1. What are the two types of virtue according to Aristotle
What are the two types of virtue according to Aristotle? What is each one for?
When Aristotle says that virtues are ‘states of character’ what does he mean?
What does he mean when he says we develop the virtues through habituation and practice?

2. Homework Bullet point on your whiteboard, check with your table:
Why are virtues like skills according to Aristotle?
What phases must we pass through when developing a skill or virtue?
Why is autonomy (independence) important to achieving Eudaimonia?
“The virtues we acquire by first exercising them, just as happens in the arts. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them: people become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarly we becomes just by performing just acts… brave by performing brave ones.”

3. The Skill Analogy
As we’ve seen with some of the examples in the previous lesson – we can compare the development of a virtue with the development of a particular skill (for example playing an instrument or learning a sport).
In fact, Aristotle himself makes this analogy in his writings.
“The virtues we acquire by first exercising them, just as happens in the arts. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them: people become builders by building and instrumentalists by playing instruments. Similarly we becomes just by performing just acts… brave by performing brave ones.”

4. The Skill Analogy
In fact we may break learning a skill and developing a virtue down into four “stages”:
Initial observation, guidance and input by an expert.
Starting to practise the skill or behaviour (which is difficult and painful).
Getting better through practice and habit (which may become more pleasurable as we go on).
The move from dependence on the expert, to independence from the expert.

5. Autonomy
The move from dependence on the expert, to independence from the expert.
This last point about becoming autonomous is important. Aristotle believes mere habituation is not enough to generate the dispositions we need to develop if we are to achieve “excellence of virtue” (ethica arête), we must also understand the reasoning behind our behaving in a particular way.
This is because the world is not always black and white, rules don’t always apply. So if we are to be truly virtuous we must learn to recognise how to act in different situations and contexts.
This demonstrates a psychological aspect to the virtues as well as a behavioural.

6. Who is the more virtuous person? Why?
Comparison
Who is the more virtuous person? Why?
Person A:
Who shares sweets because he has been told by society that this is the right thing to do, and because he happens to like the person he is sharing with.
Person B:
Who shares the sweets because he understands what it means to be fair and wants to aim for that, and because he has always been generous wherever possible.

7. Who is the more virtuous person? Why?
Comparison
Who is the more virtuous person? Why?
Person A:
Who shares sweets because he has been told by society that this is the right thing to do, and because he happens to like the person he is sharing with.
Person B:
Who shares the sweets because he understands what it means to be fair and wants to aim for that, and because he has always been generous wherever possible.

8. What is Aristotle’s skill analogy in Virtue Ethics?
Recap Questions
What is Aristotle’s skill analogy in Virtue Ethics?

9. But why not education?
We may question why it’s not possible for someone to be taught to be virtuous. To become a moral expert solely through instruction rather than doing.
Aristotle argues if this were the case, then we’d have examples of adolescent ‘moral geniuses’ as we have in other taught skills like maths or science. But this of course, seems ridiculous.
You could use examples of the virtues we discussed earlier in the lesson to illustrate this – could you really teach someone courage? Modesty? Wittiness?

10. But why not education?
This is not to say we will never need input from other people. There are many times in our lives where our character / dispositions may need correction from someone who already has the virtue we need.
But crucially, we can’t achieve moral excellence (ethica arete) just by learning from them, we still need to actually practice the virtues in question.
You could use examples of the virtues we discussed earlier in the lesson to illustrate this – could you really teach someone courage? Modesty? Wittiness?

11. Feelings…
If we are discussing someone's dispositions are we only concerned with their actions?
Part of the reason we can’t be simply taught to be virtuous is that dispositions or states of character are not just about actions but feelings as well – more specifically how we respond to a particular emotion in any given situation.
This is one of the ways in which Virtue Ethics is drastically different from Kant or UT:
They focus on a particular action and whether it was right or wrong.
Here we are looking at the person as a whole, their actions and their feelings (i.e. their dispositions) and asking are they correct?
Aristotle very clearly connects virtues and feelings in his work: “Virtues are concerned with actions and feelings”

12. Feelings…
Aristotle is saying that if we want to be truly virtuous we must train ourselves to feel in particular ways as well as act in particular ways. We shouldn’t have to fight our own feelings to do the right thing, our feelings and our actions should align.
Do you think it’s possible to train yourself to feel a certain way through habituation?

13. Feelings…
The whole thing Aristotle is going for here is that someone who is ethica arête (has achieved moral excellence) should never have the internal conflict that may plague the non-virtuous when placed in a situation in which they could act virtuously:
Someone who is truly generous (who possesses the disposition or virtue to be generous) never has the internal dialogue about whether or not to give up the last slice of cake – they just recognise the situation requires generosity and then act accordingly.
Similarly someone who is truly courageous never has the dialogue about whether or not to act, they just recognise that courage is required then act accordingly!

14. Feelings…
We can say then that feelings are important for Virtue Ethics because without the correct feelings, you cannot be truly virtuous. Someone who merely acts in a virtuous way but does not feel it is not truly virtuous. This brings us full circle back to the process of habituation and training we outlined previously – during the process of shaping our dispositions we are shaping the way we feel in response to particular emotional cues along with the way we may behave.
So we can say in order to achieve Aristotle’s theory of eudaimonia we need to not only act well, but also feel well.

15. Exam Style Questions
Explain why feelings are important to Aristotle in Virtue Ethics (5 marks)
Virtue Ethics is about having the right dispositions in any given circumstance.
Dispositions do not just consist of actions, but also feelings. How somebody feels in any circumstance tells us something about their character, what type of person they are.
So if you do the right action, but do not feel the right thing then you are not being virtuous.
Therefore to be truly virtuous and achieve Eudaimonia we must act and feel in the right way in any given circumstance.

16. Looking closer at pleasure / feelings…
We’ve already said that Aristotle considers pleasure to be a bad thing to solely aim for in life (a life of pleasure being a ‘bovine’ existence in his words). Why then does he care if we take pleasure in our virtuous actions or not?

17. Looking closer at pleasure…
Well, just because he doesn’t think it should be the only aim in life does not mean he doesn’t think pleasure is worth considering. For Aristotle, the point of pleasure falls somewhere between these two extremes (only important thing / not at all important).

18. Positive Feedback Loop
Do we get pleasure from practicing new skills / skills we are developing?

19. Positive Feedback Loop
Do we get pleasure from being kind? Do we get pleasure from being generous? Do we get pleasure from being courageous? Do we get a kind of pleasure from wittiness? What purpose might pleasure serve in these cases?

20. Positive Feedback Loop
As we start out trying to develop excellent dispositions, it is difficult and we have to force ourselves to be kind, just, courageous, generous, etc.
Overtime however, we find that we begin to enjoy these actions and get pleasure from acting kindly, generously etc.
This pleasure makes us more inclined to do those types of actions in the future, and helps us therefore become more disposed to kindness, justice, courage and the like.
It is part of a positive feedback loop – we get pleasure from virtuous actions and through pleasure we are more likely to be virtuous.

21. Positive Feedback Loop
Virtuous Actions
Pleasure

22. Remember To Be Rational!
It’s important to remember to be rational about your pleasures though. Do not overindulge (otherwise we end up with the bovine existence Aristotle refers to) but in the same way, don’t entirely avoid any kind of pleasure at all (otherwise we’ll never properly train ourselves to be virtuous). The right amount is somewhere in between!
So for Aristotle then, the good life cannot ignore pleasure but nor is the good life a life of pure pleasure.

23. Final Point: What is pleasure?
When discussing other ethical theories, we’ve often found it hard to define exactly what we mean by pleasure.
But is pleasure just one thing?
Is there more than one type of pleasure?
Can you give a concrete definition of what pleasure is?

24. Final Point: What is pleasure?
When discussing other ethical theories, we’ve often found it hard to define exactly what we mean by pleasure.
For Aristotle, this is because pleasure is not one thing. It’s not a single feeling. Instead it’s different for different activities.
Pleasure is something that arises from activity itself. I aim to do the activity, and if it goes well I feel pleasure. Meaning there are as many possible pleasures as there are activities.

25. Final Point: What is pleasure?
This means when the hedonist (or indeed Utilitarian) says they are aiming for ‘pleasure’ they are not actually saying anything concrete – it is too vague and dependent on the activity being done.
Aristotle, like Mill also believed that some of these activities were superior to others, and therefore so were the associated pleasures. Rather unsurprisingly, virtuous activities are always superior.
He also believed that you could feel pleasure from doing bad things, but since these things would be habituating your vices rather than your virtues, the associated pleasure could also be considered bad.
In short this means we can say a pleasure is good when the activity that produces it is good (usually the activities in line with our virtues) and bad when the activity that produces it is bad (goes against our virtues).

26. Summary Task…
What purpose does pleasure serve according to Aristotle? Why is it difficult to define what pleasure is?

27. Exam Style Question
Compare and contrast the idea of pleasure in Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics (12 marks)

28. Homework
Answer 3 questions on the blog about what we’ve covered this week. Due Monday.

29. Summary Thus the moral virtues are:
Dispositions of character (involving feelings and actions)
Acquired by ethical training and practice (habituation)
Developed through a process not unlike skills (skill analogy)
And enable the virtuous person and society to flourish (Eudaimonia)
Meaning someone who is virtuous is someone who:
Has learnt through habituation to do virtuous acts.
Recognises what the appropriate virtue to apply is. (This is to do with intellectual virtues, we’ll discuss this later)
Enjoys doing virtuous acts.
Has a history of doing virtuous acts.
Has no internal conflict about acting virtuously.
Chooses consciously to act virtuously whenever possible.

30. Specification So Far
‘The good’ for human beings: the meaning of Eudaimonia as the ‘final end’.
The function argument and the relationship between virtues and function.
Aristotle’s account of virtues and vices:
virtues as character traits/dispositions
the role of education/habituation in the development of a moral character
the skill analogy
the importance of feelings