Hexis within Aristotelian Virtue Ethics
Mathew T. Lu
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 88:197-206 (2014)

"[A] hexis is, in some way, fundamentally active." (LU-2014, p. 199)

"All the different hexeis ... involve a kind of active holding of oneself in some respect. Courage paradigmatically involves withstanding the enemy; temperance paradigmatically involves withstanding temptation.... Aristotle is clear that a hexis is the product or consequence of repeated action." (LU-2014, p. 200)

Citing EN 1113a30ff, Lu notes: "the morally serious (spoudaios) person recognizes what things are truly 'beautiful and pleasant' precisely because he has the right hexeis with respect to those goods.... We might even say that the possession of the relevant hexeis causally explains his power of seeing the truly beautiful as beautiful.... Just as physical disorder can disrupt one's physical senses, moral disorder (i.e., a disorder in the soul) leads to an analogous insensitivity.... A well-ordered soul is precisely one that is sensitive to things as they truly are." (LU-2014, p. 201)

"Properly understood as a hexis, each virtue is intrinsically oriented or directed towards action, namely the action that a virtuous person would do in those circumstances." (LU-2014, p. 202)

"When the virtuous person acts on the Aristotelian schema he is acting on account of, or, we might even say, *through* a hexis. The virtues simply consist in an ordering of the soul, generated through repeated action, which points to or is oriented towards virtuous action." (LU-2014, p. 203)

"There are no 'anonymous' or impersonal moral acts; only the acts of real moral agents each of whom possesses a particular moral character (i.e., set of hexeis). Every moral act is a *personal* act and can only be understood in light of the agent who performs it." (LU-2014, p. 203)

END