3

Character Vice vs virtue

traits to be
avoided by Moral Weakness vs
the moral strength
morally
serious brutishness vs some
person form of divinity
Morally Weak-knows the good
but does what is wrong

Morally good person-knows the

good and masters their desires
accordingly
 Excessive and idiosyncratic desire

Morally Strong Morally Weak

Knows the good knows the good

Masters desire gives in

Does what is good does what is wrong

Idiosyncrasy
Ideosyncratic Desire
Moral
Weakness
 Overpowering of reason by
desire among the young who
lack habituation in virtue

Causes of Effeminacy or softness

Moral characteristic of women and
womanly men
Weakness
Theoretical thinking or
philosophy
Theoretical thinking
Moral Strength and moral weakness are like virtue and
vice

Qualities to be sought

Qualities to be avoided

Virtue –activity of the soul in accordance with reason that

determines the mean between excess and deficiency

Virtue-An internal motion of the soul that culminates in external

action of the body
 Soul disposed to suppress/ignore
the feelings of fear=suffers from
deficiency of fear

Virtue of Soul disposed to give in to

fear=suffers from excess of feeling
Courage of fear=cowardice

If guided by reason to the

mean=disposed not to feel too
much or too little fear=COURAGE
 • Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit.
We become just by doing just acts, temperate by
doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
• —Aristotle

Aristotle
Courage
Golden Mean
Self-Control
 Mean with regard to the
desire for pleasure

Virtue of On bodily pleasures of taste

and touch
Self-
Control Act on excess of desire=vice:
self-indulgence

Act on deficiency=vice:
insensitivity
 A Mean with regard to universal or
natural physical pleasure

But an extreme with regard to

Self- idiosyncratic pleasures

Control Self-controlled persons neither desires

nor enjoys them

Self-indulgence is an excessive desire for

and indulgence in both pleasures(U and
I)
 Morally strong person has excessive
and idiosyncratic desires for physical
pleasures, but resists and then
masters them
Moral
Strong He know that they are ‘wrong’ or that
indulgence in them is vice
person
Desires go beyond the mean but
reason does not
Moral Stregth
 Morally Morally Strong Self-controlled person
Strong vs Self- Has Excessive and Has none
controlled idiosyncratic desires
person
Knows their desires are Desires pursue what
wrong reason determines to be
right and good
Finds pleasures Finds no pleasure in
anything that violates
reason
Resists and masters No effort
desires
Moral
Strength is not
a virtue
It is Inferior to self-control
Morally Weak vs Self-indugent Persons
Excessive idiosyncratic desires Excessive and idiosyncratic desires
• are wrong
• Desires pursue what reason
Give in to them Give in todetermines
them to be
right and good
Know they shouldn’t Not aware that pleasures should not
be indulged
Think they are doing right

Act against what one would rationally Act according to choice

choose to do

In strict sense, not a vice Worse than morally weak

 • Seems a condition between
moral strength and self-
indulgence

• Like MS, MW know their

Moral desires are wrong
Weakness • Like SI. MW give them free
reign

• Is moral weakness a
possible condition?
 Socrates:
Vice/improper
behavior as result
of ignorance
Aristotle ‘agrees’
with Socrates
Knowledge is
virtue
Causes of
moral
Weakness
 Among the young, lack habituation in
virtue
They repeat the formula, but don’t yet
feel

to retain knowledge in the grip of

Overpowering passions, the subject must grow to be
of reason by part of them
desire

Take moral knowledge into our soul, let

it become part of our
character=Internalization process
 Moral weakness does not occur in
the presence of knowledge in the
strict sense

Only knowledge in secondary

sense
Practical
Wisdom Knowledge in strict sense flows
from intellectual virtue of
prudence or practical wisdom

Morally weak persons lack practical

wisdom
 • Lack prudence and subject to
moral weakness
• the young maybe unable to
do ‘right’because they cannot
resist the desire for pleasure,
Effeminate • Effeminate men cannot do
Men and what they know is right
because they cannot resist
women the pains that most people
can
• Suffers from softness
characteristic of women
 On the true and the false
On what is and what is not

On things higher than human

Theoretical
Thinking Not concerned with the good and the
bad for human beings

Solution: discovery of type of pleasure

that is not physical, a pleasure of the
soul
• Thank you!!!