Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Blog #2

In the lecture notes, Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle focuses his attention on the true meaning of virtue. He defines virtue, arete, as excellence. Virtue is being able to do the right thing at all times, not just when one feels it is needed. Being virtuous means having a healthy soul. “One cannot have moral virtues of character without having moral virtues of the mind” (109). One should perform good habits all the time, even when no one is watching. In Aristotle’s point of view, it is okay to be continent than incontinent. Continent means being able to do the right thing most of the time and failing every now and then. Aristotle’s lecture notes reminded me a lot of a movie called Seven Pounds. An overall good man gets in a car accident, by texting and driving and ends up killing six strangers and his fiance at the time. Tim, the main character in the movie, tries to make up up for his faults. Although he failed by killing seven people, he tried to redeem himself by doing the right thing. A year after the crash, Tim donates a lung lobe to his brother. Later he donates a part of his liver to a women named Holly. Holly serves to children as a living, therefore, he felt that she would help make the world a better place by allowing her live longer. Furthermore, he goes on a quest to find more candidates to receive donations. He then finds a hockey coach and donates his kidney to him and also donates bone barrow to a young boy who was diagnosed with leukemia. Graciously, he helps a women and her two children escape from their abusive husband/father.  Last but not least, he finds a women named Emily Posa, who has a heart condition and cannot find help because of her rare blood type. Therefore, Tim spent as much time with her as he could. He ended up falling in love with her and that helped motivate her to live longer for a while. Unfortunately, her condition ended up getting worse. Therefore, he had made is decision. In order to save her life, he filled his bathtub up with ice water in order to preserve his vital organs and commit suicide by pulling his jellyfish into the water with him. His friend Dan, made sure that Tim’s preserved organs were donated to Emily, the love of his life, as he promised. The movie began with Tim accidentally killing six people. However, through his virtuous acts, Tim ended up making up for the seven lives he had killed. He had saved the lives of seven random people in the pursue of helping them live a longer and better life. His actions prove both the definitions of continent and virtue. For virtue means being able to do the right thing unselfishly, considerately, and habitually, just like Aristotle explained it should be. “first he does them knowingly, secondly if he decides to do them, and decides to do them for themselves, and thirdly if he does them from a firm and unchanging disposition” (115).