What two virtues of Aristotle do you think our most important for living in society today? How does one become virtuous? In the powerpoint there is a list of Aristotle’s Virtues, what else would you include for living in today’s world? Please explain the ethics of care

Subject:PhilosophyPrice:16.86 Bought3

Share With

1. What two virtues of Aristotle do you think our most important for living in society today?
2. How does one become virtuous?
3. In the powerpoint there is a list of Aristotle’s Virtues, what else would you include for living in today’s world?
4. Please explain the ethics of care.
5. How does one recognize when she is not being virtuous ?

A Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach Martha Nussbaum Aristotelian Ethics... • “… ethics is not an exact science, any more than are medicine and the art of navigation; and consequently the rules of conduct that it lays down are only of general validity, and their application must vary with the circumstances of the particular occasion, and be modified by the discretion of the agent.” Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, Chapter 2 Aristotle: A defender of moral Virtues • “Aristotle’s Ethics combine rigor and concreteness, theoretical power with sensitivity to actual circumstances of human life and choice, in the multiplicity of variety and mutability.” • Is virtue-based ethics a return to Relativism? • “… all [traditions] connect virtue ethics with a relativistic denial that ethics, correctly understood, offers any trans-cultural norms justifiable with reference to reasons of universal human validity, with reference to which we may appropriately criticize different local conception of the good.” • “If the position of women, as established by local traditions in many parts of the world, is to be improved, if traditions of slave holding racial inequality, if religious intolerance, if aggressive and warlike conceptions of manliness, if unequal norms of material distribution are to be criticized in the name of practical reason, this criticizing will have to be done from a Kantian or utilitarian viewpoint, not through the Aristotelian approach.” Nussbaum, page 440 Aristotle according to Nussbaum… • Aristotle was a defender of an ethical theory based on the virtues, but also a defender or a single objective account of the human good, or human flourishing. • Aristotle’s objectivism is derived from features of humanness that lie beneath all local traditions and are recognized in local traditions. • Aristotle believes that there is no incompatibility between basing an ethical theory on the virtues and defending the singleness and objectivity of the human good (happiness). VIRTUE ETHICS ARISTOTLE RELATIVISM UNIVERSAL GOOD LOCAL VIRTUES HAPPINESS For Nussbaum, Aristotle have two major arguments for a non-relative concept of virtue: • Aristotle’s specifications of virtues is a criticism of some common Greeks conceptions of the local and traditional virtues. • Aristotle defended an objective theory of the virtues by identifying spheres of human experience- these spheres are common to all human beings. Aristotle’s Virtues: • Aristotle is simply describing • Examples of what is admirable in his own Spheres: society. – fear or important • Some of his virtues and vices damage. are nameless, what implies – Bodily appetites. that he is studying virtues and – Management of vices are not only prominent one’s property. in his tradition. – Social Association. • In each of his description of a – Intellectual life. vice/virtue he isolates a sphere of any human life(universal/non-relative). For Nussbaum Aristotle is a defender of an ethical theory based on a SINGLE OBJECTIVE HUMAN GOOD: Human Flourishing - Happiness • Nussbaum presents five basic arguments: 1. There is one single objective good – human flourishing – happiness. 2. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle isolates a sphere of human experience- common to all human beings. 3. Aristotle asks, What is to choose and respond well within that sphere? 4. Aristotle, characterized each sphere as universal experience and choice. 5. No matter where one lives, one cannot escape these questions/spheres, so long as one is living a human life. Aristotle account for Ethics: • We began with some experiences-individual as well communal- broadly constructed. • Experiences fix the reference of the corresponding virtue word-experiences informs us of harm, deprivation, inequality.Only human beings, develop concepts • The reference of the virtue terms is fixed by spheres of choice, frequently connected with our finitude and limitation, that we encounter in virtue of shared conditions of human existence. • Understanding and assessing the circumstances of the problems of human experience, we can then provide responses to those problems. • To hold tradition fixed is to prevent ethical progress- systems of laws that progress beyond the past. Aristotelian approach to the spheres of human experience: • “ An initial demarcation of the sphere of choice, of the grounding experiences.” • “The ensuing more concrete inquiry into what appropriate choice in that sphere is.” These approach creates the framework for the development of an objective human morality based on the idea of VIRTUOS ACTION. The Spheres of Human Existence • MORTALITY • PRACTICAL REASON • THE BODY • PLEASURE AND PAIN • EARLY INFANT DEVELOPMENT • AFILIATION • COGNOTIVE CAPABILITY • HUMOR