Aristotle#
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. He founded his own school in Athens, where he taught and conducted research in philosophy, science, logic, and ethics. Aristotle’s writings laid the foundation for much of Western philosophy and continue to influence ethical thought today.
Aristotle wrote extensively on moral philosophy, and his ethical ideas are mainly found in two key works:
Nicomachean Ethics: Considered his most significant ethical treatise. It explores the nature of happiness and virtue, examining how humans can live the best possible life.
Eudemian Ethics: A similar work, overlapping in content with the Nicomachean Ethics. It provides additional insights into practical reasoning and the development of character.
Flourishing#
In his works, Aristotle argues that moral behavior is that which enables the flourishing (Eudaimonia) of individuals within a community.
The argument can be summarized as follows:
Every being has a function: a characteristic activity that expresses its nature.
Performing one’s function well constitutes the final end of life, pursued for its own sake; everything else is merely a means to this end.
A good life for any being is therefore the successful performance of its function. Moral behavior is that which enables a good life by allowing one to fulfill this function well.
For human beings, the characteristic function is rational activity expressed collectively: the ability to communicate, cooperate, and deliberate with others in pursuit of shared goals and understanding.
Flourishing is the development and exercise of this collective rational function: becoming better at reasoning, communicating, collaborating and deciding together.
Therefore, for humans, flourishing as rational individuals within a community is the ultimate moral goal.
Flourishing involves the following practices:
Cultivating thinking, reasoning, and debating as central parts of one’s life to contribute effectively to collective deliberation.
Encouraging others to develop their own capacities for thinking, reasoning, and debate.
Engaging with friends and family, supporting one another’s moral and intellectual development.
Participating in political life and contributing to shared decisions that shape the community’s pursuit of the good.
In the following, we use the term common good as a synonym for the flourishing of the community and the individuals within it.
Moral virtues#
Moral virtues are enduring excellencies of character that regulate a person’s desires, emotions, and actions so they accord with reason.
They are cultivated through consistent practice and habituation, beginning in early life and strengthened through education, example, and repeated action.
They are expressed within social contexts, such as relationships, friendships, civic participation, and communal life.
Acting virtuously influences others and contributes both to the flourishing of the community and to the well-being of the individual within it.
At their core, moral virtues involve finding the proper balance in one’s emotions, desires, and actions. Aristotle refers to this balance as the doctrine of the mean, according to which virtue lies between the extremes of excess and deficiency. This is a list of moral virtues included in Aristotle’s ethic:
Courage:
Excess: Recklessness – rushing into danger without regard for risk.
Deficiency: Cowardice – excessive fear that prevents one from acting when necessary.
Balance: A courageous person assesses danger rationally, acts when duty or justice demands it.
Temperance:
Excess: Insensibility – rejecting natural pleasures to an unhealthy degree.
Deficiency: Overindulgence – surrendering to pleasure without restraint.
Balance: Temperance involves enjoying pleasures thoughtfully, taking what is good in measure, guided by health, reason, and respect for the common good.
Generosity:
Excess: Prodigality – giving freely to others and neglecting own needs.
Deficiency: Stinginess – clinging to possessions and neglecting others’ needs.
Balance: Generosity uses one’s means wisely, giving freely when it benefits others or serves a worthy purpose.
Magnificence:
Excess: Vulgarity – spending ostentatiously for display.
Deficiency: Meanness – avoiding necessary expenses in important matters.
Balance: Magnificence expresses greatness of spirit in large undertakings, spending with purpose, proportion, and good judgment.
Magnanimity:
Excess: Vanity – claiming honors or recognition beyond one’s merit.
Deficiency: Undue humility – failing to acknowledge one’s genuine worth.
Balance: Magnanimity means accepting honors that rightly correspond to one’s virtues and achievements, neither exaggerating nor dismissing one’s own excellence.
Patience:
Excess: Irascibility – anger that is quick, harsh, or disproportionate.
Deficiency: Apathy – indifference to genuine wrongdoing.
Balance: A good-tempered person feels anger only for just reasons and channels it calmly toward correction rather than retaliation.
Truthfulness:
Excess: Boastfulness – exaggerating or inflating one’s qualities and achievements to impress others.
Deficiency: Self-deprecation – denying or diminishing one’s genuine qualities.
Balance: Truthfulness is sincerity in self-expression. The truthful person speaks plainly and authentically, showing one’s character and deeds without distortion.
Wittiness:
Excess: Buffoonery – joking inappropriately or at others’ expense.
Deficiency: Boorishness – lacking a sense of humor or social ease.
Balance: Wittiness engages others with tact and good sense, using humor to uplift conversation and foster connection without offense or vulgarity.
Friendliness:
Excess: Obsequiousness – pleasing others excessively.
Deficiency: Quarrelsomeness – being habitually disagreeable or hostile.
Balance: Friendliness treats others with goodwill and respect, agreeing or disagreeing honestly while maintaining harmony and sincerity in social life.
Justice:
Excess: Grasping advantage – taking more than one’s fair share of goods, honors, or benefits, often at the expense of others.
Deficiency: Neglect of fairness – yielding one’s due in relationships or society.
Balance: A just person takes and distributes goods, responsibilities, and recognition in proportion to merit or need, and respecting the rights of others as equal participants in a shared moral order.
Intellectual virtues#
Intellectual virtues are enduring excellencies of character that determine how a person thinks, and acts in relation to the physical world or the community. They can be regarded as mental skills, cultivated through study, reflection, experience, and habituation. Unlike moral virtues, intellectual virtues are not a mean between extremes; there is never too much of them.
This is a list of intellectual virtues included in Aristotle’s ethic:
Art
The capacity to make or produce something according to rational principles. It involves skill, method, and knowledge of causes. Examples include architecture, medicine, and music.
How to develop: Art requires learning the rules and methods of one’s craft, observing how masters work, and improving through trial, error, and reflection.
Practical Wisdom:
The ability to deliberate well about what is good and beneficial for oneself and the community. It applies moral principles to concrete situations and guides right action.
How to develop: Practical wisdom develops through lived experience, reflection, and dialogue. It grows by practicing moral virtues, learning from mistakes, and participating in shared reasoning within social and civic life.
Scientific Knowledge:
Knowledge of necessary and universal truths, derived through demonstration and reasoning. It concerns truths that cannot be otherwise, such as those found in mathematics, logic, or physics.
How to develop: Scientific knowledge is cultivated by systematic study, questioning assumptions, and understanding causes rather than memorizing facts. It grows through disciplined inquiry, rigorous proof, and commitment to coherence and evidence
Intuitive Reason:
The capacity to grasp first principles, the self-evident truths on which reasoning depends. It is immediate and non-discursive, rather than derived step by step.
How to develop: Intuitive reason is strengthened by careful observation, deep contemplation, and reflection on foundational truths. It develops through attentiveness and the habitual search for underlying causes, beyond surface appearances.
Philosophical Wisdom:
The capacity to contemplate the ultimate causes and the highest realities, seeking knowledge of eternal truths.
How to practice: Philosophical wisdom is cultivated through sustained contemplation, study, and the love of truth for its own sake. It grows through reflection, and pursuit of understanding beyond immediate utility, aiming at the intellectual joy of grasping what is universally and eternally true.
Practical wisdom#
Practical wisdom (Phronesis) is the intellectual virtue that directs the application of moral virtues. It is the capacity to deliberate well about what is good, beneficial, and just in particular circumstances. Through practical wisdom, individuals translate moral understanding into effective action, making sound judgments that align with reason and promote the common good.
Practical wisdom develops gradually through lived experience, reflection, and dialogue. Its development involves the following activities:
Taking time to consider the consequences, benefits, and moral implications of choices.
Learning from successes and mistakes to improve judgment in future situations.
Observing how experienced individuals navigate ethical challenges.
Discussing decisions with friends, mentors, or community members to refine judgment and understanding.
Balancing personal goals with the welfare of others.
Contributing to communal decision-making and the governance of the community.
Anticipating how actions affect others and adjusting choices accordingly.
Practical wisdom in practice#
Here’s a list of examples showing practical wisdom applied to the exercise of moral virtues:
Courage: A firefighter must rescue someone from a burning building. Courage motivates the act, while practical wisdom guides deciding how to act in concert with the team, who should enter first, and how to coordinate efforts to protect both victims and colleagues.
Temperance: At a social gathering, a person wants to enjoy food and drink. Temperance restrains overindulgence, while practical wisdom helps judge how much is appropriate for the occasion, social expectations, and personal well-being.
Generosity: A colleague wants to help someone in need. Generosity motivates giving, while practical wisdom guides deciding when, how, and to what extent to give, balancing personal resources with the recipient’s actual needs.
Magnificence: A city council member plans a large community event. Magnificence inspires ambition, while practical wisdom helps determine the scale, timing, and structure of the event so it serves the community’s needs effectively, promotes shared enjoyment, and uses resources responsibly.
Magnanimity: A researcher receives public recognition. Magnanimity allows them to accept honor gracefully, while practical wisdom guides how to acknowledge collaborators, respond in speeches or interviews, and behave in a way that encourages trust and respect in the community.
Patience: A teacher faces a disruptive student. Good temper restrains anger, while practical wisdom helps decide whether to speak privately or publicly, how to address the behavior proportionately, and how to balance discipline with encouragement.
Truthfulness: An employee reports on a project’s progress. Truthfulness motivates honesty, while practical wisdom guides how to present setbacks or challenges constructively, when to raise issues, and how to communicate effectively with stakeholders.
Wittiness: A team leader wants to lighten the mood during a tense meeting. Wittiness allows humor, while practical wisdom helps decide what joke or comment is appropriate for the audience and context, when to interject it, and how to maintain respect.
Friendliness: A manager mediates a conflict between coworkers. Friendliness motivates kind interaction, while practical wisdom guides how to listen actively, balance fairness with empathy, and propose solutions that maintain positive relationships.
Justice: A judge must resolve a civil dispute. Justice motivates fairness, while practical wisdom helps weigh evidence, consider mitigating circumstances, and decide how best to apply rules to this specific situation.
Aristotle’s moral guidelines#
For those seeking to apply Aristotelian ethics, this list provides practical guidelines for putting Aristotle’s ideas into practice.
Aim to flourishing: Reflect regularly on whether your actions contribute to growth and well-being of yourself and your community. Make choices that develop your and other’s potential over time.
Seek the mean: Avoid extremes of excess and deficiency; virtue lies in moderation relative to us and the situation. Reflect after decisions: did you go too far or not far enough?
Develop moral habits: Repeat good actions until they become natural. Keep a journal to track moral progress and identify good patterns of behavior. Surround yourself with virtuous people who inspire good habits.
Cultivate practical wisdom: Observe and learn from people who make balanced, ethical decisions. Reflect on past experiences to improve future judgment. Avoid acting out of emotion alone, deliberate before deciding.
Value friendship and social relationships: Moral development occurs in community; cultivate friendships based on mutual respect and virtue. Contribute actively to your community: volunteer, listen, help others.
Balance self-interest with the common good: Pursue your own flourishing in a way that contributes to the well-being of the community.
Seek self-improvement: Seek continual self-improvement through reading, reflection, and dialogue. Encourage ethical discussions with friends, family, or students.
Traditions#
Aristotle’s ethics is fundamentally an ethics of situated experience. To act virtuously, one must engage with the world directly, interact with fellow community members, and cultivate the capacity to discern what is right, moral, and proper in concrete circumstances.
Virtues must be practiced consistently until they become a stable disposition. When individuals practice virtuous actions in concert with others, these habits extend beyond the personal level. Recurrent, collectively practiced virtues can solidify into social traditions, guiding the community toward norms of behavior that sustain human flourishing.
Am example of traditions deriving from Aristotle’s ethics are:
Democratic civil debate: Community members engage in open and respectful discussion, expressing and considering differing viewpoints to promote collective understanding and decision-making.
Education and mentorship: Experienced individuals guide others by sharing knowledge, skills, and moral insight, fostering intergenerational learning and personal growth.
Rituals of recognition: The community gathers to acknowledge and celebrate individual or collective achievements, contributions, and virtues, reinforcing shared values and social cohesion.
Civic participation: Citizens take an active role in public life by engaging in decision-making, volunteering, and collaborating to advance the common good.
Cardinal virtues#
For Aristotle, virtue lies in the mean between two extremes. Each vice represents an excess of some trait, while virtue finds the balanced point. Although one extreme is often recognized as a vice and the other not, Aristotle holds that both are morally defective, for neither leads to a flourishing life.
The following is a description of the cardinal virtues according to the doctrine of the mean.
Humility:
Excess: Self-abasement – denying one’s own worth or talents, shrinking from rightful responsibility or recognition.
Deficiency: Pride – an inflated sense of self-importance that despises others and refuses correction.
Balance: The humble person has a just estimation of themselves, acknowledging both strengths and limitations, and giving credit to others where it is due.
Kindness:
Excess: Obsequiousness – an excessive eagerness to please, giving aid or approval without discernment.
Deficiency: Envy – resentment of others’ good fortune and a refusal to rejoice in their happiness.
Balance: The kind person sincerely wishes others well, helps when fitting, and takes joy in the good of others.
Patience:
Excess: Apathy – indifference to wrongs or delays, tolerating injustice and unfair treatment.
Deficiency: Wrath – uncontrolled anger that lashes out and seeks vengeance.
Balance: The patient person bears trials calmly, restrains anger, and responds to provocation with measured judgment.
Diligence:
Excess: Overzealousness – a restless drive that ignores rest, proportion, or contemplation.
Deficiency: Sloth – a sluggish neglect of one’s duties and an aversion to effort or purpose.
Balance: The diligent person applies steady, purposeful effort to worthy tasks, balancing labor with proper rest and reflection.
Charity:
Excess: Prodigality – giving or spending without limits, neglecting one’s responsibilities or enabling harm.
Deficiency: Greed – hoarding possessions or wealth, valuing material gain over moral good.
Balance: The charitable person gives generously and wisely, seeking the genuine good of others while maintaining due care for their own needs.
Temperance:
Excess: Insensibility – rejecting pleasure altogether, despising the natural enjoyments.
Deficiency: Gluttony – overindulgence in food, and drink.
Balance: The temperate person enjoys pleasures in moderation, guided by reason and mindful of health, and harmony.
Chastity:
Excess: Prudishness – an excessive fear or shame of sexuality, denying its natural goodness and role in human affection.
Deficiency: Lust – uncontrolled desire that leads to treating others as objects for pleasure rather than persons to be loved.
Balance: The chaste person orders desire according to love, respect, and fidelity.