Virtue, The mean, and Practical
Wisdom
Lucas, Margie E.
Pagutlan, Lizalyn S.
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Aims of this presentation
• To understand what is meant by virtue
(arete)
• To consider Aristotle’s goal, the
supreme good of flourishing
(eudaimonia)
• To know the relativeness of the mean
to the person facing a moral choices.
• To discover the importance of practical
wisdom (phronesis) for the good life
• To evaluate virtue ethics

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We grow into the good life
• “The soul must first be conditioned by
good habits, as land must be cultivated
by good seed”.
Nicomachean Ethics

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What Is Virtue?
• What exactly can we define as
virtue?
• In this next exercise you will
need to pick 5 of the possible
characteristics of a virtuous
person

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Exercise 1: Pick 5
• Friendship
• Justice
• Courage
• Temperance
• Loyalty
• Fortitude
(perseverance)
• Honesty
• Generosity
• Humour
• Ambition
• Wealth
• Humility
• Faithfulness
• Hope
• Agape (unconditional
love)
• Anger
• Obedience

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In the next few slides you will see some
characters……..
• What virtue or virtues would
you associate with each?
• What does the variety of
virtues tell us about virtue
ethics?

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Conclusion
• Virtue = skill or excellence
• Rooney is a “virtuous” footballer
• Jesus perfected virtue eg “perfect love casts
out fear”, “greater love has no man than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends” (John
14:13)
• So we distinguish between moral virtues and
intellectual (or other virtues, like footballing
skills), developed by training to produce
excellence.
• Different virtues apply in different cultures.

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Ethical
Theories
VirtueTeleological Deontological
Ends
Consequences
Calculation
Character
Habits
Living
Rules
Absolutes
Obedience
Action Habit of character Action

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There are two categories of virtue
Intellectual Virtues
Intellectual virtues are
virtues of the mind.
Such as the ability to
understand, reason and
make sound judgement
Intellectual virtues may be
taught, like logic and
mathematics by teachers.
Moral Virtues
Not innate, rather they are
acquired through repetition
and practice, like learning a
music instrument.
It is through the practice
and the doing that one
becomes a type of person.
Over a period of time virtues
become second nature.

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Virtue summary
• Habit of Character
(arete in Greek)
• Involving both Feeling
and Action
• Seeks the mean between
excess and deficiency
• Promotes human
flourishing (eudaimonia
in Greek)
• Intellectual and moral

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Aristotle
• “Some people believe that
nature makes people good,
others believe that it is habit,
and still others say that it is
teaching. Experience shows
that logical arguments and
teaching are not effective in
most cases. The soul of the
students must have been
conditioned by good habits
just as land must be cultivated
to nurture seed. For a person
whose life is guided by
emotion will not listen to a
rational argument, nor will he
understand it.”

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How To Achieve Eudaimonia
Aristotle defined Good as something that
fulfils its ends purpose
The Telos of humanity is to be rational
The ergon (function) of practical reason
(phronesis) is to identify virtue
“The good for human beings is an activity of the
soul in accordance with arete”

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Aristotle: eudaimonia and the “complete life”
• “We state the function of man to be a certain kind of
life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul
implying a rational principle, and the function of a
good man to be the good and noble performance of
these, and any action is well performed when it is
performed in accordance with the appropriate
excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out
to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if
there is more than one virtue, in accordance with the
best and most complete. But we must add 'in a
complete life.' For one swallow does not make a
summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a
short time, does not make a man blessed and
happy.” Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 part 6

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Person-centred
• The “ethics of dilemma” approach to morality
forgets an essential part of ethics – THE
PERSON’S CHARACTER and how personal
moral growth is encouraged
We are not concerned to
know what goodness is but
how to become good
people, since otherwise our
enquiry would be useless.
Aristotle
The ethical condition is not
the condition of having a
certain right theory; rather
the ethical condition is
having a certain character.
Alasdair Macintyre

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Golden Mean and eudaimonia
• Golden Mean does not entail
a denial of emotions.
• Rather what is at issue is
how, and to what extent,
reason permits the
expression of emotions.
• Aristotle developed Plato’s
three part teaching of the
soul (reason, emotions,
appetites) by attributing
virtues to each feature.
Reason = Phronesis
(Wisdom)
Emotions = Courage
Appetite = Temperance
(Self–control)

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Phronesis or practical wisdom
• A virtue of our rational selves
• It means judgement or prudence
• It is applied to our irrational appetites
and desires to make them “good”
• Phronesis is vital to achieve eudaimonia
(flourishing) or perfection of character
over the whole of our lives

Aristotle on phronesis
• Practical wisdom is ‘a true and reasoned
state of capacity to act with regard to
the things that are good or bad for
man’ (Nicomachean Ethics VI.5)
• It is not merely theoretical knowledge
of what is good or bad, but also the
capacity to act on such knowledge.

Features of practical wisdom
• a general conception of what is good or bad,
which Aristotle relates to the conditions for
human flourishing;
• the ability to perceive, in light of that general
conception, what is required in terms of
feeling, choice, and action in a particular
situation;
• the ability to deliberate well; and
• the ability to act on that deliberation.

Demanding
• Type of insight into the good and
relation to virtues is very complex
• Cannot be taught, but learned through
experience
• Only the good person knows what is
truly good

Objection
• Without virtue, we can’t know what is
good – so not everyone knows what is
good
• True, but this knowledge comes in
degrees, and we can hold most people
responsible
– And people can improve their knowledge of
what is good by trying to become better
people

Insight
• Understanding human flourishing in
general
• Understanding what is required in a
particular situation in light of a general
understanding of what is good
– There are no rules
• Understanding how to act in this
situation

Insight
• There are no true generalizations about
good and bad
– Moral (practical) reasoning is a form of
intuitive reason, grasping what is required
in each case
• As with perception, argument may not
convince – you need to ‘see’
• What is not general cannot be taught

Insight
• Understanding what counts as a virtue
– Which character traits are necessary for a good
life
– Which emotional responses are good here and
now
• The virtuous person feels and chooses ‘at the
right times, with reference to the right
objects, towards the right people, with the
right motive, and in the right way’

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Aristotle’s argument
• Our emotions and desires are irrational
and need to be controlled by reason.
• In order to control them, we need to
apply the moral virtue of practical
wisdom.
• We need to find the mid-point or mean
between two vices.

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The doctrine of the mean
• You can feel anger too much (common!) or
too little (rare)
– About too many people
– Too often
– Too angry
– = Short-tempered
• Being good-tempered doesn’t mean only
getting moderately angry or only moderately
often, but as the situation requires.

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The doctrine of the mean
• Virtues tend to lie between two
opposing vices, e.g. honesty:
– ‘Too much’ = tactlessness
– ‘Too little’ = deceitfulness

Objection
• The doctrine of the mean is no practical
help – how often or how angry should
we get?
– Aristotle says the mean is where the person
with practical wisdom judges it to be
• The ‘mean’ is meaningless: ‘Too much’
and ‘too little’ aren’t actually quantities
on a single scale

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The Golden Mean – a balance point
Mean
Deficiency Excess
Cowardice Recklessnesscourage
One must find the right balance between Cowardice and
Recklessness… Courage

Guidance
• The theory of practical wisdom and
virtue provides no guidance for life
• Reply: not true – we should think of
situations in terms of the virtues
• What if the virtues seem to conflict, e.g.
justice and mercy?
– This is where practical wisdom is needed
most – but did you think life wouldn’t be
messy?

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Applying the mean
• To ourselves (see next slide)
• To our family life (wider relationships)
• To our communal life (eg politics).
Aristotle saw friendship as a key virtue
to build the city state (the polis in
Greek)
What other virtues do you think would
cause the polis (politics) to flourish?

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MeanDeficiency ExcessSphere of
existence
Pride
Self-respect
Self-appreciation
Servility
Undervaluing
Low self image
Arrogance
Egotism
vanity
Attitude to
self
Right anger
Forgiveness
Empathy
Apathy
Doormat
Coldness
Revenge
Grudge
Resentment
Attitude
Towards
Others
Indifference
Betrayal
Lies
Friendship
Loyalty
Honesty
Nosiness
Captiveness
Bluntness
Attitude
Towards Our
Common Life
Virtues and Spheres of Existence

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Phronesis builds character
• “Virtue is concerned with emotions and
actions, and here excess is an error and
deficiency a fault, whereas the mean is
commendable..determined as the
prudent man (phronimos) would
determine it”.
Nicomachean Ethics

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Aristotle's Concept Of Life And Death
1
2
3
4
Phronesis =
practical wisdom
Birth Old Age
Sophia =
skills
mastered
Moral progress
– by training
Intellectual – by
education
Eudaimonia

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In other words…..
• We build character through experience
of life (the blue line goes round in
circles as we reflect on our choices)
• We also learn by EMULATION (following
our heroes) and EDUCATION (being
taught).

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Exercise 3: virtues and vices
• On a piece of paper draw three
columns.
• Write Aristotle’s list of virtues (next
slide) in the middle column.
• Look up what they mean and decide on
a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess
for each.

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Aristotle’s list of virtues
• Courage
• Temperance = moderation eg in drinking
• Honesty
• Magnificence = choosing the best, in an appropriate
way eg for your income and status
• Ambition
• Anger = right anger on the right issue with
the right person eg injustice
• Magnanimity = large-mindedness, eg mercy to foes
• Wittiness
• Generosity
• Friendliness
• Modesty
• Patience

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Key question:
• Would our list be the same?
• Do any of Aristotle’s virtues surprise
you?
• What does this list suggest about the
relative nature of Virtue Ethics?
• Should courage really be a moral
virtue?

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Should courage be a moral virtue?
• A recent programme on Kamikaze
pilots suggest that courage
shouldn’t be a moral virtue because
you can have evil courage (as a
suicide bomber).
• Similarly, temperance, modesty,
ambition and magnificence might be
termed “non-moral virtues”.
• So how might we define a moral
virtue?

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Three weaknesses of virtue ethics
• Culturally captive
The virtues reflect middle class Greek
values.
“Ethics appeals to the respectable middle-
aged..and has been used to suppress
the enthusiasm and ardour of the
young”. Bertrand Russell

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Three weaknesses contd
• Aristotle’s virtues cannot explain
weakness of will.
Experiments like the Milgram
experiment show that, under pressure,
individuals behave in very unvirtuous
ways (such as delivering deadly electric
shocks).

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Three weaknesses contd.
• Virtues cannot be separated from ends
and consequences.
You can be a courageous Nazi, or a
loyal Nazi, but if the end is evil then the
virtue itself becomes evil.

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Three strengths
• In stressing character and the end of
the good life, virtue ethics goes behind
the action and escapes the sterility of
utilitarianism or Kantian ethics.
Character lies behind action and so
virtues are key in determining good
actions.

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Three strengths contd.
• Virtues have a social dimension.
The Greeks believed that it is
impossible for the individual to flourish
without the community. To the Greeks,
friendship was a key virtue: they
avoided the individualism inherent in
(for example) utilitarianism.

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Three strengths contd.
• Virtue ethics sees eudaimonia as the
ultimate telos or end.
Eudaimonia means flourishing, and is a
much richer idea than happiness or
pleasure. It is something you grow into
over your life as you exercise the skill of
phronesis (practical wisdom).