Monday, October 10, 2016

Aristotle and Virtue

"So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, by that which a prudent man would use to determine it."
   In Book 2, Aristotle presents another view on the infamous subject of Virtue. 
In his opinion, virtue is purely learned. We are not born with it, nor are we supposed to gain it from some earlier life and the knowledge we had then. It is learned by following instruction and making decisions in different circumstances. He believed that there was no specific set of rules to be followed; we just learned what we learned and lead our lives through those principles. What do you guys think though? Is there not some form of known virtue already written on our hearts? Or must we learn everything?

PS- I commented on Ty's and Olivia's posts

1 comment:

  1. I'm not sure if I'd say it's "written on our hearts" because I don't think that we're born virtuous, or that it's entirely learned, rather, I think that we are all given the potential for virtue in different forms and we can choose whether or not to practice and foster that ability and that dictates whether or not we become a virtuous person or not.

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