Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 What Is Happiness?
- 2 Happiness as Fulfillment
- 3 Aristotle's Ethics
- 4 Actualization: Psychological Views
- 5 Finding Potentials
- 6 The Things We Need to Be Happy: Goods, Intrinsic Motivation, and The Golden Mean
- 7 Introduction to Virtue
- 8 Some of the More Important Moral Virtues
- 9 Virtue and Emotion
- 10 Early Psychological Views of Virtue and Emotion
- 11 Virtue and Emotion: Recent Psychological Views
- 12 The Physiological Basis of Virtue
- 13 Emotional Intelligence
- 14 The Development of Virtue
- 15 Psychological Views of Virtue Development
- 16 The Polis
- 17 Contemplation: A Different Kind of Happiness
- References
- Index
- References
7 - Introduction to Virtue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 What Is Happiness?
- 2 Happiness as Fulfillment
- 3 Aristotle's Ethics
- 4 Actualization: Psychological Views
- 5 Finding Potentials
- 6 The Things We Need to Be Happy: Goods, Intrinsic Motivation, and The Golden Mean
- 7 Introduction to Virtue
- 8 Some of the More Important Moral Virtues
- 9 Virtue and Emotion
- 10 Early Psychological Views of Virtue and Emotion
- 11 Virtue and Emotion: Recent Psychological Views
- 12 The Physiological Basis of Virtue
- 13 Emotional Intelligence
- 14 The Development of Virtue
- 15 Psychological Views of Virtue Development
- 16 The Polis
- 17 Contemplation: A Different Kind of Happiness
- References
- Index
- References
Summary
Consider your origin; you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy (ca. 1315)The Ancient Greeks believed that all living things have soul. “Soul” had little or no religious significance back then; it just came with life, all life. Ants and birds, as well as humans, had it, at least as long as they were alive. It is true, however, that souls differed. Human soul was unique because it could reason. Remember, reason was our ergon, our defining human characteristic. Cats and cattle can feed themselves, move around, and they can see and hear; they have life and they have soul but they cannot think. We alone understand that “All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore, Socrates is mortal.” Because of our ability to reason we are a little closer to the divine.
But we are far from perfect. We also have a powerful irrational side. The appetitive part of our soul that houses desires and emotions is often less than reasonable. Fortunately, and this is very important, the irrational side of us is able to listen to reason and take its advice. The irrational in us can be influenced by the rational. Aristotle's moral virtue is just that: irrational desires, emotions, and actions coming under the influence of reason.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychology of HappinessA Good Human Life, pp. 67 - 73Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009