The Importance Of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics And The Virtues

The concept of moderation and its importance throughout Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics and Thomas Aquinas’ The Virtues, is heavily contrasted with the intensity displayed within Baudelaire 's poem Get Drunk, and the documentary Amy. Within these four works, it is clear that not only do the concepts of intensity and moderation contradict, but the varying methods and effects of the two within each group contradict as well. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics the idea of moderation is portrayed through temperance which stems from self control. Aristotle defines this self control as a virtue and states that “For abstaining from pleasures makes us become temperate, and once we have become temperate we are most capable of abstaining from pleasures” (20). When restraining from pleasures Aristotle is referring to wealth or other materials that are made to bring along other items for pleasure, because he believes that they are no good, and in effect vices(1096a). This personal restraint from idle pleasures allows one to create a sense of moral habituation which over time leads to eternal happiness. Internal happiness is the end goal for a person and Aristotle deems this as a true virtue. He explains that “human virtue, though, we mean not that of the body, but that of the soul; and …show more content…
Nevertheless, it is not enough to obtain this sense of happiness and be idle. It is only through practice of a moral habitation that one is truly