The Little Mermaid

Virtue and Excellence can be found anywhere and everywhere throughout pop culture. These characteristics can be found in movies, songs, politics, and even cartoons for children. Aristotle believes that virtue and excellence is what we strive for throughout our entire life. In order to have the kind of virtue and excellence Aristotle refers to, we have to understand that virtue deals more with inner-character (intrapersonal feelings) than just the external body boundaries. For example, Aristotle states three values that can help us to further understand how we can decide if we are truly virtuous and have excellence, "first, if he does them knowingly, secondly if he decides to do them, and decides to them for themselves, and thirdly if he does them from a firm and unchanging disposition (pg 115 sec 1105a31). In this, he is trying to explain that a truly virtuous person does the right thing and the good thing no matter the situation. Whether it is to fight for his country or lie to save someone's life. Okay, so what exactly does this have to do with anything related to the examples of pop culture that was stated earlier? Well, in this case, a certain cartoon for children exemplifies Aristotle's view of a man that is not truly virtuous and of excellence. This cartoon, you may have heard of, is The Little Mermaid television series. The twenty-eight episode "Heroes" depicts Aristotle's view of virtue very well. This episode is basically about a supposed "hero" by the name of Apollo who comes to visit the city of Atlantis to see his friend King Triton. The merpeople hold Apollo in high regards because of the most famous battle he fought in against Ursula (the sea witch). Ariel, the daughter of King Triton, goes on an adventure with Apollo because of all the "accomplishments" he has and the fact that he is "very adventurous, and while on this adventure, Apollo begins to show his true colors. He reveals to Ariel that he did not do any of the things that the merpeople admire and adore him for out of courage but mostly all out of fear. On that note, Apollo would be the model man for Aristotle to explain what a man is that has no virtue or excellence. In the end, Aristotle mostly explains what it means to not be someone of virtue and excellence, and that is why episode twenty-eight of The Little Mermaid television series identifies with Aristotle's ideas on virtue and excellence.

Below are parts of the episode of The Little Mermaid mentioned in the post above. Sorry I couldn't put the actual video up...but links will do! =) 

Part 1 of Episode 5

Part 2 of Episode 5

Part 3 of Episode 5