In Book II of the Ethics, Aristotle gives a description of the two types of virtue. Give a description of both, how they differ, how they are formed, and give an example of each.

Answer 1

In NE I.13 and II.1 Aristotle distinguishes intellectual virtues from character (sometimes misleadingly called "moral") virtues. The former, he says, come about by teaching and instruction, while the latter come about by practice and habituation. Theoretical wisdom (the scientific understanding of the heavenly bodies, roughly) is one of the intellectual virtues he recognizes in NE VI, while phronesis or practical wisdom (the action-oriented understanding of what's good and bad for humans) is the other. NE II-V deal primarily with the character virtues. In NE II.6 he argues famously that character virtue in general is a "mean" or intermediate state in actions and emotion. And from III.5 onward he discusses particular character virtues. Courage, for example, is a mean concerned with fear and confidence. The courageous person has a settled disposition to response emotionally and practically in the appropriate way determined by the situation at hand.