Ethical virtue is concerned with feelings and actions. Virtue is a mean between two extremes, and the specific mean will depend on the person. Virtue is what makes a thing perform its function well, so the virtue of a man is the habit from which he becomes good. Neither are they powers, because we possess powers by nature. They are not acquired without deliberate choice. Being virtuous requires three things: 1) that a person knows what he is doing, b) that he intends to do what is he is doing and that he intends it for its own sake, and c) that he acts with certainty and firmness. Yet to act virtuously and to be virtuous are different things. Some will question how virtue can be acquired by habit because to acquire the virtue a person will already need to act virtuously in order to become habituated to it. Right education should make us take pleasure in what is good and be pained by what is bad. If a virtue truly becomes a habit, acting according to that virtue will be pleasant. Virtue is to be found in the mean between extremes of vice. Statements prescribing virtue cannot be precise because the action must be proper to the occasion. The way to become habituated in virtue is to perform virtuous actions beginning from one's early youth. A good government attempts to legislate such that it helps to habituate its citizens to act virtuously. Ethical virtues are acquired by habituation they do not arise in us from birth, but we by nature have the capacity to receive and perfect them.
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