David Underhill – 03 Oct to 05 Oct 04 (Week 7) – P.183-200

 

Aristotle and the Ethics of Virtue (183)

  • Kant and Mill were both concerned about understanding the foundations of morality
  • Aristotle could a theory that could be mechanically applied
  • Kant’s demands are so stiff that even he questions if any have lived up to them
  • Eudaimonia is good for a man – translates loosely to happiness or human flourishing ΰ a life of excellence
  • Courage is described as the mean between the vices of cowardice (deficiency) and recklessness (excess)

 

The Moral Virtues (187)

  • Definition of Human Life
    • 1) Belongs to the rational part of man – active (exercising reason) or passive (following reason)
    • 2) Expression in Actions
  • Excellence – 1) produces a good state and 2) enable one to perform one’s function well
    • Virtue in one makes one good and enables him to perform well
    • Achieved through a mean – too much or little destroy perfection
  • Goodness is characterized by feeling the right amount at the right time on the right occasion with the right motive
  • Extreme Rules – hard to hit the bullseye so…
    • Keep away from the worse extreme – one is always more dangerous
    • Note the errors one is most likely to make
    • Always guard against pleasure and pleasant things

 

Habit and Virtue (Aristotle) (193)

  • Types of Virtue: Virtue of thought or of character
  • Character and Virtue comes out of habit
    • Natural conditions cannot be changed by habit (rocks always roll downhill)
    • Natural capacities are not from habit
    • Legislators concentrate on habit – citizens are made good through habituation
    • Virtue and vice are from good and bad acts
  • Right Sort of Habituation
    • Actions should express correct reason
    • Habits must avoid excess and deficiency
    • Pleasure and pain are important to habits
    • Virtue is concerned with pleasure and pain
      • Pleasure causes us to act, pain causes us to abstain
      • Virtues are concerned with feelings and actions and these all imply pleasure or pain
      • Corrective treatment uses pleasure and pain
      • The soul is related to what makes it better or worse
      • 3 Objs of choice – fine, expedient, pleasant; 3 Objs of avoidance – shameful, harmful, painful
        • A good person is correct
      • Inquiries must be about pleasure because all feel it from birth and it is important for our actions
      • It is harder to fight pleasure than emotion
  • How one can become good without being good already
    • Conformity vs. Understanding
      • It is possible to produce something correct randomly so one must learn to understand and then perform well
    • Crafts vs. Virtues … Craft is a product; A craft requires only knowledge
      • Human must be in the right state to be virtuous – 1) must know his act is virtuous; 2) must decide on them for them; 3) must do them from a firm position
  • Virtue requires habit, not just theory

 

Courage (Aristotle) (197)

  • Courage – concerned with feelings of fear / confidence (particularly death in battle) (6)
    • Battle is the greatest and most noble danger
    • He who is fearless in face of a noble death is brave
      • Not someone who is confident before being flogged, etc
  • 7 … There are fears beyond human strength – all fear them
    • Brave men will be virtuous and face even the things they fear – whether they are beyond human str or not
    • A man who exceeds in fear is a coward
  • 8 … Five kinds of courage improperly so called … five kinds of courage:
    • 1) Courage of the citizen soldier (true courage); 2) experience with regard to particular facts; 3) Passion; 4) sanguine people (not really brave – just confident); 5) people ignorant of danger (only appear brave)