The focus on virtue takes a different approach to morality.

Rather than asking what we ought to

do, virtue ethics asks how we ought to be.

Virtue ethics is concerned with

those traits of character, habits, tendencies, and dispositions that make a person good.

When some or all of the traits mentioned above are unusually well developed in a person, that
person may be regarded as a hero or even as a saint.

Susan Wolf described a moral saint as, “a person whose every action is as good as possible,
that is, who is as morally worthy as can be.” But Wolf goes on to argue that moral saints are not
especially happy,

Another word for these bad traits is vice.

Aristotle was born in 384 BCE in Stagira in northern Greece. His father was a physician for King
Philip of Macedonia.

Around age seventeen, he went to study at Plato’s Academy in Athens. Aristotle traveled for
several years and then for two or three years was the tutor to Alexander, Philip’s young son who
later became known as Alexander the Great.

In 335 BCE, Aristotle returned to Athens and organized his own school, called the Lyceum.
There he taught and wrote almost until his death thirteen years later, in 322 BCE.

Aristotle is known not only for his moral

theory but also for writings in logic, biology, physics,metaphysics, art, and politics.

The basic notions of his moral theory can be found in his Nicomachean Ethics, named for his
son Nicomachus

As noted in the previous chapter, Aristotle was

one of the earliest writers to ground morality in
nature, and specifically in human nature.

Our word virtue originally came from the

Latin vir and referred to strength or manliness.6 In Aristotle’s Greek, the term for virtue was
arete, a word that can also be translated as “excellence.”

According to Aristotle, there are two basic types

of virtue (or excellence): intellectual virtues and
moral virtues. Intellectual virtues are excellences of mind, such as the ability to understand and
reason and judge well. Moral virtues, on the other hand, dispose of us to act well.

For the Greek tradition, following Plato, there were four basic or cardinal virtues: prudence (or
wisdom), justice, temperance, and courage.

Aristotle was a close observer of nature. In fact, in his writings he mentions some 500 different
kinds of animals.

Acorns always become oak trees, not elms. He concluded that there was an order in nature. It
was as if natural beings such as plants and animals had a principle of order within them that
directed them toward their goal—their mature final form. This view can be called a teleological
view, from the Greek word for goal, telos, because of its emphasis on a goal
embedded in natural things.

The Greek word for this sort of happiness is

eudaimonia.

Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia aims at a

kind of happiness that is deeper and longer lasting than mere pleasure. The term eudaimonia
gives us a clue about this. The eu- prefix means “good”; and daimonia is related to the Greek
word for “spirit” or “soul.”

Our rational element has two different functions: one is to know, and the other is to guide choice
and action. We must develop our ability to know the world and the truth.
We must also choose wisely.

The intellectual virtues were more important than the other virtues, since they
help us fulfill our uniquely human capacities.

The Confucian tradition in China is often

described as a virtue tradition. This tradition traces its roots back to Confucius (551–479 BCE)

The Confucian tradition emphasizes

two main virtues, jen (or ren) and li. Jen is often
translated as “humaneness” or “compassion.” Li is often translated as “propriety,” “manners,” or
“culture.”
Hinduism emphasizes five basic moral virtues or yamas: nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness,
honesty, chastity, and freedom from greed.10

Hinduism also includes mental virtues to be perfected in meditation and yogic practice:
calmness, self-control, self-settledness, forbearance, faith, and complete concentration, as well
as the hunger for spiritual
liberation

Buddhism shares with Hinduism an

emphasis on both intellectual and moral virtues. The “noble eightfold path” of Buddhism
includes moral virtues such as right speech, right action, and right livelihood, as well as
intellectual virtues of understanding and mindfulness

Christian virtue ethics includes similar moral virtues, as well as what Thomas Aquinas called the
“theological virtues.” In the Christian tradition, the four cardinal moral virtues are prudence,
justice, temperance, and fortitude, while the three theological virtues are faith,
hope, and love.

If what really matters is the actions and deeds, then virtue is simply one aspect of an action-
oriented moral philosophy such
as consequentialism.

Philippa Foot—an important ethicist

in the analytic tradition—addresses certain central questions about virtue, while also contrasting
virtue ethics with other accounts of ethics, including the kantian.

The Nicomachean Ethics

Virtue or excellence being twofold, partly intellectual and partly moral, intellectual virtue is both
originated and fostered mainly by teaching; it therefore demands experience and time. Moral
virtue on the other hand is the outcome of habit. . .