Written Assignment: Paper on Vice
An Application of Aristotle Relevant to our Understanding of Mill's Ethics
Write a 300-400 word Paper
A key point which Aristotle makes in his Nicomachean Ethics is that the person who becomes more and more habituated in a moral vice loses more and more the ability to see the evil involved in that vice. In contrast, he also holds that the truly virtuous person has the best understanding of what is morally right in difficult situations.
Your writing assignment: Write a paper which shows that:
(1) A person who becomes more and more habituated in a vice loses more and more the ability to see the evil involved in that vice. You may be able to find several stages in your example.
In the first stage, the person usually does what is morally right but fails to do so once in a while. When he fails to do so, he feels the blame of his conscience and understands why he has done something morally wrong.
- In the second stage, the person becomes habituated in a vice and begins not to feel the blame of his conscience and begins to make excuses for himself, thereby lessening his ability to see that what he is doing 1S morally evil .
- In the worst stage, the person is so caught up in the vice that he no longer feels any blame from his conscience and no longer understands that what he is doing is morally wrong.
(2) A person who excels in practicing the virtue opposite to the specific vice you have considered above truly understands what is morally right in difficult situations.
In your paper, take a specific vice, a morally bad habit or attitude, and develop an example which shows the points to be covered in specific detail, demonstrating, for example, specifically what it is the morally bad person is failing to understand and why it is he is beg mning to feel no blame. Pick any vice or bad habit: lust, anger, sloth, envy, jealousy, pride, self-rejection, boorishness, cheating, gambling, lying, overeating, undereating, use and abuse of drugs, smoking, intemperance, injustice, cowardice, an obsession with finding someone to love, ~ any bad habit or attitude which can offer a good example.
Include both points 1 and 2 fully in your paper to show the contrast in knowledge of vice that the virtuous person and the person trapped in vice have.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at omearawm@jmu.edu
This page created with Netscape Navigator Gold