Non - relative Virtues : An Aristotelian Approach

NON-RELATIVE VIRTUES: AN ARISTOTELIAN APPROACH

Introduction

Virtue ethics is a branch of ethics which is gaining more and more interest in today’s world. Today the problem is the new generation wants something that is related to their life, they are not satisfied by those theories that are remote from concrete human experiences. Whether this remoteness results from the utilitarian’s interest in arriving at a universal calculus of satisfaction or from a Kantian concern with universal principles of broad generalities, in which the names of particular contexts, histories and persons do not occur, remoteness is now being seen by an increasing number of moral philosophers as a defect in an approach to ethical questions. It is in this context the concept of virtue is playing a prominent role. So, is the work of Aristotle, the greatest defender of an ethical approach based on the concept of virtue. Aristotelian virtue ethics seems appealing to combine rigour with concreteness, theoretical power with sensitivity to the actual circumstances of human life and choice in all their multiplicity, variety, and mutability. But there is a striking divergence between Aristotle and contemporary virtue theory. To many current proponents of virtue ethics, the return to virtue is connected with a turn towards relativism – that is, the view that the only criterion considered is the local ones, there by virtue ethics of each civilization want to be different. This understanding of virtue ethics makes it a relative one for different traditions and practices. But for Aristotle it is not true. Because he was not only a defender of an ethical theory based on virtues, but also the defender of a single objective account of the human good, or human flourishing. And also Aristotle’s one of the most obvious concerns was the criticism of existing moral traditions that were against human flourishing. Aristotle evidently believed that there is no incompatibility between basing an ethical theory on the virtues and defending the singleness and objectivity of the human good. In this case, it would be odd indeed if he had connected two elements in ethical thought that are incompatible. The purpose of this paper is to establish that Aristotle was a genius who had an interesting way of connecting virtues with a search of ethical objectivity and with the criticism of existing local norms. This way is so important to understand the Aristotelian ethics, to view it as non-relative.

Here my intention is to bring out the non-relativistic face of Aristotelian Virtue ethics. I am doing this based on the article Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach by Martha Nussbaum in the book The Quality of Life

Having described general shape of Aristotelian approach now we can begin to understand some of the objections that might be brought against such a non-relative account of the virtues, and to imagine how Aristotle could respond to those objectives.

1. Virtues a Reflection of Local Traditions and Values

A relativist may think that any list of virtues must be simply a reflection of local traditions and values; there can be no list of virtues that can be normative for all varied societies. By this view ‘The Great Souled’ person of Aristotle will be a Greek gentleman.

But if probe further in to the way in which Aristotle in fact enumerates and individuates the virtues, we can see that things are against these suggestions.

We can see that a rather large number of virtues and vices that Aristotle explain are nameless, and that, among the one that are not nameless; a good many are given, names that are somewhat arbitrarily chosen by Aristotle and do not Perfectly fit the behavior he is trying to describe. This does not sound like the procedure of someone who is simply studying the local traditions and bringing out the virtue-names that figure most prominently in those traditions.

The idea is clearer when we examine the way in which he introduces his list of virtues. In Nicomachean Ethics what he does in each case is to isolate a sphere of human experience that figures in more or less any human life, and in which more or less any human being will have to make some choices rather than others. In each sphere what is required is to act appropriately for that there will be specific actions, and at the end he gives thick definition of the virtue.

On this approach it does not seem possible to say, relativist does, that a given society does not contain anything that corresponds to a given virtue. Nor does it seem to be an open question. The point is everyone makes some choices and acts somehow or other in these sphere, if not properly then improperly.

Here the job of ethical theory will be to search for the best further specification corresponding to this nominal definition, and to produce a full definition.

Now there are three main objections against the non relativism of Aristotelian ethics.

2. The Relationship Between Singleness of Problem and Singleness of Solution

The first objection concerns the relationship between singleness of problem and singleness of solution. We can suppose that the approach succeeds in doing this in a way that embraces many times and places, bringing disparate cultures in a single debate about the good human being and the good human life. Still, it might be argued, what has been achieved is, at best, a single discourse or debate about virtue.

But looking from another perspective the conflicting theories are clearly put forward as competing candidates for the truth; the behavior of those involved in the discourse about virtue suggests that they are indeed, as Aristotle says, searching ‘not for the way of their ancestors, but for the good’. And it seems reasonable in that case for them to do so. It is far less clear, where the virtues are concerned, that a unified practical solution is either sought by the actual participants or a desideratum of them.

The Aristotelian proposal makes it possible to conceive of a way in which the virtues might be non-relative. It does not, by itself, answer the question of relativism.

3. Ground Experiences as in Some Way Primitive

The second objection seems to treat the experiences that ground the virtues as in some way primitive, given, and free from the cultural variation that we find in the plurality of normative conception of virtue. Normative conceptions introduce an element of cultural interpretation that is not present in the grounding experiences, which are, for that very reason, the Aristotelians starting point. But, the objector continues, such assumptions are naïve. They will not stand up either to our best account of experience or to a close examination of the ways in which these so-called grounding experiences are in fact differentially constructed by different cultures.

But we want to consider some other aspects also before reaching to a conclusion; the human mind is an active and interpretative instrument, and that its interpretations are a function of its history and its concepts, as well as of its innate nature. Also the nature of human world interpretations is holistic and that the criticism of them must, equally, be holistic. But these two factors do not imply, as some relativists in literary theory and in anthropology tend to assume, that all world interpretations are equally valid and altogether non-comparable. Certain ways in which people see the world can still be criticized exactly as Aristotle criticized them: as stupid, pernicious, and false. The standards used in such criticisms must come from inside human life. Also despite the evident differences in the specific cultural shaping of the grounding experiences, we do recognize the experience of people in other cultures as similar to our own. We do converse with them about matters of deep importance; understand them, allow ourselves to move by them. This sense of community and overlap seems to be especially strong in the areas that we have called the areas of the grounding experiences. And this, it seems, supports the Aristotelian claim that those experiences can be a good starting point for ethical debate. Thus Aristotle seeks, instead, to discover, among the experiences of groups in many times and places, certain elements that are especially broadly and deeply shared. Here also it is evident that Aristotelian virtues are non-elative.

4. Universal and Necessary Features as Contingent

The third objection against non-relativism of Aristotelian ethics is that, Aristotelian has taken for universal and necessary features of human life an experience that is contingent on certain non-necessary historical conditions. Like the second this argument also says that human experience is much more profoundly shaped by non-necessary social features than the Aristotelian has allowed. Therefore the virtues are defined relatively to certain problems and limitations, and also to certain endowments.

In counter to this argument Aristotle will say that our morality is an essential feature of our circumstances as human beings. An immoral being would have such a different form of life, and such different values and virtues that it does not seem to make sense to regard that being as part of the same search for good. In general it seems that all forms of life, including the imagined life of god contains boundaries and limits. Thus it does not appear that we will not easily get beyond the virtues. Nor does it seem to be so clearly a good thing for human life that we should.

Conclusion

So much for our outline sketch for the good. For it looks as if we have to draw an outline first, and fill it in later. It would seem to be open to anyone to take things further and to articulate the god parts of the sketch. And time is a good discoverer or ally in such things. That’s how the sciences have progressed as well: it is open to anyone to supply what is lacking.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nussbaum, Martha C. “Non-relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach” in The

Quality of Life, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

VIRTUES AND VICES

VIRTUES AND VICES

INTRODUCTION
For many years the philosopher were not interested to deal with the subject the virtues and vices. But later comes the philosophers like Hume , Kant, Mill, G.E Moore, W.D. Ross from whom much contemporary moral philosophy has been derived. When we look to the past we have seen that number of books with title ‘The Varieties of Goodness’, ‘The Virtues’ are appeared. Some interesting aspects on the topic have come out in the journals.Most important aspects about virtues and vices can found in the Aristotelian and Christian philosophy in St. Thomas. St. Thomas had developed the doctrine of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. He also still use the Aristotelian frame work. He had given his work more detailed than Aristotle did. ‘Summa Theologica’ is best source we have for moral philosophy according to Philipa Foot.
VIRTUES AND ITS RELATION WITH VICES
When we talk about virtues we don’t consider that ethics, which have given by different authors Aristotle ‘arete’ and Aquinas virtues. These virtues are related to some theory. But when minor obstacle to be overcome we take only the practical side will not take theory side. For us there are four cardinal moral virtues courage, temperance, wisdom, justice.
First of all clear that virtues are in some way beneficial. We cannot live in the stage where the virtues are not so far as applicable. But depending up on certain virtues the benefits is goes to both the one who has the virtue and those who have to do with him. first statement shows that when the ethical situation was not at all clear we cannot live or survive. Consider the background of criminals, those who want to live there we cannot.
One question arises that the relation between justice and common good. Rights may stand in the way of pursuit of the common good. But Philipa Foot treat justice as virtue independand of charity. How the strength and health are excellences of the body? How concentration and memory are related to ones will? The answer is that when a person will be a virtuous these are essential things to attain perfect human being. The important factor in the virtue is intentionality of an action. If the intention is clear in the action it is virtuous one. If one man brings harms to another without realizing he is doing it,became of ignorance of that.Here ignorance plays an important role to do that particular act .It will not be virtuous act.
Disposition of heart is part of virtue. Because one man succeeds where another fails not because of their specific difference but his heart lies in a different place.The intention makes a virtuous man inthe society. If the intention of act is clear the action we do it is virtuous one.But we donot care about the results.So our intention is important in our action.when we do different actions our mind will be clear and our intentions also will be purifiable.Then we can say that the action is virtuous or not otherwise we became in trouble.The reactions of one who is in pleasure and displeasure make the sign of a man’s moral disposition.
None of these shows that the virtue is not belong to the will.Here will must be understood in its widest sense. But Aristotle says that practical wisdom or phronesis is important to do a action which is virtual .It is mainly related to our intellect not will. Knowledge cannot be the matter of desire or intention. But wisdom has special connection with the will.When we explain wisdom it has two parts. It has certain end means wisdom shows a particular end and it knows particular ends are worth.So both Aristotle and Aquinas insisted that wisdom is related with cleverness,because cleverness is the ability to take the right steps to any end, and wisdom is related to only good ends. There fore we can connect wisdom with the will in the following ways. According to Aquinas wisdom is the power under the direction of will.So we can say that a man who lacks wisdom has false values.
Aristotle has explained that how the virtues are different from arts of skills.In the case of arts and skills voluntary error is preferable to involuntary error, but we consider in the case virtues it is reverse.For instance someone who deliberatly makes a spelling mistake, we see that this does not any way count against his skill as a speller. But on the other hand when somebody do the things unjustly or uncharitably or in a cowardly we cannot say i did it deleberatly. So we may a virtue is not like a skill or an act. It must actually engage the will.Skills can be achieve through practice. It is attaining by the way of practice only. But it will not be virtuous, if one action is ethicaly related there should be a mind of purifiable then it should be a deleberate act.
Aristotle and Aquinas compared courage and temperance with justice .Justices was concerned with operations, courage and temperance with passions.Here the difference is that courage and temperance is something related to our action. But justice doesnot.Almost any desire can lead a man to act unjustly,even to help a friend or to save life.An act of pleasures lead us to act unjustly, if it is drinking,eating or sex.Because of fear and desire for pleasure we can take courage and temperance as a virtuous at all. Aquinas says about passions if somebody has to do against reason we need a objection of that particular action which we name temperance. The couragous person, who is able to debate for particular right ,not run away from what is right. Together with courage and temperance these are lot of virtues hope,humility e.t.c.
But when we take justice and charity it is little different. It is not mainly related to any particular desire or tendency.If somepeople is giving more care to others or much attached to the good of others this is because they have general virtue of self-love.If we love myself as important figure ,we can love same as others.In the similar way if people cared about the rights of the others as they care about their own rights
According to Aristotle to take pleasure in virtuous action is the mark of true virtue.Natural virtue cannot be the whole of virtue because some virtues are naturaly held to different individuls. We cannot consider it as virtue at all.Justice and wisdom will not consider as natural virtue because these virtues have to be learned. Some kind of difficulties can see in the way of moral action. For instance a person, who is more tempted to steal something but the other one is not .According to moral principals both are will not do steal. But there is a gradation in this action.The one who is tempted to steal is more virtuous than the other. Because of circumstances he is tempted in to steal. So there is different stages in the moral action.
CONCLUSION
Virtue can be produced only by good actions.when we treated others as object the actions will not be virtuous.Any difficulty in the thought that virtuous may sometimes displayed in bad actions . For example the virtuous of courage and temperance may aid a bad man, it will lead to evil work.The consequences also will be not well. It will lead to bad effects.In the same way we can talk about charity. The virtue of courage can equally connected with good actions and bad.When people use courage for purpose of bad effects it will not be virtuous. So one thing is that virtuous action should be provide good results



BIBLIOGRAPHY
Foot, Philipa. “Virtues and Vices”: in Virtue Ethics: ed. Roger Crisp. Newyork:
Oxford University, 1997.

Davis Varghese
(0924601)

VIRTUOUS ACTION MAKE A GOOD CHARACTER

VIRTUOUS ACTION MAKE A GOOD CHARACTER

Introduction
Aristotle divided the virtue or excellence into two kinds, intellectual excellence and moral excellence, which is the excellence of this semi-rational faculty of desire. The book II is beginning with the consideration of virtue. Virtue has, too, an essential connexion with pleasure and pain, it is not by indifference to these, but by taking pleasure in the right things and to the right degree, that men become virtuous. Aristotle points out that acts which are such as a just man would do are not just acts unless they are done as the just man would do them. That it is possible to do acts which are on the outside precisely those that a just man would do, but to do them without the knowledge that they are just, or without the desire to do them because they are just, or without having the firm character that a just man has. He deals the question what kind of thing virtue is a passion, a faculty, or a state of character.

Moral virtue like the arts

Virtues are of two kinds, intellectual and moral. Intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching, while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit. None of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.
All the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity; but the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them ; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
By doing the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of anger. States of character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.
The present inquiry does not aim at theoretical knowledge but practical knowledge. We are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good. By abstaining from pleasures we become temperate, and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them; and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being habituated to despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground against them we become brave, and it is when we have become so that we shall be most able to stand our ground against them.

Pleasure by doing virtues actions

We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate. For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones.
If the virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure and pain, for this reason also virtue will be concerned with pleasures and pains. This is indicated also by the fact that punishment is inflicted by these means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the nature of cures to be effected by contraries.
The following facts also may show us that virtue and vice are concerned with these same things. There being three objects of choice and three of avoidance, the noble, the advantageous, the pleasant, and their contraries, the base, the injurious, the painful, about all of these the good man tends to go right and the bad man to go wrong, and especially about pleasure.
It has grown up with us all from our infancy; this is why it is difficult to rub off this passion, engrained as it is in our life. And we measure even our actions, some of us more and others less, by the rule of pleasure and pain. For this reason, then, our whole inquiry must be about these; for to feel delight and pain rightly or wrongly has no small effect on our actions.
It is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, but both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder; for even the good is better when it is harder. Therefore for this reason also the whole concern both of virtue and of political science is with pleasures and pains; for the man who uses these well will be good, he who uses them badly bad.
The virtue, is concerned with pleasures and pains , and that by the acts from which it arises it is both increased and, if they are done differently, destroyed, and that the acts from which it arose are those in which it actualizes itself.

The arts and the virtues
What we mean by saying that we must become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate acts; for if men do just and temperate acts, they are already just and temperate.
The case of the arts and that of the virtues are not similar, for the products of the arts have their goodness in themselves, so that it is enough that they should have a certain character, but if the acts that are in accordance with the virtues have themselves a certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately. The agent also must be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.
Actions, are called just and temperate when they are such as the just or the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as just and temperate men do them. By doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good.

Conclusion
Just as men become builders by building, they become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate acts: ‘states of character arise out of like activities’. It is very easy to explain that virtue is a state of character. It remains to say what sort of state of character it is. It is an intermediate state. The act must be done at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way. ‘Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relatively to us, this being determined by a rational principle, i.e. by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it’ .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle,trans. David Ross. London: Oxford
University Press, 1925.

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE; ACCORDING TO NICHOMACHEN ETHICS

INTRODUCTION
Justice can mean either lawfulness or fairness, since injustice is lawlessness and unfairness. The laws encourage people to behave virtuously, so the just person, who by definition is lawful, will necessarily be virtuous. Virtue differs from justice because it deals with one’s moral state, while justice deals with one’s relations with others. Universal justice is that state of a person who is generally lawful and fair. Particular justice deals with the “divisible” goods of honor, money, and safety, where one person’s gain of such goods results in a corresponding loss by someone else.
There are two forms of particular justice: distributive and rectificatory. Distributive justice deals with the distribution of wealth among the members of a community. It employs geometric proportion: what each person receives is directly proportional to his or her merit, so a good person will receive more than a bad person. This justice is a virtuous mean between the vices of giving more than a person deserves and giving less.
Rectificatory justice remedies unequal distributions of gain and loss between two people. Rectification may be called for in cases of injustice involving voluntary transactions like trade or involuntary transactions like theft or assault. Justice is restored in a court case, where the judge ensures that the gains and losses of both parties are equaled out, thus restoring a mean.
Justice must be distributed proportionately. For instance, a shoemaker and a farmer cannot exchange one shoe for one harvest, since shoes and harvests are not of equal value. Rather, the shoemaker would have to give a number of shoes proportional in value to the crops the farmer provides. Money reflects the demand placed on various goods and allows for just exchanges.
Political justice and domestic justice are related but distinct. Political justice is governed by the rule of law, while domestic justice relies more on respect. Political justice is based in part on natural law, which is the same for all people, and in part on particular legal conventions, which vary from place to place.
An agent is responsible only for acts of injustice performed voluntarily. We call injustice done out of ignorance “mistakes,” injustice done because plans went awry “misadventures,” and injustice done knowingly but without premeditation “injuries.” Ignorance is an excuse only if it is reasonably unavoidable.
Aristotle reasons that no one can willingly suffer an injustice and that when goods are unjustly distributed, the distributor is more culpable than the person who receives the largest share. People mistakenly think that justice is an easy matter, as it simply requires obedience to laws. However, true justice comes only from a virtuous disposition, and those lacking in virtue are unable to perceive the just course of action in all cases.
Laws may not always be perfectly applicable. In particular circumstances in which the laws do not produce perfect justice, equity is necessary to mend the imbalance. Therefore, equity is superior to legal justice but inferior to absolute justice.
It is impossible to treat oneself unjustly. Injustice involves one person gaining at another’s expense, so it requires at least two people. Even in the case of suicide, it is not the victim, but the state, that suffers an injustice.
MEANING OF JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE
By justice we mean that a state of character which makes people disposed to do what is just and helps them to act justly and wish for what is just. Similarly injustice is alslo a state which makes people to act unjustly and wish for what is unjust. These are the two contrary state. And we can recognized one contrary state from the subject that exhibit them, for example if good condition is known, bad condition also becomes known, and good condition is known form the things that are in good condition. If good condition is firmness of flesh, it is necessary that bad condition should be flabbiness of flesh. And in most cases if one contrary is ambiguous the other also will be ambiguous.
According to aristotle the just man is lawful and the fair, the unjust the unlawful and the unfair. Since the lawless man was seen to be unjust and the law-abiding man just and the lawful acts laid down by the legislative. These lawful acts aim at the common advantage either of all or of the best or of those who hold power, or something of the sort. So that we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve happiness.
Justice is considered as a complete virtue because of its relation to another. Every virtue is comprehended in justice. It is complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards another also; for many men can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to others. Now the worst man is he who exercises his wickedness both towards himself and towards his friends, and the best man is not he who exercises his virtue towards himself but he who exercise it towards another. Justice in these sense, is not part of virtue but uthe whole of virtue,and injustice is part of vie but the whole of vice. What the difference is between virtue and justice in this sense is that they are the same but their essence is not the same.

DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
Since both the unjust man and the unjust act are unfair or unequal, there is an intermediate between the two unequals involved in either case. If the unjust is unequal, the just is equal,and the same equality will exist between the persons and between the things concerned. When either equals have and are awarded unequal shares, or unequals equal shares, the awards should be ‘according to merit’. And all men are agreed that what is just in distribution must be according to merit in some sense, though they do not the same sort of merit,but democrats identify it with the status of freeman, supporters of oligarchy with wealth and supporters of aristocracy with virtue.
Then just is a species of the proportionate, and proportion is a equality of ratio. For example, as the line A is to the line B, so is the line B to the line C; the line B, then , has been mentioned twice, so that if the line B be assumed twice, the proportional term will be four,and the ratio between one pair is the same as that between the other pair; for there is a similar distiniction between the persons and between the things. So the conjunction of the term A with C and of B with D is what is just in distribution. Then what the just is- the proportional and unjust is what violates the proportion.
RECTIFICATORY JUSTICE
It arises in connection with transaction both voluntary and involuntary. But the justice in transactions between man and man is a sort of equality indeed, and the injustice a sort of inequality; not according to that kind of proportion, however, but according to arithmetical proportion. For it makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man or a bad man a good one, nor whether it is a good or a bad man that has committed adultery; the law looks only to the distinctive character of the injury, and treats the parties as equal, if one is in the wrong and the other is being wronged, and if one inflicted injury and the other has received it. As it involves a kind of inequality the judge tries to equalize things by means of the penalty, taking away from the gain of the assailant.
Here the term loss and gain comes from voluntary exchange; and if you have more than one’s own is called gaining, and to have less than one’s original share is called losing. For example, in buying and selling and in all other matters in which the law has left people free to make their own terms; but when they get neither more nor less but just what belongs to themselves, they say that they have their own and that they neither lose nor gain.
Therefore the just is intermediate between a sort of gain and a sort of loss, namely, those which are involuntary; it consists in having an equal amount before and after the transaction.
POLITICAL JUSTICE
Political justice found among men who share their life with a view to self-suffciency.Men who are free and either proportionately or arithmetically equall, so that between those who do not fulfil this condition there is no political justice but justice in a special sense and by analogy. For justice exists only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law; and law exists for men between whom there is injustice; for legal justice is the discrimination of the just and the unjust.
And between men between whom unjustice is done there is also unjust actionm,and this is assigning too much to oneself of things good in themselves and too little of things evil in themselves. This is why we do not allow a man to rule, but rational principle,because a man behaves thus in his own interests and becomes a tyrant.
Political justice is partly natural and partly legal. Naturaly,that which everywhere has the same force and does not exists by people thinking this or that, legaly,that which is originaly indifferent, but when it has been laid down is not indifferent. By nature it is unchangable and has everywhere the same force, while they see change in the things recongnized as just.
The things which are just by virtue of convention and expediency are like measures; for wine and corn measures are not everywhere equal, but larger in wholesale and smaller in retail markets. Similarly, the things which are just not by nature buy by human enactment are not everywhere the same, since consititutions also are not the same, though there is but one which is everywhere by nature the best.


CONCLUSION
This is the short summary of the topic ‘justice’ in the Nicomachen Ethics of Aristotle. In this he explain what is justice and injustice. According to him justice is a state of character which makes people disposed to do what is just and helps them to act justly and wish for what is just. Similarly injustice is alslo a state which makes people to act unjustly and wish for what is unjust. And the just man is lawful and the fair, the unjust the unlawful and the unfair.
There are different kind of justice and injustice, namely distributive, rectificatory and political. In distributive we should keep justice in the distribution of wealth. It should be distributed equaly to all. Rectificatory justice arises from the voluntary and involutary transaction between man. Political justice is partly natural and partly legal. And naturaly it is same force in everywhere, and in legaly it is one and the same but different from place to place and coutry to country.
BIBILIOGRAPHY
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics By Aristotle. Trans. David Ross. Newyork; Cosmo
Publication, 2003.
Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. David Ross. Newyork; Oxford University
Press, 2009.


JINTO ERINJERY
0924604

PLEASURE IN THE VIEW OF ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE ETHICS

PLEASURE IN THE VIEW OF ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE ETHICS

Introduction
From the very beginning of the life of a child, it has a soft corner towards love. It is not different in the case of an adult man. That is why the famous psychotherapist Freud had crept into the Eros principles of the person. Wherever you go you would find commotion for achieving happiness. Now the happiness is distributed in the nook and corner of the world. The identity of happiness changed into pleasure. Pleasure seeking is the action and passion of the people. Why they seek pleasure? The simple answer is they want happiness. But they are not aware of what they actually want. They try to amass happiness and they remain disappointed. May be that was the reason, why Buddha said, desire was the cause of suffering. In this case, man needs to do two things or he has to work in two realms.
Firstly, he has to eliminate suffering and secondly he has to achieve happiness. Man is, like a pendulum, swinging between these two contradictions. In the Aristotelian virtue ethics, he keeps the tern “happiness”(eudaimonia) as the highest good. Aristotle speaks of the practical aspect of the virtue of happiness. He stresses the point of regular practice makes a person virtuous and enables him to attain the highest goal- happiness.
Virtue refers to human excellence. In their quest to understand what a good person is and how a good life is lived, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle studied human excellences, which came to be called virtues. Virtues are habits of human excellence. Moral virtues are excellences of character acquired through the formation of good habits and are necessary for happiness.
Understanding virtue and the specific virtues that enable people to think and behave well has a real payoff: a serious chance at happiness, defined by Aristotle as a whole life, well lived. The virtue theory of ethics dominated Western moral thinking from ancient times through the middle ages. It made a major comeback in the 20th century. An understanding of what virtue and virtue ethics is all about can help people to see why they need to form good habits of choosing and acting. They concluded that virtue in general and some virtues in particular, enable a person not only to be good, but also to have a good life. People may not always feel the need to be good, but it’s a sure thing that everyone wants to have a good life. It turns out that you can’t have a good life without being good, that is, being virtuous.

“Pleasure” in Aristotle’s View
Aristotle begins Nicomachean Ethics with an explanation of the “chief good.” This good is presented by him through thoughts and theories of the Doctrine of the Mean. He states that all men who are in search of the good and knowledge of “the good” have a profound influence on life. He then writes how a good man, sets goals for himself on a specific task. This experience in the function of the task gives self satisfaction. An example used by Aristotle is a sculptor who participates in the art of sculpting.
To Aristotle, happiness was the activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue and the highest level of happiness could be achieved from the activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with the virtue of thought. Not all conditions of the soul can be called virtues. His Greatest Happiness Principle says that the action we ought to perform in a given situation is the one that promotes the greatest happiness for everyone concerned, not only has the agent’s owned happiness. Virtues are conditions of the soul. Given the contrasting views of happiness by Aristotle and John Stuart Mill one could wonder what Mill would say if Aristotle ever met him and told him that his notion of happiness is worthy only of a swine. He says that people do not get blamed or praised for their feelings but rather for their virtues and vises. Scholars, in his opinion, ultimately led the happiest and most productive life styles. According to Aristotle, feelings are not virtues. The majority of people would become bored really fast and become unhappy with their careers. Mill also has an opinion on the subject of greatest happiness. Mainly, he could say that the definition or the meaning of happiness is different for every person. There are several ways Mill could respond to Aristotle. To Mill, the right action in any given circumstance is the one that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. Even if you could get everyone to become a scholar, there will be nobody left to do the other essential tasks needed for the general population to survive.

Pleasure V/S Happiness
For Aristotle pleasure and happiness is not the same. Though for us, common people, the concern for the pleasure cannot be eliminated from the very existence. Aristotle frequently emphasizes the importance of pleasure to human life and therefore to his study of how we should live, but his full-scale examination of the nature and value of pleasure is found in two places . It is odd that pleasure receives two lengthy treatments; no other topic in the Ethics is revisited in this way. Book VII offers a brief account of what pleasure is and is not. It is not a process but an unimpeded activity of a natural state. Aristotle does not elaborate on what a natural state is, but he obviously has in mind the healthy condition of the body, especially its sense faculties, and the virtuous condition of the soul. Little is said about what it is for an activity to be unimpeded, but Aristotle does remind us that virtuous activity is impeded by the absence of a sufficient supply of external goods. One might object that people who are sick or who have moral deficiencies can experience pleasure, even though Aristotle does not take them to be in a natural state.
He has two strategies for responding. First, when a sick person experiences some degree of pleasure as he is being restored to health, the pleasure he is feeling is caused by the fact that he is no longer completely ill. Some small part of him is in a natural state and is acting without impediment. Second, Aristotle is willing to say that what seems pleasant to some people may in fact not be pleasant, just as what tastes bitter to an unhealthy palate may not be bitter. To call something a pleasure is not only to report a state of mind but also to endorse it to others. Aristotle's analysis of the nature of pleasure is not meant to apply to every case in which something seems pleasant to someone, but only to activities that really are pleasures. All of these are unimpeded activities of a natural state. Aristotle indicates several times in NE. VII. 11-14 that merely to say that pleasure is a good does not do it enough justice; he also wants to say that the highest good is a pleasure. Here he is influenced by an idea expressed in the opening line of the Ethics: the good is that at which all things aim. In VII.13, he hints at the idea that all living things imitate the contemplative activity of god. Plants and non-human animals seek to reproduce themselves because that is their way of participating in an unending series, and this is the closest they can come to the ceaseless thinking of the unmoved mover. In VII.11-14, he appeals to his conception of divine activity only in order to defend the thesis that our highest good consists in a certain kind of pleasure. Human happiness does not consist in every kind of pleasure, but it does consist in one kind of pleasure—the pleasure felt by a human being who engages in theoretical activity and thereby imitates the pleasurable thinking of god. He conceives of god as a being who continually enjoy a “single and simple pleasure” —the pleasure of pure thought—whereas human beings, because of their complexity, grow weary of whatever they do. Aristotle strongly implies that the pleasure of contemplation is the good, because in one way or another all living beings aim at this sort of pleasure. He makes the point that pleasures interfere with each other, and so even if all kinds of pleasures are good, it does not follow that all of them are worth choosing. One must make a selection among pleasures by determining which are better.
The opening words from the book VII. 11, reads like this: the study of pleasure and pain belongs to the province of the political philosopher; for he is the architect if the end, with a view to which we ball one thing bad and another good without qualification. Aristotle reminds us that it is the necessary task of each of us to consider them. Most of the people say that happiness involves pleasure; this is why the blessed man is called by s name derived from a word meaning enjoyment.

Conclusion
The virtue ethics of Aristotle provides people with both amazing insight and a powerful plan to shape one’s choices and actions in ways that will increase the chance of attaining happiness. By developing the four cardinal virtues, a person can go very far down the path of a whole life, well lived and the rest is up to good fortune. But even if bad luck ruins the chance, a person of good character, by possessing the moral virtues, will be far better off than those who don’t.
In fact Aristotle gives some tips to how to attain happiness. It is through the regular practice of virtue. As the virtue stands in the middle , he introduces the need of prudence which makes a man discern or distinguish between foolhardiness and cowardice. Prudence (practical wisdom) is a special virtue in that it is an intellectual one, but guides human choices, while the moral virtues are all about doing, or action. To become a better person, we must practice virtuous acts regularly. After a while, these acts will become a habit and so the virtuous acts part of our every day life and the person will be leading a virtuous life. For example, if a singer practices singing everyday, they will become better at it and used to doing it. People who practice their virtues improve their skills and therefore becoming happier. According to Aristotle the person who struggles to acquire virtues is in the long run a better person and is much happier as they feel that they deserve that happiness as they have worked very hard for it. By continuously practicing their virtues people will soon be acting in the right way. Aristotle says that virtues are something that we acquire and are not just born with; people are not intrinsically good or bad, but become good or bad according to their habits they develop throughout our life.
















Bibliography
Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. Trans. Sir David Ross. Oxford University
Press: London,1959.
Hardie, W.F.R. Aristotle's Ethical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Crisp, Roger Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Preejo V.J
(0924605)

ARISTOTELIAN CONCEPT OF EUDAIMONIA

ARISTOTELIAN CONCEPT OF EUDAIMONIA

Introduction
Eudaimonia is a state variously translated from Greek as 'well-being', 'happiness', 'blessedness', and in the context of virtue ethics, 'human flourishing'. Eudaimonia in this sense is not a subjective, but an objective, state. It characterizes the well-lived life, irrespective of the emotional state of the person experiencing it. According to Aristotle, the most prominent exponent of eudaimonia is the proper goal of human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human quality, reason as the soul's most proper and nourishing activity. “Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of eudaimonia was an activity that could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community.”
Aristotle categorized the virtues as moral and intellectual. Aristotle identified nine intellectual virtues, the most important of which was wisdom; sophia (theoretical wisdom) and phronesis (practical wisdom). The other eight moral virtues included prudence, justice, fortitude, courage, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, and temperance. Aristotle argued that each of the moral virtues was a mean Golden Mean between two corresponding vices.
“The causal factors relevant to living well, to eudaimonia, are all, they claim, within the agent’s firm grasp; external uncontrolled happiness can neither significantly enhance nor significantly diminish good living.” Eudaimonia is used to refer to the life that is most desirable or satisfying. Therefore, it's the objective of each person, generally translated into English as "happiness" or "well being".
The 'Father of Eudaimonia' was Aristotle. He introduced and famously explored the concept in the Nicomachean Ethics, where he argued that all 'good' acts performed by someone would lead to their greater well-being. His main argument for this rested on the assumption that everything in the world had an end/purpose. For example, a knife is made for the purpose of cutting things and as such the best use of it is the purpose for which it was made (i.e. for cutting things), rather than say digging a hole in the ground, or turning a screw in the wall.
One of the ways Aristotle's moral theory has been put into practice, is found in the concept of natural moral law. This is the idea that the 'right' thing to do is what it is natural for something to do. The Catholic Church has particularly adopted this way of looking at the moral issue of abortion, saying that it is not natural to stop a pregnancy, and as such doing so is morally wrong.
In the same way, Aristotle argued that humans have a telos, and as such the best life they can live is one where everything they do is directed towards fulfilling it. As such, fulfilling their 'telos' would lead people to adopt certain attitudes and behaviors in order to do so, which were understood as the 'virtues' .All this meant that the desire to be successful in life or to do what one was meant to do, and as such achieve eudaimonia, led people to become 'good' people.

Eudaimonia as an End in Itself

Discussing who the “happy man” is, Aristotle identifies 3 popular views of the nature of life. 1) Life is pleasure; 2) Life is honor; 3) Life is making money. But none of them are according to virtue, either , because it doesn't consider its sources and impacts or because it depends on an external recognition. Therefore, the happy life should be of a fourth nature, a contemplative life, and an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.



Eudaimonia is not a State But an Activity
Eudaimonia is not a state or a feeling of amusement. That's because it's not short-lived, it's not external to ourselves and its dependent on how we do what we do. It's our virtues, which differ us from other living beings. It comprises both moral and intellectual excellence, as well as both practical and theoretical wisdom. The consistent practice of these virtues is Eudaimonia.

Not Duty nor Happiness but Eudaimonia

Modern ethical debate tends to be about exploring what makes an action moral. For instance, Immanuel Kant argued that moral activity was about doing our 'duty', whereas Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill believed it was about doing that which benefited the greatest number of people. This meant that for Kant acting in the right way occurred when one did their duty, whereas for Bentham and Mill it was when we maximized the amount of pleasure to others through our actions.
However, for Aristotle eudaimonia was not to be sought for any particular reason, but was an end in itself. In other words, we should not desire eudaimonia because it is our duty to seek it, or in order to increase the amount of happiness in the world. If we wanted to achieve eudaimonia in order to be happy for example, then 'happiness' would be the 'end', not eudaimonia. For Aristotle, the desire to achieve eudaimonia is a defining characteristic of what it means to be human. In other words, wanting to be successful is a defining aspect of being human. We do not see people putting a lot of time and effort into things they believe they will fail at or which they believe will make them unhappy. For everyone, no matter whom they are or where they live, seek to develop those skills, qualities, or obtain certain things and even get to know people that will enable them to live successful, prosperous, happy and contented lives. This is why Aristotle believed eudaimonia was the telos of human life, for it can be seen to affect all of our choices and decisions.

Eudaimonia and Modern Moral Philosophy

Interest in the concept of eudaimonia and ancient ethical theory more generally has enjoyed a tremendous revival in the twentieth century. This is largely due to the work of Elizabeth Anscombe. In her article "Modern Moral Philosophy," Anscombe argued that duty based conceptions of morality are conceptually incoherent for they are based on the idea of a "law without a lawgiver." The point is that a system of morality conceived along the lines of the Ten Commandments, as a system of rules for action, depends on someone having actually made these rules. However, in a modern climate, which is unwilling to accept that morality depends on God in this way, the rule-based conception of morality is stripped of its metaphysical foundation. Anscombe recommends a return the eudemonistic ethical theories of the ancients, particularly Aristotle, which ground morality in the interests and well being of human moral agents, and can do so without appealing to any questionable metaphysics.

Is Eudaimonia Vulnerable?

The good condition theorist argue that eudaimonia is vulnerable because it consists simply in having a good ethical state or condition and because this condition is itself stable even under the direst circumstances. But Aristotle argues that states of character are vulnerable to external influences. Or he would argue that good states are not by themselves sufficient for good living. “Eudaimonia requires actual activity for its completion, and second, that good human activity can be disrupted or decisively impeded by various forms of luck.”
“We agree, Aristotle says, that our end is eudaimonia; but we agree on just about nothing concerning it, except the name. One further agreement, however, emerging near the beginning of the Nichomachean Ethics: it concerns the connection of eudaimonia its activity.” So we can see from the start that the opponent who makes the good life consists in a non-active state or condition, removing it altogether from its realization in activity, is going against beliefs of ours that are as broadly shared as any ever brought forward by Aristotle in the ethical works.

Conclusion

Although eudaimonia was first popularized by Aristotle, it now belongs to the tradition of virtue theories generally. For the virtue theorist, eudaimonia describes that state achieved by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome that can be reached by practicing the virtues. A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer to succeed at his, her, or its purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus to identify the virtues for human beings, one must have an account of what the human purpose is.
Bibliograhpy
1. Nussbaum, Martha C. The Fragility of Goodness:Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy.Cambridge University Press: Cambrige,1986.

PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND VIRTUE ETHICS

MORAL PHILOSOPHY
MODULE II: PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND VIRTUE ETHICS

I. ETHICS OF PLATO
The Republic is the most fruitful source of Plato’s ethical theory. His ethical theory is inseparably connected to his view of universe, his view of human being, his view of society and state. In Republic he attempts to set forth the ideal state, the society on which embodies his ethical theory. Ethical knowledge according to Plato is more austere than mathematics because it involves a process of understanding of what is good, in terms of ‘real’, and is finally realizing this through virtuous actions.

Two Tier Levels of Reality
1. The world of perception or the realm of appearance
This is not the real world. It involves the world of sights, sounds, individual things, change and relativity.

2. The realm of thought
It is the world of ideas concepts and universals. This is a world of abiding realities. We recognize individual things because of our knowledge of ideas or universals.
Thus for Plato reality consist in ‘ideas’. The goal of the world is the expression of the idea of good. The principles and the conceptions of the ethical knowledge can be subsumed under “the idea of good is the highest knowledge.”

Then what is the good both relative and supreme according to him. The human soul is composed of three parts
1. Rational part
It is the mind, located in the brain, whose function is to rule the body and is the seat of the wisdom
2. Feeling part
It is located in the breast and is the seat of the sensations and the basis of the heroic virtues especially courage.
3. Desiring part
It is located in the abdomen and is the seat of the man’s passion and appetites. There is not any principal order here, and this part needs to be brought under the control of reason.
When all the three parts operate in harmony, each carrying out its own function, there is peace and order

This classification is in analogue with Plato’s classification of the people of a state as,
1. The rulers
2. The officials
3. The workers

Rational being and the state indicates the ‘Justice’ or ‘Righteousness’ is the all inclusive virtue. A just man does not allow the several elements within him to interfere with one another. “Just people” are then “integrated” reason, emotion, desire function harmoniously with in them. On the other hand “unjust” individuals are beset by inner rebellion within their souls. Accordingly, those actions which preserve a harmonious state in humans will be deemed good and those that diminish it will be bad.
The doctrine that “virtue is knowledge” is expanded by Plato in the Republic in such a way as to give solid foundation to his ethics. Each of the three elements of the soul is involved in moral behavior and each when carries out its proper function, is characterized by an appropriate value.
Governing the soul by reason constitutes wisdom
Rational regulation of the desires constitutes the ‘temperance’
The support of reason by the passions constitutes the courage;
The harmony of three faculties constitutes the ‘justice ‘the supreme virtue.

The Theory of Forms
The ideal forms of every thing that exists in the intelligible world constitute both the ideal and real so the good. The knowledge of the good is the ultimate knowledge upon which moral virtues are based.
According to the metaphysics of Plato, real goodness is ideal, and the actual sensible world is merely a copy of pure and timeless forms. The ultimate aim or the purpose of the human beings is good or happiness which is the ultimate moral motivation. Ideal goodness can be attained only by the mind of the rational persons

Education
The gal of the education is the imitation of good. “Virtues are teachable” and the education helps one to make reliable judgments on what is good .the souls happiness consists in freeing itself from the imprisonment to the world of senses through knowledge and virtue.

A perfect man, in Plato’s ethics would be the product of long years of study and of training in good habits. He will be an elderly well balanced character, free from the impulses of the lower nature and living according to the higher powers of soul

II. ARISTOTLE
INTRODUCTION
Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Stagira, a small town on the coast of the Aegean Sea, about two hundred miles north of Athens. At the age of seventeen he was sent to Plato for education and after twenty years of long learning he left the school. He was the teacher of the great Alexander for three years .the final year of Aristotle’s life was spent in exile and died at sixty-three years of age.

ARISTOTLE’S MAIN WORKS ON ETHICS
1. Eudemian Ethics
2. Nichomachean Ethics
Eudemian Ethics: Eudemus compiled it
Nichomachean Ethics: This work was dedicated to either his father or son.

Aristotle differs from his teacher Plato chiefly in method and emphasis rather than in fundamental point of view. Whereas Plato accepts to explain particulars as copies of Universal, Aristotle begins his studies with an examination of the facts of human experiences. For Aristotle there is only one world of reality, i.e., the visible world of nature. Ideals exist, but they exist in things. Reality is found in things; it is an unfolding process. Ideas are things, or form and matters, are united; there is continuous development from potentiality to actuality. The spiritual and natural are inseparably connected. The moral ideal is found in the human nature itself.

There is close inter relation between Ethics and Politics in Aristotle’s writings. Nichomachean Ethics is declared to be ‘Politics’ by Aristotle; so also, the work, which is titled ‘Politics’, is presented as the sequel to the ethics. Both of them aim at finding out the ways and means to be Happy. Ethics shows how happiness the supreme good can be attained by the practice of virtues and contemplation. The politics, on the other hand, deals with what particular form of constitution, what set of institutions are necessary to maintain and safeguard the ideal form of virtuous life in the society Aristotle began his Ethical inquiry with an empirical investigation of what people fundamentally desire.

He writes in Nichomachean Ethics: “Every art and inquiry and similarly every action and pursuit is thought, is thought to aim” at same good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. This good is happiness (eudemonia), for it is self sufficient, attainable and final,” SUMMUM BONUM” (the supreme good, ultimate happiness). Happiness can be attained only by the regulations of the irrational movements of the soul by reason. Thus, happiness depends upon, the actualization of one’s rationality.

All natures, according to Aristotle are thought to be end-directed. The final end of each man’s activity is the continued internal realization of one’s potentiality. This includes the notion of living well and doing well. Human good, which other wise known as happiness is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Good and bad can be distinguished by observing what the good man approves and tends to do.
Good actions  Good habits Virtue  Virtuous person.

Human nature is divided into two:
1. Irrational side:
a. Vegetative segment - no control by reason.
b. Appetitive segment - which has shares with lower animals. This can be controlled.
2. Rational side: it is constituted by the rational nature of the human.
The rational part of the human may be engaged in reflective contemplation upon the nature of things or, it may direct its energy to control the impulse arising from his irrational nature. By redirecting irrational impulses into rational virtues, human personality is perfected and the highest is welfare is attained through the practice of virtues.

Two kinds of virtues
1. Intellectual virtues: philosophical wisdom and under standing, practical wisdom. They are inborn and resulting from teaching.
2. Moral virtues (virtues of character): such as liberty, temperance etc.
Intellectual virtues ranked highest, but knowledge alone is not sufficient. Our reason must be employed to move our will.
The good depends upon the exercise and development of his rational nature. When reason attains the mastery and the direction of life (habitually) human excellence and happiness are attained. The habit of right thinking, right willing, and right acting is a virtue.

Further Aristotle introduces the idea of voluntariness in moral order. Virtue is a personality characteristic that results from regular practice of the right act until it becomes a habit of the individual. It is impossible to realize moral virtues out side society. Education should teach us t find happiness in worthwhile things and to feel discomfort in seeking the wrong things.

Mean
Moral virtue is the virtue of character. To fulfill his proper function, aim at an intermediary point between opposing extremes of excess and deficiency. The morally virtuous person is one who act according to the golden mean the golden mean need not be same for all. Here reasons seem the balanced course between too much and too little. Nothing over much is the counsel of sanity. The good life is one that encourages the harmonious development of normal functions. E.g. courage is the middle position between rashness and cowardness .it is the central balanced point.

Circumstances
Aristotle tells ‘the balanced course between the too much and the too little is the mean.’ The point between the extremes is moral action that depends on the circumstances. When we consider the virtuous action or conduct, the circumstances and the reason together should be taken into consideration. The practice of the virtues enabled the human being to control over the ‘passions’, the irrational element of the soul.

Definition of Virtue
“Excellence [moral virtue] ,then is a state [habit] concerned with choice , lying in the mean relative to us this being determined by the reason [logos] and the way in which the practical wisdom [the prudent man ] would determine it.”

If we have the right reason, then, we can enhance the moral virtues. If we practice the moral virtues, right reason will be prominent. Right reason only will be present ion a person who has the right action. he can achieve more moral virtues by doing right reason habitually . It is impossible to be practically wise without being good.

Aristotle distinguishes between two kinds of virtue: moral virtue and intellectual virtue

Aristotle says that moral virtues are not innate, but that they are acquired by developing the habit of exercising them. The moral virtues include: courage, temperance, self-discipline, moderation, modesty, humility, generosity, friendliness, truthfulness, honesty, justice. The moral vices include: cowardice, self-indulgence, recklessness, wastefulness, greed, vanity, untruthfulness, dishonesty, injustice. Acts of virtue bring honor to an individual, acts of vice bring dishonor to an individual

According to Aristotle, the intellectual virtues include: scientific knowledge (episteme), artistic or technical knowledge (techne), intuitive reason (nous), practical wisdom (phronesis), and philosophic wisdom (sophia). Scientific knowledge is knowledge of what is necessary and universal. Artistic or technical knowledge is knowledge of how to make things, or of how to develop a craft. Intuitive reason is the process that establishes the first principles of knowledge. Practical wisdom is the capacity to act in accordance with the good of humanity. Philosophic wisdom is the combination of intuitive reason and scientific knowledge

Justice
Justice is not a part of virtues but the whole of virtues. Then injustice is not a part of vice but the whole of vice.
There are two conditions for our action to be just: 1) The practical proposition must be true, 2) The desire must be right
According to Aristotle, you should have control over all your actions and should integrate the theoretical and practical wisdom in to your actions. This integration is the most divine for a moral being

Nichomachean Ethics
The Nicomachean Ethics is divided into ten books. Book I discusses how good is to be defined, Books II-V discuss the moral virtues, Book VI discusses intellectual virtue, Book VII describes moral continence and incontinence, Books VIII-IX describe the nature of friendship, and Book X discusses how pleasure and happiness are to be defined.

There is close interrelation between ETHICS and POLITICS in Aristotle’s writings. Nichomachean Ethics is declared to be ‘politics’ by Aristotle; so also, the work which is titled Politics is presented as the sequel to the ethics. Both of them aim at finding out the ways and means to be happy. Ethics shows how happiness, the supreme good, can be attained by the practice of virtues and contemplation.

The politics, on the other hand, deals with what particular form of constitution, what set of institutions are necessary to maintain and safeguard the ideal form of virtuous life.

Aristotle began his ethical inquiry with an empirical investigation of what people fundamentally desire. He writes in Nichomachean Ethics:“Every art and every inquiry and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim” (Book 1, Chapter 1).This good is happiness (eudaimonia); for it is self-sufficient, attainable an Happiness can be attained only by the regulation of the irrational movements of the soul by the reason. Thus, happiness depends upon the actualization of one’s rationality.

In virtue ethics, there will not be any quantitarial ethics but there is qualititarial ethics. Aristotle tells us, you can be a virtuous and moral person only through the contemplation as well as right action. The virtuous person has the practical wisdom, the ability to know what and how best to apply the various moral perspectives.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION

MORAL PHILOSOPHY

Introduction

Ethics is the Practical normative study of the rightness or wrongness of human conduct as known by natural reason. When we refers to the actions of human beings as moral, ethical, immoral and unethical we mean whether they are right or wrong. The term amoral is used to refer the acts of babies. Non-moral means that the object or act is totally out of the realm of morality.

Reason to study Ethics

Many moral issues that we face are complex .We may think that there is a simple solution for that, but not always.

Ancient saying ‘for every complex problem, there is solutions that is simple, neat and wrong. Ethics helps us to handle complex issues of life.

Theoretical and Moral Reasoning

The purpose of any science is to know something either for the sake of satisfying a pure intellectual curiosity, or for the sake of understand How to do something.

 As a practical science, moral philosophy is an acquired habit of the human intellect enabling it possession to reason to true conclusion about the kind of human actions, which are calculated to bring man to attainment of true happiness.

Aristotle’s Classification about the form of knowledge:

1) Theoretical: First the human mind can apply it self to the contemplate of things without any possibility of intention of changing or affecting them. In science: We may contemplate or natural body

2) Productive: The human mind can also create motion or change. If its aim is to create a         - 1 -tangible object then the reason proceeds productively. It means that we are rationally motivated to move by some technique or craft.

3) Practical science: At work when one tries to attain certain ultimate ends which cannot be produced but which affect one ‘s life as a who was what Aristotle says /calls ‘practical science ‘It refers to our knowledge pertinent to action.

 

WILL AND WILLING

What is meant by freewill?                                    

Non-living and non-rational creatures must confirm to certain physical laws by which they are controlled. If a fish is taken out of water, it must die. If a piece of paper is thrown in to fire it must barn. Human beings, how ever are different. They can choose not to follow the laws, which will take them to their ultimate goal. To this extent, their will is free. Instinct will not take to possible in a choice. Their will is free to choose or not to choose happiness as a goal. It is the object of their will, which seeks the goal. Will is coming out of freedom. In other words, an action turns out of human action. E.g., in this sense a man’s will is not free in much the same way as a track, or a train can’t choose where the track for the train goes. Because the train follows the track. From a moral point of view, human beings are not forced to follow a particular moral principle to reach their goal. They are free either to accept or to reject it. Then we can say the human attainment of happiness results from a human choice. The free will of a human being lies in his or her ability to CHOOSE THE MEANS to happiness (But not to choose whether he or she wants happiness or not). For example, the instinct provides your decisions when you have to rise at morning, means considers makes you to rise at the bell time. Human action will leads you to take will. “Free will is not synonymous with licentiousness”. Human free will is used in each individual act of moral nature. One person can determine whether the act in question contributes to his or her ultimate happiness or not. He or she can make a deliberate choice because of one motive or reason and put all others aside. Freedom is the basis of understanding the human’s responsibility. If the foundation or basis is absent then responsibility also will absent. Human beings have to protect their freewill against those things, which oppose it like (like ignorance, fear, violence, passion etc….) Freewill is fundamental to ethics.

The will is trained by doing

To strengthen the will, it is necessary to make acts of will. This can be done by Voluntary accepting things, which are not liked or wanted, or by denying one, things, which are perfectly permissible.

In Kant’s ethical theory (as well as in some other non- consequentialist theories) the will is the local of moral value and is interpreted as a rational capacity. It is a capacity to act in accordance with the conception of law.

If ethics is concerned with a philosophy of conduct then the principles that, must follow have to be related to daily life , and must be the principle of Right &wrong.

Ethics aims to help us to realize the moral idea in regard to others and ourselves by helping to give us clear moral principles by or which we can know what is true and what is right and attain that real wisdom which leads us to proper action.

Ethics is that rule of conduct by which we act in accordance with moral laws, which have as their purpose to lead us to true God-this is the ultimate happiness.

 

CONSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Conscience is an ethical term. It means personal judgment of the rightness or wrongness of action on the basis of general moral principles. When we are not certain about moral judgments they are said to be having double conscience. The word ‘conscience’ comes from the Latin ‘conscentia’ (literary, knowing with). Conscience I sometimes called the voice of god, but this expression is to be understood metaphorically, not literally. Conscience is not a special faculty distinct from intellect. Conscience is but the intellect itself in a special function, the function of judging the rightness or wrongness of our own individual acts. Conscience may therefore be defined as practical judgment of reason upon an individual act as good and to be performed, or as evil as to be avoided. Thus the personal judgment about the rightness or wrongness of action on the basis of general moral principles is called conscience. It is also inner capacity to feel a moral obligation. Four factors in the formation of conscience are:

1. Past experiences
2. Demand for faithfulness to group or society
3. Religious experience
4. Reason and reflection.

Consciousness is a psychological term. It means the state of being able to use your senses of mental power to understand what is happening. In his book ‘The conscious mind’, David J Chalmers says that “the having of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and awareness”. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon. It is impossible specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved.

HUMAN ACT

Those acts in which the human being has mastery and are directed by human intellect and will are called human acts. Human life consists of the actions man performs, and primarily of those which are under his control. It is by this that a man lives like a man. Man’s actions taken collectively are called behavior or contact. Behaviour is more of a psychological word and is applied even to animals, where as conduct has a strictly ethical meaning and is exclusively human. The human act is the result of a complex psychological involving wishes, intention, deliberation, choice, consent, use and enjoyment. The decisive point is the consent of will following the deliberation of the intellect. Man is regarded as good or bad on the basis of his or her actions performed consciously and freely. Human actions therefore are defined as those actions of man consciously controlled and deliberately willed.

GOOD or BAD / RIGHT or WRONG

The word good comes from the German word ‘Gut’ it means that which is useful for the supreme good. In one way good is that which leads to supreme good.

Herbert Spencer in his ‘The Principles of Ethics’ calls those articles good or bad as they are well or ill adapted to achieve ‘prescribed end’.

Oxford dictionary states good on 4 grounds based on its (1) usefulness (2)Extrinsic value; a means which leads to good.(3)intrinsic value; inherent result (4)Internal result; morally right. Goodness is indeed what is desirable.

BAD (EVIL) is connected to something that which is having harmful effects or with unpleasant experiences.

Oxford dictionary states bad as (1) harmful (2) guilt (3) wicked (4) ironic.

Evil is that which are influenced by extremely unpleasant elements or that which is connected with what is bad in the world. For human kind it can be physical evil like blindness, pain, illness, starvation, etc.

RIGHT that which is (1) acceptable, (2) correct as fact. Derived from ‘rectus’ (Latin) it means straight or direct in according to law.

WRONG is that which is (1) not right / correct (2) causing problems/difficulties (3)not suitable, etc. In a way that produces a result that is not correct or that you do not want.

In moral philosophy the terms Good or Bad, Right or wrong are not on account of their lexical functions, for example,

v  Not only does a pious man do good works, a robber too enjoys a ‘good’ theft.

v  Evils such as physical evils like blindness, starvation are in themselves evil but not necessarily in ethics.

As there are actions, which are inversely related to the lexical sources, there should be some norms to differentiate between what is Good and what is Bad.

Norms or standards to distinguish between Good (right) and Bad (evil):-

ü  In ancient times it was according to human nature. Thomas Aquinas calls moral actions to ‘those actions that are in accordance with human nature’ that is right was the norm for moral judgement.

ü  Any action is qualified as good or moral as it promotes the proper use of understanding, will and emotional powers.

ü  The word right is appropriate for an action that is in some fitting to its circumstances.

In general an action is right/good when it leads to ultimate happiness in terms of physical, intellectual and spiritual happiness. The doer or other people of the society feel that one ought to do it.

The sense of obligation leads to the usage of phrases like ‘ought to do’ or ‘its your duty to do’ and words such as Moral and Non-moral, Amoral and Immoral.

Moral person   >>>good person>>who does good actions.

Immoral person>>bad person   >>who does wrong actions.

Amoral; with no moral senses / being indifferent to right/wrong.    

Non-moral; outside the realm of morality, for eg; function of machines controlled by someone else.

An action thing or matter is categorized into moral territory only when it a human influence is involved in it. In other words ‘Morality’ is qualified only when ‘humanity’ is involved in it.

 

MORALITY and LEGALITY

Law provides a series of public statements (a legal code or system that explains the do’s and don’ts to guide human beings in their persons and property) whereas Morality gives a set of principles on what we live on.

Legality should be formed on morality, whereas Morality is not necessarily formed on legality.

The legal system has a prescription connected with punishments, whereas Moral principles have a binding character that has no threat.