Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is an ethical theory that states an action is morally right if it is in accord with the virtues. Aristotle argues that a happy or good life essentially involves a life of activity in accordance with virtue. Therefore, an individual should strive to be a good person in order to achieve this. If one is not already a good person, then they should discover what a virtuous person would characteristically do in the circumstances and do that. Based upon the recommendations of virtue ethics, I have decided that I should not read all three sentences verbatim of my speech.
First of all, I should not say the first sentence, “Wow, I really wasn't sure that I was going to win, but I accept this gracious recognition of my hard work,” because it goes against one of Aristotle’s virtues, truthfulness. The sentence shows signs of boastfulness because it is already clear to everyone that I will be the one to win the award. For me to say, “I really wasn’t sure that I was going to win…” shows that I am conceited because it is already obvious that I was going to win, but yet, I am still trying to cover it up by pretending to be oblivious and clueless. In addition, …show more content…
The following statement also goes against Aristotle’s virtue of truthfulness; it displays signs of deficiency of truthfulness, which is lying. The lie is that I am claiming that the other nominees had such strong performances, but the truth is that they had poor acting performances. I should not lie to such a large audience just to boost up the egos of the other nominees. Instead, I believe that I should say, “I am honored to have been nominated with many other talented people,” because calling the other nominees ‘talented’ is just a compliment; it is not an act of lying like stating that they had strong performances this year, but they were truly poor