Aristotle claims that virtue is either an intellectual or a habitual behavior NE Book 2 Chapter 1. By intellectual he means that with time and experience you will learn to be virtuous, while by habitual he means that as you go about life you tend to be virtuous given the situation. What I took away from this is the idea that bad people can do things. How do the two virtues cancel out. Lets say I decide that a life of crime is for me, I want to rob banks and shoot people. Why is it, that when I see I someone struggling with something in their personal life, I find myself intervening in a good way. I’m a bad man. Why am I helping this old woman carry her groceries across the road by making someone else do it at gun point.
Historically, we see examples of this all the time. Gangsters and thugs being a menace to society while uplifting poor neighborhoods and having individual acts of kindness. Jesse James, the famous outlaw, was reported to have robbed a debt collector of a woman who gave him refuge. Anakin Skywalker, in the pursuit of love fell to the dark side in order to save his wife, and in doing so doomed her. So why are “bad people”, by Aristotle’s teaching intellectual non virtuous people capable of virtuous acts.
From a young age living in the south, I was taught a few things. Say please and thank you, open the door for people, and lock your door and be wary of people on your property. These became habits, and while the first two can be see as morally good or socially responsible, is abject paranoia befitting the demeanor of niceness. Regardless, I think this has merit. However, how do we judge the crimes of those who commit atrocities, but behave in upstanding manor. Legally, we have the good behavior system. If you do as you’re told in prison and don’t break or hurt anything, you can receive a reduced sentence. Is that fair?
I get it. I really do. I think it’s important that we not just know what right and wrong is, but also behave upon it instinctually. I’m just not sure if there isn’t more to it.
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