Putting Aristotle’s theory of virtue and character development into practice

Various thinkers have tried to put rational systems of virtues and character development into practice. Their attempts have attained success to the extent that they are aligned with the ideas presented by Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his “Eudemian Ethics” and “Nicomachean Ethics.” In those works, Aristotle outlines his five key ideas about virtue and character development. Let’s summarise those five ideas. First, Aristotle placed at the centre of philosophy the fact that human beings are rational, or more precisely, the fact that human beings possess the capability to be rational. We are the only creatures able to grasp and apply logic. In contrast to animals, we can turn observations into abstractions, and create new concepts by combining and recombining those abstractions. Second, by employing reason, human beings are capable of understanding causality. We can analyse events and entities to figure out their composition (“material cause”), shape (“formal cause”), the forces that move them (“efficient cause”) and most importantly, the purpose of their actions (“final cause”). Third, the final cause plays a major role in understanding all human actions. For instance, in order to categorise a death as a crime or as an accident, the police will have to figure out the motivation (“final cause”) of the suspect. Did he intend to kill the victim? In book one of his treatise on rhetoric, Aristotle named seven causes for human action, namely, chance, passion, the forces of nature, habit, reason, compulsion, and desire. Nonetheless, he pointed out that happiness is the ultimate goal of all humans. Fourth, ethics is the science of attaining happiness. Aristotle taught that the practice of virtue is the surest path to happiness. You can substantially raise your chances of attaining happiness if you assiduously practise courage, temperance, benevolence, justice, generosity, and all other rational virtues. Fifth, Aristotle wrote in his “Nicomachean Ethics” that each person is the main contributor to his own happiness. Decisions and actions should be examined in advance in order to ensure that they are correct. If you make good choices and carry them out, you should normally achieve happiness. Character development is a proven method for making good choices because it renders them automatic. A man of character will do the right thing without hesitation because he has made courage, temperance, and justice part of his personality. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/putting-aristotles-theory-of-virtue-and-character-development-into-practice/