Practical Ethics
Aristotle believed that ethical knowledge is not only a theoretical knowledge, but rather that a person must have "experience of the actions in life" and have been "brought up in fine habits" to become good (NE 1095a3 and b5). For a person to become virtuous, he can't simply study what virtue is, but must actually do virtuous things.
| “ | We are not studying in order to know what virtue is, but to become good, for otherwise there would be no profit in it. (NE 2.2) | ” |
Read more about this topic: Aristotelian Ethics
Famous quotes containing the words practical and/or ethics:
“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The vanity of the sciences. Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)