PHI 208 Week 4 Discussion 1 Prompt
#1Aristotle says that the virtues are necessary for humans to attain happiness, but he means this in terms of something we might call “flourishing” or “living well”, which he considers quite different than simply feeling good. Thus, according to Aristotle some people might feel that they are happy, but because they lack the virtues they are not truly flourishing. However, imagine someone that is deceitful, selfish, greedy, self-indulgent, and yet enjoys great pleasure and appears to be quite happy. Is someone like this “flourishing” or not? Explain your answer this by referring to this week’s readings and media, and if possible provide examples from real life and/or from literature, film, TV, etc.#2Alasdair MacIntyre makes a distinction between goods “internal to practices” and goods “external to practices”, and he claims that the virtues are necessary for internal goods but not external goods. Explain what he means by this, drawing on examples from this week’s media and from either Hill’s discussion of environmental responsibility or Robinson’s discussion of military ethics (focus your discussion on just one of those, but feel free to discuss the other in reply to other people’s posts). For example, provide examples of internal goods within practices that impact the environment (such as farming) or the practice of soldiering, explaining how they differ from external goods that people engaged in this practice might pursue, and how someone might be prevented from realizing that internal good if they lacked the virtues (make sure to be specific about which virtues you are referring to).