In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he talks a lot about virtue, responsibility, and character. Character is a set of personality and behavioral traits that are stable and determine how you feel, think and act. Character is very important in ethics because your character is who you are and the values you follow throughout your life. In this paper, I will be defending my view by first talking about how character determines what you do. Secondly, I will explain that you will help others if your actions are virtuous and thirdly, life has many gray areas where there are no rules and only good character can guide you through those situations. The term situationism which is the theory that human behavior is determined by surrounding circumstances rather than by personal qualities. Situationism says that the current and immediate situation is more influential than having innate traits with your personality. It doesn’t relate to my thesis, because I feel as your personal character traits need to align with the outside environments. Your personal character traits determine how you achieve your goals, whether people will want to deal with you, and how well you fit in groups. Your character is very important for your success in life. Character comes from inside, which is the true you. Combining character and ethics will give you a description of someone who is truthful, fair, and honest. Surrounding circumstances can impact someone such as poverty and friends, but in my opinion, your personal traits will lead you in the right direction all the time especially if you have the right intentions.

Character goes a long way in life because it determines who you are as a person. Your character determines what you do on a daily basis and if you have good character, then the less bad things you’ll do. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics Book 1, he states “every action aims to be good, but we must start off trying to determine what is right and be clear with the process.” Every action you choose should be with the right intentions and to better yourself or others, but in order to do good things, you must understand what the right way is to go about things.  A person with good character does the right thing because they believe it is the right thing to do and don’t act just because someone is influencing and pressuring them to do something. They don’t do things just because they want to look good in front of others as well. According to Brett and Kate McKay (2019), your character is something that intrinsically occurs within a person and surpasses other factors like religion, gender, education, and even personality in showing us how we respond when faced with tough situations in life. Aristotle believes that character will take time to develop through your family and community due to being praised for the wrong things which can hurt your character for a long time. If you are punished for the bad things and rewarded for being a good person then you will have good character in my opinion because you will know right from wrong. Aristotle’s main point was you must have a good moral character to have a good life, not having many vices to live a good, and life live virtuously. Everybody wants to live a good life, because it leads to happiness and more fulfilling lives, but their values and traits don’t match up with that due to possibly insecurities, personal and family issues, or simply don’t want to live a good life.

Whether you have good or bad character can help determine if you will help others when they need help and why you might do that. Aristotle says that everyone should seek eudaimonia, which is well-being as the ultimate good for people, and have a flourishing life. Aristotle states that eudaimonia is the highest good for human beings. According to Behrouz Zand, “people should have the intellectual virtue and moral virtue so that they could help and direct their citizens into doing what is right.” Moral virtues are learned by habitual practices which means practicing good habits can build up good moral virtues. Exhibiting virtue in your own character will help others see how something should be done and learn that way. If you carry around bad character, you won’t help others and you will be considered selfish. Children usually don’t understand the concept of flourishing, but adolescents do, so we are teaching children early in different circumstances and how we react to them. Aristotle stated in the Greater Good Magazine “finding happiness and fulfillment is achieved by loving rather than in being loved.” Helping other individuals allows us to become closer with other people and learn social skills. Building relationships and helping others are the central feature of a positive, well-lived life. Helping others throughout life makes your life more meaningful and it is beneficial due to fulfilling basic human needs and the altruism will strengthen your relationship and connections with others. Always strive to be a good person through good core values and helping others, you never know how far that can take you. In Aristotle’sNicomachean Ethics Book X, he mentions that words alone cannot convince people to be good, but it requires practice, habituation, and will grow onto the child to showcase their good character.

Throughout life, there are many gray areas and there may be no rules for you or others to follow, and you will have to lean on you character or own understanding in those situations to guide you.  An example of this particular subject could be war. War is just one of those things that is based on judgement and how you react to things. This is the perfect example of a gray area in which you have to lean on your understanding to guide you through the situation. Some many things can go wrong such as ammo, a partner needing help, guns, and bombs. Majority of the time, it comes down to weapons and which ones to use because during war some weapons and objects aren’t supposed to be used. Usually if you use a very destructive gun or object during war, it will cause others to go do the same thing which will end badly for someone. It’s all about your character and judgement because if you use good character and judgement, the war will be fought fairly and wouldn’t escalate to something dangerous. In all situations, good character plays a huge role whether its dealing with war, yourself, or others around you because you never know how many people you could potentially take out of harm’s way.

At the end of the day, character is very important in ethics and goes a long way in life for yourself and building relationships. You are not born having your character nor understanding ethics. Depending on your living surroundings and community are they can affect your character and how you perceive things as right and wrong, but at a point you learn and know the difference between right and wrong. Adding courage and responsibility will impact your character is many ways. Character can control whether or not if you can help others. Character will show you how to react you see when things happen, how you think, and how you act in many hard situations in life. Whether that be in times of need or just because you want to and are a good person. If you want to have a good life, you must have good character and treat people the right way.