GEC 18 (Ethics)

Course Outline

Plato’s Insight Into the Good

• “An academic introduction to the discipline of ethics is incomplete without the reference
to Plato [427 – 347 BCE]. Even the word “academic” itself harks back to academia, the
institution of learning established by Plato for the training of his followers who later will be
called philosophers, lovers of wisdom. Ethics, being a discipline pf study in universities that
fall under the umbrella of philosophy, can also trace its roots back to Plato as the
systematic thinker who grappled with the question of which is good.”
• “The context of the life of Plato is not totally unfamiliar with the students of today. Athens
and Greece went through an expansion of trade around 600 BCE. This “global” awakening
on the part of Greeks like Plato plunged him to an experience of social, political, and
intellectual challenge. Given the exchange of different experiences between Greece and
its neighboring countries around the Mediterranean Sea, Plato was interrogated by
different points of view. Plato and the students of today share this “global” challenge; it
leads us to question truth and inquiry into what is good. Given this pluralism of perspectives,
is it valid to ask “what is truly good?”
• “A serious claim faced by Plato was given voice by a thinker named Protagoras [481? –
411? BCE] who said that “man is the measure of all things.” The implications of such a claim
sit well with those who easily let go of the validity of traditional mores and ethos to arrive
at a conclusion that is relativistic. This easy relativism holds that man, being the measure of
all things, can only hold on to beliefs and truths that are for himself/herself or his/her society
only. It denies the possibility of ever arriving at truth that can be shared by all. Man, as the
measure of all things, came to be understood simplistically based on the concept that “to
each his own.”
• “Socrates [470 – 399 BCE], on the other hand, taught Plato about the difficulty of coming
to a knowledge of the truth. This difficulty, however, did not mean impossibility for Socrates.
He instilled this rigorous questioning to his students and did not shy away from interrogating
even the traditional leaders of Athens. This resulted in his death in 399 BCE on charges of
impiety and of misleading the youth with his ideas. Socrates, however, is immortalized in
the writings of Plato as the intelligent and courageous teacher who leads his hearers
nearer to the truth in the same way that midwives help in the birthing process of a child.”
• “This confrontation between Socratic inquiry and easy lack of thought is portrayed in the
allegory of the cave that is found in Plato’s The Republic.”
o Glaucon’s “The Ring of Gyges”
o Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”
• “This confidence in the human person’s ability to know the good and act in accordance
with it started the academic history of ethics. Plato’s claim is, however, not only made in
the past as they are recorded in dated documents that survived history. Plato continues
to address us today and his voice builds confidence in our own ability to know the good
and act ethically.”
• “Each age, however, has a particular way of interrogating Plato’s assertions and further
give nuance to what is known and how to act. Thinkers who come after him, for example,
will challenge a necessity that seems to have been so confidently lodged between
knowledge and action. Does knowing the good will automatically lead to acting on it?
The wonderful thing about this course in ethics is that the voices of thinkers who spent time
researching such questions are still heard and understood up to our present time and
challenge what we know about the good and how we act pursuant to it.”

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Module II
Virtue Ethics: Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

• Born on a Greek colony of Stagira, Macedonia
• A son of a natural historian and eminent physician
• Tutor to the young Alexander the Great
• Was considered as Plato’s greatest student
Introduction
• People are often most remembered by their most significant character traits. These traits
are the product of a consistent display of a particular behavior.
o Courageous
o Quick-witted
o Diligence
o Another example (seen as positive)
▪ Thoughtfulness
▪ Temperance
▪ Respectfulness
o (seen as negative)
▪ Cowardice
▪ Laziness
▪ Shamelessness
o “Bertong Tigasin (Bert ‘the formidable’) – a person who consistently displayed
strength and grit in character.
• We build our characters through how we make choices in different situations we face in
our lives.
o Meeting and speaking to different people
o Facing problems
o Handling day-to-day tasks
• In short, through the constant interaction of thought and action as prompted by various
situations that call for one’s decision, a person comes to know himself/herself as a certain
type of character or personality.
• Character is not merely a theoretical construct but a product of action in the world—a
constant doing or way of being that is made apparent by the possession and actualization
of particular virtues or vices.
• In sum, in one’s journey towards self-realization and self-flourishing, there is an implied
necessity to understand what he/she is actually aiming for in his/her life. In aiming for a
goal, the person must also first understand what he/she actually is and is potentially
capable of. Self-actualization is not attained through theory but by practice: character is
a product of practice.
• Questions are:
o What does it actually mean for a human person to flourish?
o What does it mean for one to achieve his/her goal?
o What is the goal of our existence as human beings and what does character have
to do with it?
• As a student of Plato, he shares the same fundamental assumption that what distinguishes
human person from other forms of beings is his/her possession of reason (logos). For both,
the ultimate purpose cannot be fully understood without understanding the place of
reason in ordering one’s life.
o Plato: Once you know the good, you will do the good.

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 o Aristotle: It does not follow. One needs to do and practice the good and make it
a habit.
• For Aristotle, we can only fully actualize our potential as human beings once we
understand what human essentially aims to and do the necessary things to fulfill our
function (ergon) in the most excellent way possible.
• To fulfill this function in the most excellent way possible is to live ethically, that is, to achieve
a way of flourishing suited to us.
Ethics as the Art of Living Well
EUDAIMONIA
• Aristotle assumes that any activity, practical or theoretical, aims towards some end or
good. He gives the following examples to elucidate this proposition:
o Health for practice of medicine
o Ship for shipbuilding
o Victory for generalship in war
o However, these ends are still provisional goals towards another goal. They are just
mere conduits for a further or deeper end.
• Aristotle is not simply interested in finding out the different ends or purposes for human life.
He wants to find out what our chief end is.
• Aristotle names the chief good for the human person as happiness or eudaimonia.
• Eudaimonia
o Self-sufficient
o Final
o Attainable goal
• Aristotle says: “Happiness above all seems to be of this character for we always choose it
on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet, honor, pleasure,
intellect, and every virtue we choose on their own account—for even if nothing resulted
from them, we would choose each of them—but we choose them also for the sake of
happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy. But nobody
chooses happiness for the sake of these things, or, more generally, on account of anything
else.”
• Eudaimonia, as the proper end of man, is not some kind of inactive state but is actually
something that one does. For Aristotle, our chief good is not something we merely possess
but something we continually actualize (in practice).
• Aristotle: Eudaimonia is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.
• The chief good is not achieved by one grand act or one big decision, for it is something
one constantly strives for.
• Aristotle: One swallow does not make a spring nor does one day. And in this way, one day
or a short time does not make someone blessed and happy either.
• This means that happiness is a life-long activity. One cannot be complacent in times of
good fortune because happiness is more than one’s fate—it is something we decide to do
for ourselves.
• Happiness is not mere self-indulgence or pleasure-seeking for Aristotle. It denotes an
activity that essentially corresponds to the proper nature of the human being.
o What is the human person for Aristotle and what does his/her happiness entails as
such?
o What is the role of virtue in the achievement of one’s end?
The Soul
• What is the soul for Aristotle?
o For him, the soul is the part of the human being that animates the body. Body and
soul are inseparable for Aristotle, but he emphasizes the role of the soul more than
that of the body in elucidating his ethics. The soul is composed of both rational and
irrational elements.

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 o RATIONAL
▪ Speculative (responsible for knowledge)
• Pure thought; contemplation
▪ Practical (responsible for choice and action)
• Action; practical determination of the proper means to attain
specific end
o IRRATIONAL
▪ Vegetative
• Nutrition and growth (involuntary functions)
o E.g., breathing and digestion
▪ Appetitive (shares in the rational element of the soul, thus, can be
influenced by it.)
• Passions
o E.g., sexual urges, desire for wealth or praise.
▪ Giving in to the raw and unchecked appetites is oftentimes the reason a
person commits immoral acts. A person’s raw biological and psychological
desires blind him/her from the implications of what he/she does to the
fulfillment of his/her true end as a person. Thus, it is important to remember
that there is a part of the soul that calls for reason’s governance.
o Aristotle is not saying that it is wrong to have such desires. It is only natural to have
such passions for they are a constitutive part of having a soul. However, people
who aim to be happy must be responsible for such desires and keep them in check.
For Aristotle, moral virtue is necessary in making sure that desires do not control the
behavior.

Virtue, the Mean and Practical Wisdom

• The Greek word for virtue is arête (άρετή) which means excellence.
o Greeks thought of excellence as how a thing fulfills its function (έργον) in
accordance with its nature.
▪ E. g., a knife cuts excellently, is sharp, durable, and dependable for
different tasks
• Following what the Greeks deemed as excellence, we can say that
the knife is a “virtuous” knife for it fulfills its essence as a tool for
cutting and slicing in the best possible way.
o To be virtuous, in other words, is to exhibit one’s capacity to fulfill one’s essence or
purpose in such a way that one’s potentiality as a particular being may be said to
be actualized in the most excellent way.
o Fr. Ferriols, SJ: “Ang arete ng tao ay may kinalaman sa kanyang pag-uunawa’t
pagsagawa ayon sa logos. Hindi ito makukuha sa pangangatuwiran lamang.
Halimbawa, masasabi na ang arete ukol sa kuwarta ay ang wastong paggamit sa
kuwarta: sa isang banda: huwag magpakagasta ng malabis, huwag mag-
gastador; at sa kabilang banda naman: huwag kumapit ng nahigpit sa kuwarta,
huwag magpakakuripot. At masasabi rin na ang taong nagsisikap mabuhay sa
arete ng kuwarta, ay hahantong sa pagitan ng gastador at ng kuripot…”
• In the case of human beings, Aristotle says that there are two kinds of virtues—moral and
intellectual.
• Aristotle: Virtue, then, is twofold, intellectual, and moral. Both the coming-into-being and
increase of intellectual virtue result mostly from teaching—hence, it requires experience
and time—whereas moral virtue got its name [êthikê] by slight alteration of the term habit
[ethos]. It is also clear, as a result, that none of the moral virtues are present in us by nature,
since nothing that exists by nature is habituated to be borne upward, not even if someone
habituates it by throwing it upward ten thousand times. Fire, too, could not be borne

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 downward nor could anything else that is naturally one way be habituated to be another.
Neither by nature, therefore, nor contrary to nature are the virtues present; they are instead
present in us who are of such nature to receive them and who are completed through
habit. (Nicomachean Ethics, p. 26)
o Moral virtue – has to do with excellence in the performance of decision relating to
moral and practical activity. It arises from habitual practice (ethos).
o Intellectual virtues – have to do with one’s capacity to harness reason’s
contemplative capacity for arriving at knowledge. They owe their existence and
development to teaching.
• Aristotle emphasizes the role of practice and habit in the formation of moral virtue. No
person is born morally virtuous. However, all persons have the latent potentiality to be so,
if only they habitually do excellent deeds.
o But what are excellent deeds?
o What are virtues actions?
o How does a person develop the capacity to bring these virtues out of the realm of
possibility to the real of actuality?
• It is only in practice that we come to know that we truly know how to do something.
o It is only in running that we come to know how fast we can actually run and gain
the right to call ourselves runners.
o It is only in trying to solve math problems do we find out if we are good at
mathematics and have the capacity to be mathematicians.
o Analogously, Aristotle declares that we become morally virtuous by doing morally
virtuous acts. We become just by doing just acts. We become temperate in doing
temperate acts. We become courageous in doing courageous acts.
▪ Bertong Tigasin
o As for moral virtues themselves, Aristotle says that these are states of character that
enable a person to fulfill his/her proper function as a human being. These states of
character are aimed at an intermediary point between excess and deficiency—
in a mean or mesotes (μεσότης) that can be considered as the appropriate
response to the demands of different situations.
• Virtue is a state of character which makes a person good and capable of fulfilling his/her
end or telos (τέλος) as a human person. By state of character, Aristotle emphasizes a
certain consistency or constancy in one’s character in facing different situations.
Consistency is not stagnancy. He is not saying that a virtuous person is incapable of
adjusting to various situations. On the contrary, it is precisely the person’s capacity to read
situations that makes him/her virtuous. In reading situations, the virtuous person is able to
arrive at a decision or perform an action that may be considered as an intermediate
between deficiency and excess, which he calls the mean or mesotes.
• Fr. Ferriols, SJ: “…hindi makukuha ang wastong pagitan kapag kinuha ang pinakamataaas
na magagasta at ang pinakamababa na magagasta, at hinanap ang matematikong
punto na eksaktong pareho ang layo sa pinakamataas at pinakamababa. Sapagkat ang
tunay na pagitan ay nasa paggasta sa tamang okasyon, sa tamang tao, sa tamang
dahilan, sa tamangpanahon. Hindi makukuha ang ganitong pagitan sa aritmetika, kundi
sa isang matinong pagtanaw sa mga partikular na detalye. [Ou radion to logo aphorisai
(hindi madali para sa logos na lagdaan ang hangganan.)]”
• Aristotle does not merely point to mathematical mean, such that six would be the mean in
a scale of one to ten. It is a mean that is relative to the person facing a moral choice. By
relative, he means that depending on the particular circumstances of a person, the mean
would correspond to the most appropriate response given the demands of the situation.
o E.g., Meeting a friend in a mall to watch a movie.
▪ The travel time from your house to the mall.
▪ How much time it usually takes you to take a shower and get clothed.

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 ▪ Other appointments you might have to attend to before going to the mall.
▪ The mode of transportation you will use to get to the mall.
▪ The location of the cinema relative to the entrance door of the mall.
▪ If you are typically slow and sluggish in making preparations
▪ If there are other shops you plan to visit before meeting your friend.
▪ If you have a physical disability which would make travel challenging
▪ Your mood on that day
• A virtuous person neither prepares too early nor too late, not only in terms of the actual
time—the time of preparation is actually determined by his/her reckoning of the demands
of the situation and his/her relative standing to it as an individual. The mean is not a fixed
point but rather a moving target.
o So, applied to the previous example, if you are planning to meet your friend at the
mall at 2:00pm, you have to take into account not just logistical matters, but
perhaps, more importantly, your knowledge and experience of yourself in dealing
such matters.
o It is actually your ability to adjust yourself to the situation which determines whether
you may be considered virtuous or not in that situation. If you agree to meet your
friend without taking the things mentioned above into consideration, then you may
be called an inconsiderate friend. On the other hand, to overthink and over-
prepare can also be seen as excessive and can lead to over-punctuality which
may strain your friendship, especially if you expect your friend to do the same
without considering that he/she is not the same person as yourself.
• To be morally virtuous, one must be able to respond to situations not just with the correct
feeling or action but in the proper degree, at the right time, towards the right people, and
for the right reasons.
o From the same example above:
▪ Would it be virtuous for you to call your friend and command to him/her to
come immediately because you are not good at waiting?
▪ Should you be angry towards your friend if he/she arrives 30 minutes late
because the MRT he/she was riding in broke down?
▪ Should you scold him/her for being inconsiderate towards you?
▪ Would it not be considered excessive if you take his/her lateness against
him/her?
o All these questions point to a more fundamental issue:
▪ How does one become a good or virtuous friend?
▪ What is the proper disposition necessary in being friends with another
person?
▪ How does one make demands to the other properly?
▪ How does one show concern for the other’s welfare?
o It is clear that for Aristotle, the answer is disclosed in actual practice. One’s
theoretical knowledge of the meaning of friendship does not guarantee that
he/she can be a good friend. Virtue is developed in practice. Aristotle defines
virtue as follows:
▪ Virtue, therefore, is a characteristic marked by choice, residing in the mean
relative to us, a characteristic defined by reason and as the prudent person
would define it. Virtue is also a mean with respect to two vices, the vices
related to excess, the other to deficiency; and further, it is a mean because
some of the case in both passions and actions, whereas virtue discovers
and chooses the middle term. Thus, with respect to its being and the
definition that states what it is, virtue is a mean; but with respect to what is
best and the doing of something well, it is an extreme. (NE, 35)

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 • For Aristotle, virtue is a state of one’s character that is the result of choice. This is governed
by prudence or practical wisdom (phronêsis).
o Phronêsis
▪ It is the person’s instrument in dealing with moral choices.
▪ It is a kind of knowledge that deals with practical matters and not just with
ideas and concepts.
▪ It is the intellectual virtue responsible for bringing the human person closer
to his/her chief good in the realm of morality.
o In other words, practical wisdom aids one in being happy.
o Practical wisdom guides the human person in choosing the mean between the
extremes of excess and deficiency. It constantly adjusts its reckoning based on the
shifting conditions that permeate a specific situation, relative to oneself.
o If mesotes is a moving target, phronêsis would correspond to the excellence of an
archer in hitting this target in various situations.
▪ E.g., Hawkeye of the Avengers
• In the moral realm, for instance, one becomes courageous only through practice.
Courage is a learned intellectual and practical skill.
o E.g., in a situation where one’s life is being threatened by an attacker.
▪ Does one simply hand over one’s belongings and hope the attacker
leaves?
▪ Does one resist given that one had martial arts training in his/her teenage
years?
▪ Does one try to reason with the attacker hoping that he/she convinces the
latter to not go through with the deed?
▪ Does one simply run away and scream for help?
o What is the prudent thing to do?
o For Aristotle, there is not one universally correct response to this situation that may
apply to everyone in all situation.
▪ Sometimes, it may be more prudent to retreat than to move forward.
▪ Courage is not always bold and brazen. Courage is a thinking person’s
virtue. There is not one way of being courageous.
▪ Courage is not haphazardly fighting the attackers without regard for one’s
life (for this seems to imply that one’s belongings are worth more than one’s
life) nor is it freezing in total fear where one gives up the capacity to
deliberate upon one’s options.
▪ Courage is the mean between rashness and cowardice.
o However, it still depends upon the person to choose the appropriate response to
the situation.
▪ In other words, it is up to the person facing the situation to essentially define
the meaning of courage as it applies to him/her at that moment.
o To choose either an excess or deficiency constitutes a vice for Aristotle.
▪ It is to miss the mark as it were.
▪ It is to under-perform or over-perform with respect to one’s function (ergon)
as a human being.
▪ It is to act in opposition to one’s ultimate goal, which is eudaimonia.

The Principal Virtues and Vices

Excess (vice) Mean (virtue) Deficiency (vice)
Rashness Courage Cowardice
Self-indulgence Moderation Insensibility
Prodigality Liberality Meanness
Vulgarity Magnificence Paltriness

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 Vanity Proper Pride Smallness of Soul
Ambitious Proper Ambition Lack of Ambition
Irascibility Good Temper Lack of Spirit
Boastfulness Truthfulness Self-depreciation
Buffoonery Wittiness Boorishness
Obsequiousness Friendliness Surliness
Bashfulness Modesty Shamelessness
Envy Proper Indignation Malice

• A truly virtuous action is performed by someone who is not simply compelled to do so. A
person does a virtuous act and chooses to act in such a way for the sake of being virtuous.
This choice comes from a certain firmness of character that is not easily swayed by one’s
passions or influenced by certain factors in a given situation.
• A virtuous person is someone who has been so used to acting virtuously that it becomes
tremendously difficult for anything or anyone to convince him/her to act otherwise. To a
certain degree, vices are no longer an option for a truly virtuous person. Such a person
actively keeps himself/herself disposed towards the mean by habituation (ethos). Only a
virtuous person can perform truly virtuous actions because he/she is initially predisposed
towards virtue.
• It should be noted that certain actions admit no middle-point or mesotes. Some actions
are simply bad, and so there is no “virtuous” way of performing them.
o Adultery
o Theft
o Murder
• There is no right way of committing adultery, with the right person, at the right time.
Adultery is simply wrong. The mean only applies to actions and dispositions that are not
bad in and of themselves.
Contemplation and Philosophical Knowledge
• For Aristotle, the main functions of the intellectual virtues, namely, phronesis and sophia,
are to aid human persons in matters concerning moral choice and the attainment of
knowledge of first principles or eternal truths, respectively.
o If practical wisdom serves as a guide for action in everyday life, the act of
contemplation is a pursuit of philosophical wisdom.
• Aristotle subordinates practical wisdom to contemplation because he believes that it is the
kind of activity most proper to human persons considering the fact that reason is human’s
most defining attribute.
o Philosophizing, according to him, is the most pleasant of virtuous activities because
it does not rely on anything else for its fulfillment other than the desire to do it. It is
the most self-sufficient act.
o Practical virtues such as courage and temperance need specific conditions to be
attained, while philosophy is something a person can do by himself/herself
anytime.
o For him, contemplation is an act that can be loved for its own sake because it has
no other aim than to reveal the most fundamental truths of existence.
o In other words, no person is may be considered happier than a person who has the
time and the leisurely disposition for contemplation. However, it must be
remembered that human life is not exclusively devoted to thought; it is most of the
time engaged in action and practical matters. Thus, phronesis still plays a crucial
role in the attainment of one’s chief good, which is eudaimonia. For Aristotle, the
contemplative knowledge of the good does not automatically translate to its
performance. Being virtuous in the practical sense is still cultivated through practice

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 and habit (ethos). Living well means having the complementary of intelligent
conduct and a thirst for philosophical wisdom.
Conclusion
• Ethics is a matter of living well through the habitual practice of virtue which essentially
translates into having a virtuous or excellent character.
• Happiness, being the chief good of the human person, is attainable through the proper
exercise of reason, both morally and intellectually.
o Eudaimonia is an activity of the soul that purposively attempts to choose the mean
between two extremes in the realm of morality.
• A good man, a person who has cultivated the proper virtues and has imbibed these in
his/her thoughts and deeds, will always flourish.
o He/she always finds a way to stay intact even in dire times.
o That person does not compromise the dictates of reason in exchange for
immediate fulfillment of his/her passions.
o In other words, in being habituated to choose the mean, he/she remains virtuous,
and, therefore, happy in every circumstances.
▪ It is the ability of the person to adapt while remaining true to himself/herself
as a rational human being which allows him/her to flourish in various
environments.
▪ E.g., a person with integrity
• Aristotle teaches us that character is the most essential component of ethics.
o A virtuous character is the result of the proper combination of practical wisdom
(phronesis) and habituation (ethos) in the pursuit of the mean (mesotes).
o Being ethical is all about being excellent in being human, which is, being excellent
in fulfilling one’s essence as a rational being that has cultivated an excellent
character and is, therefore, capable of making the most prudent decisions in all
circumstances.

References:

Pasco, Marc Oliver D. et al, Ethics. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc., 2018

Ferriols, Roque, Mga Sinaunang Griyego. Quezon City: