Virtue

The origins of virtue

Plato described the four Cradinal Virtues - Temperance, Prudence, Justice and Courage. Cardinal comes from he word hinge i.e all virtues hinge on these four. Christianity added faith, hope and love. They are spheres that affect human life.

• Your life - Prudence.
• Others - Justice
• Control of fear - Courage
• Control of appetite - Temperance

Socrates questions the virtues and looked for a hierarchy and collapsed the virtues into one that is Wisdom or Knowledge

Aristotle and Virtue

He had a notion of Megalopsuchia - magnaminous or Greatness of Soul. It was the key crowning virtue. You must have it to have all the others. You must have honour and it must be publicly displayed.

He developed the idea that virtue must be practiced and habituated. He calls it Arete - this is a well entrenched excellence of character. It does not have a moralistic overtones

Wisdom allows you to determine where the Golden Mean is. For instance think of Courage. At one extreme there is cowardice and the other foolhardy. In the middle there was courage. To get to the average you practice and use your wisdom to get there.

Eventually if you attain virtuousness you get Eudaimonia and are a good model for others. However you do not get happy by setting out to be virtuous. The aim is to want to be virtuous and as a result you will be become happy.

There was an idea you could not have one without the other. i.e a wicked man cannot be courageous. Others would argue that is not true but others would say that it isnt courage in the wicked man.

Christianity V Greeks

Even though the virtues are overlapping but there are different reasons for being virtuous. Aristotle - you should be virtuous because it is in your best interests and you will flourish and you will be a good example of a human being and you will treat everyone well. But in Christianity is about serving good. It is much more concerned with others - self serving and mercy and submission to God.

Acquinus tried to synthesize these nd internalize them so Courage would be an inward struggle. Hume come back to.

Utilitarianism

Achievement done for the greatest good. The Happiness Calculus. To maximize happiness add up all the happy things and subtract the unhappy. Virtues should be acquired for their own sake. This was taken up by the Stoics. For Utilitarians all pleasures were equal but John Stuart Mill tried to argie for an hierarchy of pleasures such as reading.

Hobbes - thought we only acted in our self interest and man was at war against man. At first look Darwinism seems to be focused on the survival of the fittest but real virtue can come from self deception. You cooperate it will be in others best interest but not cooperate when it is in your own best interest. But eventually you will not be cooperated with. So you deceive others by acting virtuous but in order to succeed you must have a sincere feeling of virtuousness and it isnt less virtuous becuase it grew out of an in initial feeling of deception anymore than saying that Diamonds are coal.

Other ideas of Virtue

Nietzsche he saw a big fat lie ansd the heart of Christianity. The promise of an afterlife is some consoling myth for the lack of justice in their own life.

Kant - Sentiment should be removed and based on rationality. He has a Categorical Imperative - that binds all human reason. You should also act on rational principles and do what any other rational beings would do. If you do a good act that flows out of your character then it has no moral value unless you do it out of duty. Even better if you struggled to do your duty. This seems to be diametrically opposed to Aristotle.

<comments />