PHILOS 2D03 Lecture 8: Virtue Ethics
27 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Virtue ethics is concerned with finding the right answer, but making people good. Aristotle thought ethics was all about achieving and demonstrating good moral habits. Ethical thinking is about having good moral character/habits. In order to become habituated into acting morally (not just making the conscious decision), we need to understand what a moral habit is (what is morality) on this understanding. It is a matter of identifying excess and deficiencies, and acting in a way that is appropriate. Virtuous action is that which demonstrates the mean between two vices (of excess). It is about the development of a good character by training ourselves to act on the mean in all cases. It doesn"t tell us to act properly because our decisions will help or hurt other people, but that because it is our path to being good people ourselves.
