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What Does It Mean To Be Virtuously?

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Recommended: Ethical decision making & moral judgment

Aristotle and his book Ethics was imprecise since the majority of what was written was very situational. Happiness is the “ultimate” goal and humans strive their entire life to attain that “temporary” feeling as aristotle believes that it is not permanent. Ethical behaviour as he has described is done by making virtuous choices and “living virtuously”. Some unethical behaviour doesn't make you an unethical person by his definition. You voluntarily make a disposition to be virtuous and if you have to make decisions non voluntarily that doesn't make you a non virtuous person either. When under voluntary action you can be held accountable for your actions whether they are virtuous or vice but in situations where you are not rational you cannot be held liable. …show more content…

According to Aristotle you also cannot truly have a judged life until death, meaning that you can’t be judged as to have a happy or virtuous life until death where all your actions can be observed. Since virtue is a mean between excess and deficiency, it varies from person to person, so there is no easy way to completely identify what is vice or how to stay away from it. You make decisions that will make you happy (going on with the means to end). Working to obtain money is generally considered as virtuous but if you obtain money in a vice manner to use it for a virtuous manner does that make you a vice person, not according to Aristotle. So unethical behavior can be had to achieve ethical goals that achieve your intrinsic goals of lifetime

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Genuine happiness lies in action that leads to virtue according to Aristotle and this is seen

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On the contrary with Aristotle, right off the bat he says that most people will not reach true happiness. When one knows off the top that they will not accomplish something, one of two things will happen. They will either give up or they will push or work even harder. The question then changes for Aristotle from what is happiness, to will enough people challenge themselves enough to reach for the impossible? It is those people that push themselves harder that will reach true happiness.

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Vice is immoral or wicked behavior according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. One thing that comes to mind is relationships between people. There are bad relationships and good relationships and sometimes it’s not up to us to decide if such relationship is good or bad. In bad relationships, things such lying, cheating, abuse, are all examples of vice. In Scott Fitzgerald’s book, “The Great Gatsby”, the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby could be considered a virtue or a vice from different perspectives.

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Secondly, it makes a lot of sense to think of ethics in relation to character as compared to actions or even intentions. Thinking of ethics in relation to character is sensible since an ethical person can best be defined by their tendency to consistently repeat a good behavior. Aristotle is, therefore, right to say for instance that a courageous individual is consistently courageous. One particular action of good behavior, therefore, cannot make an individual be defined as ethical neither can a particular intention. I think the example of tennis is a good one.

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Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics begins by exploring ‘the good’. Book I argues that, unlike other goods, “happiness appears to be something complete and self-sufficient, and is, therefore, the end of actions” (10:1097b20-21). In other words, happiness is the ultimate good. But how does one achieve happiness? Aristotle formulates this in the context of work, since for all things, from artists to horses, “the good and the doing it well seem to be in the work” (10:1097b27-28).

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“ The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County “ Mark Twain, an American writer, entrepreneur and publisher, presents a short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County.” Old Simon Wheeler tells the narrator a mirthful story of Jim Smiley and his “trained frog. ”A well known gambler, Jim was cheated one day when a stranger fed his frog buckshot and made him lose a bet. Twain illuminates a tone that is exaggerated and humorous for a light hearted folktale that provides a sense of entertainment.

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Thus, when human function is done well, it is in accordance with virtue and best human life is achieved. In addition, it can be inferred that since Aristotle’s definition of happiness is to be virtuous, performing rational activity well can lead to happiness. In addition, Aristotle states, “if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete” (1098a18). This means that eventually there will be one virtue that is inclusive of all virtue and that displays an end, and this virtue will be in line with the self-sufficient and inclusive concept of happiness as the chief good. If this inclusive virtue and good is achieved, ultimate happiness will be achieved as well.

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Happiness, or eudaimonia, according to Aristotle, is defined simply as human flourishing. The act of flourishing

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Equally people will say that that they should and shouldn 't be held accountable on this life or death situations. For instance… people have chosen this situation that they want to do and they know that they could be held accountable like for example in the story the life of pi, the boy was on a raft with the tiger and they were on each side of the boat but the boy was scared of getting eat by the tiger because the tiger had that look in his eyes of hunger so the boy decided to make a raft near the boat so he would still be alive. They should not be held accountable for this because it is there life and their choosing what they want to do to be free or take something off a bucket list. However... people can chose of what they want to do but they need to think before they do it to test if they are ready for it or that they won 't be scared and know the consequences of what might happen. Also how people even though they don 't know they should have checked first.

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According to Aristotle, an individual can achieve happiness only by realizing all the works and activities in accordance with reason throughout his lifetime. He claimed that happiness consists in cultivating and exercising virtue and it is the ultimate purpose of human existence, as stated in his work Nicomachean Ethics “He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life”. However, such Aristotelian concept of happiness inevitably contradicts the understanding of history as development which maintains that fulfilling the work of human exceeds the limits of an individual and thus can only be achieved in the course of history. Three

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In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the concept of happiness is introduced as the ultimate good one can achieve in life as well as the ultimate goal of human existence. As Aristotle goes on to further define happiness, one can see that his concept is much different from the 21st-century view. Aristotelian happiness can be achieved through choosing to live the contemplative life, which would naturally encompass moralistic virtue. This differs significantly from the modern view of happiness, which is heavily reliant on material goods. To a person in the 21st-century, happiness is simply an emotional byproduct one experiences as a result of acquiring material goods.

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It is critical to recognize Mill’s argument that a degree of contentment can exist in periods of less happiness. However, Aristotle’s view of perceiving wellbeing or goodness as ultimate is more pronounced. Worth emphasizing, Aristotle deeply explores his arguments basing them on functions of a rational man and virtues out of habits. Today, a virtuous citizen is one whose actions are inward, in response to conscience and moral obligations as a member of society. Such a person, not waivered with intensities of pleasures, honor, and wealth but seeks to have a satisfactory level of happiness with friends, co-workers, and family among other

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At the end of everyone’s lives, the goal appears to be about attaining happiness. Describing how to obtain happiness has been an issue that was debated in the past but is still talked about now . In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle expands on his view of happiness and he focuses particularly on how reason helps recognize and pursue what will lead to happiness and the good life. I feel that Aristotle’s philosophies on happiness are important works within the field of philosophy and he considered one of the………of it . In this paper, I will explore Aristotle’s beliefs regarding happiness then compare and contrast them to those of Martin Seligman.

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Virtue ethics is an expansive theory inspired by the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle. In contrast to deontology and consequentialism, virtue ethics emphasizes the moral character (ideal traits) of a person. Aristotle believed that nature produced humans with the desire to be virtuous, just how seeds are built with the drive to become trees. This concept can be related to the term eudaimonia, which translates to the flourishing of a human being; a happy and well-lived life.

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In order to do this, we need to 'know thyself ' and become as learned as we can, knowing the good for all, while also being humble. We are all naturally good people, so we must promote the good in the world. According to Aristotle, however, happiness, his goal for all humans is not that easy to obtain. He claims that "happiness is a certain sort of activity of the soul in accord with virtue (Aristotle, p.12). On the Aristotelian model of how to obtain happiness, it deals a great deal with the issue of particulars.

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