Virtue Ethics Book III Preconditions of Virtue and

Virtue Ethics Book III: Preconditions of Virtue and Bravery and Temperance ❧

Voluntary Action ❧ ❧ Virtuous action requires that a person act freely. ❧ The action cannot be involuntary ❧ Involuntary action is either forced or done by ignorance. ❧ If an action is forced or done by ignorance, the agent is neither blameworthy nor praiseworthy.

Forced ❧ ❧A forced action is one in which the agent does not participate (external cause).

Ignorance ❧ ❧When one acts out of ignorance one does not act freely or voluntarily. ❧To act by ignorance is not to have knowledge of what one is doing. This causes pardon and pity. ❧To act in ignorance is to act in a state, such as anger or drunkenness, in which one is not able to understand their action (yet they know what they do).

Particular Actions ❧ ❧Particular actions have many constituent parts: ❧Who is doing it. ❧What he is doing. ❧To whom he is doing it. ❧With what he is doing it. ❧Why he is doing it. ❧When he is doing it. ❧An agent may be ignorant of one of these (an essential one).

Ignorance of particular actions ❧ ❧An agent may be ignorant of one of these (an essential one) ❧An agent who acts in ignorance may later feel pain and regret.

Decision ❧ ❧Not all actions that are voluntary are decisions. ❧Decisions are only proper to rational beings. ❧Therefore, animals act voluntarily but do not make decisions.

Decisions ❧ ❧Voluntary actions can be motivated by appetites and the spirit. ❧However, decisions are never motivated by the appetites or spirit. ❧Decisions are not the same as wishes either because we can wish for the impossible but we cannot decide the impossible. ❧Moreover, we can wish for things that we cannot control but decisions are only about what we can control.

Decisions ❧ ❧A decision is not the same as a belief. ❧Beliefs are true or false and decisions are good or bad. ❧Our decisions form our character not our beliefs. ❧“Again, those who make the best decisions do not seem to be the same as those with the best beliefs; on the contrary some seem to have better beliefs, but to make the wrong decisions because of vice” (1112 a 10)

Decision ❧ ❧Decision involves deliberation ❧It involves reason and thought. ❧It is voluntary but not everything voluntary action is a decision.

Deliberation ❧ ❧Deliberation only concerns things that can come about through our agency (i. e. , a thing we can control). ❧We deliberate about the actions we can do. ❧Causes can be from necessity, chance, nature, etc. We do not deliberate about these. ❧We only deliberate about things in which we are the agent of cause; that is things that we can do (that which is possible and within our ability to accomplish even if it is with the help of others. )

Deliberation ❧ ❧Deliberations are not about ENDS but rather about MEANS. ❧A deliberation is an inquiry about how to accomplish something or bring about a certain result. ❧We can ask for help in our inquiry. ❧Once we come to a conclusion then we decide. ❧Decisions come after deliberation and our first action is the final step of our deliberation process.

Deliberative Desire ❧ ❧The conclusions of our deliberative inquiry become our decisions and our rational desires. ❧We desire to do what we have concluded is the right thing to do. ❧“Hence also decision will be deliberative desire to do an action that is up to us; for when we have judged [that it is right] as a result of deliberation, we desire to do it in accord with our wishes. ” 1113 a 10

Wish ❧ ❧Wishes are concerned with ends. ❧We wish for what is good. ❧ We wish for what appears good to us. ❧In many, however, pleasure would seem to cause deception, since it appears good when it is not. Certainly, they choose what is pleasant because they assume it is good, and avoid pain because they assume it is evil” (1113 b).

Wish ❧ ❧Only an excellent person can wish well. ❧“Presumably, then, the excellent person is far superior because he sees what is true in each case, being himself a sort of standard and measure” (1113 a 30)

Virtue and Vice are in Our Power ❧ ❧First, we wish for an END ❧Second, we deliberate how to achieve that end. ❧Third, we decide to act toward that end. ❧Virtue has to do with this voluntary actions.

Up to us ❧ ❧Acting is up to us. ❧Acting rightly and wrongly is up to us. ❧Being a good and bad person is up to us

Responsibility ❧ ❧We are responsible for our actions. ❧We are responsible for our habits. ❧We are responsible for our states of being and or character. ❧If we are bad judges of what is good, we are responsible for becoming bad judges.

States and Actions ❧ ❧States and actions are both voluntary but in different ways. ❧We can control each particular action. ❧However, our states are the accumulative effect of our actions and it is difficult to predict the results from the numerous kinds of particular acts.

The Individual Virtues: Bravery ❧ ❧The mean between Fear and Confidence. ❧What we fear are bad things or anything PAINFUL: bad reputation, poverty, sickness, friendlessness, and death. ❧Thus standing firm against what is painful make us call people brave. ❧Bravery then is concerned with what is PAINFUL

Bravery ❧ ❧Being brave does not mean being fearless; rather it means fearing the right things, at the right time, in the right way, and to the right degree. ❧For instance, fear of some things is right and fine and the lack is shameful. You should fear a bad reputation, poverty, sickness doing bad things and having bad feelings.

Bravery ❧ ❧While the brave person will fear things (what is irresistible to fear) he will stand firm against these things. ❧We might also be mistaken about our fears and confidences.

The State of Bravery ❧ Excess: Coward Rash Virtue To little Fearless Fear Confidence (Hopeful) BRAVE Virtue Deficient: Coward Lacks Hope

Resembling Bravery ❧ ❧ Rash (excessive confidence). ❧ Fearless people (deficient fear). ❧Soldiers/fighters not willing to die. ❧People acting from spirit (instinct) like animals. ❧Hopeful (confident) people. ❧Ignorant people.

Temperance and Intemperance ❧ ❧Temperance is concerned with what is PLEASURABLE. ❧ Pleasures of the soul and pleasures of the body. ❧Temperance is only concerned with the bodily pleasures.

Temperance and Intemperance ❧ ❧Bodily Pleasures ❧ 1) Sight ❧ 2) Smell ❧ 3) Sound ❧ 4) Touch ❧ 5) Taste

Temperance and Intemperance ❧ ❧Temperance and Intemperance has to do with the pleasures of taste and touch, but mostly touch. ❧The appetites associated with touch are the one’s we have in common with animals: sex, eating, drinking, etc.

Intemperance ❧ ❧Excess in satisfying these pleasures and appetites is a vice and a person that does so is called intemperate. ❧Deficiency is a vice also and called insensitive. But there are no human beings that are deficient with these pleasures. ❧General common appetites ❧Distinctive personal appetites

Temperance ❧ ❧To desire the right bodily pleasures (associated with touch), in the right amount, at the right time, for the right reasons. ❧“The temperate person has an intermediate state in relation to these [bodily pleasures]. For he finds no pleasure in what most pleases the intemperate person, but finds it disagreeable; he finds no pleasure at all in the wrong things he finds no intense pleasure in any [bodily pleasures] suffers no pain at their absence, and as no appetite for them, or only a moderate appetite not to the wrong degree or at the wrong time…”

Intemperance and Cowardice ❧ ❧ It is more difficult to acquire a temperate state than a brave state, ❧ However, it is more difficult to be brave than temperate in particular actions. In other words, it is easier to refrain from pleasure than risk pain and danger. ❧ Therefore, people do intemperate acts more voluntary and should be reproached for it more than for being a coward.

Temperance and Reason ❧ “The temperate person’s appetitive part must agree with reason; for both [his appetitive part and his reason] aim at the fine, and the temperate person’s appetites are for the right things, in the right ways, at the times, which is just what reason also prescribes. ” 1119 b 15