introduction-to-ethics-5

According to Aristotle, “it is by doing just acts that a just man is produced.” He had previously said, however, that for an act to be done justly or temperately, “the action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.” (Both quotations are from Cahn, Explaining Ethics, 3rd ed., p. 138).

In an essay of no more than 400 words, first explain how an apparent paradox that arises, to the effect that one must already be a just person in order to become a just person, and then explain how Aristotle resolves it. In your essays you must use at least two quotations from Aristotle that appear in our text, other than the passages quoted above.