CULTURAL AND ETHICAL VALUES Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

CULTURAL AND ETHICAL VALUES - Essay Example 28). He uses this as the basic framework from which he developed the idea of virtue as mean – the golden mean – where ethical virtue remains "located on a map that places the virtues between states of excess and deficiency" (Kraut, 2007). In The Politics, Aristotle expands this idea by asserting that a "government is good when it aims at the good of the whole community, bad when it cares only for itself" (Russell, 2005, p. 183). Therefore, the ethical virtue of governments lies in the common good. Aristotle engaged in an extensive comparison of the governments of Greek city-states, and concluded that there were three "pure" forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy (rule by a few), and polity (rule by many). Each had a corresponding "perverted" form: tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy (Aristotle, Sinclair, & Saunders, 1992, pp. 238-240). Within the framework of virtue as mean, the pure forms signify excess and the perverted forms expound deficiency. So, if ethical virtue entailed good governance, the doctrine of the mean would demand that the ideal form of government should be located between the pure and perverted ones. For Aristotle, the ethical qualities of sovereigns, not the nature of constitution, determine the virtue of governments: "it is impossible for those who do not do good actions to do well, and there is no such thing as a man’s or a states good action without virtue and practical wisdom" (Aristotle, Sinclair, & Saunders, 1992, p. 393). Hence, moderate competence in performing the functions of government is identified with virtue, and virtue with the pure forms of government. Aristotle says that the "correct conception of justice is aristocratic, assigning political rights to those who make a full contribution to the political community, that is, to those with virtue as well as property and freedom" (Miller 2002). To