Question

if Aristotle is right that virtue is a mean between extremes, how would one decide just where that middle between too much and too little of some trait is?

what do you think about Philippa foot's problem regarding the virtuous person is one who find being virtuous easy or difficult

Answer 1

1) Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices.
The best measure of moral judgment is choice, since choices are always made voluntarily by means of rational deliberation. Aristotle defines the supreme good as an activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue. Virtue for the Greeks is equivalent to excellence. A man has virtue as a flautist, for instance, if he plays the flute well, since playing the flute is the distinctive activity of a flautist. A virtuous person is someone who performs the distinctive activity of being human well. Rationality is our distinctive activity, that is, the activity that distinguishes us from plants and animals. All living things have a nutritive soul, which governs growth and nutrition.
Humans and animals are distinct from plants in having a sensitive soul, which governs locomotion and instinct. Humans are distinct above all for having also a rational soul, which governs thought. Since our rationality is our distinctive activity, its exercise is the supreme good. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. We learn moral virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than through reasoning and instruction. Virtue is a matter of having the appropriate attitude toward pain and pleasure. For example, a coward will suffer undue fear in the face of danger, whereas a rash person will not suffer sufficient fear. Aristotle lists the principle virtues along with their corresponding vices, as represented.
A virtuous person exhibits all of the virtues: they do not properly exist as distinct qualities but rather as different aspects of a virtuous life.

- Aristotle is clear that we arrive at moral virtue primarily through practice and that the value of studying ethical texts such as the one he has written is limited.
This view makes sense when we consider that moral virtue is not essentially different from other forms of excellence as far as the Greeks are concerned. If we want to achieve excellence in rock climbing, for instance, it helps to study texts that show us how to improve our technique, but we can’t make any significant improvements except by getting on a rock wall and practicing. Analogously, it helps to read texts like the Nicomachean Ethics to get a clearer understanding of moral virtue, but the only way to become more virtuous is through practice. We can only become more courageous by making a point of facing down our fears, and we can only become more patient by making a habit of controlling our anger. Since practice, not study, is the key to becoming virtuous, Aristotle takes a strong interest in the education of the young.
He perceives that there is only so much we can do to improve a nasty adult, and we can more easily mold virtuous youths by instilling the proper habits in them from a young age.

- Aristotle calls happiness an “activity,” which distinguishes his conception of happiness both from our modern conception of happiness and from virtue, which Aristotle calls a “disposition.” We tend to think of happiness as an emotional state and hence as something we are, rather than as something we do. The Greek word generally translated as “happiness”is eudaimonia, and it can equally be rendered as “success” or “flourishing.” People who are eudaimon are not in a particular emotional state so much as they are living successfully.
While happiness is the activity of living well, virtue represents the potential to live well. Excelling in all the moral virtues is fine and good, but it doesn’t ensure our happiness unless we exercise those virtues. Courageous people who never test their courage by facing down fear have virtue, but they are not happy. Aristotle illustrates this distinction between happiness and virtue by saying that the best athletes only win at the Olympic Games if they compete. A virtuous person who does not exercise virtue is like an athlete who sits on the sideline and watches. Aristotle has a proactive conception of the good life: happiness waits only for those who go out and seize it.

2) Philippa Foot produced a slim output of articles, most of which are collected in two volumes, and one monograph on moral philosophy; the articles treated issues in metaethics,
moral psychology, and applied ethics. Throughout her career, she defended the objectivity of morality against various forms of non-cognitivism and tangled with issues of moral motivation, notoriously changing her mind about whether moral judgments necessarily provide rational agents with reasons for action. To the wider world, and perhaps especially to undergraduate philosophy students, she is best known for inventing the Trolley Problem, which raises the question of why it seems permissible to steer a trolley aimed at five people toward one person.
while it seems impermissible to do something such as killing one healthy man to use his organs to save five people who will otherwise die. Foot is also known for contributing to the revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics in contemporary philosophy, though it is less well known that she emphatically disavowed being an adherent of this view as it is currently understood.

1. Life
2. Ethical Naturalism in Foot’s Early Writings
3. Against Moral Rationalism
4. Applied Ethics
5. Virtue and Morality
6. Natural Goodness

Philippa Foot was born Philippa Judith Bosanquet on October 3, 1920, in Owston Ferry, Lincolnshire, and grew up in Kirkleatham, in North Yorkshire, England. Her mother, Esther, was a daughter of U.S. President Grover Cleveland.
Her father, William was an industrialist, running a large Yorkshire steel works. Foot studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Somerville College, a women’s college within the University of Oxford. Foot had no formal education as a child; as she puts it, she “lived in the sort of milieu where there was a lot of hunting, shooting, and fishing, and where girls simply did not go to college”. In her youth, she was educated by governesses, from whom she claimed she did not even learn “which came first, the Romans or the Greeks”.

-If you are not virtuous, then virtue is painful and vice is pleasant. This is why it is difficult to become virtuous. On the other hand, if you are virtuous, then virtue is pleasant and vice is painful.
So, the more virtuous you are, the easier it is to remain virtuous and become more virtuous.
- It relatively easy to exhibit certain virtues, yet this is just an aspect of the circumstances of their lives, and it counts neither for nor against their possession of virtue, and it does not matter for the purpose of determining whether the virtues make one good qua human.
- The Three Primary Virtues. Adam Smith, in his important book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, wrote that excellent people have three primary virtues: prudence, justice, and benevolence, in that order.
Each of them is essential to the others and to the living of a full life in society.
- According to Aristotle, it is difficult to ,be virtuous if you aren't in the habit of being virtuous. He notes that if you aren't virtuous, vice is a source of pleasure, but if you are virtuous, vice is a source of pain. Thus, the more virtuous you are, the easier it is to be virtuous.

“We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate,
while the man who is annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward.
For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones.”

- Foot starts her investigation of the connection between the virtues and the will by examining the role of intentions in determining someone’s character. We evaluate someone’s moral quality,
she thinks, primarily by examining his intentions. Yet, good intentions are not sufficient to demonstrate that someone is virtuous; in the case of charity or benevolence, one can show lack of charity despite our good intentions, in failing to bring about the intended good. For example, one can be ignorant of something one should have known, as famously illustrated by Foot with her example of failing to learn basic first aid. Someone who is genuinely benevolent will take the trouble to find out about basic first aid, and because such knowledge is so easily attained and so generally useful to others, it shows a lack of charity to fail to attain such knowledge. Also, Foot points out that failures of performance can count against someone’s claim to possess virtue despite good intentions when one’s heart is not in the action. Virtues are therefore also ‘dispositions of the heart’ according to Foot, meaning that we must take the trouble to cultivate the desire to act well. Conversely, virtue par excellence occurs in one who is “prompt and resourceful” in doing good. A virtuous agent will take pleasure in doing good things for others, and so for Foot, the will includes our intentions as well as our ‘innermost desires’. Surely it is not always in our power to effect changes in our emotions and desires; at least, whether it is possible is an open question and subject to psychological inquiry.
Still, Foot has made a conceptual claim that is important here: we are charitable when our intentions and desires, to the extent that these are under the control of our will, are such that we can act for the good of others with ease and pleasure. If, due to a psychological condition that is unresponsive to treatment, we cannot take joy in helping others, then this does not count against our possession of virtue. In fact, Foot thinks that such cases increase “the virtue that is needed if a man is to act well”. But we must tread carefully here, for she does not mean that one in such a circumstance is necessarily more virtuous than one who is not. Yet, facing a condition such as depression may test our virtue; its onset may lead one to fail to act in accordance with virtue, where an equally virtuous non-depressed agent would succeed.
To speak more generally, some people will find themselves in circumstances, psychological or social, that will make greater demands on their commitment to goodness. This means that those who have a relatively easy time acting courageously or benevolently simply have not had their commitment to goodness tested in the same way as someone who faces psychological obstacles. Those who face such obstacles must show more virtue, though they are not necessarily more virtuous than those in more ideal circumstances.