Virtue Ethics is the ethical framework that is concerned
Self-sufficient: desirable in themselves
with understanding the good as a matter of developing
the virtuous character of a person.
What is GOOD for a human being?
the HUMAN GOOD is consists in EUDAIMONIA
Nichomachean Ethics Book 1, Chapter 4
Outline
1. Historical Background
2. A. “Telos”: “Eudaimonia”
B. “Ergon”: reason
C. Structure of the Soul: irrational and rational faculties
3. A. Intellectual and Moral Virtue
B. Definition of Moral Virtue
C. “Mesotes”
Historical Background
▪ Aristotle: 384-322 BCE
▪ Student of Plato in the Academia, Athens
▪ Founded his own school, the Lyceum
Works of Aristotle:
1. On Theoretical Sciences
• Metaphysics, Physics, De Caelo (astronomy)
•De Generatione et Corruptione (biology)
•De Anima (psychology)
2. On Practical Sciences
•Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Politics
3. On Productive or Poetical Sciences
• Rhetoric, Poetics
4. On Logic: Organon
▪ Gave emphasis on reasons the highest faculty of a
person (similar with Socrates and Plato)
Aristotle departs from the Platonic theory: the real is
outside the realm of the sensory experience and is in the
world of forms.
Nicomachean Ethics
▪Aristotle: real as matter and form
▪The good does not exist independent of the person’s
experience in the world.
A. Telos (end/goal) What is the ultimate purpose of a
person?
▪ There is a purpose in every action of a person which is
perceived as something good.
▪ There is a hierarchy of purpose
▪ Criteria for the ultimate telos
a. Final:
b. Self-sufficient:
c. Attainable:
Telos: What is the supreme good?
▪ Criteria for the ultimate telos
b.
(honor/health/virtue)
a. Attainable: goods desirable not in themselves but lead
to further goods (wealth/pleasure)
c. Final: the most final or unconditionally final good
chosen by itself always and never because of anything
else by itself makes life worth living” (NE 1097a)
Eudaimonia: highest purpose and highest good
▪ not an emotion which is temporary
▪ not nirvana (state of liberation from samsara)
▪ nor stoicism (rejection of emotion)
Who is eudaimon? Eudaimon (flourishing) and blessed,
but not on account of any external good but on account
of himself and because he is by nature of a certain sort
which shows that being fortunate must be different from
flourishing. For the goods external to the soul come of
themselves and by chance, but no one is just or
temperate by or through chance. (Politics 1323b24-29)
▪ “Activity of the soul in accordance with virtue”
▪ Achieved by fulfilling a person’s ergon (function)
B. Ergon: What is the function of a person?
▪ Function is what distinguishes or characterizes the
thing
from other beings (ex. umbrella used as protection from
heat and rain)
▪ Function of a person which sets her/him apart from the
rest: the activity of reason
▪ To be a person is to act in accordance to reason.
▪ To be a good person is to perform her/his
rational activity well in a good or excellent way:
Arête (virtue, birtud, kahusayan, maayo)
Arete: Virtue “But we must add “in a complete life”.
For one swallow does not make a summer...also a
happy man needs the external goods as well; for it is
impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the
proper equipment...as good birth, goodly children,
beauty...” (Bk. I, 1098a19)
▪ Virtue cannot be accomplished by a single act
▪ conditions in order to be happy
1. Ethical Structure
A. “Telos”: “Eudaimonia”
B. “Ergon”: reason
C. Structure of the Soul: irrational and rational faculties
2. Virtue
A. Intellectual and Moral Virtue
B. Definition of Moral Virtue
C. “Mesotes”
C. Structure of the Soul
Psyche: soul of a person
1. Irrational
2.Rational
 “Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with a
1. Irrational: choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this
a. vegetative: growth, nutrition being determined by a rational principle, and by that
b. appetitive: desire principle by which the man of practical wisdom would
▪ not dictated by reason determine it.” (Bk II, 1106b36-1107a2)
▪ Desire: does not arise from the rational faculty of
the soul but is subject to reason Virtue is the mean* in between two vices

2. Rational: Deficiency ---------- Virtue ---------- Excess

a. Moral (acting)
b. Intellectual (knowing) *mesotes
b.1 Practical wisdom (phronesis)
b.2 Philosophic wisdom (sophia) Moral Virtue: mesotes
▪ dictated by reason ▪ Exactness of mesotes, or as the maximum act (ex. not
▪ aspect of the soul where virtue, that is, where sobrang bait, not over sa tapang, not medyo
human excellence can be attained: moral and intellectual palakaibigan)
virtues ▪ Wrong actions have no mesotes (ex. murder, adultery,
spite) bong
Intellectual Virtue
Act of knowing
▪ Intellectual virtue is seen in wisdom
▪ Acquired through teaching, learning
▪ Phronesis: excellence of knowing what to do
▪ Phronesis: necessary for moral virtue

Moral Virtue
▪ Moral virtue
▪ Acquired through habit
▪ Formation of one’s character: habitually willing and
doing the good (mabuting pag-
uugali) Determining the good and doing the right actions

What comprises moral virtue? Acting out the right

feelings/passions?
▪ Most feelings/ passions are neutral. Neither good nor
bad (ex. being angry)
▪ Moral virtue is the excellent management of one’s
feelings and passions
▪ Ex. Being angry with the right person, time, reason,
manner, circumstance
▪ Right measurement: mesotes(mean)

Mesotes

Hence, it is hard work to be virtuous, since in each case

it is hard work to find what is the mean (mesotes) so also
getting angry, or giving and spending money, is easy
and anyone can do it; but doing it to the right person, in
the right amount, at the right time, for the right end, and
in the right way is no longer easy, nor can everyone do
it. Hence, (doing these things) well is rare, praiseworthy,
and fine. (Bk. II, 1109a24)

Phronimos
• a virtuous person does not even have to control oneself
because one’s resolution has been so habituated to
always rightly act; self-possessed

Definition of Moral Virtue