... In this essay, I will be discussing Aristotle’s function argument. This argument is found in Nicomachean ethics, in which Aristotle claims that the best human good is “the soul’s rational activity expressing virtue” (1098a16-17). To better understand this claim, we must first discuss the function argument in its entirety. Aristotle prefaces this argument by presuming that the best good is happiness. What we need, however, is a clearer definition of what the best good is (1097b22-24). Beginning with the first premise of his argument, Aristotle states that we will be able to define what the best good is if we first discover what the function of a human being is. This is because the good (i.e. doing well in anything that has a function and characteristic action) depends on the function itself (1097b26-29). If this is true, then we can apply this concept to human beings, if human beings do indeed have a function. Furthermore, Aristotle questions if human beings have a function at all, aside from the functions projected onto them by whatever occupation they serve in society (i.e. farmer, blacksmith). In his argument’s second premise, Aristotle states that if every bodily part in a human being has a function, we can similarly attribute a function to the human being as a whole. This premise acts upon Aristotle’s argument prior to the function argument in Nicomachean ethics, which states that numerous goods can serve higher goods in a hierarchical manner. Thus, each part of the human...
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...Aristotle described three types of friends and did so in ascending order of value. First, is friendship of utility (144) wherein two people remain friends so long as each is useful to the other in some fashion. This sort of relationship would likely not meet the modern definition of friendship, but Aristotle did not say this ‘friendship’ was bad. This is friendship like between nations with similar goals, more a temporary alliance than a permanent relationship. A friendship of utility would be, for an individual example, the relationship between a shop owner and a customer. Both hold each other in mutual regard so long as the terms of utility remain the same, that is, until the sale is concluded. Aristotle states that this friendship is held by each person for “what is good for themselves” (144). The next type of friendship Aristotle describes is a friendship of ‘pleasure’ and it is held by each person for what is pleasurable “to themselves” (144). This type of friendship shares a trait with the first type in that neither friendship is truly concerned with the other person; i.e., “not because of who the loved person is but in so far as he is useful or pleasant” (144). This flavor of friendship is still not quite what we commonly consider a friend; but more like someone with whom we share a hobby. For example, a sports teammate or someone who enjoys chess whom we see at a coffee shop to play a game. Should one of us abandon the hobby, the friendship would likely cease...
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...ETHICS IN ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY Kaplan University AC504-01 Professor Sandra Gates Introduction In this paper I am going to discuss the philosopher Aristotle. I will also talk about Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics philosophy, why it is important, and how it potentially connects to accounting and business. Aristotle was born in Stagiros, Macedon, in 384 B.C. He was educated by a guardian after his father had died. At the age of seventeen his guardian sent him to the centre of intellectual and artistic life in Athens. While he was there “he entered Plato’s Academy where he stayed for about twenty years as a student and then later as a teacher” (no author, n.d, page 1, paragraph 1). After teaching for a number of years, Aristotle sailed for Assos in Asia Minor; he lived there for three years while he gained interest in biology, anatomy, and began work on his book the Politics. Aristotle was a tireless scholar, whose scientific explorations were as wide ranging as his philosophical speculations were profound; a teacher who inspired and who continues to inspire generations of students; a controversial public figure who lived a turbulent life in a turbulent world. He bestrode antiquity like an intellectual colossus. No man before him had contributed so much to learning. Aristotle offers a business ethic intent on advancing the attainment of personal happiness. He defines happiness in the universalistic terms, and insists upon the priority of exercising...
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...analyzing ethical dilemmas (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2012, pp. 164-165). The self-reflection needed to identify one’s fundamental nature, and to understand the morals, ethics and values one uses to make decisions are critical to becoming an authentic leader who is a moral manager that serves the people that follow him or her (Hughes, et.al, pp. 152-153). Ethical Self Reflection What is right? Morals define personal character related to the ideas of both right and wrong. Ethics, while inherently linked to morals and one’s moral obligations, is a set of moral principles used in a social system in which those morals are applied. In other words, ethics point to standards or codes of behavior expected by the group to which the individual belongs. These standards could be national ethics, social ethics, company ethics, professional ethics, or even family ethics. So while a person’s moral code is usually unchanging, the ethics he or she practices can be dependent on exogenous factors not controlled by the individual or the group to which the individual belongs. Care-based thinking describes what is commonly referred to as the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you want others to do to you”, of conduct and is most closely aligned with Aristotle’s writings concerning happiness. Aristotle writes in Nichomachean Ethics that, “If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing...
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...or happiness. He believed that what makes human beings distinct from other living things is our capacity for rational behaviour, gaining knowledge and acting on reasons. He believed to live a good life is to live a life of practical knowledge and that this is similar to living a life of virtue. Aristotle concluded that a virtue is a learned disposition to reason and act in a certain way. Virtues are habits of mind that move us towards a good life. Virtue ethics, its most famous form from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, focus on what sort of people we should strive to be and not just that things we should do on individual occasions. Moral dilemmas are usually situations in which there are two choices to make, neither of which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable fashion. Hence in business, virtue ethics requires leaders to act in a way that they will increase their contributions to the good life. All business leaders will inevitably face moral dilemmas. In navigating through these dilemmas, virtue ethics and reason tell the business leaders to follow the character traits that upon, contemplation and reflection, they view as consistent with virtue. An art director, with a team of designers and illustrators, overseeing the promotion efforts of their new toy is “strongly” persuaded by his boss to “borrow” copyrighted design material and schematics from another overseas toy firm. His boss adds that even the board of directors have approved of this course of...
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...Honor “Honor- 1. honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs. 2. a source of credit or distinction.” (dictionary.reference.com) If you were to ask someone what honor meant, they would most likely take a few seconds to answer and their response would be something like, “honor is being true to your own ideas.” If we really think about it, most of us don’t really know what honor means. We think we do, but in reality we haven’t thought too deeply into the question. Honor. Years ago it was one of the many traits that made a humble and decent man. Men would go through great lengths to get honor, and to make sure that it wasn’t lost, because back then if you lost your honor, you lost your manhood. In one of Aristotle’s books Nichomachean Ethics he described what an honorable man looked like. Years ago chivalry had a lot to do with honor. You had to protect those who needed protection, and if you succeeded then you had honor. If men showed certain traits they were considered honorable men, and that was what most men wanted.Now, honor has a different meaning than it did years ago. We have all heard of the many different types of honor there are. One of the most common type of honor that I have heard of is ,The Code of Honor, which is a list of requirements for one to obtain respect while being in a group of people. In most groups if the code of honor is not achieved your are to be shamed. There is also the group of honor, which is a group of people who agree and while commit...
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...Philosophy that Alexander the Great, which the former tutored in 347 BCE, laid down the foundations of the latter’s empire. Throughout Alexander’s rule, the influence of Aristotle, his mentor, can be seen in the former’s skillful and diplomatic handling of difficult problems throughout his career. When Alexander became a king, he had set forth on a Persian expedition to expand his empire. Perhaps, it is the experience of the encounter between people’s that played a huge role in the development of the idea of cosmopolitanism, the idea that a man is a citizen of the world. “Aristotle's writings, like Plato's, have influenced virtually every avenue of human knowledge pursued in the west and the east. His Nichomachean Ethics is still consulted as a philosophical touchstone in the study of ethics. He created the field and the study of what is known as `metaphysics', wrote extensively on natural science and politics, and his Poetics remains a classic of literary criticism.” Hellenistic Philosophers Essentially, the Hellenistic period covers the period from the life of Alexander the Great in 323 BC up until the late 2nd century CE. Even before Alexander began his conquest of the known world in 336 BCE, the Greek culture had spread through the Mediterranean region. Alexander would have been a totally hellenized person if not because of his teacher, Aristotle. But being partly hellenized, he saw Hellenization as an admirable sovereign strategy because for him, it could help build unify his...
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...applicable to ethics. Also, I will discuss Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics philosophy, why it is valuable and how it potentially connects to accounting and business. There have been many excellent philosophers and thinkers through past time. There are three main ones that I liked and truly had an accountant and business ethics philosophy. They are Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. I decided to choose Aristotle as the greatest of them all on this subject. Aristotle was a student of Plato, and he possessed extraordinarily strong ethics. Aristotle born in northern Greece. He was a notable product of an educational program devised by Plato. He studied at an academy for twenty years. His view on individual human beings is they invariably linked together in a social context. Aristotle disagreed with Plato’s view but defended his own vision of ultimate reality. According to Britannica.com, he was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. He had a wide and a vast range of intellectual pieces. He was the founder of formal logic and the most outstanding as a philosopher among many. This paper will discuss how Aristotle philosopher’s perspective of virtue ethics is applicable to ethical practices in business and accounting. I will give a brief synopsis on Aristotle’s history. I will discuss his view on distributive justice and how it applies to ethics. Finally, I will discuss how Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics philosophy...
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...Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Does God exist? If so, why is there evil? Like St. Augustine, I do acknowledge that ``God exists”. In order to explain his ideology, Augustine refers to the life of a tree, rock, dog and human beings. He argues that among the things aforementioned, only human being posses the ability to think and act thus meaning that among the creations on earth, the human being is the intelligent creature. Further, he expounds his argument by stating that if another being is intelligently superior to human beings, then it has to be God. However, St. Augustine acknowledges the presence of evil. St. Augustine’s opinion of sin is linked to the freedom to exercise ``freewill” by individuals an aspect that results to ``moral evil”. Free will forms the basis by Augustine that God should not be blamed for ``the existence” of sin. To expound on his argument, Augustine informs his readers that he like many other people has been subject to sin due to his desire to realize what sin entails and urges the people not to dwell so much on sin rather than the existence of God(pg,164). In conclusion, I support Augustine’s argument that no one can understand the thinking of God thus we should focus on his goodness rather than sin existence. Are Human Beings Selfish? I believe that every ``human being” is selfish. The selfish nature of human beings is evident from the daily activities that we engage in during our lifetime and routines. In the current society, it is common...
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...The Moral Compass Leadership for a Free World Lindsay J Thompson Leadership Ethics Course Manual ~ © 2005 Lindsay J Thompson ~ All rights reserved 2 THE MORAL COMPASS Leadership for a Free World Table of Contents introduction page 5 core learning page 9 the leadership labyrinth page 11 the m oral com pass page 27 values and global value creation page 73 corporate citizenship page 93 bibliography page 109 the case lab page 113 Leadership Ethics Course Manual ~ © 2005 Lindsay J Thompson ~ All rights reserved 3 Leadership Ethics Course Manual ~ © 2005 Lindsay J Thompson ~ All rights reserved 4 introduction Moral Leadership for a Free World If you read a newspaper this morning, you almost surely read something related to morality, leadership, and freedom. From international relations to neighborhood and family life, concerns about leadership ethics and human welfare are the focus of news, political movements, and civic initiatives. Emotionally engaging terms like “moral leadership,” “the free world” and “human freedom” are often used in the media without much explanation or clarification. Momentous decisions are made and life choices established in the name of values attached to these and similar terms. What do we really mean by “moral leadership,” or “freedom?” If two people use these terms in a conversation, do they explicitly share a common understanding of them or just assume common ground? For instance...
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...those lines because I can see myself. Life for me is happiness. Now that I have the answer to that question, how do I view life, my thoughts went 12 years ago. When I was a little girl there was one event where my mother and I went to a store. In that store I saw a doll house and I said to my mother “I want to buy that doll house it will make me happy.” My mother responded “We don’t have enough money to buy that”, and I said out of innocence “let’s just get it, anyway they won’t see us.” My mother just smile and said “Material things cannot make you happy especially if you acquire it by doing bad. They can give you pleasure but it won’t last.” From then on that statement becomes the pillar of my moral character. This is what the Nichomachean Ethics is trying to teach us, “He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.” Happiness is not easy to achieve it involves some sort of sacrifice. In my elementary years I always hate to do my assignments because I view it as an...
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...Business Ethics (Supplementary Lecture Notes) Mr. Joel C. Porras “Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actios, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character, they beconme your destiny.” ANONYMOUS Preliminary Notions: A. Etymological: The word ethics comes from the Greek word “ethos” ,meaning : custom, a habitual way of acting character, a meaning that the Latin terms “mos” , “moris” also connote. Among the Greeks , “ethics” meant what concerns human conduct/human action. B. Descriptive: Largely a concern of cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Its task is to describe how some person, members of a culture or society address all sorts of moral issues, what customs they have, and so, how they are accustomed to behave. C. Met-ethics: Concerns itself with the meanings of moral terms: like good and bad, right and wrong, duties and rights, etc. Hence the concern is with the understanding of the use of these terms, their logical forms and the objects to which they refer. Sometimes the concern of meta-ethicist is even more fundamental: What is the possibility of moral philosophy. D. Normative: Ethics is normative, not in the way that logic is, namely. With regard to the correctness of our thinking, but with regard to the goodness of our living, the right orientation of our existence. It is a practical science, not simply because it treats human action,...
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...Ethical Dilemma – Samouel’s Greek Cuisine Joshua has spent several hours researching his portion of his team project. His job is to collect secondary data. The conflicting information that Joshua has found is still considered secondary data even though it is not from a reputable firm. Secondary business data can be very helpful in determining the correct business path for a company to go in. The data, though conflicting should still be incorporated and explained in his research findings to his group. The data is from a government -sponsored website and may be very valuable. Joshua should stay late and examine the quality of the data he has found on the conflicting website. He needs to look at the reliability and the validity of the data that is presented. Who is the information being provided through and how was it collected, and is it free from bias? What was the data in the study originally collected for and does that influence the outcome. The information is from a government sponsored website so there is some credibility in the source. I do not feel that Joshua should ignore this research in his findings. If Joshua feels that he does not want to include this data he should talk to his group and explain why he feels it is not relevant. It should not be hidden from the findings if it has a role to play in the research and can help the restaurant’s performance in the future. There is a value in secondary research and when it is used appropriately...
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...Enoch Olutayo Dr Kristin Rajan Engl 1102-222 6th September 2013 Courage is a virtue As a kid, I watched a lot of cartoons. Some were memorable and had an impact on my life, while some were not. One of the most memorable was a cartoon called ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’. You can probably see from the title that this cartoon was very interesting. It has had a big impact on my philosophy as I have learnt life facts from watching it. I believe that I wouldn’t be the same person that I am today if I never came across it. I think it’s safe to say that as a kid, I did not know and understand a lot of things. The world to me was in black and white. You were either the good guy or the bad guy and when I watched TV, I always liked the good guys. This was how I felt when watching ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ but all that started to change as I grew up. This cartoon was about a dog named Courage that was adopted by a woman named Muriel. She found him abandoned on a trash can hungry and needing a diaper change. Her and her husband, Eustace, were on their way home when she saw him and immediately fell in love with him. Courage loved Muriel for being nice and loving, almost like a mother to him, so he always took care of her. As you can probably see from the title of the show, Courage’s name is a contradiction of his actual personality. He got frightened by almost anything and was always suspicious of people and activities that happened around him. They lived in the middle of nowhere, which...
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...Running Head: VIEWING ETHICS THROUGH MY EYES Viewing Ethics through My Eyes Business Ethics Heather Morgan Aiken Technical College Running Head: VIEWING ETHICS THROUGH MY EYES Abstract Ethical choices are made every second, rather knowing it or not, you make one every day. Versus being in a work environment, at a school activity, or being around friends and family. Every one's views are different when it comes to ethics and it all relates back to how you view situations and how you intend to follow through with the choices you make. Ethics relates back to how you were raised; rather through spiritual beliefs or in the home. Everyone's beliefs are different and that's what makes ethics it's own virtual way of views. Running Head: VIEWING ETHICS THROUGH MY EYES Viewing Ethics through My Eyes Business Ethics Ethics can be perceived in more than one form. I view it in the sense of virtue ethics, based on character traits people have that are good (Anne T. Lawrence, James F. Weber, 2011, p. 83). The method I would enforce would be the justice method (p. 83). Everything should be based off a fair and just form no matter the person, they should all be treated equal. I have an older brother and my parents raised us equally, even though we are four years apart in age. Anything he received, I received the same thing or something of the same value. I was raised to believe that...
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