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//*********** Aristotle's Virtue Ethics - September 18th, 2019 **************//
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- "Okay, we aren't going to have a reading quiz this class, but NEXT class..."
    - "...this is called a hint, folks"
    - Having you write about Kant would've been straight-up mean, but Aristotle is even weirder in some respects; at the same time, though, we've got a modern translation that's hopefully decently readable
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- Alright, today we're going to get into virtue ethics!
    - As we've said, utilitarianism and deontology are the 2 big fish in the modern ethics pond - but for a looooooooong time, virtue ethics was way up there, and it's still important in some circles

- So, what the hey-hey is virtue ethics?
    - In the history of Western philosophy, ethics has been primarily concerned with making the right decisions - that's NOT what this is!
        - For Aristotle, VIRTUE ETHICS is about being the right kind of person, and ethics is concerned with giving someone a "virtuous character"
            - So, this isn't about making the "right decisions" - instead, it's about being the right person, with the right character traits

- Now, Aristotle is a super-massive genius philosopher who literally shaped all of Western thought
    - In many ways, though, Aristotle was actually kind of conventional; he was cataloguing the ways people thought about things at the time, and then refining them a bit
        - Much of what was common sense to them, though, seems weird to our modern ears
    - A big difference between ancient Greek thought and ours is the idea of TELEOLOGY: the idea that everything in the universe has an "ideal state" that it's trying to be
        - This doesn't mean they thought tables or chairs were thinking, or had minds, but that an acorn was "trying" to become an oak tree as its natural end, even if it doesn't reach it
            - Aristotle's physics was a good example of this: he thought that gravity worked because everything had a telos towards "down-ness," and that everything had a force in themselves that was pushing them down towards the earth
        - Similarly, the Greeks thought society had a telos towards democracies,  and that led to an obvious question: what's the telos of individual human beings?

- In Aristotle's view, the end goal of all humans is "happiness" (the greek word "eudamonia")
    - By this, he means something more like "fulfillment" or "well-being" rather than our more shallow definition of happiness today
        - Like Mill, Aristotle clearly points out that happiness isn't the same thing as base pleasure; it's a "higher" concept that includes stuff like meaning, contentedness, love, etc., regardless of our emotions ("you might've worked hard all day, and feel tired and gross and didn't enjoy the work that much, but you feel you accomplished something - that's closer to what he's getting at")
    - So, Aristotle would say that to be good, a good person has to have a "good character"
        - How can we become virtuous, though? Are we stuck being born lazy or nice or a**holes?
        - Aristotle doesn't think so; he thinks you CAN change who you are by practicing virtue and developing good habits over time. He thinks you can become a better person!
            - This is a CRUCIAL part of virtue ethics; if we don't consistently act good, then our worsening character will be reflected in our bad actions
                - What Aristotle would say is that we might think we're good or generous or kind, but if we don't act that way consistently, then we're lying to ourselves; our true character is reflected in our actions
            - So, if we look at our life and say "huh, I guess I'm not particularly generous," we might decide well, I'll volunteer an hour on Saturday at the soup kitchen
                - The first week, we hate it; a couple months later, we keep going, and going, and going, and even though it's easier we still hate it - and then, just before we get fed up and quit, our friend says "No, you've become a generous person, despite how you feel - it's who you are!"
    - For Aristotle, this isn't just a part of ethics - this IS ethics!
        - He distinguished between "having a good life" and "leading a good life;" you can luck into being rich, and that makes being generous easier, but 

- So, that's a lot about virtue ethics, but what are these "virtues" themselves?
    - For Aristotle, a HUGE part of this is the "doctrine of the mean," where the right things to do are usually between 2 extremes
        - Courage, for instance, is the mean between cowardliness and recklessness; self-control is between self-indulgence and insensitivity, generosity is between stinginess and ostentatiousness, and so on
    - The important thing is that this is NOT just a list of all the "classical virtues," but a general rule to guide our conduct
        - At the same time, he points out that there're a few things that don't fall under this: there's no "moderate murderishness" that's good, for instance
        - A HUGE history of virtue ethics has been debating and disagreeing with Aristotle on what's actually a virtue or not, and what's really important

- To close this off, let's talk about America's favorite kite-flyer: Benjamin Franklin
    - So, the Rennaisance comes along, there's a rebirth in classical values and thought, and then the Enlightenment comes up
    - In some of Franklin's letters to his friends, he actually would come up with these lists of virtues and argue with them!
        - Franklin considered 2 really big virtues to be frugality (spending money wisely) and industry (working hard); there was actually a chart he had when he was younger where he would log his progress on each of the virtues! He was trying to train these virtues into himself!
            - "There're actually apps you can download that'll do the same thing, because humanity is silly like that"
    
- We think of virtue ethics as this ancient thing, but there ARE contemporary virtue ethicists...but it's definitely fallen out of favor
    - The whole system is based on developing and evaluating people's characters, but how do we make decisions about specific actions? How do we make decisions when two of the virtues conflict?
        - This whole system is based on trends, but many people think it has problems in the particulars
    - Shannon Vallor is a big figure in ethics of technology, and she's a virtue ethicist that we might talk about later

- So, for NEXT WEEK read the care ethics essay by Virginia Held on Canvas ("it's a feminist position, so don't get wacked up by that")
    - For Friday, read "Lin on Autonomous Cars"
- Alright, cya later!