Flaws of character: Habituating Aristotelian emotions, reasons and actions

ABSTRACT

This paper takes inspiration from Books III and IV of the Nicomachean Ethics, which discuss the ways in which the student of virtue can go wrong with respect to different vices. It uses this discussion to draw some conclusions about Aristotelian habituation. I will argue that habituation is an appropriate learning strategy for many kinds of students of virtue, not just children; that habituation is multi-faceted and involves habits of emotions, habits of reason and habits of action; and that habituation is messy because it reflects a messy subject matter. I will conclude with some thoughts on how educators can best respond to this messiness.

KEYWORDS:

• Aristotle
• virtue ethics
• habituation

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the audience at the Gdansk conference on Virtue and Human Development as well as three referees for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I appreciate that this is quite a bold claim, but considerations of space do not allow me to go further into it in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Nafsika Athanassoulis

Nafsika Athanassoulis is a moral philosopher who works on Aristotelian virtue ethics, character education, professional education, risk and luck. She is the author of Virtue Ethics and Morality, Moral Luck and Responsibility, she has edited several collections and published numerous papers. Her work can be found on philpapers, researchgate and academia.edu. She is the Director of the Life Long Learning programs at Athens College in Greece.