Aristotle’s life and writings continues to be a major tap root for Virtue Ethics. Aristotle desired that people live a life of ‘meaning’ and hence of ‘happiness.’ Thus, one’s end in life is to give one’s life ‘meaning’ and to make it about something worthwhile. Consider, that when we wish someone a ‘good life,’ one thing we clearly wish for them is that their lives be rich and fulfilling for the unique individuals they are. According to Aristotle, as humans our distinctive mode of life is to be able to live by ‘practical reasoning’ (this is, according to Aristotle, our ‘function’ in life – to be reasonable, rational beings). If we live this way we will experience a ‘fully human life.’
‘Happiness,’ therefore, is two things at once: it is the final end for a life of ‘practical reasoning’ and it is a ‘good life’ for the person living it. What does this mean? Aristotle helps us; he identifies what can be called ‘formal constraints’ on the kind of ‘good’ that happiness is. Consider the following:
- Happiness must be an ‘active life:’ we live by choosing and acting.
- Happiness depends on what a person does with his or her own life, not on what someone else is doing in his or her life (someone else cannot give nor take away our happiness).
- Happiness depends on how one acts; it is more stable than ‘luck.’
- Happiness must be good ‘in its own right’ (e.g., ‘money’ is not good in and of itself).
- Happiness must be ‘final’ or ‘comprehensive:’ happiness is good for its own sake; it is never for the sake of anything else.
- Happiness must be ‘self-sufficient:’ because happiness is final, it is therefore the greatest thing one could want in life. ‘Self-sufficiency’ here does not mean being rich or powerful or having no need of others – it means ‘having all one needs for the sake of the life one is living’ (a fulfilled life – a life full of ‘meaning’).
- Happiness is being ‘fully human’ – a living paradox.
Aristotle’s constraints rule out any number of candidates for happiness: moneymaking, prestige, indulgence or consumption (this, Aristotle says is for cows), luck (which, as many of us know, is quite unstable and unreliable), chronic lethargy (waiting to be taken care of). Aristotle also asks us to consider that none of the above could be ‘something we want everything else for the sake of’ AND it is impossible for all of us to have even one of these (how could we all have all of the money). On the other hand, we can each live a life that is fulfilling, a life that is rooted in rational thinking, wisdom and ‘healthy’ emotions (‘virtuous activity’ is what Aristotle calls this). ‘Virtuous activity’ is, for Aristotle, the most important ingredient when it comes to ‘happiness.’
What are some of the traits – characteristics – of such a virtuous person? Aristotle calls these traits ‘excellences’ and they include the following: fairness, honesty, generosity, even-temperedness, friendliness, proper pride and an appropriate sense of shame, courage, temperance and ‘practical wisdom.’ These are the ‘virtues’ – the virtues of character and practical intellect (we need both says Aristotle; having just one will not enable us to live a life of ‘happiness’ – a life of ‘meaning’).
Understanding the virtues in this way has several important implications for virtue ethics. For example, it provides us with a distinctive picture of the virtues: the virtues are human ‘excellences,’ and this means they are both ‘deep’ and ‘broad.’ They are deep in so far as they are steady and reliable, and intelligent dispositions, rather than mere habits (they become ‘second nature to us’); they involve caring strongly about certain things and reasoning wisely about them. They are broad in that they have a broad reach involving one’s emotional reactions, attitudes, desires, values, etc. In addition, these ‘excellences’ of character are inseparable from the excellence of practical wisdom. As Aristotle puts it, the virtues of character give us the right sorts of ends, such as helping a friend (being generous) and practical wisdom (in Greek, ‘phronesis’) enables us to deliberate intelligently about those ends, such as what would really count as helping as contrasted with merely having one’s heart in the right place.
Virtue ethics does concern itself with what is right and what one ought to do, but in virtue ethics the focus is on how to deliberate well about such questions, for which rules are generally insufficient. Virtue ethics is concerned with what an act says about the person who acts; this tends to shift the attention onto the life-long process of personal development. Virtue ethics offers us action guidance less by giving us rules to follow than by telling us how to become people who can do what rules never can.
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