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PSYCHOANALYSIS, EMOTIONS AND LIVING A GOOD LIFE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2013

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Extract

The central question of ethics is ‘How should I live?’. It covers not only actions (‘what should I do?’), but more broadly, our reactions and our characters, questions of what we should feel and how we should be as people. This has been the central concern of theories of virtue. Aristotle claimed that a virtue is a character trait that enables us to ‘stand well’ in relation to our desires and emotions. To be virtuous with regard to a type of emotion – anger, sadness, joy, fear, etc. – is to feel that type of emotion ‘at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way’ (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, Ch. 6, 1106b).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2013

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