According to Aristotle, What Are the Vices Associated With the Virtue of Courage?
The Nicomachean Ethics, written by Aristotle, is widely regarded as one of the most influential books of moral philosophy. In this passage, Aristotle examines what it ways for humans to live a good life. He sees the expert life as the fulfillment of the man potential to live well. To live well means to live in accordance with virtue. Aristotle makes a stardom between intellectual virtue and moral virtue. Moral virtue is formed by addiction; 1 becomes expert by doing good. Intellectual virtue, one the other hand, requires intelligence and is acquired by teaching. Virtuous actions are ones that lie betwixt two extremes — excess and deficiency. For instance acting courageously lies between two extremes — acting cowardly and interim recklessly.
This reading provides a quick snapshot of Aristotle's ethical theory, but his full assay of virtue is more circuitous and nuanced. Supplementary resources are listed after the passage for those who want to learn more than.
Reading
The following passage is from Bk I, chs i, ii, and 7, and Bk 2, chs 1, two, 6 and 9. Translation W. D. Ross
Every fine art and every inquiry, and similarly every activeness and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the practiced has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. …
If, so, there is some end of the things we do, which we want for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), … clearly this must be the good and the chief skilful. Will not the knowledge of information technology, so, have a groovy influence on life?
Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this nosotros choose ever for cocky and never for the sake of something else. … Presumably, notwithstanding, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a cliche, and a clearer business relationship of what it is still desired. This might possibly be given, if we could starting time ascertain the function of man. For just equally for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in full general, for all things that take a function or activity, the expert and the 'well' is thought to reside in the role, so would it seem to exist for man, if he has a role. Have the carpenter, and so, and the tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he built-in without a function? Or as center, hand, foot, and in general each of the parts obviously has a function, may one lay it downwards that man similarly has a function apart from all these? What then can this be? Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. Allow us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to exist common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the chemical element that has a rational principle. … Now if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle, and if … any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the advisable excellence … human being good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue. …
Merely we must add together 'in a complete life.' For 1 swallow does not make a summer, nor does one mean solar day; and then too one day, or a short fourth dimension, does non brand a man blest and happy. …
Virtue, and then, existence of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual virtue in the main owes both its nascence and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral virtue comes near as a result of addiction. … From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us past nature; for nix that exists by nature can class a addiction contrary to its nature. For instance the rock which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train information technology by throwing it upwards ten grand times; nor can burn down be habituated to move downwardly, nor tin anything else that by nature behaves in one manner exist trained to carry in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues ascend in usa; rather we are adapted past nature to receive them, and are made perfect past habit. …
It is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both expert and bad lyre-players are produced. And the respective argument is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be skillful or bad builders as a result of edifice well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no need of a instructor, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft. This, then, is the case with the virtues too; by doing the acts that nosotros 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 fright or confidence, we go dauntless or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of acrimony; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in 1 way or the other in the advisable circumstances. Thus, in 1 give-and-take, states of character ascend out of like activities. This is why the activities nosotros showroom must be of a sure kind; it is considering us of grapheme correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small-scale difference, so, whether we grade habits of 1 kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very groovy difference, or rather all the deviation. …
Get-go, then, allow u.s. consider this, that it is the nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain light on things imperceptible we must use the bear witness of sensible things); both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drinkable or food which is above or below a sure amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it. So too is information technology, then, in the case of temperance and backbone and the other virtues. For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground confronting annihilation becomes a coward, and the man who fears zip at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in a manner insensible; temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by backlog and defect, and preserved by the mean.
[Due east]very virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the matter of which information technology is the excellence and makes the piece of work of that thing be done well; e.g. the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see well. Similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at pending the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is truthful in every case, the virtue of man also volition exist the state of graphic symbol which makes a man good and which makes him do his ain work well.
How this is to happen we accept stated already, but it will be made patently also past the following consideration of the specific nature of virtue. In everything that is continuous and divisible it is possible to take more, less, or an equal corporeality, and that either in terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is an intermediate between excess and defect. By the intermediate in the object I hateful that which is equidistant from each of the extremes, which is one and the aforementioned for all men; by the intermediate relatively to u.s.a. that which is neither too much nor too trivial — and this is not one, nor the same for all. For instance, if ten is many and 2 is few, six is the intermediate, taken in terms of the object; for information technology exceeds and is exceeded past an equal corporeality; this is intermediate according to arithmetical proportion. But the intermediate relatively to usa is not to exist taken and so; if ten pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and 2 likewise piffling, it does not follow that the trainer will social club half-dozen pounds; for this besides is perhaps too much for the person who is to accept information technology, or likewise lilliputian — too picayune for Milo, also much for the beginner in athletic exercises. The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus a master of whatsoever art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses this — the intermediate not in the object but relatively to united states.
If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well — by looking to the intermediate and judgling its works by this standard (so that we ofttimes say of skillful works of art that it is not possible either to take away or to add together annihilation, implying that excess and defect destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and good artists, as we say, expect to this in their piece of work), and if, farther, virtue is more verbal and improve than whatever art, every bit nature besides is, then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate. I mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions and deportment, and in these there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. For instance, both fear and conviction and appetite and acrimony and pity and in general pleasure and hurting may exist felt both as well much and too footling, and in both cases not well; simply to experience them at the correct times, with reference to the right objects, towards the correct people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and all-time, and this is characteristic of virtue. Similarly with regard to deportment also in that location is excess, defect, and the intermediate. Now virtue is concerned with passions and deportment, in which excess is a form of failure, and then is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and beingness praised and beingness successful are both characteristics of virtue. Therefore virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we take seen, it aims at what is intermediate…
Hence also it is no easy task to be good. For in everything information technology is no easy task to find the middle, e.g. to detect the middle of a circle is not for every one merely for him who knows; so, too, any i can get angry — that is piece of cake — or requite or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the correct time, with the correct motive, and in the right style, that is not for every 1, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and commendable and noble.
Further Reading
Aristotle's account of virtue is more complex and nuanced than can be captured in a short passage. If you'd like to larn more, bank check out these useful resources:
- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides the nigh authoritative overview of Aristotle's Ideals, however, information technology'southward quite long and non very beginner friendly.
- If you'd prefer to scout a video, Wireless Philosophy have a great short video on Aristotle'due south formulation of the good life.
- If y'all prefer audio, listen to Terrence Irwin on Aristotle's Ethics from the Philosophy Bites podcast.
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