Virtue, Vice, and Moral Character
Examine how ancient virtue ethics analyzes moral excellence and moral failure compared to concepts of sin. Master Aristotle's framework for calibrating the golden mean, diagnosing weakness of will, and grounding moral judgment in human flourishing.
Like Duolingo, but for Virtue, Vice, and Moral Character. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
20 levels across 3 sections, about 40 minutes end to end, roughly 8 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Diagnosing Actions and Moral Failure; Culpability, Character, and the Nature of Sin; and Practical Wisdom and Flourishing. It assumes you already know the basics.
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Key ideas in Virtue, Vice, and Moral Character
- In Aristotelian ethics, the mean is not a lukewarm average or half-measure, but hitting the exact target.
- Some actions—such as malicious betrayal or theft—have no mean state and are fundamentally vicious in any degree.
- Moral virtue aims at what is intermediate relative to us, determined by practical wisdom in context.
- Virtue sits between two opposed vices: an excess and a deficiency of the relevant emotion or action.
- Generosity fails either by giving recklessly without regard to purpose (excess) or hoarding selfishly (deficiency).
- Courage mediates fear and confidence, failing either through foolhardy rashness or paralyzing cowardice.
- The moral mean is asymmetrical; one extreme naturally looks closer to and more easily masquerades as the virtue.
- Rashness mimics courage because both exhibit daring action, whereas cowardice is glaringly contrary.
- Self-indulgence pulls people far more naturally than insensibility, making bodily pleasure the steeper moral slope.
- To hit the intermediate, one must steer away from the extreme toward which one is naturally inclined.
- Aristotle compares moral calibration to straightening a bent piece of wood by deliberately bending it the other way.
- A continent person experiences desire conflicting with reason but wills themselves to choose the good
- A virtuous person has aligned desires, choosing right action without inner friction or temptation
- Virtue requires both right external action and internal affective harmony between passion and reason
- Akrasia disables active moral knowledge during temptation, resembling intoxication or sleep
- The incontinent agent holds general moral knowledge in reserve but fails to apply it in the moment
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Virtue, Vice, and Moral Character the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
A ruler demands you betray a friend. A colleague advises: 'Compromise—betray only a little.' Why does this fail Aristotelian ethics?
Get it right to open this lesson and 19 more in the app.
Where Virtue, Vice, and Moral Character takes you
- 1
Diagnosing Actions and Moral Failure
- Calibrating the Golden Mean in Real Choices
- Differentiating Weakness of Will from Deep Vice
- 2
Culpability, Character, and the Nature of Sin
- Assessing Moral Culpability in Compromised Conditions
- Contrasting Aristotelian Vice with the Doctrine of Sin
- Mapping Habituation and Character Trajectories
- 3
Practical Wisdom and Flourishing
- Applying Practical Wisdom to Ethical Dilemmas
- Grounding Virtue in Human Flourishing
3 sections · 7 units · 20 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
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Virtue, Vice, and Moral Character is taught in the Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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