Among the moral virtues described are courage, temperance, justice, friendliness, generosity, gentleness, wittiness, and modesty. Fortunately, Aristotle descriptions are such that virtues do make sense and will be easily recognizable to the high school student. His description of the moral virtues can be especially illuminating for a high school student's understanding of what constitutes doing what is right. With stunning clarity, he distinguishes these virtues as the right and reasonable act between extreme responses to various situations. Interestingly, courage is the first virtue he treats.
Courage is about facing the painful and terrible.
It is a mean between the extremes of rashness and cowardice. The brave man, he says, does a courageous thing, but not without an appropriate fear of the pain or terror he faces. To shrink from unavoidable dangers with unreasonable fear, however, is just as inappropriate. The intellectual virtues concern the intellectual powers of the human person. According to Aristotle, the five major intellectual virtues are science, art, prudence, intuitive reason, wisdom.