Transcript for:
Aristotle's Virtue Ethics Overview

hello too I do hope you're well welcome to this AQA a level religious studies revision video I'm Ben Woodle and today we are talking about virtue ethics so we are going to cover everything you need to know about virtue ethics for the paper one philosophy of Religion and Ethics exam so plenty to talk about today a really fascinating Theory and one that is very very unique I think in terms of its focus on the person within so it's all about of course the development of those virtues within you and ensuring that you become a virtuous person as opposed to being too focused or focused at all to be honest on the rules that you need to follow so yes a very unique Theory and a very interesting one for us to be studying now I thought the best place for us to start before we Deep dive into the key ao1 and ao2 content is in terms of what does virtue actually mean do you know what I mean let's start by actually establishing what we mean when we talk about virtue ethics and so here is the definition for you a virtue is a settled purposive disposition located in the mean the golden mean to be precise and being determined by right reason now I think this definition reveals so much doesn't it about Aristotle who is the main man when it comes to Virtue ethics you know we know a lot about Aristotle from the course so far we know that he loves the use of reason for example you know we know that he's obsessed with this idea of everything have a having a purpose having a tell us and so this definition really draws together so much of what we already know about Aristotle and I think we will finish today's revision session with a much deeper richer understanding of who he was and how he thought human beings should not only live their lives but also how they should live their lives as moral agents and so lots to think about and lots to talk about today very excited um we are looking as you can see here at the seventh topic on the AQA paper one spec We are continuing our look at normative ethical Theory so this is our third and final theory that we need to study we've looked at natural law which also had Aristotelian influence we've looked at situation ethics and now we're looking at virtue ethics now just a really quick note that you will need to be able to apply virtue ethics to issues of human life and death and issues of animal life and death as well so our big emphasis when we are studying virtal ethics today is not only on that core ao1 and ao2 knowledge but it is also going to be on our applications always be thinking what would a virtue ethicist say about issues of human life and death you know embryo experimentation for example or cloning and then issues of animal life and death for example the use of animals for experiments or for food so always be thinking how could I apply this what examples could I give the examiner if I was asked to to apply virtue ethics to issues of human or animal life and death so in terms of the particular Focus that AQA want us to have we need to know about the background to Aristotle so we need to know about his idea of Telos of emonia and the function argument that he presents we need to know about his views on the nature of the soul and the virtues we'll be looking at the doctrine of the mean also known as the golden mean so how you actually work out what a virtue is we'll be talking about the importance of having proper intention so what are the intentions you have behind your decisions and your actions and we'll be looking at theoria I hope I've pronounced that appropriately which means contemplation um and the idea from Aristotle that this is the highest good for humans you know he Lov this idea of people contemplating things of using reason of thinking of reflecting and philosophizing um and we'll look at that as this idea of the highest good for humans this ultimate form of udonia of complete flourishing and fulfilling your potential we of course also need to know our ao2 for our 50 markers and of course for are 25 markers on the dialogue section of paper two where we need to be able to evaluate this Theory so you know I don't want you to just know what virtue ethics is I want you to be able to give me strength of this approach to moral decision making weaknesses criticisms problems with this approach to moral decision- making and of course as well we've we' got to get our critical analysis in there so we will be critically analyzing this uh 2,000 year old approach to ethics now I've put here on the screen an important note for you that virtal ethics is fundamentally different from the two ethical theories we've already studied so it really is you know so different radically different from natural moral law and situation ethics and the reason for this is very simple those two approaches is ask the question what should I do they're very much about the morality of actions whereas this approach is about the morality of the individual because whereas natural moral law and situation ethics are focused on asking what should I do and giving you guidance on what you should do whether that's primary precepts or working principles virtue ethics asks a very different question virtual ethics isn't really concerned with specific examples which is why the applications to issues of human and animal life and death are very interesting virtue ethics is not interested with what I should do in particular circumstances virtue ethics is focused as I said before within you it is focused on what kind of person should I be and so whereas natural moral law and situation ethics are very much outward facing approaches to ethics and they are concerned with those practical examples um virtal ethics is very inward-facing and it's about who you are as an individual what kind of person you should be and how you can cultivate virtue within you it's about this development of character um and so whilst they're interested with practical examples virtue ethics is all about practical wisdom see what I did there it's all about practical wisdom it's about equipping you with the moral knowledge if I can put it like that to make the right decision so virtual ethics is not about making the decision for you it's about giving you the skill set to make the decision for yourself and so already in terms of critiquing and critically analyzing this approach we could say it gives you much more autonomy because it's not about telling you what to do but it's giving you the skill set to make that decision for yourself and so the two um key points really that we'll be coming back to throughout today's video are this idea of virtue and this idea of practical wisdom um and this idea that you you as an individual need to be using your reason and you need to be acting virtuously um and you know it's all about you making those decisions you know Barry Schwarz for example will say someone with practical wisdom knows when to follow the rules but also when to break them which is I think you know very different isn't it uh to Natural moral law for example which is about rigidly following those five primary precepts so yes a brilliant moral theory because it is a very unique approach and it really is one that stood the test of time as I say we're going to be going all the way back to ancient Greece we'll be going back to the days of Socrates Plato and Aristotle but then we'll also be looking at contemporary philosophers ancam for example and Schwarz who talk about the need for a Revival in virtue ethics in the post-religious world that we live in where people need to be empowered to think for themselves to cultivate morality within themselves in order to make those moral decisions for themselves so now that I've rambled on let's keep going shall we um let's get on with it and I wanted to just start by signaling to you the key Scholars that we'll be meeting today remember your a-level answers need to be grounded in Scholars make sure if you can every paragraph refers to a scholar you know whether that's Aristotle whether that's Anum whether that's Fus or Schwarz make sure you are referencing your Scholars because they allow the examiner to give you the marks you know they need to be in there so we are going to be covering thousands of years quite literally of human thinking in terms of how people should make ethical decisions and what kind of people we should try to be and so we will be starting with Plato and Aristotle no we won't we'll actually be going further back we'll be starting with Socrates H so we'll be looking at Socrates Plato and Aristotle Aristotle being our main man our ancient Greek philosophers the founding fathers of of um philosophy basically um and we'll be looking at how they developed virtual ethics in their ancient Greek context we'll be looking at how aquinus was inspired by Aristotle you know we have seen this time and again on paper one haven't we where um who who am I trying to talk about now where aquinus there we go where aquinus has been inspired by Aristotle whether that's in the development of his Arguments for the existence of God um or whether that's been natural moral law we now going to see how aquinus was inspired by Aristotle on the issue of virtue ethic we'll also then be looking at anam's 20th Century Revival of virtue ethics she said that in this post-religious world we need to bring back virtue ethics because if people don't want to get their morals from God they need to be given the skill set to make moral decisions for themselves and then we'll be looking at Barry Schwarz who gave a very famous Ted talk very recently um in which he said that we need to be teaching Morality In Schools we need to be giving students the moral skills to make moral decisions for themselves you know we need to get virtue back on the agenda in the 21st century so yes you know we're covering literally thousands of years worth of human thought here and yeah just a quick reminder make sure every single answer is grounded in your Scholars be referring to your Scholars be referring to their books dropping a key quote if you can and make sure the examiner can give you you as many marks as they would like to let's aim for full marks let's go for an a star so talking of key Scholars and key quotes I wanted to start by giving you a couple of key quotes from Aristotle's Nic kamashian ethics which is the key text we need to know for virtue ethics um and in this book Aristotle writes every art and every inquiry and similarly every action as well as choice is held to aim at some good now all that he's saying there is that everything we do is aiming at some good everything we do is about working towards goodness and achieving goodness he also in this book really emphasizes happiness he believes Aristotle believes that happiness is the ultimate purpose of life we are here to be happy in particular we're here to achieve udonia which is this supreme state of human flourishing where we fulfill our potential and he says that happiness then is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient so you can find it from within yourself you don't need to rely on anything else you know you don't need to buy the latest Louis Vuitton you don't need to get noticed on Instagram by Kylie Janet you know what I mean you know it's something self-sufficient being the end to which our actions are directed so it is our ultimate aim to be happy and he believed that that is achieved as I say by achieving udonia this state of flourishing where you fulfill your potential you fulfill your function um and he also says now you like this quote as well for one swallow does not make a summer nor does one day and so too one day or a short time does not make a man blessed and happy and this really reflects the fact that virtue ethics is focused on your whole life rather than on the individual moral decisions that you make so as I say whereas other theories are very much focused on the specific moral decisions that you make virtue ethics is about the idea you should become a virtuous person over your entire lifetime and so virtal ethics very much takes this long for you it's not about the specific decisions you make it's about stepping back and looking at your life as a whole about your development as a um virtuous individual basically and and it's this idea that you develop that through experience because through experience you develop practical wisdom that helps you to make the right decisions to do virtuous things um in the future so yes that really reflects his view that ethics should take a Long View that we shouldn't focus on the specific moral decisions it's about taking a step back and looking at your development as an individual over an entire lifetime um and again that reflects the fact that this is a very inward facing Theory it's about the development of character the development of virtue within you rather than on the specific moral decisions that you make so a very quick look at the key terms for you now um because some of the questions that you could be asked in the exam for example could refer to specific terms that are here and you should be applying these terms and using these terms in order to to achieve level five that top band you know those top a a star answers will be youth in these terms so AR is Excellence or virtue the Fulfillment and realization of potential SL function virtue itself we've been through is settled purposive disposition located in the mean golden mean and being determined by right reason and we're going to look at how Aristotle categorizes virtues into intellectual and moral virtues those concerned with the rational and the non-rational parts of your go and virtue is then habitually doing what is right it's about that you then just do the right thing all the time because you have become a virtuous person and so it's about associating the person with the ACT not just seeing the act in isolation it's about saying well good people do good things um and that's why you should focus on developing the person so then they will always do good things rather than obsessing over the act itself vices then are the opposite of Virtues the deficiencies and excesses between V which virtues lie excuse me I should have rehearsed that um so yeah basically the golden mean is where the virtue is in the middle between the deficiency and the excess so we'll look at how you actually work out what a virtue is basically a virtue lies in the golden mean in the middle between a deficiency and an excess udonia then one of my favorite concepts of all time is the state of supreme happiness and flourishing for humans this is achieved by using reason to fulfill your your potential the soul for Aristotle this is the form or the blueprint of the body one of his four causes um Souls can be attributed to plants animals and humans and we'll look at his hierarchy of souls these form a hierarchy oh yeah as we will the vegetative the sensitive and the rational which is what the human being possesses the ability to think rationally to use reason which is unique to humans um the golden mean virtues lie between two extremes as I've said the excess and the defic icy for example courage lies in the golden mean between cowardice and recklessness uh dispositions then are character trait virtue is a disposition in relation to a mean uh Fones then is wisdom intelligence related to practical action so we'll be looking at practical wisdom as something very important when it comes to virtal ethics in particular with the modern developments from bar Schwarz and we'll talk about his Ted talk a little bit more um what's the next one forgotten how to pronounce word r him off I'm going to say that's probably really really wrong but you know hopefully you know the spelling you don't need to tell the examiner you need to write it um the man of practical wisdom who is best qualified to Define virtuous behavior in any situation so yeah Aristotle was very much about identifying experts who have developed practical wisdom and someone with practical wisdom is best placed to Define what virtuous Behavior would actually be because theyve developed it important to note that someone with practical wisdom is made not born it's something you develop through experience hence that saying the older the wiser yeah because of experience you develop wisdom uh theori then is the intellectual virtue of contemplation which Aristotle says is the good life for human beings he sees contemplation as the ultimate aim for human beings it is the ultimate state of udonia that um life of contemplation of thinking of using reason of reflecting of philosophizing um hence the fact I became an re teacher Temperance then is the virtue of self-control one of the cardinal virtues voluntary action is action brought about by the will so it's related to Free Will there and holistic one of my favorite words of all time is concerned with the whole and remember virtual ethics is a holistic Theory it's concerned with the whole person it's not concerned with the individual things that you do it's concerned with the development of you as a whole person over your whole lifetime so it takes as I said before the Long View so another quote for you love a good quote um from Aristotle he says that moral virtue is a mean between two vices one of excess and the other of defect or deficiency it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions this is why it is a hard task to be good for it is hard to find the middle point in anything so basically Aristotle 2,000 years ago was saying that we need balance everything in life is about balance it's about avoiding Extremes in order to be happy in order to be a good person you need to live a life of balance you need to hit that perfect midpoint you need to achieve the mean it's about balancing a balancing act excuse me of excesses and deficiencies um so this is reminding me of my GCS math St to be honest um which is quite triggering but you know in the context of morality when we say the mean or the golden mean what we mean is that virtues are determined we can work out what a virtue is by finding the golden mean the midpoint between the excess and the deficiency and it's that idea of balance being good everything is about balance you want balance you want moderation that is what goodness what morality what virtue is going to be all about so our key thinker today as I say is Aristotle so I wanted to just give you a little bit information about him so he was an ancient Greek philosopher uh he was a student of Plato and he was the founder of the lium um and he was enormously influential on the development of Western philosophy you know whatever you're studying other than of course a level re um you will find Aristotelian influence in there yeah whether you're studying biology or you know you're studying psychology you will find Aristotelian influence in there so you know this man is one of the most INF influential people in history you know so much of what we do for today and so much of what we take for granted today is traced all the way back to him you know so for example he has made key contributions to physics biology zoology metaphysics logic ethics Aesthetics poetry drama music rhetoric psychology Linguistics economics politics mology geology and politics and it's lie down but it's basically um you know a brilliant illustration there of how influential he is so yes I'm so happy that we get so much chance to talk about Aristotle on this a level because he is so influential um and he was also pioneering in terms of um finding out the Earth with Spar not flat yeah because based on his observation of an eclipse of the moon he was able to demonstrate the Earth was spit so yes well done Aristotle a Pioneer um that we are still talking about and we are all still influenced by today and there he is in all his um statue Glory he was really important to note an empiricist so in contrast to his teacher Plato who was a rationalist so a great synoptic link there to when we talk about the soul body and mind Aristotle believed that knowledge is attained through observation and experience knowledge is ultimately based on sense experience and that links in nicely I think with his idea of practical wisdom doesn't it that you develop knowledge of morality over your lifetime that the older you become the wiser you become another key idea a of his probably the central idea we need to know in terms of virtal Ethics is his idea of tell us that everything has a purpose to fulfill everything has a function to fulfill so Aristotle believed that everything has a purpose or a Telos which means end goal to fulfill this is the final cause one of his four causes now he believes that for human beings our tellos is to achieve udonia this state of supreme happiness that is the result of fulfilling our potential and reaching our highest level of flourishing now this really has made a Resurgence recently in society you know maso's hierarchy of needs for example a key 20th century um theory of business motivation is um all focused on achieving self-actualization he says we are all aiming for self-actualization to fulfill our potential basically and this was something Aristotle was talking about over 2000 years ago and udonia is defined by Hooter and Waterman as the pursuit of virtue excellence and the best within us and that's why udonia is so relevant for virtue ethics because we achieve our potential or we fulfill our potential by pursuing virtue excellence and the best within us so becoming the best that we can be now Aristotle very famously said that everything in existence has a cause not just one cause though four causes he said everything has four causes and so whether you're talking about poit notes a mug a pen a phone you get what I'm saying everything has four causes it has a material cause which is what something is made of so what is the phone actually made of what materials is it made of it has a formal CA what shape does it have and what does it resemble so for example a mobile phone an efficient cause the cause of it what brought it into existence so obviously a designer um and obviously in this case a production line I'm assuming you know lots of machines I'm no I phone manufacturer expert um and then the final cause what purpose it has what is the reason it exists what is it here to fulfill or do and of course but modern iPhones many functions yeah so traditionally to make phone calls but now for communication for research for sales but yeah the final cause is the tellos the purpose of something but he believes everything has four causes and he said very famously we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why that is to say it's cause so what is the reason everything exists that is what he was interested in working out am he believed We Exist our final cause is udonia the purpose of human life is flourishing it's self-actualization being the best you can be and of course as Hooter and Waterman say that is achieved by pursuing virtue excellence and the best within us really emphasizing the importance of virtue um a couple of key quotes from Aristotle which I particular like and you might you know like to put on a Post-It note on your bedroom wall who knows um he said we are what we repeatedly do he said Excellence is not an act but a habit that is so important for understanding virtue ethics guys you know remember this whole theory is not about critiquing actions it's not about saying what actions you should do but it's about the habits you should be cultivating this idea you should be becoming a virtuous person and it's all about habits you should be habitually virtuous and that is the T of a lifetime something that schools should develop and that you should continuously develop he said happiness is the meaning and purpose of life the whole aim of human existence um and remember he believed happiness is achieved by fulfilling udonia the pursuit of virtue excellence and the best within us and finally really importantly he said educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all really important because he distinguished between intellectual virtues and moral virtues we believe they are both as important as one another you need intellectual virtues of the mind and then intellectual virtues we could say of the Soul or the heart so we believe they are both important and then just another important Point as well his idea of the prime mover which was a massive influence on um aquinus view of cosmological of the cosmological argument I should say terrible grammar there um the primover is the final cause of the universe remember he says everything has the final cause as is udonia the univers is is the prime mover it is not the Creator but like a magnet creates motion by drawing all things to it the prime mover moves without being moved itself so obviously you know you see a real Sim similarity there don't you with his idea of the uncaused cause um everything is moving towards it the prime mover is the unmoved Mover serving as the final cause of the universe so just another key part of his theory for you there really um which is linked to the cosmological argument and again shows the influence he has had for example on aquinus who then completely influences Christian thinking today in terms of our area of focus then we're going to focus on udonia which is Aristotle's belief that we want to achieve happiness and the way that we achieve happiness is by pursuing virtue excellence and what is the best within us now Aristotle's starting point when it comes to udonia is the te logical claim remember Telos means purpose that every action is aimed at attaining some good so that's a great link to metere ethics as well the idea that everything we do is aimed at some good and of course when we talk about metere ethics we talk about what does the good mean how do we determine what is good the final and ultimate end to which human action should be geared is udonia which can be translated as flourishing or Supreme happiness as we've said we believe this is achieved according to his approach through virtue excellence and the best within us it is not attained importantly through pleasure or wealth it is the result of fulfilling a greater purpose and so Aristotle believes that our human ability to reason plays an important role in achieving emonia and this is very important because reason is at the central of virtue ethics at the center even we need to be using reason in order to work out what to do in different situations yeah virtal ethics remember is about giving you the skills to decide rather than telling you what to do and in Aristotle writes and Nick aashian ethics The Good Life is not the kind in which we eat reproduce sense move remember or imagine well because even plants and animals can do that but the good life for human beings is that in which we reason well so remember he believes theoria contemplation is the ultimate good life for humans so a good life for people is a life in which we reason well and so as I've put here Aristotle saw human beings is very unique in their possession of a rational Soul which he saw as the highest form and we're going to look at the hierarchy of souls in just a moment he believed the uniqueness of the human soul lies in its capacity for rational thought reasoning well is therefore how humans attain goodness and Achieve udonia you've got to think for yourself very radical isn't it as an idea in the modern world you got to think for yourself not just be told what to do um and not just be driven by external motivations and you know incentives you've been given or the threat of punishment you've been given you've got to think for yourself you've got to use practical wisdom um and that means you've got to decide what is the purpose of my life why am I here what should I do in this situation so his emphasis is on you reasoning on you thinking for yourself and as I've put this involves cultivating and exercising virtue for your entire life now we're going to come back again and again to a concept called practical wisdom which is basically the use of reason so practical wisdom is this idea of using reason and it's using reason to determine what to do in each situation um and as I've put here this is something we're going to associate with Barry Schwarz we'll come back to him later and basically he says practical wisdom based on what Aristotle has written is displaying the right virtues at the right time and in the right way and that involves you using your brain doesn't it you've got to think for yourself now the key example that he gives is a hospital janitor because they are given a job description of course but in that hospital setting just following that job description you know of cleaning the wards and of moving the beds for example is not sufficient is it because you are working with people who are in you know a very emotional state and they could be in a very vulnerable place in their lives and so Barry Schwarz uses the example of a hospital janit to say that whenever you're working with other people whenever you're interacting with other people you you can't just follow rigid job descriptions you can't just follow the rules or the conventions or the Customs you've got to exercise practical wisdom as well you've got to think for yourself um and this is something that will come with experience over time doing a job working with real people but at the core of virtal Ethics as I say is this belief you can't just tell people follow the rules you can't just say do this and you'll be fine at the core of virtal Ethics is reasoning well is using practice iCal wisdom to display the right virtues at the right time and in the right way but we're going to pick up on this a bit later for now I want to emphasize then this idea of reasoning being really important because Aristotle believes that the good life that udonia for human beings is theoria contemplation so Aristotle believes that happiness is an activity which conforms to the highest virtue which must be the best thing in us and remember he's all about being your best the highest thing in US is reason our intelligence our intellect which is unique to human beings we use this to engage in science and remember he was such a pioneer of scientific theories and scientific methods and he um believed we need to use science to discover what the world is really like to work out the four causes of everything and he wanted us to be able to explain everything em and he said there can be no greater achievement of reason than this um now he said science and scientific disc discover discoveries are the highest objects of knowledge and so contemplation of them gives us our greatest happiness not least because we can contemplate whenever we like we can all engage in thinking reflecting reasoning whenever and wherever and so he said contemplation should be done for its own sake not for the sake of anything else so it shouldn't be a means to an end it should be an end in itself it has intrinsic value it is beneficial for us to contemplate to reflect to think for ourselves and so he even goes as far to say that contemplation means contemplation of the Divine so it's a way of thinking about God thinking about him um and you know really going beyond what the body is capable of you know it means transcending your Earthly existence and so reasoning is the greatest thing we can do because it takes us higher than our bodies are able to and so intellectual contemplation Aristotle believes brings us more happiness than practical activity and so the reason I'm sharing this with you is because Aristotle again I'm saying it again emphasizes reason the importance of you thinking for yourself and so his entire virtue ethics approach is not about telling you do this do this follow this rule it's about telling you you need to think for yourself you need to learn from experience you need to see cultivating virtue and living a good life as the task of your lifetime and and so it's all about contemplation whereas other theories might involve telling you what to do this theory is telling you to think for yourself and to develop the moral character and to you know cultivate the moral skills shall we say to actually then live The Good Life so yes the emphasis of this moral theory as I feel I've said about a thousand times now I do apologize for being a St record is all about looking inwards and developing your use of your reason and challenging you to think for yourself rather than just telling you what rules to follow you know if we just follow the rules we actually lose our ability to think for ourselves we become robots don't we so uh Aristotle created this hierarchy of souls he believed there were three different souls he believed that there was a vegetative soul that plants had and they can't think for themselves he believed that there was a sensitive Soul which animals have because they do have senses they do feel things but they don't think for themselves and that is exactly what humans do hence the fact that contemplation is the highest good in our lives we then have at the highest level the human soul the rational Soul which is capable of thought and reflection so as I say he has this hierarchy of Souls and this is very relevant I think for when you're applying uh virtual ethics to issues of non-human life and death because you are saying that humans are the highest form of um life basically aren't you um and this is very anthropomorphic um and it very much um exalts the human being because it's saying Aristotle is saying that the soul is not as it was in some of Plato's writings a completely separate substance from the body Aristotle is not a dualist like Plato as you'll know from your um Soul revision instead he believed the Soul's very essence is defined by its relationship to an organic structure so basically you cannot separate the soul from the body so he's a materialist in that sense and so he said not only humans but animals and plants to have a soul there is a hierarchy of souls so remember he is not a dualist he believes that the body and soul are connected they're dependent on each other I remember he made the big distinction as well between humans and then animals and plants he said the good life is not the kind in which we eat reproduce sense move remember or imagine well because plants and animals can do that but in which we reason well so remember it is this ability to reason hence the fact I've put it in yellow there that makes our humans unique and so they are at the top of the hierarchy of souls so this brings us to the function argument because function depends on nature of the soul and plants animals and humans have different Souls so they have different functions in this world for human beings it is the exercise of reason the rational part of the Soul which is unique to them and so remember the good life is that in which we reason well because as you can see for plants they have a vegetative Soul so they key features and nutrition and growth so they just get on with doing that without thinking about it they don't think oh should I take some water from the seil today oh should I grow in the direction of the sun today they just do it don't they in the same way animals they have a sensitive Soul because they do have sensory function um but they they only have lowlevel thought so they have nutrition and growth they have movement they move obviously they have sense perception so they might feel fear um and they also have lowlevel thought you know know about where to get the food from or which predators to avoid but it is then human beings with their rational Soul who have all of these things plus reason and that is what makes human beings unique that is what Aristotle believed makes them the best part of the world because they are the ones that can reason um and so a great link as I say is to issues of non-human life and death basically you know Aristotle is thinking well yeah do what you want with the Lesser soul because we're the only ones that can reason and that's what makes us unique and that's what makes us worthy of being at the top of the hierarchy um an interesting link to 19th century thinking JF Mill John Stewart Mill really did build on what Aristotle was saying he said it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied so basically it's better to be a human being with your ability to reason and think who is then unhappy rather than just to be happy with the life of a pig which is is only concerned with sense perception movement nutrition and growth and very lowlevel thought although I do actually believe pigs are very intelligent but we're not doing zoology today and but the argument is that humans are at the top of this hierarchy of Souls and they have this very unique function in that they can reason and remember that function is the purpose of their life the Ora contemplation for Aristotle is the purpose the ultimate source of udonia for human beings it is our most important task to think for ourselves and so virtal ethics is all about thinking for yourself and so here's a really important thing that I want you to write down somewhere get a Post-It note get your highlighters get it stuck down somewhere because Aristotle believes that reasoning well remember reason is that thing that is so unique to us and it is so important for us reasoning well means exercising virtue and so this is where virtue ethics now really kicks in for us because I've spoken so much haven't I about this idea of us contemplating and reasoning and you might have been thinking well why is that relevant when we're talking about virtual ethics this is why because to reason well to think well to contemplate well means to exercise virtue okay so this is where it's all going to start making sense I hope so reasoning well means exercising virtue it means exercising moral Excellence now moral Excellence I love that phrase it's something that you have a responsibility to do According to Aristotle he's not going to tell you how to do that he's going to help you to cultivate um you know good character so that you can then exercise it but he's not going to tell you these are the rules to follow in order to exercise moral Excellence he does believe however that this soul and remember he believes we are at the top of the hierarchy of souls this amazing human soul that we have is split into two areas it is a rational soul but it is also a non-rational soul so we have the rational component a non-rational component in the same way that with GCSE maths you have a calculator component and a non-calculator component really random example but it helps me remember um but there you go um you have got within the rational Soul what he calls intellectual virtues and then within the non-rational soul you have moral virtues now there are links and crossovers between them um that we're going to look at but I want to remind you before we unpack them that for AR stotle becoming a virtuous person is the task of a lifetime so remember this whole theory is not about saying do this action do this action it's about taking a step back and looking at virtue as the task of a lifetime and remember Fones increases as we go through life our experiences teach us and help us to develop practical wisdom so just remember that as I say there are two parts to the human soul the rational and the non-rational so on the one hand we have the intellect ual virtues which are associated with the um rational part of the uh soul and these are controlled by reason which as we know is so important for Aristotle in order to contribute to the most virtuous life and remember that is what life is all about that is udonia for Aristotle uh we have the five primary intellectual virtues technical skills scientific knowledge practical wisdom which is our key Focus intelligence then and theoretical wisdom or philosophical wisdom and then we also have secondary intellectual virtues resourcefulness understanding judgment and cleverness we then also have of course the non-rational part of the Soul uh and that is associated with the 12 moral virtues um they refer to emotions and appetites and are formed by repetition practice and imitation so this reflects the fact that virtues are formed habitually so we want to be in a place where it's just a habit to be virtuous we don't need to be threatened with punishment in order to be virtuous we just want it to be a habit but also imitation this is really important it's the idea that you need moral exemplars people who have developed practical wisdom who are you know as I say moral exemplars so we can imitate them um and so you could say in the 21st century virtual ethics doesn't work because we're lacking desperately these moral exemplars you know so a big part of virtual ethics is being able to imitate moral exemplars imitating people so it's not about following rules it's about imitating ating people again reflecting the fact it's about virtue ethics being the task of a lifetime concerned holistically with the whole person so you imitate a whole person rather than just following specific rules um and the four primary moral virtues which are really important to know because they become the uh cardinal virtues in Christianity um because aquinus loved them so much that he he takes them from Aristotle and he um basically amalgamates them is that the word he basically gets them and he puts them into Christianity that's what I meant to say um the four primary moral virtues which are Prudence cautiousness Justice fairness Temperance which means self-restraint self-control and fortitude which means courage okay and just as a little exam technique reference for you I want you to start planning how would you apply the exercising of these virtues to specific examples such as issues of human and non-human life and death so for example think about the issue of cloning or think about the use of animals as food do they show Prudence Justice Temperance or fortitude you know does cloning or you know do animal experiments do they show courage because you are daring to you know move forwards with science I don't know but that's what I want you to start thinking about in terms of not just what these intellectual and moral virtues are but how would they be applied you know how would they influence someone in making moral decisions so yes just to consolidate that for you he splits the soul into a rational and a non-rational part into the intellectual virtues and then the moral virtues now the fact that he is so concerned with developing the whole person through considering the intellectual and moral is something that Mara npam really really loves and she really does love to bring to light the fact that Aristotle takes the holistic person centered approach to ethics so she says that Aristotle's Norm of a reasonable person and remember he's all about reason through his Norm of a reasonable person is one whose character is infused completely by the correct reason for Action which have shaped all their motives and attitudes because he aims to describe the cultivation of a whole person and a way of life rather than simply to prescribe a list of Duties he has ample scope for discussing emotional self-shaping so you know there's a big Trend at the moment for example for emotional intelligence isn't there and so you could say that what Aristotle's doing is very linked to that it's about developing the person and their emotional moral intellectual skills um and what I love about this quote and what I really want you to write down um if I had a little onscreen highlighter I'd use it where is it oh here it is this could all go wrong guys do brace yourselves I've never done this on a YouTube video before because he aims to describe the cultivation of the whole person oh my gosh that's awful and life oh dear it looks awful rather than simply to prescribe a list of Duties guys if you do buy the PowerPoint don't worry it will not have this awful annotation on it because I'm sorry that's disastrous anyway basically I want you to know that it's about that looks horrific the cultivation of the whole person and a way of life as I've said it's the task of a lifetime rather than simply prescribing a list of specific duties he has not given you precepts he's not giving you rules he's not giving you you know 600 things you need to do he is simply saying to you let's develop you as a person let's cultivate reason let's develop virtue let's get into the habit of virtue so I don't have to tell you what you exactly need to do in every situation but you have the ability to work that out for yourself using practical wisdom and just because you are now a virtuous person so yeah just a quick note that it is all about how do we get off the highlighter now oh no you see this is where it all goes wrong it's all going to fall apart um it's all about oh no uh the development of the whole person reflecting the unique fact that this approach to ethics is very much about a holistic perspective it's about developing the whole person okay so let's talk about the five primary intellectual virtues they are um Technic if I can say it like that Fones noose aiste and safia so we've got Artistry or craftsmanship practical wisdom Intuition or understanding scientific knowledge which of course is a big deal in the modern world isn't it we're all about epistemic imperialism in the Modern Age we all love our scientific evidence for everything and philosophical wisdom um our our Focus really the one that I can see you mentioning in the exam shall I put it like that is of course fonus practical wisdom and we're going to come back to that again and again throughout the video um and so that is probably the one of the intellectual virtues I would be mentioning in the exam the fact that you need practical wisdom to work out when to use the right reason in the right context in the right way um I just have a couple of questions for you though you might want to think about today using your reason it's the highest aim of human life get that theoria going um which is the most important for human to have do you think which is the most highly valued in the world today and do you think that these are developed by the school system today you know we know Aristotle started his school the lum um do you think schools today develop all of these things or do they value some over others the other thing I need you to know is the four what we would call Cardinal or primary moral virtues really important to know and we're going to look at how you work out a virtue in a minute by the way but the four cardinal moral virtues oh it's going dark isn't it I've only just noticed that oh dear anyway we must proceed quickly we've not even got on to the A2 yet um the for Cardinal moral thing virtues are Prudence cautiousness Justice fairness Temperance self-restraint and fortitude which means courage or bravery do make sure you refer to them in the exam you know I think if you want to include examples of moral virtues they're the ones that I would use um so Aristotle believes that developing possessing and exercising these makes the person good and leads to a life of human flourishing now remember just saying Prudence Justice Temperance fortitude that doesn't give me a concrete application to moral decision- making does it you could say that's a weakness of his approach because he doesn't give me clear guidelines he just gives me virtues and so what your job is then as the you know the individual using their reason is to work out what would be the most just thing to do yeah what would be the um most courageous thing to do for example how am I showing self-restraint so these virtues are not like the primary precepts of natural moral law where they give you you know much more concrete clear instruction but what they do achieve what they do do is they you know tell you um what virtues you should be exercising and so you know developing these possessing these and then exercising them using practical wisdom is the most important thing according to Aristotle in terms of their value um as I say St Thomas the aquinus is massively influenced hugely inspired by Aristotle on a range of issues and this is one of them you know these virtues influenced him he incorporates ated them into Christian moral thinking and today they are taught alongside the three what we call theological virtues of faith hope and charity so they remain very relevant in the world today so again in terms of your ao2 these virtues do remain relevant because they remain um key cardinal virtues the four cardinal virtues in Christianity and again you might want to consider which is the most important for us to have which is most highly value today so is virtual ethics still compatible with modern society um and do you think they are developed by school system today okay so how are they worked out now I want to actually take a step back and say how did he come up with these how does Aristotle believe that you work out a virtue and he presents for us the golden mean this is his formula this is his calculator if you like for working out um a virtue this is how you discover a virtue so in the same way in your math exam you work out the mean by adding all the numbers together and then dividing by how many there are um I think I hope my math teacher will hopefully be happy with that answer um he gives us this formula for working out the golden mean and the golden mean helps people to act virtuously because practical wisdom for hesis steers people to the perfect midpoint between excess and deficiency so I'll say it again you know this whole theory is about the idea that the right thing to do is always the balance thing to do it's about the midpoint it's about moderation it's about getting that midpoint and going in the middle now as you can see from my little visual here a moral virtue is the mean the midpoint between two vices one of deficiency which means too little if you're deficient in something you don't have enough of it and excess which is having too much of something to have an excess of something means to have overly enough that doesn't really make sense does it it means having too much of it interestingly I thought you might like to know in terms of the universal application of virtue ethics this is something that's also found in eastern moral thinking it's found in Buddhism because the Buddha taught his followers the importance of following the middle way you know he left his life of Indulgence in the Royal Palace to then become a um uh he practiced asceticism I forgot what he did that and he went to live with the monks who were all about self-denial the religious men who restricted themselves and he said that actually the important path to take is the middle way the balance between excess and deficiency so you know you could say that this is something that has Universal application um one of our ao2 points for example will be that this approach virtue ethics um lacks cultural relativism because it assumes every culture values the same virtues and but actually a counter argument to that could be that every culture values moderation every culture values a midpoint a golden mean you know for example the middle way in Buddhism so yeah just a quick link there between gar Madara and uh Aristotle as you do um and so Aristotle said all these constitute the middle as well as what is best which is in fact what belongs to Virtue so that is what he said about the midpoint that a virtue constitutes the middle it's all about balance it's all about the midpoint that balance between deficiency and excess and he said virtue therefore is a characteristic marked by choice residing in the mean relative to us now relative to us is important because he's saying that that what is virtuous depends on the situation and so you cannot just give rules to follow you have to give people the tools to decide for themselves because they will have to decide in different situations what to do because the mean is always relative to us you know finding out that midpoint working out that point of balance is always going to be subjective to the situation a characteristic defined by reason and as the prudent person would Define it and of course that is one of our key virtues virtu is also a mean with respect to two vices remember virtues and vices one Vice related to excess the other two deficiency so that is your um textual grounding for this idea of the golden mean that is rooted in Aristotle's writing this idea that a virtue is found between the excess and the deficiency and that that golden mean is always relative and so you can't just say this is always the right thing to do in this situation because it's going to be relative and so you need to be ready to work out the the midpoint for yourself to use reason and of course for the prudent person that is going to be very straightforwards to do because they have cultivated those virtues so they'll be able to work out the golden mean in each situation um and so in terms of just having to go at working out some golden means I've got a list here of some of Aristotle's moral virtues um and of course the virtue lies in the midpoint between deficiency and excess and you might like to pause the video and just have a think about what the deficiency and excess is or what they are I think it's a proper English um for each of the moral virtues on the screen so just have a look at those moral virtues that I've put down there and just think what is the deficiency and the excess that they lie between um and once you've paused and done that or if you can't be bothered fair enough don't blame you um here are some of the answers the examples for you so for example fortitude courage lies between cowardice and rashness whereas Temperance lies between Temperance sorry I can't speak lies between a complete lack of concern um and a complete lack of uh restraint so you know it's all about this midpoint this Golden Rule Golden Rule golden mean excuse me whereas stinginess and wastefulness are the deficiency and the excess that are the outliers of generosity which is the golden virtue uh the moral virtue the golden me I'm now just making words up this is how long I've been speaking do you know what that tells me guys that we need to take a break so I want you to take a break I want you to have a snack I want you to have a drink pause the video take a break and we will come back to finish very quickly the last slide of ao1 and then we'll talk about the ao2 before it goes pitch black and you can't even see me take a break quickly guys I'm going to and we shall reconvene right I'm back it's going very dark but I've got a refill so come on guys let's do this so yes we've talked about how you actually calculate a moral virtue have we not we've looked at how it lies in that midpoint that golden mean between deficiency and excess and so the individual using their reason remember it is so important you're using your reason theoria contemplation of this highest ultimate aim in life and you use that to work out what the moral virtue is so you're not just being told what it is you can work it out for yourself and so how do we actually perform the virtues well well it's all about Choice it's all about the freedom of your will and it's all about your ability to think for yourself so Choice means rational deliberation linked back to reason of course about what we do choic is rational we choose for specific reasons only voluntary actions can be virtuous that is so important to know guys you do not perform virtue by following rules you have got to use reason you've got to determine it for yourself you've got to decide it for yourself you cannot just follow rules and say yeah I'm a virtuous person that is not what virtue is all about that is why practical wisdom is so important H you cannot Al Al really importantly be virtuous by accident yeah you can't accidentally be virtuous because you ended up doing the right thing just by chance we can only be praised and we can only be blamed for our choices so you know think about the implications of that for the legal system for example you know if someone hasn't intended to cause harm and this is the idea of proper intention can they actually be um punished for what they've done so we can only be praised or blamed for our choices but very interestingly and important L our choices reveal our character now remember the mean is the median this is relative to each person however it is best defined by the person whose name I can't pronounce which is a pronomos no I've got that completely wrong Fon fonas anyway you only need to spell it don't worry about the pronunciation uh a man of practical wisdom so a fanimos is a good judge of ethical matters because they they are someone who's developed experien the mean will be rationally designed by the fonos for each individual and not simply laid down as a universal prescription or rule so again remember you are not with this approach to ethics being told do this in this situation do this in this situation it is not legalistic in the slightest it is all about you working it out for yourself or you know for the fonas telling you as a unique individual what to do so just saying is virtual ethics helpful it's certainly flexible but is it practical do humans not need rules and that is one key criticism we'll look at so in terms of the uh scripture not scripture in terms of the text that underpins this um we have to of course return to the niik kamashian ethics and Aristotle rights that moral virtue is concerned with passions and actions and it is in these that excess deficiency and the middle term the mean reside for example it is possible to be afraid to be confident to desire be angry to feel pity and in general to feel Pleasure and Pain to a greater or lesser degree than one ought and in both cases this is not good but just having a drink for dramatic effect there to feel them when one ought and at the things one ought in relation to those people whom one ought for the sake of what and as one ought all these constitute the middle as well as what is best which is in fact what belongs to virtue now that encapsulates practical wisdom do you remember that quote I started with from Barry Schwarz about 10 hours ago when he said that it's all about using the right virtue in the right context at the right time in the right way that is what it's all about it's not about following the rules it's about reading the room thinking about your individual unique situation and doing the right thing in that moment in the right way at the right time that is what virtue is all about it's using practic iCal wisdom to exercise virtue using reason for that particular situation um and so just another point for you before we talk more about practical wisdom some virtues benefit the self and some can benefit the self and others for example a courageous soldier who dies in battle will therefore benefit those who survive it won't they they've sacrificed their life Justice considers the good of others as an end in itself meaning that it is an altruistic virtue and so Justice and remember we said that is one of our four cardinal virtues have no mean it is a simple extreme it unites all the other virtues because it requires people to be brave temp temperate courageous Etc and they are the other key of course cardinal virtues fortitude meaning Brave both um for themselves and for the good of the community and so Aristotle believes that in Justice every virtue is summed up so and this is really important you're talking about capital punishment if you're applying virtual ethics to Capital Punishment you've got to think is capital punishment fully serving Justice because if executing that person would fulfill Justice then you could say virtue ethics would allow it because Justice is every virtue summed up so you've got to think this is a great opportunity to illustrate some applications by saying that Justice is every virtue summed up now I want to talk more about practical wisdom that we've just spoken about then because Barry Schwarz um and I started with him a little bit earlier and is example of the hospital janitor show that we can't just follow rules we can't just follow regulations we need to be exercised in practical wisdom and so he gave a TED Talk um which really illustrates the Contemporary nature of virtal ethics and how he's brought it to a modern audience um in which he said that moral skill is chipped Away by an overreliance on rules now that is a quote I would love to see in your essay that Barry Schwarz said moral skill is chipped Away by an overreliance on rules and this shows why virtual ethics doesn't focus on giving people rules but it focuses instead on developing moral skill it's all about cultivating character giving you the ability to reason think and decide for yourself because you will lose moral skill if you are over dependent or over Reliant as he says on the rules he also says that people are not born wise they become wise through experience and that's the idea of practice iCal wisdom and as you get older and you you know you grow and you learn from your mistakes you become wiser um and this is something that takes time hence the fact that virtal ethics is the task of a lifetime rather than being overly focused um on the rules that you need to follow in that moment we cannot just rely he says on following rules and procedures there need to be there needs to be some practical wisdom involved as well he says that rules and procedures spare us from thinking and so in over Reliance on them can conditions us and that is a war on wisdom so we lose wisdom we just get obedience we just get compliance and we just get Conformity and that means we don't think for ourselves we're just slaves to a system we're just robots to the rules and he says that's a problem that's a really bad thing and he traces this back to education he says our current education system doesn't give people skills it follow scripts instead yeah it gets them to memorize facts for exams and it gets them to memorize rules for life it doesn't encourage them to think for themselves and that is why on our exam AQA credit us for critical analysis it is critical analysis where I'm saying this argument is flawed this argument succeeds it's when they see critical analysis that they give us extra marks in this exam because critical analysis is your written evidence that you've thought critically for yourself you've not just regurgitated a strength or weakness you've not just regurgitated a fact or an example you've actually critique the theory for yourself and so that's why critical analysis is so important for this a level because we want you to think for yourself we want you to develop wisdom and moral skill rather than just the ability to repeat and regurgitate you know quotes and facts and statistics um but that's his criticism of education and he said if we just get people to learn things in terms of memorizing them and following scripts this leads to Med mediocrity there therefore whilst we do need rules he says absolutely we need rules we also need to realize that too many will prevent improvisation and so that will lead to people losing their gifts and he says people need principles not just incentives such as profit um you know we need to have moral principles we can't just be conditioned by carrots and sticks we need to have real incentives that U no we don't we don't need just incentives sorry I've just reread that word we need to have principles that you know are within us remember this whole Theory as I keep saying is about cultivating character rather than just following rules um any work you do with people is moral work that's the example with the janitor they're not just there to clean they're there to connect with people to read the room to do what's best for them you know they're not there to clean they're there to show compassion as well but that's not in the job description they have to exercise practical wisdom which they develop through doing the job um he says teachers need to be moral Role Models remember Aristotle believes that we need to be imitating virtue and teachers are the ones who mainly shape us aren't they and so they need to be moral Role Models modeling at all times what it means to exercise practical wisdom so students can imitate that and then they can exercise it themselves and there needs to be explicit teaching of Virtues and you know teaching people how to develop their character how to display as we've said the right virtues at the right time and in the right way and you know if you ever need to Define practical wisdom to someone it is about uh displaying the right virtues at the right time and in the right way and that is my you know that is my positn note definition as I'd call it that is the definition i' have on my Post-It note on my wall that practical wisdom is the ability to display the right virtues at the right time and in the right way and of course that only comes with experience from learning from mistakes learning from other people from moral exemplars and understanding how to actually do that and so for Barry Schwarz the person with practical wisdom which is at the core of virtal ethics knows when to follow and when to ignore a rule they know how to improvise they know how to use their skills in the pursuit of the right aim and they know that wisdom depends on experience person with practical wisdom also knows that failure is okay because we learn from experience they know that people need mentoring by wise people on how to care that people do not need to be brilliant to be wise but that without wisdom Brilliance can lead to trouble so wisdom is so important and that's something we develop through experience through seeing moral exemplars and from using reason again linking back to the importance of reasoning of thinking of contemplating of theoria as important but again I'll say it one final time well actually I can't make that promise I'll say it one more time for now you when you're talking about virtual ethics you have to emphasize that it's about cultivating autonomy within the individual it's about giving giving them the skills rather than giving them the answers that's what it's all about and this is what practical wisdom is it's a skill it's about giving you moral skills rather than getting you to over rely on the rules okay so let's talk about your ao2 shall we let's get stuck into your ao2 which is so important when it comes of course to your 15 markers so our first strength is from ancam who um revived basically the entire virtue ethics Theory they revived this Theory they brought it into the 20th century and they put it back on the moral conversation agenda so ankim um says it is valuable in the modern world as it does not depend on belief in God so Elizabeth ankim or gem anim wrote in 1958 modern moral philosophy and this is the seminal text for this revival of virtal eort so you must mention this if you've got an A2 question on virtual ethics make sure you mention this text please please please because in it she says that the only alternative to accepting God as the basis of morality is by developing a theory of human virtue so basically she's acknowledging the decline in religion and she's saying if we're no longer going to turn to God in his Commandments as our source of moral Authority we need to develop human virtue if people aren't going to get their morals from God then they need to get them from themselves they need to develop virtue and so she says in this post-religious world we need to go all the way back to the pre-rrt and let's revive his theory of virtue ethics which of course predates Christianity and so you're kind of leap frogging over the entire Christian era of the past 2,000 years this requires psychological and Philosophical Investigation into what a good life consists of which of course Aristotle was all about um and she believes that engaging in this will lead us to concrete answers now the great thing is that everybody is interested in Psychology today and everybody is interested in philosophy today whether that's existentialism for example you know or whether it's issues of animal rights um everybody is thinking about these things so yes this is very much back on the agenda and this is in contrast to the consequentialist theories which cannot give us any concrete answer you know so with utilitarianism for example everything is based on the outcomes isn't it it's all about well you know what will the consequence of that be with virtue ethics it's about contemplation for its own good it's not about well what the outcome of that will be it's said to have intrinsic value and she says that is important anam's paper is considered a simal text in the Revival of virtal ethics and it has led to renewed interest in the 2000 years old approach so your key takeaway here is that virt ethics is relevant and it's important in a post-religious society because it takes us back to an ethical approach if you like that came into existence before religion and so you can say if you're going to have a decline in religion and religion no longer influences Us in terms of our morals we need to re reboot if you like virtue ethics because it can give us moral guidance and help without dependence on belief in God another strength is that it's holistic and it's human- centered it considers the whole person and it considers their whole lifetime as we've said so it takes into account the whole human person it considers the development of their reasoning their judgment the practical wisdom and deliberation so it empowers them to think for themselves to decide for themselves it values the strength of moral character above following rules regardless of whether the rules are good bad or indifferent so as I say it's not expecting you to be a moral robot it's considering considering you as a whole person and of course it originates in Aristotle thinking about emonia and human flourishing so it clearly takes human beings and their happiness seriously and this is a great thing because in the modern world we do take happiness seriously don't we this is a big focus in Social thinking today people do want us to prioritize happiness and you can say well virtal ethics absolutely does because it's all about emonia which is Aristotle's theory that the purpose of life the final cause of human life remember one of its four causes is to focus on flourishing on you know on fulfilling your purpose which is achieved through contemplation through exercising virtue cultivating moral excellence and so it considers the whole person it doesn't expect people to become rule abiding robots you know for example canc ethical Theory we could say expects you to be a robot it expects you to just separate emotion from morals and you should just do your duty um know and it's very rigid emotionless um this is not the case with virtue ethics it considers the whole person it takes the holistic approach um and it's all about emphasizing the importance of you as a person and considering you over the course of your lifetime rather than focusing on the individual actions the individual moral decisions so yeah it's holistic and human- centered and it emphasizes human happiness which I think makes it very appealing for the modern audience another strength is that it helps people make moral decisions for themselves rather than telling them what to do it gives greater autonomy and flexibility and of course again in the modern Market this really resonates with the values of the 21st century people in the modern world want autonomy we live in an age of individualism don't we it's all about the individual it's all about the self we're all here Tak in our selfies um and so rather than telling people what to do it empowers people to think for them eles which I think really resonates with the modern way of thinking and so virtual ethics does now remain relevant or it has really you know found a Resurgence that has become relevant once again because it focuses on giving people the ability to make moral decisions rather than telling them what rules to follow this means it has much greater flexibility um and also it has much greater appeal it gives people it gives the individual autonomy rather than telling them what to do so it gives them skills rather than instructions which people value because as I say we're living in this cult cultish age you could say the individual it's about individual rights individual freedoms individual identity and so it doesn't try to get the future but gives people the skills for their Futures I'm very proud of that line if I may say so it's about giving you skills for the future and this is why you can say virtue ethics is a really good way of working out issues of uh human and non-human life and death because although natural moral law for example can't be directly applied to things like cloning because it was created thousands of years ago you can say that virtue ethics is much more helpful because it doesn't try to give you the answers it tries to give you the ability to work out the answers so you can say virtual ethic is much more helpful because it gives you the skills to do the right thing so that you're doing the right thing habitually you know so it does always remain relevant no matter what the next moral issue will be uh you know based on what the next scientific and human developments will be and so virtal ethics does remain relevant because it gives you the skills for the future rather than trying to guess the future yeah so that makes it very relevant and very applicable across all moral issues in all future moral scenarios and another strength is that it doesn't demand Perfection so we can say it takes human nature seriously it you know has an accurate reflection of what human beings are like it just wants simply to see you have ongoing development over the course of your life so the theory is all about following the example set by virtuous people and the great thing about that is that they are also human beings who also made mistakes and so this is arguably more realistic than other moral theories which expect Perfection they expect you to follow the rules to get it right to do the right thing every single time this theory is all about becoming a good person over the course of your life time and actually making mistakes is seen as a good thing because you can learn from them um and so virtue ethics as I say is based on the idea that virtue develops over a complete lifetime so there is room for development and Improvement something that can be seen as more realistic and reasonable however however and remember there is always a however in your 15 markers is there not we're giving both sides of the argument there are weaknesses there are problems there are criticisms and the first one is that the theory lacks cultural relativism because it assumes that the same virtues are valued in every society so Aristotle presents his four primary moral virtues for example and he assumes or we assume that they will be the same in every society and this is a key criticism because it's saying it lacks cultural relativism if it lacks cultural relativism it won't be relevant around the world and so it's not a successful moral theory so different societies have different virtues different centuries have also had different virtues you know if you think this theory was created in Aristotle's Athens is it still relevant in Ben wardle's 21st century do you know what I mean so think about it consider the different values and ideas of morality in Athens in Aristotle's time in Victorian England in secular Europe and in modern China so you know historically and geographically it doesn't actually remain relevant because different societies have different sets of Virtues and so we have to ask whose virtues should be the role model how do we decide which set of Virtues is actually right um now you could say that the theory is a blueprint for each Society you know each Society could create their own version of uh virtal ethics couldn't they um but the criticism that we could make is that it is lacking cultural relativism it's not appreciating um that different societies have different values um and so is trying to impose certain virtues on everybody um which could be seen as wrong to do a key link of course would be to met ethics this question of how do we decide what the good is does the good objectively exist or is it just a subjective matter of opinion you know is it an expression of a emotional reaction to something as tivist would say and then of course to International laws you know if you think you've got the UN for example who try to create these International laws um and of course the idea behind that is that everybody does have shared values and does have shared moral principles but you know we've got to ask does everybody in society share the same virtues um and so if they don't is this Theory actually going to work and our next weakness then is that Society does need rules and laws not just virtues so of course virtue ethics as I've said 10,000 times is all about the idea that um we should focus on virtues we should look inwards rather than looking outwards but we could actually argue that in a world of8 billion people we actually do need rules and laws I can't just stand there and go just be virtuous think for yourselves we need rules and laws for society to function now of course Schwarz says that they make us um lose our moral skills and they lead to us lacking in um improvisation but actually they are clearly really important we do need rules so that Society can function so I've put here virtual ethics May Inspire the individual but it is not necessarily helpful in National and international politics because democratic governments cannot make decisions based on individual character they have to create laws don't they um so political morality in the UK tends to run on consequentialist and utilitarian principles developed by benam and uh Mill whereby politicians seek to maximize the greatest happiness for the greatest number viral ethics cannot provide the clear concrete rules or laws that a society needs it takes place over a complete lifetime which we've said is great but also we can see it as a weakness because it means it's too broad yeah so you could say it sounds great for the individual to use Virtual ethics but if you're trying to devise an ethical system that works for a whole society it just isn't sufficient it's just not going to be successful because you cannot run a country by saying do the most virtuous thing um you could certainly say that it gives insight and food for thought for educators you know it could help countries to develop their education systems but on the whole you could say this isn't enough on its own virtual ethics could play an important role in influencing politicians in how they vote or you know as I say influencing them in how they shape the school system but on you know on the other hand you can say it's still not enough you still need rules and laws you cannot completely abandon them which you could say virt vir ethics is um suggesting we do and a key link of course is the application of virtual ethics to you know moral issues of human life and death and non-human life and death you know when there are no rules when it comes to virtal ethics it is very much on this case by casee basis isn't it so is virtual ethics going to give a more flexible approach to embryo research and cloning based on you know the certain situation and on how well it fulfills certain virtues so yeah really interesting to think obviously practical wisdom is important we don't all want to be robots who are just blindly following the rules but at the same time surely you do need rules um and so we'll move on to our next weakness which is that the theory is too anthropocentric and so this is really important when it comes to um the example of matters of non-human life and death because we could say that this approach to ethics may have negative consquences for the environment and for Animals because the system is focused on human good and human flourishing it's focused on you demonia and it's uh focused of course on that hierarchy of souls it is based on the idea that humans have a unique ability to think rationally whereas the animal soul is restricted to that basic knowledge and sense perception so by default we could say they're seen as less valuable and indeed that's what Aristotle does believe they suggest that human beings and human life is more important than any other species species so we'd call that speciesism and and this has contributed to over 2,000 years of undervaluing animals you know Aristotle influenced aquinus on this one again um and he says you know that their life and death is subject to our use the catechism of the Catholic Church says that God created everything for man and so we're in a position here where because humans have this highest form of the um Soul they are seen as more important and so could that justify doing anything to animals because it's all about human flourishing and human success because you you know you've got the rational Soul whereas the plants have only got a vegetative soul and the animals have only got a sensitive Soul we could argue the theory is too anthropocentric and so if you are applying this to matters of non-human life and death which you must do guys you know you can really criticize virtue ethics here because it's only interested in humans it really exalts humans because of their ability to reason which of course um Aristotle thinks is the best thing in sliced bread although of course they didn't have sliced bread back in ancient Greece but you get what I'm saying um you know what I mean like his whole argument is that reasoning is the most amazing thing so he could not care less about the animals and plants that can't reason um and so that would justify doing anything to them for the sake of human flourishing and so that is a nice link to the final slide you'll be very pleased to know which is where I want to encourage you to apply virtue ethics to to some examples so you need to be ready to give me examples and to show how the theory would apply how would it apply to matters of human life and death for example when it comes to cloning and embryo research and how would it apply to matters of non-human life and death when it comes to matters such as food experiments Sports organ transplants and even blood Sports as well so thank you very much for joining me I hope that's been helpful um I a long Li down I'm sure you do as well good luck with your studies I'll see you here on the channel again soon for some more a level revision until then bye-bye and get reasoning get contemplating focus on that udonia take care bye-bye