What is the relation (if any) between virtue and human flourishing?

Résumé du document

When you shout at a passer-by in the street, and ask him what would be the most important goal in his life, he is likely to answer, like a majority of people that he wants to live happily. Then, we should raise the question: how could we achieve this happiness? More than two thousand years ago, the forerunners of the Greek Philosophy, Plato and more predominantly Aristotle, have introduced the claim of virtue ethics and the concept of eudaimonia which helped to demonstrate the link between virtues and human flourishing. Indeed, the Greek word eudaimonia can be translated as ‘happiness' or ‘human flourishing'. For this essay, I would rather use the designation human flourishing as happiness seems a bit too vague and inaccurate. But let us get back to our real aim: is there a link between virtue and human flourishing? And if so, how do virtues affect human flourishing?

Extraits

[...] Indeed, what about the link between virtue and human flourishing? Should we study human flourishing independently of the conception of the virtues, what would mean that virtues are independent of human flourishing?[8] It seems interesting to dig further this assumption. Let us make a few objections to the claim that living virtuously is the way to achieve eudaimonia. Indeed, if we analyse virtue or human flourishing independently by overriding the relationship between them, it turns out that we may express a few critics. [...]

[...] She gives the example of a man who loses his wallet full of money. In this case, is it better for him to get his money back or to let a poor man collect it for his own welfare? Then, to Foot it depends on the perspective you have, and that is why she keeps arguing that the virtues only provide maximum satisfaction of preferences'.[18] At last, we could take a look at a quite controversial argument: the role of moral luck. [...]

[...] Eventually, I will evoke different approaches about the relationship between virtues and human flourishing. The virtues can obviously help us to flourish. I am going to explain why, but first I shall clarify the terms. A virtue is seen as a character trait which makes its possessor good. According to Aristotle, the virtues are acquired thanks to education and through habituation.[1] It means that we have to cultivate them to the extent that later on, we do not think about being virtuous but we simply are. [...]

[...] To conclude, I have showed that there is a relationship between the application of the virtues and the flourishing that follows from. That is why, to a certain extent and to the certain limitations I have evoked, Aristotle's claim is the more plausible to me: the virtues are obviously needed to flourish. However, in order to perfectly accomplish one's flourishing, beyond doubt we need other external goods or dispositions. There are factors we undeniably cannot change, as luck, the natural environment or our natural abilities. [...]

[...] It seems to me that living coherently is the best option, because anyway we can very hardly be perfectly virtuous. Bibliography Anthology: - Crisp, Roger, How Should One Live?, Oxford, Clarendon Press Books: - Hursthouse, Rosalind, Beginning Lives, Oxford - Hursthouse, Rosalind, On Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press - Irwin, Terrence, Aristotle's First Principles, Oxford : Oxford University Press - Annas, Julia, The Morality of Happiness, New York: Oxford University Press - Foot, Philippa, Virtues and Vices other essays in moral philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press - Foot, Philippa, ‘Utilitarianism and the Virtues', Mind - Russell Paul, Freedom and Moral Sentiment - Hume's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility, Oxford: Oxford University Press - Hare, Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point, Oxford: Oxford University Press - MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue, London, Duckworth, 2nd Ed - Nussbam, Martha ‘Non-relative virtues: An Aristotelian Approach', in French, Uehling Jr. [...]