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Single Idea 5156

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / b. Basis of virtue ]

Full Idea

A difficulty with saying that people must perform just actions if they are to become just is that if they do what is just they must be just already, as they are already musical if they play music correctly.

Gist of Idea

How can good actions breed virtues, if you need to be virtuous to perform good actions?

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1105a19)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.97

A Reaction

Aristotle is himself voicing a charge often made against him (by Kantians and utilitarians). He goes on to rebut the charge, but there is still a problem (despite the benign circle of virtue-and-good-action), which is the familiar one of relativism.

The 22 ideas with the same theme [foundation and justification for belief in virtues]:

5149 The two main parts of the soul give rise to two groups of virtues - intellectual, and moral [Aristotle]
5156 How can good actions breed virtues, if you need to be virtuous to perform good actions? [Aristotle]
5157 If a thing has excellence, this makes the thing good, and means it functions well [Aristotle]
5872 Excellence is the best state of anything (like a cloak) which has an employment or function [Aristotle]
625 Is excellence separate from things, or part of them, or both? [Aristotle]
14060 Prudence is the greatest good, and more valuable than philosophy, because it produces virtue [Epicurus]
20855 Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
5970 Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
23181 All acts of virtue relate to justice, which is directed towards the common good [Aquinas]
21871 The more we strive for our own advantage, the more virtuous we are [Spinoza]
17210 All virtue is founded on self-preservation [Spinoza]
17214 To act virtuously is to act rationally [Spinoza]
12515 Actions are virtuous if they are judged praiseworthy [Locke]
6232 Every creature has a right and a wrong state which guide its actions, so there must be a natural end [Shaftesbury]
23672 To be virtuous, we must care about duty [Reid]
8097 Virtue is hard if we are scorned; we need support [Joubert]
14818 First morality is force, then custom, then acceptance, then instinct, then a pleasure - and finally 'virtue' [Nietzsche]
21742 Originally virtue was obedience, to gods, government, or custom [Russell]
22478 The essential thing is the 'needs' of plants and animals, and their operative parts [Foot]
22398 Virtues are corrective, to resist temptation or strengthen motivation [Foot]
5076 To Greeks it seemed obvious that the virtue of anything is the perfection of its function [Taylor,R]
20195 Eudaimonia first; virtue is a trait which promotes it; right acts are what virtues produce [Hursthouse, by Zagzebski]