How do you analyze a philosophical essay?
Carefully articulate the strongest considerations in favor of the view and the strongest considerations against the views. Then carefully explain why you remain undecided and indicate precisely what sort of information or arguments would be required for you to be able to make up your mind.
What are the main points of Aristotle’s ethics?
About Aristotle’s Ethics
- The highest good and the end toward which all human activity is directed is happiness, which can be defined as continuous contemplation of eternal and universal truth.
- One attains happiness by a virtuous life and the development of reason and the faculty of theoretical wisdom.
How is Aristotle relevant today?
In spite of the growing acceptance of new ideas in the later centuries, Aristotelian thought is still relevant in our current society. Aristotle has created a basis for a great deal of today’s scientific knowledge, such as the classification of organisms and objects.
Why do we study Aristotle?
Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and thinkers in history. He was the first to investigate logic. He promoted systematic observation and thought in biology, physics, law, literature and ethics. All of this is true, but there is much we can still learn from Aristotle.
What did Aristotle believe in ethics?
Aristotle emphasized that virtue is practical, and that the purpose of ethics is to become good, not merely to know. Aristotle also claims that the right course of action depends upon the details of a particular situation, rather than being generated merely by applying a law.
What is morality according to Aristotle?
Virtue for the Greeks is equivalent to excellence. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. We learn moral virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than through reasoning and instruction.
What is the aim of human life according to Aristotle?
To summarise from Pursuit of Happiness (2018), according to Aristotle, the purpose and ultimate goal in life is to achieve eudaimonia (‘happiness’). He believed that eudaimonia was not simply virtue, nor pleasure, but rather it was the exercise of virtue.
What is Aristotle’s concept of the golden mean?
Moral behavior is the mean between two extremes – at one end is excess, at the other deficiency. Find a moderate position between those two extremes, and you will be acting morally.