Aristotle is the creator of a qualitatively new system of knowledge that had not previously existed in the ancient world. Aristotle’s creation of eudemonism as a felicitous integral doctrine, hierarchized concerning the benefits, laid the systemic basis for the science of happiness. It should be noted that the concept of virtue and how the philosopher interpreted it. Therefore, virtue is a quality of the soul; its cultivation and manifestation are equivalent to conscience.Virtue, according to Aristotle, is an acquired self-consciousness of moderation that keeps people from mistakes and failures (Guthrie 56). People are made moral and virtuous by an appropriate polity and upbringing.
Thus, Aristotle asserts that a virtuous, that is, an educated person, lives and acts according to their conscience because a knowledgeable and rational soul guides them. Moral virtue, according to Aristotle, is the habit of making the right choices. Furthermore, Aristotle believed that moral virtue is the primary means to happiness and the most important of all things that are really good for people (Guthrie 71). Moreover, Aristotle emphasized that moral virtues are also an unlimited good. There are too many of them, and habits of choosing right are never too firmly formed.
Consequently, Aristotle created a theory of virtue, constituting ethics in its proper and narrow sense as a field of knowledge that studies ethical, ethos-related, moral virtues. Therefore, virtue, in the philosopher’s interpretation, is associated with happiness, which is identical to the highest good (Guthrie 72). At the same time, the correlation also appears in the fact that moral virtue is also a way to happiness and an essential part of happiness itself. In this way, Aristotle first defined happiness as the activity of the soul in the fullness of virtue, and he described virtue as that which leads to happiness.
Work Cited
Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. The Greek philosophers: from Thales to Aristotle. Routledge, 2012.