Aristotle And Virtue Essay, Research Paper

Who are we? Why are we here? What is our purpose? These are questions that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time. Human nature is a complex and awesome entity that belies explanation at the same time it demands answers; seeks truth and unification as it explains itself with imagery and diversity and more or less plods along, pulling it’s cart in search of the elusive and proverbial carrot we call actualization.

More often than not the men (and women) we have labeled great have been those who have either sought answers to our questions of existence or those who have pushed the envelope of our capabilities and shown us that the limits to our potential are only as restrictive as we perceive them to be. In our Western experience one of the foremost envelope pushers is Aristotle. Aristotle lived in Greece in the fourth century before the Common Era. He was a student of Plato and wrote numerous volumes on drama, poetry, mathematics, logic, physics, reality and ethics. He personified the definition of philosophy in his love and pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. In this paper I would like to explore Aristotle’s explanation of happiness and how happiness relates to his explanation of virtue.

Happiness, in its current definition, is a somewhat abstract concept. Its pursuit is one of our constitutional tenets, yet to most of us happiness seems to remain slightly out of our grasp. (If only I had more money, more love, more purpose…) We have a tendency to measure our happiness in conjunction with what we possess. Aristotle, on the other hand, defines happiness not as a fulfillment of our bank accounts, stock portfolios and address books, but as fulfillment of our potential as human beings. Aristotle says that a thing (or person) achieves happiness when it does (and does well) what it does best and on a regular basis. Let’s start small; let’s look at the daisy in my front yard. The daisy began as a seed, which sprouted roots, a stem, some leaves and eventually a bud. The bud grew into a flower and with the help of some birds and bees the flower pollinated and assisted in its own propagation. According to Aristotle the flower has achieved its purpose and is thusly happy.

Man, however, is not a flower and vice versa. Man’s purpose can not be as easily categorized or explained as that of a daisy. Aristotle, as many philosophers before and after him, believed that man’s purpose, or the thing that man does better than any other thing that exists, is reason. This is where the ancient Greek concept of virtue comes into play. In Aristotle’s time to be called virtuous was always a compliment in that it meant that one made good choices consistently.

Aristotle was the first authority on the subject of moderation. His theory of the Golden Mean explains that for every virtue there are two vices, one that shows a lack of a specific virtue and one that shows an excess. To illuminate this further let’s look at raising children. There are many, many books, magazines, talk shows and schools of thought on the subject which vary from the spare the rod, spoil the child mentality of days past to several current theories that suggest letting children explore and experience their environment without boundaries. The Golden Mean would suggest that the most virtuous path would be to set reasonable boundaries for our children and to temper discipline with compassion and empathy. This can also be applied to food- one with the appetite and means of Henry VIII may gorge themselves on whatever is available where as someone with anorexia nervosa may deny himself or herself any food at all. The virtuous person chooses to eat food that is healthy and nourishing in moderation. In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle examines the virtue of courage. A brave man, by Aristotle’s definition, is one who bravely faces what is difficult and challenging and shuns that which is foolish or evil. A man who jumps out of an airplane without a parachute just because he isn’t afraid of death would probably be considered foolish while a man who takes responsibility for his actions and admits his shortcomings would be considered brave. A man who charges windmills like Don Quixote with little or no common sense would be considered rash or perhaps a little crazy while a man like Dr. Martin Luther King, who proposed peace without violence and was willing to say what most were unwilling to hear would be considered brave. According to Aristotle happiness is the result of being virtuous which is the result of fulfilling our purpose, reason, and making temperate choices.

To quote Nicomachean Ethics; “Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue finds and chooses that which is intermediate.”

The question then becomes, how can I apply this to my life. Its one thing to spread words on a page calling for the reformation of mankind and quite another story altogether to take personal stock in the teachings of Aristotle. I am treading along a slow and arduous path towards a degree in nursing, a career that demands many virtues, compassion, empathy, intelligence, courage and endurance. There are too many horror stories in the news these days about nurses who have strayed one way or another from the temperate path either through abuse of power, abuse of controlled substances, lack of compassion or even an excess of compassion leading to the planned or unplanned death of patients.

The rub of human nature is this: We know what path we are supposed to take. We know that moderation is the key to virtue, we know that happiness isn’t found in the accumulation of goods or money or contacts. We know that pleasure is not the same as happiness. Yet, day after day we are inundated with messages from the world that tell us the key to inner peace is found in the right car or the perfect body or the hefty bank account. We are told that the modern virtues are selfishness, greed, gluttony and lust. Those things, which tempt us to deviate from the virtuous path, are all around us and surrounded in twinkling neon to be sure to get our attention. The lines of demarcation between vice and virtue have been blurred by public opinion.

In conclusion, Aristotle taught that happiness stems from fulfilling our potential, or using reason to remain in the balance of the Golden Mean. Just as a Shakespearean sonnet wouldn’t be a sonnet with either thirteen or fifteen lines, virtue isn’t virtue if it is in excess or deficiency. In short, Aristotle says that while the potential for a virtuous life is within all of us, it is up to us to use our greatest gift, reason, to achieve our own happiness.

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