Aristotle Essay -- Happiness Virtue

Aristotle believes that happiness is the ultimate goal in life. You can’t reach happiness unless you work hard and become successful. That is where virtue comes into play. A human’s function is to engage in â€Å"an activity of the soul which is in accordance with virtue† and which â€Å"is in conformity with reason† (page 76, Palmer). The two kinds of virtue are intellectual and moral. Our virtues are what make us all individual and all different. Intellectual virtues are what we are born with and what we learn. It is our nature as humans and what we have inherited that makes desire to learn. As humans, we develop wisdom to help guide us to a good life. With the intellectual virtue you develop two different kinds of wisdom: practical and philosophical. Practical wisdom is your rational actions. The highest virtue is philosophical wisdom, which is scientific, disinterested, and contemplative. Moral virtues are what we learn from imitation, practice and our habits we developed. Moral virtues are what we have learned from our society. â€Å"Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit† (page 223, Mayfield). This quote is explaining how you need both the intellectual virtue (nature) and the moral virtue (habit). The soul is made up of three things: passions, faculties, and states of character. Since virtue is in our soul one of the three must be it. Passions are uncontrolled feelings ...