would desire it for its own sake. He saw three different forms of happiness:
happiness as a life of enjoyment, happiness as a free member of society
and happiness a philosopher. Eudaimonia contained a fusion of all three.
He believed that in order to reach eudaimonia one must integrate moral
qualities, like being selfless into their own personality.
He said that eudaimonia could be achieved by consciously
practising the qualities needed everyday so that they slowly become a
habit and therefore grow to be part of a persons character, just like how an
athlete would practise their high jump on a regular basis. This can be done
most successfully by imitating a virtuous person and not by learning a set
of rules or principals. By following in their example one obtains the qualities
of the person that they admire. The virtues needed to reach eudaimonia
were, in the eyes of Aristotle those that are most productive for living in
society.
According to Aristotle the qualities that are not useful in society are
extreme characteristics, one of excess and the other of deficiency. He
thought that in order to be virtous one needs to find a balance between the
two extremes, this balance is known as ‘the golden mean.’ For example, a
foolhardy person would be at one end of the scale and someone who is
cowardly would be at the other, these two types of people could cause
problems but the virtous mean of these two extremes is courage which is a
highly valued quality. The golden mean could therefor be used as a good
guideline for someone to follow, so to reach eudaimonia or for moral
sitautions.
Aristotle saw a great difference between a moral virtue and an intellectual
virtue. Intellectual virtues, like being talented in foreign languages or being
a skilled painter, are generally given to a person through their genetic make up
and teaching, where as moral virtues are learnt through the experience of
actually living them. In other words Aristotle saw it as something one
develops in them self, and not something that a person can possess when
born.
B) “Virtue ethics is of little practical use to someone faced with a moral problem.” Discuss.
The theory of virtue ethics seems to have many flaws and in itself is
unhelpful when faced with a moral decision but when combined with the
utilitarianism theory and natural law it proves to be very useful.
The theory of virtue ethics is seen by Robert Louden and many others to
offer little practical help when a person is faced with a moral dilemma,
such as having an abortion. Although many common moral decisions may
indeed come more easily to a person of the right moral character, the fact
of the matter is that many moral dilemmas require a great deal of careful
reasoning and thinking, simply having the right character cannot be
enough. Aristotle says that a person should follow in the footsteps of a
virtuous person but if this person has not faced the same problem how can
one follow in their example.
“We ought, of course, to do what the virtuous person would do, but it is not always easy to fathom what the hypothetical moral exemplar would do if he were in our shoes.” - Robert Louden.
The concept of the golden mean can also confuse a moral decision as
some of the virtues can clash. Going back to the idea of abortion how is a
mother to decide between: being brave, being compassionate and being
pragmatic when making her decision because by selecting one she
ignores the other virtues and thus is distanced from reaching eudaimonia.
In retaliation to this argument it can be said that in becoming a more
virtuous person one will be able to make better moral decisions naturally as the
good qualities obtained such as rationality and fairness will help a person to do so.
It is also unrealistic to think that a person’s chosen role model will have
faced every problem that they have. In this situation one should think what
their role model would have done if he or she had been faced with the
same dilemma.
When considered as a whole the theory of virtue ethics does not give all
the answers. However, parts of the theory do serve as a good guide line to
follow in becoming more a more virtuous person like in most cases avoiding extreme
characteristics and basing your actions on someone you see as virtuous.
Therefore in combining the more useful parts of virtue ethics with other ethical
systems we can become better people and make the correct moral
decisions.