Aristotle Ethics
In Book X of the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle offers several definitions of happiness (eudaimonia) which can exist at the level of physical pleasure, a life of civil involvement and practicing virtue, or the ultimate form of happiness which is the contemplation of God and spiritual and eternal matters. Just as there are degrees of pleasure and pain, so there are degrees or happiness and virtue. Happiness is the supreme good and the ultimate goal of life, but not all individuals define it in the same way and it appears that only a few truly reach the highest levels. Most people confuse happiness with physical pleasure and carnal gratification, including food, alcohol, sex, and accumulating money and material things, but Aristotle does not regard this as the supreme good. Far from it, although it probably seems satisfying enough for the great majority of humanity that happiness should be identified with a life of abundance of physical pleasure and the absence of pain. Many people are slaves to passions and pleasures, so the glutton who finds happiness with consumption of food will have no higher goal than good food, and the alcoholic will be happy with an abundance of intoxicants. Even animals exist this way, but for Aristotle humans are rational beings with immortal souls and were therefore created for a much higher and transcendent form of happiness. Aristotle privileges the higher or rational part of the soul (nous), which able to have communion with the divine, rather than the lower, animalistic lusts and instincts.
On the level of civic virtue and the life of the citizen, some people value honor, fame and glory, such as his student Alexander the Great. Their...
This could consist of platonic pleasure or erotic pleasure. Because this, like Utilitarian Friendships, is based on superficial foundations, it does not stand the test of time. The final way to Friendship is through a true "goodness of character." Aristotle believed that all human beings have a capacity for goodness of character; yet it takes practice and effort to reach a respectable level of moral integrity. Friendships based on
The most convincing interpretation might be that, as she contended, she did not foresee the consequences. Parks stated that "it was not a time for me to be planning to get arrested." (Reader 2005). So, if she was not considering the consequences, then she was not thinking rationally; if she was not thinking rationally, according to Aristotle, then she was not behaving virtuously. Since we should probably use Parks'
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
other values Moral character, that is, having courage, being persistent, dismissing distractions and so on in pursuit of the goal. These are attempts to define ethics by describing actions, and fairly specific constellations of actions at that. Frederich Paulson, a 19th century philosopher of ethics, defined ethics as a science of moral duty (1899). Almost 100 years later, Swenson also used the concept of study in defining ethics, saying that it included
perceive as Aristotle's best work known work on ethics, Nichomachean Ethics, sheds light on what Aristotle believed was happiness. "…happiness would seem to need this sort of prosperity added also; that is why some people identify happiness with good fortune, while others < eacting from one extreme to the other> identify it with virtue" (Aristotle, Irwin, & Fine, p. 360). His perception of what is happiness implies: that it itself is
Ethics: "What Does It Mean to be an Ethical Person?" Kant and Aristotle provide a moral framework for what it means to be a good person. They focus on the intentions of a person and how those intentions make all the difference in whether a person is acting morally or not. Since morality serves as the foundation for ethics, according to these philosophers, it stands to reason that ethical behavior is
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