Online Course on History of Philosophy: https://hotm.art/historiadafilsofia-a... Course on Philosophy of Law: https://hotm.art/arietica-fdireito ------------------------------------------------------ Aristotle and the Ethics of Virtues ------------------------------------------------------ Aristotle conceives an ethics of virtues taking into account that everything has an end, and it would not be different with human actions, which must be carried out with the aim of achieving the supreme good that is eudaimonia, commonly translated as happiness. We should not understand this happiness as an emotion that we have when something good happens to us. It is more like a state of plenitude, a full way of living, focused on good, knowledge, justice, in the constant improvement of character. We must keep in mind that ethics and politics are practical knowledge. And practical knowledge can be of two types: praxis or technique. In praxis, the agent, the action and the purpose of the action are inseparable, because the agent, what he does and the purpose of his action are the same. Thus, for example, telling the truth is a virtue of the agent, inseparable from his true speech and his purpose, which is to utter a truth; we cannot distinguish the speaker, the speech and the spoken content. For Aristotle, in ethical praxis we are what we do and what we do is the good or virtuous purpose. In contrast, in technique the agent, the action and the purpose of the action are different and separate, being independent of each other. The purpose of technique is the manufacture of something different from the agent (the table is not the carpenter, while true speech is the being of the speaker himself who says it) and from the manufacturing action (the technical action of manufacturing the table involves working on the wood with appropriate instruments, but this has nothing to do with the purpose of the table, since the end is determined by use and by the user). Thus, ethics and technique are distinguished as practices that differ in the relationship between the agent and the action and the purpose of the action. We also owe to Aristotle the definition of the field of ethical actions. These are not only defined by virtue, goodness and obligation, but also belong to that sphere of reality in which deliberation and decision or choice take place. In other words, when the course of reality follows necessary and universal laws, there is no way or reason to deliberate and choose, because things will necessarily happen as the laws that govern them determine that they should happen. We do not deliberate about the seasons of the year, the movement of the stars, the shape of minerals or plants. We do not deliberate or decide on that which is governed by nature, that is, by necessity. But we deliberate and decide on everything that, in order to be and happen, depends on our will and our action. We do not deliberate or decide on what is necessary, because what is necessary is what is and will always be as it is, independently of us. We deliberate and decide on what is possible, on what can or cannot be, because for it to be and happen depends on us, on our will and our action. With this, Aristotle adds to the moral conscience, brought by Socrates, the will guided by reason as the other fundamental element of ethical life. We owe to Aristotle a central distinction in all Western formulations of ethics: the difference between what is by nature (or in accordance with physis) and what is by will (or in accordance with freedom). What is necessary is by nature; what is possible, by will. The importance given by Aristotle to rational will, deliberation and choice led him to consider a virtue as a condition of all the others and present in all of them: prudence or practical wisdom. It is wisdom, the necessary practical knowledge, the key to happiness, to living moderately. It is prudence that allows us to live without excesses or deficiencies, that is, in the middle ground. It is this virtue that allows us to know how to act moderately in each particular situation. Prudent is someone who, in all situations, judges and evaluates which attitude and action will best achieve the ethical purpose, that is, ensure that the agent is virtuous and does what is good for himself and for others. In Nicomachean Ethics, we find the synthesis of the virtues that constituted excellence and morality in classical Greece. In this work, vices and virtues are distinguished by the criteria of excess, lack and moderation: a vice is an excessive feeling or behavior (recklessness, libertinism, irascibility, etc.), or, on the contrary, deficient (cowardice, insensitivity, indifference, etc.); a virtue is a moderate feeling or behavior (courage, temperance, kindness, etc.). Virtues are the qualities of character that allow us to obtain the necessary goods (material and immaterial) to live fully, that is, to have a happy life.