This study will examine and compare the views of three philosophers on how we should decide the right course of action. The study will consider the moral theories of Aristotle (in Nicomachean Ethics), John Stuart Mill (in Utilitarianism), and Immanuel Kant (in Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals). The study will conclude that each approach has qualities to recommend it, but Aristotle's appears to this reader to be superior. Kant's places great responsibility on the freedom of the individual's will as an expression of God's will, determined through reason, rather than on individual perception, but his categorical imperative is too extreme. Mill's approach is reasonable, but it ignores God's will and puts all power for defining morality in terms of man's definition of "pleasure" or "happiness." Mill also seems to turn some responsibility for action over to the community rather than the individual.
Aristotle defines moral virtue as the possession of such qualities as self-control, courage, generosity, high-mindedness, gentleness, friendliness, truthfulness, etc. The possession of such qualities occurs through action---acts of self-control, courage, generosity, etc. Actions of such self-control, courage, etc., occur again and again in the life of the morally virtuous individual. Moral virtue, then, is a factor not of genetics but of action, and particularly repeated action.
In other words, Aristotle's answer to how we should decide the right course of action is not based on some communal understanding of what pleasure or pain the individual action will bring (Mill's utilitarianism), nor on Kant's strict and unreasonable imperative which makes universal law out of every action. Instead, Aristotle combines the most practical and reasonable approach (the golden mean between extremes) and the approach which takers the longest perspective. This is where his emphasis on habit comes in, emphasizing not individual actions but many ac...