Aristotle and David Hume developed accounts of ethics that remained true to their own empirical philosophies that are different from more traditional accounts with the overall theme of how a virtuous person would live their life. In contrast, David Hume developed his own account of sentimentalist virtue ethics that challenges, or pushes back on, the virtue ethics Aristotle. According to Aristotle, we should be virtuous people – and as virtuous people do virtuous things. Instead of talking about particular actions and the rules according to which they are undertaken, then, Aristotle requires us to look at virtues, or qualities of character. Within Aristotle, the emphasis is more on character traits than on rules or obligations. Moral agency is not merely a matter of which rules to follow, but a whole way of life, which requires a unity of thought and feeling, which is characteristic of what Aristotle called ‘virtue’. What is a virtue, and what is the virtuous life? Aristotle’s definition is cited by Boetzkes and Waluchow: virtue is “a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by rational principle, that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.” Virtue is a kind of disposition, but that’s not all – for virtue is a disposition to choose well. For Aristotle, virtuous action is action that emerges from one’s disposition to choose the middle point (or golden mean) between two vicious extremes; one extreme is the vice of excess, the other is a vice of deficiency. For Aristotle, there are four requirements associated with this idea of ‘choosing well’: (a) choice presupposes alternatives among which one selects; (b) choice also presupposes deliberation about or consideration of the merits of the available alternatives; (c) in order to select from the alternatives, one must rank those alternatives, such that one is preferred and thus chosen; and (d) in order to choose, and to choose well, there is a presupposition of voluntarism or agency. Virtue is a disposition to choose well mainly among means, rather than among ends. This is because the end for which humans strive, eudaemonia (happiness, well-being, or flourishing – the good for which all humans strive), is fixed by human nature and so not open to choice. There is no formula for deriving the mean between vicious extremes. The mean is determined by the virtuous person according to practical wisdom, (phronesis), and emulation of other virtuous people. This means that there is no obviously right course of action (though there are obvious wrong courses, at either extreme). Aristotle’s mode is to offer instances of the vices to avoid, and to lead us to see through examples the virtuous mean in practice. On the other hand, David Hume provides a more sentimental approach to virtue ethics, and much of his work deals with the is/ought problem (the problem of deriving moral claims from factual claims). Our moral evaluations of persons and their character traits, on Hume's positive view, arise from our sentiments. The virtues and vices are those traits the disinterested contemplation of which produces approval and disapproval, respectively, in whoever contemplates the trait, whether the trait's possessor or another. These moral sentiments are emotions (in the present-day sense of that term) with a unique phenomenological quality, and also with a special set of causes. They are caused by contemplating the person or action to be evaluated without regard to our self-interest, and from a common or general perspective that compensates for certain likely distortions in the observer's sympathies. Approval (approbation) is a pleasure, and disapproval (disapprobation) a pain or uneasiness. The moral sentiments are typically calm rather than violent, although they can be intensified as a result of our awareness of the moral responses of others. They are types of pleasure and uneasiness that are associated with the passions of pride and humility, love and hatred: when we feel moral approval for another we tend to love or esteem her, and when we approve a trait of our own we are proud of it. Some interpreters analyze the moral sentiments as themselves forms of these four passions; others argue that Hume's moral sentiments are pleasures and pains that tend to cause the latter passions. We distinguish which traits are virtuous and which are vicious by means of our feelings of approval and disapproval toward the traits; our approval of actions is derived from approval of the traits we suppose to have given rise to them. We can determine, by observing the various sorts of traits toward which we feel approval, that every such trait — every virtue — has at least one of the following four characteristics: it is either immediately agreeable to the person who has it or to others, or it is useful (advantageous over the longer term) to its possessor or to others. Vices prove to have the parallel features: they are either immediately disagreeable or disadvantageous either to the person who has them or to others. These are not definitions of ‘virtue’ and ‘vice’ but empirical generalizations about the traits as first identified by their effects on the moral sentiments. In the Treatise, Hume details the causes of the moral sentiments, in doing so explaining why agreeable and advantageous traits prove to be the ones that generate approval. He claims that the sentiments of moral approval and disapproval are caused by some of the operations of sympathy, which is not a feeling but rather a psychological mechanism that enables one person to receive by communication the sentiments of another (more or less what we would call empathy today). According to Michael Slote, Hume’s full-blown sentimentalism gives us both a normative conception of morality based on notions like sympathy or empathy, but it also tries to “understand moral judgments or utterances – what we mean when we say that something is right or wrong or virtuous – he tries to understand these things too, to give us a metaethics also based on feelings of sympathy in particular.” Aristotle probably turned over in his grave when philosopher David Hume stated that, “to be a moral person, you must act according to what you feel to be right.” These days, moral philosophy relying on the pathos of the individual is what is considered “popular wisdom.” However, several aspects of Aristotelian ethics show that elements of knowledge are necessary in order for an agent to act morally. One major aspect of Aristotelian ethics that disproves Hume’s’ stance that can be found in Nicomachean Ethics is the doctrine of the mean. There are no actual distinct rules when it comes understanding the nature of virtue and how to behave virtuously. Although the closet original definition of virtue is “excellence,” Aristotle defined it as the mean state between excess and deficiency. For example, there is the virtue of courage. Courage can be defined as the mean state between rashness and cowardice. Rashness is an excess of courage, while cowardice is a deficiency of courage. While this doctrine is imprecise in nature, it does provide a fairly solid guideline. When trying to live a life of virtue, one must be aware of the strength or weakness of their actions. Examining actions in this mini moral spectrum provides perspective. The issue with morality goes back to the fact that there are no set rules. This results in a big cloudy gray area of what you should do and what you want to do. Moral choices should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. The way to best evaluate the best action to take is to examine previous experiences and recognize that virtue is a relative concept. For example, it is immoral to kill in cold blood, but to kill to protect your loved ones is courageous. I might feel like slapping Hume, but based on previous knowledge I know that to be a vice of rashness rather than courage. Something as flimsy and chameleon as human emotions should not be the primary determining factor in moral decisions. It is probably impossible to be a moral person by relying on what you feel to be right. According to Aristotle, the only way to be a virtuous person is to exhibit all of the virtues. Virtue is not a potluck; it’s all-or-nothing. All of the virtues come from the same place, “the good.” In order for an individual to be a moral person, they must be naturally virtuous. Virtue is a habit that is practiced from youth, and it creates a good character. Making choices solely on what you feel to be right in that moment of time does not make you a moral person. To be a moral person, you must practice virtue until it becomes your character, and the only way to learn virtue is from experience. Knowledge from your previous experiences and what you discover “the good” to be should be forefront in the decision-making process. The knowledge built from previous choices develops your character. And in order to be a moral person, you must act according to what you know to be right. In conclusion, although Aristotle and Hume both have strenuous accounts on virtue ethics, both mentioning the concepts of vices, and the morality of virtuous people, they are distinctly different in their views. Aristotle focuses on the golden mean, human flourishing, the “good”, and friendship. Alternately, Hume’s key ideas include the is/ought problem, moral judgments being judgments of character, benevolence, and justice.

Works Cited
Aristotle, and Martin Ostwald. Nicomachean Ethics. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962. Print.
Boetzkes, Elisabeth Airini., and Wilfrid J. Waluchow. Readings in Health Care Ethics. 2nd ed. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2000. Print.
Hume, David, Mary J. Norton, and David Fate. Norton. A Treatise of Human Nature: A Critical Edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 2007. Print.
R., Di Leo Jeffrey. Aristotle: Happiness and Virtue. From Socrates to Cinema: An Introduction to Philosophy. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007. N. pag. Print.
Slote, Michael. Moral Sentimentalism. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.