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Aristotle’s Ethics

Aristotle conceives of ethical theory as a field distinct from the theoretical sciences. Its methodology must match its subject matter—good action—and must respect the fact that in this field many generalizations hold only for the most part. We study ethics in order to improve our lives, and therefore its principal concern is the nature of human well-being. Aristotle follows Socrates and Plato in taking the virtues to be central to a well-lived life. Like Plato, he regards the ethical virtues (justice, courage, temperance and so on) as complex rational, emotional and social skills. But he rejects Plato’s idea that to be completely virtuous one must acquire, through a training in the sciences, mathematics, and philosophy, an understanding of what goodness is. What we need, in order to live well, is a proper appreciation of the way in which such goods as friendship, pleasure, virtue, honor and wealth fit together as a whole. In order to apply that general understanding to particular cases, we must acquire, through proper upbringing and habits, the ability to see, on each occasion, which course of action is best supported by reasons. Therefore practical wisdom, as he conceives it, cannot be acquired solely by learning general rules. We must also acquire, through practice, those deliberative, emotional, and social skills that enable us to put our general understanding of well-being into practice in ways that are suitable to each occasion.

1. Preliminaries

2. the human good and the function argument, 3.1 traditional virtues and the skeptic, 3.2 differences from and affinities to plato, 4. virtues and deficiencies, continence and incontinence, 5.1 ethical virtue as disposition, 5.2 ethical theory does not offer a decision procedure, 5.3 the starting point for practical reasoning, 6. intellectual virtues, 8. pleasure, 9. friendship, 10. three lives compared, a. single-authored overviews, b. anthologies, c.1 the chronological order of aristotle’s ethical treatises, c.2 the methodology and metaphysics of ethical theory, c.3 the human good and the human function, c.4 the nature of virtue and accounts of particular virtues, c.5 practical reasoning, moral psychology, and action, c.6 pleasure, c.7 friendship, c.8 feminism and aristotle, c.9 aristotle and contemporary ethics, d. bibliographies, primary literature, secondary literature, other internet resources, related entries.

Aristotle wrote two ethical treatises: the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics . He does not himself use either of these titles, although in the Politics (1295a36) he refers back to one of them—probably the Eudemian Ethics —as “ ta êthika ”—his writings about character. The words “ Eudemian ” and “ Nicomachean ” were added later, perhaps because the former was edited by his friend, Eudemus, and the latter by his son, Nicomachus. In any case, these two works cover more or less the same ground: they begin with a discussion of eudaimonia (“happiness”, “flourishing”), and turn to an examination of the nature of aretê (“virtue”, “excellence”) and the character traits that human beings need in order to live life at its best. Both treatises examine the conditions in which praise or blame are appropriate, and the nature of pleasure and friendship; near the end of each work, we find a brief discussion of the proper relationship between human beings and the divine.

Though the general point of view expressed in each work is the same, there are many subtle differences in organization and content as well. Clearly, one is a re-working of the other, and although no single piece of evidence shows conclusively what their order is, it is widely assumed that the Nicomachean Ethics is a later and improved version of the Eudemian Ethics . (Not all of the Eudemian Ethics was revised: its Books IV, V, and VI re-appear as V, VI, VII of the Nicomachean Ethics .) Perhaps the most telling indication of this ordering is that in several instances the Nicomachean Ethics develops a theme about which its Eudemian cousin is silent. Only the Nicomachean Ethics discusses the close relationship between ethical inquiry and politics; only the Nicomachean Ethics critically examines Solon’s paradoxical dictum that no man should be counted happy until he is dead; and only the Nicomachean Ethics gives a series of arguments for the superiority of the philosophical life to the political life. The remainder of this article will therefore focus on this work. [Note: Page and line numbers shall henceforth refer to this treatise.]

A third treatise, called the Magna Moralia (the “Big Ethics”) is included in complete editions of Aristotle’s works, but its authorship is disputed by scholars. It ranges over topics discussed more fully in the other two works and its point of view is similar to theirs. (Why, being briefer, is it named the Magna Moralia ? Because each of the two papyrus rolls into which it is divided is unusually long. Just as a big mouse can be a small animal, two big chapters can make a small book. This work was evidently named “big” with reference to its parts, not the whole.) A few authors in antiquity refer to a work with this name and attribute it to Aristotle, but it is not mentioned by several authorities, such as Cicero and Diogenes Laertius, whom we would expect to have known of it. Some scholars hold that it is Aristotle’s earliest course on ethics—perhaps his own lecture notes or those of a student; others regard it as a post-Aristotelian compilation or adaption of one or both of his genuine ethical treatises.

Although Aristotle is deeply indebted to Plato’s moral philosophy, particularly Plato’s central insight that moral thinking must be integrated with our emotions and appetites, and that the preparation for such unity of character should begin with childhood education, the systematic character of Aristotle’s discussion of these themes was a remarkable innovation. No one had written ethical treatises before Aristotle. Plato’s Republic , for example, does not treat ethics as a distinct subject matter; nor does it offer a systematic examination of the nature of happiness, virtue, voluntariness, pleasure, or friendship. To be sure, we can find in Plato’s works important discussions of these phenomena, but they are not brought together and unified as they are in Aristotle’s ethical writings.

The principal idea with which Aristotle begins is that there are differences of opinion about what is best for human beings, and that to profit from ethical inquiry we must resolve this disagreement. He insists that ethics is not a theoretical discipline: we are asking what the good for human beings is not simply because we want to have knowledge, but because we will be better able to achieve our good if we develop a fuller understanding of what it is to flourish. In raising this question—what is the good?—Aristotle is not looking for a list of items that are good. He assumes that such a list can be compiled rather easily; most would agree, for example, that it is good to have friends, to experience pleasure, to be healthy, to be honored, and to have such virtues as courage at least to some degree. The difficult and controversial question arises when we ask whether certain of these goods are more desirable than others. Aristotle’s search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.

Aristotle thinks everyone will agree that the terms “ eudaimonia ” (“happiness”) and “ eu zên ” (“living well”) designate such an end. The Greek term “ eudaimon ” is composed of two parts: “ eu ” means “well” and “ daimon ” means “divinity” or “spirit”. To be eudaimon is therefore to be living in a way that is well-favored by a god. But Aristotle never calls attention to this etymology in his ethical writings, and it seems to have little influence on his thinking. He regards “ eudaimon ” as a mere substitute for eu zên (“living well”). These terms play an evaluative role, and are not simply descriptions of someone’s state of mind.

No one tries to live well for the sake of some further goal; rather, being eudaimon is the highest end, and all subordinate goals—health, wealth, and other such resources—are sought because they promote well-being, not because they are what well-being consists in. But unless we can determine which good or goods happiness consists in, it is of little use to acknowledge that it is the highest end. To resolve this issue, Aristotle asks what the ergon (“function”, “task”, “work”) of a human being is, and argues that it consists in activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue (1097b22–1098a20). One important component of this argument is expressed in terms of distinctions he makes in his psychological and biological works. The soul is analyzed into a connected series of capacities: the nutritive soul is responsible for growth and reproduction, the locomotive soul for motion, the perceptive soul for perception, and so on. The biological fact Aristotle makes use of is that human beings are the only species that has not only these lower capacities but a rational soul as well. The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in. Doing anything well requires virtue or excellence, and therefore living well consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue or excellence.

Aristotle’s conclusion about the nature of happiness is in a sense uniquely his own. No other writer or thinker had said precisely what he says about what it is to live well. But at the same time his view is not too distant from a common idea. As he himself points out, one traditional conception of happiness identifies it with virtue (1098b30–1). Aristotle’s theory should be construed as a refinement of this position. He says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity . Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.

At the same time, Aristotle makes it clear that in order to be happy one must possess others goods as well—such goods as friends, wealth, and power. And one’s happiness is endangered if one is severely lacking in certain advantages—if, for example, one is extremely ugly, or has lost children or good friends through death (1099a31–b6). But why so? If one’s ultimate end should simply be virtuous activity, then why should it make any difference to one’s happiness whether one has or lacks these other types of good? Aristotle’s reply is that one’s virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate supply of other goods (1153b17–19). Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, and what little he can accomplish will not be of great merit. To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune; happenstance can rob even the most excellent human beings of happiness. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists, the highest good, virtuous activity, is not something that comes to us by chance. Although we must be fortunate enough to have parents and fellow citizens who help us become virtuous, we ourselves share much of the responsibility for acquiring and exercising the virtues.

3. Methodology

A common complaint about Aristotle’s attempt to defend his conception of happiness is that his argument is too general to show that it is in one’s interest to possess any of the particular virtues as they are traditionally conceived. Suppose we grant, at least for the sake of argument, that doing anything well, including living well, consists in exercising certain skills; and let us call these skills, whatever they turn out to be, virtues. Even so, that point does not by itself allow us to infer that such qualities as temperance, justice, courage, as they are normally understood, are virtues. They should be counted as virtues only if it can be shown that actualizing precisely these skills is what happiness consists in. What Aristotle owes us, then, is an account of these traditional qualities that explains why they must play a central role in any well-lived life.

But perhaps Aristotle disagrees, and refuses to accept this argumentative burden. In one of several important methodological remarks he makes near the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics , he says that in order to profit from the sort of study he is undertaking, one must already have been brought up in good habits (1095b4–6). The audience he is addressing, in other words, consists of people who are already just, courageous, and generous; or, at any rate, they are well on their way to possessing these virtues. Why such a restricted audience? Why does he not address those who have serious doubts about the value of these traditional qualities, and who therefore have not yet decided to cultivate and embrace them?

Addressing the moral skeptic, after all, is the project Plato undertook in the Republic : in Book I he rehearses an argument to show that justice is not really a virtue, and the remainder of this work is an attempt to rebut this thesis. Aristotle’s project seems, at least on the surface, to be quite different. He does not appear to be addressing someone who has genuine doubts about the value of justice or kindred qualities. Perhaps, then, he realizes how little can be accomplished, in the study of ethics, to provide it with a rational foundation. Perhaps he thinks that no reason can be given for being just, generous, and courageous. These are qualities one learns to love when one is a child, and having been properly habituated, one no longer looks for or needs a reason to exercise them. One can show, as a general point, that happiness consists in exercising some skills or other, but that the moral skills of a virtuous person are what one needs is not a proposition that can be established on the basis of argument.

This is not the only way of reading the Ethics , however. For surely we cannot expect Aristotle to show what it is about the traditional virtues that makes them so worthwhile until he has fully discussed the nature of those virtues. He himself warns us that his initial statement of what happiness is should be treated as a rough outline whose details are to be filled in later (1098a20–22). His intention in Book I of the Ethics is to indicate in a general way why the virtues are important; why particular virtues—courage, justice, and the like—are components of happiness is something we should be able to better understand only at a later point.

In any case, Aristotle’s assertion that his audience must already have begun to cultivate the virtues need not be taken to mean that no reasons can be found for being courageous, just, and generous. His point, rather, may be that in ethics, as in any other study, we cannot make progress towards understanding why things are as they are unless we begin with certain assumptions about what is the case. Neither theoretical nor practical inquiry starts from scratch. Someone who has made no observations of astronomical or biological phenomena is not yet equipped with sufficient data to develop an understanding of these sciences. The parallel point in ethics is that to make progress in this sphere we must already have come to enjoy doing what is just, courageous, generous and the like. We must experience these activities not as burdensome constraints, but as noble, worthwhile, and enjoyable in themselves. Then, when we engage in ethical inquiry, we can ask what it is about these activities that makes them worthwhile. We can also compare these goods with other things that are desirable in themselves—pleasure, friendship, honor, and so on—and ask whether any of them is more desirable than the others. We approach ethical theory with a disorganized bundle of likes and dislikes based on habit and experience; such disorder is an inevitable feature of childhood. But what is not inevitable is that our early experience will be rich enough to provide an adequate basis for worthwhile ethical reflection; that is why we need to have been brought up well. Yet such an upbringing can take us only so far. We seek a deeper understanding of the objects of our childhood enthusiasms, and we must systematize our goals so that as adults we have a coherent plan of life. We need to engage in ethical theory, and to reason well in this field, if we are to move beyond the low-grade form of virtue we acquired as children.

Read in this way, Aristotle is engaged in a project similar in some respects to the one Plato carried out in the Republic . One of Plato’s central points is that it is a great advantage to establish a hierarchical ordering of the elements in one’s soul; and he shows how the traditional virtues can be interpreted to foster or express the proper relation between reason and less rational elements of the psyche. Aristotle’s approach is similar: his “function argument” shows in a general way that our good lies in the dominance of reason, and the detailed studies of the particular virtues reveal how each of them involves the right kind of ordering of the soul. Aristotle’s goal is to arrive at conclusions like Plato’s, but without relying on the Platonic metaphysics that plays a central role in the argument of the Republic . He rejects the existence of Plato’s forms in general and the form of the good in particular; and he rejects the idea that in order to become fully virtuous one must study mathematics and the sciences, and see all branches of knowledge as a unified whole. Even though Aristotle’s ethical theory sometimes relies on philosophical distinctions that are more fully developed in his other works, he never proposes that students of ethics need to engage in a specialized study of the natural world, or mathematics, or eternal and changing objects. His project is to make ethics an autonomous field, and to show why a full understanding of what is good does not require expertise in any other field.

There is another contrast with Plato that should be emphasized: In Book II of the Republic , we are told that the best type of good is one that is desirable both in itself and for the sake of its results (357d–358a). Plato argues that justice should be placed in this category, but since it is generally agreed that it is desirable for its consequences, he devotes most of his time to establishing his more controversial point—that justice is to be sought for its own sake. By contrast, Aristotle assumes that if A is desirable for the sake of B , then B is better than A (1094a14–16); therefore, the highest kind of good must be one that is not desirable for the sake of anything else. To show that A deserves to be our ultimate end, one must show that all other goods are best thought of as instruments that promote A in some way or other. Accordingly, it would not serve Aristotle’s purpose to consider virtuous activity in isolation from all other goods. He needs to discuss honor, wealth, pleasure, and friendship in order to show how these goods, properly understood, can be seen as resources that serve the higher goal of virtuous activity. He vindicates the centrality of virtue in a well-lived life by showing that in the normal course of things a virtuous person will not live a life devoid of friends, honor, wealth, pleasure, and the like. Virtuous activity makes a life happy not by guaranteeing happiness in all circumstances, but by serving as the goal for the sake of which lesser goods are to be pursued. Aristotle’s methodology in ethics therefore pays more attention than does Plato’s to the connections that normally obtain between virtue and other goods. That is why he stresses that in this sort of study one must be satisfied with conclusions that hold only for the most part (1094b11–22). Poverty, isolation, and dishonor are normally impediments to the exercise of virtue and therefore to happiness, although there may be special circumstances in which they are not. The possibility of exceptions does not undermine the point that, as a rule, to live well is to have sufficient resources for the pursuit of virtue over the course of a lifetime.

Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtue (1103a1–10): those that pertain to the part of the soul that engages in reasoning (virtues of mind or intellect), and those that pertain to the part of the soul that cannot itself reason but is nonetheless capable of following reason (ethical virtues, virtues of character). Intellectual virtues are in turn divided into two sorts: those that pertain to theoretical reasoning, and those that pertain to practical thinking (1139a3–8). He organizes his material by first studying ethical virtue in general, then moving to a discussion of particular ethical virtues (temperance, courage, and so on), and finally completing his survey by considering the intellectual virtues (practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, etc.).

All free males are born with the potential to become ethically virtuous and practically wise, but to achieve these goals they must go through two stages: during their childhood, they must develop the proper habits; and then, when their reason is fully developed, they must acquire practical wisdom ( phronêsis ). This does not mean that first we fully acquire the ethical virtues, and then, at a later stage, add on practical wisdom. Ethical virtue is fully developed only when it is combined with practical wisdom (1144b14–17). A low-grade form of ethical virtue emerges in us during childhood as we are repeatedly placed in situations that call for appropriate actions and emotions; but as we rely less on others and become capable of doing more of our own thinking, we learn to develop a larger picture of human life, our deliberative skills improve, and our emotional responses are perfected. Like anyone who has developed a skill in performing a complex and difficult activity, the virtuous person takes pleasure in exercising his intellectual skills. Furthermore, when he has decided what to do, he does not have to contend with internal pressures to act otherwise. He does not long to do something that he regards as shameful; and he is not greatly distressed at having to give up a pleasure that he realizes he should forego.

Aristotle places those who suffer from such internal disorders into one of three categories: (A) Some agents, having reached a decision about what to do on a particular occasion, experience some counter-pressure brought on by an appetite for pleasure, or anger, or some other emotion; and this countervailing influence is not completely under the control of reason. (1) Within this category, some are typically better able to resist these counter-rational pressures than is the average person. Such people are not virtuous, although they generally do what a virtuous person does. Aristotle calls them “continent” ( enkratês ). But (2) others are less successful than the average person in resisting these counter-pressures. They are “incontinent” ( akratês ). (The explanation of akrasia is a topic to which we will return in section 7.) In addition, (B) there is a type of agent who refuses even to try to do what an ethically virtuous agent would do, because he has become convinced that justice, temperance, generosity and the like are of little or no value. Such people Aristotle calls evil ( kakos , phaulos ). He assumes that evil people are driven by desires for domination and luxury, and although they are single-minded in their pursuit of these goals, he portrays them as deeply divided, because their pleonexia —their desire for more and more—leaves them dissatisfied and full of self-hatred.

It should be noticed that all three of these deficiencies—continence, incontinence, vice—involve some lack of internal harmony. (Here Aristotle’s debt to Plato is particularly evident, for one of the central ideas of the Republic is that the life of a good person is harmonious, and all other lives deviate to some degree from this ideal.) The evil person may wholeheartedly endorse some evil plan of action at a particular moment, but over the course of time, Aristotle supposes, he will regret his decision, because whatever he does will prove inadequate for the achievement of his goals (1166b5–29). Aristotle assumes that when someone systematically makes bad decisions about how to live his life, his failures are caused by psychological forces that are less than fully rational. His desires for pleasure, power or some other external goal have become so strong that they make him care too little or not at all about acting ethically. To keep such destructive inner forces at bay, we need to develop the proper habits and emotional responses when we are children, and to reflect intelligently on our aims when we are adults. But some vulnerability to these disruptive forces is present even in more-or-less virtuous people; that is why even a good political community needs laws and the threat of punishment. Clear thinking about the best goals of human life and the proper way to put them into practice is a rare achievement, because the human psyche is not a hospitable environment for the development of these insights.

5. The Doctrine of the Mean

Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a “ hexis ” (“state” “condition” “disposition”)—a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have appropriate feelings (1105b25–6). Defective states of character are hexeis (plural of hexis ) as well, but they are tendencies to have inappropriate feelings. The significance of Aristotle’s characterization of these states as hexeis is his decisive rejection of the thesis, found throughout Plato’s early dialogues, that virtue is nothing but a kind of knowledge and vice nothing but a lack of knowledge. Although Aristotle frequently draws analogies between the crafts and the virtues (and similarly between physical health and eudaimonia ), he insists that the virtues differ from the crafts and all branches of knowledge in that the former involve appropriate emotional responses and are not purely intellectual conditions.

Furthermore, every ethical virtue is a condition intermediate (a “golden mean” as it is popularly known) between two other states, one involving excess, and the other deficiency (1106a26–b28). In this respect, Aristotle says, the virtues are no different from technical skills: every skilled worker knows how to avoid excess and deficiency, and is in a condition intermediate between two extremes. The courageous person, for example, judges that some dangers are worth facing and others not, and experiences fear to a degree that is appropriate to his circumstances. He lies between the coward, who flees every danger and experiences excessive fear, and the rash person, who judges every danger worth facing and experiences little or no fear. Aristotle holds that this same topography applies to every ethical virtue: all are located on a map that places the virtues between states of excess and deficiency. He is careful to add, however, that the mean is to be determined in a way that takes into account the particular circumstances of the individual (1106a36–b7). The arithmetic mean between 10 and 2 is 6, and this is so invariably, whatever is being counted. But the intermediate point that is chosen by an expert in any of the crafts will vary from one situation to another. There is no universal rule, for example, about how much food an athlete should eat, and it would be absurd to infer from the fact that 10 lbs. is too much and 2 lbs. too little for me that I should eat 6 lbs. Finding the mean in any given situation is not a mechanical or thoughtless procedure, but requires a full and detailed acquaintance with the circumstances.

It should be evident that Aristotle’s treatment of virtues as mean states endorses the idea that we should sometimes have strong feelings—when such feelings are called for by our situation. Sometimes only a small degree of anger is appropriate; but at other times, circumstances call for great anger. The right amount is not some quantity between zero and the highest possible level, but rather the amount, whatever it happens to be, that is proportionate to the seriousness of the situation. Of course, Aristotle is committed to saying that anger should never reach the point at which it undermines reason; and this means that our passion should always fall short of the extreme point at which we would lose control. But it is possible to be very angry without going to this extreme, and Aristotle does not intend to deny this.

The theory of the mean is open to several objections, but before considering them, we should recognize that in fact there are two distinct theses each of which might be called a doctrine of the mean. First, there is the thesis that every virtue is a state that lies between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency. Second, there is the idea that whenever a virtuous person chooses to perform a virtuous act, he can be described as aiming at an act that is in some way or other intermediate between alternatives that he rejects. It is this second thesis that is most likely to be found objectionable. A critic might concede that in some cases virtuous acts can be described in Aristotle’s terms. If, for example, one is trying to decide how much to spend on a wedding present, one is looking for an amount that is neither excessive nor deficient. But surely many other problems that confront a virtuous agent are not susceptible to this quantitative analysis. If one must decide whether to attend a wedding or respect a competing obligation instead, it would not be illuminating to describe this as a search for a mean between extremes—unless “aiming at the mean” simply becomes another phrase for trying to make the right decision. The objection, then, is that Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, taken as a doctrine about what the ethical agent does when he deliberates, is in many cases inapplicable or unilluminating.

A defense of Aristotle would have to say that the virtuous person does after all aim at a mean, if we allow for a broad enough notion of what sort of aiming is involved. For example, consider a juror who must determine whether a defendant is guilty as charged. He does not have before his mind a quantitative question; he is trying to decide whether the accused committed the crime, and is not looking for some quantity of action intermediate between extremes. Nonetheless, an excellent juror can be described as someone who, in trying to arrive at the correct decision, seeks to express the right degree of concern for all relevant considerations. He searches for the verdict that results from a deliberative process that is neither overly credulous nor unduly skeptical. Similarly, in facing situations that arouse anger, a virtuous agent must determine what action (if any) to take in response to an insult, and although this is not itself a quantitative question, his attempt to answer it properly requires him to have the right degree of concern for his standing as a member of the community. He aims at a mean in the sense that he looks for a response that avoids too much or too little attention to factors that must be taken into account in making a wise decision.

Perhaps a greater difficulty can be raised if we ask how Aristotle determines which emotions are governed by the doctrine of the mean. Consider someone who loves to wrestle, for example. Is this passion something that must be felt by every human being at appropriate times and to the right degree? Surely someone who never felt this emotion to any degree could still live a perfectly happy life. Why then should we not say the same about at least some of the emotions that Aristotle builds into his analysis of the ethically virtuous agent? Why should we experience anger at all, or fear, or the degree of concern for wealth and honor that Aristotle commends? These are precisely the questions that were asked in antiquity by the Stoics, and they came to the conclusion that such common emotions as anger and fear are always inappropriate. Aristotle assumes, on the contrary, not simply that these common passions are sometimes appropriate, but that it is essential that every human being learn how to master them and experience them in the right way at the right times. A defense of his position would have to show that the emotions that figure in his account of the virtues are valuable components of any well-lived human life, when they are experienced properly. Perhaps such a project could be carried out, but Aristotle himself does not attempt to do so.

He often says, in the course of his discussion, that when the good person chooses to act virtuously, he does so for the sake of the “ kalon ”—a word that can mean “beautiful”, “noble”, or “fine” (see for example 1120a23–4). This term indicates that Aristotle sees in ethical activity an attraction that is comparable to the beauty of well-crafted artifacts, including such artifacts as poetry, music, and drama. He draws this analogy in his discussion of the mean, when he says that every craft tries to produce a work from which nothing should be taken away and to which nothing further should be added (1106b5–14). A craft product, when well designed and produced by a good craftsman, is not merely useful, but also has such elements as balance, proportion and harmony—for these are properties that help make it useful. Similarly, Aristotle holds that a well-executed project that expresses the ethical virtues will not merely be advantageous but kalon as well—for the balance it strikes is part of what makes it advantageous. The young person learning to acquire the virtues must develop a love of doing what is kalon and a strong aversion to its opposite—the aischron , the shameful and ugly. Determining what is kalon is difficult (1106b28–33, 1109a24–30), and the normal human aversion to embracing difficulties helps account for the scarcity of virtue (1104b10–11).

It should be clear that neither the thesis that virtues lie between extremes nor the thesis that the good person aims at what is intermediate is intended as a procedure for making decisions. These doctrines of the mean help show what is attractive about the virtues, and they also help systematize our understanding of which qualities are virtues. Once we see that temperance, courage, and other generally recognized characteristics are mean states, we are in a position to generalize and to identify other mean states as virtues, even though they are not qualities for which we have a name. Aristotle remarks, for example, that the mean state with respect to anger has no name in Greek (1125b26–7). Though he is guided to some degree by distinctions captured by ordinary terms, his methodology allows him to recognize states for which no names exist.

So far from offering a decision procedure, Aristotle insists that this is something that no ethical theory can do. His theory elucidates the nature of virtue, but what must be done on any particular occasion by a virtuous agent depends on the circumstances, and these vary so much from one occasion to another that there is no possibility of stating a series of rules, however complicated, that collectively solve every practical problem. This feature of ethical theory is not unique; Aristotle thinks it applies to many crafts, such as medicine and navigation (1104a7–10). He says that the virtuous person “sees the truth in each case, being as it were a standard and measure of them” (1113a32–3); but this appeal to the good person’s vision should not be taken to mean that he has an inarticulate and incommunicable insight into the truth. Aristotle thinks of the good person as someone who is good at deliberation, and he describes deliberation as a process of rational inquiry. The intermediate point that the good person tries to find is

determined by logos (“reason”, “account”) and in the way that the person of practical reason would determine it. (1107a1–2)

To say that such a person “sees” what to do is simply a way of registering the point that the good person’s reasoning does succeed in discovering what is best in each situation. He is “as it were a standard and measure” in the sense that his views should be regarded as authoritative by other members of the community. A standard or measure is something that settles disputes; and because good people are so skilled at discovering the mean in difficult cases, their advice must be sought and heeded.

Although there is no possibility of writing a book of rules, however long, that will serve as a complete guide to wise decision-making, it would be a mistake to attribute to Aristotle the opposite position, namely that every purported rule admits of exceptions, so that even a small rule-book that applies to a limited number of situations is an impossibility. He makes it clear that certain emotions (spite, shamelessness, envy) and actions (adultery, theft, murder) are always wrong, regardless of the circumstances (1107a8–12). Although he says that the names of these emotions and actions convey their wrongness, he should not be taken to mean that their wrongness derives from linguistic usage. He defends the family as a social institution against the criticisms of Plato ( Politics II.3–4), and so when he says that adultery is always wrong, he is prepared to argue for his point by explaining why marriage is a valuable custom and why extra-marital intercourse undermines the relationship between husband and wife. He is not making the tautological claim that wrongful sexual activity is wrong, but the more specific and contentious point that marriages ought to be governed by a rule of strict fidelity. Similarly, when he says that murder and theft are always wrong, he does not mean that wrongful killing and taking are wrong, but that the current system of laws regarding these matters ought to be strictly enforced. So, although Aristotle holds that ethics cannot be reduced to a system of rules, however complex, he insists that some rules are inviolable.

We have seen that the decisions of a practically wise person are not mere intuitions, but can be justified by a chain of reasoning. (This is why Aristotle often talks in term of a practical syllogism, with a major premise that identifies some good to be achieved, and a minor premise that locates the good in some present-to-hand situation.) At the same time, he is acutely aware of the fact that reasoning can always be traced back to a starting point that is not itself justified by further reasoning. Neither good theoretical reasoning nor good practical reasoning moves in a circle; true thinking always presupposes and progresses in linear fashion from proper starting points. And that leads him to ask for an account of how the proper starting points of reasoning are to be determined. Practical reasoning always presupposes that one has some end, some goal one is trying to achieve; and the task of reasoning is to determine how that goal is to be accomplished. (This need not be means-end reasoning in the conventional sense; if, for example, our goal is the just resolution of a conflict, we must determine what constitutes justice in these particular circumstances. Here we are engaged in ethical inquiry, and are not asking a purely instrumental question.) But if practical reasoning is correct only if it begins from a correct premise, what is it that insures the correctness of its starting point?

Aristotle replies: “Virtue makes the goal right, practical wisdom the things leading to it” (1144a7–8). By this he cannot mean that there is no room for reasoning about our ultimate end. For as we have seen, he gives a reasoned defense of his conception of happiness as virtuous activity. What he must have in mind, when he says that virtue makes the goal right, is that deliberation typically proceeds from a goal that is far more specific than the goal of attaining happiness by acting virtuously. To be sure, there may be occasions when a good person approaches an ethical problem by beginning with the premise that happiness consists in virtuous activity. But more often what happens is that a concrete goal presents itself as his starting point—helping a friend in need, or supporting a worthwhile civic project. Which specific project we set for ourselves is determined by our character. A good person starts from worthwhile concrete ends because his habits and emotional orientation have given him the ability to recognize that such goals are within reach, here and now. Those who are defective in character may have the rational skill needed to achieve their ends—the skill Aristotle calls cleverness (1144a23–8)—but often the ends they seek are worthless. The cause of this deficiency lies not in some impairment in their capacity to reason—for we are assuming that they are normal in this respect—but in the training of their passions.

Since Aristotle often calls attention to the imprecision of ethical theory (see e.g. 1104a1–7), it comes as a surprise to many readers of the Ethics that he begins Book VI with the admission that his earlier statements about the mean need supplementation because they are not yet clear ( saphes ). In every practical discipline, the expert aims at a mark and uses right reason to avoid the twin extremes of excess and deficiency. But what is this right reason, and by what standard ( horos ) is it to be determined? Aristotle says that unless we answer that question, we will be none the wiser—just as a student of medicine will have failed to master his subject if he can only say that the right medicines to administer are the ones that are prescribed by medical expertise, but has no standard other than this (1138b18–34).

It is not easy to understand the point Aristotle is making here. Has he not already told us that there can be no complete theoretical guide to ethics, that the best one can hope for is that in particular situations one’s ethical habits and practical wisdom will help one determine what to do? Furthermore, Aristotle nowhere announces, in the remainder of Book VI, that we have achieved the greater degree of accuracy that he seems to be looking for. The rest of this Book is a discussion of the various kinds of intellectual virtues: theoretical wisdom, science ( epistêmê ), intuitive understanding ( nous ), practical wisdom, and craft expertise. Aristotle explains what each of these states of mind is, draws various contrasts among them, and takes up various questions that can be raised about their usefulness. At no point does he explicitly return to the question he raised at the beginning of Book VI; he never says, “and now we have the standard of right reason that we were looking for”. Nor is it easy to see how his discussion of these five intellectual virtues can bring greater precision to the doctrine of the mean.

We can make some progress towards solving this problem if we remind ourselves that at the beginning of the Ethics , Aristotle describes his inquiry as an attempt to develop a better understanding of what our ultimate aim should be. The sketchy answer he gives in Book I is that happiness consists in virtuous activity. In Books II through V, he describes the virtues of the part of the soul that is rational in that it can be attentive to reason, even though it is not capable of deliberating. But precisely because these virtues are rational only in this derivative way, they are a less important component of our ultimate end than is the intellectual virtue—practical wisdom—with which they are integrated. If what we know about virtue is only what is said in Books II through V, then our grasp of our ultimate end is radically incomplete, because we still have not studied the intellectual virtue that enables us to reason well in any given situation. One of the things, at least, towards which Aristotle is gesturing, as he begins Book VI, is practical wisdom. This state of mind has not yet been analyzed, and that is one reason why he complains that his account of our ultimate end is not yet clear enough.

But is practical wisdom the only ingredient of our ultimate end that has not yet been sufficiently discussed? Book VI discusses five intellectual virtues, not just practical wisdom, but it is clear that at least one of these—craft knowledge—is considered only in order to provide a contrast with the others. Aristotle is not recommending that his readers make this intellectual virtue part of their ultimate aim. But what of the remaining three: science, intuitive understanding, and the virtue that combines them, theoretical wisdom? Are these present in Book VI only in order to provide a contrast with practical wisdom, or is Aristotle saying that these too must be components of our goal? He does not fully address this issue, but it is evident from several of his remarks in Book VI that he takes theoretical wisdom to be a more valuable state of mind than practical wisdom.

It is strange if someone thinks that politics or practical wisdom is the most excellent kind of knowledge, unless man is the best thing in the cosmos. (1141a20–22)

He says that theoretical wisdom produces happiness by being a part of virtue (1144a3–6), and that practical wisdom looks to the development of theoretical wisdom, and issues commands for its sake (1145a8–11). So it is clear that exercising theoretical wisdom is a more important component of our ultimate goal than practical wisdom.

Even so, it may still seem perplexing that these two intellectual virtues, either separately or collectively, should somehow fill a gap in the doctrine of the mean. Having read Book VI and completed our study of what these two forms of wisdom are, how are we better able to succeed in finding the mean in particular situations?

The answer to this question may be that Aristotle does not intend Book VI to provide a full answer to that question, but rather to serve as a prolegomenon to an answer. For it is only near the end of Book X that he presents a full discussion of the relative merits of these two kinds of intellectual virtue, and comments on the different degrees to which each needs to be provided with resources. In X.7–8, he argues that the happiest kind of life is that of a philosopher—someone who exercises, over a long period of time, the virtue of theoretical wisdom, and has sufficient resources for doing so. (We will discuss these chapters more fully in section 10 below.) One of his reasons for thinking that such a life is superior to the second-best kind of life—that of a political leader, someone who devotes himself to the exercise of practical rather than theoretical wisdom—is that it requires less external equipment (1178a23–b7). Aristotle has already made it clear in his discussion of the ethical virtues that someone who is greatly honored by his community and commands large financial resources is in a position to exercise a higher order of ethical virtue than is someone who receives few honors and has little property. The virtue of magnificence is superior to mere liberality, and similarly greatness of soul is a higher excellence than the ordinary virtue that has to do with honor. (These qualities are discussed in IV.1–4.) The grandest expression of ethical virtue requires great political power, because it is the political leader who is in a position to do the greatest amount of good for the community. The person who chooses to lead a political life, and who aims at the fullest expression of practical wisdom, has a standard for deciding what level of resources he needs: he should have friends, property, and honors in sufficient quantities to allow his practical wisdom to express itself without impediment. But if one chooses instead the life of a philosopher, then one will look to a different standard—the fullest expression of theoretical wisdom—and one will need a smaller supply of these resources.

This enables us to see how Aristotle’s treatment of the intellectual virtues does give greater content and precision to the doctrine of the mean. The best standard is the one adopted by the philosopher; the second-best is the one adopted by the political leader. In either case, it is the exercise of an intellectual virtue that provides a guideline for making important quantitative decisions. This supplement to the doctrine of the mean is fully compatible with Aristotle’s thesis that no set of rules, no matter how long and detailed, obviates the need for deliberative and ethical virtue. If one chooses the life of a philosopher, one should keep the level of one’s resources high enough to secure the leisure necessary for such a life, but not so high that one’s external equipment becomes a burden and a distraction rather than an aid to living well. That gives one a firmer idea of how to hit the mean, but it still leaves the details to be worked out. The philosopher will need to determine, in particular situations, where justice lies, how to spend wisely, when to meet or avoid a danger, and so on. All of the normal difficulties of ethical life remain, and they can be solved only by means of a detailed understanding of the particulars of each situation. Having philosophy as one’s ultimate aim does not put an end to the need for developing and exercising practical wisdom and the ethical virtues.

In VII.1–10 Aristotle investigates character traits—continence and incontinence—that are not as blameworthy as the vices but not as praiseworthy as the virtues. (We began our discussion of these qualities in section 4.) The Greek terms are akrasia (“incontinence”; literally: “lack of mastery”) and enkrateia (“continence”; literally “mastery”). An akratic person goes against reason as a result of some pathos (“emotion”, “feeling”). Like the akratic, an enkratic person experiences a feeling that is contrary to reason; but unlike the akratic, he acts in accordance with reason. His defect consists solely in the fact that, more than most people, he experiences passions that conflict with his rational choice. The akratic person has not only this defect, but has the further flaw that he gives in to feeling rather than reason more often than the average person.

Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of akrasia: impetuosity ( propeteia ) and weakness ( astheneia ). The person who is weak goes through a process of deliberation and makes a choice; but rather than act in accordance with his reasoned choice, he acts under the influence of a passion. By contrast, the impetuous person does not go through a process of deliberation and does not make a reasoned choice; he simply acts under the influence of a passion. At the time of action, the impetuous person experiences no internal conflict. But once his act has been completed, he regrets what he has done. One could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something that post-dated rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes through after he acts comes too late to save him from error.

It is important to bear in mind that when Aristotle talks about impetuosity and weakness, he is discussing chronic conditions. The impetuous person is someone who acts emotionally and fails to deliberate not just once or twice but with some frequency; he makes this error more than most people do. Because of this pattern in his actions, we would be justified in saying of the impetuous person that had his passions not prevented him from doing so, he would have deliberated and chosen an action different from the one he did perform.

The two kinds of passions that Aristotle focuses on, in his treatment of akrasia , are the appetite for pleasure and anger. Either can lead to impetuosity and weakness. But Aristotle gives pride of place to the appetite for pleasure as the passion that undermines reason. He calls the kind of akrasia caused by an appetite for pleasure “unqualified akrasia ”—or, as we might say, akrasia “full stop”; akrasia caused by anger he considers a qualified form of akrasia and calls it akrasia “with respect to anger”. We thus have these four forms of akrasia : (A) impetuosity caused by pleasure, (B) impetuosity caused by anger, (C) weakness caused by pleasure (D) weakness caused by anger. It should be noticed that Aristotle’s treatment of akrasia is heavily influenced by Plato’s tripartite division of the soul in the Republic . Plato holds that either the spirited part (which houses anger, as well as other emotions) or the appetitive part (which houses the desire for physical pleasures) can disrupt the dictates of reason and result in action contrary to reason. The same threefold division of the soul can be seen in Aristotle’s approach to this topic.

Although Aristotle characterizes akrasia and enkrateia in terms of a conflict between reason and feeling, his detailed analysis of these states of mind shows that what takes place is best described in a more complicated way. For the feeling that undermines reason contains some thought, which may be implicitly general. As Aristotle says, anger “reasoning as it were that one must fight against such a thing, is immediately provoked” (1149a33–4). And although in the next sentence he denies that our appetite for pleasure works in this way, he earlier had said that there can be a syllogism that favors pursuing enjoyment: “Everything sweet is pleasant, and this is sweet” leads to the pursuit of a particular pleasure (1147a31–30). Perhaps what he has in mind is that pleasure can operate in either way: it can prompt action unmediated by a general premise, or it can prompt us to act on such a syllogism. By contrast, anger always moves us by presenting itself as a bit of general, although hasty, reasoning.

But of course Aristotle does not mean that a conflicted person has more than one faculty of reason. Rather his idea seems to be that in addition to our full-fledged reasoning capacity, we also have psychological mechanisms that are capable of a limited range of reasoning. When feeling conflicts with reason, what occurs is better described as a fight between feeling-allied-with-limited-reasoning and full-fledged reason. Part of us—reason—can remove itself from the distorting influence of feeling and consider all relevant factors, positive and negative. But another part of us—feeling or emotion—has a more limited field of reasoning—and sometimes it does not even make use of it.

Although “passion” is sometimes used as a translation of Aristotle’s word pathos (other alternatives are “emotion” and “feeling”), it is important to bear in mind that his term does not necessarily designate a strong psychological force. Anger is a pathos whether it is weak or strong; so too is the appetite for bodily pleasures. And he clearly indicates that it is possible for an akratic person to be defeated by a weak pathos —the kind that most people would easily be able to control (1150a9–b16). So the general explanation for the occurrence of akrasia cannot be that the strength of a passion overwhelms reason. Aristotle should therefore be acquitted of an accusation made against him by J.L. Austin in a well-known footnote to his paper, “A Plea For Excuses”. Plato and Aristotle, he says, collapsed all succumbing to temptation into losing control of ourselves—a mistake illustrated by this example:

I am very partial to ice cream, and a bombe is served divided into segments corresponding one to one with the persons at High Table: I am tempted to help myself to two segments and do so, thus succumbing to temptation and even conceivably (but why necessarily?) going against my principles. But do I lose control of myself? Do I raven, do I snatch the morsels from the dish and wolf them down, impervious to the consternation of my colleagues? Not a bit of it. We often succumb to temptation with calm and even with finesse. (1957: 24, fn 13 [1961: 146])

With this, Aristotle can agree: the pathos for the bombe can be a weak one, and in some people that will be enough to get them to act in a way that is disapproved by their reason at the very time of action.

What is most remarkable about Aristotle’s discussion of akrasia is that he defends a position close to that of Socrates. When he first introduces the topic of akrasia , and surveys some of the problems involved in understanding this phenomenon, he says (1145b25–8) that Socrates held that there is no akrasia , and he describes this as a thesis that clearly conflicts with the appearances ( phainomena ). Since he says that his goal is to preserve as many of the appearances as possible (1145b2–7), it may come as a surprise that when he analyzes the conflict between reason and feeling, he arrives at the conclusion that in a way Socrates was right after all (1147b13–17). For, he says, the person who acts against reason does not have what is thought to be unqualified knowledge; in a way he has knowledge, but in a way does not.

Aristotle explains what he has in mind by comparing akrasia to the condition of other people who might be described as knowing in a way, but not in an unqualified way. His examples are people who are asleep, mad, or drunk; he also compares the akratic to a student who has just begun to learn a subject, or an actor on the stage (1147a10–24). All of these people, he says, can utter the very words used by those who have knowledge; but their talk does not prove that they really have knowledge, strictly speaking.

These analogies can be taken to mean that the form of akrasia that Aristotle calls weakness rather than impetuosity always results from some diminution of cognitive or intellectual acuity at the moment of action. The akratic says, at the time of action, that he ought not to indulge in this particular pleasure at this time. But does he know or even believe that he should refrain? Aristotle might be taken to reply: yes and no. He has some degree of recognition that he must not do this now, but not full recognition. His feeling, even if it is weak, has to some degree prevented him from completely grasping or affirming the point that he should not do this. And so in a way Socrates was right. When reason remains unimpaired and unclouded, its dictates will carry us all the way to action, so long as we are able to act.

But Aristotle’s agreement with Socrates is only partial, because he insists on the power of the emotions to rival, weaken or bypass reason. Emotion challenges reason in all three of these ways. In both the akratic and the enkratic, it competes with reason for control over action; even when reason wins, it faces the difficult task of having to struggle with an internal rival. Second, in the akratic, it temporarily robs reason of its full acuity, thus handicapping it as a competitor. It is not merely a rival force, in these cases; it is a force that keeps reason from fully exercising its power. And third, passion can make someone impetuous; here its victory over reason is so powerful that the latter does not even enter into the arena of conscious reflection until it is too late to influence action.

Supplementary Document: Alternate Readings of Aristotle on Akrasia

Aristotle frequently emphasizes the importance of pleasure to human life and therefore to his study of how we should live (see for example 1099a7–20 and 1104b3–1105a16), but his full-scale examination of the nature and value of pleasure is found in two places: VII.11–14 and X.1–5. It is odd that pleasure receives two lengthy treatments; no other topic in the Ethics is revisited in this way. Book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics is identical to Book VI of the Eudemian Ethics ; for unknown reasons, the editor of the former decided to include within it both the treatment of pleasure that is unique to that work (X.1–5) and the study that is common to both treatises (VII.11–14). The two accounts are broadly similar. They agree about the value of pleasure, defend a theory about its nature, and oppose competing theories. Aristotle holds that a happy life must include pleasure, and he therefore opposes those who argue that pleasure is by its nature bad. He insists that there are other pleasures besides those of the senses, and that the best pleasures are the ones experienced by virtuous people who have sufficient resources for excellent activity.

Book VII offers a brief account of what pleasure is and is not. It is not a process but an unimpeded activity of a natural state (1153a7–17). Aristotle does not elaborate on what a natural state is, but he obviously has in mind the healthy condition of the body, especially its sense faculties, and the virtuous condition of the soul. Little is said about what it is for an activity to be unimpeded, but Aristotle does remind us that virtuous activity is impeded by the absence of a sufficient supply of external goods (1153b17–19). One might object that people who are sick or who have moral deficiencies can experience pleasure, even though Aristotle does not take them to be in a natural state. He has two strategies for responding. First, when a sick person experiences some degree of pleasure as he is being restored to health, the pleasure he is feeling is caused by the fact that he is no longer completely ill. Some small part of him is in a natural state and is acting without impediment (1152b35–6). Second, Aristotle is willing to say that what seems pleasant to some people may in fact not be pleasant (1152b31–2), just as what tastes bitter to an unhealthy palate may not be bitter. To call something a pleasure is not only to report a state of mind but also to endorse it to others. Aristotle’s analysis of the nature of pleasure is not meant to apply to every case in which something seems pleasant to someone, but only to activities that really are pleasures. All of these are unimpeded activities of a natural state.

It follows from this conception of pleasure that every instance of pleasure must be good to some extent. For how could an unimpeded activity of a natural state be bad or a matter of indifference? On the other hand, Aristotle does not mean to imply that every pleasure should be chosen. He briefly mentions the point that pleasures compete with each other, so that the enjoyment of one kind of activity impedes other activities that cannot be carried out at the same time (1153a20–22). His point is simply that although some pleasures may be good, they are not worth choosing when they interfere with other activities that are far better. This point is developed more fully in Ethics X.5.

Furthermore, Aristotle’s analysis allows him to speak of certain pleasures as “bad without qualification” (1152b26–33), even though pleasure is the unimpeded activity of a natural state. To call a pleasure “bad without qualification” is to insist that it should be avoided, but allow that nonetheless it should be chosen in constraining circumstances. The pleasure of recovering from an illness, for example, is bad without qualification—meaning that it is not one of the pleasures one would ideally choose, if one could completely control one’s circumstances. Although it really is a pleasure and so something can be said in its favor, it is so inferior to other goods that ideally one ought to forego it. Nonetheless, it is a pleasure worth having—if one adds the qualification that it is only worth having in undesirable circumstances. The pleasure of recovering from an illness is good, because some small part of oneself is in a natural state and is acting without impediment; but it can also be called bad, if what one means by this is that one should avoid getting into a situation in which one experiences that pleasure.

Aristotle indicates several times in VII.11–14 that merely to say that pleasure is a good does not do it enough justice; he also wants to say that the highest good is a pleasure. Here he is influenced by an idea expressed in the opening line of the Ethics : the good is that at which all things aim. In VII.13, he hints at the idea that all living things imitate the contemplative activity of god (1153b31–2). Plants and non-human animals seek to reproduce themselves because that is their way of participating in an unending series, and this is the closest they can come to the ceaseless thinking of the unmoved mover. Aristotle makes this point in several of his works (see for example De Anima 415a23–b7), and in Ethics X.7–8 he gives a full defense of the idea that the happiest human life resembles the life of a divine being. He conceives of god as a being who continually enjoys a “single and simple pleasure” (1154b26)—the pleasure of pure thought—whereas human beings, because of their complexity, grow weary of whatever they do. He will elaborate on these points in X.8; in VII.11–14, he appeals to his conception of divine activity only in order to defend the thesis that our highest good consists in a certain kind of pleasure. Human happiness does not consist in every kind of pleasure, but it does consist in one kind of pleasure—the pleasure felt by a human being who engages in theoretical activity and thereby imitates the pleasurable thinking of god.

Book X offers a much more elaborate account of what pleasure is and what it is not. It is not a process, because processes go through developmental stages: building a temple is a process because the temple is not present all at once, but only comes into being through stages that unfold over time. By contrast, pleasure, like seeing and many other activities, is not something that comes into existence through a developmental process. If I am enjoying a conversation, for example, I do not need to wait until it is finished in order to feel pleased; I take pleasure in the activity all along the way. The defining nature of pleasure is that it is an activity that accompanies other activities, and in some sense brings them to completion. Pleasure occurs when something within us, having been brought into good condition, is activated in relation to an external object that is also in good condition. The pleasure of drawing, for example, requires both the development of drawing ability and an object of attention that is worth drawing.

The conception of pleasure that Aristotle develops in Book X is obviously closely related to the analysis he gives in Book VII. But the theory proposed in the later Book brings out a point that had received too little attention earlier: pleasure is by its nature something that accompanies something else. It is not enough to say that it is what happens when we are in good condition and are active in unimpeded circumstances; one must add to that point the further idea that pleasure plays a certain role in complementing something other than itself. Drawing well and the pleasure of drawing well always occur together, and so they are easy to confuse, but Aristotle’s analysis in Book X emphasizes the importance of making this distinction.

He says that pleasure completes the activity that it accompanies, but then adds, mysteriously, that it completes the activity in the manner of an end that is added on. In the translation of W.D. Ross, it “supervenes as the bloom of youth does on those in the flower of their age” (1174b33). It is unclear what thought is being expressed here, but perhaps Aristotle is merely trying to avoid a possible misunderstanding: when he says that pleasure completes an activity, he does not mean that the activity it accompanies is in some way defective, and that the pleasure improves the activity by removing this defect. Aristotle’s language is open to that misinterpretation because the verb that is translated “complete” ( teleein ) can also mean “perfect”. The latter might be taken to mean that the activity accompanied by pleasure has not yet reached a sufficiently high level of excellence, and that the role of pleasure is to bring it to the point of perfection. Aristotle does not deny that when we take pleasure in an activity we get better at it, but when he says that pleasure completes an activity by supervening on it, like the bloom that accompanies those who have achieved the highest point of physical beauty, his point is that the activity complemented by pleasure is already perfect, and the pleasure that accompanies it is a bonus that serves no further purpose. Taking pleasure in an activity does help us improve at it, but enjoyment does not cease when perfection is achieved—on the contrary, that is when pleasure is at its peak. That is when it reveals most fully what it is: an added bonus that crowns our achievement.

It is clear, at any rate, that in Book X Aristotle gives a fuller account of what pleasure is than he had in Book VII. We should take note of a further difference between these two discussions: In Book X, he makes the point that pleasure is a good but not the good. He cites and endorses an argument given by Plato in the Philebus : If we imagine a life filled with pleasure and then mentally add wisdom to it, the result is made more desirable. But the good is something that cannot be improved upon in this way. Therefore pleasure is not the good (1172b23–35). By contrast, in Book VII Aristotle strongly implies that the pleasure of contemplation is the good, because in one way or another all living beings aim at this sort of pleasure. Aristotle observes in Book X that what all things aim at is good (1172b35–1173a1); significantly, he falls short of endorsing the argument that since all aim at pleasure, it must be the good.

Book VII makes the point that pleasures interfere with each other, and so even if all kinds of pleasures are good, it does not follow that all of them are worth choosing. One must make a selection among pleasures by determining which are better. But how is one to make this choice? Book VII does not say, but in Book X, Aristotle holds that the selection of pleasures is not to be made with reference to pleasure itself, but with reference to the activities they accompany.

Since activities differ with respect to goodness and badness, some being worth choosing, others worth avoiding, and others neither, the same is true of pleasures as well. (1175b24–6)

Aristotle’s statement implies that in order to determine whether (for example) the pleasure of virtuous activity is more desirable than that of eating, we are not to attend to the pleasures themselves but to the activities with which we are pleased. A pleasure’s goodness derives from the goodness of its associated activity. And surely the reason why pleasure is not the criterion to which we should look in making these decisions is that it is not the good. The standard we should use in making comparisons between rival options is virtuous activity, because that has been shown to be identical to happiness.

That is why Aristotle says that what is judged pleasant by a good man really is pleasant, because the good man is the measure of things (1176a15–19). He does not mean that the way to lead our lives is to search for a good man and continually rely on him to tell us what is pleasurable. Rather, his point is that there is no way of telling what is genuinely pleasurable (and therefore what is most pleasurable) unless we already have some other standard of value. Aristotle’s discussion of pleasure thus helps confirm his initial hypothesis that to live our lives well we must focus on one sort of good above all others: virtuous activity. It is the good in terms of which all other goods must be understood. Aristotle’s analysis of friendship supports the same conclusion.

The topic of Books VIII and IX of the Ethics is friendship. Although it is difficult to avoid the term “friendship” as a translation of “ philia ”, and this is an accurate term for the kind of relationship he is most interested in, we should bear in mind that he is discussing a wider range of phenomena than this translation might lead us to expect, for the Greeks use the term, “ philia ”, to name the relationship that holds among family members, and do not reserve it for voluntary relationships. Although Aristotle is interested in classifying the different forms that friendship takes, his main theme in Books VIII and IX is to show the close relationship between virtuous activity and friendship. He is vindicating his conception of happiness as virtuous activity by showing how satisfying are the relationships that a virtuous person can normally expect to have.

His taxonomy begins with the premise that there are three main reasons why one person might like someone else. (The verb, “ philein ”, which is cognate to the noun “ philia ”, can sometimes be translated “like” or even “love”—though in other cases philia involves very little in the way of feeling.) One might like someone because he is good, or because he is useful, or because he is pleasant. And so there are three bases for friendships, depending on which of these qualities binds friends together. When two individuals recognize that the other person is someone of good character, and they spend time with each other, engaged in activities that exercise their virtues, then they form one kind of friendship. If they are equally virtuous, their friendship is perfect. If, however, there is a large gap in their moral development (as between a parent and a small child, or between a husband and a wife), then although their relationship may be based on the other person’s good character, it will be imperfect precisely because of their inequality.

The imperfect friendships that Aristotle focuses on, however, are not unequal relationships based on good character. Rather, they are relationships held together because each individual regards the other as the source of some advantage to himself or some pleasure he receives. When Aristotle calls these relationships “imperfect”, he is tacitly relying on widely accepted assumptions about what makes a relationship satisfying. These friendships are defective, and have a smaller claim to be called “friendships”, because the individuals involved have little trust in each other, quarrel frequently, and are ready to break off their association abruptly. Aristotle does not mean to suggest that unequal relations based on the mutual recognition of good character are defective in these same ways. Rather, when he says that unequal relationships based on character are imperfect, his point is that people are friends in the fullest sense when they gladly spend their days together in shared activities, and this close and constant interaction is less available to those who are not equal in their moral development.

When Aristotle begins his discussion of friendship, he introduces a notion that is central to his understanding of this phenomenon: a genuine friend is someone who loves or likes another person for the sake of that other person. Wanting what is good for the sake of another he calls “good will” ( eunoia ), and friendship is reciprocal good will, provided that each recognizes the presence of this attitude in the other. Does such good will exist in all three kinds of friendship, or is it confined to relationships based on virtue? At first, Aristotle leaves open the first of these two possibilities. He says:

it is necessary that friends bear good will to each other and wish good things for each other, without this escaping their notice, because of one of the reasons mentioned. (1156a4–5)

The reasons mentioned are goodness, pleasure, and advantage; and so it seems that Aristotle is leaving room for the idea that in all three kinds of friendships, even those based on advantage and pleasure alone, the individuals wish each other well for the sake of the other.

But in fact, as Aristotle continues to develop his taxonomy, he does not choose to exploit this possibility. He speaks as though it is only in friendships based on character that one finds a desire to benefit the other person for the sake of the other person.

Those who wish good things to their friends for the sake of the latter are friends most of all, because they do so because of their friends themselves, and not coincidentally. (1156b9–11)

When one benefits someone not because of the kind of person he is, but only because of the advantages to oneself, then, Aristotle says, one is not a friend towards the other person, but only towards the profit that comes one’s way (1157a15–16).

In such statements as these, Aristotle comes rather close to saying that relationships based on profit or pleasure should not be called friendships at all. But he decides to stay close to common parlance and to use the term “friend” loosely. Friendships based on character are the ones in which each person benefits the other for the sake of other; and these are friendships most of all. Because each party benefits the other, it is advantageous to form such friendships. And since each enjoys the trust and companionship of the other, there is considerable pleasure in these relationships as well. Because these perfect friendships produce advantages and pleasures for each of the parties, there is some basis for going along with common usage and calling any relationship entered into for the sake of just one of these goods a friendship. Friendships based on advantage alone or pleasure alone deserve to be called friendships because in full-fledged friendships these two properties, advantage and pleasure, are present. It is striking that in the Ethics Aristotle never thinks of saying that the uniting factor in all friendships is the desire each friend has for the good of the other.

Aristotle does not raise questions about what it is to desire good for the sake of another person. He treats this as an easily understood phenomenon, and has no doubts about its existence. But it is also clear that he takes this motive to be compatible with a love of one’s own good and a desire for one’s own happiness. Someone who has practical wisdom will recognize that he needs friends and other resources in order to exercise his virtues over a long period of time. When he makes friends, and benefits friends he has made, he will be aware of the fact that such a relationship is good for him. And yet to have a friend is to want to benefit someone for that other person’s sake; it is not a merely self-interested strategy. Aristotle sees no difficulty here, and rightly so. For there is no reason why acts of friendship should not be undertaken partly for the good of one’s friend and partly for one’s own good. Acting for the sake of another does not in itself demand self-sacrifice. It requires caring about someone other than oneself, but does not demand some loss of care for oneself. For when we know how to benefit a friend for his sake, we exercise the ethical virtues, and this is precisely what our happiness consists in.

Aristotle makes it clear that the number of people with whom one can sustain the kind of relationship he calls a perfect friendship is quite small (IX.10). Even if one lived in a city populated entirely by perfectly virtuous citizens, the number with whom one could carry on a friendship of the perfect type would be at most a handful. For he thinks that this kind of friendship can exist only when one spends a great deal of time with the other person, participating in joint activities and engaging in mutually beneficial behavior; and one cannot cooperate on these close terms with every member of the political community. One may well ask why this kind of close friendship is necessary for happiness. If one lived in a community filled with good people, and cooperated on an occasional basis with each of them, in a spirit of good will and admiration, would that not provide sufficient scope for virtuous activity and a well-lived life? Admittedly, close friends are often in a better position to benefit each other than are fellow citizens, who generally have little knowledge of one’s individual circumstances. But this only shows that it is advantageous to be on the receiving end of a friend’s help. The more important question for Aristotle is why one needs to be on the giving end of this relationship. And obviously the answer cannot be that one needs to give in order to receive; that would turn active love for one’s friend into a mere means to the benefits received.

Aristotle attempts to answer this question in IX.11, but his treatment is disappointing. His fullest argument depends crucially on the notion that a friend is “another self”, someone, in other words, with whom one has a relationship very similar to the relationship one has with oneself. A virtuous person loves the recognition of himself as virtuous; to have a close friend is to possess yet another person, besides oneself, whose virtue one can recognize at extremely close quarters; and so, it must be desirable to have someone very much like oneself whose virtuous activity one can perceive. The argument is unconvincing because it does not explain why the perception of virtuous activity in fellow citizens would not be an adequate substitute for the perception of virtue in one’s friends.

Aristotle would be on stronger grounds if he could show that in the absence of close friends one would be severely restricted in the kinds of virtuous activities one could undertake. But he cannot present such an argument, because he does not believe it. He says that it is “finer and more godlike” to bring about the well being of a whole city than to sustain the happiness of just one person (1094b7–10). He refuses to regard private life—the realm of the household and the small circle of one’s friends—as the best or most favorable location for the exercise of virtue. He is convinced that the loss of this private sphere would greatly detract from a well-lived life, but he is hard put to explain why. He might have done better to focus on the benefits of being the object of a close friend’s solicitude. Just as property is ill cared for when it is owned by all, and just as a child would be poorly nurtured were he to receive no special parental care—points Aristotle makes in Politics II.2–5—so in the absence of friendship we would lose a benefit that could not be replaced by the care of the larger community. But Aristotle is not looking for a defense of this sort, because he conceives of friendship as lying primarily in activity rather than receptivity. It is difficult, within his framework, to show that virtuous activity towards a friend is a uniquely important good.

Since Aristotle thinks that the pursuit of one’s own happiness, properly understood, requires ethically virtuous activity and will therefore be of great value not only to one’s friends but to the larger political community as well, he argues that self-love is an entirely proper emotion—provided it is expressed in the love of virtue (IX.8). Self-love is rightly condemned when it consists in the pursuit of as large a share of external goods—particularly wealth and power—as one can acquire, because such self-love inevitably brings one into conflict with others and undermines the stability of the political community. It may be tempting to cast Aristotle’s defense of self-love into modern terms by calling him an egoist, and “egoism” is a broad enough term so that, properly defined, it can be made to fit Aristotle’s ethical outlook. If egoism is the thesis that one will always act rightly if one consults one’s self-interest, properly understood, then nothing would be amiss in identifying him as an egoist.

But egoism is sometimes understood in a stronger sense. Just as consequentialism is the thesis that one should maximize the general good, whatever the good turns out to be, so egoism can be defined as the parallel thesis that one should maximize one’s own good, whatever the good turns out to be. Egoism, in other words, can be treated as a purely formal thesis: it holds that whether the good is pleasure, or virtue, or the satisfaction of desires, one should not attempt to maximize the total amount of good in the world, but only one’s own. When egoism takes this abstract form, it is an expression of the idea that the claims of others are never worth attending to, unless in some way or other their good can be shown to serve one’s own. The only underived reason for action is self-interest; that an act helps another does not by itself provide a reason for performing it, unless some connection can be made between the good of that other and one’s own.

There is no reason to attribute this extreme form of egoism to Aristotle. On the contrary, his defense of self-love makes it clear that he is not willing to defend the bare idea that one ought to love oneself alone or above others; he defends self-love only when this emotion is tied to the correct theory of where one’s good lies, for it is only in this way that he can show that self-love need not be a destructive passion. He takes it for granted that self-love is properly condemned whenever it can be shown to be harmful to the community. It is praiseworthy only if it can be shown that a self-lover will be an admirable citizen. In making this assumption, Aristotle reveals that he thinks that the claims of other members of the community to proper treatment are intrinsically valid. This is precisely what a strong form of egoism cannot accept.

We should also keep in mind Aristotle’s statement in the Politics that the political community is prior to the individual citizen—just as the whole body is prior to any of its parts (1253a18–29). Aristotle makes use of this claim when he proposes that in the ideal community each child should receive the same education, and that the responsibility for providing such an education should be taken out of the hands of private individuals and made a matter of common concern (1337a21–7). No citizen, he says, belongs to himself; all belong to the city (1337a28–9). What he means is that when it comes to such matters as education, which affect the good of all, each individual should be guided by the collective decisions of the whole community. An individual citizen does not belong to himself, in the sense that it is not up to him alone to determine how he should act; he should subordinate his individual decision-making powers to those of the whole. The strong form of egoism we have been discussing cannot accept Aristotle’s doctrine of the priority of the city to the individual. It tells the individual that the good of others has, in itself, no valid claim on him, but that he should serve other members of the community only to the extent that he can connect their interests to his own. Such a doctrine leaves no room for the thought that the individual citizen does not belong to himself but to the whole.

In Book I Aristotle says that three kinds of lives are thought to be especially attractive: one is devoted to pleasure, a second to politics, and a third to knowledge and understanding (1095b17–19). In X.6–9 he returns to these three alternatives, and explores them more fully than he had in Book I. The life of pleasure is construed in Book I as a life devoted to physical pleasure, and is quickly dismissed because of its vulgarity. In X.6, Aristotle concedes that physical pleasures, and more generally, amusements of all sorts, are desirable in themselves, and therefore have some claim to be our ultimate end. But his discussion of happiness in Book X does not start from scratch; he builds on his thesis that pleasure cannot be our ultimate target, because what counts as pleasant must be judged by some standard other than pleasure itself, namely the judgment of the virtuous person. Amusements will not be absent from a happy life, since everyone needs relaxation, and amusements fill this need. But they play a subordinate role, because we seek relaxation in order to return to more important activities.

Aristotle turns therefore, in X.7–8, to the two remaining alternatives—politics and philosophy—and presents a series of arguments to show that the philosophical life, a life devoted to theoria (contemplation, study), is best. Theoria is not the process of learning that leads to understanding; that process is not a candidate for our ultimate end, because it is undertaken for the sake of a further goal. What Aristotle has in mind when he talks about theoria is the activity of someone who has already achieved theoretical wisdom. The happiest life is lived by someone who has a full understanding of the basic causal principles that govern the operation of the universe, and who has the resources needed for living a life devoted to the exercise of that understanding. Evidently Aristotle believes that his own life and that of his philosophical friends was the best available to a human being. He compares it to the life of a god: god thinks without interruption and endlessly, and a philosopher enjoys something similar for a limited period of time.

It may seem odd that after devoting so much attention to the practical virtues, Aristotle should conclude his treatise with the thesis that the best activity of the best life is not ethical. In fact, some scholars have held that X.7–8 are deeply at odds with the rest of the Ethics ; they take Aristotle to be saying that we should be prepared to act unethically, if need be, in order to devote ourselves as much as possible to contemplation. But it is difficult to believe that he intends to reverse himself so abruptly, and there are many indications that he intends the arguments of X.7–8 to be continuous with the themes he emphasizes throughout the rest of the Ethics . The best way to understand him is to take him to be assuming that one will need the ethical virtues in order to live the life of a philosopher, even though exercising those virtues is not the philosopher’s ultimate end. To be adequately equipped to live a life of thought and discussion, one will need practical wisdom, temperance, justice, and the other ethical virtues. To say that there is something better even than ethical activity, and that ethical activity promotes this higher goal, is entirely compatible with everything else that we find in the Ethics .

Although Aristotle’s principal goal in X.7–8 is to show the superiority of philosophy to politics, he does not deny that a political life is happy. Perfect happiness, he says, consists in contemplation; but he indicates that the life devoted to practical thought and ethical virtue is happy in a secondary way. He thinks of this second-best life as that of a political leader, because he assumes that the person who most fully exercises such qualities as justice and greatness of soul is the man who has the large resources needed to promote the common good of the city. The political life has a major defect, despite the fact that it consists in fully exercising the ethical virtues, because it is a life devoid of philosophical understanding and activity. Were someone to combine both careers, practicing politics at certain times and engaged in philosophical discussion at other times (as Plato’s philosopher-kings do), he would lead a life better than that of Aristotle’s politician, but worse than that of Aristotle’s philosopher.

But his complaint about the political life is not simply that it is devoid of philosophical activity. The points he makes against it reveal drawbacks inherent in ethical and political activity. Perhaps the most telling of these defects is that the life of the political leader is in a certain sense unleisurely (1177b4–15). What Aristotle has in mind when he makes this complaint is that ethical activities are remedial: they are needed when something has gone wrong, or threatens to do so. Courage, for example, is exercised in war, and war remedies an evil; it is not something we should wish for. Aristotle implies that all other political activities have the same feature, although perhaps to a smaller degree. Corrective justice would provide him with further evidence for his thesis—but what of justice in the distribution of goods? Perhaps Aristotle would reply that in existing political communities a virtuous person must accommodate himself to the least bad method of distribution, because, human nature being what it is, a certain amount of injustice must be tolerated. As the courageous person cannot be completely satisfied with his courageous action, no matter how much self-mastery it shows, because he is a peace-lover and not a killer, so the just person living in the real world must experience some degree of dissatisfaction with his attempts to give each person his due. The pleasures of exercising the ethical virtues are, in normal circumstances, mixed with pain. Unalloyed pleasure is available to us only when we remove ourselves from the all-too-human world and contemplate the rational order of the cosmos. No human life can consist solely in these pure pleasures; and in certain circumstances one may owe it to one’s community to forego a philosophical life and devote oneself to the good of the city. But the paradigms of human happiness are those people who are lucky enough to devote much of their time to the study of a world more orderly than the human world we inhabit.

Although Aristotle argues for the superiority of the philosophical life in X.7–8, he says in X.9, the final chapter of the Ethics , that his project is not yet complete, because we can make human beings virtuous, or good even to some small degree, only if we undertake a study of the art of legislation. The final section of the Ethics is therefore intended as a prolegomenon to Aristotle’s political writings. We must investigate the kinds of political systems exhibited by existing Greek cities, the forces that destroy or preserve cities, and the best sort of political order. Although the study of virtue Aristotle has just completed is meant to be helpful to all human beings who have been brought up well—even those who have no intention of pursuing a political career—it is also designed to serve a larger purpose. Human beings cannot achieve happiness, or even something that approximates happiness, unless they live in communities that foster good habits and provide the basic equipment of a well-lived life.

The study of the human good has therefore led to two conclusions: The best life is not to be found in the practice of politics. But the well being of whole communities depends on the willingness of some to lead a second-best life—a life devoted to the study and practice of the art of politics, and to the expression of those qualities of thought and passion that exhibit our rational self-mastery.

• appearances: phainomena
• beautiful: kalon
• clear: saphes
• complete (verb, also: to perfect): telein
• condition: hexis
• continence (literally: mastery): enkrateia
• continent: enkratês
• disposition: hexis
• emotion: pathos
• evil: kakos , phaulos
• excellence: aretê
• feeling: pathos
• fine: kalon
• flourishing: eudaimonia
• friendship: philia ; philein (the verb cognate to the noun “ philia ”, can sometimes be translated “like” or even “love”)
• function: ergon
• good will: eunoia
• happiness: eudaimonia
• happy: eudaimon
• impetuosity: propeteia
• incontinence (literally: lack of mastery): akrasia
• incontinent: akratês
• intuitive understanding: nous
• live well: eu zên
• practical wisdom: phronêsis
• science: epistêmê
• standard: horos
• state: hexis
• task: ergon
• virtue: aretê
• weakness: astheneia
• work: ergon

Further Reading

Broadie 1991; Bostock 2000; Burger 2008; Gauthier & Jolif 1958–59; Hall 2019; Hardie 1980; Pakaluk 2005; Price 2011; Reeve 2012a; Urmson 1987.

Anton & Preus (eds.) 1991; Barnes, Schofield, & Sorabji (eds.) 1977; Bartlett & Collins (eds.) 1999; Engstrom & Whiting (eds.) 1996; Heinaman (ed.) 1995; Kraut (ed.) 2006b; Miller (ed.) 2011; Natali (ed.) 2009; Pakaluk & Pearson (eds.) 2010; Polansky (ed.) 2014; Roche (ed.) 1988c; Rorty (ed.) 1980; Sherman (ed.) 1999; Sim (ed.) 1995.

C. Studies of Particular Topics

Kenny 1978, 1979, 1992; Rowe 1971.

Barnes 1980; Berryman 2019; J.M. Cooper 1999 (ch. 12); Frede 2012; Heinaman (ed.) 1995; Irwin 1988b; Karbowski 2014b, 2015a, 2015b, 2019; Kontos 2011; Kraut 1998; McDowell 1995; Nussbaum 1985, 1986 (chs 8–9); Reeve 1992 (ch. 1), 2012b; Roche 1988b, 1992; Scott 2015; Segvic 2002; Shields 2012a; Zingano 2007b.

Annas 1993 (ch. 18); Barney 2008; Broadie 2005, 2007a; Charles 1999; Clark 1975 (14–27, 145–63); J.M. Cooper 1986 (chs 1, 3), 1999 (chs 9, 13); Curzer 1991; Gadamer 1986; Gerson 2004; Gomez-Lobo 1989; Heinaman 2002, 2007; Irwin 2012; Keyt 1978; Korsgaard 1986a, 1986b; Kraut 1979a, 1979b, 1989, 2002 (ch. 3); Lawrence 1993, 1997, 2001; G.R. Lear 2000; J. Lear 2000; MacDonald 1989; Natali 2010; Nussbaum 1986 (chs 11, 12); Purinton 1998; Reeve 1992 (chs 3, 4); Roche 1988a; Santas 2001 (chs 6–7); Scott 1999, 2000; Segvic 2004; Suits 1974; Van Cleemput 2006; Wedin 1981; N. White 2002, 2006; S. White 1992; Whiting 1986, 1988; Wielenberg 2004; Williams 1985 (ch. 3).

Brickhouse 2003; Brown 1997; Brunschwig 1996; Clark 1975 (84–97); N. Cooper 1989; Curzer 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2012; Di Muzio 2000; Gardiner 2001; Gottlieb 1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 2009; Halper 1999; Hardie 1978; Hursthouse 1988; Hutchinson 1986; Irwin 1988a; Jimenez 2020; Kraut 2002 (ch. 4), 2012, 2013; Leunissen 2012, 2013, 2017; Lorenz 2009; McKerlie 2001; Pakaluk 2004; Pearson 2006, 2007; Peterson 1988; Russell 2012a; Santas 2001 (ch. 8); Scaltsas 1995; Schütrumpf 1989; Sherman 1989, 1997; Sim 2007; Taylor 2004; Telfer 1989–90; Tuozzo 1995; Whiting 1996; Young 1988; Yu 2007.

Broadie 1998; Charles 1984, 2007; Coope 2012; J. Cooper 1986 (ch. 1), 1999 (chs 10, 11, 19); Dahl 1984; Destrée 2007; Engberg-Pedersen 1983; Fortenbaugh 1975; Gottlieb, 2021; Gröngross 2007; Hursthouse 1984; Kontos 2018; Kontos 2021; Kraut 2006a; Lorenz 2006; McDowell 1996a, 1996b, 1998; McKerlie 1998; Meyer 1993; Milo 1966; Moss 2011, 2012; Natali (ed.) 2009; Nussbaum 1986 (ch. 10); Olfert 2017; Pakaluk & Pearson (eds.) 2010; Pickavé & Whiting 2008; Politis 1998; Reeve 1992 (ch. 2), 2013; Segvic 2009a; Sherman 2000; Taylor 2003b; Walsh 1963; Zingano 2007a.

Gosling &Taylor 1982 (chs 11–17); Gottlieb 1993; Natali (ed.) 2009; Owen 1971; Pearson 2012; Rorty 1974; Taylor 2003a, 2003b; Urmson 1967; Warren 2009; Wolfsdorf 2013 (ch. 6).

Annas 1977, 1993 (ch. 12); Brewer 2005; J.M. Cooper 1999 (chs 14, 15); Hitz 2011; Kahn 1981; Milgram 1987; Nehamas 2010; Pakaluk 1998; Pangle 2003; Price 1989 (chs 4–7); Rogers 1994; Schollmeier 1994; Sherman 1987; Stern-Gillet 1995; Walker 2014; Whiting 1991.

Freeland 1998; Karbowski 2014a; Modrak 1994; Ward (ed.) 1996.

Bielskis 2020; Broadie 2006; Chappell (ed.) 2006; Garver 2006; Gill (ed.) 2005; Kraut 2018; LeBar 2013; MacIntyre 1999; Peters 2014; Russell 2012b; Stohr 2003, 2009; Wiggins 2009.

Lockwood 2005.

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• Athenian Constitution , ed. Kenyon. (Greek)
• Athenian Constitution , ed. H. Rackham. (English)
• Economics , (Greek)
• Economics , (English)
• Eudemian Ethics , (Greek)
• Eudemian Ethics , (English)
• Metaphysics , (Greek)
• Metaphysics , (English)
• Nicomachean Ethics , ed. J. Bywater. (Greek)
• Nicomachean Ethics , ed. H. Rackham. (English)
• Poetics , (English)
• Politics , (Greek)
• Politics , (English)
• Rhetoric , ed. W. D. Ross. (Greek)
• Rhetoric , ed. J. H. Freese. (English)
• Virtues and Vices , ed. I. Bekker. (Greek)
• Virtues and Vices , ed. H. Rackham. (English)
• Nikomachische Ethik , in German, translated by Eugen Rolfes, Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1911, at the Projekt Gutenberg-DE

Aristotle | character, moral | egoism | ethics: virtue | friendship | Plato | pleasure | wisdom

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Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy

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This article looks at contemporary conceptions of morality, e.g. deontology, utilitarianism and virtue theory, from a somewhat sceptical perspective. Are not these 'theories' simply elaborations of common-sense distinctions, e.g. between the intrinsic moral features of actions and virtues, on the one hand, and their consequences, on the other.

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Following the work of MacIntyre, I call for a particularized approach to ethics. I do not base my argument on concrete situations, but rather, on the way virtue works. Following Aristotle's account, I contend that most people's conception of virtue, even abstracted from particular situations, misses something key: the ways of attaining virtue can be vastly different, and even diametrically opposed, for different people. This difference exists even without differences in external factors. People struggling with divergent vices will need to practice virtue in divergent ways. Therefore, I contend that we need to particularize the way we view the attainment of virtue, not just because each person is in a different situation or context, but because not every person approaches virtue from the same vice.

Virtues and Vices - Between Ethics and Epistemology, Edited by Nenad Cekić

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"The thematic focus of the collection Virtues and Vices - Between Ethics and Epistemology successfully summarizes recent debates on the relationship between virtues and vices. Whether from the perspective of ethics or epistemology, this collection of papers represents a significant contribution to both academic and non-academic communities by providing answers to questions that occupy us daily but for which we never seem to have enough time. A stimulating journey through the diverse articles in this collection inspires reflection on common human experiences and encourages us to strive to transcend the bundle of everyday practices and habits." Prof. dr Vojislav Božičković

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From Plato to MacIntyre, my edited collection surveys the history of Western moral philosophy by guiding students new to the subject through the work and ideas of the field's most important figures. With entries written by leading contemporary scholars, the book covers such thinkers as: Plato [by myself]; Aristotle; Thomas Aquinas; David Hume; Immanuel Kant; J.S. Mill ; Friedrich Nietzsche; The book explores the contributions of each thinker individually, while also building a picture of how ethical thought has developed through their interactions. The book includes guides to the latest further reading on each thinker.

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• Preface to 2002 Edition
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Virtues and Vices
• 2. The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect
• 3. Euthanasia
• 4. Free Will as Involving Determinism
• 5. Hume on Moral Judgement
• 6. Nietzsche: The Revaluation of Values
• 7. Moral Arguments
• 8. Moral Beliefs
• 9. Goodness and Choice
• 10. Reasons for Actions and Desires
• 11. Morality as a System for Hypothetical Imperatives
• 12. A Reply to Professor Frankena
• 13. Are Moral Considerations Overriding?
• 14. Approval and Disapproval
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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Virtue Ethics

Author: David Merry Category: Ethics , Historical Philosophy Word Count: 1000

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Think of the (morally) best person you know. It could be a friend, parent, teacher, religious leader, thinker, or activist.

The person you thought of is probably kind, brave, and wise. They are probably not greedy, cruel, or foolish.

The first list of ‘character traits’ ( kind, brave, etc.) are virtues, and the second list ( arrogant, greedy, etc.) are vices . Virtues are ways in which people are good; vices are ways in which people are bad.

This essay presents virtue ethics, a theory that sees virtues and vices as central to understanding who we should be, and what we should do.

1. Virtue and Happiness

Virtues are excellent traits of character. [1] They shape how we act, think, and feel. They make us who we are. Virtues are acquired through good habits, over a long period of time.

1.1. Eudaimonia

According to Aristotle (384-322 BCE) virtues are those, and only those, character traits we need to be happy. [2] Many virtue ethicists today agree. [3] These virtue ethicists are called eudaimonists, after the Greek word eudaimonia, usually translated as “happiness,” “flourishing,” or “well-being . ” [4]

For eudaimonists, happiness is more than a feeling: it involves living well with others and pursuing worthwhile goals. This includes cultivating strong relationships, and succeeding at such projects as raising a family, fighting for justice, and (moderate yet enthusiastic) enjoyment of pleasure. [5]

Eudaimonists believe our happiness is not easily separated from that of other people. Many would consider the happiness of their friends and family as part of their own. Eudaimonists may extend this to complete strangers, and non-human animals. Similarly for causes or ideals: eudaimonists believe complicity in injustice and deceit reduces a person’s happiness. , [6]

If eudaimonists are right about happiness, then it is plausible that we need virtues such as honesty, kindness, gratitude and justice to be happy. This is not to say that the virtues will guarantee happiness. But eudaimonists believe we cannot be truly happy without them.

One concern is that vicious people often seem happy. For example, dictators live in palaces, apparently rather pleasantly. Eudaimonists may not think this amounts to happiness, but many would disagree. And if dictators can be happy, then we certainly can be happy without the virtues. Answering this objection is an ongoing project for eudaimonists. [7]

1.2. Emotion, Intelligence, and Developing Virtue

Eudaimonists believe emotions are essential to happiness, and that our emotions are shaped by our habits. Good emotional habits are a question of balance.

For example, eudaimonists argue that honest people habitually want to and enjoy telling the truth, but not so much that they will ignore all other considerations–a habit of enjoying pointing out other people’s shortcomings will leave us friendless, and so is not part of honesty. [8]

Because virtue requires balancing competing considerations, such as telling the truth and considering other people’s feelings, virtue also requires experience in making moral decisions. Virtue ethicists call this intellectual ability practical intelligence, or wisdom. [9]

2. Virtue and Right Action

Virtue ethicists believe we can use virtue to understand how we should act, or what makes actions right.

According to some virtue ethicists, an action is right if, and only if, it is what a virtuous person would characteristically do under the circumstances. [10] On rare occasions, virtuous people do the wrong thing. But this is not acting characteristically.

2.1. Being Specific

“Do what virtuous people would do” is not very specific, and we may be left wondering what the theory is actually saying we should do.

One way to make it more specific is to generate rules for each of the virtues and vices, called “v-rules.” Two examples of v-rules are: be kind, don’t be cruel. The v-rules give specific guidance in many cases: writing an email just to hurt someone’s feelings is cruel, so don’t do it. [11]

Unfortunately, the virtues can conflict: if a friend asks whether we like their new partner, it may be more honest to say we do not , but kinder to say we do. In this case it is hard to say what the virtuous person would do.

Virtue ethicists might respond that other ethical theories will also struggle to give clear guidance in hard cases. [12]

Second, they might try to understand how a virtuous person would think about the situation. Remember that virtuous people have practical intelligence, and habitually care about other people’s happiness and telling the truth. So they may consider a lot of particular details, including how close the friendship is, how bad the partner is, how gently the friend may be told. [13]

This may not provide a specific answer, but virtue ethicists hope they can at least provide a helpful model for thinking about hard cases. [14]

2.2. Explaining Why

We have seen how virtue ethics tells us what to do. But we also want to know why we should do it.

Virtue ethicists point out that if we ask virtuous people, they will explain why they did what they did. [15] Their reasoning results from their excellent emotional habits and practical intelligence–that is, from their virtue. And if we want to be happy, we need to cultivate virtue. So these should be our reasons too.

But in explaining their decision, the virtuous person won’t necessarily mention virtue. They might, for example, say, “I wanted to avoid hurting their feelings, so I told the truth gently.” [16]

It might then seem that something other than virtue–in our example, the importance of other people’s feelings–explains why the action is right . But then this other thing should be central to ethical theory, instead of virtue.

Virtue ethicists may respond that the moral weight of this other thing depends on which character traits are virtues. Accordingly, if kindness were not a virtue, there may be no moral reason to care about others’ feelings. [17]

3. Conclusion

Virtue ethicists recommend reflecting on the character traits we need to be happy. They hope this will help us make better moral decisions. Virtue ethics may not always yield clear answers, but perhaps acknowledging moral uncertainty is not a vice.

[1] Others may define virtue as admirable or merely good traits of character. For additional definitions of virtue and understandings of virtue ethics, see Hursthouse and Pettigrove’s “Virtue Ethics.”

[2] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , Book One, Chapter 9, Lines 1099b25-29. For this interpretation, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, p. 6.

[3] Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics , pp. 165-169, “Virtue Theory and Abortion”, p. 226, Foot, Natural Goodness , pp. 99-116.

There are many other accounts of virtue worth considering. One major alternative is sentimentalist accounts, such as that of Hume and Zagbzebski, who define virtues as those character traits that attract love or admiration. Some scholars argue that Confucian ethics is a virtue ethic, though this is debated: see Wong, “Chinese Ethics.” Also see John Ramsey’s Mengzi’s Moral Psychology, Part 1: The Four Moral Sprouts . For an African understanding of virtue, see Thaddeus Metz’s The African Ethic of Ubuntu .

[4] Hursthouse has a detailed and accessible discussion of the merits of different translations of eudaimonia in On Virtue Ethics, pp. 9-10.

[5] Some people find this account of virtue surprising because they think virtue must involve sacrificing one’s own happiness for the sake of other people, and living like a saint, a monk, or just being a really boring and miserable person. In this case it may be more helpful to think in terms of ‘good character’ than ‘virtue’. David Hume amusingly argued that some alleged virtues, such as humility, celibacy, silence, and solitude, were vices. See his Enquiry 9.1.

[6] The idea that injustice erodes everybody’s happiness is not to deny that it especially harms people who are treated unjustly. However, eudaimonists consider being unjust, or deceiving others to be bad for us.

[7] For a compelling discussion of this objection to eudaimonism, see Blackburn, Being Good, pp. 112-118 . Eudaimonists have been trying to answer this objection for a long time. Indeed, arguing that it is more beneficial to be just than unjust is one of the major themes of Plato’s Republic. For more recent attempts to make the case, see Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics, Chapter 8, or Foot, Natural Goodness, especially Chapter 7. See also Kiki Berk’s Happiness .

[8] The idea that the virtues involve finding a balance is called ‘the doctrine of the mean.’ See Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter 6, lines 1106b30-1107a5. For one contemporary account of the emotional aspects of virtue, see Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics, pp.108-121.

[9] Aristotle discusses practical intelligence in Nicomachean Ethics Book 6. For a contemporary account see Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics, pp. 59-62.

[10] Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, pp. 28-29. This is sometimes called a qualified-agent account. For some alternatives, see van Zyl’s “Virtue Ethics and Right Action”.

[11] Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, pp. 28-29.

[12] For other moral theories, see Deontology: Kantian Ethics by Andrew Chapman and Introduction to Consequentialism by Shane Gronholz. When reading, you might consider whether these theories would give you clearer guidance about your friend’s partner.

[13] See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, chapter 9, lines 1109a25-30. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics pp. 128-129.

[14] For two examples of how virtue ethics may be helpfully applied to tough moral decisions, see Hursthouse’s “Virtue Theory and Abortion”, and Foot’s “Euthanasia”.

[15] Hursthouse, “Virtue Ethics and Abortion”, especially p. 227, pp. 234-237. “Do what a virtuous person would do” is only supposed to tell us what we should do, not how we should think .

[16] This objection is discussed in Shafer-Landau’s The Fundamentals of Ethics, pp. 272-274.

[17] On this connection between facts about morality on facts about virtue and human happiness, see Hursthouse “Virtue Theory and Abortion”, pp. 236-238.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics . C. 355-322 BCE. Trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge UP. 2014.

Blackburn, S. Being Good. Oxford UP. 2001.

Boxill, B. “How Injustice Pays.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 9(4): 359-371. 1980.

Foot, P. Natural Goodness. Oxford UP. 2001.

Foot, P. “Euthanasia”. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6(2): 85–112. 1977.

Foot, P. “Moral Beliefs.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 59: 83-104. 1958.

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. 1777.      

Hursthouse, R. “Virtue Theory and Abortion.” Philosophy & Public Affairs . 20(3): 223-246. 1991.

Hursthouse, R. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford UP. 1999.

Hursthouse, Rosalind and Glen Pettigrove, “Virtue Ethics”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Zalta, E.N (ed.). 2018,

Nussbaum, M. The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge UP. 2nd Edition, 2001.

van Zyl, L. “Virtue Ethics and Right Action”. In Russell, D. C (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics. Cambridge UP. 2013.

Plato. Republic. C. 375 BCE. Trans. Paul Shorey. Harvard UP. 1969.

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Wong, D. “Chinese Ethics”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2021 Edition) . Zalta, E.N (ed). 2021.

Zagzebski, L.T. Exemplarist Moral Theory. Oxford UP. 2017.

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David Merry’s research is mostly about ethics and dialectic in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, although he also occasionally works on contemporary ethics and philosophy of medicine. He received a Ph.D. from the Humboldt University of Berlin, and an M.A in philosophy from the University of Auckland. He is co-editor of Essays on Argumentation in Antiquity . He offers interactive, discussion-based online philosophy classes and maintains a blog at Kayepos.com .

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Moral Ideals and Virtue Ethics

• Published: 27 March 2010
• Volume 14 , pages 173–180, ( 2010 )

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• Gregory F. Mellema 1  

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There have traditionally been two schools of thought regarding moral ideals and their relationship with moral duty. First, many have held that moral agents at all times have a duty or obligation to realize or attain moral ideals, or at least they have a duty to strive to realize or attain them. A second school of thought has maintained that attaining or pursuing moral ideals is supererogatory or beyond the call of duty. Recently a third school of thought has been articulated by Robert Audi in his essay “Wrongs Within Rights.” In this paper I express agreement with Audi, and it will be my suggestion that the resources of virtue ethics can profitably be employed to illustrate how his view avoids problems which plague the two traditional schools of thought.

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Virtue Ethics and the Morality System

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In the opening sentences of Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone , Book II, Section One. Prescriptivism is a meta-ethical view, but Elizabeth Pybus, for one, links it to the normative claim that moral agents must always pursue moral ideals.

For the purposes of this discussion I shall assume that moral agents have character traits, but it is worth noting that some philosophers have called into question the notion of a character trait (Doris 1998 , pp. 504f).

As stated here, this school of thought is very strong regarding our duty to strive to realize moral ideals. It would be possible to hold a weaker view to the effect that our duties with respect to moral ideals are sometimes overridden by other duties.

Bernard Williams distinguishes between agent-regret, regret, and remorse. When I refer to “regret” I have in mind what he describes as agent-regret (Williams 1993 , pp. 69f).

Trianosky is apparently assuming that omissions caused by indifference tend to be less serious from an aretaic perspective than omissions caused by malice. Nothing in the argument I am developing depends upon the truth of this assumption.

I have benefitted from the comments of members of the Calvin College Department of Philosophy and of an anonymous referee of this journal.

Audi, Robert. 2005. Wrongs within rights. In Normativity , ed. Ernest Sosa, and Enrique Villanueva, 121–139. Boston: Blackwell.

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Brandt, Richard. 1971. Some merits of one form of rule utilitarianism. In Mill: Utilitarianism with critical essays , ed. Samuel Gorovitz, 324–344. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

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Mellema, G.F. Moral Ideals and Virtue Ethics. J Ethics 14 , 173–180 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9076-9

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Virtue's Reasons: New Essays on Virtue, Character, and Reasons

Noell Birondo and S. Stewart Braun (eds.), Virtue's Reasons: New Essays on Virtue, Character, and Reasons , Routledge, 2017, 210pp., $150.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781138231733.

Reviewed by Jason Kawall, Colgate University

According to the editors, Noell Birondo and S. Stewart Braun,

The main aims of this book are . . . to foster a greater appreciation for the multiplicity of reasons surrounding the concept of the virtues and to shed light on what is presumably the paradigm case, of an individual agent responding to an array of potential reasons, often in diverse circumstances and contexts. (2-3)

While the virtues are often treated as allowing agents to recognize and respond appropriately to reasons, Birondo and Braun note that there are broader connections and questions concerning the relationship between reasons and the virtues that warrant examination: for example, are there distinctive kinds of reasons to become a certain kind of person, rather than simply reasons to act or respond in certain ways? Upon what reasons can agents act appropriately while developing the virtues, and can we simply will to act upon some reasons and not others?

The current volume consists of ten chapters intended to explore the relationship(s) between virtues and reasons, divided into three parts, with a short introductory essay by Birondo and Braun. As they note in their introduction, the volume is very wide-ranging, and

By addressing a diverse set of questions on the connections between virtues and reasons, the papers here do not offer a sustained treatment of one or two core issues; instead, the papers that we have collected here form, together, a kind of kaleidoscope of issues surrounding the notion of virtue's reasons. (2)

While each of the chapters mentions reasons, and some include extended discussion of such (in varying contexts), it is virtue theory and character that truly serve to unify the volume. With respect to reasons, there is significant discussion of work by John McDowell and Robert Audi, but little overall engagement with the broader, extensive recent literature on the topic. That said, however, the chapters in this volume tend to be of a very high quality -- and some are truly excellent, with the potential to shape future discussion in the area. Given that the chapters in this volume are so diverse, with widely varying topics and approaches, I will focus on providing overviews of each, rather than attempting to provide a unified, thematic discussion.

Part I, "Reasons, Character, and Agency", consists of four papers. While there are few connections linking them, each chapter is strong and raises interesting issues in its own right. Garrett Cullity's "Moral Virtues and Responsiveness for Reasons" is extremely dense and detailed; to be honest, I've read this chapter several times and remain uncertain whether I entirely grasp all of it. In the first part of the chapter Cullity provides criteria for the application of various aretaic terms to traits and dispositions, but also to actions and other entities. These criteria vary quite significantly -- for example, whether an action is honest depends solely on the aim of the action, whereas whether an action is kind depends on its aim, but also its motive, and the manner in which it is performed. In the later parts of his paper Cullity develops a unique taxonomy of the virtues. Moral virtues are characterized by responding appropriately to morally relevant reasons, and for each response there is the reason for the response, the object of the response, and the response itself. Cullity proposes a corresponding threefold set of categories of virtue: those characterized by good responsiveness to particular reasons , those involving responding well to particular objects , and those that involve responding well to a variety of different objects or reasons; Cullity distinguishes further subcategories of each. This is the barest sketch of Cullity's chapter, and omits a great deal -- the chapter rewards multiple readings. Still, I worry that the tremendous detail, including many qualifications and exceptions to his various proposals might limit the use of Cullity's taxonomy by others.

Justin Oakley's "Remote Scenarios and Warranted Virtue Attributions" is a thoughtful, lucid paper addressing the following issue: how does the behaviour (actual or counterfactual) of agents in unlikely or remote scenarios affect our epistemic justification for attributing virtues or vices to them? For example, how would an agent's counterfactual behaviour when caught on-board a ship during a severe storm affect our justification in attributing courage to her? A highly demanding answer would hold that all such remote circumstances are relevant -- if a person would act poorly under extreme conditions, then we should not attribute courage (or other relevant virtues) to her. Robert Adams defends what Oakley refers to as a 'probabilistic' approach, where the relevance of behaviour in remote situations is a function of how likely an agent is to find herself in such circumstances. Similarly, in a given remote situation, the more likely an agent is to act well compared to a second agent, the more justified we are in attributing the relevant virtue to her. Oakley argues, plausibly, that we need to further qualify the probabilistic approach in at least two ways. First, the reason(s) why an agent is likely to act in a certain way (in a given scenario) are relevant -- is it the result of training and reflection, or mere luck? Second, we need to consider whether the agent (in actual circumstances) would approve of her actions and the reasons for them in remote scenarios. A committed utilitarian might, under extreme circumstances, leave his spouse to assist an aid group instead. While such circumstances might be unlikely, if the utilitarian would now approve of his reasons and actions under the extreme conditions, this would be relevant to our attributions of such virtues as loyalty.

In "Vice, Reasons, and Wrongdoing", Damian Cox defends a form of 'vice ethics'. Where virtue ethics defines right action in terms of virtues, vice ethics defines wrongness -- and rightness -- in terms of vices. Cox argues that reasons to avoid vicious action are typically pro tanto while reasons to perform virtuous actions are typically only prima facie . He further suggests that we can treat actions as supererogatory (most virtuous actions), merely permissible (actions that are neither virtuous nor vicious), or wrong (most vicious actions). And more precisely, with respect to right action, Cox suggests

(R) An action is right iff it is the least vicious of available actions.

(W) An action is wrong iff it is not the least vicious of available actions. (55)

Often there will be multiple actions available to an agent that are equally free of vice; all would be right. Cox develops the proposal effectively, and it certainly warrants discussion in the literature. Still, some questions arise. Consider two agents in similar circumstances making charitable donations. One merely gives five dollars without any vicious motives, while the other gives several thousand dollars, almost entirely out of generosity, but also with the hint of a vain desire to impress some friends; the generosity would have been sufficient to motivate the action. On Cox's proposal, the agent merely giving five dollars acts rightly, while the far more generous donation is wrong because of the incidental vicious motive; it would not be among the least vicious actions available. As such, trace amounts of vice could implausibly render otherwise excellent actions wrong.

"Can Virtue Be Codified? An Inquiry on the Basis of Four Conceptions of Virtue" by Peter Shiu-Hwa Tsu is the final paper of part I. Tsu argues against McDowell's well-known "uncodifiability thesis", according to which the requirements and reasons of the virtues cannot be codified into rules. After drawing attention to the complexity and ambiguity of the uncodifiability thesis (e.g. what counts as a rule?), Tsu presents four conceptions of the relationship between virtues and rules. On the particularist conception, there are not even broad generalizations that hold between virtues and rules; on the prima facie conception, any rules would only roughly capture the basic content of virtues, and would have many exceptions. According to the pro tanto conception, pro tanto rules determine what a virtuous agent should do, while "in cases of moral conflicts . . . it takes practical wisdom or judgment to determine which rule 'outweighs' which" (80). Finally, according to the absolute conception, virtuous agents act in accordance with a (or a set of) absolute, exceptionless moral principle(s); this need not involve mechanical rule-following -- we can demonstrate judgment in applying the principle(s). Tsu argues that McDowell focuses on the first two conceptions, but that the absolute and pro tanto conceptions would allow for the codifiability of the reasons of virtue, and are in fact more attractive than the rival conceptions. This is another strong chapter -- though many of the objections raised by Tsu to particularist and prima facia conceptions rely on particular features of McDowell's view that need not be embraced by all those endorsing the uncodifiability thesis.

Part II, "Reasons and Virtues in Development", is the most unified section of the volume, consisting of three chapters addressing how non-virtuous agents can develop the virtues. Ramon Das considers how such agents can act rightly despite lacking the virtues. Emer O'Hagan addresses how agents might effectively and appropriately aim at developing their own virtues. And Audi addresses the nature and place of role-modeling in the development of the virtues.

In "Virtue, Reason, and Will" Das argues that two tempting positions for virtue ethicists -- holding that right action either requires acting from good motives or reasons, or (more strongly) requires acting from firm, stable virtues -- are implausibly demanding. After all, both would seem beyond the ability of anyone who is not already virtuous -- we can't simply will ourselves to have good motives. Das suggests that we need to more carefully distinguish good motives and good reasons. Broadly, Das sees motives as (paradigmatically) desires that are involuntary, while normative reasons are cognitive and capable of producing motives. Das argues that an agent might recognize a normative reason to help a person and as a result choose to help her (voluntarily) despite the lack of an antecedent desire or motive to do so. Das provides some admittedly brief remarks in defence of this view, and in turn argues that we would be best to move away from distinctively virtue-ethical approaches to right action requiring good motives or virtues. Das concludes by arguing against Dan Russell's proposal that we sharply distinguish between right action (a form of action evaluation) and what an agent ought to do (a matter of action guidance); this proposal would undermine concerns that ordinary people cannot act rightly given standard virtue ethics. Das's critique of Russell's proposal is compelling -- particularly in arguing that if we sharply distinguish between right action and what an agent ought to do, the normative significance of rightness becomes highly unclear. This is a strong chapter, developing Das's previous, influential critiques of virtue ethics in new ways.

In her "Self-Knowledge and the Development of Virtue" O'Hagan carefully explores how agents might intentionally develop the virtues, focusing on the ways in which a morally refined self-knowledge could shape their sensitivity to virtuous reasons. O'Hagan begins by noting constraints upon the reasons for which agents might act while developing the virtues. For example, they cannot (typically) perform an action because it would be the kind thing to do and would improve their character. Rather, they would need to perform the action out of a concern for the well-being of the person they would help. The latter reflects a nascent kindness; the former a potentially problematic concern with their own virtue. O'Hagan then considers how we might shape the reasons upon which we act. She agrees with Audi that we cannot directly will ourselves to act (or not) on a given reason or set of reasons. But O'Hagan argues that our ability to direct our attention through self-knowledge and self-awareness provides us with rich indirect control over the reasons for which we act; there is no need to see ourselves as limited in this regard. For example, we might learn that people tend to overlook morally salient reasons when they are in a great hurry. This knowledge could ground a concern to reflect and pay greater attention when feeling time-pressured, allowing us to recognize reasons we might otherwise miss, and providing an important form of control over the reasons for which we act.

The final paper of Part II is Audi's insightful and wide-ranging "Aretaic Role Modeling, Justificatory Reasons, and the Diversity of the Virtues". Audi first explores the nature of role-modeling of both moral and intellectual virtues, drawing attention to often-overlooked issues (e.g. distinguishing between role-modeling as such and providing commentary upon what one is doing to a learner). He then turns to arguing that reasons are explanatorily prior to virtues -- actions from virtue must be performed for an appropriate reason (132), and role-modeling virtues requires an appreciation or responsiveness to reasons on the part of both the agent and a learner (133). If there were not prior reasons to which virtuous agents were responsive, what would explain and justify their actions? In the second half of his paper, Audi explores a wide range of virtues, with an eye towards shedding light on both intellectual and moral virtues, as well as 'cross-over' virtues that are both (such as sensitivity and consistency). Audi draws attention to the rich breadth and variety of virtues, which in turn impacts how these virtues can be successfully role-modeled. I cannot do justice here to the full range of issues addressed by Audi in this paper; there is a tremendous amount of substance and insightful reflection concerning the virtues and their development.

The final section, Part III, "Specific Virtues for Finite Rational Agents", consists of three chapters. Here again, the individual chapters are rich and rewarding, even while there are not strong thematic connections between them.

Reasons pluralists argue that there are rationally incomparable, and thereby incommensurable, kinds of reasons. A familiar worry for such views is that we would too frequently lack practical rational guidance because we so often face incomparable sets of reasons. In his "Practical Wisdom: A Virtue for Resolving Conflicts among Practical Reasons", Andrés Luco defends reasons pluralism by proposing an "Override Principle" that can apply in (many) such cases of conflict. Luco's override principle states that when we face sets of incomparable reasons, then set A overrides set B if (i) a certain action is necessary for promoting some good associated with set A, and (ii) not acting on set B would not result in the loss of any goods associated with set B (153). We would thus have a principle of practical reason that could allow us, in a wide range of cases, to rationally endorse an action, even when faced with incomparable kinds of reasons. The majority of the chapter involves Luco considering how the override principle might be applied to such decisions as whether to pursue a career in philosophy (largely grounded in self-regarding reasons) or instead to pursue a career that would help others as much as possible, as recommended by effective altruists (grounded in impartial reasons). Luco's discussion is compelling as he notes the complexities of applying the override principle. Still, while Luco arrives at plausible answers for various test scenarios, it is perhaps unclear to what extent the override principle is in fact driving these answers, and to what extent Luco is instead appealing to other factors and intuitions and then "applying" the override principle in an ad hoc fashion to capture the desired results.

The final two chapters are by the volume's editors. Braun's chapter on "The Virtue of Modesty and the Egalitarian Ethos" provides an attractive, irenic account of modesty. He first distinguishes three broad approaches to modesty in the literature: Julia Driver's influential 'ignorance' view (that requires an underestimate of the agent's own talents and achievements), perspectival views (that require seeing one's accomplishments from some particular perspective -- perhaps recognizing the roles of luck or opportunity), and de-emphasis views (that require downplaying or directing attention away from one's accomplishments). Braun's engagement with these approaches leads to his own "Egalitarian" account: "A modest agent is an agent that is disposed to act in a manner consistent with attempts to avoid establishing or endorsing distinctions in social or civic standing, ranking, or respect, which are applicable to herself, both at an institutional level and at a local community level" (176-7). As Braun notes, modesty seems to involve an unwillingness to treat oneself as more worthy than others; the egalitarian account captures this unwillingness, and the embrace of social equality could explain why modesty is a moral virtue. Certain questions do arise -- for example, if a rejection of distinctions in social ranking underlies modesty, wouldn't activism and social protest against hierarchies count as paradigmatic instances of modesty? If not, why not? Still Braun's approach seems very promising and worthy of further development.

The volume closes with Birondo's "Virtue and Prejudice: Giving and Taking Reasons". Birondo addresses a familiar worry for eudaimonistic virtue ethics: that their foundational appeal to human nature (in determining what constitutes flourishing) is bound to be problematic. Birondo focuses his attention on a recent version of the worry presented by Jesse Prinz. Broadly, Prinz argues that if eudaimonists hold that a proper understanding of eudaimonia can only be achieved by those who are themselves virtuous, problematic circularities will arise. On the other hand, if eudaimonists embrace an external standard of eudaimonia that can be identified without possession of the virtues, this standard cannot be justified -- there is too much cultural variation in conceptions of flourishing and there is no non-question-begging way of determining which of these conceptions are superior to others; we cannot justify any antecedent, universal human nature that could ground eudaimonia and the virtues. In replying to Prinz, Birondo draws stark attention to the ways in which critics of virtue ethics often ignore relevant literature and responses by virtue ethicists. According to Birondo's own response to Prinz, we must recognize that our understandings of human nature and eudaimonia are works in progress across different cultures. Birondo argues for an internalist account of eudaimonia, where the nature of eudaimonia is determined by the virtuous, but where ordinary folk can still understand this conception. He further stresses that we need to be open to both taking and giving reasons across cultures to improve and refine our conceptions of virtue and eudaimonia over time; there is no foundational appeal to an antecedently identified human nature. This is a sharp paper that effectively defends a plausible, pluralist form of eudaimonism.

Overall, this is a strong collection of insightful and often thought-provoking papers. There are, of course, some limitations; most prominently, while there are suggestive and interesting contributions to understanding the connections between reasons and virtues, the chapters vary significantly in the depth of their engagement with such issues. But understood as a wide-ranging contribution to the leading-edge literature on virtue theory and character, the volume stands up very well.

Ethical Virtues and Vices Essay

Ideals are moral standards that people pursue, and they are very important because they set benchmarks of ethics. Moral ideals define ethical standards and character of people in the society. Concisely, moral ideals are perfect standards of ethics that the society strives to uphold in norms, beliefs, and principles that govern humanity. Melleman (2010) asserts that an ideal is a moral attribute that an individual presents as a character trait or behavior. Common examples of moral ideals are honesty, integrity, generosity, beneficence, sincerity, veracity, and fidelity amongst many others. In the modern society where moral fabric is weak, the most important ideals are honesty, integrity, generosity, and beneficence. These ideals are very important because they do not only enable people to do good deeds in their lives, but also perform noble duties to others who are in need.

Worth is the value of something relative to what people consider as ideal. In other words, it is the measure or degree of perfection in a given construct or a person. Ethically, the best way to determine a person’s worth is by assessing the intrinsic value, as one is worth the intrinsic value that the society bestows to humans. Baum, Haqq-Misra, and Domagal-Magal (2011) argue that “human ethics is often anthropocentric in the sense that it places value only on human phenomena such as human life, human happiness, or other human factors” (p. 2121). Since humans are unique beings in the universe with rational capacity, they have intrinsic value. Humans have intrinsic worth because they are entities of life, which exist on their own. In this view, I consider my worth to be a life entity that deserves life, happiness, dignity, and freedom to serve other humans.

Ethical virtues are constructive behaviors or qualities that are in line with societal norms and ethics. They are qualities that enhance the greatness of individuals and society. Some of the virtues that are important in the life of an individual include integrity, justice, love, wisdom, honesty, prudence, loyalty, and temperance According to Kawall (2009), virtues are important because they are morally acceptable behaviors that drive people cultivate good character traits. Essentially, virtues are fundamental in promoting people to cultivate quality and productive lives. Thus, virtues are crucial in the lives of individuals as they lead to productive, ethical, and good behaviors.

Ethical vices refer to immoral behaviors that lower the integrity of a person and society. Essentially, ethical vices emanate from the deficits or excesses that occur in virtues (Mellema, 2010). Examples of vices are selfishness, hate, cruelty, cowardice, dishonesty, folly, and disloyalty. In this view, the ethical vices that I consider the worst are dishonesty and disloyalty. A dishonest and disloyal person has no integrity, and thus can do anything to achieve certain ends in life. The ethical vices that I possess are selfishness and hate, and I would like to cure these vices by being generous and kind to all people that I meet in the course of life.

Baum, S., Haqq-Misra, J., & Domagal-Magal, S. (2011). Would Contact Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis. Acta Astronautica, 68(12), 2114-2129.

Kawall, J. (2009). In Defense of the Primacy of Virtues. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 3 (2), 1-21.

Mellema, G. (2010). Moral Ideals and Virtue Ethics. The Journal of Ethics, 14 (2), 173-180.

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IvyPanda. (2022, April 2). Ethical Virtues and Vices. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethical-virtues-and-vices/

"Ethical Virtues and Vices." IvyPanda , 2 Apr. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/ethical-virtues-and-vices/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Ethical Virtues and Vices'. 2 April.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Ethical Virtues and Vices." April 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethical-virtues-and-vices/.

1. IvyPanda . "Ethical Virtues and Vices." April 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethical-virtues-and-vices/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Ethical Virtues and Vices." April 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethical-virtues-and-vices/.

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VII Moral Arguments *

• Published: October 2002
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Hare, Stevenson, and others have asserted that moral arguments ‘may always break down’ in a way in which other arguments do not. This is because moral arguments must end with the assertion of a moral principle that may simply be denied. This view is flawed by its reliance on the idea that there is no logical connexion between facts and values. Emotivism and naturalism and their divergent approaches to moral arguments are examined.

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• Contributors

Theology , Essays , Archive , cardinal virtues , charity , discipleship , justice , love , prudence , temperance , faith , Featured , fortitude , Hope , moral virtue , morality , theological virtues , williamcmattisoniii

Moral Virtue, The Grace of God, and Discipleship

Moral theology has traditionally explored how people act in the world (“moral”) in the context of their faith in God (“theology”). This volume purposely examines morality in the context of Christian belief. What difference does faith make in how a person lives his or her life? Surely a person of faith engages in certain distinctive activities, such as going to church, praying, and reading the Bible. But what about the myriad of activities that all people partake in every day, such as eating, facing difficulties, exchanging goods, and making decisions? Does the person of faith engage in these activities with the same “morality” as everyone else? As is already clear, a life of discipleship is not simply about performing certain types of actions. It is a vocation, a transformation of one’s very self. Such a transformation of course impacts how we act. The primary question for this chapter is, how does discipleship, a life of following Jesus, transform not only who we are but also how we act in this world?

The ancient notion of virtue will help us answer this question. A virtue is an abiding part of a person that disposes the person to act well. Obtaining a virtue changes who one is. It also explains how such a change in a person disposes one to act differently. Thus the first section of this chapter explains the concept of “virtue” in order to illustrate how changes in who we are lead us to act differently. The second section examines more closely one type of virtue: moral virtue. It identifies and defines the four main moral virtues, traditionally called “cardinal virtues,” which dispose us to good action in the types of activities noted above as shared by all persons, of whatever faith commitment. The third section explores how the four cardinal virtues have consistently been identified throughout the Western tradition (and even beyond) as the “hinges” to living a good life in this world. Even with this commonality, the cardinal virtues are also supple enough to invite interpretation by different worldviews. Thus, these virtues can lead people to different sorts of actions based upon people’s varying belief commitments. This points us toward the fourth section, which defines a certain sort of cardinal virtue that Christians have traditionally labeled “infused.” A fifth and final section explains why the infused cardinal virtues are essential to understanding how a life of discipleship transforms a believer’s life in this world.

Defining Habits and Distinguishing Virtues

A s human persons we have all sorts of capacities: to eat, to make decisions, to allot goods, to have sex, and so on. We can exercise these capacities in numerous ways. A virtue is a habitual inclination to use a certain capacity well, or simply a “good habit.” Therefore, to understand a virtue it is necessary to understand the difference between simply performing actions and actually having a habit. [1] A habit is an abiding disposition that inclines one to exercise a specific capacity in a certain manner. It is a change of who one is, with a resulting change in what one does. Aristotle was making this point when he claimed that a person with a habit is still marked by that habit even when not exercising the habit’s activities. [2] For instance, a mathematician is still a mathematician even in her sleep. As a habit, a virtue is a quality that abides in us, even when it is not being acted upon. This is not the case for sporadic actions.

All these observations are true of habits in general. Habits incline us to act consistently, spontaneously, and with corresponding intentions. Virtues are good habits, and vices are bad habits. For example, people may give money to the poor to relieve their guilt, or to look good in front of others (as Christ himself describes in Matt. 6). And people do develop habits of doing good acts either to look good in front of others or to make themselves feel better. These habits are not virtues, but rather vices. The person with the virtue of generosity, however, gives money to the poor with the proper intention of seeking to alleviate distress out of genuine concern for people in need. A virtuous person not only consistently and automatically performs good actions, but also does so for the right reasons.

Each virtue is named for the sort of activity being done well. A technical name for the “sort of activity” is the “object.” The numerous virtues can be placed into two broad groups based on whether their “type of activity,” or “object,” falls into one category or the other. The first category is called theological virtue, and includes the virtues faith, hope, and love. [4] What distinguishes these virtues is that their activities, or objects, all concern God directly. [5] We believe in God (faith). We love God above all else, and all things in God (charity, or love). We yearn for union with God, experienced fully only in the next life but tasted in this one (hope). When one engages in such activities well, one is said to have these “theological virtues.” They were examined more closely in the previous chapter. Since they concern God directly, and direct us toward ultimate union with God, they are not accessible to us without God’s help, or “grace.” Therefore we say they are “infused” virtues because they are given to us through the grace of God. We cannot acquire them on our own. In sum, the theological virtues concern God directly (object). They are obtained by grace, or infused, and concern our ultimate destiny with God.

Naming and Defining the Four Cardinal Virtues

T he four cardinal virtues are justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. Each of these is easily misunderstood, so it is worth pausing to state exactly what type of inner-worldly activity is done well by those possessing it. [10] First, consider justice. Aristotle famously claimed that we humans are social animals. Our lives are interdependent, such that living a good life must entail good relationships with other people. Justice is the virtue that inclines us to good action in our interactions and relationships with others. We may immediately think of the courts and the law when we hear “justice,” and such matters do indeed fall under justice. But any activity where we give another his or her “due” is a matter of justice. Honesty, generosity, keeping promises, respect, etc., are all matters of justice.

Another central component of human life in this world is bodily desire. We desire and act to obtain things that are pleasant to touch, taste, or experience. Such objects of our desire include food, drink, sex, and recreation. Any good life in this world will be marked by such desires, but these desires must also be well ordered. Temperance is the virtue of well-ordered desires for pleasures. When we hear the word “temperance,” we may think solely of alcohol, or even more specifically of the temperance movement in the early part of the twentieth century in the United States. A moderate desire for alcohol is indeed important for temperance, but temperance also includes desires for food, sex, and recreation. The person who drinks too much is acting “intemperately.” But so too is the person who is obsessed with video games, or who neglects important duties to spend leisure time with friends. [11]

Life in this world entails facing difficulties. Fortitude is the cardinal virtue that enables us to face difficulty well. “Courage” and “bravery” are synonyms of “fortitude.” When we think of bravery, we may immediately think of soldiers on the battlefield risking their life for their friends and nation. This is indeed an example of bravery. In fact, since the greatest danger we can face in this life is our own death, a willingness to literally lay down one’s life has always been seen as the paradigmatic act of fortitude. Yet this virtue may also be demonstrated in any difficulty in life, such as a sick person facing the sickness well, a student “stepping up” during stressful exam periods to perform well, or a person enduring pain after a hard breakup. These are all examples of fortitude.

Cardinal Virtues as the Path to the Good Life in this World

T he cardinal virtues may rightly be called the path to the good life in this world. These four virtues, and all the “subvirtues” under each of the four, “cover” all aspects of a good life as it concerns activities in this world. In fact, the very term “cardinal” comes from the Latin word for “hinge,” since a good life is said to “hinge upon” these virtues. There is actually remarkable consistency throughout the Western tradition in affirming the centrality of these virtues for the good life. [14] They may be found in Scripture, where the book of Wisdom, describing God’s Spirit of Wisdom, claims

she teaches moderation and prudence, justice and fortitude, and nothing in life is more useful for men than these. (Wis. 8:7 NAB)

Plato uses these four virtues to describe both the well-ordered society and the well-ordered individual. [15] Cicero also reduces all virtues to these four. [16] Saints Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Thomas Aquinas are just a few of the Christian thinkers who appeal to the four cardinal virtues when describing the moral life. [17] Thus there is a remarkably consistent emphasis in the Western tradition on the importance of the cardinal virtues in the moral life, and this witness extends beyond the Christian tradition.

What can account for this consistency? Since the cardinal virtues concern “inner-worldly activities,” any person or society, regardless of beliefs or religious commitments, must have some vision (explicitly stated, or just implicitly seen in how people act) of how to engage in these activities well. All persons everywhere face difficulties, desire sensual goods, relate to others, and make practical decisions. Living in this world necessarily entails these activities. Therefore we say that the cardinal virtues are “accessible to reason” because all rational persons engage in these activities and can at least in principle discern how to do them well.

Nevertheless, it would not be accurate to say that therefore all these voices in the Western tradition share a solitary vision of what is morally right and wrong. This points us to another observation about the cardinal virtues. The cardinal virtues incline their holder to act well in different areas of life: making practical decisions, desiring pleasures, relating to others, and facing difficulties. Yet what exactly constitutes “acting well” in each of these areas? The traditional answer to this question has been that virtue resides in the “mean,” or middle course. In other words, the brave person (i.e., fortitude) is neither too cowardly nor too foolhardy. The chaste person is neither too promiscuous nor too prudish. Virtue lies in the mean.

Perhaps we can all agree on this claim that virtue lies in the mean. But this really just pushes back one step further the question of what constitutes good or bad action. What constitutes promiscuity, or being too prudish? A virtue approach to morality has the advantage of being supple. It can accommodate individual, as well as cultural, differences as to what constitutes, say, temperance concerning alcohol. Nonetheless, a virtue approach is not so abstract or “formal” as to render anything potentially virtuous. What guards against such a contentless morality is the reliance of the virtue approach on paradigmatic actions to exemplify each virtue. [18] For instance, bravery is paradigmatically described as a willingness to lay down one’s life for an important cause. We can certainly debate which of our country’s wars are just and thus warrant laying down one’s life, or whether the circumstances in a particular battle justify a retreat. But on no one’s terms is it brave to abandon one’s countrymates in the heat of battle. That is cowardice.

Yet if the cardinal virtues concern inner-worldly activities that are in principle accessible to reason, why are there so many different understandings of what constitutes a just, or brave, or prudent, or temperate act? How can some societies regard hara-kari as honorable and others condemn it as suicide, and wrong? How can societies hold such radically different views of gender or race relations, or of what constitutes virtuous sexuality or alcohol use? Some individual and communal differences as to what constitutes virtuous action reflect the simple truism that the good life has many expressions. But some differences seem incompatible with each other, and not so easily explained. Even though the activity is inner-worldly and in principle accessible to unaided human reason, “the way things really are” concerning that activity may be contested. For instance, what is the true purpose of sexuality? Different people may disagree on this, or even that there is a “real purpose” of sex. Are men and women truly equal, and if so should that equality be instituted in a society? Clearly people continue to disagree on this. This does not necessarily mean there is no such thing as temperance or justice. It simply means that people disagree on the meanings of inner-worldly activities, or “the way things really are” in this world. There are many possible explanations for these differences (such as malice, ignorance, etc.), but another important cause is that one’s understanding of “the way things really are” concerning inner-worldly activities is importantly shaped by one’s beliefs about “the way things really are” concerning God and God’s relationship to humanity. In other words, what one believes about God does indeed shape how one regards inner-worldly activities, and judges whether or not they are being done well. Of course, all differences about cardinal virtues such as temperance and justice do not boil down to differences of faith. However, neglecting the impact of faith on how one lives in this world leads to an impoverished view of the cardinal virtues. Understanding the “infused cardinal virtues” prevents just such a mistake.

Explaining the Infused Cardinal Virtues

W e have yet to attend to the question of how the cardinal virtues are obtained, or more dryly, the “efficient cause” of these virtues. Since virtues are good habits, the most obvious way they are obtained is through repetitive, intentional action. If you want to become a generous person, you must repeatedly, and for the right reasons, help those in need with what resources are available to you. By continually performing such actions, a habit develops such that you will be disposed to do more such actions (automatically, with proper intentions) in the future. Oftentimes developing a good habit, or virtue, means overcoming a bad habit, or vice. [20] If I am stingy or greedy, developing the virtue of generosity will mean first refraining from acting on my stinginess (by, say, not giving alms to the poor or not lending out my possessions to those in need) out of a desire to be generous (by, say, giving up some of my own goods to help those in need). An initial vice is an obstacle to overcome on the path to virtue, though it does not prevent one from developing a virtue. Thankfully, people do change. Of course, one can also change by losing a virtue, and so even those who possess a virtue must continue to act upon it lest they lose it in favor of a contrary habit, or vice.

When one acquires a cardinal virtue, one performs inner-worldly acts well with an eye toward how they contribute to human flourishing. In other words, I drink moderately (i.e., temperately) because I want to maintain bodily health and consistently enjoy this sensual good. I am generous because I want to contribute not only to my own well-being but also to that of others in my community, since I understand the two as intertwined. People are able to understand, through the use of their reason, natural human flourishing, as it includes things like bodily health and the common good. Since it is our created nature that flourishes here, and we can understand this type of flourishing with our reason, such flourishing is called our “natural end,” or goal. It is “natural” to us not in the sense that everyone achieves it, or even that everyone fully understands what constitutes natural flourishing, but rather in the sense that it completes or perfects our created nature and is accessible to our human reasoning.

Yet, as already hinted at earlier in part 2, Christians believe that humans are invited by God to share in a greater destiny. This destiny is called, literally, a “supernatural” destiny, and is constituted by union with the triune God of Jesus Christ who became man for us to reconcile us with God and make us (astonishingly!) sharers in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1). This is a destiny that far transcends our unaided created nature and unaided powers of reasoning. We could not “get there” on our own. In fact, we cannot even begin to comprehend this invitation, let alone live it out, without the assistance of God’s grace.

So how can it be understood or achieved? God gives us the grace to truthfully understand who God is, and his plan for humanity (faith). He bestows on us a love of God and others in God, such that we seek to be unified with God in communion with others (charity). He fills us with a longing for that union—tasted in this life and completed in the next—even when it is not fully available to us now (hope). Therefore Christians can be virtuous in their relationship with God thanks to God’s help, or grace.

What does this have to do with the cardinal virtues? Christians, like all human persons, live in this created world and continue to engage in “inner-worldly activities.” To do these well they, like all others, need the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. At this point it would seem that the only thing distinguishing Christians and non-Christians is the presence of faith, hope, and love. Christians have the infused theological virtues to guide them to union with God, a supernatural destiny. But all persons—Christian or not—have the cardinal virtues that are acquired by the process of habituation and direct us to do inner-worldly activities well for the sake of natural human flourishing. On this read, in fact, there is really no difference between how Christians act well in the world and how virtuous non-Christians act well. There is simply a “human” ethic for inner-worldly activities, and so the cardinal virtues incline all people toward the same sorts of actions.

There are kernels of truth in saying that Christians and non-Christians both have these acquired cardinal virtues. First of all, for many inner-worldly activities, it simply does not matter whether or not one is Christian. If you want a good exercise trainer, it is probably not necessary to ask if he or she is Christian! Physical training is an inner-worldly activity accessible to unaided human reason that looks the same for Christians and non-Christians alike. The same is true of many questions of justice. A non-Christian judge can be just as knowledgeable in American law and render just judgments as a Christian judge. Second, it is true that Christians can work hard to obtain cardinal virtues concerning inner-worldly activities. So Christians can work hard to diet so as to be physically fit, or try to be more patient with people that may annoy us.

Some different virtuous actions are explainable by different circumstances. One person’s temperance may entail more food than another’s, simply due to a larger body size. But that is not the case here. Both actions are temperate, but they differ not due to circumstances but in their very meaning . Nonbelievers are temperate for the sake of natural human flourishing. Christians are temperate for the sake of union with God. The goal of the former’s temperance is the natural end of humanity. The goal of the latter’s temperance is the supernatural end of humanity’s union with God. So the actions differ in meaning, or ultimate goal. They also differ in source. Though Christians may work hard to fast, ultimately these temperate acts require the assistance of God’s grace. Since we are incapable of acting on our own for the sake of union with God, this temperance is rightly called “infused” because eating in this way would not be possible without God’s grace. Hence in this example we have two different types of virtues: the infused cardinal virtue of temperance (fasting during Lent), and the acquired cardinal virtue of temperance (three squares a day for the nonbeliever).

Nonbelievers are temperate for the sake of natural human flourishing. Christians are temperate for the sake of union with God.

Eating is certainly not the only inner-worldly activity that is transformed by a Christian’s call to union with God, and assisted by God’s infused grace. Many worldly activities of Christians are transformed by our relationship with God, and so are done differently. Consider the cardinal virtue fortitude. Firefighters and other first responders can develop this acquired virtue, risking their lives to help citizens in danger. Christians can do this as well, but they see the ultimate act of fortitude to be laying down one’s life for one’s faith in God, which is called martyrdom. The early church martyrs are fine examples of infused fortitude, as are contemporary figures such as Saint Maximilian Kolbe and Martin Luther King, Jr. Kolbe was willing to lay down his life in place of a fellow prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, not simply for the natural end of saving a person with a family, but also in imitation of Christ’s willingness to die for us and in hope of future union with God beyond this life.

As for the cardinal virtue justice, surely a virtuous non-Christian can be willing to lay down his life for social justice (e.g., racial or economic equality). But a Christian might do this differently. Anyone who has read Martin Luther King’s work knows that he was committed to racial equality not only for the sake of humanity’s natural end (social justice), but also for the sake of his and humanity’s ultimate union with God. He pursued justice in a manner shaped by Christ’s injunction to love the enemy, and turn the other cheek. Archbishop Oscar Romero spoke out for economic justice on behalf of the poor not simply because the conditions of his society impeded natural human flourishing, but also because they violated the dignity of people created in God’s image, and particularly the poor, for whom God has a special love.

These examples reveal that cardinal virtues, while always concerning inner-worldly activities, actually come in two different stripes. And therefore there are ultimately three types of virtues. First, there are infused theological virtues. These concern God directly, and thus are obtained only with God’s grace. Second, there are acquired cardinal virtues. They concern inner-worldly activities. They are accessible to unaided human reason and acquired by our own efforts. They direct us toward human flourishing considered simply at the level of our created human nature. Finally, there are also infused cardinal virtues. These concern inner-worldly activities as well. Yet they incline us to do inner-worldly activities well in the larger perspective of our supernatural destiny. They give a different meaning to those activities, commonly leading to different particular actions.

The Significance of the Infused Cardinal Virtues

W hy is any of this important? Is it simply an abstract theological claim that there are not only infused theological and acquired cardinal virtues, but also infused cardinal virtues? Categorizations often help us understand more about what is being categorized. This is certainly the case with the infused cardinal virtues. People who neglect the existence of this type of virtue fail to see accurately a crucial facet of the Christian life. They may rightly note that people can acquire on their own certain cardinal virtues concerning inner-worldly activities. And they might even recognize that God helps people to be in right relationship with him by infusing the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. But if these two categories of virtue were all that existed, something important would be missing. We suggest three reasons for why the infused cardinal virtues are so important in the Christian life, and thus why something is “missing” when they are not attended to.

First, Christian faith transforms not just a person’s relationship with God, but also a person’s inner-worldly activities. The problem with a two-fold categorization of virtue, which attends only to infused theological virtue and acquired cardinal virtue, is its failure to account for how our worldly activities are transformed by our faith. Simply put, Christian faith matters for how we live, including those activities that nonbelievers can do virtuously. We have already seen the case of fasting, which provides an obvious example of Christian faith transforming how one goes about an inner-worldly activity. There are many other such examples. Consider the political example of Saint Thomas More, who refused to acquiesce to King Henry VIII’s demand that he recognize an illegitimate marriage. More’s infused justice precluded him from doing so, and his infused fortitude gave him the grace to endure martyrdom because of it. Or consider the contemporary example of the United States Bishops, whose stances on political issues differ from our prevailing Republican and Democratic views on justice in their attention to life at all stages, and to the preferential option for the poor. This “infused justice” is not simply the same as secular forms of justice, but rather is transformed by Christian beliefs. The very content of their positions is shaped by the infused cardinal virtue of justice.

As noted above, sometimes the action performed by someone with an acquired a cardinal virtue does look the same as one performed by someone with an infused cardinal virtue. If you want a good trainer, his or her faith commitment is probably not very important. And surely people with either infused cardinal virtues or acquired cardinal virtues can pursue racial equality in the same manner espoused by King. That said, even in these cases where the external act may be the same, the meaning of the action is still slightly different. The Christian trainer may understand her work as a way of honoring the bodies God gave us, as really a form of worship. The nonbeliever would not consciously share this perspective. Similarly with King, anyone who has read him knows that he understood his work for social justice to be directly related to his own faith and the larger Christian project of helping to instantiate the kingdom of God. A socially just atheist could surely join King, but the overall meaning of the act would be different.

Thus the first reason why we must attend to the infused cardinal virtues is to see how Christian faith transforms a person’s inner-worldly activities. At times this leads the believer to different sorts of actions. Different ultimate ends can lead to different understandings of what constitutes truly just, temperate, brave, and prudent action. [22] Yet even when the one with infused cardinal virtue performs acts that appear the same to the external observer as the ones performed by someone with acquired cardinal virtues, those acts nonetheless possess a different overall meaning due to their relation to the supernatural destiny of the person.

The second reason why we must attend to the infused cardinal virtues is the Christian belief that people can receive God’s grace to help them become virtuous , not just directly in their relationship with God (faith, hope, and love) but also in their inner-worldly activities. This is readily seen in our liturgical and prayer lives. We commonly pray for God’s help in being more just, temperate, brave, and prudent people. We trust that God’s grace “works” in these areas as well. Consider the example of Saint Paul from Acts 9. He ceased his unjust persecution of Christians due to God’s direct intervention. Or consider Saint Augustine, who begged for God’s assistance in being rid of his lustful desires, and was granted that help in the famous story of his conversion in the garden. [23]

Christian faith transforms not just a person’s relationship with God, but also a person’s inner-worldly activities. The problem with a two-fold categorization of virtue, which attends only to infused theological virtue and acquired cardinal virtue, is its failure to account for how our worldly activities are transformed by our faith. Simply put, Christian faith matters for how we live.

These are obvious—and dramatic—examples of God’s grace helping people with inner-worldly activities. Unfortunately, due to the term “infused” and to the existence of such extraordinary stories of God’s grace, people too often assume that infused cardinal virtue is present only when someone has obviously been “zapped” by God’s grace in the manner of Saint Paul or Saint Augustine. But God’s grace can be just as present and efficacious for people who have less dramatic stories of God’s transformative impact on their lives. That grace can be present in the upbringing provided by holy parents, the challenging advice of a close friend, or the helpful example provided by a mentor. We say grace is present when someone is pointed toward his or her supernatural destiny of union with God. Such meaning and context for our virtuous action could not be present without God’s help, even when that help comes in less dramatic forms.

Differing from Saints Paul and Augustine are Saints Peter and Thomas Aquinas, who clearly exhibited infused cardinal virtues without extraordinary stories of being “zapped” by God’s grace. That does not mean God’s grace did not transform their lives; it most certainly did. What makes their cardinal virtues infused was that they came from God, and led to actions whose ultimate purpose was to unite them to God and to neighbors in and through God, which is of course their supernatural end, a destiny unknowable, let alone achievable, without God’s help. Acquired cardinal virtues may entail actions with the same “object,” but the ultimate source and ultimate goal of those activities would nonetheless be different.

The third and final reason why we must attend to the infused cardinal virtues is encapsulated in the famous Scholastic dictum “Grace perfects—rather than takes away or leaves untouched—nature.” We have talked a great deal in this chapter about humanity’s natural and supernatural ends. But there are two mistakes that are easy to make when discussing these two distinct ends. First, some assume that they persist as parallel tracks, with no relationship between the two. This chapter has been very explicit in asserting that this is not the case. Even seemingly “nonreligious” activities like physical training, eating, and fighting for racial equality are indeed transformed in the context of one’s supernatural destiny. We do not live hermetically sealed “natural” (or inner-worldly) and “supernatural” lives. Grace perfects nature, rather than leaving it untouched.

There is a second error in attending to humanity’s two distinct ends. Some people recognize that attention to our supernatural destiny impacts our inner-worldly activities, but go further and claim that believers should no longer seek and experience “natural” flourishing. The natural end is taken away and replaced by the supernatural end. Yet this opposite extreme also defies the Scholastic dictum that grace perfects—but does not take away or leave untouched—nature.

Since God’s grace perfects human nature even while transcending it, ironically complete “natural flourishing” is possible only for those who are assisted by God’s grace.

Some examples might help make this clear. Thomas again uses the example of fasting. Here is a case where infused temperance makes what one eats (e.g., during Lent) different for the believer. However, the “natural end” of eating is not taken away; rather, it is fulfilled and transcended in the broader context of one’s supernatural destiny. How does fasting respect the natural end while transcending it? Doesn’t it actually defy our natural end, since three square meals a day is the path to natural human flourishing as it concerns eating? Generally this is so. But just as we might fast a day before surgery, or “carbo-load” the day before a marathon, three square meals a day is not the only way of achieving our natural end. Furthermore, Thomas insists that if we were to fast so stringently that it actually harmed our natural bodily health, then we are fasting inappropriately. [24] Thus, grace fulfills and transcends, but does not destroy or leave unfulfilled, our nature.

A good example of this is the relationship between love and justice. It is in principle possible to be a just person and have a just society without the theological virtue of charity, or love. However, as both the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes and the recent Pope Benedict XVI encyclical Deus Caritas Est make clear, charity enables one to more perfectly see the beauty and dignity of other persons. This perfects (rather than leaves untouched, or destroys) our ability to be just, giving other persons their due. Thus the person with charity has a different sort of justice. It is still justice since it concerns inner-worldly relations with others. Yet it is transformed by God’s grace, and thus rightly called infused justice rather than acquired justice.

One more example may help illuminate this. Consider two believers who are married. As part of their shared life they go to church and understand their marriage to be a sacramental bond sustained by God’s grace. But that same grace also sustains them in “natural” aspects of their marriage, aspects of marriage shared by believers and nonbelievers alike. So one spouse may be granted infused virtue to be patient in times of strife and generous with time and attention. The other spouse may be granted infused virtue to be just in handling of finances and chaste in interactions with other people. All these virtues are in principle accessible to unaided reason, and indeed may be acquired by repeated actions and without further reference to any supernatural end by effort. But these Christian spouses are granted not only the infused theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, but also infused cardinal virtues to assist them in the “natural” facets of their marriage, and indeed to transform how those aspects are done in light of their supernatural end. In this case grace has clearly perfected—rather than taken away or left untouched—nature in a manner that may well be more complete than without God’s grace.

W e have come a long way since the opening of this chapter and the seemingly simple question: What difference does faith make in how a person lives his or her life, especially with regard to those activities engaged in by all people, regardless of faith commitment? The concept of virtue provides a vehicle for explaining how persons can be transformed, and their actions subsequently impacted. The cardinal virtues in particular concern actions in this world, and apply to believers and nonbelievers alike. Nonetheless, how they are practiced is shaped by one’s faith commitments. Thus the infused cardinal virtues are essential for understanding how God’s grace can transform human action in this world. In dramatic or subtle ways, these virtues equip the believer to live an integrated life of discipleship, such that one’s relationship with God truly shapes all one does.

Editors’ Note: This chapter is reprinted from Gathered for the Journey: Moral Theology in Catholic Perspective , ed. David Matzko McCarthy and M. Therese Lysaught (Grand Rapid: Eerdmans 2007), which is reprinted with the publisher's permission. 

This essay was first reprinted in Church Life: A Journal for the New Evangelization , volume 3, issue 4.

Featured Image: Lawrence Lew, OP ; CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0.

Concurrent Readings

Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity . San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001. Lewis offers a helpful and very concise introduction to cardinal virtues in the context of a larger account of Christianity (pp.76–81).

Porter, Jean. Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. Porter offers an advanced treatment of Thomistic ethics, and especially the relationship between virtue and other topics such as happiness and natural law.

Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae . New York: Benziger Brothers, 1948. The most formative text for this chapter is without a doubt Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae , particularly the Seconda Pars on the moral life. See especially Thomas’s general discussion of habits and virtues (I–II.49–70), and his detailed examination of each theological (II–II.1–46) and cardinal (II–II.47–170) virtue. Thomas himself was very influenced by Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics (books 2–6 are particularly important for the discussion of virtue).

Wadell, Paul. The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas . New York: Paulist, 1992. Wadell offers a helpful introduction to Thomistic ethics and virtue in particular (pp. 106–24).

[1] For a helpful introduction to this topic, see C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), pp. 76–81, where Lewis describes the cardinal virtues and uses the example of a tennis player to distinguish having a habit from performing occasional actions.

[2] See Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics , pp. 927–1112, in The Basic Works of Aristotle , ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), for a classic treatment of virtue. The discussion of habits (or “states of character”) is found in book 2, pp. 954–62.

[3] Recall David Cloutier’s chapter 6 earlier in this collection. There he describes how we humans act with purposes, for the sake of fulfillment. Intentions are those purposes.

[4] The classic place these are found in Scripture is 1 Cor. 13:13. But see also 1 Thess. 1:3.

[5] See Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1948), I–II.56, for a detailed discussion of the theological virtues.

[6] This is true even of those who apparently decide not to do certain activities, such as the celibate person or the pacifist.

[7] John Paul II used the term “innerworldly” in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor , §65.

[8] This is seen in the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who actually uses the term “moral virtue” to refer to virtues concerning innerworldly activities, but on certain occasions employs “cardinal virtue” to avoid confusion. See Summa Theologiae , I–II.61. Thomas examines all moral virtues under the auspices of one of the four cardinal virtues. See II–II.47–170.

[9] Again here he is following the likes of Gregory the Great and Cicero, both of whom he cites at Summa Theologiae I–II.61.2 and 61.3, respectively.

[10] C. S. Lewis’s brief chapter on the cardinal virtues in Mere Christianity , cited above, was very formative for this section.

[11] We commonly assume that vices are always examples of excess, in the case of temperance, excessive desire for pleasure. This is understandable since this problem is by far the most common. But Aristotle and Thomas are clear that one can be “intemperate” by having too little desire for, and too few activities seeking, pleasure. This is clearly the case with eating, but can even be true of people who prudishly condemn anything pleasurable as sinful.

[12] For this reason prudence has traditionally, in both Christian and non-Christian sources, been called the “charioteer of the virtues” or “preeminent among the virtues.” See, for instance, Catechism of the Catholic Church , 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), §1806.

[13] We see here the close relationship between prudence and conscience. Conscience is defined by the Catechism as the concrete judgment by reason of the moral quality of an act, as good or bad (see §1778). Though a treatment of conscience is beyond the scope of this chapter, in such a treatment one would explore whether an erroneous conscience, or acting wrongly out of ignorance, is blameworthy (vincible ignorance) or not blameworthy (invincible ignorance).

[14] There are even important commonalities between Western thought on the cardinal virtues and non-Western thought. See, for example, Lee H. Yearley’s Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).

[15] See book 4 of Plato’s Republic , trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1974), pp. 85–109. This is one of the reasons why early Christians such as Justin Martyr thought Plato was exposed to the Old Testament (which is not true)!

[16] Thomas makes this claim at Summa Theologiae I–II.61.3, where he cites Cicero’s De inventione rhetorica .

[17] See Augustine’s The Way of Life of the Catholic Church (Washington, D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1966), book I, pp. 15, 19–28. See Gregory the Great’s Morals on the Book of Job , cited at Thomas’s Summa Theologiae , I–II.61.2. Thomas’s own treatment of the cardinal virtues is cited above.

[18] For more on this point, see Jean Porter’s Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 190.

[19] For the importance of the community in such reflection, see Pamela Hall’s Narrative and Natural Law: An Interpretation of Thomistic Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).

[20] For a helpful discussion of the stages of development of virtue, see Paul Wadell’s The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas (New York: Paulist, 1992), pp. 106–24. Wadell bases his stages on Thomas’s Summa Theologiae , II–II.24.9.

[21] See Thomas’s Summa Theologiae , I–II.63.4.

[22] Recall the third section’s discussion about how competing views of “the way things really are” contribute to different understandings of virtuous inner-worldly activity.

[23] Augustine, Confessions , trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B. (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), book 8.

[24] See Thomas’s Summa Theologiae II–II.147.1ad.2. Jean Porter discusses this text in her Nature as Reason , p. 390.

William C. Mattison III

William C. Mattison III is Associate Professor of Moral Theology and Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

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The Moral Virtues - Essay 1: Truthfulness

Oct 21, 2016 1:30:50 PM  |  by Linda Kracht

“The moral virtues grow through education , deliberate acts , and perseverance in struggle.” [CCC 1839]

This is the first of a series of essays that will delve into the moral virtues over the course of this school year. As the Catechism suggests, all of us grow in moral virtue through education , practice , and perseverance. It doesn’t happen through a process of osmosis which commonly is defined as the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas or knowledge. Parents play a vital role in forming virtuous children as they closely supervise, teach, and model the various virtues. And our youth are the “most apt and suitable for laying the foundations of a truly religious life” according to St. Bernard.

[Tweet "The Catechism on #truthfulness and a quiz from @LindaKracht"]

The catechism teaches us that “ temporal consequences of sin remain in all of us including weakness of character and the inclination to sin. We are left to wrestle with concupiscence  [the tinder for sin]; however, it cannot harm those who resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.” [CCC 1264] And so it is vital to arm ourselves with virtues in order to avoid sin, love more authentically, and soldier on in this world. Each day we have one more opportunity to develop strong(er) or weak(er) characters. It is worth repeating that in order to live virtuous lives we have to practice virtue, learn what it is, and persevere. “Indeed, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” [2 Timothy 2:5]

The first virtue [and the opposing vice] we will discuss is truthfulness; its opposing vice is untruthfulness or deceitfulness and that will be discussed last. I selected this virtue/vice combo first because of their importance in everyday life.

What is truth or truthfulness? Let’s turn to the Catechism for answers. Truth means this: it is those human actions that imitate or are in conformity to the Lord’s example. Truthfulness is the virtue that consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against duplicity, dissimulation and hypocrisy. [CCC 2468] Truthfulness, the virtue associated with speech and actions, is fundamental for developing/sustaining healthy relationships. Trust, confidence, personal integrity,  and authentic love are fully supported by truthfulness. You recognize that the Eighth Commandment unequivocally teaches us that we are not to bear false witness against our neighbor; in other words, we are to be truthful in our words and actions and they are to conform to Charity. If possible, please read the following paragraphs in the Catholic Catechism: 2264 - 2513.

Truthfulness and/or truth is a critical moral virtue to arm ourselves with; it is well supported by the virtue of courage. Consider the amount of courage it takes to speak and act with truthfulness every day. Yet most of us, by nature tend to be truthful. [CCC 2467] That’s the good news! However, even adults forsake truthfulness especially when having to admit a wrongdoing. Children and adults alike fear the negative consequences that may result from such open admissions. This is why parents have to pay close attention to their children’s inconsistent excuses and explanations. Parents have to address early lies in order to prevent our children from getting good or getting by with lying.

Like anything else, practice makes perfect — in the case of truthfulness, the practice is truthfulness and the perfecting is protective and loving. On the other hand, when the practice is a vice the perfecting hurts everyone. Most of us act guilty when we are guilty because body language is much harder to suppress than untruthfulness of word. When internal struggles and fears shout out Guilty, our bodies normally respond in kind through a lack of eye contact, anger, sweating, wringing of hands, or other negative outward behaviors. No matter the age, we are called to speak the truth, to witness to the truth, and to represent the truth in what we say, do and promise. We are called to say what we mean and mean what we say. “But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes ' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil.” [Matthew 5:37]

Years ago, a girl was trying to cheat by asking me the answers to a test that I had already taken. When I asked Sister Magdella how to respond to such inquiries in the future, she suggested I say that I didn’t know the answer to that question. “But that’s a lie," I said. She said you don’t know the answer to the question for her. This didn’t make sense to me but was a way out of the situations this girl kept putting me in. Today, I don’t agree with the good sister. It seems that it would have been far better to have told me to have courage, and simply state that I can’t help her cheat. What do you think?

How can we know the truth?  “God is the source of all truth. Since God is true, we are called to live in the truth, to speak the truth, to model truth. [CCC 2465] And the truth is black and white even though cultural wisdom says otherwise.  Furthermore, there is no such thing as a good lie even what is often referred to as a white lie; goodness can only be found in truth and truthfulness.

Let’s touch briefly on the problem of deceitfulness or lack of truthfulness. Both of these produce only  negative consequences — broken homes, broken laws, broken feelings, and broken lives. But a person doesn’t become deceitful over night. It takes practice. The good news is that it takes considerably less practice to be truthful. When a friend, family member, co-worker, acquaintance is untruthful, it is nearly impossible to forge intimate relationships with them. Their dishonesty betrays personal trust, confidence and/or authentic love. Untruthfulness always chips away at the dignity of the recipient of the lie. A vice fosters additional vices, just as virtues foster additional virtues. Vice and virtue are incompatible. Either a person strives to be truthful or not. There are so many ways to be untruthful; let’s discuss the more subtle ways next.

Giving false witness is always an act of untruthfulness. This act becomes especially serious when someone’s life  or livelihood is negatively impacted by a false accusation or retelling of events. When someone gives false testimony publicly, it is called giving false witness. When it happens in a court of law, under oath, it is known as perjury. Both gravely compromise the “exercise of justice and the fairness of judicial decisions.” [CCC 2476]

Parents need to teach their children that it is just as important to protect the reputation of people we may not personally know as it is to protect the reputations of family members, friends, and self. And its even more critical that we monitor our children’s use of electronics (cell phone, test messaging, social media networks) so that the protection of reputations is being honored. The Catechism explains why the respecting of others’ reputation is so critical. It actually uses the strong word — forbidden — to get across that disrespecting others’ reputations is forbidden! And there are so many ways to do so.  Judging someone rashly accepts as fact the moral fault of a person without having sufficient proof that its true. This aligns one with untruth rather than truth. Its close cousin is known as detraction . This involves the disclosing of someone’s faults and failings to persons who do not need to know. Gossiping is type of detraction. A third cousin to the previous vices is known as calumny . A person practicing calumny says things that are not true, thereby harming the reputation of others. It also involves giving others the ammunition needed to jump to false conclusions or judgments about someone else. Each of the above offend the virtues of justice and charity. [CCC 2479]

Flattery, adulation, or complaisance are also forms of untruthfulness; boasting and bragging also are untruthfulness. Poking fun via a joke that characterizes someone in a negative light is also wrong. So is duplicity, dissimulation (concealment of one’s true thoughts) and hypocrisy. The sins against the eighth commandment are particularly problematic because we can’t recoup the damage done by our gossip, slander, dishonesty, deceit, pretending, etc. Our words and actions matter!

The Golden Rule applies well to this commandment. This rule urges us to “do to others what we would want them to do to us.” Very few of us desire to have our characters assassinated by false accusations, words, gossip, etc. Its also too easy to disassociate rash judgment, detraction, gossip, calumny, from untruthfulness so it is important to talk about each of these with our children. They probably don’t even know what most of the terms even mean — really! These are nuanced words that need explanation time and time again through use of personal examples, etc. And so parents can help their children arm themselves with virtue by defining, teaching, explaining, patterning, and giving reasons for why truthfulness is such an important virtue to strive for daily.

Use the following worksheet to assess your compliance of the Eighth Commandment. [adapted from the author’s series entitled: Black and White: An Examination of God’s Moral Laws):

Give yourself a zero to three for each activity; zero represents you never do this; a one represents doing the activity sometimes but less than 50% of the time; and give yourself a two when you do it more than 50% of the time; and give yourself a three when you always do this.

I speak the truth.            _______

I defend the God-given rights of all people.         _______

I apply the Golden rule to my daily encounter with others         _______

I read the Catechism section on the 8th commandment         _______

I speak sincerely          _______

I reject ungodly artistic expression         _______

I am personally trustworthy         _______

I believe God and His word are Truth         _______

I avoid gossip — repeating, listening and spreading it         _______

I stay positive with difficult people         _______

I pray for my detractors         _______

I pray for those who are against God and His Church          _______

I refuse to disclose unnecessary information to others         _______

I speak with consideration of others’ feelings                                                          _______

I refuse to flatter, or partake in adulation or complaisance          _______

I avoid boasting, teaching bragging             _______

I am not hypocritical         _______

I try not to harm others’ reputations through my words or actions                        _______

Score: ______________

The assessment is only a tool to help you to grow in the virtue of truthfulness. Scores less that 12 demonstrate extra effort should be made to the practice of being truthful. Scores of 13 - 36 warrant more attention to the practice of truthfulness. Scores of 37 - 54 demonstrates good effort is being made to be truthful.

Copyright 2016 Linda Kracht

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About the Author

Linda Kracht

Linda is a wife, mother of seven, and grandmother of 23. Linda is founder of Fortifying Families of Faith, LLC and her books include: Daughters Forever, Sons Forever; The Art of Breastfeeding, published by the Couple to Couple League; Mothers Forever, Fathers Forever; Surviving College; Black and White; and A Book for All Seasons .

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The Atmosphere of the ‘Manosphere’ Is Toxic

By David French

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To understand the state of men in this country, it’s necessary to know three things.

First, millions of men are falling behind women academically and suffering from a lack of meaning and purpose. Second, there is no consensus whatsoever on whether there’s a problem, much less how to respond and pull millions of men back from the brink. Third, many men are filling the void themselves by turning to gurus to guide their lives. They’re not waiting for elite culture, the education establishment or the church to define manhood. They’re turning to Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and a host of others — including Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson — to show them the way.

Not all of these influencers are equally toxic. Tate, for example, is in a class by himself. He’s a pornographer who is facing human trafficking and rape charges in Romania. Peterson, by contrast, mixes good advice with a bizarre ideology . He’ll swing between compassionate insight and wild conspiracy. I’ve known men who genuinely improved their lives through elements of Peterson’s teaching. But to spend time watching and reading these gurus as a group is to understand why men continue to struggle even though the market is now flooded with online advice.

It’s as if an entire self-help industry decided the best cure for one form of dysfunction is simply a different dysfunction. Replace passivity and hopelessness with frenetic activity, tinged with anger and resentment. Get in the weight room, dress sharper, develop confidence and double down on every element of traditional masculinity you believe is under fire.

Yes, men are absolutely feeling demoralized, as Richard Reeves put it in his brilliant book “ Of Boys and Men : Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.” But what is the influencer advice in response? Lash out. Fight. Defy the cultural elite that supposedly destroyed your life.

I’m reminded of my colleague David Brooks’s distinction between “résumé virtues” and “eulogy virtues.” As David described it, résumé virtues “are those skills you bring to the marketplace.” Eulogy virtues, by contrast, “are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?” Most of the “manosphere” influencers look at men’s existential despair and respond with a mainly material cure. Yes, some nod at classical values (and even cite the Stoics , for example), but it’s in service of the will to win. Success — with money, with women — becomes your best revenge.

The problems with this approach are obvious to anyone with an ounce of wisdom or experience, but I’m reminded of a memorable line from “The Big Lebowski”: “I mean, say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.” It’s hard to counter something with nothing, and when it comes to the crisis confronting men and boys, there is no competing, holistic vision for our sons.

One reason for this vacuum is that any discussion of the crisis among men almost immediately devolves into a debate over masculinity itself. Is traditional masculinity toxic? Or is it toxic to abandon traditionally masculine approaches to raising boys? What is traditional masculinity anyway? Is “masculinity” even a concept worth pursuing, or does it jam too many boys into stereotypical boxes, magnifying their misery?

After reading a new book, I’m wondering if there is another, better way. Can we sidestep the elite debate over masculinity by approaching the crisis with men via an appeal to universal values rather than to the distinctively male experience? In other words, is there a universal approach to shaping character that can have a disproportionately positive impact on our lost young men?

The book I am talking about is called “ The Pursuit of Happiness .” It’s by Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center (where I’ve spoken at a number of events), and it’s not a self-help book, nor is it a guide for young men. But it does contain a superior moral vision for the good life, one that is directly connected to the philosophy of the founding generation.

The core argument of the book is that the phrase “pursuit of happiness” — Thomas Jefferson’s memorable phrase in the Declaration of Independence — is fundamentally misunderstood. We think of happiness as the pursuit of pleasure, Rosen writes, “but classical and Enlightenment thinkers defined happiness as the pursuit of virtue — as being good, rather than feeling good.”

He explains how several of the founders imperfectly but quite intentionally and systematically listed the virtues they aspired to uphold and engaged in critical self-reflection about their own faults. As Rosen writes, “The classical definition of the pursuit of happiness meant being a lifelong learner, with a commitment to practicing the daily habits that lead to character improvement, self-mastery, flourishing and growth.” The emphasis is on the word “lifelong” — the pursuit of happiness is a quest, not a destination, in part because we are always a work in progress, even to our last days.

And what are these classical virtues? Benjamin Franklin’s list included temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquillity, chastity and humility. I prefer the shorter and simpler formulation in Aristotle’s four cardinal virtues : prudence, justice, temperance and courage.

None of these virtues is distinctly male, of course. Rosen speaks of the influence of classical virtues on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s moral development, for example. At the same time, however, I’ve never met a struggling young man whose life wouldn’t be enriched by greater commitment to any one of those cardinal virtues, much less all four. Regardless of your definition of masculinity, is there any world or any relevant ideology in which a prudent, just, temperate and courageous man isn’t a good man?

In Rosen’s book, you’ll find both the people and the philosophy that can replace the influencers of the modern manosphere. Franklin, John Adams and other founders were hardly perfect, but their ideas and examples are orders of magnitude more positive than the ideas and examples that dominate masculine discourse today.

Too much of our education establishment and too many of our nation’s parents are focused on success ethics, not virtue ethics. Our schools train students for careers, and parents push their children toward success, hovering over them to monitor their progress or snowplowing to clear their way. In the success ethic, virtues are often a means to an end. Prudence, temperance and industry can contribute to your success, but that is not their ultimate purpose.

Yet success ethics are ultimately empty, and our children feel that emptiness. If they fall behind, they feel panic and dread. But even when they succeed, their success doesn’t fill that hole in their hearts, at least not for long. Virtue, however, is different. Perfection is impossible, but virtue is a purpose all its own. And it’s that pursuit of virtue, not mere achievement (and certainly not resentment), that ultimately defines who we are.

I fall back to these universal values not because I reject the idea that young men have a distinct masculine experience, but rather because the argument about ideal masculinity is diverting our attention from the more urgent quest, to fill the hole in the hearts of our children, to provide them with a purpose that is infinitely more satisfying than the ambition and rebellion that define the ethos of the gurus who are leading so many young men astray.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation .” You can follow him on Threads ( @davidfrenchjag ).

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The Moral Virtues - essay 1 - Truthfulness

“The moral virtues grow through education , deliberate acts , and perseverance in struggle.” [CCC 1839]

This is the first of a series of essays that will delve into the moral virtues over the course of this school year. As the Catechism suggests, all of us grow in moral virtue through education , practice , and perseverance. It doesn’t happen through a process of osmosis which commonly is defined as the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas or knowledge.Parents play a vital role in forming virtuous children as they closely supervise, teach, and model the various virtues. And our youth are the “most apt and suitable for laying the foundations of a truly religious life” according to St. Bernard.

The catechism teaches us that “ temporal consequences of sin remain in all of us including weakness of character and the inclination to sin. We are left to wrestle with concupiscence [the tinder for sin]; however, it cannot harm those who resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.” [CCC1264] And so it is vital to arm ourselves with virtues in order to avoid sin, love more authentically, and soldier on in this world. Each day we have one more opportunity to develop strong(er) or weak(er) characters. It is worth repeating that in order to live virtuous lives we have to practice virtue; learn what it is, and persevere. “Indeed, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” [2 Timothy 2:5]

The first virtue [and the opposing vice] we will discuss is truthfulness; its opposing vice is untruthfulness or deceitfulness and that will be discussed last. I selected this virtue/vice combo first because of their importance in everyday life. What is truth or truthfulness? Let’s turn to the Catechism for answers. Truth means this: it is those human actions that imitate or are in conformity to the Lord’s example. Truthfulness is the virtue that consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against duplicity, dissimulation and hypocrisy. {CCC 2468] Truthfulness, the virtue associated with speech and actions, is fundamental for developing/sustaining healthy relationships. Trust, confidence, personal integrity, and authentic love are fully supported by truthfulness. You recognize that the Eighth Commandment unequivocally teaches us that we are not to bear false witness against our neighbor; in other words we are to be truthful in our words and actions and they are to conform to Charity. If possible, please read the following paragraphs in the Catholic Catechism: 2264 - 2513.

Truthfulness and/or truth is a critical moral virtue to arm ourselves with; it is well supported by the virtue of courage. Consider the amount of courage it takes to speak and act with truthfulness every day. Yet most of us, by nature tend to be truthful. [CCC 2467] That’s the good news! However, even adults forsake truthfulness especially when having to admit a wrongdoing. Children and adults alike fear the negative consequences that may result from such open admissions. This is why parents have to pay close attention to their children’s inconsistent excuses and explanations. Parents have to address early lies in order to prevent our children from getting good or getting by with lying. Like anything else, practice makes perfect — in the case of truthfulness, the practice is truthfulness and the perfecting is protective and loving. On the other hand, when the practice is a vice the perfecting hurts everyone. Most of us act guilty when we are guilty because body language is much harder to suppress than untruthfulness of word. When internal struggles and fears shout out Guilty, our bodies normally respond in kind through a lack of eye contact, anger, sweating, wringing of hands, or other negative outward behaviors. No matter the age, we are called to speak the truth, to witness to the truth, and to represent the truth in what we say, do and promise. We are called to say what we mean and mean what we say. “But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes ' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil.” [Matthew 5:37]

Years ago, a girl was trying to cheat by asking me the answers to a test that I had already taken. When I asked Sister Magdella how to respond to such inquiries in the future, she suggested I say that I didn’t know the answer to that question. “But that’s a lie," I said. She said you don’t know the answer to the question for her. This didn’t make sense to me but was a way out of the situations this girl kept putting me in. Today, I don’t agree with the good sister. It seems that it would have been far better to have told me to have courage, and simply state that I can’t help her cheat. What do you think?

How can we know the truth? “God is the source of all truth. Since God is true, we are called to live in the truth; to speak the truth, to model truth. [CCC 2465] And the truth is black and white even though cultural wisdom says otherwise. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a good lie even what is often referred to as a white lie; goodness can only be found in truth and truthfulness.

Let’s touch briefly on the problem of deceitfulness or lack of truthfulness. Both of these produce only negative consequences — broken homes, broken laws, broken feelings, and broken lives. But a person doesn’t become deceitful over night. It takes practice. The good news is that it takes considerably less practice to be truthful. When a friend, family member, co-worker, acquaintance is untruthful, it is nearly impossible to forge intimate relationships with them. Their dishonesty betrays personal trust; confidence and/or authentic love. Untruthfulness always chips away at the dignity of the recipient of the lie. A vice fosters additional vices; just as virtues foster additional virtues. Vice and virtue are incompatible. Either a person strives to be truthful or not. There are so many ways to be untruthful; let’s discuss the more subtle ways next.

Giving false witness is always an act of untruthfulness. This act becomes especially serious when someone’s life or livelihood is negatively impacted by a false accusation or retelling of events. When someone gives false testimony publicly, it is called giving false witness. When it happens in a court of law, under oath, it is known as perjury. Both gravely compromise the “exercise of justice and the fairness of judicial decisions.” [CCC 2476]

Parents need to teach their children that it is just as important to protect the reputation of people we may not personally know as it is to protect the reputations of family members, friends, and self. And its even more critical that we monitor our children’s use of electronics (cell phone, text messaging, social media networks) so that the protection of reputations is being honored. The Catechism explains why the respecting of others’ reputation is so critical. It actually uses the strong word — forbidden — to get across that disrespecting others’ reputations is forbidden! And there are so many ways to do so. Judging someone rashly accepts as fact the moral fault of a person without having sufficient proof that its true. This aligns one with untruth rather than truth. Its close cousin is known as detraction . This involves the disclosing of someone’s faults and failings to persons who do not need to know. Gossiping is type of detraction. A third cousin to the previous vices is known as calumny . A person practicing calumny says things that are not true thereby harming the reputation of others. It also involves giving others the ammunition needed to jump to false conclusions or judgments about someone else. Each of the above offend the virtues of justice and charity. [CCC 2479]

Flattery, adulation, or complaisance are also forms of untruthfulness; boasting and bragging also are untruthfulness. Poking fun via a joke that characterizes someone in a negative light is also wrong. So is duplicity, dissimulation (concealment of one’s true thoughts) , and hypocrisy. The sins against the eighth commandment are particularly problematic because we can’t recoup the damage done by our gossip, slander, dishonesty, deceit, pretending, etc. Our words and actions matter!

The Golden Rule applies well to this commandment. This rule urges us to “do to others what we would want them to do to us.” Very few of us desire to have our characters assassinated by false accusations, words, gossip, etc. Its also too easy to disassociate rash judgment, detraction, gossip, calumny, from untruthfulness so it is important to talk about each of these with our children. They probably don’t even know what most of the terms even mean — really! These are nuanced words that need explanation time and time again through use of personal examples, etc. And so parents can help their children arm themselves with virtue by defining, teaching, explaining, patterning, and giving reasons for why truthfulness is such an important virtue to strive for daily.

Use the following worksheet to assess your compliance of the Eighth Commandment.[adapted from the author’s series entitled: Black and White: An Examination of God’s Moral Laws):

I speak the truth. _______ I defend the God-given rights of all people. _______ I apply the Golden rule to my daily encounter with others _______ I read the Catechism section on the 8th commandment _______ I speak sincerely _______ I reject ungodly artistic expression _______ I am personally trustworthy _______ I believe God and His word are Truth _______ I avoid gossip — repeating, listening and spreading it _______ I stay positive with difficult people _______ I pray for my detractors _______ I pray for those who are against God and His Church _______ I refuse to disclose unnecessary information to others _______ I speak with consideration of others’ feelings _______ I refuse to flatter, or partake in adulation or complaisance _______ I avoid boasting, teaching bragging _______ I am not hypocritical _______ I try not to harm others’ reputations through my words or actions _______

The assessment is only a tool to help you to grow in the virtue of truthfulness. Scores less that 12 demonstrate extra effort should be made to the practice of being truthful. Scores of 13 - 36 warrant more attention to the practice of truthfulness. Scores of 37 - 54 demonstrates good effort is being made to be truthful. Give yourself a zero to three for each activity; zero represents you never do this; a one represents doing the activity sometimes but less than 50% of the time; and give yourself a two when you do it more than 50% of the time; and give yourself a three when you always do this.

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Linda Kracht lives in St Paul MN with her husband, Dave. Linda is the founder of Fortifying Families of Faith whose mission is to support, fortify and advocate for parents as they ‘parent against the tide.’

Fortifying Families of Faith fully acknowledges that society comes from families and will only be as strong as the average family. Therefore, it is crucial that society recognizes the importance of the autonomous family. Linda advocates for parent-directed formation of children specifically in three areas: Faith, Morality & Sex Education no matter where they are enrolled academically.

Linda is the author of multiple publications including her current best seller:  Journaling with Sunday Scriptures: A Book for All Seasons. Other publications include; Daughters and Sons Forever. Mothers Forever, Fathers Forever;  Black and White; Surviving College;  and the Art of Breastfeeding. Linda has also written many articles on a wide variety of topics for parents to support them in their role as lay priest prophet and king of their christian families. Linda’s  experience with parenting her own seven children forged her dedication to writing and teaching about matters that pertain to marriage and family life. For more information about Linda, Fortifying Families of Faith, her articles, online materials, and parent programs please visit www.fortifyingfamiliesoffaith.com.