Practical wisdom is an essential component of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. The principal idea of this notion is that a person makes decisions based on reasoning, not emotions. In the words of Block (2019), practical wisdom is “the anti-dote to innovation” (p. 9). Therefore, practical wisdom is a way to balance internal and external motives and conflicting interests and, hence, act virtuously.
The essence of Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean is that virtue lies in between two extremes, none of which is virtuous on its own. Applying the doctrine of the mean could help improve character because extremes erode it (Curzer, 2018). For example, the extremes of courage are cowardice and foolhardiness. Thus, a person who wants to act courageously should find a balance between these two extremes. It is courageous to take a child out of a burning house, but it is thoughtless if there are firefighters in protective clothing near the house who can do this.
The central idea of the theory of virtue ethics is that to become a virtuous person, one could constantly practice generosity, courage, honesty, and other good habits. This theory emphasizes the role of morality rather than the need to obey rules or consider the consensuses of an action. One of the strongest criticisms of the theory is that it is unclear what the virtues are. Hence, there is no answer on how to deal with moral dilemmas. For example, there is such a notion as a white lie, and it is not clear whether it violates the virtue of being honest.
This criticism is strong because the real world is not black-and-white, and there are a lot of shadows and moral dilemmas in it. Therefore, it seems that this theory could hardly be applied to reality. Nonetheless, these cases of dilemmas are an exception to the general rule. From this, it could be inferred that this theory is useful in explaining what people should do to be virtuous.
- Moral virtue locates between the two extremes that are vicious.
- People learn moral virtue through practice.
- All virtues coexist together and reveal themselves in various aspects of life.
References
Blok, V. (2019). Innovation as ethos. In C. Neesham & S. Segal (Eds.) Handbook of Philosophy of Management (pp. 1-16). Springer.
Curzer, H. J. (2018). Aristotle and moral virtue. In N. E. Snow (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of virtue (pp. 104-129). Oxford University Press.