Virtues, Activities and Potencies

Abstract

The common denominator among philosophers who deal with virtue is their conviction that this concept is one of the key pieces to explain morality. However, the different ways of approaching the definition of virtue depend on anthropological and metaphysical preconceptions. When we ask what a virtue is, the answer changes if the question is about the effects it causes on the moral agent. These two questions lead to explore different areas of the human being. The thesis that will be defended in this paper is that a holistic vision of virtue needs to determine what it essentially consists in, what its subject is and what it brings to its possessor. This triple perspective of virtue combines the approach of the ethics of the first person with the ethics of the third person. Subsequently, the paper will address the question of the difference between moral and intellectual virtues and their importance (meaning) in the field of moral education.