1. Virtue Ethics

2. What is Virtue Ethics The important thing is to be a good person
(as opposed to doing the right thing or achieving a good outcome)
Interested in finding the characteristics that make someone a good person
Used to be the standard ethical attitude in the ancient world

3. Functions What is it to be a good man?
Same as to be a good knife, horse, lyre
To perform the appropriate functions well
Everything has an ergon
“For just as the good – the doing well – of a flute-player, a sculptor or any practitioner of a skill, …, is thought to lie in its characteristic activity, so the same would seem to be true of a human being, if indeed he has a characteristic activity.”
(1097b)

4. Functions Man’s characteristic activity is Reason Practical Reason
It is unique to us
We have other activities, but they’re not unique
Practical Reason
Use reason to find out how to gain our ends
And act on it

5. Ends What are our ends? Every action has a goal
“Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good has been aptly described as that at which everything aims.”
(1094a)

6. Ends What are our ends? Every action has a goal A hierarchy exists
Eg. Bridle-maker < bridles < horsemanship < war
Most ends are instrumental
Some (one) ends are final

7. Ends There is one goal for all actions
“So if what is done has some end that we want for its own sake, and everything else we want is for the sake of this end; and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (because this would lead to an infinite progression, making our desire fruitless and vain), then clearly this will be the good, indeed the chief good.”
(1094a)

8. Ends There is one goal for all actions
Aristotle can’t prove this, but he believes it
He has a candidate final end

9. Eudaimonia ‘Happiness’ is the one goal for all actions
an overall-condition of a person’s life
Not a mental state
The end for which everything is pursued
unconditionally complete
self-sufficient

10. Eudaimonia The end of our characteristic activity
A good man uses practical reason with great skill.
The skilful use of practical reason is directed at getting happiness

11. Eudaimonia The end of our characteristic activity
Aristotle’s happy life:
For most people a normal prosperous life of good family, friends, comfort, …
But really the best kind of life is the life of contemplation

12. Virtues What are the characteristics of the good man?
What are the characteristics of the good knife, horse, lyre?
The excellences that permit their function to be performed
A good man has the characteristics that allow the excellent use of practical reason

13. Virtues Arete A happy life is a life lived virtuously ‘Excellence’
A tautology?
Or is a rational life in itself a happy one?

14. A Virtue: Courage
We all recognise and value courage, but there are problems
Were the hijackers on 9/11 brave?
Bill Maher
[s]taying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”

15. A Virtue: Courage
We all recognise and value courage, but there are problems
Is someone reckless of all danger courageous?
No. It’s a fault of excess
Cowardice
A fault of deficiency
Courage is in the middle
This vice-virtue-vice pattern is typical

16. The Doctrine of the Mean
We can experience fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and generally any kind of pleasure and pain either too much or too little, and in either case not properly. But to experience all this at the right time, towards the right objects, toward the right people, for the right reason, and in the right manner – that is the mean and the best course, the course that is the mark of virtue

17. The Doctrine of the Mean
Deficiency
Mean
Excess
Cowardice
Courage
Foolhardiness
Miserliness
Generosity
Profligacy
Insolence
Respect
Obsequiousness
Callousness
Care
Pity

18. Becoming Virtuous You can train yourself to be virtuous Mentors
Adopt the traits that are successful
Adjust those that are not successful
Mentors
Parents
Heroes
People you admire

19. Problems Does self-help count as ethics?
No idea how to resolve conflicts
Doesn’t cover enough cases for a moral theory