“Next, we must consider what virtue is. There are three things to be found in the soul — feelings, capacities, and states — so virtue should be one of these.
- By feelings, I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hate, longing, emulation, pity, and in general things accompanied by pleasure or pain.
- By capacities, I mean the things on the basis of which we are described as being capable of experiencing these feelings — on the basis of which, for example, we are described as capable of feeling anger, fear or pity.
- And by states I mean those things in respect of which we are well or badly disposed in relation to feelings. If for example, in relation to anger, we feel too much or too little, we are badly disposed; but if we are between the two, then well disposed. And the same goes for the other cases.
Neither the virtues nor the vices are feelings, because we are called good or bad on the basis not of our feelings but of our virtues and vices; and also because we are neither praised nor blamed on the basis of our feelings (the person who is afraid or angry is not praised, and the person who is angry without qualification is not blamed but rather the person who is angry in a certain way), but we are praised and blamed on the basis of our virtues and vices.
Again, we become angry or afraid without rational choice, while the virtues are rational choices or at any rate involve rational choice. Again, in respect of our feelings, we are said to be moved, while in respect of our virtues and vices we are said not be moved but to be in a certain state.”
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle. (2014). Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge University Press.
-Yogabrofessor
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