One of the strongest and most talked about topics in philosophy would have to be virtue ethics. Famous philosophers like Aristotle and Aquinas, spoke highly of virtue ethics and each developed their own theories on the topic. Although Both of these philosophers wrote about virtue ethics, their approach was quite different. So, what is virtue ethics? According to Lewis Vaughn, “a moral theory that focuses on the development of virtuous character”(Vaughn 808). Although both Aquinas and Aristotle had different approaches to virtue ethics, there was a consensus on what virtue ethics ultimately ethics. I definitely would have to agree more with the Aristotelian philosophy on virtue ethics and what he wrote on the subject. Aristotle said that a virtuous …show more content…
He described it as “the mean by reference to two voices: the one of excess and the other of deficiency” (Gardiner). Courage and compassion are perfect example of this. Courage lies between foolhardiness and cowardice. Compassion lies between callousness and indulgence. Aristotle described virtue as being some sort of midpoint between two extremes which he called “vices”. He believed virtue as being a sort of robust character traits that once fully developed would lead to good behavior. vice was thought of being either a deficiency of something or an excess of it, the middle point within them was called the “golden mean” (Jenkins). Aristotle also described that having too much or too little of something can also be a bad thing. For example, if you have too much courage then that would lead to making reckless and unsafe decisions. On the other hand, if you have too little of it then you’re more than likely a coward. Virtue works exactly the same way, it represents the right action between two …show more content…
According to Aristotle reaching a level of Eudaimonia Is reaching total happiness in one’s life. Aristotle recognized that most actions are not pointless because they have an aim and purpose. Each one of these actions aims at doing some sort of good. All things are either done for a person’s own sake or the sake of others. However, the ultimate goal of this is to simply reach the highest level of happiness known as Eudaimonia. Again, this is an ultimate happiness, contentment, and fulfillment; it’s the best kind of life, which is an end in itself and a means to live and fare well (Athanassoulis). However, Aristotle doesn’t just end there, he observed and described that where a thing has a function the good of the thing is when it performs that specific function well. For example, man has a function and the good man is typically the man who performs his function