Aristotlean Virtue Ethics

This ethical theory is a bit different from other normative ethical theories.

Aristotle does not ask "what should I do", but instead asks "what sort of person should I be?".

This makes AVE an agent based ethical theory rather than an action focused one.

Eudaimonia: Human Flourishing
Ergon: function/characteristic activity of a thing
Arête: property/virtue that enables a thing to achieve its ergon
Phronesis: Practical wisdom, understanding of a situation before applying the virtuous action.

The Good Life and Eudaimonia

Virtue Ethics begins with a claim about the purpose (telos) of human life.
According to Aristotle, the ultimate goal of human life is eudaimonia, which includes: flourishing, living well and a fulfilled human life
Eudaimonia is not just happiness or pleasure
Eudaimonia is a property of someone’s life taken as a whole.
It does not mean perfection, you can have bad days, you can do bad things sometimes. It's flexible!
Eudaimonia is valuable for its own sake.
Eudaimonia is the final end of humans.

The Function Argument

Everything has a function (ergon). EG: a knife has the function of cutting.
Humans must also have a distinctive function.
This function is different from plants and animals whose functions are either growth, survival or perception and movement.
What makes humans distinct is their ability to reason. Our reason is our Formal Cause.
This means to achieve eudaimonia we must live in accordance with reason by making good choices and controlling our emotions.
Aretē refers to excellence, and in humans this takes the form of virtues which allow us to perform our rational function well.
It is important to understand this link between virtues and function.

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This is a 1653 painting of Aristotle with the bust of Homer. It was painted by Rembrandt for Antonio Ruffo, an Sicilian politician, Today it's in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The first page of Nicomachean Ethics

What is a Virtue?

A virtue is a stable disposition of character that is developed over time. We are not born virtuous.
Virtues involve both emotion and reason because achieving eudaimonia is a balance between rational choices but also being happy.
EG: Courage is a virtue and it involves feeling fear appropriately.
You can have too much or a virtue (vice of excess) or too little (vice of deficiency). So, too much courage = recklessness; too little courage = cowardice.
Over time, we use our reason to develop habits that allow us to balance these two vices.
The Doctrine of the Golden Mean is the intermediate between these two extremes.

Moral Development and Habituation

As we are not born virtuous, we have to learn to be virtuous through experience and education.
We are creatures of habit, so our actions tend to be ones that we habitually do.
Childhood habits are hard to break and so education is important for the development of a moral character.
Intellectual virtues can be learned through education and Moral virtues like courage have to be learned through experience. So we learn virtues by observing the virtuous.
Once virtuous habits have been developed they must be maintained through deliberate rational assessment.
This is where the Skill Analogy comes in:
Acquiring virtues is like learning to play the piano.
Just as musical skill is developed through practice rather than theory alone, virtue is developed by repeatedly performing virtuous actions.
Initially, learners follow rules without full understanding, as children are taught rules of behaviour.
Over time, however, virtuous action becomes natural and internalised, forming part of a person’s character.

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Stone Sculpture of Aristotle in Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, Wales.

Roman copy of Lysippos' Greek bronze bust of Aristotle.

The Relationship between Virtues and Feelings

Human action involves both reason and feeling.
It is possible to act in accordance with virtue while but have your feelings be misaligned,
EG: behaving generously while resenting it.
However, for Aristotle, genuine virtue requires that our feelings be brought into harmony with rational choice.
Cultivating the habit of choosing the mean between the extremes involves training not only our actions but also our emotions.
Although feelings are not directly under our control, Aristotle argues that through habituation, rational reflection, and copying virtuous people, we can gradually align our emotions with what reason recognises as virtuous.
A person is fully virtuous only once this alignment is achieved.

The Role of Moral Responsibility

Moral responsibility is central to Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics because its aim is to cultivate a character that habitually chooses the mean between extremes.
When an action undermines the development of virtuous habits, it is important to learn from it in order to avoid repeating it.
Aristotle argues that we are morally responsible only for voluntary actions, meaning those performed intentionally and with knowledge of what we are doing.
Actions that are forced, such as injuring someone during an unavoidable crash, are involuntary and not blameworthy.
Some actions result from ignorance, and where this ignorance is regretted, the action is involuntary and the agent is not morally responsible.
However, if the agent feels no regret, the action is non-voluntary: while not fully blameworthy, it still reflects a deficiency in character.

Paolo Veronese's depiction of Aristotle (1560s)

I am running out of pictures of Aristotle at this point, here is a crater on the moon that was named after the classical version of his name (Aristoteles)

Practical Wisdom

Practical wisdom (phronesis) is an intellectual virtue that mediates between our moral character and our actions.
It allows us to determine how to act virtuously in particular situations.
It involves both general knowledge of the world and understanding of moral contexts.
The application of phronesis involves combining moral knowledge, habituated virtue, and careful deliberation about the specific circumstances, in order to act virtuously.
Phronesis is the capacity to reason well about how to act so that our choices reflect and cultivate virtuous habits

Problem: No Clear Guidance

Virtue Ethics tells us how to become a good person but provides limited guidance on what to do in specific situations.
For example, we are told that a virtue is in the middle of two extremes and that these virtues should be applied situationally. This does not seem very practical or clear. We are told that we should cultivate virtues but we are not told how to figure out what actions will cultivate these virtues.
We could argue that utilitarianism is a better normative ethical theory that focuses on circumstances while offering clearer action guidance as it has the Hedonic Calculus.
This lack of actionable guidance challenges its effectiveness as a fully normative ethical theory.
Response: We could argue that this is exactly the point of AVE. There is not supposed to be a set of rules to follow and the whole point of phronesis is so that we learn how to act in the many situations we will encounter in life. Just because there is no guidance for specific actions does not mean there is no guidance at all.

Problem: Circularity

AVE defines a virtuous person as someone who does virtuous acts
AVE define virtuous acts as something a virtuous person would do.
This is a circular definition which does not actually tell us anything about the terms involved.
Aristotle defines "good" as achieving our final end - eudaimonia. Goodness, then, will be achieved with the cultivation of virtue. Thus his whole account of what our final end should be depends on a clear definition of virtue.
Without this clear definition of virtue, the concept of "good" becomes unclear and undermines his ethical theory.
Response: AVE is not an action based theory, it is agent based. This means that goodness is grounded in human nature and cultivating virtues is how we are meant to rationally function. Virtuous acts and people are identifiable through observation of moral exemplars and practical wisdom. Virtue involves fulfilling moral responsibilities, aligning our feelings, and applying practical wisdom in concrete situations.

Problem: Clashing Virtues

We might encounter scenarios where applying two different virtues would lead to two different actions.
For example, if you had to choose between the virtue of justice and the virtue of mercy when deciding what to do with someone breaking the law, whatever choice you make will be unvirtuous in some way because you cannot apply both virtues.
Response: Virtues are not laws and circumstantial. The right thing to do here would be to apply your practical wisdom after deliberating the circumstances.

Problem: Virtues do not always lead to Eudaimonia

A battlefield medic demonstrates a lot of virtues during her time at her work. She spends her entire life saving lives in a dangerous and remote country. She is compassionate and caring and her character motivates her to keep going and saving people’s lives. She does not enjoy her work. She’s constantly stressed. She dies at age 30 due to her work.
The battlefield medic demonstrated many virtues but she did not flourish and she did not achieve the good life.
Alternatively, if you were to live a very selfish lifestyle that might make you happy as you are prioritising your own self-interests. This means you have had a better life by demonstrating vices.
Response: This criticism misunderstands how eudaimonia is to be assessed. The concept of eudaimonia is not about momentary happiness or short term flourishing, but about a full life. Virtue is necessary for eudaimonia but not sufficient in itself. Eudaimonia is achieved over the course of a lifetime due to a combination of everything we have looked at so far.

Problem: The issue of Function

Aristotle draws upon a teleological worldview in which he draws an analogy between things in nature and humans in that both have observable functions. Whether that is the function of plants' roots to draw water for the ground or the human eye to see, humans also have a function which is rational activity.
Aristotle suggests that we can draw a parallel between the functional roles of biological features and human rationality.
However we now understand the mechanisms by which biological things perform their functions - evolution.
Our ability to reason does not point to a metaphysical or biological purpose beyond survival and reproduction. And so the analogy fails.
Aristotle says that we SHOULD be virtuous BECAUSE that allows us to perform our function well but this function does not exist. Thus AVE cannot prescribe any moral behaviour.
Response: Even if the teleological argument for function is rejected, Aristotle’s ethics might still offer a practical framework for moral behavior within the context of social wellbeing rather than metaphysics. If we were to remove the idea of function from Virtue Ethics, arguably all that is lost is the cosmological justification for virtue. The idea of flourishing and applying reason to live a good life still stands.