Aristotelian ethics

From Socrates to W.D. Ross, ethics are, in essence, the system of fundamental principles of decent human behaviour, which has been theorised, criticised and debated about in civil society for centuries. Ethics is the basis for sufficient moral judgement of an individual to pursue righteous actions that maintain the integrity, well-being and happiness of oneself and others. Act utilitarianism promotes universal hedonism, impartiality and judges the utility of deeds through the calculation of…

Within all three editions of his book, MacIntyre claims that we should give grave deliberation to Aristotle’s theory of the virtues. He does so by examining the antiquity of virtue ethics and attempts to create a classification of them for contemporary times. Nonetheless, MacIntyre’s disagreement was that modern ethics place far too much importance on reason and not enough stress on individuals, the characters of these individuals, and the frameworks of their lives. In addition, he believed that…

donate, but morally wrong to sell, organs (461). To do this, Björkman relies on two perspectives of virtue ethics. One being the Aristotelian approach that states that moral virtues are virtues that “help us flourish as human beings.” The second being a modern approach that states that a virtuous person does “what is admirable to do” (462). By defining these two perspectives of virtue ethics, Björkman comes to the conclusion that, given a choice, a virtuous person would donate their organs, not…

While writing this paper, I realized that one of the chief problematic aspects of moral philosophy is in the context of modernity and the contrast between rival traditions. So, what is the ethical conflict in modernity? MacIntyre describes it this way: The histories of expressivist agents are primarily histories of their affections, of what they have cared about and of how they came to care about what they care about. The histories of NeoAristotelians are histories of how they succeeded or…

Virtue theory - is this the best way to think about morality? “Every action aims at some good.” (Virtue Ethics 3.a). In this paper, I will argue that virtue theory is the best way to view morality. Morality is defined as the belief about what is considered right behavior and what is considered wrong behavior, and what degree it is right and good. I will be discussing what virtue is and what makes one a virtuous person. I will also be talking about some alternate views of virtue theory and the…

The thesis focuses on the Expressivism and Aristotelian argumentation of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Ethics in the Conflict of Modernity. Throughout my academic career I have delved into various aspects of philosophical, political, and religious teaching all of which have encompassed ideals of theistic ethics. Today, I will present a claim conceived by Alasadair MacIntyre in his book Ethics in the Conflict of Modernity. I will use the other philosophers as the occasion arises as I provide support for…

Philosophical theories of well-being can be divided in subjective and objective theories of well-being. Subjective theories of well-being claim that well-being is dependent on the subject’s attitude of favor and disfavor while objective theories deny that. In this paper, I will discuss two subjective theories of well-being: theory of authentic happiness and hedonism. First, I will point out some important differences between these two theories. Then I will try to criticize hedonism from the…

In this essay I aim to justify how Alasdair MacIntyre is not a relativist. To do this I will start by describing his ethical theory, which includes his account of virtue ethics, derived from his criticism of modern ethical thought. I will then explain how he is regarded by some people as a relativist due to his stress on tradition for rationality and finish by demonstrating how he is not a relativist because of the justification that some traditions are better than others. MacIntyre deeply…

Ethics and morality are normally thought of to be the same thing or at least close to the same thing. However, in the article, Conversing on Ethics, Morality and Education Dr. McGavin talks about how ethics and morality are not the same thing. He also goes over another article that talks about this subject and unpacks what that means and what he’s talking about. This article proved helpful in comparing ethics and morality for me. In the article Dr. McGavin talks about how morals are norms that…

to human beings and demonstrates how we should live. The two accounts of pleasure in the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics are broadly similar and agree with the supporting and opposing theories as well as on the nature of pleasure. The purpose of this paper is to best bring out the Aristotelian ethics in both the happiness and pleasure. The paper looks into the details the Nicomachean Ethics of these issues and goes into the details of his views in comparison with opposing views.…