Virtue Ethics - Aristotle 1.Book 2, Chapter 6 I mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions, andin these there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. For instance, both fear andconfidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and painmay be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feelthem at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the rightpeople, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediateand best, and this is characteristic of virtue. Similarly with regard to actions alsothere is excess, defect, and the intermediate. Now virtue is concerned withpassions and actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and so is defect, whilethe intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and being praised and beingsuccessful are both characteristics of virtue. Therefore, virtue is a kind of mean,since, as we have seen, it aims at what is intermediate. Aristotle. (1931) 2.Book 2, Chapter 1 It is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is bothproduced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre thatboth good and bad lyre-players are produced. And the corresponding statementis true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a resultof building well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no needof a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft. This,then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing the acts that we do in ourtransactions with other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts thatwe do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence,we become brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states of character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference. Aristotle. (1931) 3. Book 10, Chapter 6 Now that we have spoken of the virtues, the forms of friendship, and the varieties of pleasure, what remains is to discuss in outline the nature of happiness, since this is what we state the end of human nature to be. Our discussion will be the more concise if we first sum up what we have said already. We said, then, that it is not a disposition; for if it where it might belong to someone who was asleep throughout his life, living the life of a plant, or, again, to someone who was suffering the greatest misfortunes. If these implications are unacceptable, and we must rather class happiness as an activity, as we have said before, and if some activities are necessary, and desirable for the sake of something else, while others are so in themselves, evidently happiness must be placed among those desirable in themselves, not among those desirable for the sake of something else; for happiness does not lack anything but is self-sufficient. Now those activities are desirable in themselves from which nothing is sought beyond the activity. And of this nature virtuous actions are thought to be; for to do noble and good deeds is a thing desirable for its own sake. Aristotle. (1931)

In this section, choose one of the philosophical texts associated with your chosen ethical theory early childhood education

• Explain the key ideas in the text.
• Discuss how your understanding of the text evolved after multiple reads.

This section should be around 150 words (excluding the philosophical text)