Virtue as Habit Essay -- Aristotle Kant Moral Psychology Papers

Virtue as Habit The aim of this essay is to consider the following question. Does it make a difference in lessonistic psychology whether one adopts Aristotles ordinary or Immanuel Kants revisionist definition of equity as a moral habit? Suppose it is objected, at the outset, that these definitions cannot be critically compared because their moral theories are, respectively, aposteriori and apriori, and so incommensurable. Two points of commensurability and grounds for comparative evaluation are dickens basic problems that any theory in moral psychology must address. They are moral ignorance (I dont know what I ought to do) and weakness (I dont do what I know I ought to do).(1)In the Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter Ethics), Aristotle maintains that the virtues are formed by repetition as are other habits (see book II, chapters 1-5). It is by doing retributory acts that a provided man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man, he explains, and without this kind of habit formation no one would have take down the prospect of being good (1105b9-12). Further, the mark of a good legislator and organization is that they Make the citizens good by forming habits in them (1103b4). And in his investigation of the virtue justice, he takes as his starting point the ordinary meanings of a just and an unjust man the latter is lawless, grasping, and un bazar the former is law-abiding and fair (V1129a30-34). In short, Aristotles intention is to clarify the ordinary meaning of virtue as habit.In the Metaphysical Principles of Virtue (hereafter Virtue), Kant clearly rejects any concept of moral habit-formation by repetition. He writesSkill (habitus) is a faculty of action and a subjective perfectionof ch... ...ichard McKeon. new-fangled York Random House, 1941. Poetics. The Basic Works of Aristotle. trans. Ingram Bywater. ed. and introd. Richard McKeon. New York Random House, 1941. Politics. The Basic Works of Aristotle. trans. Benjamin Jowett. ed. and introd. Richard McKeon. New York Random House, 1941.Kant, Immanuel. The retrospect of Practical Reason. trans. Lewis White Beck. Indianapolis Hackett issue Co., 1983 Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Ethical Philosophy. trans. crowd W. Ellington. introd. Warner A. Wick. Indianapolis Hackett Publishing Co., 1983. The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue. Ethical Philosophy. trans. James W. Ellington. introd. Warner A. Wick. Indianapolis Hackett Publishing Co., 1983.Plato. Republic. The Dialogues of Plato. vol. I. trans Benjamin Jowett. introd. Raphael Demos. New York Random House, 1937.