Aristotle's Practical Wisdom

The rapid development of modern hi-tech has brought some ethical issues that has never come to us before, which have already gone out of the scale that traditional normative ethics can solve. Under this background, Philosophers and Ethicists represented by Elizabeth Anscome, Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot and Nussbaum have criticized on western Philosophy of Morality that's dominated by normative ethics, and also pointed out the flaws of normative ethics: 1. the guard for ethical principles, rules and responsibilities neglects the attention on qualities in humanities themselves and ideals and faiths. 2. behavers' obeying of rules outdoes rational thinking of behaviors themselves. 3. the universality normative ethics promotes is not able to adjust flexibly under changing circumstances, as a result, individual interests are sacrificed to guard rules and laws. Here from, a discussion on virtue ethics that's symbolized by homecoming and reviving Aristotleanism has spread out worldwide. The meaning of homecoming not only resides on criticizing on normative ethics, but also on the re-interpretation of modem philosophy of morals and moral life assisted by classical resource. On the other hand, the discussion on ethics of technology usually has common ethics principles as necessary conditions; normative ethics reveal its downsides under the background of multi-cultures and the rapid development of technology in modern society. Consequently, re-examining Aristotle's virtue ethics has significant implications on backing up the theory of modern ethics of technology and returning to the true morals of humanities.Why we can say Aristotle's virtue ethics has significant implications on solving ethical problems of modern technology? What are the main features? The thesis starts with examining the concept of Phronesis in Aristotle's virtue ethics, through elaborating the concept of Phronesis in linguistics and philosophical implication; it analyzes the intrinsic meaning of practical wisdom as rational virtue. Further it compares practical wisdom with Wisdom, Technéand Nous which are also rational virtues, and analyzes the relation between practical wisdom and practice, consequently establish that the main features of Aristotle's Phronesis are rooted in practice, it takes the conditions for practical activities into full consideration, put emphasis on the foster of behavers' virtues and emphasizes that a successful moral practice lies in the virtues of the behaver. Based on this, the thesis further discusses on the historical lineage from Thomas Aquinas to Kant, and examines and evaluates the great implications of Aristotle's concept of Phronesis from a historical viewpoint. Moreover, the comparison of Aristotle's Practical Wisdom and the wisdom in traditional Chinese philosophies on the other hand reveals the differences between Chinese and Western ethics of virtue, but more importantly on the other hand, it shows the relation between virtue and practice.