History of Philosophy Lecture 9 Aristotle

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History of PhilosophyLecture 9Aristotle

• By David Kelsey

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Aristotle

• Aristotle
• 384-322 B.C.
• Born in northern Thrace
• His father was a physician
• Student of Plato
• Studied in Platos academy from 367 B.C. until
  the death of Plato in 347 B.C.
• Then pursued research in biology
• Tutor for Alexander the Great
• 335 founded the Lyceum in Athens where he
  remained until 323 B.C.

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Aristotle Platobasic differences

• Aristotle vs. Plato
• Plato is a rationalist and Aristotle is an
  Empiricist
• Plato the rationalist
• The best means of gaining knowledge is through
  the rational intellect
• Knowledge cannot be attained through the senses
  as they cannot be trusted and so we cannot have
  knowledge of the sensible world
• Deduction
• Mathematics
• Innate knowledge
• Aristotle the Empiricist
• We can have knowledge of the sensible world the
  senses are the only reliable means of gaining
  this knowledge
• Induction
• Science is the model for knowledge
• No innate knowledge

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Aristotle vs. Plato cont.

• Aristotle vs. Plato
• Objects of knowledge
• Plato
• Believed that reality, ultimately, rested on the
  Forms
• The sensible objects depend for their existence
  on the Forms.
• Aristotle
• Believed that the forms have no independent
  existence from their sensible objects
• Instead, all sensible objects are just a
  combination of matter and form...
• Relativism and Skepticism
• Plato
• His main motivation is to refute the skeptical
  and relativistic Sophist for it was these views
  that had really killed Socrates
• Hence, the Forms are absolute reality
• Aristotle
• As a biologist and scientist believes we can come
  to have knowledge of the sensory world
• We must simply find out which method is best

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Aristotle vs. Plato

• Aristotle vs. Plato
• Otherworldliness
• Plato
• the world of sense is merely a distraction to the
  real knowledge of the Forms
• so one must leave the world of sense behind to
  truly be wise.
• To philosophize is to die away from the world of
  sense.
• Aristotle
• Philosophy is not an escape from sensible objects
  but instead it is a way of knowing them.
• The Soul
• Plato
• The soul is immortal and the body is not. The
  soul makes the person not the body.
• Aristotle
• Man is a rational animal
• The soul is just the form of the particular body
  that a man has.
• So the soul cannot exist independently of the
  body at all.
• Instead, a person is a creature unified of matter
  and form, I.e. body and soul.

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Logic

• Aristotle is the founding father of logic
• Logic aims at discriminating good arguments from
  bad ones.
• Refuting the Sophist view
• Sophisms
• For Aristotle, logic pervades his entire account
  of reality.
• Induction is the tool forming universal and
  particular judgments on the basis of experience
  is the rule for knowledge.
• Knowledge involves both statements that something
  is or isnt so and the reasons for the truth of
  those statements. The 3 tasks of his logic
• 1-explain how statements are constructed (out of
  terms)
• 2-explain how statements compose arguments
• 3-explain what makes statements true or false

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Statements

• Statements
• Terms pick out categories of things in the world
  (C 4)
• Examples of categories Substance, Quantity,
  Quality, Place, Time Doing something
• Terms are never true or false
• Terms combine to make statements (C 4)
• A statement relates two terms in some way. For
  example
• Statements have exactly 2 terms
• Subject term what we are talking about
• Predicate term what we are saying about the
  subject
• Example

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Substances and terms

• Substances and terms
• A Primary Substance can only play the role of
  Subject term (C 5)
• Primary substances are the subject to all other
  categories
• One interesting implication Primary substances
  are, for Aristotle, the most real things there
  are. Thus, Aristotle rejects what?
• Secondary substances can play the role of both
  subject and predicate (C 5)
• We can say Aristotle is a man or A man is an
  animal or An animal is a living thing.
• Primary substances have a species.
• The species of Aristotle is man.
• Species have a genus.
• The genus of man is animal. There are other
  species of the genus animal as well, for example,
  lions or whales.
• Secondary substances can include any species or
  genera of a primary substance
• They are substances because they express the
  essential nature of primary substances

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Truth

• Truth for Aristotle
• Pertains to what we say
• It is statements that are true or false
• Example
• The Correspondence Theory of Truth
• Truth represents things as they are (M 4.7)
• Falsehood represents things other than they are
  (M 4.7)
• A Statement is true just when it corresponds to
  Reality
• Mapping on to reality

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Arguments and statements

• The Syllogism
• A wise person gives reasons for the statements
  she makes.
• Giving a reason is giving an argument. It is to
  offer premises for some conclusion.
• Arguments are composed of statements.
• Statements can be affirmative or negative.
  Examples
• Statements can also be either universal or they
  can be particular. Examples
• Aristotle focuses on one type of argument, the
  syllogism
• 2 premise
• deductive

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The Syllogism

• The syllogism
• Syllogisms have exactly 3 statements and exactly
  3 terms.
• Each statement has exactly 2 terms.
• Each term must occur in 2 of the arguments
  statements
• Middle term, major term and minor term
• Validity is determined by form
• Good syllogisms are valid. If their premises are
  true their conclusion must be true.
• The validity of a syllogism is wholly dependent
  on the form of it
• Thus, if a syllogism is valid, any other
  syllogism of the same form is also valid.
• Testing syllogisms by form
• Categorical logic

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First Principles

• Can everything that is knowable be proved through
  logic?
• Giving a proof of a statement means composing a
  syllogism in its favor.
• But we can ask is there also proof for the
  premises? New syllogisms
• But of the new syllogisms we can ask is there
  proof for their premises?
• Such a process would go on to infinity.
• First Principles
• So there must exist some claims which cannot be
  proved. These would be starting points... (PA
  1.2)
• True, absolute unshakeable knowledge. (PA 1.2)
• Aristotle is an Empiricist, so the First
  principles can be known through the senses.
• He thinks perception isnt knowledge but
  knowledge begins in perception.

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Knowledge and Induction

• Knowledge from induction
• Knowledge comes from the faculties of perceiving
  and of memory.
• We retain traces from what we perceive in
  encountering the environment.
• These traces build up into experience.
• Experience is the source of Universals and the
  first principles are Universals.
• The biologist
• She observes many creatures. She begins to group
  them according to their similarities-the many
  particulars are labeled under more general names
  and so on
• Her perception provides her with universals
• The Universals provide definitions of natural
  kinds.
• Examples Man and Animal
• The wider our experience the stronger the
  inductive definition...
• Such definitions are our First Principles

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Aristotles Empiricism andhis Metaphysics

• Aristotles metaphysics is connected to his
  Empiricism
• The world is made up of things, the primary
  substances, that are ordered,
• The substances have principles of intelligibility
  within them these principles are internal to
  them.
• These principle can be known.
• How, for Aristotle, can they be known?

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Nature and Artifacts

• The world is composed of 2 different kinds of
  things
• Nature facts (PH 2.1)
• Things that exist by nature
• Has in itself a source of movement and rest, for
  example the movement from place to place (local
  motion), growth and decay, or qualitative change.
• Beaver example
• Artifacts (PH 2.1)
• Have not come together by nature is the product
  of art
• No natural impulse for change
• Only change because they are made of natural
  things or because of some external activity
• Examples bed frames and swords
• Physics
• Nature is the locus of change. It is composed of
  primary substances that are the subjects of
  change. They change in 2 ways 1-they come into
  being and pass away 2-they very in quality,
  quantity, relation and so on
• If we observe closely we can know the principles
  governing these changes.

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Material Cause Formal Cause

• When asking why things are as they are we can
  have 4 questions in mind
• Material cause
• We can ask what is the matter of which the thing
  is made.
• For example
• Formal cause
• We can ask why is this X an X?
• For example
• We answer because it has the characteristics of
  the Form of X.
• The form of a thing is its having the
  characteristics that make it the thing it is

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Matter and Form

• Substances are composed of Matter and Form
• A substance is composed of matter and form. But
  the substance X doesnt exist as an X until the
  matter takes on the Form of X. (PH 2.1)
• The elements of matter that make up a substance
  arent yet the substance but are only potentially
  that substance. They actually become the
  substance when they acquire the form of it. (PH
  2.1)
• Examples bones and statues
• So matter considered apart from form is only
  potentially something (PH 2.1)
• But if you stripped off all form you wouldnt
  have an independently existing object at all.
• Matter exists only as formed
• And form is only theoretically separable from
  matter (PH 2.1)
• But although we can consider the form of an X
  independent of the thing itself, substance only
  exists as combination of form and matter. So the
  form is not something which exists independently
  of the matter.
• So Aristotle denies what about Platos theory?

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The efficient cause

• The efficient cause
• The efficient cause comes from answers to such
  questions as
• What comes to be after what (PH 2.7)
• What was the immediate thing that acted or was
  acted upon (PH 2.7)
• Explains the fact of somethings coming to be
• Its proximate mover (PH 2.7)
• Examples

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The Final Cause

• The Final Cause (PH 2.7)
• The what for of the thing in question
• We are asking for the purpose served or the ends
  satisfied
• For example, Why are there houses?
• We are asking what purpose they serve or what
  ends they satisfy?
• The final cause
• The business of the natural scientist to know
  the 4 causes.
• The 4 kinds of causes are what?

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The final causepurpose vs. accident

• For Aristotle, all substances have a final cause
• Artifacts have a purpose (PH 2.5)
• there is intention behind them
• House example
• Nature facts have a purpose (PH 2.5)
• Accidents dont have a purpose (for example)
• But all other nature facts do. Aristotle thinks
  they will always have a purpose.
• Intentions are formed
• For example

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Do Nature facts always have a purpose?

• But maybe Aristotle is wrong and nature facts
  dont have purpose after all.
• Maybe Democritus is correct and everything in
  nature happens according to chance, according to
  the laws of physics.
• Aristotles response
• Art either completes nature or imitates nature
• examples the art of the physician or house
  builder.
• But there is purpose in art so there is purpose
  in nature also.

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Teleology

• Teleology the idea that natural substances are
  for something
• There is a determinate pattern in the history of
  the development of a substance.
• This pattern, that in which the substance
  develops, is always the same.
• Frog example
• So substances have an entelechy
• A telos or end goal is present in a substance.
  (the tadpole will become the frog)
• The entelechy is the indwelling of the telos at
  every stage of its development.
• Actuality and Potentiality
• Earlier forms of a substance are already
  potentially what they will actually become later.
  
• The telos and entelechy determines this
• For example
• In the egg there is a potentiality to become frog

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First Philosophy

• Metaphysics is first philosophy
• Each science brings its subject matter together
  under some unifying first principles.
• But we might ask is there some still higher
  unity to what there is?
• Is being unified by any principles of it that are
  true throughout. (M 6.1)
• First philosophy would then examine the
  principles taken for granted by all the special
  sciences (M 6.1).
• So first philosophy looks for the ultimate
  principles and causes of all things.
• So First Philosophy is concerned with being in an
  unqualified sense being qua being. (M 6.1)

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Platos first philosophy

• Platos first philosophy
• What is it?
• But Aristotle disagrees he thinks Forms arent
  anything over and above the substance itself.
• He gives several arguments against the reality of
  the forms
• 1-the third man argument
• 2-objects of sense derive their reality by
  participating in the forms. But Plato never
  explains what it means for an object of sense to
  participate in a form. He owes us an
  explanation. (M 1.9)
• 3-to say that the forms have independent
  existence from the objects that participate in
  them is to multiply the entities needing
  explanation. (M 1.9)

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Aristotle against Platos forms

• Aristotle gives 2 more arguments against Platos
  forms
• 4-the reality of the forms is conflicted (M
  7.16)
• If the forms are individual substances, how can
  they be shared out among other individual
  substances?
• But if the forms are universal in character
  (shared among substances,) how can they exist
  separately from the particulars that participate
  in them?
• 5-how do the forms account for change in objects
  of sense?
• How can something that is eternal, stable and
  unchanging as the forms are explain change at all
  (M 1.9)
• The forms dont cause things to move for example

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Aristotle on Mathematics

• Aristotle on Mathematics
• Some of Platos most convincing arguments for the
  forms come from mathematics
• Consider the slave boy in Meno
• For Aristotle, mathematics is not in nature at
  all.
• It is merely abstractions and generalizations
  taken from natural things. But these
  abstractions are not things themselves. (PH 2.2)
• So we can conceptually separate mathematical
  concepts and principles from objects of sense
  without having to suppose that such concepts and
  principles exist independently from those things.
  (PH 2.2)
• Snub Noses

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Aristotles first philosophyessences

• Substances
• For something to be in the primary sense, is for
  it to be a substance.
• When we ask what something is, the answer is its
  substance.
• Essences
• But we can ask what makes a thing the particular
  substance it is? For Aristotle the form known
  as its essence (M 7.17)
• Essences are expressed by definitions telling us
  what things are (M 7.17)
• They are a set of characteristics
• without which a thing would not be the thing it
  is.
• That satisfy a things definition
• That cause it to be the thing it is
• House example
• Frog example amphibiousness
• So essence is the very substance of substance
  itself it is the cause of the substantiality of
  all things. (M 7.17)

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Pure Forms

• If essence and so form is the cause of substance
  itself, might there not be substances that are
  pure forms?
• Pure form
• not a compound of matter and form
• Pure actualities
• only matter involves potentiality
• Unchanging eternal
• change is movement from potentiality to actuality
• The best things
• a substance is best when its essence is most
  fully actualized in the matter
• The most divine knowledge would be of pure forms

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The Prime Mover

• An argument for a prime mover (M 12.7)
• 1. Assume that all things are intermediate
  movers.
• An intermediate mover both is moved and moves
  other things. Example bat, batter and ball
• 2. If all things were intermediate movers the
  series of cause and effect would go on to
  infinity.
• 3. There cannot be any actually existing
  collection of infinitely many things.
• Thus, 4. There must be something that moves
  things without being moved. This would be a
  prime or first or unmoved mover.

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The Prime Mover

• The prime mover (M 12.7)
• Eternal must account for the movement of the
  eternal heavenly bodies
• Substance other substances depend upon it
• Fully actual otherwise its movement would need
  a cause
• The Final cause
• All other things love it and their love for it
  puts them in motion
• His existence is necessary and so must be good
• As the desire of all things its life is best.
  But the best life is the life of mind.
• God

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God

• The final cause is God
• God is an eternal immaterial unchanging substance
  who lives a life of perfect fully actualized
  thought (M 12.7)
• Since the object of perfect thought must be what
  is most divine and since thought itself is most
  divine, the object of Gods fully actualized
  thought is thought itself.
• So God will engage eternally in a contemplation
  of his own life
• Gods relation to the world is that of ideal

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The soul

• The soul
• The greek word for soul is psyche
• Aristotle argues that soul is something shared by
  all living things (PS 1.1)
• Soul that which distinguishes what has a soul
  from what has not is life
• But some souls are more fundamental than others
  (PS 2.3)
• Rectangles and triangles
• So there are more primitive souls and more
  complex souls built upon them.
• For Aristotle there are 3 levels of soul

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The Nutritive Soul

• The Nutritive soul (PS 2.2)
• The most primitive and fundamental form of soul
• Possessed by all living things
• Plants
• The faculty to take in nourishment and convert it
  to life
• The faculty to grow or decay in opposite
  directions

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Reproduction

• Reproduction (PS 2.4)
• Both plants and animals reproduce
• For Aristotle, they do so because there is a
  final cause in reproduction
• The final cause is God, the unmoved mover
• Plants and animals alike have a desire to share,
  as far as possible, the eternity and divinity
  that is God
• Reproduction is as close to eternity as mortal
  beings can come

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The Sensitive Soul

• The sensitive soul (PS 2.3)
• To possess the ability to sense, to have
  sensations
• For example
• Belongs to animals and humans
• Not Plants
• If a being possesses the sensitive soul it must
  also possess the appetitive soul (PS 2.3)
• Appetite consists of desire, anger and will
• Touch ? feel pleasure and pain ? desire

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The Rational Soul

• The Rational Soul
• Soul that has the capacity to think
• Only human beings have a Rational Soul
• So the higher kinds of soul always incorporate
  the lower, but the lower can exist without the
  higher

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The relationship of soul and body

• Soul and body
• For Aristotle, a soul is just the form of a
  primary substance it is the essence of that
  substance, those characteristics that are
  essential to it.
• A person is one being with one essence (PS 1.4
  2.1)
• So sensation is not the task of the soul alone.
  It cannot occur with the body, sense organs, etc.
  (PS 1.4)
• And Recollection has its effects in bodily
  movements (PS 1.4)
• The soul is the form of a natural body that
  potentially possesses life
• The soul is the actuality of a body of this
  particular kind
• So if you subtract from a living being its soul,
  you are left with a body that is potentially
  alive but isnt
• But if you add back to that body its soul, it is
  now capable of performing all the activities that
  are essential to that thing.
• Think of Frankenstein
• So the soul cannot exist independently of the
  body.
• And the soul cannot survive the death of the body
  to which it gives form
• (Note that he says something very different about
  the rational soul)

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Nous

• Nous is the rational soul
• Nous is translated as mind
• It is responsible for thought
• It is an active capacity
• 2 aspects of Nous
• -one aspect is passive
• It becomes everything. It can adapt to receive
  the form of just about anything. (PS 3.5)
• In your consciousness there is a kind of
  registration of everything in your visual field.
• Examples daydreaming
• The second aspect is active
• It makes everything (PS 3.5)
• It is like light making what are potentially
  colors become colors in actuality (PS 3.5)
• Actively paying attention makes what was
  potentially knowable into something actually
  known
• It is an actual power to produce knowledge from
  the mere registrations of passive nous

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Nous again

• The active part of Nous
• Can actualize everything we can observe
• It cannot be material otherwise it wouldnt be
  flexible enough to actualize all things
• So it is pure form, unmixed with matter
• So it is not part of the body
• Active Nous is separable from the body
• Aristotle thought there was nothing in the body
  to serve as the organ of thought not the heart
  or brain
• Active Nous is immortal and eternal
• Not material ? pure actualized form ? lacks
  change ?fully and eternally what it is.
• But we have no innate knowledge
• Active nous ca only produce knowledge if it can
  be delivered by the senses and registered by
  passive nous (PS 3.5)
• But neither passive nous nor the sense organs
  existed before birth.
• Thus, we do not remember anything before birth
  (PS 3.5)
• Knowledge after death?

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Aristotles Ethics

• Virtue Ethics
• Like Plato, Aristotle thinks the virtuous person
  is the happy person.
• For Aristotle, the highest good in all matters of
  action is happiness.
• Eudaemonia
• But man is most happy when he is man in the best
  way
• So happiness is achieved when man is functioning
  well as man.
• But mans function is
• Activity of soul in conformity with reason, or at
  least not without reason. (NE 1.7)
• But human life is not limited to purely
  intellectual pursuits. Thus, mans function is
• Activity of soul in conformity with excellence
  and if there is more than one excellence, it will
  be the best and most complete of these. (NE 1.7)
• Thus, happiness comes in acting virtuously.

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Virtues

• Happiness comes in acting virtuously
• Virtue
• A virtue is a kind of excellence of character.
• Virtue and Function A virtue is the state of
  character which makes a man good and which makes
  him do his own work well.
• A virtue is a state in which a man functions
  properly
• every virtue or excellence both brings into good
  condition the thing of which it is the excellence
  and makes the work of that thing be done wellthe
  excellence of the horse makes a horse both good
  in itself and good at running and at carrying its
  rider (NE )

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More on virtue

• More on virtue
• It is for our virtues and vices that we are
  praised and blamed.
• Not capacities we have by nature. We develop
  virtues and vices through experience.
• We become just be doing just acts (NE 2.1)
• We can learn the virtues so there should be some
  direction from a very early age, as Plato says,
  with a view of taking pleasure in, and being
  pained by, the right things. (NE 2.3)
• To have a virtue is to have developed a habit of
  choosing and behaving in ways appropriate

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Examples of Virtues

• Some of the virtues include
• Courage. When one is fearful or confident
• Temperance (regarding indulgence in pain and
  pleasure)
• Liberality (regarding giving and taking )
• Pride (regarding ones honor and dishonor)
• Good tempered (with regard to anger).

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The Doctrine of the mean

• Excess and Defect It is in the nature of things
  to be destroyed by excess or defect.
• Both excessive and defective exercise destroys
  the strength, and similarly drink or food which
  is above or below a certain amount destroys the
  health, while that which is proportionate both
  produces and increases and preserves it. So too
  is it, then, in the case of temperance and
  courage and the other virtues. The man who runs
  away from everything in fear, and faces up to
  nothing, becomes a coward the man who is
  absolutely fearless, and will walk into anything,
  becomes rash. It is the same with the man who
  gets enjoyment from all the pleasures, abstaining
  from none he is immoderate whereas he who
  avoids all pleasures, like a boor, is a man of no
  sensitivity (NE 2.2)
• Intermediate Every virtue is an intermediate
  between some excess and defect.
• So acting virtuously is acting according to the
  mean. Never too much excess, nor too much defect
  with regard to a state of character.
• an intermediate between excess and defectthat
  which is equidistant from each of the
  extremesneither too much nor too little.
• For instance, if ten is many and two is few, six
  is the intermediate ()

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The mean is relative

• Relative But the mean isnt always the same for
  everyone. The mean is always relative to the
  individual and her circumstances.
• For if ten pounds are too much for a particular
  person to eat and two too little, it does not
  follow that the trainer will order six pounds
  for this is also perhaps too much for the person
  who is to take it, or too little ()
• Thus a master of any art avoids excess and
  defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses
  this--the intermediate not in the object but
  relatively to us.
• In feeling fear, confidence, desire, anger,
  pity, and in general pleasure and pain, one can
  feel too much or too little and both extremes
  are wrong. The mean and good is feeling at the
  right time, about the right things, in relation
  to the right people, and for the right reason
  (NE 2.6)
• The mean is relative to the circumstances

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The mean is relative

• So the mean is relative to the individual and her
  circumstances.
• For example, bravery lies on a mean between
  extremes of fear and confidence.
• Too much fear and not enough confidence ?
  cowards.
• Too much confidence and too little fear ?
  reckless.
• But the brave act doesnt lie precisely in the
  middle of extremes. This depends on the
  circumstances.
• For example
• I walk upon someone getting mugged
• I have no training in self defense
• A navy seal walks upon someone getting mugged

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The Doctrine of the MeanExamples

• So every virtue is the mean between some excess
  and some defect. For example
• Anger
• You can have too much anger (wrathfulness) or too
  little (subservience).
• Virtuous action lies between the extremes,
  depends on circumstances
• Temperance the mean between self indulgence and
  insensibleness (with respect to divulging in
  pains and pleasures).
• Liberality the mean between prodigal-ness and
  mean-ness (with respect to giving and taking ).
• Truthfulness the mean between boastfulness and
  mock-modesty (with respect to truth)

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Virtue Ethics a principle for action

• We can think of Virtue Ethics as offering us a
  principle for action
• A Principle for Action some action X is the
  right thing to do if and only if X is what a
  virtuous person would do in those circumstances.
• A virtuous person lives by or according to the
  virtues.
• But what would a virtuous person do?
• You must try to think like Jesus would
• So you might just ask a virtuous person
• A second possible principle for action the
  doctrine of the mean

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The virtuous agent

• The Virtuous agent For Aristotle, being a
  virtuous agent isnt just doing the virtuous
  thing.
• To be just it isnt sufficient to just act
  justly.
• Acting for the sake of virtue one must get
  pleasure in acting justly for it to count as a
  just act at all.
• the man who does not rejoice in noble actions
  is not even good since no one would call a man
  just who did not enjoy acting justly, nor any man
  liberal who did not enjoy liberal actionsIf this
  is so, virtuous actions must be in themselves
  pleasant ()

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The second requirement

• Another requirement And being a virtuous agent
  is more than merely doing the virtuous thing and
  gaining pleasure in her doing the virtuous thing.
• Resisting the appetitive soul to be virtuous,
  ones appetitive soul, that part of the soul
  which brings about desires and impulses that pull
  one away from acting rationally, mustn't lead one
  away from doing the virtuous thing.
• For we praise the rational principle of the
  continent man and of the incontinent, and the
  part of their soul that has such a principle,
  since it urges them aright and towards the best
  objects but there is found in them also another
  element naturally opposed to the rational
  principle, which fights against and resists that
  principle. ()
• The virtuous agent is neither continent nor
  incontinent.
• The continent man does the virtuous thing,
  although he had some impulse or desire to do
  otherwise.
• The incontinent man doesnt do the virtuous
  thing just because he follows the appetitive soul
• Desiring virtue the virtuous agent desires only
  to perform the virtuous act

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Education Training

• Training Education To be a virtuous agent
  takes training and education.
• Hence we ought to be brought up in a particular
  way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as
  both to delight in and to be pained by the things
  that we ought for this is the right education.
  ()
• Experience Being virtuous takes experience in
  the real world. Putting oneself in situations
  where she learns to act virtuously.
• by doing the acts that we 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
  fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly.
  ()
• Habit Being virtuous is acting virtuously out of
  habit.
• Acting virtuously without effort

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Objections to Virtue Ethics

• First objection
• Virtue ethics is too vague and unclear to be
  action guiding.
• Virtue ethics tells us to do whatever the
  virtuous agent would do.
• But how are we supposed to understand what a
  virtuous agent would do if we arent ourselves
  virtuous agents?
• The response
• Virtue ethics can offer more clear advice by
  stating rules that employ the virtue and vice
  terms.

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The Second objectionDemandingness

• The second objection
• The demands that virtue ethics makes are too
  high
• To be truly virtuous one must
• have the right training, education and knowledge
  
• he must choose the virtuous action, for its own
  sake
• he must proceed from a firm and unchangeable
  character (his emotions, temperament and
  conviction must all be to act virtuously without
  thought of desire or impulse.)
• But, the objection goes
• no one can live up to these expectations, no one!
• The response
• We could weaken virtue ethics.

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The third objection

• The third objection
• Maybe the mean is not always best.
• Surely we are justified in going to extremes in
  some cases and perhaps temperance should not be
  our guiding principle if we want to lead a rich
  life overall.
• A painter, for example, might be justified in
  going to extremes in his or her passion for art,
  as Van Gogh did.
• Possible replies
• The mean is relative to the individual so maybe
  the mean for Van Gogh is just the extreme.
• Will this work though?
• Can the mean be an extreme?

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The final objection

• The final objection Conflicting virtues
• Wont there be cases, such as moral dilemmas, in
  which the requirements of different virtues
  conflict because they point in opposing
  directions?
• Charity vs. justice
• Honesty vs. compassion
• So what do we do when virtues conflict?
• The response
• Such conflicts will always be merely apparent
  ones.