...The Nicomachean Ethics is a famous book, where Aristotle follows Socrates and Plato in discussing the virtues of a central to a well-lived life. In this specific passage, Aristotle regards the ethical virtue of Friendliness to be a central part of social intercourse. Aristotle describes how different people act differently in different situations because of the social situation and kind of person they are. The passage builds the case to show how people are different, and how we should be able to better identify who a true friend truly is. There are different types of friendship, friendship based on greed, and friendship based on goodness of character. This assignment will discuss and better interpret these different characteristics which Aristotle...
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...The last question to address is, how is one’s individual potential shaped by one’s relationships to others? The reading on Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle goes into great depth on the many types of friendships and how each one differs from the next. Aristotle identifies the three main types of friendships; the friendship of goodness, friendship for the sake of utility, and friendship for the sake of pleasure. The friendship that only seeks pleasure is, according to Aristotle, a bad friendship because the goal is merely to benefit one person and not both people in the relationship. This relationship’s foundation is based on each person’s vices rather than their virtues (Aristotle 3). When one does not possess a virtuous relationship, they are...
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...Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics defined a virtuous act to be an act that satisfied three conditions. He further elaborated on it using his function argument to emphasize that acting virtuously according to reason fulfilled our function and brought us pleasure. This claim seems to be in tension with Kant’s view that a dutiful action is motivated by the reason for your action, maxims, undertaken out of reverence to the moral law. Although dutiful actions conform to ‘the good will’, they may conflict with happiness. I will argue through Aristotle’s function argument, Kant’s definition of a good will and the parallels of their requirements for moral acts that although their claims about the nature of virtuous and dutiful action seem to be in tension with each other, they both agree the source of virtuous and dutiful actions is reason....
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...The nature of the universe in Aristotle lecture in “Nicomachean Ethics” is the end of in all the things we do, “Therefore, if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good achievable by action (Aristotle 5). We are uncertain of the end to come because the choices we are to make in life has a different ending to them. Aristotle implication in his lecture are that we may find that end through knowledge of art or particularly, political sciences and desiring to aim at it for the sake of pursing something good. The universe teaches us that the good things to be learned in life starts with known about certain subjects. An end is reached when men performs acts that’s leading to that end. Which is the only way men arriving at any state...
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...From seeking enjoyment to avoiding grief, most people's goal in life is about achieving happiness. However, how to define and obtain happiness in one's life and also living it virtuous can be challenging. When we consider the questions of how we should live our lives, we often seek for some method or schematic that we can apply to help us classify our actions and qualities as good, bad, or indifferent. Such a means of methodology would surely make it easier to determine what the right thing to do is. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle formulates a concept in which we can integrate into our lives to measure and characterize our actions and choices. This concept is called the Doctrine of the Mean and according to Aristotle if we utilize his...
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...There is no contesting that Abraham as he appears in Genesis has faith in God. Although this is true, many hold Abraham to be an example of what faith should look like despite reoccurring examples of his occasional lack of total faith in certain situations. In line with this, many would assume that Abraham possesses a virtuous character, as many perceive faith to be a virtue. However, by Aristotle’s definition of virtue as it is presented in Nicomachean Ethics, faith itself would not be a virtue but in fact an excess condition of trust and loyalty. It because of Abraham’s lack of total faith in God – which is itself would be considered a vice for two reasons: because it is an excess condition and because it doesn’t account for self-interest...
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...Aristotelian Virtue ethics is the most developed of the classical philosophy. Virtue Ethics is concerned with the development of ‘virtues’ within a moral agent. Aristotle argues that a ‘virtue’ is an ethical quality that lies between excess and deficiency. His book ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ features a table of personality traits in which there is ‘excess’ and ‘deficiency’ and the doctrine of the mean, which outlines the optimum development of an ethical quality, but it is relative to the people involved, it is described in the book as ‘that which is neither excessive nor deficient, and this is not one and the same for all’. One example he uses in the table of virtues is ‘Shame’, in which shamelessness is excessive and shyness is deficient while modesty lies between them and is the doctrine of the mean. In modern times, Scholars have criticised Aristotle’s Virtue ethics for being too relative, vague and self-centred. Many Modern Ethicists have written their own theories of virtue ethics to try and address some of the issues. Aristotle’s teachings of virtue have been criticised by J.L Mackie, Louden and Sidgewick for being too vague for actual application. Sidgewick said that it ‘only indicates the whereabouts of a virtue’. Benjamin Franklin’s Virtue Ethics attempts to address the vagueness of Aristotle’s teachings. Franklin was a utilitarian who believed that all actions should bring about the ‘greatest good for the greatest number’- he believed that in order for this to work...
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...ETHICS IN ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY Kaplan University AC504-01 Professor Sandra Gates Introduction In this paper I am going to discuss the philosopher Aristotle. I will also talk about Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics philosophy, why it is important, and how it potentially connects to accounting and business. Aristotle was born in Stagiros, Macedon, in 384 B.C. He was educated by a guardian after his father had died. At the age of seventeen his guardian sent him to the centre of intellectual and artistic life in Athens. While he was there “he entered Plato’s Academy where he stayed for about twenty years as a student and then later as a teacher” (no author, n.d, page 1, paragraph 1). After teaching for a number of years, Aristotle sailed for Assos in Asia Minor; he lived there for three years while he gained interest in biology, anatomy, and began work on his book the Politics. Aristotle was a tireless scholar, whose scientific explorations were as wide ranging as his philosophical speculations were profound; a teacher who inspired and who continues to inspire generations of students; a controversial public figure who lived a turbulent life in a turbulent world. He bestrode antiquity like an intellectual colossus. No man before him had contributed so much to learning. Aristotle offers a business ethic intent on advancing the attainment of personal happiness. He defines happiness in the universalistic terms, and insists upon the priority of exercising...
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...supported and believed in their own arguments. They were similar in their approach to ethics; they both admire reason and rationality. The basic beliefs of Aristotle contrasted with the modern ideas of Immanuel Kant which offered a great match for an interesting view of human good and good will. However, after a thorough inspection of each philosopher's theories, I found that after initially leaning toward Aristotle’s theories I discovered that Kant's idea of good was found to be more captivating than Aristotle's, in that Kant's view addressed good in a complete sense through categorical obligations of man. Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and was passionate about the virtue ethics, as were a lot of the early philosophers in Greece. He was a student of Plato and wrote on a variety of topics. “Aristotle set the tone of the virtue ethics approach with his observation that in exploring the moral dimension of experience, he said we are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live. A sentiment that echoed Socrates’ commitment to moral action.” (Chaffee, 2013, p. 482). Aristotle believed virtue ethics was the cultivation of a virtuous person to be the goal of ethics. He believed that genuinely virtuous people would act in a moral way, as a reflection of their moral goodness. Aristotle’s main piece of work in this category is called The Nicomachean Ethics. In his book Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle asks his reader what they would consider to be good. Aristotle listed a...
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...up with a moral program for my personal and professional lives. Whether it is applying the ethical principles of Aristotle, Kant and Mill, or combating moral illiteracy within my department, I plan to use my newfound information to its greatest potential. Therefore, this article first elucidates on the moral program that I would implement in my professional life as a nurse. Consequently, the second part is on a program fitted for my personal life as a single mother to a four-year-old child. Out of all the philosophers that we studied during the course, Aristotle's virtue ethics is the most suitable theory for my profession. According to Solomon (1992), Aristotle believed that “virtuous acts required conscious choice and moral purpose or motivation” (Solomon, 1992, p. 321). In this regard, this is the most crucial aspect that I must exemplify in my professional life as a nurse. Furthermore, the six dimensions of virtue ethics are community, excellence, role identity, holism, integrity and judgment are crucial for an exemplary career as a...
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...Picture this: as you are walking home late at night after work you witness a victim being harassed by a perpetrator. What do you do? Do you play as a bystander and continue watching without assisting or heroic and intervene to assist the victim? Aristotle would not choose either. Instead he would assess the situation and act according, if the perpetrator deemed much bigger than himself he’d standby and call for help and if he had the capability of tackling the perpetrator he would. This decision is relative of Aristotle’s golden mean which is a component of virtue ethics he introduced. Unlike the others, Aristotle ethics did not include a set of rules of what to do or what not to do and how to systemically approach situations, but more of focusing...
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...In his book Nichomacean Ethics, Aristotle states that to live a good and happy life a human being must have a proper function, “an activity of the soul in conformity with a rational principle” (p 17 line 3) that is ‘aim[ed] at some good” (p3 line 2). However, some achieve that proper function more effectively than others through their decisions. Aristotle mentions that “some vices exceed and others fall short of what is required in emotion and in action, whereas virtue finds and chooses the median” (p44 line 5), which shows that to live blissfully one must find the mean in all of their actions, which is a grey area within limits in the spectrum of choices, and avoid the extremes on the ends of this spectrum. This clip, Illegal Immigration: The Destruction of America, shows the views of a group of Americans against foreigners immigrating into their country to enjoy the benefits of the American society. However, this view on illegal immigration is unethical in terms of Aristotle’s principles as it prevents these people from attaining their high standards and proper human function by taking away the rights they could achieve in the land of the “free”, it also disregards the idea of a grey area, only showing the irrational and biased American extreme. The clip complains about how Mexican people come into America and take on the jobs that “Americans won’t do” (0:13), and how “they use hospital services while Americans pick up the bill” (1:35). This personally affected me as it contradicts...
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...In reality, treating people equally is not the most important moral principle for resolving issues of poverty, sexism and disabilities, notwithstanding the fact that the counter proposition is often propounded. Many people hold the view that we are responsible for looking after the world’s population by treating everyone the same and by providing equal treatment to everyone, regardless of the fact that individual situations may not allow for such actions. Unfortunately although this viewpoint is seen to hold ethical significance, it is simply not a reality that translates to a possibility. This paper argues in support of the ethical viewpoint, that treating people equally is not the most important moral principle in resolving issues of poverty, by employing fundamental arguments and supporting frameworks to contribute to this conclusion. Ethical grounds for my arguments shall be explored, such as theories propounded by Aristotle, Bentham, Stuart Mill and Kant, in order to support the framework and provide supporting claims. Education and the opportunities that learning environments provide, are fundamental to the measurable successes and accomplishments within our modern day society. However, the great disparity in education standards across the globe are grounds to base an argument on the fact that subsequently treating people equally regardless of access or the ability to achieve certain levels of education, is not equitable and reasonable. Unfortunately it has been estimated...
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...What are the distinctions among philosophy, ethics, morals, and values, and why are these important concepts for modern-day business managers? (based on Business Ethics text Chapter 1; tied to course competencies 3 and 4) All four concepts (philosophy, morals, ethics, & values) seem to focus on the knowledge of positive and negative, but they do so in different ways. Philosophy uses one’s mentality to bring forth the truths (positive) and untruths (negative) of the deeper fundamental & problematic questions in regards to the nature of the world. Morals are one’s belief on what’s right (positive) or wrong (negative) based on the influence from society. Ethics is a systematic approach that focuses on one’s behavior to determine or predict the benefits (positive) or harmfulness (negative) to human beings. Values are one’s individual beliefs on what are an appropriate (positive) or inappropriate (negative) attitudes and actions in regards to things that are worthwhile or desirable in life. These concepts are important for modern day business managers because they are the life lines for all successful companies. The all have a positive or negative affect on a company’s productivity. If a company’s productivity is affected negatively, the success & survival of the company is put in great jeopardy. What is Plato’s Doctrine of the Forms, and does it have any relevance to the modern-day corporation? (based on Business Ethics text Chapter 2; tied to course competencies...
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...BUSINESS ETHICS AND VIRTUE A review on On Robert C. Solomon’s many ways of being ethical SUBMITTED BY: NAME: STEVE AGONO OBADO COURSE: MsIT BUSINESS ETHICS AND VIRTUE A review on On Robert C. Solomon’s many ways of being ethical SUBMITTED BY: NAME: STEVE AGONO OBADO COURSE: MsIT BUSINESS AND VIRTUE INTRODUCTION The author of this thesis seeks to examine unexplored solutions that could add value to the already existent ethical disclosure and because there is a lack of consensus regarding ethical issues in the workplace. He therefore specifically chose to study the virtue framework articulated by Philosopher Robert C. Solomon, precisely in the business context. He deals with the philosophical problem in a twofold approach. 1. One refers to virtue ethics and 2. Application in the specific branch of business ethics. His thesis will attempt to show the richness and value of such an approach to solve ethical dilemmas in business and in life. MAIN THRUST OF THE ARGUMENT The aim of the thesis is to show how an application of virtue reflects one of many ‘ethical styles’ (Solomon 1999). He goes through various interpretations of virtue ethics. 1. TAYLOR’S INTERPRETATION He thinks that by exclusively adopting the virtuous ethical standpoint one will have a definitive answer to every moral problem. The others believe that Taylor’s proposal is flawed in some aspects. 2. ARISTOTOLE’S ETHICAL THEORY IN CONNECTION TO BUSINESS ETHICS The author states...
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