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    Happiness requires only a virtuous life and nothing else — Carmelics
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    Home/Virtue Ethics
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    Happiness requires only a virtuous life and nothing else

    Virtue Ethics
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Happiness is the secure possession of what is needed to make one's life thoroughly good
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    • 2.Virtue is the only thing required for happiness
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    • 3.Bodily and external goods are not necessary for virtue
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aristotle argues in NE 1099a that extreme misfortune—loss of friends, children, or noble birth—can obstruct eudaimonia even for the virtuous.
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    • 2.A life stripped of external goods lacks the material preconditions for exercising many virtues, such as generosity and civic friendship.
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    • 3.Therefore virtue is necessary but not sufficient for happiness, contra the Stoic conflation of virtue with the complete good.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Philippa Foot's natural goodness account holds that human flourishing is partly constituted by species-typical biological functioning, not only moral character.
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    • 2.Chronic pain, severe illness, or deprivation impair the characteristic human life-form regardless of the agent's virtuous disposition.
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    • 3.Premise P4's denial that bodily goods possess any value is thus inconsistent with a naturalistic criterion of what counts as a good human life.
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    Topics

    Virtue Ethics

    Connections

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    Consequentialism1 linked

    Related

    A life stripped of external goods lacks the material preconditions for exercisin...Aristotle argues in NE 1099a that extreme misfortune—loss of friends, children, ...Bodily and external goods are not good in any way at allBodily and external goods are not necessary for virtue
    +6 moreShow less
    Chronic pain, severe illness, or deprivation impair the characteristic human lif...Happiness is the secure possession of what is needed to make one's life thorough...Philippa Foot's natural goodness account holds that human flourishing is partly ...Premise P4's denial that bodily goods possess any value is thus inconsistent wit...Therefore virtue is necessary but not sufficient for happiness, contra the Stoic...Virtue is the only thing required for happiness

    Similar

    There is in fact no mortal price to pay for being virtuous.80%Knowledge is necessary for virtue and happiness78%Harmony alone is not sufficient for virtue and happiness78%Virtue is the only thing required for happiness77%

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    The Stoics are well known for their teaching that the good is to be identified with virtue. Virtues include logic, physics, and ethics (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta [=SVF]II 35), as well as wisdom, moderation, justice, and courage. To our modern ears, the first three sound like academic subjects; but for the Stoics, they were virtues of thought. However, orthodox Stoics do not follow the Aristotelian distinction between intellectual and moral virtues because – as we shall see – they hold that all
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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit