When reading Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics people typically maintain emphasis on the position of role of habit in conduct. Virtues or habits according to Aristotle are necessary for a ‘good life’ and that mindless routine is a way to achieve happiness. While the interpretation of Aristotle’s texts may denote to many ‘mindless routine’, in reality it could mean ‘actively hold itself’. This mean essentially, that the manifestation of virtue is in action. Therefore, maintaining balance, practicing stable equilibrium of the soul can lead to happiness. This stable equilibrium can be seen as character. Therefore, under this interpretation, I agree with Aristotle that in order to achieve happiness, one must maintain balance and practice temperance. This essay will highlight through real world examples what this balance and temperance is.
Virtue according to Aristotle is a mean. The mean is a way of understanding and judging what is truly painful or pleasant. When the soul is in such an active state in which all of its powers work together, this is the mean. Character is the process where the soul clears away obstacles that may thwart or hinder the soul’s full efficacy. To achieve such an effective action, one must pursue moral virtue. Moral virtue allows a person to achieve right reason and right desire. To achieve moral virtue, a person must be in the middle. For it is only in the middle ground that exists the point between principles of action and habits of acting, that one can possess the ability to truly exist well.
Virtue according to Aristotle is a mixture of both belief and activity. This can be seen as disposition. A virtuous person is a person who naturally behaves in a way that is balanced. They feel pleasure behave appropriately. Virtue exists among extremes of deficiency and excess. There is not set mean for such virtue and it can vary according to the individual. Regardless, if one is not naturally virtuous, it is a hard and slow process and requires dedication and patience to continue the mundane routines each day to accomplish. This is virtue and habits.
Moral virtues are voluntary. There are three main moral virtues. These are courage, justice, and temperance. Book V Aristotle discusses justice and this can be likened to seeing a chocolate pudding and sharing it with others. This is the fair thing to do and is voluntary. One can choose to eat the whole pudding or share it. Interestingly, moral virtues are supposed to have one thing in common, the beautiful, according to Aristotle. However, ultimately, justice is the moral virtue, the one that affects other people and represents a person that possesses all moral virtue. This falls into the concept of noble.
Nobility means understanding when punishment or reward should be used. A noble person is a just person and friendship plays a part in Aristotle’s justice and nobility in that he believes the good of others is integral to the temperance and balance needed to achieve happiness. This is discussed in Books VIII and IX. All of this is for the beautiful or the act of choosing that the soul experiences. The wonder that is part of the choices made adds or detracts from the beautiful. This is a lot to do and to maintain.
While I agree with his position of balance and temperance, I also feel that extremes exist and must be experienced at times in order to create desire for balance, moderation, virtue, and temperance. This is where the counterargument comes...
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Certainly, rhetoric lends itself to the discovery of truth, as truth (Aristotle suggests) always makes more intuitive and intellectual sense compared to falsehood, and so equally talented rhetoricians will be more convincing sharing the truth than sharing falsehood. However, critics have pointed out that there is so "tension between Aristotle's epistemological optimism and his attempt to come to terms with rhetoric as a culturally and contextually specific social institution....
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