Aristotle defined moral virtue as an individual’s disposition to behave in the right manner. Aristotle maintained that virtue is the excellence of character, which is neither a feeling nor a tendency to behave in a particular manner (Achtenberg, 2012). Rather, virtue is the settled condition that an individual can achieve by harmonizing actions and feelings. Aristotle argued that people learn moral virtue through habit and practice, which means that he did not believe in the power of reasoning and instruction for training virtue. At the same time, Aristotle admitted that intellectual virtue can and should be trained, and it needs time and patience to cultivate (Bantas, 2011). Intellectual virtues are associated with the human mind and include prudence, understanding, and wisdom. For Aristotle, prudence is by far the most important intellectual virtue in men because, without judgment and correctness in thinking, a person cannot exercise other virtues. Moral virtues, in turn, relate to a person’s character and include temperance, liberty, courage, and others.
For Aristotle, virtue is a mean between extremes of excess and deficiency, which he considered to be vices (Craiutu, 2012). Therefore, according to Aristotle’s definition of this term, nothing can be too good because it would be the excess that the philosopher sought to avoid in life. For instance, the virtue of courage is the mean between cowardice and rashness. Generosity is a mean between wastefulness and avarice, and so on. Aristotle believed that a virtuous man knows when to retort to the extremes (e.g., a man possessing mildness should get angry when facing injustice), but most of the time, he skillfully balances to avoid them. In other words, there should always be moderation in the way a person exercises the virtues.
- Achtenberg, D. (2012). Cognition of value in Aristotle’s ethics: Promise of enrichment, threat of destruction. Albany: SUNY Press.
- Bantas, H. (2011). Understanding Aristotle: The virtues. Melbourne: The Reluctant Geek.
- Craiutu, A. (2012). A virtue for courageous minds: Moderation in French political thought, 1748-1830. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
