As is familiar to readers of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the venerable Greek philosopher organized much of his philosophical thought around his understanding of two kinds of human "excellence," ethike arete and dianoetike arete, or the moral and intellectual virtues. Because of Aristotle's emphasis on questions about what kinds of people we ought to be and what kinds of lives we ought to live and his way of explaining his thoughts on these questions through discussions of arete. his philosophical approach is typically described as "virtue theory."