What are virtues? What are vices? Give an example of each.
We can now define human virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean
between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. For instance, courage consists in
finding a mean between the extremes of cowardice and rashness
Virtue, by contrast, is a disposition, orhexis,meaning that it is a state of being and not an
activity. More precisely, virtue is the disposition to act in such a way as to lead a happy life.
How does man attain virtue?
learning virtue is a matter of habit and proper training. We do not become courageous by
learning why courage is preferable to cowardice or rashness, but rather by being trained to be
courageous. Only when we have learned to be instinctively courageous can we rightly arrive at
any reasoned approval of courage.
we might draw an analogy between learning courage and learning rock-climbing. We learn to
become good rock-climbers through constant practice, not through reasoned arguments, and
only when we have become good rock-climbers and appreciate firsthand the joys of rock-
climbing can we properly understand why rock-climbing is a worthwhile activity.
That there should be no fixed rule to determine where the mean lies is a direct consequence of
his doctrine that virtue is something learned through habit, not through reason.
According to Aristotle’s view, however, a virtuous person is naturally inclined to choose the
correct behavior in any situation without appealing to rules or maxims.
Are feelings involved in the attainment of virtue?
Now neither the virtues nor the vices are passions, because we are not called good or bad on the
ground of our passions, but are so called on the ground of our virtues and our vices, and because we are
neither praised nor blamed for our passions (for the man who feels fear or anger is not praised, nor is
the man who simply feels anger blamed, but the man who feels it in a certain way), but for our virtues
and our vices we are praised or blamed. Again, we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues
are modes of choice or involve choice. Further, in respect of the passions we are said to be moved, but
in respect of the virtues and the vices we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a particular
way.
What is the role of reason in the attainment of virtue?
Being virtuous requires three things: 1) that a person knows
what he is doing, b) that he intends to do what is he is doing
and that he intends it for its own sake, and c) that he acts
with certainty and firmness.
For Aristotle, what is happiness?
