Aristotle 's Virtue Is A Disposition That Issues Correct Choice

The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle 's key study of morality and the final goal of human life, has for many years been a popular and persuasive book. It offers the modern reader many useful insights into human desires and behavior despite being thousands of years old. The overarching theme behind this book is Aristotle 's assertion that there are no recognized unconditional moral standards and that every ethical theory must take into consideration an understanding of psychology and knowing that behavior comes from the realities of human nature and how it affects daily life. Additionally, the book echoes Aristotle 's accomplishments in other areas of philosophy and is a good display of his methodological thought process, which is widely considered to be the root of all modern science examination.

In this paper, I will examine Aristotle’s view on how virtuous action differs from that of craft (techne) action due to its issuing from a firm and unchanging disposition, as well as provide Aristotle’s reasoning as to why this is the case. In order to understand the differences between these two types of actions, one must first understand the similarities that both virtuous action and craft action share. Once the common traits of both virtuous and craft action have been examined, it will be possible to gain a better understanding of the differences between the two types of action, and how significant these differences truly are. Finally, once an understanding of both virtuous and craft action has been established, it will then be possible to examine Aristotle’s claim that virtuous action stems from a firm and unchanging disposition and why it is that we must accept this claim to recognize virtuous action for what it is.

Virtue ethics is a normative theory whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. This theory approaches normative ethics in substantially different ways than consequentialist and deontological theories. In this essay, I will contrast and compare virtue ethics to utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kantianism to demonstrate these differences. There is one fundamental aspect of virtue ethics that sets it apart from the other theories I will discuss. For the sake of brevity and to avoid redundancy, I will address it separately. This is the fundamental difference between acting ethically within utilitarianism, egoism, and Kantianism. And being ethical within virtue ethics. The other theories seek to define the ethics of actions while virtue ethics does not judge actions in any way. The other theories deal with how we should act, while virtue ethics determines how we should be.

In Episode #10, how does Aristotle address the issue of individual rights and the freedom to choose?

The book starts to build up the framework for resolving right versus right based off of Aristotle’s view of sleep ethics. Sleep ethics relies on “insights, feelings, and instincts” (Badaracco, 42) to solve moral dilemma and is also known as ethics intuition. Aristotle highly view intuition because it is “more reliable in deliberation than detached intellectual judgments” (Badaracco, 52) and that it “could penetrate to the essence of the issue” (Badaracco, 52). Aristotle’s sleep ethics supplements criteria to denounce me-ism and support development of ethical character. He purposefully made the criteria vague for people “to reflect on who they are and what they hope to become, to feel and act on what they cares the most deeply about, to make commitments and try to live by them” (Badaracco,

In book seven of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets out his theory of akrasia, or weakness of will. Aristotle attempts to explain both how such actions are possible (contra Socrates), and how we can dissolve the puzzles (aporiai) generated by our most important (kurios) commonly held beliefs, which arise in response to the actions of the incontinent person. This paper will review book VII of the Nichomachean Ethics (EN), and attempt to resolve some of the remaining questions left open by Aristotle’s critique.

Each decision should be meditated upon with the object of creating a virtuous life. Aristotle did not believe in strict, pre-determined rules that demand no thought process behind them. It is true he believed virtue ethics to be a habit, but not an instinctual one. Aristotle would say "choose an action knowingly, out of a stable equilibrium of the soul, and for its own sake" (Sachs, n.d.). Approached with the quandary of stealing to feed a starving child, Aristotle would reflect upon several

First and foremost, the best way to live requires one to be virtuous. Aristotle’s most notable theme in the Nicomachean Ethics is how one must be virtuous in order to live the good life. Virtue is defined by Aristotle as a disposition that aims at a mean. The key in this definition is moderation, which makes it applicable to so many virtuous. Whether you are contemplating courage, liberality, ambition, or gentleness the goal is to always be moderate and seek the mean. The one virtue that may not relate to the formal definition is justice because one can never be too just. Aristotle’s teachings on virtue provides great guidance on how to live on a daily basis.

At the outset it should be noted that Nussbaum’s account relies heavily on her exegesis of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (NE) II.7. In this chapter, Aristotle explicitly references a chart—which we are supposed to imagine hanging in his classroom—that lists the particular virtues of character of which he writes. Nussbaum attempts to reproduce Aristotle’s original chart in her essay. Nussbaum’s chart should not be problematic as long as we accept the central claims of her interpretation of NE II.7. According to Nussbaum, Aristotle isolates the common spheres of human experience (i.e. those in which humans regularly, or necessarily, have dealings). Since the

One of Aristotle’s conclusions in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics is that “human good turns out to be the soul’s activity that expresses virtue”(EN 1.7.1098a17). This conclusion can be explicated with Aristotle’s definitions and reasonings concerning good, activity of soul, and excellence through virtue; all with respect to happiness.

According to Aristotle, moral virtue involves choice. However, these choices are arrived at through reasoning because the choices are deliberate desires. Aristotle asserts that "… the starting point of choice is desire and reasoning about some end..." (Crisp, 2014, p. 148) implying that desires present humans with possible results which they have to reason whether or not they want to pursue. Aristotle further maintained that for an individual to arrive at a good choice, they must have correct desires and true reasoning. Following Aristotle's thought, an individual who may need to lie can ask themselves the kind of person they would become if they lie if they don't want to become such person, it would mean that their desire to lie is not correct,

He is honored to be author of ‘The Nicomachean Ethics,’ which was in fact the 1st book ever written on the subject of ethics. The book is greatly influential, even in modern times. By an analysis of Aristotle’s literature, it can be observed that he primarily focused on preaching to be ‘virtuous’ rather than focusing on the theories of what ‘virtue’ is. According to him, in whatever way we choose to act, some action that is focused on achieving the desired end result or ‘good’ results comes from that person’s own perspective. Aristotle claimed that the maximum good which a person have desire to achieve is basically an end-point itself , a person’s action or struggles is for achieving that ‘end-point’, it may be regarded as a point of maximum satisfaction. Aristotle critically concluded that the happiness of a person satisfies these conditions completely, and hence the highest attainable good is regarded as happiness.

Similar to Plato’s theory, Aristotle believed that each class of citizens have a different role to play in helping the community. While, each class of citizens has a different role, all citizens share the highest good of happiness. There are three ways of life to reach happiness: life of pleasure, the political life, and the contemplative life. In Aristotle’s view the function of an object is important in deciding the good of it. He states, “[The] function of man is an activity of soul...if this is the case, and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these” (I.7). In Aristotle’s ethical theory, the key to man is man’s rational principle. Aristotle believes that the function of man is to exercise reason with virtue, which is different from Plato who believes that the function of man is to keep their soul virtuous. Aristotle raises reason as the distinct feature of mankind. Plato viewed the soul as the distinct feature of man. For Aristotle, there are two virtues: intellectual and moral. He believed that the aim of ethics is not “in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good” (II.2).

In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, every point, every major idea, and every argument made, is all connected back to the concept that every action seeks an ultimate good. Aristotle felt that there is an intrinsic good that humans aim for and that there is this "good life" we all mean to have. However, what does it mean to be good? That means something different to everyone; we all inhabit many different roles in our day to day lives, whether we strive to be a good parent, a good sibling, a good student, a good citizen, or a good leader. All emphasize the importance of our own well-being, as well as that of others, and the greater community as a whole. For the purpose of this paper, the focus will

Aristotle makes a contrast between two kinds of knowledge, that is of importance to the decision maker. He identifies things that do not change, like universal things we can call right and wrong, and what is living well and living poorly. He states that decision distinguishes character better than actions do. You can make a decision to take action but the decision to do that thing is what’s important. Aristotle believes that those who say decision is a wish or belief are wrong. They made that decision because they wanted to and did it deliberately. We decide on things for the end result. This is a very interesting and true statement I feel. Nobody runs for president for the race, they run for the end result of hopefully becoming president. Staying on the topic of decision making catering to the end result, if a person decides they want to be healthy they will eat healthier and exercise. This person isn’t doing these things without thinking about the finish which would be becoming healthier. A decision is not the same as a belief in general. A belief is thinking of or hoping on something and the decision is what you do before the actual act. “Further, decision is praised more for deciding on what is right, whereas belief is praised for believing rightly.” (Aristotle 34) This statement really seals Aristotle’s idea on decision making. People who seem to make the finest decisions are vastly different then ones who have the best beliefs. Some have strong beliefs but make the