Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

Aristotle follows his teacher Plato and Plato’s spokesman Socrates by viewing virtue as a requirement of the good life. Aristotle’s virtues are justice, courage, and temperance all of which can be achieved without metaphysical training. Regular men can acquire these virtues by practicing (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Kantian deontology comments on Aristotle’s virtue-ethics. For Kant, the idea was not to fuse Aristotle’s virtue-ethics with any other philosophy. Rather it was to examine Aristotle using a broad perspective. Repeated revivals of Aristotle’s virtue ethics are followed by reactions against it. Virtue-ethics has been applied to many situations and times that challenge the relevance of the theory. Many philosophers have contended that extending the theory beyond its original application and inspiration distorts it. Aristotle’s theory derived from a socio-cultural milieu in which virtues in concerned metaphysical independent things that could be converted into concrete things. That is a contradiction even in Aristotle because the application of metaphysical to real life is a sophisticated philosophical endeavor. It requires a high degree of abstract thinking to treat a theoretical thing as a tangible object (Louden 475-476).

Direction about the good life comes from one's socio-cultural milieu. In contemporary times advising a person on what he or she should do is not helped by Aristotle’s virtue-ethics theory because the theory is circular and not based on logic. Aristotle’s theory contains examples of the virtues however, the descriptions offered are done while maintaining Aristotelian and Platonic notions that deep inside all people know what is right and wrong. In “Some Vices of Virtue Ethics,” Louden declares that Aristotle knows what is right based on extremes thereby making his theory impractical as far as real-life situations. Training in these types of analysis is not useful for the contemporary population (8). Aristotle’s theory of virtue-ethics cannot be stretched enough to make it useable in applied ethics today (Pojman and Fieser 56-59).

Alasdair MacIntyre proposed an alternative to Aristotle’s virtue-ethics theory by seeking to accommodate the disagreements in contemporary society’s approach to morality. He explained that opposing moral stances today have different historic origins. Therefore they are not based on rational evaluations but rather on moral agreements formed in possibly inimical socio-cultural milieus. Modern thinkers from different cultures do not agree on a single notion of morality (Carden 89).

Louden's claims that Aristotle is irrelevant to the twentieth-century contradicts Louden's comparison of Aristotle and Kant in his other publications While explaining that Aristotle and Kant have similarities Louden launches into many discussions about the work of his colleagues. Louden’s theory is that morality in contemporary society deals with actions against oneself and not as it was in Aristotle and Kant who contemplated actions against others. In this way, Louden seeks to re-focus away from actions and onto self-evaluation. His conflicting statements within these discussions and when compared to his criticisms of Aristotle in “Some Vices of Virtue Ethics,” indicates that Louden wants to reconcile the value of having a moral theory with the (supposedly inherent human need) to take control of one’s life in the present.

In modern times many speak of the importance of justice as a virtue. This is a reference to individual actions and by extension social justice. John Rawls in particular views justice as relating to “social institutions” (3). This implies that justice as a virtue should be applied to and sought by individuals and social institutions. The main thrust of this argument by Rawls is that justice most rightly should be assessed through the introspection of individuals. Rawls's theory embraces Plato’s Republic contention that justice is the all-encompassing virtue of both individuals and social institutions.

In the twenty-first century, justice is not so all-encompassing of an idea. For example, comments on people who cheat on their taxes or their spouses do not conjure images of an unjust person. Justice in modern terms is usually a debate over money or property. Robbery is unjust. Not paying the contractor for home improvements is unjust. Unfortunately, modern discussions of justice as virtuous regarding individuals have been obscured by the emphasis on legal justice. 

Works Cited

Carden, Stephen D. Virtue Ethics: Dewey and Macintyre. London: Continuum, 2006.

Louden, Robert B. Kant's Human Being: Essays on His Theory of Human Nature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Louden, Robert B. "On Some Vices of Virtue Ethics.” Virtue Ethics / Edited by Roger Crisp and Michael Slote. (1997).

Pojman, Louis P, and James Fieser. Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2009.

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Retrieved from plato.stanford.edu