Aristotle is one of the most influential philosophers of all time and had a remarkable way of understanding what it means to live well or flourish, and by extension, what it means to have a virtuous character. Aristotle believed that people can choose whether to live an optimal, the best, the most favourable quality of life, or sub-optimal life, a less than highest standard of quality of life. However, we cannot just wake up one day and choose to live a good, virtuous life.
Becoming virtuous is a process and it requires us to exercise our capacity of reasoning on a daily basis. Aristotle is a Promethean figure in the history of the world who lived between 384 to 322 BCE. He was first a student of Plato, then when Plato retired, he became a monk and a monk he left the academia which Plato founded and he became the tutor of Alexander the Great and of two other future kings, Ptolemy and Cassander. He established a library in the Lyceum and produced over 200 treatises of which only about 31 still exist.
His writing and reflections explored a wide range of disciplines, some of these include accounts within areas of logic, metaphysics, Philosophy of mind, ethics and political theory among others. Some of his surviving work like treatises, physics, metaphysics, Nicomachean ethics, politics, on the soul and poetics are relevant even today, influencing more than two millennia of scientists and theologians alike, both fascinated by his ideas. One of Aristotle's concepts was eudaimonia.
which can also be translated as happiness, flourishing or living well, which conceptualizes that happiness is best achieved through developing virtuous character and by living to our highest degree of human capacity. Aristotle defined virtues as dispositions to choose good actions and passions, informed by moral knowledge of several sorts. For Aristotle, virtues can be intellectual or moral, The intellectual ones are learned by instruction or education, the moral ones are developed by habits. Performing virtuous acts can be motivated by having a practical purpose or by the desire to act in a virtuous way, or by both.
In this video, we will explore what one might need to develop virtuous character in accordance with Aristotle's Virtue Ethics Theory. Number 1. Adopt a virtuous mindset Aristotle says, Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice, because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act. Aristotle's focus on character education is based on virtue.
Aristotle distinguishes between two types of virtue, moral virtue and intellectual virtue. Thinking virtuously requires the intellectual virtues, and acting virtuously requires our moral virtues. Some intellectual virtues include scientific knowledge known as episteme, artistic or technical knowledge known as techni, reasons known as nous, practical wisdom known as phronesis, and philosophical wisdom known as sophia.
On the other hand, moral virtues are not innate, but acquired by developing the habit of practice and exercising these virtues. For example, one only becomes truthful by acting truthfully. Moral virtues may also be combined with intellectual virtues. Some examples of moral virtues are courage, temperance, modesty, friendliness, and truthfulness.
All these moral virtues are a means or intermediate between two extremes, one of excess and one of deficiency. On the deficiency side, the moral vices include cowardice, insensibility, shamelessness, cantankerousness, and understatement. On the excessive side, we have rashness, licentiousness, shyness, obsequiousness, or flattery and boastfulness.
Aristotle talks of Striking the Mean Between Extremes when illustrating his Virtue Ethics Theory For example, if we find ourselves in a situation where we are threatened by a colleague at work, we can evaluate whether we will respond to this threat with cowardice, courage or rashness. Cowardice and rashness are both classified as extremes in this case. However, courage allows us to act out of virtue in a fitting, appropriate way. In cowardice or rashness, we are not acting virtuously. By having courage, we can stand up for ourselves, express our concerns about this threat, while still maintaining the right spirit in terms of virtue.
For Aristotle, true courage is a disposition where fears and confidences are balanced and mastered for the sake of the noble. This essentially means that we can miss the mark by being too confident or not confident enough, fearing too much or not enough, or fearing the wrong things, or fearing them in inappropriate ways. Therefore we must act for the sake of nobility and appropriateness.
True courage expressed by a virtuous character thereby involves fearing the right things, in the right ways, on the right occasions. Forming a virtuous character would thereby involve summing up these sets of interdependent virtues throughout our lifetime, in which we would have hit the mean between the extremes in our experiences, thoughts, beliefs and responses, allowing us to live in harmony with our reason and rationality. Therefore, in pursuit of eudaimonia, acts of virtue bring honor to an individual. While acts of vice bring dishonor, in consideration of the current stresses we experience in our day-to-day lives, we might find ourselves struggling to act in line with our virtues. Often we respond to our friends, loved ones and acquaintances in anger instead of courage when we feel threatened, rashness instead of bravery when we are challenged, or unpleasantness instead of friendliness when we are approached.
We may act this way because we had a rough morning, we didn't sleep enough, or perhaps we have pent-up aggression. Regardless of the cause, the more we act this way, the further we get from developing a virtuous character. If we were to adopt a mindset that allows us to evaluate the extremes and strike the mean in every altercation, situation or occurrence, then we would be acting virtuously.
By acting virtuously and exercising this virtue over time, and with practice, we can familiarize ourselves with the processes of selecting appropriate responses. Thus, the practice and familiarization therefore leads us to develop and refine a character that acts, responds, thinks and believes in line with the virtues, or in other words, a virtuous character. Because, as we said earlier, One cannot be truthful without acting truthfully. 2. Practice practical wisdom According to Aristotle, virtue makes us aim at the right end and practical wisdom makes us take the right means. According to Aristotle, one acquires good character the way one learns to play a musical instrument.
Initially, you may be under some pressure to practice, but eventually you come to enjoy playing with both skill and understanding. Aristotle claims that full development of character, apart from developing a virtuous mindset, requires practical wisdom and rational reflection. Eudaimonia, i.e. living well or flourishing, is thereby reached by living virtuously and building up your character traits, until you do not have to think about your choices before making the right one that strikes the mean between extremes. Hence, to develop virtuous character, we must understand and appreciate the value of practical wisdom, then proceed to practice it to build up our character traits.
Practical wisdom i.e. Phronesis provides us with the ability to make judgments that facilitate us in discovering the mean between two extremes, which thereby guides our moral virtues. Aristotle defines Phronesis as the eye of the soul. Having Phronesis allows us to critically evaluate our situations and therefore finely deliberate about the weight of competing values, actions and emotions.
With With this we can formulate and reach informed decisions about the best course of actions that stems from our virtue and virtuous character and become the phronimos. The phronimos is the person whose life is characterized by the applications of phronesis and who, as a result, tends to flourish throughout his life. Such a person is said to be eudaimon or happy.
Maintaining phronesis requires experience. Phrodesis is concerned with particulars because it is concerned with how to act in particular situations and which situations to act upon. One must learn the principles and virtues, but for one to apply these in their lives, one must have experience of the world.
If you know you should be honest, for example, you might act in certain situations in ways that cause pain and offense. Knowing how to apply honesty in balance with other considerations and in specific contexts requires social interaction and real-life experience of the world. If you had some bad news to share with a friend, would you share it before or after a major university exam? Knowing how to apply honesty in balance at the right time and in an appropriate way reflects a virtuous character. According to Aristotle, Having one's heart in the right place is not good enough.
Being a good person requires a kind of practical intelligence as well as a good disposition. Additionally, he contends that practical wisdom is a true characteristic that is bound up with action, accompanied by reason, and concerned with things good and bad for a human being. Having phrenesis is therefore both necessary and sufficient for being virtuous. Upon understanding the essence of Phronesis and its connection with virtuous character and, in the end, eudaimonia, we can proceed to explore how we may develop Phronesis in our daily lives. We can do so directly or indirectly.
Developing Phronesis directly is done through daily mindfulness practice which involves learning how to pay attention to what is going on within and around us as we go about our daily life. This can be done through mindful walking, driving, eating and self-kindness. Practicing each activity with mindful awareness Mindfulness can be practiced as simply as by eating slowly, eliminating distractions, exercising awareness of the nutrients you are feeding your body and focusing on how the food makes you feel.
The indirect development of phrenesis is done as a form of reflection at the end of your day or the beginning of another. One example includes spending five minutes in silence each morning preparing yourself for the day ahead by visualizing the goals you would like to achieve, and then five minutes each evening reflecting on what you may have learned during the day or practicing gratitude for the things you might have noticed that made you feel good. By sifting through and evaluating what's going on in our minds, which often involves a collection of thoughts and feelings associated with past experiences, we are able to uncover useful insights that allow us to develop the quality of our practical wisdom.
This includes more formal practices and reflection, such as quiet mindfulness meditation, which allows us to gain practical insights that represent phronesis. Doing so in our daily practices allows our virtuous character traits to flourish, and as a result, we learn to live well, or as some might say, eudaimoniously. 3. Contemplate and reflect In our third and final quote for this video, Aristotle says, Happiness, then, is coextensive with contemplation, and the more people contemplate, the happier they are, not incidentally, but in virtue of their contemplation, because it is in itself precious.
Thus, happiness is a form of contemplation. Aristotle asserts that a life of pleasant vigorous philosophical contemplation is one of a superior kind of eudaimonia, and therefore is the best kind of life to have. He praises the other virtues, of course, but maintains that these virtues require practice when opportunities arise. But you do not need the right opportunity to practice reflection and philosophical contemplation. Instead, all you need is a quiet space to breathe and think.
Reflection is, simply, serious thought or consideration. In a more philosophical context, reflection is a component of reason that influences our experiential learning and primarily involves critical awareness, contemplation and careful consideration of the self. An example involves how you might reflect on a situation where you acted out of anger instead of grace with a loved one.
Reflecting upon such a time. Allows you to realize the cause of your actions, realize the effects and consequences caused by your anger, and contemplate the right course of action. More simply, it allows us to see what we would do differently if we had another chance, and learn from it. Philosophical contemplation allows us to construct knowledge and constantly evaluate whether we are living well. Aristotle went on to present an additional argument for why a life of philosophical contemplation must be the most perfect state of eudaimonia.
He says that we can all agree that the gods are above mortals, and experience a different sort of life than we do. Now when we consider human beings, we understand the importance of virtues like justice, because we follow a system of law. Courage because we need to stand up for ourselves in situations. Liberality because we fight for our freedom and our rights. And temperance because moderation and restraint allows us to follow our goals.
Aristotle then asks, Would the gods be interested in such virtues? Or even have reason to apply them? He answers, No, these are trivial and ridiculous among the gods as they are not striving for anything or looking to set anything right.
The only activity that is worthy for the gods is contemplation, and this is essentially the virtue that is most valued as a pivotal aspect of human flourishing, a virtue of the gods. Thus, eudaimonia is connected with the activity of contemplating reality through reason. It can be said as well that by repeating this activity of contemplation, We make use of our practical wisdom, which further increases our capacity for rational reflection and philosophical contemplation, and by extension, also enhances eudaimonia.
Upon illustrating Aristotle's argument regarding the importance of philosophical contemplation, as well as explaining the value of reflection in developing virtuous character, we can now explore how we may apply these profound teachings in our daily lives. As philosophers, we already live our daily lives beyond the practical realm. We live our daily lives in the realm of ideas. This realm of ideas refers to an active stream of consciousness that consists of an inner reflective monologue constantly analyzing issues, concepts, speculations, and ideas. Philosophical contemplation doesn't require an opportunity.
It can be done constantly and continuously, like a voice inside our heads. But this voice is often muffled by thoughts, moods, and distractions. To best exercise our capacity for contemplation to develop virtuous character, Set aside some time each week for quiet, mindful meditation.
Meditation provides a sense of awareness of your thoughts and serves as a platform to evaluate the good in human life. Find a quiet spot, take a deep breath, close your eyes, reflect. We can embody a life of contemplation in several other ways. Since true virtue cannot be attained without a certain degree of contemplation, exercise awareness throughout your daily lives. Take a moment to evaluate why you made a particular choice.
Notice how you feel after a certain interaction and consider the consequences of your actions. If for example you had a fight with somebody close to you, take a deep breath and think breath and think if you applied any of the moral virtues we discussed earlier, in excess or in deficiency. Perhaps you find that you hid something essential from that person.
You used truthfulness in deficiency, and this caused that person to be angry with you. Or, by contrast, maybe you found that you shared too much with that person. You said some truth that hurt them. In this case, perhaps you should have given less painful details or framed the issue in a kinder way.
For most of our life problems, the causes are the excessive or deficient application of moral virtues. If we take the necessary time to contemplate and reflect on our lives, we can learn to not repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Exercising awareness in your day-to-day situations feeds valuable insight into your reflections and Contemplation. Contemplation can help reveal the ways in which you or any human can flourish with respect to Aristotelian virtues. Therefore, for one to be truly eudaimonic, one must exercise virtue by exercising contemplation.
Aristotle conveys an important connection between virtuous character and living well or flourishing throughout his works. which also proved to be very relevant in our modern day setting. First, we investigated Aristotle's notion of virtuous character and how one must approach character education with a virtuous mindset. Adopting a virtuous mindset thereby allows us to actualize virtues in our daily lives, as well as embody a notion of living well and flourishing at the highest state of human happiness. Secondly, we discussed the value of practical wisdom or phronesis and how that applies to the achievement of a virtuous character.
With phronesis, we can facilitate making the right judgments that strike the mean between extremes and guide us in practicing our virtues in a practical, habitual sense. Aristotle places great value on the connection between embodying a virtuous mindset and and practicing phronesis when striving for eudaimonia. Only with practical wisdom can humans gain the practical intelligence to act virtuously at the right time, in the right way. Finally, we addressed the importance of philosophical contemplation and reflection. Aristotle recognizes contemplation as the most perfect form of eudaimonia, a virtue of the gods.
By living an examined life, we are therefore able to construct knowledge and consistently evaluate our thoughts, beliefs, actions and judgments in order to exercise virtue and develop virtuous character. To become a virtuous person and to develop virtuous character, combining the three notions illustrated in this video are essential. We must repeat and practice elements of virtue. to form the habit of embedding our virtues into our daily actions.
Once we form habitual practices through adopting a virtuous mindset, consciously exercise practical wisdom in our judgments, and ensure we take time to reflect on our activities, we can develop virtuous character. If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to check out our full Philosophies for Life playlist. And for more videos to help you find success and happiness using ancient philosophical wisdom, don't forget to subscribe.
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