Civic Virtue In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle 's key study of morality and the final goal of human life, has for many years been a popular and persuasive book. It offers the modern reader many useful insights into human desires and behavior despite being thousands of years old. The overarching theme behind this book is Aristotle 's assertion that there are no recognized unconditional moral standards and that every ethical theory must take into consideration an understanding of psychology and knowing that behavior comes from the realities of human nature and how it affects daily life. Additionally, the book echoes Aristotle 's accomplishments in other areas of philosophy and is a good display of his methodological thought process, which is widely considered to be the root of all modern science examination.

Community impacts our daily lives. It brings us together and it provides the support we need through tough situations. Every day we engage with our community whether it is with a person from the community or with service to help the community flourish. It is important to better ourselves as a community member or a neighbor because a community needs strong members to flourish. To become a strong community member, one must practice all types of altruism, give more than what is required, and work together with members of the community.

The good citizen will education his family and his community by being a role model and preforming his civic duties. Roosevelt shapes his ideas of citizenship around how a man treats the people around him which impacts the entire community. Roosevelt’s ideal citizen focuses more on the lived experience of a man and his actions in community which reflect on public engagement.

needed to perform actions which can appear to be daunting, but will help someone in

Community service, one of the several pillars outlined by the National Honors Society (NHS), is defined as the desire to work and serve the community in order to improve the conditions for the citizens who dwell in it. Most importantly, those who uphold those standards do so without the need of money, or recognition; they are simply intrinsically motivated to make the world a better place. It wasn’t until I volunteered at an event hosted by the Jubilee Center that I learned the true meaning of community service and charity.

Civic purposes include helping students learn how to best participate in their community. Out of the four purposes this is one that is not enforced as much in my high school. At Ottumwa we have a wide variety of classes that prepare you for some skills that will be needed in different careers following high school, but those classes do not prepare us for being active in our own community. Community service and helping out around Ottumwa is not something that is really tied into most classes. Although there is

Community is built of two main elements. First, community requires communal caring. Members need to put themselves in positions where they are able to relate to other members and does everything “within reasonable limits of self-sacrifice” (65). The second is communal reciprocity. Individuals will serve other members of the community, not for exchange of goods, but to provide generosity and support. These elements of community appear in the lives of all individuals, even the most capitalist ones. Humans are entirely capable of these.

What would happen if the two virtues were both characteristics of the community? You have a community that both embraces the ideals of individualism and encourages the traits of self-sufficiency. Then you would have hundreds of micro-communities within a large community. Everyone

Community life and civic engagement are a huge responsibility of citizens, although it is not required by citizens, it is an important aspect of a proper citizen. Residents of a community have the constant responsibility of making the society around them reflect an advance in the eminence of lives in the community. The simple duty of any citizen is to give to the common good. Civic responsibilities are achieved by volunteering and choice. Volunteering, involving in positive organizations and aids, or tutoring people in certain subjects, are all ways that people can subsidize to the good of the community. Small deeds that seem to prosper someone in some way or the other is still a way of helping. To learn something from the assistance that one does to another, the deed does not have to be big, as long as the person providing the assistance is doing it with a good heart they can always acknowledge a lesson. Compassion and love is necessary in helping others. When people have the opportunity to help others they may not always get a gift in return, sometimes they may not even get a reply back. This is when the person has to realize that the purpose of helping someone is not for the thank you or the gift, but is for the satisfaction of their soul, betterment of the other, and the ability to learn a lesson. Assisting people needs to be done in a thoughtful and effective way for it to create a lasting impact on his/her self and on society itself.

Aristotle’s thoughts on ethics conclude that all humans must have a purpose in life in order to be happy. I believe that some of the basics of his ideas still hold true today. This essay points out some of those ideas.

Aristotle believes that there are two kinds of virtue, one being intellectual and the other being moral virtue. He states that Intellectual virtue comes from being taught meaning we’re not born with it. Moral virtue on the other hand we develop as we grow and gain an understanding of life. “The stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times” (N.E. II.1) Right there he is talking about how if you are designed to do one thing, it is impossible to do the opposite no matter how hard you force it. He talks about how we gain our virtues by practicing them and using them on a regular basis. That is how we learn

If we don’t participate in such activities, then we don’t get a chance to know people. Civic engagement is all about to improve our society, but if we don’t care about this things, then how can we improve our society? As a citizen, it is our responsibility to improve our society. Engaging in such activities also can help us to get an idea of what people want?

He is honored to be author of ‘The Nicomachean Ethics,’ which was in fact the 1st book ever written on the subject of ethics. The book is greatly influential, even in modern times. By an analysis of Aristotle’s literature, it can be observed that he primarily focused on preaching to be ‘virtuous’ rather than focusing on the theories of what ‘virtue’ is. According to him, in whatever way we choose to act, some action that is focused on achieving the desired end result or ‘good’ results comes from that person’s own perspective. Aristotle claimed that the maximum good which a person have desire to achieve is basically an end-point itself , a person’s action or struggles is for achieving that ‘end-point’, it may be regarded as a point of maximum satisfaction. Aristotle critically concluded that the happiness of a person satisfies these conditions completely, and hence the highest attainable good is regarded as happiness.

In Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the idea of moral virtue. Aristotle emphasized the importance of developing moral virtue as the way to achieve what is finally more important, human flourishing (eudaimonia). Aristotle makes the argument in Book II that moral virtue arises from habit—equating ethical character to a skill that is acquired through practice, such as learning a musical instrument. However in Book III, Aristotle argues that a person 's moral virtue is voluntary, as it results from many individual actions which are under his own control. Thus, Aristotle confronts us with an inherently problematic account of moral virtue.

President Kennedy made this statement at his inaugural Address: “… my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Part of being an active citizen is volunteering. People who volunteer give up their free time and give back to their community, which relates to the statement President Kennedy made; it encourages Americans today to go out and help their community in ways such as volunteering. Volunteers are like mortar while their community are like the