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The Vice of Being Vicious
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the art of justice and how it applies to politics, morality, and virtue. He believes that “virtue is defined by reason” while people who are vicious tend to thrive on appetite for immoral acts, pursing bad actions based solely on their hunger or thirst for wrong (II.6). Rationality consists of reasons for certain beliefs or for courses of action while appetite is the “desire to satisfy craving;” in the vicious person’s case, that craving implies immorality. Because of this, every person has his own vice and is sometimes controlled by his vicious natures. In arguing for the rationalist account of virtue and appetite account of vice, Aristotle neglects to point out that characters with vice have cold tendencies towards others and act harshly due to their twisted desires to do what they feel is fine.
Aristotle claims that people act based on what they believe is fine, so a vicious person naturally thinks that what he does is acceptable, despite the perception of the good-doers of society. “Human good is the soul’s activity that expresses virtue,” yet a vicious man easily justifies his actions as right, thus as good (I.7). Take, for example, the actions of Hitler, who is a remarkably vicious person at heart: he was convinced that the persecuting of the Jews would relieve his country of further destruction. In his defense, he was solely trying to have victory…
