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Q: What is Aristotle's Theoryb of Virtue? ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: What is Aristotle's Theoryb of Virtue?
Category: Science
Asked by: bren-ga
List Price: $15.00
Posted: 11 Jul 2002 16:44 PDT
Expires: 10 Aug 2002 16:44 PDT
Question ID: 38663
Expalian the theory and give a example in today's business world and 100myears ago

Request for Question Clarification by wengland-ga on 11 Jul 2002 16:51 PDT
100myears ago: 100 years ago, or 100 thousand years ago, or ??

Clarification of Question by bren-ga on 11 Jul 2002 17:00 PDT
Explain the theory and give aan example in todays business world
Answer  
Subject: Re: What is Aristotle's Theoryb of Virtue?
Answered By: pm3500-ga on 12 Jul 2002 01:08 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
Aristotle's theory of virtue is found in the Nichomachean Ethics. He
cites two types of virtues, intellectual and moral. I'm assuming you
are asking about moral virtues.
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

When Aristotle talked about moral virtues he was talking about a man's
character, the way he acted. He believed that character was not an
innate trait but a learned trait. Basically his philosophy of moral
virtue can be condensed to the phrase - virtue is the mean between two
extremes.

More specifically, Aristotle writes,

"Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in
a mean, i.e. 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. Now it is a mean between two
vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect;
and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or
exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both
finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its
substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a
mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme."

You can find the complete discussion in Book II(6)
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

What did Aristotle mean by this? He conceptualized virtues in
pragmatic terms. They dealt with the actions and passions of people,
what people do and how it makes them feel. He boiled down the feelings
to basic pleasure and pain principles. He was trying to teach the
Athenian citizenry a proper way to act, given that they all had
choices. At once, he believed that there were no transedental rights
and wrong ways to act and feel. He says,

"For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and
pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and
too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right
times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people,
with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both
intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue."

Applying the mean principle to today's business world, one might
provide and example from the stock market.

Aristotle might posit that that there's no right or wrong in making
money. The action of making money can be either good or bad depending
on the feelings and actions involved. Certainly most everyone feels
great pleasure making money and pain at losing money. However, the
true test of virtue is how the money is made or lost. If business
executives want to continue feeling great pleasure making money and do
so by going to extremes, by doing something such as insider trading,
then they are not acting with virtue. They are going to an extreme.
The same would hold for losing money. If executives are trying to halt
the pains associated with losing money (nothing wrong with that in and
of itself), but they do so by going to extemes and using aggressive or
fradulant accounting methods, then they are not acting with virute,
they are going to an extreme.

I realize that your clarification said provide an example from today's
business world. However, the exmples from 100 years ago would look
similar.  Let's take the case of a state practicing expansion through
empire, i.e., imperialism. The rules and people of a state would want
to feel good about their strong and glorious state. There's nothing
inherently wrong or non-virtuous about it. However, when they go to
extremes by enslaving the peoples of another state, labeling them
savages and without reason and providing them with rational for
stealing their gold or whatever treasures they have, then it could be
suggested that those states went to an extreme and were not acting
virtously.

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bren-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars
yOUR ANSWER WAS GREAT tHANKS i WAS ABLE TO USE EVERYTHING AND ADD MORE TO IT

Comments  
Subject: Re: What is Aristotle's Theoryb of Virtue?
From: klmsjca-ga on 13 Aug 2002 12:55 PDT
 
There was a program on NPR the other day, I forget the name of the
program or the person being interviewed,(maybe a google search could
tell me!) which discussed moderation.  MOderation is of course the
famous backbone of Aristotle's theory of virtue as put forth in the
Ethics, as our answerer so clearly stated.  This program, f i was
listening correctly, was trying to bring into question the
compatability of moderation with human nature.  Specifically, the
geust on the program was discussing the (vodka) drinking habits of his
countrymen, who am asuming are Russian.  He admits that there is
nothing moderate about their consumption of this substance, and at the
same time would suggest that there would be no pleasure in doing it if
there were.

He lamented the race of humans's plight- always having to curb their
desires and let reason and law govern and limit their pleasures.  Of
course, we know that reason and law do not do this out of ill-will for
the being.  On the contrary, they are combined always seeking to find
a place where the desires of the person can rest and be satisfied,
without leading that person into harm or otherwise doing wrong by him.

Aristotle calls this place happiness.  And he says that happiness is
none other than a disposition or activity of the soul (such as a
thought, action, or decision, for example) which is in acordance with
virtue.  For the soul to move itself down the middle path, and to find
happiness there, seems to be the great aim of all mankind.  However,
Aristotle admits that it is very unlikely that a true disposition
toward virtue is something that can be learned.  He says that the only
person who seems to be capable of this great thing is the one who has
had good habits engrained in him from shildhood.  He would at first do
it by law or custom, but then learn to do it becasue he would find
that that wa the true disposition of his soul all the while.

But for someone who has grown up to find drunkenness a pleasure, ar
sex  pleasure, or money and power a pleasure, it will likely be
impossible that will ever find happiness in the path of moderation.

To have to find virtue in moderation is surely unnatural- however it
is a plight that we are stuk with as beings of "free will"  and
"intellect".  The true virtue, it seems, and the one that we have most
under our control, alhtough certainly not completely, is to raise our
children in such a way that they might find happiness in the right and
good places.  Becasue true happiness cannot be found anywere else.

And this may be why this book on "virtue" and "happiness," the
Nichomachean Ethics, was written by Aristotle for his son Nichomachus.

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