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Lina Okab 10/18/08 Like Aristotle, I also believe that virtues are not characteristics but a state of character. Aristotle defines virtuous character in Nicomachean Ethics : Excellence [of character], then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. He argues that our reasoning, which is the foundation for our virtues, derives from habit and not from nature. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do excellences arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit. Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (Aristotle,_ Nicomachean Ethics_). Meaning that all of the virtues that we believe are what we practice. The point in mind is that all of our morals are instilled in us through the process of learning. For example we are not born lairs......

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