LESSON 9:

VIRTUE ETHICS: ARISTOTLE

& ST. THOMAS ACQUINAS
ARISTOTLE
 Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient
Greek philosophy, who made
important contributions to logic,
criticism, rhetoric, physics, biology,
psychology, mathematics,
metaphysics, ethics, and politics. He
was a student of Plato for twenty
years but is famous for rejecting
Plato’s theory of forms. He was more
empirically minded than Plato and
Plato’s teacher, Socrates. As the
father of western logic, Aristotle was
the first to develop a formal system for
reasoning.
 Main Points of Aristotle's
Ethical Philosophy
1. The highest good and the end toward which all human activity
is directed is happiness, which can be defined as continuous
contemplation of eternal and universal truth.
2. One attains happiness by a virtuous life and the development
of reason and the faculty of theoretical wisdom. For this one
requires sufficient external goods to ensure health, leisure, and
the opportunity for virtuous action.
3. Moral virtue is a relative mean between extremes of excess
and deficiency, and in general the moral life is one of
moderation in all things except virtue. No human appetite or
desire is bad if it is controlled by reason according to a moral
principle. Moral virtue is acquired by a combination of
knowledge, habituation, and self-discipline.
Main Points of Aristotle's
Ethical Philosophy
4. Virtuous acts require conscious choice and moral
purpose or motivation. Man has personal moral
responsibility for his actions.
5. Moral virtue cannot be achieved abstractly — it requires
moral action in a social environment. Ethics and politics
are closely related, for politics is the science of creating
a society in which men can live the good life and
develop their full potential.
 Aristotelian Goodness
 According to Aristotle, eudaimonia is the
state that all humans should aim for as it is
the aim and end of human existence. To
reach this state, we must ourselves act in
accordance with reason. Properly
understanding what Aristotle means
by eudaimonia is crucial to understanding
his Virtue Ethical moral position.
 Aristotelian Goodness
 Eudaimonia has been variously translated
and no perfect translation has yet been
identified. While all translations have their
own issues, eudaimonia understood as
flourishing is perhaps the most helpful
translation and improves upon a simple
translation of happiness. The following
example may make this clearer.
 Example
Naomi is an extremely talented pianist. Some days, she plays music that simply makes her happy,
perhaps the tune from the television soap opera “Neighbours” or a rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little
Star”. On other days, she plays complex music such as the supremely difficult Chopin-Godowsky
Études. These performances may also make Naomi happy, but she seems to be flourishing as a
pianist only with the latter performances rather than the former. If we use the language of function, both
performances make Naomi happy, but she fulfils her function as a pianist (and is a good pianist) only
when she flourishes with the works of greater complexity. Flourishing in life may make us happy but
happiness itself is not necessarily well aligned with acting in accordance with our telos. Perhaps, if we
prefer the term happiness as a translation for eudaimonia we mean really or truly happy, but it may be
easier to stay with the understanding of eudaimonia as flourishing when describing the state of acting
in accordance with our true function.
 Practical Wisdom
(Phronesis)
 Aristotle suggests that the aim of an action will be made clear by the relevant virtuous
characteristic as revealed by the Golden Mean; for example, our aim in a situation
may be to respond courageously or generously. It is by developing our skill of
practical wisdom (translation of “phronesis”) that we become better at ascertaining
what exactly courage or generosity amounts to in a specific situation and how exactly
we might achieve it.
 For the Aristotelian, practical wisdom may actually be the most important virtuous
disposition or character trait to develop as without the skill of practical wisdom it may
be difficult to actually practice actions that are witty rather than boorish, or courageous
rather than cowardly.
Moral Responsibility
We can separate actions into two obvious categories:
 Voluntary actions - when it is freely chosen.
 Involuntary actions - when it is not — these terms are more precisely defined next.

According to Aristotle, an action is voluntary unless it is affected by force or ignorance,

as understood in the following ways.
• Physical Force
• Psychological Force
• Action from Ignorance
• Action in Ignorance
• Action from Ignorance with No Regret
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
He was a Catholic Priest in the Dominican Order
and one of the most important medieval
philosophers and theologians.

• He was immensely influenced by scholasticism and

Aristotle and known for his synthesis of the
two aforementioned traditions.
• Although he wrote many works of philosophy and
theology throughout his life, his two monumental
works are Summa Theological and Summa Contra
Gentiles. But his most influential work is the Summa
Theological that extensively discusses man which
consists of three parts: God, Ethics and Christ.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
IN THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY
 Man is substantially body and soul.
 The soul is united with the human body because it is the substantial form of
the human body.
 It is the principle of action in the human body and the principle of life of the
body.
 But the soul, however, requires the body as the material medium for its
operation particularly perception.
 Soul has operative functions which do not need a material medium; they are
the man’s intellect and will.
 Thus at death, intellection and will remain in the soul which is immortal, simple
and incorruptible.
 Body and soul before death are essentially united because the two exist in a
correlative manner.
According to
Aquinas …
“…all acts of virtue are prescribed by the natural
law: since each one’s reason naturally dictates to
him to act virtuously. But if we speak of virtuous
acts, considered in themselves, i.e., in their proper
species, thus not all virtuous acts are prescribed by
the natural law: for many things are done virtuously,
to which nature does not incline at first; but which,
through the inquiry of reason, have been found by
men to be conductive to well living.”
According to
Aquinas …
 Man is the point of convergence between the
corporeal (means things pertaining to the human
body) and spiritual substances.
 In other words, Man is “one substance body and
soul”.
 In Thomistic physics, man is a substantial unity of
body and soul.
 Man is an embodied soul not a soul using a body. (as
Plato claimed).
 Man is substantially body and soul. And definitely,
only the soul is the substance while the body is
actual.
According to
Aquinas …
 Thomas Aquinas wrote "Greed is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in
as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.“
 Thomas believed "that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs
divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act. “According to
St. Aquinas…
 For St. Thomas Aquinas, the goal of human existence is union and eternal
fellowship with God. o For those who have experienced salvation and
redemption through Christ while living on earth, a beatific vision will be
granted after death in which a person experiences perfect, unending
happiness through comprehending the very essence of God.
 During life, an individual's will must be ordered toward right things (such as
charity, peace and holiness), which requires morality in everyday human
choices, a kind of Virtue Ethics.
 Aquinas was the first to identify the Principle of Double Effect in ethical
decisions, when an otherwise legitimate act (e.g. self-defense) may also
cause an effect one would normally be obliged to avoid (e.g. the death of
another).
Thomas distinguished
four kinds of law:
 Eternal law is the decree of God that governs all creation. It is, "That
Law which is the Supreme Reason cannot be understood to be
otherwise than unchangeable and eternal."
 Natural law is the human "participation" in the eternal law and is
discovered by reason. Natural law is based on "first principles": . . .
this is the first precept of the law that good is to be done and
promoted, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural
law are based on this.
 Human law (the natural law applied by governments to societies)
 Divine law (the specially revealed law in the scriptures).
 Five rational proofs for the
existence of God, the "quinquae
viae" (or the "Five Ways")
1. The argument of the unmoved mover (ex motu): everything that is moved is moved by a mover,
therefore there is an unmoved mover from whom all motion proceeds, which is God.
2. The argument of the first cause (ex causa): everything that is caused is caused by something
else, therefore there must be an uncaused cause of all caused things, which is God.
3. The argument from contingency (ex contingentia): there are contingent beings in the universe
which may either exist or not exist and, as it is impossible for everything in the universe to be
contingent (as something cannot come of nothing), so there must be a necessary being whose
existence is not contingent on any other being, which is God.
4. The argument from degree (ex gradu): there are various degrees of perfection which may be
found throughout the universe, so there must be a pinnacle of perfection from which lesser
degrees of perfection derive, which is God.
5. The teleological argument or argument from design (ex fine): all natural bodies in the world
(which are in themselves unintelligent) act towards ends (which is characteristic of intelligence),
therefore there must be an intelligent being that guides all natural bodies towards their ends,
which is God.
IMMANUEL
KANT
KANTS AND THE RIGHTS THEORY
• Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) examined the idea of human rights within politics in such a
way that it “is only a legitimate government that guarantees our natural right to freedom,
and from this freedom we derive other rights”. From this basis it can be assumed that Kant
looks at the development, creation and implementation of rights as primarily dependent on
the state and how the government within the state functions. Furthermore, Kant stresses
that a society can only function politically in relation to the state if fundamental rights, laws
and entitlements are given and enhanced by the state. As Kant teaches, these “righteous
laws” are founded upon 3 rational principles:
1. The liberty of every member of the society as a man
2. The equality of every member of the society with every other, as a subject
3. The independence of every member of the commonwealth as a citizen.
 The Moral Worth of Persons:
• Kant also has something to say about what makes someone a good
person.  Keep in mind that Kant intends this to go along with the rest of
his theory, and what one's duty is would be determined by the
categorical imperative. 
• However, one can treat this as a separate theory to some extent and
consider that one's duty is determined by some other standard.  A
person's actions are right or wrong, a person is morally worthy or lacks
moral worth (i.e., is morally base).  A person's actions determine her
moral worth, but there is more to this than merely seeing if the actions
are right or wrong.