PHIL 120 · Ethics and Political Philosophy — Virtue, the Mean, and Practical Wisdom

Led by Aristotle

The second module of the Cambridge Part IA Ethics paper, led by Aristotle. If flourishing is activity in accordance with virtue, what is virtue? Aristotle's answer founds virtue ethics: character is a disposition built by habit, virtue lies in a mean relative to us, and right action is judged not by a rule but by the perception of the person of practical wisdom. The module covers habituation, the mean, voluntariness and responsibility, practical wisdom, and the puzzle of weakness of will.

1. Module 2 ○ Open

   Virtue, the Mean, and Practical Wisdom

   Led by Aristotle

   The question

   What is virtue, where does it come from, and how does it tell us what to do? Aristotle argues that virtue of character is a disposition built up by habit, structured as a mean between doing or feeling too much and too little — but a mean relative to us, not a sum, and fixed by the judgement of the person of practical wisdom rather than by any rule. He secures what makes our actions and characters our own (so that praise and blame are just), and confronts the old puzzle of how someone can know the better and still do the worse. Underlying it all is a claim the rest of the paper will test: that right action cannot be reduced to a formula, but is seen, in the particular case, by the trained perception of the good person.

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