Aristotle – virtue ethics

The text’s schema:  Deontological ethics versus teleological ethics, this latter subdivided into hedonistic versus eudaimonistic.

A better schema:  Deontological ethics (the principle), Consequentialist ethics (the act), Virtue ethics (the agent).  Where does the good lie?  

Goodness
•	Aristotle says he will enquire into the good.  But, what do we mean by the good?
•	Goods can be desirable in themselves or as a means to some further good.  
•	If we are enquiring after the highest good, it must be something that is desirable in itself, and not as a means to an end. 
•	The highest good must therefore be happiness since it is desirable in itself and not as a means to an end.  Moreover, all other goods are desirable (at least partly) as means to achieve happiness.  

Happiness
A left turn (some excised stuff that will help to make sense of the text):
•	We are happiest when we are performing our function.  Eudaimonia.  The running horse, the hunting dog, e.g.
•	But, what is the human being’s function?  Intellectual activity – “activity of the soul”
•	We are happiest not only when we fulfil our function but when we do so well.  
•	Therefore, “the good of Man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virute or, if there are more virtues than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue… in a complete life” (340).
•	So, to study goodness, we must study human happiness; and to do this, we must study virtue.

Virtue
•	Virtue demands experience and time.  The only way to learn to be virtuous is to be virtuous.  
•	Aristotle regards virtue as analogous to any other skill – like baking or pottery or riding a bike – the only way to learn these things is to do them.
•	One important difference for Aristotle between virtue and other “skills” – the former requires intention.  If one casts a beautiful piece of pottery purely by chance and not intentionally, it is nonetheless a beautiful piece of pottery.  However, a virtuous act is only virtuous if it is deliberately done.
•	All virtues allow that of which they are virtues to function well.  The virtues of an eye allow it to see.  Similarly, human virtue is whatever allows human beings to perform their function well.  

•	absolute (arithmetic) versus relative virtue.  The former requires mere calculation; the latter requires judgment.
•	It is said of well-executed works that to it is impossible to add or take away anything from them.  Classical balance.
•	Virtue as a moral concept is this balance in the realms of emotions and actions.
•	Examples.
•	Some emotions/actions do not have means.  (Adultery, murder, e.g.)  [Means don’t have extremes and extremes don’t have means.]
•	Some extremes/means do not have names.
•	There are many ways to go wrong, but only one way to go right.  Striking the mean is very difficult.  Again, experience is needed.
•	One extreme is usually further from the mean than the other.  
•	Moreover, we are often pulled more to one extreme than to the other.  
•	To compensate for both of these facts, we must aim slightly for the opposite extreme – like straightening a bent stick.
•	These are complicated matters that are not easily resolved theoretically, but [says Aristotle] “neither is it easy to define theoretically anything else within the region of perception” (346).

Next class:  Bentham.