Aristotle's Virtue Theory

Aristotle is very persuasive in his discussion of virtue and the excellences. He mainly argues that virtue is, in a moral sense, a product of habit. Intellectual excellence, on the other hand, is derived mainly from teaching. According to Aristotle, "Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do excellences arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit." Moral virtue is then a product of nature, or habit. Interestingly, the Greek words for "character" and "habit" are almost identical. Aristotle furthers this claim by comparing the possession of virtue to the use of the senses. He, quite naturally, proposes that humans were given their sense before they actually knew how to use them. For instance, a child cannot see without the power of sight, which must have been inherent in the child before the child could be able to see. Based from this theory of naturalism, Aristotle states:

"So it follows, since virtue of character itself is a mean state and always concerned with pleasures and pains, while vice lies in excess and deficiency, and has to do with the same things as virtue, that virtue is the state of the character which chooses the mean, relative to us in things pleasant and unpleasant…" (Eudemian Ethics, Book II, Chapter 10)