Aristotle's virtue ethics Flashcards
whats aristotles virtue ethics
agent-centred, addresses the question ‘what sort of person should I be?’, defining good actions as those done by good people
whats eudaimonia
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.
whats ergon & arête
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
whats the function argument
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)
what are virtues
knife example
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
how do virtues help us achieve eudaimonia
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
whats the doctrine of the mean
says that virtues are the average (the mean) between two extremes
what are examples of the doctrine of the mean
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.
whats the skill analogy
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
whats phronesis
translates to practical wisdom and is a general understanding of good and allows someone to understand and act accordingly to what good is
what are the components of phronesis
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
whats an example of phronesis
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
whats voluntary actions
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
what are involuntary actions and the two types
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
virtue ethics responses - whats the no clear guidance argument
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
whats the circularity argument against AVE
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)
whats the competing virtues argument against AVE
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
whats an example of competing virtues
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
whats the issue of no difference between moral good and eudaimonia
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
whats an example for there being no distinction between moral good and eudaimonia
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
how do we learn to be virtuous
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)
