Bernie Sanders Virtues Essay

Bernie Sanders and His Virtue Although Aristotle lived and taught during the 300s BCE, his teachings and thoughts on ethics, specifically virtues and vices, are still considered influential for current educational practices. As a whole, one who is considered virtuous is fundamentally excellent in practice. There are two types of virtues: intellectual or theoretical virtues and moral virtues. Intellectual virtues are that of applied wisdom and intelligence. By definition, as described by Aristotle, a moral virtue is, “a characteristic involving choice, and that it consists in observing the mean relative to us, a mean which is defined by a rational principle, such as a man of practical wisdom would use to determine it.”

True virtue is a characteristic

For one to be generous, the person would need to demonstrate that they can give, without giving too much, or too little. A generous person is able to perform a balance between extravagance and stinginess and is able to give it to the right group of people. Sanders is generous in his ability to provide support and strategic political plans for marginalized and oppressed groups of people. For example, immigrants are often attacked by politicians. Southern Poverty Law centered stated that immigrant workers are, “routinely cheated out of wages, held virtually captive by employers who seize their documents, forced to live in inhumane conditions and denied medical treatment for on-the-job injuries.” This is an example of immigrants receiving insufficient and stingy amount of government aid. However, Sanders has formulated the perfect median to this issue. One of his eight steps to fixing this issue is to, “sign comprehensive immigration reform into law.” His plan is not extravagant, nor stingy. He has been able to use his perfect balance of generosity to derive plans to solve issues on immigration, gender inequality, women’s reproductive rights, institutional racism, the economic deficit, as well as many other mounting