After spending some time reading and analyzing the section on Aristotle, I've come to the conclusion that Aristotle's ethics are, for the most part, virtue ethics. I find this particularly interesting because he also thought that "each substance is a self-contained teleological system." In particular, teleology has an entirely different focal point than virtue ethics, which generally seems to imply that each ethical theory would advocate different "ethical" actions. However, by making virtue the goal of human activity, the difference between the two schools of ethics becomes one of name only. Later in history, virtue ethics was broadened to focus more on determining what is virtuous rather than how virtue should affect one's actions. Despite this shift, I still find it rather interesting how Aristotle shaped virtue ethics using teleology.
Also related, the touch of ethical egoism evident in Aristotle's philosophy is somewhat amusing. Making one's materialistic well-being a condition for virtue is quite an idea considering that such conditions don't really affect any parts of his moral theory.
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I find I must disagree with your last sentence ... Aristotle may have declared physical comfort a requirement for the pursuit of enlightenment but he also supported the enslavement of a huge portion of the populace to provide for those that got the chance to pursue his eudamonia ... this seems not so 'virtuous' to me.
ReplyDeleteInteresting discussion here! I do agree that Aristotle is espousing virtue ethics; in fact, virtue ethics originates from Aristotle--he believed in the middle ground.
ReplyDeleteMaslov talks about the hierarchy of needs--food and shelter being foundational to our ability to even entertain ourselves with philosophy.
From our perspective, his bias is not virtuous, but slaves were not "defined" as people per se.