Aristotle: Virtue and the Highest Happiness

( Nicomachean Ethics, Books 2, 6 and 10)

• Key terms

• Habit – Shaping character through conscious repetition.

• Moral virtue – Acting reasonably with regard to actions and emotions.

• Intellectual virtue – A way of telling the truth.

• Necessary – What cannot be otherwise.

• Contingent – What can be otherwise.

In the previous chapter we saw that Aristotle makes the argument that we are happiest when we're doing things that we are good at. Based on that claim, Aristotle argues that there are two basic ways that we are good: good actions and good thinking. Ultimately, Aristotle thinks that thinking is a kind of action, but it is a qualitatively different kind of action from those that arise with respect to pleasure and pain. We could even go so far as to say that, for Aristotle, actions that arise from pleasure and pain are animal actions, and the task is to make them human actions by bringing them under the sway of reason. Doing these actions well is what Aristotle calls "moral virtue." Aristotle calls thinking well "intellectual virtue." In this chapter, we will look at Aristotle's arguments for acquiring both kinds of virtue, since flourishing simply is acting in accord with virtue.

Moral virtues are acquired by habit

Humans form habits. They have habits related to walking, talking, sitting, standing, eating, drinking, laughing, etc. Almost any action is intertwined with habit in some way. This is a good thing, too. Think how hard it would be to do the most basic tasks if we had to think about every single movement. I shudder to think how long it would take me to write anything, if I had not formed a habit with regard to my fingers and the keyboard. Aristotle recognizes that habits constitute a large part of our behavior.