Aristotle claims that all actions aim towards something good. Actions can have multiple purposes, but they all aim towards something good. “All human activities aim at some good: some good subordinate others.” (Aristotle, Book 1, §1,p. 124 LC). Moreover, Aristotle claims that the highest good must be something we want for its own sake. He states that “ The good must be something final and self-sufficient. ( Aristotle, Book 1, §7,p. 125 LC). By final and self-sufficient he means something which not only is self-sufficient for oneself but for fellow citizens. Happiness is according to Aristotle the highest good because it is something final,end of the action and self-sufficient. We choose it for itself, not for the sake of something else. It
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This is a strength because it gives us a purpose in life. The argument inspires humans to be excellent and create good habits throughout their whole life, not just parts of it. He prescribes us with personal responsibility which gives his arguments strength. The weak part of the argument will I argue against in the next paragraph. Summarized, the weakness of Aristotle 's argument is that we evaluate happiness after a complete life. We will never know if we got there and there is no specific rules or checklists on if we got …show more content…
Aristotle claims that there are different kinds of virtue. There are both intellectual and moral virtue . We are born without virtues, instead, they arises in us by habituation. Additionally virtue is the mean between excess and defect ,both of vice essence. Since virtue is a state of character it implies that virtue is a mean. “Therefore,virtue is a kind of mean,since,as we have seen,it aims at what 's intermediate.” (Aristotle, Book 2, §6,p. 138 RC). Virtues involve choice and is therefore ,as mentioned earlier in this paper, a state of character. Nature did not give us virtues but what differ us with other species is our rationality. The mean is relative to us and is being determined by our rationality. To address the concern with moral issues that were raised in the criticism against Aristotle, we must describe the defect en excess before considering the mean. The mean is different from person to person. For example, being brave as a soldier includes different actions than being brave as a student. This is why our habits are so important. If we are raised with good habits we will use our rationality to act
This is a strength because it gives us a purpose in life. The argument inspires humans to be excellent and create good habits throughout their whole life, not just parts of it. He prescribes us with personal responsibility which gives his arguments strength. The weak part of the argument will I argue against in the next paragraph. Summarized, the weakness of Aristotle 's argument is that we evaluate happiness after a complete life. We will never know if we got there and there is no specific rules or checklists on if we got …show more content…
Aristotle claims that there are different kinds of virtue. There are both intellectual and moral virtue . We are born without virtues, instead, they arises in us by habituation. Additionally virtue is the mean between excess and defect ,both of vice essence. Since virtue is a state of character it implies that virtue is a mean. “Therefore,virtue is a kind of mean,since,as we have seen,it aims at what 's intermediate.” (Aristotle, Book 2, §6,p. 138 RC). Virtues involve choice and is therefore ,as mentioned earlier in this paper, a state of character. Nature did not give us virtues but what differ us with other species is our rationality. The mean is relative to us and is being determined by our rationality. To address the concern with moral issues that were raised in the criticism against Aristotle, we must describe the defect en excess before considering the mean. The mean is different from person to person. For example, being brave as a soldier includes different actions than being brave as a student. This is why our habits are so important. If we are raised with good habits we will use our rationality to act