VIRTUE

ETHICS
ARISTOTLE
• 1. discuss the meaning and basic principles of
virtue ethics;
• 2. distinguish virtuous acts from non-virtuous
acts; and
• 3. apply Aristotle's ethics in understanding the
Filipino character.

Chapter Objectives
• An online news account narrates key officials from both
the legislative and executive branches of the government
voicing out their concern on the possible ill effects of too
much violence seen by children on television. The news
estimates that by the time children reach 18 years old,
they will have watched around 18,000 simulated murder
scenes. This prompted then-Department of Education
Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro to launch the implementing
guidelines of the Children's Television Act of 1997 in
order to regulate television shows and promote more
child friendly programs. Ultimately, for Bro. Luistro, to
regulate television programs would help in the
development of children's values.'
• According to the news article, the Department of
Education held a series of consultations with various
stakeholders to address the issue of exposure of
children to TV violence. They also implemented the
rules and guidelines for viewing safety and created a
television violence rating code to be applied in all
TV programs. Lastly, they also set 15% of television
airtime for shows conducive to children.
• Luistro's claim seems to be based on a particular vision
of childhood development. Children at a young age
have not yet achieved full personal growth and mental
development. This situation makes them particularly
vulnerable to possible undesirable effects of seeing
violent images presented on television. When they see
violence on television on a regular basis, they may
consider such violent acts as "normal" and part of the
daily occurrences in life. Much worse is that they might
tend to believe that such acts, since committed by
adults, are permissible. In these situations, the saying
"Life imitates art" unfortunately becomes
uncomfortably true.
• There have been numerous studies on the effects of
television violence on children.
• The American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, for instance, enumerated the harmful
effects of television violence such as being
insensitive to the possible ill consequences brought
about by watching violent shows. The study also
suggests that children exposed to television violence
begin to "imitate what they observe" and consider
violence as "a way to solve problems."
• Mature individuals are aware that it is vital for
children to go through the process of building their
personality, identity, or character. How does the
continuous exposure to violence on television affect
the character that children develop? Is it possible that
constant watching of violence on television results in
aggression among children? What is the role of the
child's environment in her capacity to develop into a
good individual?
• What elements are involved in order to achieve this?
One theory that can possibly provide a comprehensive
understanding of how an individual can develop
moral character is virtue ethics.
• If there was an ethical turn in Greek Philosophy,
it began with Socrates.
• His brand of ethics is what we now call “Virtue
Ethics”
• In general it asks the question how one should
live one’s life, with an eye to living well though
managing one’s character.
• Socrates’ student Plato inherited this project.

Origin
• Hellenistic and Roman Period – time wherein
virtue ethics is the dominant approach to ethics
for European Philosophical Schools.
• Medieval Period – The Islamic world was
influenced by Virtue Ethics.
• Early ninth century – The Nicomachean ethics
was translated into Arabic.
• Muslim Philosophers – Alfarabi and Avicenna

Origin
• Early Modern Period – the decline of virtue ethics
due to a disillusionment with its optimistic
assumptions about human nature, and was eclipsed
by systems of ethics that focused on assessments of
actions (utilitarianism and deontology) instead of on
agents and their characters.
• Mid-twentieth Century – the revival of virtue ethics
• Aristotle may not have invented virtue ethics, he can
be credited with establishing it as a distinct
philosophical discipline.

Origin
• Aristotle was born in Macedonia (384-322 BCE)
• He studied Philosophy in Athens
• A student of Plato
• He later founded his own school, Lyceum
• He was also known to be the tutor of Alexander
the Great
• Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is his major work
in moral philosophy

Biography
• Virtue Ethics – is the ethical framework that is
concerned in with understanding the good as a
matter of developing the virtuous character of a
person.
• Two major thinkers of Ancient Greece, Plato and
Aristotle had discourses concerning virtue.
• Aristotle’s discourse of ethics departs from the
Platonic understanding of reality and conception
of the good.

Introduction
• Plato and Aristotle affirm rationality (logos) as the
highest faculty of a person and having such characteristic
enables a person to realize the very purpose of her
existence.
• For Plato, the real is outside the realm of any human
sensory experience but can somehow be grasped by
one’s intellect.
• For Aristotle the real is found within our everyday
encounter with objects in the world.

Introduction
• Aristotle begins his discussion of ethics by showing
thatEvery act that a person does is directed toward a
particular purpose, aim, or what the Greek called telos.
• There is a purpose why one does something, and for
Aristotle, a person's action manifests a good that she aspires
for.
• Every pursuit of a person hopes to achieve good.
• A person will not do anything which is not beneficial to her.
• Aristotle believes that one does act not only to achieve
specific purpose but to believe that such purpose can be
utilized for a higher goal or activity.

Happiness and Ultimate Purpose

• One must understand that an individual does actions and
pursuits in life and correspondingly each of these activities has
different aims.
• Aristotle is aware that one does an act not only to achieve a
particular purpose but also believes such purpose can be
utilized for a higher goal or activity, which then can be used to
achieve an even higher purpose and so on.
• Hierarchy of teloi (Plural form of telos)
• General criteria in order for one to recognize the highest good
of man: It must be final and self-sufficient
• What is the highest goal for Aristotle?
Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
• As a final end, it is no longer utilized for the sake of arriving
at a much higher end. In our example above, the purpose of
remembering the lessons in the course, that is why one writes
down notes, is not the final end because it is clear that such
purpose is aimed at achieving a much higher goal.
• The ultimate telos of a person must be self-sufficient.
Satisfaction in life is arrived at once this highest good is
attained, Nothing else is sought after and desired, once this
self-sufficient goal is achieved, since this is already
considered as the best possible good in life. Again, in the
example given above, the goal of remembering the lessons in
the course is not yet the best possible good because a person
Happiness and
can still seek for other Ultimate
more satisfying goalsPurpose
in her life.
• It is interesting to note that for Aristotle, the question can only
be adequately answered by older individuals because they
have gone through enormous and challenging life experiences
which helped them gain a wealth of knowledge on what the
ultimate purpose of a person is. According to Aristotle, older
individuals would agree that the highest purpose and the
ultimate good of man is happiness, or for the Greeks,
eudaimonia.
• Happiness for Aristotle is the only self-sufficient aim that one
can aspire for. No amount of wealth or power can be more
fulfilling than having achieved the condition of happiness.
One can imagine a life of being wealthy, powerful, and
Happiness andfeelings
experiencing pleasurable Ultimate Purpose
and yet, such life is still not
• The true measure of well-being for Aristotle is not by means
of richness or fame but by the condition of having attained a
happy life.
• How does a person arrive at her highest good?
• Aristotle shows that one can arrive at the ultimate good by
doing one's function well.
• According to Aristotle, if an individual's action can achieve
the highest good, then one must investigate how she
functions which enables her to achieve her ultimate purpose.
• Aristotle then proceeds with discussing the function of
human beings to distinguish one person's activity from other
beings. How does a human being function which sets her
apart from the rest?
Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
• For Aristotle, what defines human beings is her function or
activity of reason. This function makes her different from
the rest of beings.
• If the function of a human being is simply to do the act of
taking in food in order to sustain her life and continue living,
then what makes her different from plants? Also, if the
function of a human being is to do the act of perceiving
things, then what makes her different from animals?
• Any person for that matter utilizes her reason but Aristotle
further says that a person cannot only perform her function
but she can also perform it well.

Happiness and Ultimate Purpose

• What distinguishes a good person from other human
beings is her rational activity that is performed well or
excellently. A good individual therefore stands closer to
meeting the conditions of happiness because her actions
are of a higher purpose.
• “Madaling maging tao, mahirap magpakatao.”
• A good human beings strives hard in doing an activity in
an excellent way.
Happiness and
Ultimate Purpose
• Achieving the highest purpose of a human person
concerns the ability to function according to reason
and to perform an activity excellently.
• The excellent way of doing things is called virtue
or arete by the Greeks.
• One does not become an excellent person
overnight.
VIRTUE AS
• “Being an excellent individual works on doing well
in her day to day existence.
EXCELLENCE
• What exactly makes a human being excellent?
Aristotle says that excellence is an activity of the
human soul.
• Human soul is divided into two parts:
• Rational Element: In this element, one can
rightly or wrongly apply the use of reason.
• Irrational Element: It cannot be dictated by
VIRTUE AS
reason.
EXCELLENCE
• The Irrational element is consists of
• Vegetative aspects: it functions as giving
nutrition and providing the activity of physical
growth in a person. It follows the natural
processes involved in the physical activities and
growth of a person.
• Appetitive aspects: it works as a desiring faculty
ofVIRTUE
man, which canASbe subjected to reason.
EXCELLENCE
• The Rational Element is divided into two aspects:
• Moral virtue: concerns the act of doing
• Intellectual virtue: concerns the act of knowing
• Two ways to attain intellectual excellence:
• Philosophic Wisdom: deals with attaining knowledge
about the fundamental principles and truth that govern the
universe (e.g., general theory on the origins of things).
• Practical Wisdom: an excellence in knowing the can
VIRTUE AS
provide us with a guide on how to behave in our daily
lives the right conduct in carrying out a particular act.
EXCELLENCE
• However, Aristotle suggests that although the rational
functions of a person (moral and intellectual) are distinct
from each other, it is necessary for humans to attain the
intellectual virtue of practical wisdom in order to
accomplish a morally virtuous act.
• In carrying out a morally virtuous life, one needs the
intellectual guide of practical wisdom in steering the self
toward the right choices and actions. Aristotle is careful in
making a sharp distinction between moral and intellectual
virtue.
• In itself, having practical wisdom or the excellence in
knowing what to act upon does not make someone already
morally virtuous.
VIRTUE AS EXCELLENCE
• Knowing the good is different from determining and acting on
what is good. But a morally good person has to achieve the
intellectual virtue of practical wisdom to perform the task of
being moral.
• According to Socrates, moral goodness is in the realm of
intellectual excellence. Knowing the good implies the ability to
perform morally virtuous acts.
• According to Aristotle, Moral virtue can be attained by means of
habit.
• A moral person habitually chooses the good and consistently does
good deeds.
• The same is true with moral virtue. A moral person habitually
chooses the good and consistently does good deeds.
VIRTUE AS EXCELLENCE
• How does the continuous exposure to violence on television
affect the kind of character that children will develop? One
can surmise that if we rely on the above-mentioned study,
children tend to mimic the violence they watch on television
and such habit could develop into a character that can
tolerate behaviors that are hostile in nature.

VIRTUE AS EXCELLENCE
• According to Aristotle, developing a practical
wisdom (phronesis) involves learning from
experiences.
• Knowledge is not inherent to a person.
• When practical wisdom guides the conduct of
making morally right choices and actions, what
does it identify as the proper and right thing to
MORAL VIRTUE AND
do?
• It is the middle, intermediate or mesotes.
MESOTES
• Bro. Armin Luistro, with his practical wisdom and
experience, has observed the possible effect of
television violence on the young so he issued
guidelines on television viewing for children. He
says that good values instilled on children are
"sometimes removed from the consciousness of
young people" because of television violence. As
former Secretary of the Department of Education, he
possibly learned so much about the consequence of
MORAL VIRTUE AND
such situation on the young
MESOTES
• Manifestation of a right amount of feelings,
passions, and ability for a particular act.
• A morally virtuous person targets the mesotes.
• It is constantly moving (target) depending on the
circumstances.
• It can be called as arithmetical proportion.
• It determines whether the act applied is not
MORAL
excessive VIRTUE AND
or deficient
MESOTES
• One has to function in a state that her personality manifests
the right amount of feelings, passions, and ability for a
particular act. Generally, feelings and passions are neutral
which means that, in themselves, they are neither morally
right nor wrong.
• When one shows a feeling of anger, we cannot immediately
construe it as morally wrong act.
• For Aristotle, the task of targeting the mean is always
difficult because every situation is different from one
another.
• The mean is not the same for all individuals
• Targeting the middle entails being immersed in a moral
circumstance, understanding the experience, and eventually,
developing the knowledge of identifying the proper way or the
mean to address a particular situation.
• In relation to the news article, the government and its agencies
responsible for protecting and assisting the young on their
personal development should act in view of the middle measure.
• Aristotle's discussion ultimately leads to defining what exactly
moral virtue is—"a state of character concerned with choice,
lying in a mean, that is, the mean relative to us, this being
determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by
which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.
• Moral virtue is firstly the condition arrived at by a person
who has a character identified out of her habitual exercise of
particular actions. One's character is seen as a growth in
terms of the continuous preference for the good. Secondly,
in moral virtue, the action done that normally manifests
feelings and passions is chosen because it is the middle.
• Aristotle adds that the middle is relative to us. This does not
imply that mesotes totally depends on what the person
identifies as the middle. Such case would signify that
Aristotle adheres to relativism. But Aristotle's middle is not
relative to the person but to the situation that one is in.
• Aristotle clarifies that not all feelings, passions
and actions have a middle point.
• When one murders someone, there is nothing
excessive or deficient in the act: murder is still
murder.
• Bad feeling, passion and action the middle is
non-existent.
MORAL VIRTUE AND
MESOTES
• For Aristotle, being superfluous with regard to manifesting a
virtue is no longer an ethical act because one has gone beyond
the middle. Being overly courageous (or "super courageous")
for instance does not make someone more virtuous because
precisely in this condition, she has gone beyond the middle
and therefore has "moved out" from the state that is virtuous.
Therefore, one can always be excessive in her action but an act
that is virtuous cannot go beyond the middle. Filipinos have
the penchant of using superlative words like "over," "super,“
"to the max," and "sobra" in describing a particular act that
they normally identify as virtuous. Perhaps, Aristotle's view on
virtue is prescribing a clearer way by which Filipinos can
better understand it.