final haha Flashcards
(34 cards)
What is the end or goal of ethics?
Happiness
Why must there be a final end for human actions? What do we call this final end? What are its features?
Because if there wasn’t, nothing could ever be chosen. The means are defined by some end.
Chief good.
Desired for its own sake and everything is sought for its sake.
Why is it those who are young in age or character can’t be taught ethics?
their actions are determined by their passions not their reasons
What is it that makes anything good?
performs its function well
What’s a good way of telling what something’s function is?
look for what is unique to it
Provide Aristotle’s arguments for why the final end cannot be pleasure, wealth, or honor.
Pleasure: can gain from bad things, fitting to beasts, temporary
Wealth: means to an end
Honor: depends on other people, given bc of something better than honor
Provide Aristotle’s definition of happiness.
Virtuous activity in accordance with reason
What are the three kinds of goods Aristotle lists in bk. 1, ch. 8? Which kind of good is happiness?
Goods of the soul, goods of the body, external goods. Happiness is good of the soul bc it is something that has to belong to you (it is what you are) sought for its own sake
What are the three main divisions of the soul that Aristotle makes? In which part or parts is virtue found? What is an intellectual virtue? What is a moral virtue? Be able to explain your answers.
Rational & non-rational. Non-rational is divided into vegetative (health/nutrition) and appetitive (moral virtues perfect it). An intellectual virtue perfects the rational part of the soul.
How does one become intellectually virtuous? How does one become morally virtuous?
Intellectually: through learning
Morally: through habit, gained through repeated activity
What are the three conditions necessary for an act to be virtuous? Explain.
has to be done with knowledge, has to be done with choice, act done from a firm character
Give the genus and specific difference of virtue, and be able to explain your answer.
Genus: state of character
Specific difference: disposes our actions and passions well
Provide Aristotle’s complete definition of virtue, and be able to explain each part of this definition.
Virtue is a state of character, concerned with choice, that disposes our actions and passions well, that is it disposes them to the mean, the mean determined by reason and as the prudent man would determine it
Is virtue a mean or an extreme? Explain.
Extreme in what is good, but it is a mean because there is an excess and deficiency in us
What makes an action voluntary or involuntary?
Involuntary: action done by force, agency is outside of the person acting or ignorance
Voluntary: principle agency of force found within, and awareness of proper circumstances and end of action
When does ignorance make our acts involuntary? Explain.
Not ignorance of universal truth, it is the ignorance of the circumstances and end
Is it within our power to be good or bad? Be able to respond to objections.
Yes, because we do choose the actions that give us that state of character
Name the so-called “cardinal virtues.”
Temperance and courage and prudence and justice
What is courage?
Mean in ones avoidance of pain, mean in fear/confidence
What is temperance?
Mean in the pursuit of pleasure, mean in bodily pleasure, in touch
What are the two subparts of the rational part of the soul, and what do they do?
Scientific: studies unchangeable things, (intuition/understanding, science and wisdom)
Calculative: studies changeable things (prudence, art)
What is the difference between science and art?
About different objects, and bringing things into being vs. truth
Is it possible to be virtuous without practical wisdom (prudence)? Explain.
no because if you do not have prudence you will not end up doing the right thing, prudence allows you to know what the right thing is
Is it possible to have one virtue without the others? Explain
No because all of the virtues are intertwined
