ARISTOTLE’S THEORY OF VIRTUE IN THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS.
ARISTOTLE’S THEORY OF VIRTUE IN THE NICOMACHEAN
ETHICS.
Introduction
Virtue is one of
the acts we see in our daily experiences. We come to experience it by doing it,
or by seeing it being done by others. Virtue is all about behaviors done,
either towards us or to others or within an individual person. It is all about
morals, attitude and behavior. Here we will be discussing virtue according to
the nicommedian ethics, and it will be discussed under the following headings:
·
Kinds of virtue
·
Definition and analogical
description of virtue
·
Acquisition of virtue
·
Virtuous acts
·
Moral virtue
·
Choice
·
Temperance
·
Liberality
·
Pride
·
Virtues related to anger
·
justice
Kinds
Of Virtue
There are two
kinds of virtue; the intellectual virtue
and the moral virtue.
The intellectual virtue comes to be as a
result of teaching, that is the knowledge impacted on someone, which requires
experience and time. The moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, moral virtue does not come as a result
of nature, for nothing that exist by nature can form habit contrary to its
nature, neither can something that has a specific nature be trained to behave
in another way. Things which we are or which we have by nature, does not
immediately come to play, it first of all remain in potency before it later
comes to act. There are things that one cannot automatically or by nature comes
to know how to do, things like that we come to do it by learning how to do it,
example men become builders by building, pianist by learning how to play it, so
too one becomes just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts,
brave by doing brave acts.
What
Is Virtue
‘Virtue then, is a state of character
concerned with choice, lying in a mean, that is; the mean relative to us, this
being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the
man of practical wisdom would determine it. Virtue is a mean between two vices,
that which depend on excess and that which depend on defect. Virtue is a mean
between these two vices because, the vices fall short or exceed what is right
in both passion and action, while virtue both finds and choses that which is intermediate.[1]
In actions, there
are excess, defect and intermediate. In virtue, actions and passions that are
in excess is a form of failure, and so it is with defect, but the intermediate
is praised and taken to be a form of success, and being praised and being
successful are characteristic of virtue, virtue is the mean, it aims at the
intermediate.
Analogical
Description Of Virtue
Exercise, food and
drinks are all good for the body, but when they are taking above or below the
amount or quantity needed by the body, it destroys the health, while the one
taking at the normal quantity does good to the body, so it is in the case of
temperance and courage and other virtues:
For the man who flies from and fears
everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and
the man who fears nothing at all, but goes to meet every danger becomes rash, and similarly, the
man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes
self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in
a way insensible, temperance and courage; then, are destroyed by excess and the
defect, and preserved by the mean.
Acquisition
Of Virtue
For
strength to be produced, one needs to take much food and to do much exercise,
and only the strong ones can do these things, so is virtue, by avoiding
pleasures one becomes temperate, and
only by becoming so that one in most able to avoid pleasures, so too is courage.
For by being habituated to despise things that are terrible and so stand our
ground against them we become brave, and it is when we become so that we shall
be most able to stand our ground against them.
Virtue then is
concerned with pleasure and pains, and that by the acts from which it arises.
It is both increased and, if they are done differently, destroys, and that the
acts from which it arose are those in which it actualizes itself[2]
Virtuous
Acts
For something to
be a virtue,
The
doer have to be in certain condition when he did them, he must have knowledge,
he must chose to do the act and chose them for their own sake, his action must
proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.
Actions are just
and temperate when the doer did the action just as a just or temperate man will
do, that doesn’t make him a just and temperate person, someone becomes just or
temperate if it becomes a habit in him or her to keep doing just acts.
Moral
Virtue
Moral virtue is a
mean between two vices, one involving excess and the other involving
deficiency, and that it is such because the character is to aim at what is
intermediate in passions and actions. In other to get to the mean, the two
extremes are to be avoided. The person who deviate little from goodness, be it
in the direction of excess or defect is not blamed, only the person who
deviates widely, for little may not be noticed.
In terms of giving
and taking of money, the mean is liberality, the excess is termed prodigality,
and the defect meanness. So also is anger, the mean is good tempered, the
excess irascible or irascibility and the defect, inirascibility.
Choice
Choice is neither
appetite or anger or wish or any kind of opinion, it is not common to
irrational creature like anger and appetite is. Choice is a voluntary action
but not all voluntary actions are choice, choice involves a rational principle
and thought. It is what is chosen before other things.
It is in our capability to be virtues, so
also it is in our capability to be vice. One can decide to do virtues act, one
can also decide to do acts that are not virtues. This implies that if it is in
our power to act, it is also in our power not to act, so if it is in our power
to do good acts, it is also in our power not to do good acts, then it is in our
power to be virtues and also in our power to be vicious, and this is what being
good or being bad means.
Temperance
Temperance is a mean with regard to
pleasures, self-indulgence. We have kinds of pleasure, which include body
pleasure and those of the soul. Example, love of honor and love of learning, the lover of each
of these delights in that of which he is
a lover, the body being in no way affected, but rather the mind. (they are
neither temperance or self-indulgence) pleasures mostly that are not bodily are
not termed temperate or self indulgent, example gossip, lovers of music who
delight a lot in hearing music.
The self indulgent
persons delights in things he ought not to delight in, and if someone delights
in some of the things they delight in, they do so more than one ought and than
most men do.’ delight in excessive pleasure is self indulgent, with regards to pains
one is not, as in the case of courage, called temperate for facing the pains or
self indulgent for satisfying the pleasures always, but self indulgent man is
termed so because he is pained more than he ought at not getting pleasant
things, but the temperate man is termed so because he is not pained at the
absence of what is pleasant and at his abstinence from it.
The self indulgent
person craves for all pleasures and pleasant thing, or those that are more
pleasant, and he feels pain, and this is led by his appetite, and he chooses
these at the cost of everything else, he feels pain and distress when he fails
to get it and also when he is craving for it.
The appetitive element in a temperate man
harmonize with the rational principle, for the temperate man craves for things
he ought, as he ought, and when he ought, and this is what rational principle
directs.
Liberality
Liberality is to
mean with regard to wealth, it involves giving and taking of wealth, especially
in respect of giving. Wealth here means anything that can be measured by money.
Here we have two vices, prodigality and meanness, prodigality is excessive
spending on self indulgent, and meanness means, those who care more than they
ought for in wealth.
The liberal man like other virtues men,
will give for the sake of the noble, and rightly. For he will give to the right
people, the right amounts, and at the right time, with all the other
qualifications that accompany right given, and that too with pleasure or
without pain, for that which is virtuous is pleasant or free from pain.
For one to be liberal, his source of
income matters a lot, for taking from the wrong source doesn’t make one
liberal, neither will someone who is a ready asker be. For one to be liberal,
he has to give from his own possession. A liberal person can give excessively,
reserving just a little for himself, for it is in the nature of the liberal man
not to look to himself. The term liberality is used relatively to a mans
substance; for liberality resides not in the multitude of the gifts but in the
state of the character of the giver, and this is relative to the givers
substance. There is therefore nothing to prevent the man who gives less from
being the more liberal man, if he has less to give.[3]
It is not easy for the liberal man to be
rich, since he is not apt either at taking or at keeping, but at giving away,
and does not value wealth for it’s own sake but as a means to giving. A liberal
person spends according to his substance and on the right objects and in the
right way. Prodigality exceeds in giving and not taking, and falls short in
taking, while meanness falls short in giving, and exceeds in taking, except in
small things.
Magnificence
The
magnificent man sees what is fitting and spend large sums tastefully. The
expenses of the magnificent man are large and fitting, such therefore, are also his result; for thus, there will be
a great expenditure and one that is fitting to its result. Therefore, the
result should be worthy of expense and the expense should worthy of the result
or should even exceed it. the magnificent man will spend such sums for honors
sake; for this is common to virtues.
Pride
The proud man is a
person who thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he
does so beyond his desert; while temperate man is one who is worthy of little
things and thinks himself worthy of little
things.
Virtues
Related To Anger
The man who is
angry at the right things and with the right people, and, further, as he ought,
when he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised. This will be the
good-tempered man, then since good temper is praised. For the good tempered man
tends to be unperturbed and not to be led by passion, but to be angry in a
manner, at the things, and for the length of
time, that the rules indicates; but he is thought to err rather in the
direction of deficiency, for the good tempered man is not revengeful, but rather
tends to make allowances.
The deficiency, whether it is a sort of
‘inirascibility’ or whatever it is , is blamed. For those who are not angry at
the things they should be angry are thought to be fools, and so are those who
are not angry in the right way, at the right time, with the right persons.
Hot tempered
people get angry quickly and with the wrong persons and at the wrong things and
more than is right, but their anger
ceases quickly ; which is the best point about them.
Bad tempered
people are those who are angry at the wrong things, more than is right, and
longer, and cannot be appeased, until they inflict vengeance or punishment.
Those
who to give pleasure praise everything and never oppose, but think it their
duty to give no pain to people they meet; while
those who, on the contrary, oppose everything and care not a whit about
giving pain are called churlish and contentious.
Evidently
here also there is both an excess and a deficiency as compared with the mean.
Those who carry humor at all cost, and aiming rather at raising a laugh than at
saying what is becoming and at avoiding pain to the object of their fun; while
those who can neither make a joke
themselves nor put up with those who
do are thought to be boorish and
unpolished.
Justice
Justice
therefore is often thought to be the greatest of virtues. It is the complete virtue in its
fullest sense, because it is the actual exercise of virtue. It is complete
because those who possesses it can exercise his virtue not only in himself but
towards his neighbor also; for many men can exercise virtue in their own
affairs but not in their relations to their neighbor.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we
will say that virtue is always found in the mean, the middle, the intermediate.
It is always that, which is neither excess nor deficient.
Comments
Post a Comment