so the first thing to say about Aristotle's virtue ethics is it takes a different approach to the other ethical theories we've looked at so far so where utilitarianism and C try to Define what good actions are virtal ethics instead tries to Define what a good person is so it's kind of the other way around rather than saying a good person is one who does good actions Aristotle says good actions are the kind of actions that would be done by a good or virtuous person so what makes a virtuous person well I'm glad you [Music] asked so Aristotle's virtue ethics as described in the nicoman ethics nication however you say it in the ethics involves a bunch of Greek words like udonia and frenesis and ergon and sometimes people just translate them into English words but the translations aren't perfect so they take a bit of explanation probably the most important of these words today is udonia which in my version just gets translated to happiness but if it were that simple we'd be doing another video on utilitarianism because I don't think Aristotle was talking about about the kind of temporary psychological feeling of being happy so other common translations of udonia include living and fairing well and human flourishing so how I think of udonia is a good life you would want for yourself so happy in an emotional sense yes but also morally good and decent successful um full of achievement you have loving friends and family you're not short of money and so on it's not any single one of these things but it's all of them so yeah I think this word flourishing kind of captures what Aristotle means a bit more accurately here it's a good life in a broad sense the kind of good life you would want for yourself and this isn't intended as a kind of precise definition at this stage as Aristotle himself says so anyway like I mentioned in the intro Aris approaches ethics from a different perspective to utilitarianism and C from an agent centered perspective rather than an action- centered perspective so where utilitarianism and C would presumably Define a good life as one made up of good actions Aristotle kind of starts at the end and works backwards he starts with this concept of udonia I.E a good life and then works out what's good kind of backwards from that so udonia is a good life for a human being and Aristotle says this is a final end something that's valuable for its own sake you don't need to ask why a good life is good or why it should be pursued udonia is not something we pursue as a means for something else if you compare udonia with something like money for example money is definitely part of udonia it wouldn't be a good life if you're constantly broke and hungry for example but money by itself isn't sufficient for udonia because there's more to a good life than just having tons of money the reason why money is valuable is because it's part of what makes a good life it's part of UD amonia likewise with health the reason why exercise is good is because it helps you be healthy and the reason why being healthy is good is because it's part of a good life it's part of udonia and so again if you keep asking why something is valuable you end up at this Final End of udonia finally and another reason why udonia is not the same thing as the psychological state of happiness is that it's an assessment of a person's life as a whole it's not something you can lose from one moment to the next or even one day to the next as Aristotle says one swallow does not make a summer neither does one day similarly neither can one day or a brief space of time make a man blessed and happy so Aristotle says that udonia I.E flourishing or a good life is our final end and what we're aiming for so he then moves on the discussion to how we can achieve udonia and fleshes out a bit more what this means so the next Greek word is uron which my version translates as function but again people quibble about these definitions so another popular translation of uh ergon is the characteristic activity of a thing so for example the uron of a knife is to cut things that is the activity the function that characterizes what a knife is or the ergon of a sprinter is to run fast and win races the ergon of a car is to get people from point A to point B you get the idea a things uron is the function or activity that characterizes that thing and this idea of ergon gives us a kind of framework through which we can evaluate things so for example a car that's always breaking down and blowing up is not a good car because it isn't performing its function well it isn't getting people reliably from point A to point B likewise a knife that's totally blunt and you know can't even cut through a stick of butter that's not a good knife because it's not performing its function well in contrast a knife that can cut through a tough steak with ease that's a good knife because it's performing its function well so a thing is good to the extent it performs its function to the extent which it fulfills its eron and virtues as in virtue ethics are traits of things that enable them to perform their function well so with the example of a knife sharpness is a virtue of a knife because sharpness helps a knife perform its function of cutting things likewise with a car you know reliability and speed and comfort these are all virtues of a car because they enable the car to perform its function fulfill its ergon of transporting people safely and reliably from point A to point B or a sprinter has the virtue of speed because speed enables the Sprinter to win races you know a snail wouldn't make a good Sprinter because it doesn't have this virtue anyway the point of all these examples is to illustrate Aristotle's kind of theological worldview everything has an ergon or a function and virtues are traits that enable the thing to perform this ergon or function well and this worldview extends also to human beings so if the ergon of a knife is to cut things what is the ergon of a human being what's the unique function that characterizes a human well it's not to cut things because that's a knife's job it's it's not simply life either because that function wouldn't differentiate a human's character from that of a plant or a vegetable so we might specify a kind of sentient life but this would also cover animals and we want the function that is unique to humans the answer Aristotle arrives at is the use of reason it is this function that differentiates a human being from a knife a plant you know all these other things the use of reason is the unique characteristic of a human being but Aristotle doesn't mean being kind of just sitting around reading books and theorizing he say he means the unique more specifically he says to act according to reason arist doesn't think the function of a human is to just sit around kind of pontificating and reading books and theorizing so the ergon of humans their unique characteristic activity is to use reason and act rightly according to reason so again our has this kind of theological worldview everything has a function or an ergon and virtues are traits that enable a thing to fulfill that ergon a knife's ergon is to cut things and the ergon of a human being is to act according to reason and just as The Virtue or arate of sharpness enables the knife to perform its function well human beings also have can have virtues character traits that enable them to act rightly according to reason so virtues are traits that enable a thing to perform its function and in the case of human beings virtues are character traits that enable a human being to act correctly according to reason it's important to emphasize that virtues are character traits so if a person has a friendly character but one day they're having a bit of an off day and they act rudely that doesn't mean they're no longer a friendly person so again one swallow doesn't make a summer and so it takes more than a single bad day to change a person's character so virtues virtue ethics these are character traits like being courageous being friendly being having self-control for example and these are character traits that Ena us to act rightly act in the right way and Aristotle says these character traits are always the midpoint between two vices a vice of excess and a vice of deficiency so vices are like the opposite of Virtues they are negative character traits so if you lack courage for example you're deficient in it then you're cowardly and cowardice is a vice of deficiency you know sometimes you've got to stand up for yourself and maybe fight people or whatever but if you go too far the other way problem was you're taking so many beatings on a teres that he weren't scared of anyone and the correct medical term for that is a psycho let's get out of here there's about 10 Stoke fans staring at us how many of them did you say there was about 10 please don't start bill right which one of them staring at then that goes beyond courage into kind of recklessness or rashness and that's not a virtue either that's a vice of excess so the virtue of Courage is in between these two vices it's in between the vice of deficiency I.E cice and the vice of excess I.E kind of recklessness or fool hardiness or self-control or Temperance is I think the word the classic word for this so if you're kind of a slave to your desires and you you know just eating food all day and doing drugs and scrolling social media and playing video games and that's all you ever do then you're lacking in self-control you're Lous that's the word but you can go too far the other way um you know those kind of people who are just so strict with themselves and they can't ever let their hair down or have a bit of fun you know they're at home can't come to the party because they're too busy prepping their meals for the week or or whatever like again that goes beyond self-control into a kind of uh self-denial so that could be a an excess of self control control and that's a vice as well so again the virtue of temperance or self-control is in between the vices of self-denial and what's the other one Lous anyway I'll put some other examples up on the screen but again The Virtue is in between the vice of excess and the vice of deficiency but one other thing to just mention quickly what exactly The Virtue looks like is going to differ from person to person and situation to situation so for example being funny is a virtue but what exactly the appropriate amount of humor looks like is going to be very different for say a funeral director versus a standup comedian you know if the funeral director is kind of constantly cracking jokes then I don't want you to judge me ladies and gentlemen but when my nana died we went bowling life goes on not hers obviously she was in a box on fire then that's probably a vice of excess but for a stand up comedian for example what the mean looks like is going to be different to the funeral director so that's just another thing to bear in mind another thing to touch on here is the role of emotions when you hear me say that Aristotle says the function of human being is to use reason you might think uh I'm saying that Aristotle says the function of human beings is to kind of act uh you know purely using logic and never feeling emotions a bit like perhaps can't if you remember from the last video but this isn't what Aristotle has in mind so The Virtuous person should feel emotions but in the right way at the right time and so on so you should feel sad at the death of a loved one for example or Joy at the birth of a child so the function of humans is to use reason yes but by we can use our reason to kind of direct our emotional responses so that we feel the correct emotions at the right time and place and so on so I'll give you some examples to illustrate what I think Aristotle means by this so when you're a kid for example you might hate eating vegetables and just want to eat sweets or whatever but your parents who are the voice of reason at that age encourage you to eat healthily and eventually over time you begin to enjoy eating healthily so your taste and your emotional reaction changes and the thought of eating nothing but sweets might now actually make you feel sick or reading for example uh I think this is true of a lot of people nowadays myself included So reading is kind of maybe a bit boring and difficult if you're not in the habit of it like you have to kind of force yourself to do it a bit especially if you're addicted to screens and have a lower attention span or whatever but once reading becomes a habit and you get used to it it can actually be really enjoyable so again you can kind of use your reason to shape your tastes and desires and emotional responses so yeah it's the same thing with virtues you develop courageous character for example by acting courageously and so if you act courageously even if it doesn't come naturally at first then the next time you're in a similar situation it becomes easier to act courageously because you've done it before and if you keep acting courageously until it becomes part of your character it becomes habit then you might actually begin to enjoy acting courageously you might enjoy pushing yourself out of your comfort zone so again like the uh reading and eating vegetables examples you can kind of change your emotional response through habit and I could run a similar story with the other virtues like Temperance or honesty or kindness but I think you get the idea the point is that by acting virtuously it becomes habit it becomes part of your character and over time through these habits you then begin to enjoy acting virtuously and while we're on this point Aristotle says that acquiring virtues is a bit like acquiring skills uh you can't learn to ride a bike for example by just studying the theory and reading books about bikes you have to actually practice riding the bike until you're able to do it and again it's the same with virtue you can't develop virtuous character by just reading Aristotle or theorizing about virtue you have to actually go out into the world and act virtuously until it becomes habit and part of your character so anyway to summarize the theory before we move on to some objections the function or ergon of human beings is to act according to reason and virtues are character traits that dispose us to fulfill this urg on and act according to our function and if you act well over the course of a lifetime you'll have a good life I.E you'll achieve udonia so the first potential issue for Aristotle's virtue ethics I want to talk about today is that the definitions may appear circular so as an agent centered Theory Aristotle characterizes the good or virtuous course of action as the course of action a virtuous person would take and then you might say well Aristotle characterizes a virtuous person as the kind of person who does good or virtuous acts but this isn't a very helpful definition because it kind of contains the original term we set out to Define if a virtuous person is one who does virtuous acts and virtuous acts the kind of acts done by virtuous people then that's not helpful as a definition because it's circular it doesn't actually tell us anything about what virtue is so Aristotle could potentially respond to this objection by clarifying the theory I don't want to rehash it all again here but if you remember Aristotle says that a virtuous person is one who possesses character traits virtues like courage and kindness and so on and that these character traits are character traits that enable them to live a good life to flourish to fulfill their function to act according to reason and Achieve udonia and so the response could be that rather than defining virtuous people in terms of virtuous acts is a bit more complicated than that that a virtuous person is instead defined in terms of udonia and flourishing so rather than being circular you could think of the definitions as linear virtuous acts are those done by virtuous people and virtuous people are those who act according to good reason and achieve udonia so there you go on to the next objection so as we saw earlier there's all sorts of different virtues so you've got courage uh kindness Temperance and so on and so what do you do if you find yourself in a situation where one virtue appears to demand one course of action and a different virtue appears to demand a completely different or contradictory course of action what do you do if you find yourself in a situation where you have competing virtues so for example let's say uh your friend is you know rocking up in some really wacky outfit and he asks you what you think well you might say that the virtue of sincerity or honesty demands you tell the truth whereas uh the virtue of kindness or compassion demands you say you know you look great or you're the judge and before you in court today is somebody guilty of stealing a loaf of bread well you might say that the virtue of Justice demands you send this thief to jail for their horrible crime whereas the virtue of compassion or kindness maybe Mercy demands that you let the thief go and so again in both these scenarios you can't do both actions you can't both tell the truth and tell your friend he looks great for example you can't send the thief to jail and let him go and so Aristotle is in a bit of a bind here because it seems that virtal ethics is impossible to follow in practice so there's a couple of ways the defender of virtue ethics might respond to this uh competing virtues objection the first way is to propose a kind of hierarchy of Virtues and I think think Aristotle himself does this somewhere and he puts uh Justice at the top of this hierarchy so that would solve the judge example although uh I don't know how that solves the you know wacky Coes example but anyway the second way we might resolve the conflicting virtues objection is to appeal to another one of these Greek words foris and this translates to practical wisdom and I suppose there's a bit of an analogy between practical wisdom and practical skills like Plumbing for example because each bathroom is different it's got different fittings and different layout and so on and so a plumber has to use their kind of General experience from a bunch of other bathrooms and then apply it to the specific details of this particular bathroom likewise with phis or practical wisdom practical wisdom is the ability to have a general conception of what's good of udonia and then apply it to the specific detail of the situation so frenesis is an intellectual virtue it's something you have to think about and reflect on because you could have the other virtues we've discussed so far such as courage kindness honesty or whatever you could have these virtues almost accidentally so you know if you're born kind of genetically courageous let's say then you might act courageously you might act virtuously but you might not understand why what you're doing is good you're just acting virtuously almost automatically whereas the properly virtuous person the person with a practical wisdom is able to understand why courage is a virtue and is able to choose to act virtuously because it's a virtue not just because you know they're naturally courageous for example anyway I bring this up because uh you could argue that resolving these apparent conflicts between virtues requires phis it requires practical wisdom so if you think being sincere means you have to tell the truth in every situation then you probably lack the practical wisdom to understand that each situation is different I mean uh just look at uh my favorite Jim KY in Liar Liar for example is it good for you I've had better you know is telling the truth 100 % of the time really The Virtuous way to act or the judge example we'd have to flesh out the situation a bit more like is the thief an arrogant billionaire who stole the bread just to spite the shop owner or was the thief kind of down on his luck and only stole the bread to avoid starving to death what Justice looks like is going to differ massively depending on these details and having FIS means having the practical wisdom to GR these details to Think Through to think them through in the concept of this broader concept of udonia and what's good and then act accordingly so for example The Virtuous judge might still send the down on his luck Thief to jail but perhaps give him a lower sentence compared to the billionaire Thief again virtal ethics is not like can Dan olical ethics from the last video there aren't any kind of absolute abstract rules that can never be broken broken instead it's all about the details of the situation because each situation is different and having the having practical wisdom means being able to appreciate these details and act virtuously to balance these uh the different virtues in light of these details basically this response says that on a proper understanding of virtue ethics a true conflict between virtues is impossible if you think there's a conflict between virtues if you think one virtue demands you act one way and a different virtue demands you act a different way then that's just because you lack the practical wisdom to appreciate the details of the situation the next potential issue for virtue ethics I want to talk about today kind of questions these links between udonia virtue and what's morally good so if you remember Aristotle defines virtues in terms of character traits that contribute to udonia that contribute to a good life for ourselves and flourishing but can we think of examples of traits that are virtues but don't necessarily contribute to a good life so for example imagine a selfless and compassionate Doctor Who dedicates her entire life to treating and curing disease in some farf flung corner of the globe it's difficult and dangerous work which she finds stressful but her compassionate and selfless nature motivates her to keep going for for the sake of the people whose lives she's saving she's so dedicated to the cause that she has little time for anything else no time for friends family money or her own happiness eventually the nature of her work becomes too much for her and she dies at let's say age 30 from disease and stress so if virtues are to be understood as character traits that contribute to udonia then it seems you have to say the nurse's compassion and care for other people aren't virtues at all all after all they didn't contribute to her flourishing and living a good life but this seems kind of wrong you know of course compassion and Care are virtues but since compassion and care don't contribute to a good life for yourself it seems Aristotle would have to say that compassion and Care aren't virtues at all you could push this example further perhaps and argue that if virtues are to be defined as character traits that contribute towards udonia then really the real virtues are being selfish and self-interested cuz after all these traits are probably more likely to lead to your own personal flourishing what these examples are supposed to show is that something can be a virtue like the doctor's compassion and not contribute to udonia or to make the objection the other way around that there might be examples of vices like selfishness that do contribute to udonia in other words we might reject Aristotle's characterization of Virtues in terms of character traits that contribute to udonia and instead argue that our real Final End is instead some kind of broader societal conception of flourishing rather than simply a good life for ourselves so one way virtue ethics can respond to this objection is to argue that this objection kind of gets it the wrong way around that rather than starting with udonia and working out what virtues are from that the the a proper understanding of virtue ethics instead works the other way around and this is the approach that Julia anus argues for in a nice and uh concise which I always like overview of virtue ethics anyway in this overview she says classical virtue theories reject the idea that flourishing can be specified right at the start rather virtue ethics tells us that a life lived in accordance with virtues is the best specification of what flourishing is so in other words rather than starting with this preconceived notion of udonia and then working out what the virtues are backwards from that anus says that a proper understanding of virtue ethics starts with the virtues it starts with traits like compassion kindness and courage and so on and then works out what udonia is from these virtues and maybe this way around makes more sense because if we started with this selfish notion of udonia where our final end was simply our own flourishing then we'd miss out on a bunch of things that make a good life for example if the only value you saw in other people was as a means to your own flourishing then you could never have genuine friendships because the whole point of friendship is that you actually care about the other person or if the only reason you care about your wife is because she contributes to your own happiness but you don't value hers then that's not a good relationship and so if you start with this uh selfish notion of flourishing then you'll miss out on a bunch of aspects that make life good and you'll kind of paradoxically end up not flourishing but if we start with the virtues this gives a broader and more complete picture of udonia where we're invested in the flourishing of other people however if we take this kind of wider societal conception of udon to its logical conclusion we end up with kind of issues in the other direction so returning to our selfless doctor example it seems a bit of a stretch to say this is what Aristotle had in mind when he was talking about udonia it seems a bit of a stretch to say our selfless doctor flourished that she had a good life after all she was constantly stressed and unhappy despite the fact that she was morally good and spent her life helping others out of compassion and care so although I don't think aristole had this kind of entire highly selfish conception of udonia in mind I don't think he would say the selfless doctor flourished either so yeah a good life I.E udonia does involve some degree of commitment to other people but it also does include some level of personal success some degree of Happiness having good friends and family and so on and since our selfless doctor lacked these elements we probably wouldn't want to say she achieved udonia but I think few people would disagree that our example of the selfless doctor that she was a morally good person after all she spent her entire life helping other people and died for the cause of doing so that is a very morally admirable person even if it's not a life we would want for ourselves and so this raises a different potential criticism of virtue ethics the criticism of virtue ethics as an account of what's morally good so again if you think about it in terms of Ven diagrams the ven diagram of udonia and the ven diagram of a morally good life these two circles don't overlap perfectly that you can be a morally good person and not achieve udonia and so if you can be a morally good person and not achieve udonia then udonia is not a good definition of what's morally good the two circles come apart and since this is moral philosophy where we're trying to Define what's morally good this is kind of a big issue for the theory but maybe this is a bit of an unfair criticism when I don't think Aristotle was kind of trying to answer this narrower question of what a morally good life is and maybe Aristotle's approach is a bit more healthy here because although the selfless doctor is an example of a morally good life it probably it probably wouldn't be ideal if everybody's lives were like that I don't think that would be flourishing and so I guess the upshot of this discussion as always with virtue ethics is that either extreme is bad udonia requires some degree of commitment to others you can't flourish if you're entirely selfish but if you go too far the other way that's not flourishing either you end up like the selfless doctor so to borrow some vocabulary from the definitions of knowledge video commitment to others is necessary but not sufficient for you Di the final issue I want to talk about with virtal ethics today is that it doesn't provide clear guidance it doesn't actually tell you what you should and shouldn't do so if you're in a genuine moral dilemma like the trolley problem for example where pulling a switch means killing one person but saving the lives of three others it's not helpful to say well just do what a virtuous person would do because that's exactly what we want to know we're back at the circularity problem or to say go with the mean and avoid vices of excess and vices of deficiency not too much or too little that's not much help either because too much and too little aren't actually quantifiable amounts and even if you could pin down the mean you've then got to contend with competing virtues again so maybe compassion demands you pull the switch but Justice demands you don't the other ethical theories we've looked at util arianism and can theological ethics provide clear answers to these moral dilemmas they provide a clear answer to the trolley problem for example so can theological ethics would say don't pull the switch because killing people is wrong we have a duty not to kill other people whereas bentham's utilitarianism and the utility calculus would presumably say to pull the switch because all else being equal three is greater than one and so it results in a greater amount of happiness or pleasure to kill one person to sacrifice one person if it means saving the lives and pleasure of these three people so whatever other thoughts these theories have at least utilitarianism and Camp provide clear guidance whereas Aristotle's instruction to you know do the right thing at the right time towards the right people to follow the golden mean this doesn't actually tell you what to do in a genuine moral dilemma like the trolley problem even Aristotle himself admits this he says for this reason it is a difficult business to be good because in any given case it is difficult to find the midpoint for instance not everyone can find the center of a circle only the man who knows how so too it is easy to get angry anyone can do that or to give and spend money but to feel or act towards the right person to the right extent at the right time for the right reason is the right way that is not easy and it's not one that can do it so yeah maybe this criticism does hit the target even Aristotle himself admits as much but and this is kind of Aristotle's whole point is that we can't provide simple instructions simple black and white rules that tell us what we should and shouldn't do because real life is complicated real life is Shades of Gray you know the joke at the funeral is very different from the joke down the pub with your friends for example or the same Act of stealing is very different if it's done out of malice than when it's done to avoid starvation the white lie you tell your pregnant wife honey you look great you're beautiful you're glowing why to told mommy she look like a cow would have hurt her feelings understand it's very different from the lie a con artist tells old people in order to scam them out of their pensions and if you do try to come up with these one-size fits all rules you end up with all these crazy conclusions for example example we saw how in the last video K says you can't even tell a simple lie in order to save everybody on planet Earth which seems ridiculous and also in the utilitarianism video we saw how boiling everything down the consequences means ignoring concepts of justice and rights you can torture an innocent baby for example if enough you know sick people would get pleasure from it and so neither of these kind of black and white approaches stand up to the various edge cases and the complexities of real life so the reason why virtue ethics doesn't provide clear guidance or black and white rules is because no such guidance is even possible real life is complicated it takes experience to develop the practical wisdom to understand what's good and then apply it to the details of each particular situation and each situation is different but even with all that said it's not like Aristotle's theory provides no guidance whatsoever then we can still ask ourselves what would a courageous person do or how could I exercise more self-control what would a virtuous person do or we could look at other virtuous people and use them as role models for example and what's more towards the end of book two of the nomaan nicoman ethics Aristotle provides a few kind of practical tips three top tips for virtue so the first tip is rather than aiming for the mean we should instead just try to aim to stay away from excess because although we might not be able to identify uh what the perfect amount of self-control is for example we can still identify for example when somebody is being too lious for example you know if you're just scoffing pies and doing drugs all day maybe try to do less of that rather than worry about whether you're exercising the perfect amount of self-control or similarly we can all recognize somebody who's cowardly or Reckless Reckless Reckless even if we can't perfectly recognize the perfect what the perfect amount of Courage looks like so again the first tip is to stay away from the excesses to try to stay away from the excesses rather than aim at the mean Aristotle's next top tip for virtue is kind of related he points out how we all have natural inclinations towards some vices more than others so for example some people are just I don't know genetically more inclined to work hard for example and others are genetically lazy let's say so if you're one of the genetically lazy people let's say Aris says you should recognize that about yourself and then aim you know work extra hard to pull yourself away from this Vice of laziness towards the virtue that we need to know ourselves and recognize which vices we're inclined to fall into and then try to make a concerted effort to kind of pull ourselves away from these vices so Aristotle's thirdd and final top tip for virtue is to avoid using pleasure as a guide to what's good and he uses the example of Helen of Troy which is a myth I'm not too familiar with but I don't know why she was she was bad for the society she's too good-look basically and so the Trojan elders sent her away from Troy back to Greece because even though you might want to spend all day you know looking at Helen of Troy there's more important things to do so they they send her back to Greece anyway I think aristo's point is like you know McDonald's might be very pleasurable but it's not necessarily a good thing to sit around eating fast food all day or heroin probably feels quite pleasurable but that doesn't mean it's good so Aristotle's advice here is that we should do the same as the Trojan Elders that we should uh not use pleasure as a guide to what's good we should instead use reason to decide what's good and then pursue that and yeah this is all kind of basic Common Sense advice but does it provide clear guidance in a genuine moral dilemma I don't know so to summarize Aristotle's virtue ethics the book although maybe not the theory starts with this concept of udonia so udonia is the good life for a human being and the good life for a human being must be something unique to a human being so Aristotle argues that everything has a unique function or uron the ergon of a knife for example is to cut things for Aristotle if something's good it fulfills its function so a good knife is one that cuts things for example and so by analogy a good life for a human being must consist of one where the human being fulfills its purpose fulfills its ergon so the ergon of human beings the unique activity that characterizes a human being and differentiates it from a knife or a plant or an animal or anything else in the world is reason says Aristotle human beings are rational animals and reason is the unique characteristic of a human and so the good life for a human I udonia is one that's in alignment with this function a life full of actions chosen according to reason and this is where virtues come in so in the same way the virtue of sharpness helps the knife fulfill its ergon virtues are character traits that enable a human being to fulfill their uron in other words virtues are character traits that enable a human to choose correctly and live a good life so these are things like courage or kindness or humor or self-control and these virtues are the mean mean or midpoint between a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess so for example Courage The Virtue is in between the vice of deficiency of cowardice and the vice of excess of recklessness or rashness so virtues are developed through habit and training a bit like skills you don't get strong by sitting at home all day for example you have to go out and lift weights likewise you don't get Courageous by staying home and thinking about it or reading books you have to actually put yourself in situations where you need to act courageously and by doing this continually over time it eventually becomes habit it becomes part of your nature your natural inclination becomes to act courageously and what's more because this is your nature you get enjoyment and happiness from acting courageously and enjoyment from being virtuous and so ultimately by cultivating virtuous character we act well and acting well leads to flourishing so we're back at this concept of udonia we also looked at a few issues for viral ethics like how you can live a morally good life but not necessarily achieve udonia but perhaps the most common critiques of Aristotle's virtue ethics around the fact that it doesn't provide clear guidance so we looked at for example the criticism that Aristotle's ethics is circular that virtuous acts are defined in terms of virtuous people and virtuous people are potentially defined in terms of virtuous acts and we also looked at the issue of how it doesn't really provide any clear instruction or guidance so where utilitarianism and canant olical ethics give you kind of clear yes or no answers on what you should do Aristotle's uh instruction to act in the right way at the right time towards the right people is not NE is not the most helpful if you're in a genuine moral dilemma but then also the flip side of this kind of no clear guidance vague criticism is that it avoid some of the pit of these other theories this same vagueness gives it a kind of flexibility to avoid for example the scenario where can can't even tell a lie to save everyone on Earth or utilitarianism is torturing people for the pleasure of a large crowd who'd enjoy seeing that it's always a bit of a weird one comparing Aristotle with these other ethical theories because in some ways they're answering the same question of what is morally good but in another way was kind of answering a different question altogether not only that there's a ton of context that goes into the theory you've got these ancient Greek words that don't translate perfectly so Aristotle's theory is kind of embedded in the context of the time and also the context of his wider Theory which I didn't go into today next time we're moving on from these normative ethical theories onto the meta ethical discussion so rather than taking the concepts of good and bad for granted and then trying to Define them as we have done with utilitarianism K and today Aristotle's virtue ethics this discussion instead looks at what the concepts of good and bad actually are and also looks at what we mean when we make moral judgments such as stealing is [Music] wrong so that's it for Aristotle's virtue ethics uh I hope you enjoyed it All That Remains is the books so as always you can get my book it is a very and I mean very brief overview of this topic um basically covers the same points you went over today so if you're looking for further reading and a bit more detail I will link uh I'll link the Julia anus paper that I mentioned earlier uh down below which is a really like I said a nice and concise overview of virtue ethics I'll also link the Stanford page um haven't read it but it's they're all peer-reviewed and therefore infallible and then as for primary sources um I think Aristotle wrote maybe three ethical treatises however you say it uh the emian ethics and another one of dubious origin um but yeah no one's ever read those the one everybody reads and the one this video was based around is the nikan nican ethics however you say it and uh yeah this book really gets a thumbs up from me it is you know unlike most you primary ethical theories you know like can reading can grounding for the metaphysics of morals is hardly a page Chan but the nicoman ethic reads like a it almost reads like a a self-help book it is very practical very relatable even though it was written more than 2,000 years ago so the Aristotle's nicoman ethics gets a thumb well I'm going to give it two thumbs up actually it's that good and uh yeah I think Aristotle was probably one of the smartest people ever to have lived um I actually just wrote a short sort of biography of Aristotle for my website so I'll also link that down below because he wrote it wasn't just ethics he wrote about he basically invented logic and a lot of laid the groundwork for a lot of modern day science so Aristotle gets a thumbs up as well um but yeah that about does it for this video thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed it and I will see you in the next one l