Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

Aristotle’s virtue ethics can be gleaned from his seminal work titled Nichomachean Ethics. This book is undoubtedly the first systematic study of ethics in western civilization. In this book, Aristotle offers principles of conduct that would guide humans in attaining the “good life”.

It is worthwhile to begin our discussion of Aristotle’s virtue ethics by contrasting it with Plato’s take on ethics. As is well known, Plato, following his master Socrates, believed that the moral evaluations of daily life presuppose a “good” which is independent of experience, personality, and circumstances. Aristotle rejected this view. For Aristotle, moral principles are immanent in our daily activities and can be discovered only through a careful study of them. It is for this reason that Aristotle begins his ethical inquiry with an empirical study of what it is that people fundamentally desire.

Aristotle argues that what people fundamentally desire is “happiness” or eudaimonia. And Aristotle believes that happiness or eudaimonia is the ultimate human good; however, Aristotle warns that people’s opinions about the concept of happiness considerably vary.

Now, if we recall, the central question in Plato and Socrates’s ethics is “What kind of life should one live?”. Aristotle followed this line of questioning in his Nichomachean Ethics. As we can see, just as Plato and Socrates, Aristotle was also concerned about the good life. However, instead of asking about “how” should one live, Aristotle was more concerned about the nature of the “good life”. Thus, Aristotle, in effect, asked the question: “What is the nature of happiness?” or “What does happiness consist in?”.

It must be noted that Aristotle did not just ask about the nature of happiness. In Nichomachean Ethics, he also raised the question concerning the conditions of its attainment, which eventually led Aristotle to the discussion of virtue. Aristotle’s virtue ethics, therefore, is ultimately tied to a full understanding of the nature of happiness as humanity’s ultimate goal as well as the concept of virtue.

As a virtue theorist, Aristotle’s concern, therefore, is not only about right and wrong, but with virtues like courage and cowardice, wisdom and ignorance, justice and injustice, weakness of character and strength of character.

From the above discussion, we can now draw two major principles that will guide us in understanding Aristotle’s virtue ethics, namely, Eudaimonia and Virtue. Let us now turn our discussion to these concepts.

Please note that the following discussion will focus on how Aristotle develops a concept of eudaimonia that appeals to a conception of human nature and the way in which Aristotle develops an account of virtue that can show the idea that “the life of virtue” is a “life of eudaimonia”.

Eudaimonia and Virtue

As is well known, Socrates understands virtue as the major source of happiness. Plato continued this tradition and argued that moral virtue is vital to the rational soul of man. Although Aristotle followed Socrates and Plato’s agenda, his concept of happiness differs from Socrates and Plato’s because for Aristotle, happiness consists only in virtuous activity. Happiness, which most of Aristotle’s interpreters call Eudaimonia, is the ultimate end of human life. This happiness or the ultimate end is genuinely desired for its own sake or without qualification. So, actions which precede this end are the most valuable and cannot be superseded by any actions driven by ordinary kinds of ends. Of course, actions which result in honor, wealth and power is definitely part of man’s inclination to seek for happiness (as pleasure), but unfortunately this could not be the end which offers true happiness.

Like Eudaimonia, pleasure is also good. That is why Aristotle does not condemn man for desiring pleasure because it is a significant part of human flourishing. But for Aristotle, the desire and actions that lead to pleasure only presuppose limited value since its end is temporary. Hence, the satisfaction that one gets from these actions cannot be truly called happiness. For Aristotle, these actions, which only lead humans into the pit of the two opposing vices (either excess or deficiency), drive them away from the ultimate end. Hence, for Aristotle, only virtuous acts can lead to true happiness.

Virtue is defined as a behavior showing high moral standards or the general quality of goodness in a person. An example of this is the virtue of patience or truthfulness. Following Aristotle, the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (2006: 678) defines virtue as the opposite of vice. Vice in this context should not be literally understood within the specific context of social vices, like drug addiction, excessive cigarette smoking, and gambling. Rather, according to Aristotle, vices are the two extremes of the spectrum―one is the excess and the other is the deficiency (Ibid: 680). It is for this reason that Aristotle claims that virtues are the mean or the middle ground between the excess at the one side and the deficiency at the other. For instance, if a moral agent maintains patience or good temper (mean) and rejects irascibility (excess) or lack of spirit (deficiency), then he is said to have possessed virtue. Thus, for Aristotle, virtues categorically serve as the essential elements of man’s moral behavior. As we can see, the central concept in Aristotle’s virtue ethics is that virtue or the mean is the key to happiness. The table below helps us understand the relation between virtue and vices in the Aristotelian sense.

Virtue as Good Habit

The formation of a moral virtue is essential to Aristotelian ethics. This is due to the fact that a moral agent can only attain happiness by being consistently living a good life or acting habitually in accordance with the good. Thus, a good habit is instrumental to the development of virtue because it is considered to be the consistent pattern for doing virtuous actions. Aristotle (NE II:1, 1003a) writes, “we are adapted by nature to receive these virtues and are made perfect by habit”.

In this sense, though virtue is already part of our natural inclination, human being still needs the habit of doing good for him to become virtuous. What we must do then is to constantly practice doing virtuous acts to develop a habit. For instance, we acquire the virtue of patience by repeatedly integrating it into our deliberate actions, or by being constantly patient. In similar way, we can obtain the virtue of courage by maintaining it within the purview of the mean while avoiding rashness and cowardice. Therefore, our actions can only be morally good and right if there is a habitual practice of virtues. This is to say that to eventually maintain these moral actions which lead us to attain authentic happiness, the formation of good habits is a requisite.

The formation of virtue or good habit has two stages: first, the habit of contemplation or the education of thought for the formation of intellectual virtue and, second, the habit of the actual practice of moral virtue.

On the one hand, the habit of contemplation is a matter of constantly acquiring knowledge and using one’s mind in the right way that leads to the habitual exercise of virtue (Aristotle: 2004). Through the habit of education of thought, the state of character is constituted by the stable equilibrium of the soul (NE II:1, 1003a). This is to say that the state of character which shapes moral virtue primarily requires proper mental activity aside from the actual performance of moral action. In other words, before we can actually practice virtue, we have to think about practicing virtue all the time.

On the other hand, the habitual actual practice of virtue presupposes that every human being has brought out the contemplated understanding of virtue into actions. In other words, we put into practice what the mind thinks. In addition, the putting into practice of this understanding should be done consistently so that it would lead to the formation of good habit. True enough, virtue is defined as a behavior showing high moral standards, or a good moral quality, or the general quality of goodness in a person. But for Aristotle, we should push this further by developing a habit of doing good all the time.

In summary, we can say that Aristotle’s virtue ethics is built around the premise that humans should aim to achieve excellent character. In other words, for Aristotle, humans should become ethical individuals, and Aristotle construes “ethical individuals” as having virtuous character (“ethikē aretē” in Greek). For Aristotle, an excellent character is the precondition for attaining happiness or eudaimonia, which, as already mentioned, is the ultimate goal of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. And by focusing on happiness or eudaimonia, the “shape of life” as a whole becomes central to his ethical theory. This explains why, as already pointed out above, the key question in Aristotle’s virtue ethics is “What sort of life human beings should live?”. Thus, in the final analysis, practical virtues are the characteristics that humans need to develop to attain happiness. However, these practical virtues must be displayed in action for humans to truly attain happiness.