PHIL-P 140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Nicomachean Ethics, Eudaimonia
Document Summary
In book i aristotle identified the highest good. This is eudaimonia or flourishing. in order to flourish, however, we must act virtuously. The first claim that aristotle makes is that moral virtue comes about as a result of habit. In other words, moral virtue does not arise in us naturally, but only by repetition of virtuous actions. States of character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference. (p. 24) The second claim aristotle makes is that virtue is the mean between excess and deficiency. So too is it, then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other virtues.
