1. For Aristotle, virtue ethics places importance on developing good moral character through practicing virtuous acts habitually. A virtuous person is one who exhibits moral excellence by choosing a mean between excess and deficiency in their actions. 2. Developing virtues requires practical wisdom to know how virtues apply in different situations. One becomes just by doing just acts, courageous through courageous acts, and so on. 3. For Aquinas, virtue ethics involves merging Aristotle's idea of achieving eudaimonia through virtue with Christian theology. An act is good if it contributes to our proper human end as defined by religion.

1. ETHICS

2. N.B. Character is not merely a theoretical
construct but a product of action in the world –
a constant doing or way of being that is made
apparent by the possession and actualization of
particular virtues or vices.

3. VIRTUE

4. Story: Motherhood
Jenna is a loving mother of 6 who tries to make ends meet by
offering her services for laundry, cleaning houses, taking care of kids
or old folks and just basically accepting any job she can. The
husband on the other hand, is a carpenter who recently had an
accident. While recovering, he is selling all sorts of items. One day,
Jenna found out that she is pregnant again with twins. They cannot
afford another mouth to feed, let alone two. Despite neighbors telling
her to have an abortion, she decided to continue with her pregnancy
because for her, she cannot entertain the idea of killing her unborn
children. However, as soon as they were born, she gave them up for
adoption to a childless couple.
Virtue

5. Questions:
1. Do you think Jenna is a morally good
person?
2. If you were in her situation, what would
you have done?
3. Do you agree with her decision?

6. For virtue ethics, an ethical person is
virtuous person, that is, one who has
morally good traits of character.
Virtue Ethics

7. For example, telling the truth means that
we are expressing the virtue of honesty.
N.T. it is not a matter of what we do but rather who we are shown by what we do.

8. Virtues
A characteristics or qualities that set a high moral standard.
For as long as that person possesses good moral character –
that is – practices virtue and does not have a vice – then that
person is considered good.

9. A systematic approach to virtue
was first developed by Aristotle.
This was later on developed by St.
Thomas Aquinas.

10. Virtue ethics of Aristotle

11. Aristotle considers that morality is not just
merely a matter of knowing the good but
actually doing or practicing the good
habitually.

12. For him, we can only fully actualize our
potential as human beings once we
understand what being human essentially
aims to and do the necessary things to fulfill
our function (ergon) in the most excellent way
possible.

13. His ethics is grounded in the formation
of one's character - a way of being and
living in harmony with the human
person's proper end.

14. Aristotle assumes that any activity,
practical or theoretical, aims towards
some end or good.

15. For instance, the practice of medicine aims to promote
and maintain health in society, can we ask further why
we want to be healthy? does one seek health for its own
sake or does one seek it perhaps because one would
like to be able to fulfill one's duties as a parent well
because one wants to raise good children? But what is
the end goal of having good children? why does one
want to have good children?

16. But why does one value
society this much?

17. Aristotle is not simply interested in
finding out the different ends or
purposes for human life.

18. Eudaimonia
For him, happiness is the self-sufficient,
final, and attainable goal of human life.

19. Happiness above all seems to be of this character, for we
always choose it on account of itself and never on
account of something else. yet honor, pleasure, intellect,
and every virtue we choose on their own account - for
even if nothing resulted from them, we would choose
each of them - but we choose them also for the sake of
happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we
will be happy. But nobody chooses happiness for the sake
of these things, or, more generally, on account of anything
else.

20. For Aristotle, our chief good is not
something we merely possess but
something that we continually actualize (in
practice).

21. Eudaimonia is an activity of the soul
in accordance with virtue.

22. Happiness is an activity of the soul.

23. Two kinds of Rational Soul
the speculative (responsible for knowledge) and
the practical (responsible for choice and action)

24. The Irrational Soul has two parts:
•The Vegetative part is in charge of the
nutrition and growth of the human
being.

25. Golden Mean

26. The Greek word for virtue is arete which
means excellence. By excellence, the
Greeks thought of how a thing fulfills its
function (ergon) in accordance with its
nature.

27. For instance, if a knife cuts excellently, is
sharp, durable, and dependable for
different tasks, then it may be said that it is
an excellent knife.

28. “Virtuous” Knife

29. To be virtuous is to exhibit one's capacity
to fulfill one's essence or purpose in such a
wat that potentiality as a particular being
may be said to be actualized in the most
excellent way.

30. Two kinds of virtues
•Moral
•Intellectual
Syllogism

31. Moral
Has to do with excellence in the performance of
decisions relating to moral and practical activity.

32. Intellectual
Have to do with one's capacity to harness
reason's contemplative capacity for
arriving at knowledge.

33. Virtue, then, is twofold, intellectual, and moral.
both the coming-into-being and increaase of
intellectual virtue result mostly from teaching -
hence, it requires experience adn time-whereas
moral virtue got its name (ethike) by a slight
alteration of the term habit (ethos).

34. Aristotle emphasizes the role of
practice a habit in the formation
of moral virtue.

35. All things ,we have potentially, but
it is for us if we put it into actuality,
or if only they habitually do
excellent deeds.

36. •What are excellent deeds?
•What are virtuous actions?
•How does a person develop the capacity to
bring these virtues out of the realm of
possibility to the realm of actuality?

37. It is only in practice that we
come to know that we truly
know how to do something..

38. For instance, it is only in trying to
solve math problems do we find
out if we are good at mathematics
and have the capacity to be
mathematicians.

39. Aristotle declares that we become
morally virtuous by doing morally
virtuous acts. we become just by
doing just acts.

40. We become temperate by doing
temperate acts. We become
courageous in doing
courageous acts.

41. You become who you are,
when you do things habitually

42. Bertong Tigasin

43. He gives emphasis on the
action and habituation as the
ground of moral virtue.

44. Aristotle says that these are
states of character that
enable a person to fulfill
his/her proper function as a
human being.

45. These states of character are aimed at
an intermediary point between excess
and deficiency - in a mean (mesotes)
that can be considered as he
appropriate response to the demands
of different situations.

46. By state of character, Aristotle
emphasizes a certain consistency
or constancy in one's character in
facing different situations.

47. A virtuous person is able to arrive at
a decision or perform an action that
may be considered as an
intermediate between deficient and
excess, which is called MEAN or
mesotes.

48. N.B.
Virtue is developed in
practice.

49. For Aristotle, virtue is a state of one's
character that is the result of chocie. this
choice is governed by prudence or practical
wisdom (phronesis). Phronesis is the human
person's instrument in dealing with moral
choices.

50. Courage is learned intellectual and practical skill.
Reason guides one in calibrating the right degree
of courage in facing, for example, a situation
where one's life is being threatened by an
attacker. After assessing the various factors (such
as the attacker's level of aggression, the weapon
used, the amount money and valuables at stake,
the presence o others in the vicinity), one asks
himself/herself the prudent thing to do.

51. • Does one simply hand over one's belongings and hope
the attacker leaves?
• Does one resist given that one had martial arts trainign in
his/her teenage years?
• Does one try to reason with the attacker hoping that
he/she convinces the latter to not go through with the
deed? Or Does one simply run away and scream for
help?

52. For Aristotle, there is not one
universally correct response to
this situation that may apply to
everyone in all situations.

53. Courage is a thinking person's virtue.
Courage is the mean between
rashness and cowardice.

54. It is up to the person facing the situation to
essentially define the meaning of courage as it
applies to him/her at that moment.
To choose either an excess or deficiency
constitutes a vice for Aristotle.

55. The Principal Virtues
and Vices

56. Positivism
Excess (vice) Mean (virtue) Deficiency (vice)
Rashness Courage Cowardice
Envy Proper indignation Malice
Prodigality Liberality Meanness
Irascibility Good Temper Lack of Spirit
Boastfulness Truthfulness Self-depreciation
Obsequiousness Friendliness Surliness
Bashfulness Modesty Shamelessness

57. A truly virtuous action is performed by
someone who is not simply compelled to do
so. A person does a virtuous act and chooses
to act in such a way for the sake of being
virtuous.

58. Conclusion
Ethics is a matter of living well through the habitual practice
of virtue essentially translates into having a virtuous or
excellent character. Happiness, being the chief good of the
human person, both morally and intellectually. Eudaimonia is
an activity of the soul that purposively attempts to choose the
mean between two extremes in the realm of morality.

59. Recap

60. Virtue ethicists place more importance
on being a person who is honest,
trustworthy, generous and other virtues
that lead to a good life, and place less
importance on one’s ethical duty or
obligations.

61. A common theme among virtue
ethicists is stressing the importance
of cultivating ethical values in order
to increase human happiness.

62. Virtue ethics links goodness with
wisdom because virtue is
knowing how to make ethical
decisions rather than knowing a list
of general ethical rules that will not
apply to every circumstance.

63. AQUINAS VIRTUE
ETHICS

64. The moral philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas (1225-1274) involves a merger
of at least two apparently disparate
traditions: Aristotelian
eudaimonism and Christian theology.

65. Aquinas follows Aristotle in thinking
that an act is good or bad depending on
whether it contributes to or deters us
from our proper human end—
the telos or final goal at which all
human actions aim.

66. To achieve happiness, it requires a
range of intellectual and moral
virtues that enable us to understand
the nature of happiness and
motivate us to seek it in a reliable
and consistent way.

67. For him, final happiness
consists in beatitude, or
supernatural union with God.

68. For this reason, we not only need the
virtues, we also need God to transform
our nature—to perfect or “deify” it—so
that we might be suited to participate
in divine beatitude.

69. Thus we need God’s help in order to
restore the good of our nature and bring
us into conformity with his will. To this
end, God imbues us with his grace
which comes in the form of divinely
instantiated virtues and gifts.

70. Thank you
for
listening
 

71. AD MAJOREM
DEI GLORIAM