Confucius and Aristotle on Virtue - Philosophy Essay Example

This paper is focused on discussing a broad aspect about virtues in comparison to two great ancient thinkers, Aristotle and Confucius. The broad aspects about virtues are considered a key developmental character in the current society by everyone at whatever position. Various renowned Philosophers like Aristotle and Confucius have brought out the dynamic view of the subject matter to the entire universe. Leaders of various institutions and organizations are highly encouraged to take time in understanding the basis of virtues so that they do not have problems when it comes to implementation of the traits at their various institutions and organizations. The society at large should also be educated on virtues so that life can be made easy by interpreting various aspects of life with regards to the lessons they come across. Ethical behavior plays a key role in ensuring a smooth running of various groups, societies, organizations, institutions, and businesses. Virtue ethics is a broad perspective of ethics that emphasizes an individuals character or moral behavior as the basis of ethical thinking rather than ones own duty or actions so as to bring out the good consequences in them (Julia, 2009).

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The Aristotelian conception of virtue as arete can be significantly compared to Confucius notion ren which is interpreted as virtue. Aristotle mostly focuses on virtue ethics which currently an issue of great significance as it gives a clear line of difference between morality and ethics. On the other hand, Confucius key notion mostly focuses on moral or ethics philosophy. The two short presumptions of these two ancient thinkers, that is, arete and ren have clear distinctive meaning. Originally, arete in Greek used to refer to manly qualities excellence, while ren used to describe huntsmen who were presumed noble. Speculatively, scholars have altered the ancient meaning of ren to now mean manly or manhood and suppose this is true, then, there comes to the surface an etymological parallel between the two words, ren and arete. Aristotle argues out that the virtues of a human being are mostly driven by the persons motive to perform well in whatever context; therefore, leading to the conclusion that arete has a human function relation. Comparatively, Confucius ren which has two components, namely human and two mainly focuses on human relationships (Yu, 2013). Everyone is held responsible for his or her own action according to Aristotle, unlike Confucius notion which has a third party connection of events as a result of a certain course of action among individuals. Confucius brings out the idea of non-individualism so that the consequences of a certain action can be equally felt among people involved in a certain scenario. Aristotle encourages individual accountability of a persons own actions with regards to a particular consequence that will come aftermath. A person who does things by him/herself is most likely to go wrong and never realize the point where he/she went wrong; this invalidates Aristotles conception of virtue. Ultimately, when two or more people are involved in a certain experience, it is easy for a mistake to be realized and done away with before the consequences of their actions become gross.

The findings of the comparison of Confucius and Aristotles views on virtue can be used to suggest differences between ancient Chinese and ancient Greek culture. In this connection, it is important to note that Confucius view about virtue had many roots from ancient Chinese culture, while the Aristotelian view is mainly rooted from ancient Greek culture. The ancient Greek culture mostly entailed independent means of living, and on the other hand, the ancient Chinese culture entailed interdependence on individuals survival. People from the ancient Chinese culture always had similar mannerisms due to their correlative way of living while people from ancient Greek culture had distinct mannerisms in comparison to one another. A society that emulates interdependence has much likelihood of progressing further, unlike a society that exercises independence among its individuals as it most likely not to progress any further. For instance, the man in the Confucius analects has a commendable behavior that is attributive of the behavior other virtuous men of the ancient Chinese culture.

In the modern society, ideas of virtues that can apply to ethics in places such as a diverse workplace are interdependency which brings along efficiency in output and input productivity of workers. Managers of companies are also urged to emulate proper managerial skills that significantly run to benefit both them and their employees. Workers also need to learn how to adapt to their coexisting workers ways of operation; thus, issues that come along due to inability to coexist in the working place. Individualism is the ultimate source erosion of high productivity in an organization setting. Also, it is important for a person to be accountable for his or her own actions and not just to always depend on moving with multitude opinion as the multitude opinion is sometimes never right (Marta, 2016).

Works Cited

Annas, J. E. (2009). "Virtue ethics." Oxford University Press.

CRJ 105 week 6 assignment Annotated Bibliography.docx [Material]

CRJ 105 week 6 assignment 2 Formal Outline January 28 2016 (1).docx [Material]

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.htmlhttp://classics.mit.edu/Confucius/analects.1.1.htmlMarta, J. (2016). Aristotle on Becoming Virtuous by Doing Virtuous Actions. Phronesis 61 (1):3-32.

Yu, J. (2013). The ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of virtue. (Vol. 7). Routledge.