← See the axis · Criterion of right action
ArgumentWho to be, before what to do
What makes an action truly good is not having chosen to follow a rule, but having become the kind of person who sees and does what the situation calls for.
Supports
- Following a rule does not suffice to make an action good for certain: one can know it and apply it grudgingly, out of interest, or at the wrong moment. The occasionally just man is not yet the just man.
- What makes a person act well consistently is a lasting disposition of character: the one who has become just does the just thing regularly, gladly, and for its own sake, without consulting a rule each time.
- And this disposition, unlike a rule fixed in advance, stays attentive to what is particular in each situation: the person endowed with perceives what this precise case demands, where a general rule, unable to foresee everything, must sometimes betray it.
Therefore So the ground of right action is a good character, not the observance of a rule or the calculation of effects: to act well is to have become the one who sees and does what the moment demands.
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