Analysis Of Virtues By Aristotle

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Virtues as described by Aristotle in book II falls between two extremes or Vices. One side represents the deficits where a cowardice decision is taking place the other side represents the excess of passion where recklessness is. There’s also a middle, the perfect midpoint between the two extremes otherwise known as the golden mean. The golden mean is when a person has access to the right action and achieves equilibrium. Aristotle divides the human brain into parts one part governs and reasons logically, the other is what should be overseen but is filled with the persons passions, and a part that is unresponsive to governing such as involuntary actions like digestion. To be able to understand what the virtue is we need to understand the choice. …show more content…
Otherwise known as a voluntary act. Voluntary acts are actions that originate within the agent through choice and deliberation. We only analyze things when we have to act differently in a situation. When we analyze things in our life we do it only to things that we can change not to things we already know. Aristotle argues that we do not deliberate our ends. For example some students study to get a good grade, that is the end, but some deliberate whether to get good grades is worth the effort to try so hard or is it better to just do the bare minimum. Most likely this isn’t the case because when a person analyzes an action like this we are only considering the ends in light of some further end like graduating. Involuntary acts are that we are not knowledgeable about. The forces that cause us to act involuntarily can be physical and psychological pressures. Such pressures can be threats of pain where no one could stand such force. Usually the feelings of pain and regret are the products of involuntary actions because the action done may have been something we didn’t want to do. Involuntary actions are also accompanied by ignorance. The difference is when the action is done in the midst of ignorance or force is what the product of the action causes us pain or regret. For example if you’re in a crowded room and someone pushes you and you accidently …show more content…
Most people will seem to put this in a consequentialist perspective for example studying to get good grades to pass the class then graduate then get a job so we can ultimately get money and try to live life from there. I think that Aristotle doesn’t necessarily string up all the consequences but he instead arranges the activities into a hierarchy where the person is just trying to accomplish one thing by doing another then another and another. Living a human life means trying your very best to live life well and practicing a profession well is one of the many steps in living well. All activities aim at something good of course the word ‘good’ can be skewed. Humans desire happiness even when we see humans who aren’t good at being humans they are still in their own twisted way are trying to attain happiness. Living a rational life is accordance to the person’s virtues. Engaging in rational activities will help us find happiness. Just focusing on rationality isn’t enough by itself the other factors that play a part in our life is our virtues that help supplement us to support our life rationally in conjunction to our virtues. Many might argue that humans may have been taught the bad things are good and the good things are bad and therefore they are performing involuntary acts. Although in situation like that you may give that person some leniency but ultimately there

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