Habit and Moral Education According to Aristotle

1333 Words6 Pages
Habit and Moral Education According to Aristotle Aristotle thinks that habit is an important part of moral education. And he is right in thinking that. Aristotle states “virtues arise in us neither by nature nor contrary to nature, but nature gives us the capacity to acquire them, and completion comes through habituation” (Aristotle 23). So virtues arise through habituation. Anything that is considered a property of having good morals or being virtuous such as, saying thank you to someone who helped you out or did something good for you, is habituated at an early age. Being taught to say thank you when you should be thankful for something is a characteristic of anyone considered virtuous. Being habituated in this way teaches you when you should be thankful for something. Someone who was never habituated this way when growing up might not be thankful, and therefore might not say thank you, in a situation in which they should be thankful because they were always given things and not taught to be thankful for them. Just like as in the case of a skill. For example, a good soccer player has to be taught how to play well and practice for a significant amount of time in order to become good at that skill. Eventually some of the skills the soccer player couldn’t grasp at the beginning of his training become habit with enough practice. Or similar to that of a musician who when first starting to play the guitar has to be taught and practice for weeks to be able to play one song, but after enough practice can play the song without even thinking about which chords to play; it just becomes habit. Being brought up to be habituated on finding the mean of excess and deficiency of both pleasure and pain determines a lot about one’s moral character. Aristotle says, “For virtue of character is concerned with pleasures and pains: it is because of pleasure that we do bad
Open Document