How Should One Live

Aristotle outlined his theory of Virtue Ethics in his book Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle focused his idea of ethics on agents rather than acts. His main idea is focused on the idea of human character- how can you be a better person? In fact, Aristotle once said: “For we are enquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our enquiry would be of no use.” Aristotle is given the credit for developing the idea of virtue ethics, but many of Plato's cardinal values influenced his ideas. Virtue Ethics is focused on the person's actions, not the consequences of that action. Aristotle believed if you had good moral values, then your actions would be "good" in theory. Rather than defining good actions,

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, at an absolute basic sense, aims at the title of this course: the good life. In an age where philosophy and ethics were not largely developed, Aristotle aims to provide a universal standard for human flourishing and happiness, or the good life. His main argument is that all of our actions and goals are aiming towards human flourishment, but that each action falls into a range of virtues, where excess is one extreme and deficiency is the other extreme. The virtue that we all strive for, he states, is in the middle of these. For example, temperance is a universal human virtue, with pleasures and pains as the excess and deficiency. He states that virtues can be developed and learned over time and through practice,

Virtue ethics is a normative theory whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. This theory approaches normative ethics in substantially different ways than consequentialist and deontological theories. In this essay, I will contrast and compare virtue ethics to utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kantianism to demonstrate these differences. There is one fundamental aspect of virtue ethics that sets it apart from the other theories I will discuss. For the sake of brevity and to avoid redundancy, I will address it separately. This is the fundamental difference between acting ethically within utilitarianism, egoism, and Kantianism. And being ethical within virtue ethics. The other theories seek to define the ethics of actions while virtue ethics does not judge actions in any way. The other theories deal with how we should act, while virtue ethics determines how we should be.

Virtue ethics is a concept that is used in the process of moral decision making. It is dependent on the individuals themselves rather than on society, culture and religion. Aristotle was one of the main philosophers involved in virtue ethics. He was an advocate for virtue. Virtue ethics are associated with the type of person that one should become. It is solely concerned with human nature and morals. This essay will explore Aristotle’s conception of virtue. I will discuss Aristotle’s belief that virtue ethics are vital in achieving the ultimate goal of happiness. I will further consider and examine his theory of the Doctrine of the Mean. Finally, I will explore how Aristotle distinguishes between the two kinds of virtues and this will result

Abstract: Aristotle contributed greatly to the development of the human moralistic values by scripting the Nicomachean Ethics. This comprehensive book lays down the principles of virtuous behavior that can most certainly complete one's life while nurturing one's soul. In the thesis, we discuss the origin of the virtues and there relevance with respect to modern examples of real public figures.

Aristotle’s work, The Nicomachean Ethics, consists of numerous books pertaining to Aristotle’s Ethics—the ethics of the good life. The first book discloses Aristotle’s belief on moral philosophy and the correlation between virtue and happiness.

Virtue Ethics is centred on the belief that everything has a purpose and that, when something fulfils its purpose, it is good. For example, the purpose of a knife is to cut, and so a knife that cuts well has achieved its purpose. This links in to Aristotle’s ideas about the Four Causes and the Final Cause. Plato and Aristotle agreed that the purpose of humanity was the fulfilment of flourishing, and this is known as eudaimonia. When a person has achieved eudaimonia they will be fully content with their lives and they will act morally because they want to. He referred to eudaimonia as “an end in itself”. Aristotle insists that this telos can only be achieved through the use of reason, since the ‘ergon’ (function) of reason in practice is virtue. He says: “The good

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

What is Aristotle’s virtue ethics theory exactly? Aristotle was one of the first to describe this type of theory and he based it largely on Eudaimonism. “Eudaimonism bases virtues in human flourishing, where flourishing is equated with performing one’s distinctive function well” (Virtue Ethics). For humans, Aristotle believed that our main function is reasoning and to “live well” we would need to reason well. The largest part of virtue ethics is the titular “virtues” that decide whether or not a person was truly flourishing or not.

Aristotle’s theory will be discussed in full length on his theory of virtue. Now Aristotle did believe in a multitude of theories that are all based off of virtue, but also the soul. To Aristotle, virtue is an excellence, which comes after happiness and achieving our final goal. When Aristotle talks about an individual’s final goal and excellence of that

Aristotle is one of the greatest thinkers in the history of western philosophy, and is most notably known for expressing his view of happiness in Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle develops a theory of how to live the good life and reach eudaimonia (happiness). Eudaimonia has been translated into, living a happy and virtuous life. Aristotle’s definition of the good life as the happy life, consist of balancing virtues (arête), the mean, external goods, political science, and voluntary action.

Ethics is an attempt to offer a rational response to answer how humans best live their lives, as argued by Aristotle. Thus the nature of human well-being. For Aristotle, man has a ‘nature’ that is definite and makes it worthwhile to be a human being. This nature is reached through virtuously flourishing, which is argued to be reached when we reason well.

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.

To Aristotle, ethics is not an exact science, it’s ruled by broad generalizations that work most of the time and are found with those of experience, the men of practical wisdom (Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b15-1095a10). We don’t need a focused study in the sciences to understand the good, all one needs is a proper understanding of how the external aspects of life: friendship, pleasure, honor, and wealth operate in concert. No aspects of friendship, pleasure, honor, and wealth ought to be practiced too much (excess) or too little (deficient); moral virtue is action performed between two extremes (Nic. Ethics, 1106b5-25). And it is by consultation that one may find the middle ground between excess and deficiency, The Golden Mean (Nic. Ethics, 1097b5-20; Nic. Ethics, 1104a10-25).

Eudemonism commonly known as happiness, is the classical formulation of Virtue Ethics “…because she believes that acting thus on this occasion will help her to achieve eudaimonia” . It holds that the aim of human life is happiness and that one can achieve it by practicing virtue in one 's everyday actions, to which one should act within wisdom to resolve any conflict that may happen, Indeed, such a virtuous life would in itself constitute happiness, which should be seen as an objective. It is characterized by the well-lived life. 
A virtue is a habit or quality that allows individuals to succeed at their purpose. Aristotle, who is the main philosopher of virtue ethic, categorized the virtues as moral virtues and intellectual virtues. Aristotle further argued that each of the “moral virtues was a golden mean, or desirable middle ground, between two undesirable extremes.”