The Nicomachean Ethics
‘Virtue makes the goal right, practical wisdom teaches how to reach it,’ Aristotle says, and habits formed in developing character will help to identify the right goals. If we do not have, or do not yet have, the practical wisdom to work out how to reach those goals, we must imitate those who do have such wisdom. And Aristotle concedes that ‘moral
... See moreA. C. Grayling • The History of Philosophy
Aristotle, who focused on the fact that virtues must be cultivated through conscious effort and habit—that we learn to be honest, for example, by building up a pattern of telling the truth. And the more we tell the truth, the better we get at telling the truth, the better we know when to do it and how to do it right—because there are certain ways o... See more
The AI Mirror—How to Reclaim Our Humanity in the Age of Machine Thinking - Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Aristotle insists that habituation, not teaching, is the route to moral virtue (II. 1). We must practise doing good actions, not just read about virtue. Though
Lesley Brown • The Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle also felt strongly that virtue requires action; mere noble intentions are not enough. We are social creatures; a solitary life is not worth living. Our personal happiness, then, was linked to the welfare of the community. With a population consisting of individuals engaged with thinking and discriminating and working out for themselves th
... See moreDerren Brown • Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine
Ethical theories may be divided into two classes, according as they regard virtue as an end or a means. Aristotle, on the whole, takes the view that virtues are means to an end, namely happiness. “The end, then, being what we wish for, the means what we deliberate about and choose, actions concerning means must be according to choice and voluntary.
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