Aristotle on How To Be A Virtuous Person

The following was submitted for a class assignment. Footnotes have been omitted. 

Aristotle says that one becomes virtuous by habit. Just as men become builders by building or men become brave by doing brave acts, so one becomes virtuous by doing and practicing virtuous acts. However, doing one virtuous act every now and again while most other times we behave viciously isn’t sufficient to be a virtuous person. What is needed are like cases where we habitually do a virtuous act so that the state of being a virtuous character arises. It is also not sufficient that we merely do virtuous acts. We must also take pleasure in them and not be annoyed by them. The younger we begin to form these habits, the better. If they are taught to us early in our youth, they become more deeply ingrained into our lives and are more difficult to corrupt. These virtues need to be taught because they are not part of our human nature. If they were part of our human nature, then it would not be possible to form a habit contrary to our nature any more than a stone can that by nature moves downwards can habitually travel upwards by nature. It is unlike the senses which we use because we have them, whereas the inverse is true with virtues, which we have because we use them. This is different than other kinds of ethical reasoning in that it is a knowing-how rather than knowing-that, or moral virtue versus intellectual virtue. In order to be virtuous, one does need to have knowledge. That alone is not sufficient. One must act upon that knowledge, otherwise, it would be like a man who listens to his doctor, and so has knowledge, but does not actually do anything he told to do by his doctor. So one becomes virtuous by first having knowledge of that which is virtuous, do that which is virtuous for its own sake, and then form a firm virtuous character out of that.