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QLDPhilosophy and ReasonQuick questions
Unit 4: Moral philosophy and metaphysics
Quick questions on Aristotelian virtue ethics and the mean: QCE Philosophy and Reason
8short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the aim?Show answer
Aristotle (4th century BCE) begins from the idea that every activity aims at some good, and there must be a final good sought for its own sake. He calls it eudaimonia, usually translated "flourishing" or "living well," not mere momentary pleasure. Eudaimonia is the highest human good: a complete life lived well, in accordance with reason and virtue.
What is the function argument?Show answer
To say what living well is for a human, Aristotle asks about our characteristic function (ergon). Plants grow and animals perceive, but the function distinctive of humans is rational activity. The good human life is therefore one of activity of the soul in accordance with virtue (arete), carried out well and over a complete life. Excellence is performing our rational function excellently.
What is virtue as a state of character?Show answer
A virtue is a stable disposition of character, acquired through habituation: we become just by doing just acts, brave by doing brave acts. Virtue is not a feeling or a one-off act but a settled trait that disposes us to feel and act rightly. This contrasts with rule- and outcome-based theories: virtue ethics is agent-centred, focused on character.
What is the doctrine of the mean?Show answer
Aristotle holds that each moral virtue lies as a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency, relative to us. Courage is the mean between recklessness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency); generosity between wastefulness and stinginess. The mean is not a bland average but the appropriate response, "at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way." Some acts (murder, theft) admit no mean; they are simply wrong.
What is practical wisdom?Show answer
Hitting the mean requires practical wisdom (phronesis), the intellectual virtue of perceiving what the situation calls for and deliberating well about how to live. Practical wisdom is why virtue ethics resists mechanical rules: the wise person judges the particular case. The fully virtuous person both does the right thing and does it for the right reasons, with the right feelings, with ease.
What is q1?Show answer
Explain Aristotle's function argument for eudaimonia. [4 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Explain the doctrine of the mean using courage. [3 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
State the guidance objection to virtue ethics. [2 marks]