PHILOS 2YY3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Intentionality, Habituation, Phronesis
16 May 2018
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Department
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PHILOS 2YY3 – Mar 13 2018
Virtue Ethics
Final End of Action?
• There are many goods, many actions, many crafts, many sciences … ad,
therefore, many ends
→
is there an end for ALL human action?
• Suppose that the things achievable in action have some end that we wish for because
of itself → most people virtually agree: Happiness
o Aristotles Arguet for Happiess as The Good
• A. Although different acts have different ends, the end of any action establishes the
good of the action
• B. If all action seeks the good, then the good is the common end of all action
• C. Happiness is the common end of all particular actions
• D. Because Happiness is apparently something complete and self-sufficient it is the
good
o What is it to act as a human being?
o Learn to play guitar, the end is actually being able to be able to do it
o The ends for all particular actions
o I see all these actions that idiiduals egage i, I ode if thees one end of
all actions
o Happiness?
o Food has instrumental value, extract nutrients to perform work
o Happiness is intrinsically valuable (common good of all action)
The Function of the Human Being
• Aristotle: perhaps we will find the best good if we first find the function of the human
being
o Tripartite Theory of the Soul (psyche): 1) nutritive soul, 2) sensitive soul, 3)
atioal soul …
• A. The distinguishing function of humans is rationality
• B. Human happiness will depend on the atiit ad atios of the soul that iole
easo
• C. The proper exercise of rational capacity is virtue
• D. If we are going to obtain happiness, we will need to become virtuous
o Aristotle: the hua good tus out to e the souls atiit that epesses
virtue
o Fame/honour depends on some external source (how you are viewed in relation
to your peers)
▪ Happiness is reducible to pleasurable? Non-human creatures are capable
of pleasure
▪ Plats dot hae a sese of a soul
▪ Relation between happiness & virtue
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