source

A Disposition, with Respect to Actions and Feelings, Issuing in Decisions

Rather than provide a definition of character or of a character trait, Aristotle defines virtue. Virtue is “a disposition issuing in decisions, depending on a mean relative to us, this being determined by rational prescription  in the way  the wise person would determine it.”

A virtuous disposition is a disposition to act and feel in particular ways in response to rational considerations; it is expressed in our decisions, which are determined through rational deliberation. The object of a decision is some action that will
bring about an end, or some good according to our conception of the good.

Because Aristotelian vices are also dispositions which lead to decisions, we should understand them, too, as dispositions of our rational and appetitive faculties. Aristotle does not treat virtues and vices as necessitating particular kinds of behaviour but, rather, as tendencies that incline us to behave as we do.

So, for example, the prodigal tends to give away more than he has and to borrow so that he can keep spending, but this is not a behaviour beyond his control; indeed, in conditions of poverty he can turn himself around. Furthermore, Aristotle does not treat such dispositions as by themselves explanatory of behaviour: the explanation of the prodigal’s behaviour will ultimately refer to his beliefs about what the good life is and how to achieve it.

Aristotelian virtues may be quite narrow. For example, Aristotle suggests that magnificence, the virtue associated with appropriate expenditure of large sums of money, and magnanimity, the virtue associated with honourable actions on a grand scale, are distinct from pride and generosity, the virtues associated with appropriate uses of
wealth and honor on a normal scale.

The question, “broad or narrow?” is not significant for Aristotle because of the role of practical wisdom
in virtue.

Aristotle insists that it is not possible to have virtue without phronesis or practical wisdom, which is the disposition to deliberate well about what produces the good life. He has many reasons for this view: the golden mean, at which virtue arrives, is in each case determined by right reason; the decision involves deliberation, and so an agent’s decision will
be good only if his or her reasoning is sound and the desire right.

But the deepest reason is that virtue, as a disposition to act and feel in response to reasons, is an excellence of a rational creature, something that puts its possessor and user in a good condition. We are interested in virtue as something good for us, because we want what is good for us. And so we are interested in a condition (or an inclination) that guides us well, not simply one that disposes us to perform certain sorts of actions. The condition that interests us will have to be intelligent if it is to guide us in all the different situations life presents us. So it will have to include practical wisdom.
The centrality of practical wisdom to virtuous character leads Aristotle to distinguish between moral virtue and what he
calls ‘natural virtue’. Natural virtue is a disposition to be moved in a certain way, but without practical wisdom: even animals and children can have natural virtue, such as the passion that drives wild animals to face a danger when they are distressed or hungry. But animals and children do not face danger for the sake of the noble. Aristotle compares possessors of natural virtue to blind people with heavy or powerful bodies—when they move, they fall, heavily. Similarly, natural virtue without
practical wisdom can be harmful for its possessor because it is not necessarily directed at the right objects.

So, Aristotle says, he agrees with Socrates in believing that the virtues require wisdom.