he agues virtuous actions always lead to eudaimonia, yet we can imagine situations where an intuitively good action doesnt lead to human flourishing

Question 20

whats an example for there being no distinction between moral good and eudaimonia

Answer 20

imagine a nurse who spends her entire life saving peoples lives in a remote country - she doesnt enjoy this work and only does so because she believes its needed. shes always stressed and passes away at age 30 from a virus she caught from work. we have strong intuition the nurses life is morally good (all she did was help others), but she clearly didnt achieve eudaimonia. so eithr aristotles theory is only concerned with self interest or theres a difference between moral good and eudaimonia, so his theory fails as an account of moral philosophy

Question 21

how do we learn to be virtuous

Answer 21

observation from an expert
practice
improvement (at which point we started to feel pleasure)
mastery
and positive feedback loop (more practice creates more improvement, more pleasure and then ever greater mastery)