Ethical Analysis of Virtues
Ethical Analysis of Virtues
Everyone strives to do good with their lives. Some people, in certain aspects, try too much or too little to do good. There is no such thing as doing too much or too little good, when something is good it is only good. Although, someone may think that they are still doing good, when they are actually not doing good. We need to try to stay within the mean. Once we start to stray from the mean, we are heading towards the vices. Excess and defect are the vices. When we are doing something to excess or a defect, we may actually be causing more harm than good.
Courage is a mean. Courage is when you are brave and you face your fears. In order for courage to be a virtue, the courageous act has to be performed for good and not for some personal gain. Some examples of courageous acts would be standing up for something good against the majority. This one may be especially hard to do because it may seem like everyone is against you, but if you are standing up for the good you will be considered courageous, maybe not by those that you are standing up against, but many of the wise people will see you as courageous. Another form of courage is when you risk your life to save someone else’s life. The people that have done this we name heroes, they have performed very courageous acts that were detrimental to their health just to save someone else from death. This type of courage is mildly easier to perform than standing up against the crowd, because, this type of courage is normally supported by the majority.
One type of vice is defect, where you have to little of the virtue. If you have to little courage then you may not stand up for what is right because you are afraid of the crowd or you are too afraid to risk your life to save someone else. If you are a coward you are not doing good, and you are giving in to the aversion of pain.
The other vice is excess, where you have too much of the virtue. You may say how can you have too much courage, wouldn't that be a good thing? Having a lot of courage may seem like a good thing but when you really look at it,...