Virtue Ethics and the Three Condtions

A brief definition of virtue ethics is that virtue ethics is a state that intends to discover and classify what might be deemed of moral character and to apply the moral character as a basis for one's choices and behavior. The concept of virtue ethics dates back to the ancient Greek. The systems of virtue ethic are the oldest type of ethical theory in Western philosophy. The first systematic description of virtue ethics was written by Aristotle who accomplished the famous work called Nichomachean Ethics.

To illustrate the essence of virtue ethics, we need to know that virtue ethics are acquired by habituation. They do not naturally arise in us from birth, but we have the capability to require and perfect them. Virtue can make a thing perform its function well in order to find the best good. Virtue is also a state intermediate between two extremes, and the specific mean need to apply to the individual virtues. To meet the key elements of virtue ethics, there are three conditions we need to consider. First, the person must know that he is doing virtuous actions. Second, he must decide on them by themselves as a mean state. Third, he must do them from a firm and unchanging state.

Actually, virtue ethics are teleological instead of consequentialist. Virtue ethics describes the character of a moral agent as a driving force for ethical behavior, the character and disposition of persons but not as the consequence. Virtue ethics are considered to be the value of actions as the realizations of certain good character traits or virtues. For example, a consequentialist may argue that murdering is wrong because of the negative consequences produced by murdering others. A virtue ethicist, however, would focus less on the aftermath and instead consider what a decision to commit the murder or not murdering a life said about one's character and moral behavior. In sum, action-ethics emphasize doing, virtue of ethics emphasize being a certain type of person who will no doubt manifest his or her being in actions or non-actions.

Simply to illustrate, virtues are all the characteristics that enable individuals to have a good life and live well in a big community. By living well we acquire the right habits, the state that intermediate between the two extremes, the soul's activity that expresses virtue as the human function. Thus there are three conditions that are all significant to have a virtue.

The first condition is that a person must understand why he is doing virtuous action. That is to say, an agent must clearly realize the reason and the motive of what he is doing. Aristotle found that human function is the soul's activity that expresses reason or requires reason. Therefore, virtue of human beings makes a human being good and makes him perform his function well.

Aristotle believed that the special function of human beings is not nutrition or growth, as this is apparently shared with plants. Also it is not perception and motion, as this is obviously common to animals. But rational activity which is part of the soul that has reasons is unique for human beings. So he made the conclusion that the function of humans is to lead a life with activity and action of the soul to have reasons. According to virtue ethics, the good for human beings is to perform the function well.

The purpose of the Nicomachean Ethics is to discover the human good. By admitting that best good is happiness, Aristotle suggests that we might arrive at a clearer conception what the best good is if we could first verify the function of a human being. For all things have a function or action, the good thought to reside in the function. The human function is an active life that has reason and thinks rationally. Therefore, the human good is the action of the rational part of the soul performed well, when its completion expresses the proper virtue.

The good we are seeking is the human good which is defined as happiness. Aristotle expressed this good as being the highest end of action, which is something self-sufficient