In a recent ethics lesson, I introduced a class to the concept of Virtue Ethics. Not all of my pupils were entirely convinced, something which shouldn’t have surprised me given the zeitgeist in which these young students are steeped.
Virtue Ethics, in brief, is an Aristotelian ethical theory that seeks to find the “golden mean” between the vices of excess and deficiency. This “golden mean” is a virtuous characteristic.
Such virtuous acts, Aristotle says, should then be repeated until they become habit. And then, by becoming habit, they become embodied as character.
For example, the excess of the golden mean “courage” is “recklessness”, and the deficiency is “cowardice”. By practising “courage” it becomes habitual and thus the individual becomes a courageous person.
Virtue ethics is not purely Aristotelian, however; Catholicism borrows heavily from this thought-world and frames a lot of its moral language in terms of virtues and habits.
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