Aristotle's View On Virtue

Virtue is concerned with the whole of a person’s life, someone who lives virtuously is someone who possesses and lives out virtue. At least this is the definition my grandmother has given me, and I believe her to be the most virtuous person I know. But according to Aristotle, a virtue is a trait of mind or character that helps us achieve a good life, which Aristotle argues is a life in accordance with reason. In this essay I will be questioning if Aristotle has the right to describe someone as virtuous.

We can feel our passions either ‘too much’ or ‘too little’. Virtue involves being disposed to feeling in an ‘intermediate’ way, neither too much nor too little. To be virtuous is ‘to feel passions at the right times, with reference to the

She has been faced with many hard times in her life, but the one particular time I think of her courageousness is when she got in a car accident with her four children and one on the way. My grandfather was driving home from a day in town with the family while they were rear ended. My 2 uncles and my dad were sitting in the back seat and once the car was hit they were thrown out the window into the snow. Once the sudden trauma was calmed my grandma put on a brave face and was questioning about the kids making sure they were all ok. But under the calm face she had broken her spine and at the time was eight months pregnant and was pushed into labor. She put on a brave face for her children, so they were not scared, and I can not think of anything more courageous than that act. Which also corresponds with Aristotle’s account on virtue about showing just the right amount of fear but not too much, so this account strengthens his

Both are the grounds for calling someone good or bad, for praising or blaming them for what they feel and do. Both are clearly dispositions of feeling and closely related to the sorts of choices people make. If we start to list traits we would call virtues, we see a large overlap with Aristotle’s list. However, there is one very important difference. I believe that strength of will has been recognized as virtuous. When someone isn’t disposed to act morally, but manages to do so by strength of will, we think highly of them. For instance, we might be more willing than Aristotle to call someone courageous who feels fear, but faces it down after a struggle with it. Or again, we are more likely to praise someone who resists the temptation of bodily pleasures as much as someone who doesn’t feel their temptation. For Aristotle, having inappropriate desires shows a weakness of character; the properly virtuous person doesn’t find acting well difficult. Although these views differ, I still believe that Aristotle has the right to describe someone as