Aristotle's 12 virtues:
- Courage – bravery.
- Temperance – moderation.
- Liberality – spending.
- Magnificence – charisma, style.
- Magnanimity – generosity.
- Ambition – pride.
- Patience – temper, calm.
- Friendliness – social IQ.
More explicitly, an action counts as virtuous, according to Aristotle, when one holds oneself in a stable equilibrium of the soul, in order to choose the action knowingly and for its own sake. This stable equilibrium of the soul is what constitutes character.
Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards.
Socrates: The Father of Ethics and Inquiry (The Greatest Greek Philosophers) Hardcover – Import, 1 August 2015.
At its simplest, ethics is a system of moral principles. Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals and society and is also described as moral philosophy. The term is derived from the Greek word ethos which can mean custom, habit, character or disposition.
According to Aristotle, happiness consists in achieving, through the course of a whole lifetime, all the goods — health, wealth, knowledge, friends, etc. — that lead to the perfection of human nature and to the enrichment of human life. This requires us to make choices, some of which may be very difficult.
Aristotle's best life for humans. According to Aristotle, the goal of a happy life is action itself, aiming to reach Eudaimonia. For Aristotle, Eudaimonia represents the ultimate goal. Every activity is performed for a certain target, which is rated individually as good and makes the best life to an active approach.
Virtues are habits of the soul by which one acts well, i.e., for the sake of what is fine and noble. As Aristotle puts it, virtuous actions express correct (right) reason. They are acquired through practice and habituation. Virtue is difficult to attain, since if we simply follow our inclinations, we become vicious.
The purpose of life is to live and let live. The societal living is possible when there are communal harmony and feeling of brotherhood among its members. The institutions of family and marriage contribute to the harmonious living in a society. Peaceful coexistence is the key to a successful life.
Plato viewed human beings as inherently rational, social souls burdened by imprisonment within their physical bodies. According to him, the soul or mind attains knowledge of the forms, as opposed to the senses.
Virtue ethics mainly deals with the honesty and morality of a person. It states that practicing good habits such as honesty, generosity makes a moral and virtuous person. It guides a person without specific rules for resolving the ethical complexity.
According to virtue ethics, the true goal and greatest good for human beings is dominatus, which means "mastery" or "control" and refers to the exertion of power or influence over other people. According to virtue ethics, a moral virtue is the midpoint between religion and faith.
While there are a variety of different consequentialist views and arguments, we can consider utilitarianism to be the archetype of consequentialist ethics. Note that whereas deontology focuses on rules for action and utilitarianism focuses on consequences of action, virtue ethics focuses on our way of life.
