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Plato associated the four cardinal virtues with the social classes of the ideal city described in The Republic, and with the faculties of humanity. Plato narrates a discussion of the character of a good city where the following is agreed upon: Clearly, then, it will be wise, brave, temperate [literally: healthy-minded], and just.
Aristotle's teachings spread through the Mediterranean and the Middle East, where some early Islamic regimes allowed rational philosophical descriptions of the natural world. Al-Farabi was a major influence in all medieval philosophy and wrote many works which included attempts to reconcile the ethical and political writings of Plato and Aristotle.
Plato and Aristotle's treatments of virtues are not the same. Plato believes virtue is effectively an end to be sought, for which a friend might be a useful means. Aristotle states that the virtues function more as means to safeguard human relations, particularly authentic friendship, without which one's quest for happiness is frustrated.
The view that praiseworthy virtues in their highest form, even virtues such as courage, require intellectual virtue, is a theme Aristotle associates with Socrates; it is portrayed in the Socratic dialogues of Plato. [24] Aristotle professes to work differently from Plato by trying to start with what well-brought up men would agree with, and to ...
Aristotle analyzed the golden mean in the Nicomachean Ethics Book II: That virtues of character can be described as means. It was subsequently emphasized in Aristotelian virtue ethics. [1] For example, in the Aristotelian view, courage is a virtue, but if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness, and, in deficiency, cowardice. The middle ...
In Aristotle's work, phronesis is the intellectual virtue that helps turn one's moral instincts into practical action. [ 4 ] [ 10 ] He writes that moral virtues help any person to achieve the end, and that phronesis is what it takes to discover the means to gain that end. [ 4 ]
Plato defined the faculties of the soul in terms of a three-fold division: the intellect (noûs), the nobler affections (thumós), and the appetites or passions (epithumetikón) [1] Aristotle also made a three-fold division of natural faculties, into vegetative, appetitive and rational elements, [2] though he later distinguished further divisions in the rational faculty, such as the faculty of ...
Thus, Aristotle, like Plato, consolidates the separation of the virtues of magnificence and magnanimity. Drawing on Xenophon, however, he dignifies the economic aspect of a great expenditure by turning it into an ethical virtue. With Aristotle, magnificence also acquires an aesthetic dimension.