PHIL250 Lecture 22: Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
5 Jan 2016
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Document Summary
A virtuous person should have all the virtues and they should not conflict because there is a uniting factor. At first it seemed to be greatness of soul that was the uniting element but it won"t quite do it. Aristotle suggests that justice could be understood as complete virtue but only in certain ways, its missing something. The mean is a certain kind of equity and lawfulness. Its an arithmetic mean between excess and deficiency. It is an important virtue and can be complete if considered equivalent to lawfulness. Laws come about due to self-interest because people are vulnerable or fearful. Aristotle is considering only just laws, in an ideal way. Best state is to be ruled by virtuous people (philosopher) because they will not judge or take from others. Distributive: figuring out how to distribute limited resources; geometric proportion.
