When reading Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics people typically maintain emphasis on the position of role of habit in conduct. Virtues or habits according to Aristotle are necessary for a ‘good life’ and that mindless routine is a way to achieve happiness. While the interpretation of Aristotle’s texts may denote to many ‘mindless routine’, in reality it could mean ‘actively hold itself’. This mean essentially, that the manifestation of virtue is in action. Therefore, maintaining balance, practicing stable equilibrium of the soul can lead to happiness. This stable equilibrium can be seen as character. Therefore, under this interpretation, I agree with Aristotle that in order to achieve happiness, one must maintain balance and practice temperance. This essay will highlight through real world examples what this balance and temperance is.
Virtue according to Aristotle is a mean. The mean is a way of understanding and judging what is truly painful or pleasant. When the soul is in such an active state in which all of its powers work together, this is the mean. Character is the process where the soul clears away obstacles that may thwart or hinder the soul’s full efficacy. To achieve such an effective action, one must pursue moral virtue. Moral virtue allows a person to achieve right reason and right desire. To achieve moral virtue, a person must be in the middle. For it is only in the middle ground that exists the point between principles of action and habits of acting, that one can possess the ability to truly exist well.
Virtue according to Aristotle is a mixture of both belief and activity. This can be seen as disposition. A virtuous person is a person who naturally behaves in a way that is balanced. They feel pleasure behave appropriately. Virtue exists among extremes of deficiency and excess. There is not set mean for such virtue and it can vary according to the individual. Regardless, if one is not naturally virtuous, it is a hard and slow process and requires dedication and patience to continue the mundane routines each day to accomplish. This is virtue and habits.
Moral virtues are voluntary. There are three main moral virtues. These are courage, justice, and temperance. Book V Aristotle discusses justice and this can be likened to seeing a chocolate pudding and sharing it with others. This is the fair thing to do and is voluntary. One can choose to eat the whole pudding or share it. Interestingly, moral virtues are supposed to have one thing in common, the beautiful, according to Aristotle. However, ultimately, justice is the moral virtue, the one that affects other people and represents a person that possesses all moral virtue. This falls into the concept of noble.
Nobility means understanding when punishment or reward should be used. A noble person is a just person and friendship plays a part in Aristotle’s justice and nobility in that he believes the good of others is integral to the temperance and balance needed to achieve happiness. This is discussed in Books VIII and IX. All of this is for the beautiful or the act of choosing that the soul experiences. The wonder that is part of the choices made adds or detracts from the beautiful. This is a lot to do and to maintain.
While I agree with his position of balance and temperance, I also feel that extremes exist and must be experienced at times in order to create desire for balance, moderation, virtue, and temperance. This is where the counterargument comes...
Yes, it is important to keep making choices and voluntary actions that promote balance, but that suggests people must be perfect all the time. No one is naturally virtuous, especially all the time. While happiness is the goal, one cannot understand happiness without understanding sorrow.
People are a mixture of good and bad choices. When people make mistakes and make bad choices, they can learn from them. No one is born with the instructions on how to live a healthy and balanced life. There is a need to understand through experience. To live a balanced and virtuous life is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Most people cannot achieve it.
Therefore, it is not the need to fit the ideal, but rather, to try to aim for the ideal and accept when one cannot reach such heights of virtuousness and nobility. I think accepting one’s inherent darkness and accepting that people make mistakes is part of the act of trying to find balance. Without this journey, happiness cannot be truly felt or cannot be truly experienced. To get from point A to point B requires making mistakes, understanding from them and learning to make the right choices that can lead to a happier life.
The mere act of balance is to exist in the middle. What is at the opposite ends of the middle? Darkness and light? Virtue and Evil? Vice and Prudence? People must experience some of the excess some of the evil to better measure what is its counterpart. Picture a river with a toy boat moving along its current. The person navigating the boat desires to be in the middle where there are less stone and less of a chance for the boat to sink. However, the current moves the boat to the edges of the river because the person did not turn in time or failed to move accordingly. However, after enough practice, the person knows what to do to remain in the center. This is what Aristotle wishes for every person to achieve.
Now that Aristotle’s text has been interpreted, it is important to provide a real-world example of these habits, the mean, and noble. Happiness is supposed to depend on living under the outline of appropriate virtue. This implies belief and activity; temperance and balance. Imagine a person who recently stopped smoking and adopted a healthy diet. The first step towards stopping smoking is to believe he can stop and then actively find ways to help him stop. The same can be said of his diet. For the purpose of this example, his name is Bill. Imagine Bill waking up each morning with the desire to smoke, but instead goes out, buys a nicotine path and places it on his arm any time he has a craving. When he goes out for grocery shopping, instead of buying junk food, he buys whole foods that can satisfy his core nutritional requirements.
His belief is, he needs to stop smoking and eat healthy to live a long and happy life. His actions are to replace the urge to smoke with a nicotine patch to quell his addiction while not destroying his body. He shops for healthy foods to satisfy his inherent hunger while maintaining his goal of being healthy. He can add additional daily routines to promote continued health of mind and body and therefore have a better chance at a happy life. He can dance. Bill can do things that may seem routine in his daily life, then help him maintain or create happiness.
The same can be said work and earning money. Another made up person named Linda, has to maintain a certain level of productivity each day.…
