Ethical Analysis of Virtues Ethical Analysis of Virtues Everyone strives to do good with their lives.

Some people, in certain aspects, t ry too much or too little to do good. There is no such thing as doing too much o r too little good, when something is good it is only good. Although, someone may think that they are still doing good, when they are actually not doing good. We need to try to stay within the mean. Once we start to stray from the mean, we a re heading towards the vices. Excess and defect are the vices. When we are doing something to excess or a defect, we may actually be causing more harm than good . Courage is a mean. Courage is when you are brave and you face your fears. In ord er for courage to be a virtue, the courageous act has to be performed for good a nd not for some personal gain. Some examples of courageous acts would be standin g up for something good against the majority. This one may be especially hard to do because it may seem like everyone is against you, but if you are standing up for the good you will be considered courageous, maybe not by those that you are standing up against, but many of the wise people will see you as courageous. An other form of courage is when you risk your life to save someone else s life. The pe ople that have done this we name heroes, they have performed very courageous act s that were detrimental to their health just to save someone else from death. Th is type of courage is mildly easier to perform than standing up against the crow d, because, this type of courage is normally supported by the majority. One type of vice is defect, where you have to little of the virtue. If you have to little courage then you may not stand up for what is right because you are af raid of the crowd or you are too afraid to risk your life to save someone else. If you are a coward you are not doing good, and you are giving in to the aversio n of pain. The other vice is excess, where you have too much of the virtue. You may say ho w can you have too much courage, wouldn't that be a good thing? Having a lot of courage may seem like a good thing but when you really look at it, you will noti ce why an excess of courage is not for the good. When a person is too courageous , they become careless. If someone with too much courage was trying to rescue so meone from a dangerous position, they might put themselves and the one they are saving in more danger because of their carelessness, and their foolhardiness. In addition, a person with too much courage may make rash decisions, and while the y may think that they are standing up against the crowd for the good, they may b e standing up for the wrong because of their rash decision. We must try to stay within the mean, if we continue to head towards the vices we will not be helping others, and we will not be considered virtuous. Courage is a virtue that should be wanted, because if we did not have courage then people w ould be able to get away with the wrong all the time. People would not be able t o stand up for the good and go against the majority opinion, people would be too fearful. If we have too much courage people would be too busy trying to be cour ageous that they would make rash decisions and they are not courageous for the g ood they are courageous because they want to feel like heroes. We need to balanc e our courage so that the most good will be brought from it.

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