EDUCATING ETHICAL BEHAVIOR:
ARISTOTLE'S VIEWS ON AKRASIA
Deborah Kerdeman
University of Washington

"Can the teaching of ethics really help cleanse the business world of shady dealings?" Asked by Newsweek magazine during the height of the recent Wall-Street scandals,1 this query resonates with perennial concerns about whether or not virtue can be taught and how such instruction might best be effected. The problem, Newsweek declares, is not that students lack ethical standards or are incapable of distinguishing wrong from right. The challenge for educators rather lies in helping students act on the virtues they espouse. "Even in today's complex world, knowing what's right is comparatively easy," Newsweek concludes. "It's doing what's right that's hard."

Why do people act wrongly, when they know full well what right conduct demands? This phenomenon, known to philosophers as incontinence or akrasia, receives extensive treatment in Book Seven of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.2......

Join Now to view the rest of this term paper!
Members: Login to view this research paper.

Title: Behavior
Approximate Word Count: 4595
Approximate Pages: 19 (250 words per double-spaced page)

With the Term Papers Lab Membership Pass, you get instant access to every essay on this site, including this essay on Behavior, for as long as you remain a member.

Other essays sites charge almost $100 for a single term paper. At Term Papers Lab, you can get instant access to over 100,000 research papers for as little as $29.95!