Happiness and Human Excellence

Happiness and Human Excellence
Aristotle states that human excellence (arete) consists in living virtously. And, for Aristotle, to live virtuously is to exercise reason, and act in the right way, at the right time, for the right time. Additionally, for Aristotle, virtue consists in the mean, which is between excess and deficiency. Finally, to be virtuous, we must take pleasure in the right things, and be pained by the appropriate things. To better demonstrate his theory, Aristotle provides discussions of 11 cardinal virtues.
Using these main components of Aristotle’s theory, discuss what you think are the top three virtues for us to live excellent lives in our contemporary times.
You must include the following:
1. Explanation of the roles of pleasure and reason in Aristotle’s virtue ethics.
2. Explanations of what these three virtues are.
3. Examples–using contemporary situations–of what each virtue looks like in action, and why that particular example is an example of the mean.
4. Explanations of what Aristotle means by “mean,” “excess,” and “deficiency.”
5. Citations and quotations. You must cite in parentheses, in the text, using line numbers or page numbers, but not both. For example: Aristotle is clear that the branch of philosophy dealing with virtue ethics is not restricted to theory, but rests on practice (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1104a). Or, I could cite this as (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 24).

Last Completed Projects