Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics are based on these tenets:

Reality and life are teleological in that they aim toward some end or purpose The end of human life is happiness, and reason is the basic activity of all humans; therefore, the aim of human beings is to reason well so as to achieve a complete life

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Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics

Tenets (contd):
Begin with the moral judgments of reasonable and virtuous human beings and then formulate general principles Human beings have a capacity for goodness

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Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics

Tenets (contd):
What is virtue and how does it relate to vice?
Virtue is a mean, relative to use, between the excess and deficiency In shame, modesty is the mean between an excess of bashfulness and a defect of shamelessness
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Contemporary Analysis of Virtue Ethics

Contemporary theories of virtue ethics are primarily a reaction against moral theories that attempt to fit our moral experience into a prior system of rules or pre-established ideals, specifically, consequentialism and Kantianism

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