12. Self-indulgence more voluntary than cowardice: comparison of the self-indulgent man to the spoilt child.
C. Virtues concerned with money.
1. Liberality, prodigality, meanness.
2. Magnificence, vulgarity, niggardliness.
D. Virtues concerned with honour.
3. Pride, vanity, humility.
4. Ambition, unambitiousness, and the mean between them.
E. The virtue concerned with anger.
5. Good temper, irascibility, inirascibility.
F. Virtues of social intercourse.
6. Friendliness, obsequiousness, churlishness.
7. Truthfulness, boastfulness, mock-modesty.
8. Ready wit, buffoonery, boorishness.
G. A quasi-virtue.
9. Shame, bashfulness, shamelessness.
H. Justice.
I. Its sphere and outer nature: in what sense it is a mean.
1. The just as the lawful (universal justice) and the just as the fair and equal (particular justice): the former considered.
2. The latter considered: divided into distributive and rectificatory justice.
3. Distributive justice, in accordance with geometrical proportion.
4. Rectificatory justice, in accordance with arithmetical progression.
5. Justice in exchange, reciprocity in accordance with proportion.
6. Political justice and analogous kinds of justice.
7. Natural and legal justice.
II. Its inner nature as involving choice.
8. The scale of degrees of wrongdoing.
9. Can a man be voluntarily treated unjustly? Is it the distributor or the recipient that is guilty of injustice in distribution? Justice not so easy as it might seem, because it is not a way of acting but an inner disposition.
10. Equity, a corrective of legal justice.
11. Can a man treat himself unjustly?
BOOK VI. INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE
A. Introduction.
1. Reasons for studying intellectual virtue: intellect divided into the contemplative and the calculative.
2. The object of the former is truth, that of the latter truth corresponding with right desire.
B. The chief intellectual virtues.
3. Science—demonstrative knowledge of the necessary and eternal.
4. Art—knowledge of how to make things.
5. Practical wisdom—knowledge of how to secure the ends of human life.
6. Intuitive reason—knowledge of the principles from which science proceeds.
7. Philosophic wisdom—the union of intuitive reason and science.
8. Relations between practical wisdom and political science.
C. Minor intellectual virtues concerned with conduct.
9. Goodness in deliberation, how related to practical wisdom.
10. Understanding—the critical quality answering to the imperative quality practical wisdom.
11. Judgement—right discrimination of the equitable: the place of intuition in morals.
D. Relation of philosophic to practical wisdom.
12. What is the use of philosophic and of practical wisdom? Philosophic wisdom is the formal cause of happiness; practical wisdom is what ensures the taking of proper means to the proper ends desired by moral virtue.
13. Relation of practical wisdom to natural virtue, moral virtue, and the right rule.
BOOK VII. CONTINENCE AND INCONTINENCE. PLEASURE
A. Continence and incontinence.
1. Six varieties of character: method of treatment: current opinions.
2. Contradictions involved in these opinions.
3. Solution of the problem, in what sense the incontinent man acts against knowledge.
4. Solution of the problem, what is the sphere of incontinence: its proper and its extended sense distinguished.
5. Incontinence in its extended sense includes a brutish and a morbid form.
6. Incontinence in respect of anger less disgraceful than incontinence proper.
7. Softness and endurance: two forms of incontinence—weakness and impetuosity.
8. Self-indulgence worse than incontinence.
9. Relation of continence to obstinacy, incontinence, ‘insensibility’, temperance.
10. Practical wisdom is not compatible with incontinence, but cleverness is.
B. Pleasure.
11. Three views hostile to pleasure, and the arguments for them.
12. Discussion of the view that pleasure is not a good.
13. Discussion of the view that pleasure is not the chief good.
14. Discussion of the view that most pleasures are bad, and of the tendency to identify bodily pleasures with pleasure in general.
BOOKS VIII, IX. FRIENDSHIP
A. Kinds of friendship.
1. Friendship both necessary and noble: main questions about it.
2. Three objects of love: implications of friendship.
3. Three corresponding kinds of friendship: superiority of friendship whose motive is the good.
4. Contrast between the best and the inferior kinds.
5. The state of friendship distinguished from the activity of friendship and from the feeling of friendliness.
6. Various relations between the three kinds.
B. Reciprocity of friendship.
7. In unequal friendships a proportion must be maintained.
8. Loving is more of the essence of friendship than being loved.
C. Relation of reciprocity in friendship to that involved in other forms of community.
9. Parallelism of friendship and justice: the state comprehends all lesser communities.
10. Classification of constitutions: analogies with family relations.
11. Corresponding forms of friendship, and of justice.
12. Various forms of friendship between relations.
D. Casuistry of friendship.
13. Principles of interchange of services (a) in friendship between equals.
14. (b) In friendship between unequals.
1. (c) In friendship in which the motives on the two sides are different.
2. Conflict of obligations.
3. Occasions of breaking off friendship.
E. Internal nature of friendship.
4. Friendship is based on self-love.
5. Relation of friendship to goodwill.
6. Relation of friendship to unanimity.
7. The pleasure of beneficence.
8. The nature of true self-love.
F. The need of friendship.
9. Why does the happy man need friends?
10. The limit to the number of friends.
11. Are friends more needed in good or in bad fortune?
12. The essence of friendship is living together.
BOOK X. PLEASURE. HAPPINESS
A. Pleasure.
1. Two opposed views about pleasure.
2. Discussion of the view that pleasure is the good.
3. Discussion of the view that pleasure is wholly bad.
4. Definition of pleasure.
5. Pleasures differ with the activities which they accompany and complete: criterion of the value of pleasures.
B. Happiness.
6. Happiness is good activity, not amusement.
7. Happiness in the highest sense is the contemplative life.
8. Superiority of the contemplative life further considered.
9. Legislation is needed if the end is to be attained: transition to Politics.
ETHICA NICOMACHEA;
(Nicomachean Ethics)
BOOK I
1 [1094a] Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared1 to be that at which all things aim. But a certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them. (5) Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better
than the activities. Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth. But where such arts fall under a single capacity—as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, (10) and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others—in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued. (15) It makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences just mentioned.
2 If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, (20) so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right? If so, we must try, (25) in outline at least to determine what it is, and of which of the sciences or capacities it is the object. It would seem to belong to the most authoritative art and that which is most truly the master art. And politics appears to be of this nature; [1094b] for it is this that ordains which of the sciences should be studied in a state, and which each class of citizens should learn and up to what point they should learn them; and we see even the most highly esteemed of capacities to fall under this, e. g. strategy, (5) economics, rhetoric; now, since politics uses the rest of the sciences, and since, again, it legislates as to what we are to do and what we are to abstain from, the end of this science must include those of the others, so that this end must be the good for man. For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states. (10) These, then, are the ends at which our inquiry aims, since it is political science, in one sense of that term.
3 Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts. (15) Now fine and just actions, which political science investigates, admit of much variety and fluctuation of opinion, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature. And goods also give rise to a similar fluctuation because they bring harm to many people; for before now men have been undone by reason of their wealth, and others by reason of their courage. We must be content, then, (20) in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs. (25)
Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general. [1095a] Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, (5) but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit. (10)
These remarks about the student, the sort of treatment to be expected, and the purpose of the inquiry, may be taken as our preface.
4 Let us resume our inquiry and state, in view of the fact that all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what it is that we say political science aims at and what is the highest of all goods achievable by action. (15) Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, (20) and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honour; they differ, however, from one another—and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, (25) they admire those who proclaim some great ideal that is above their comprehension. Now some2 thought that apart from these many goods there is another which is self-subsistent and causes the goodness of all these as well. To examine all the opinions that have been held were perhaps somewhat fruitless; enough to examine those that are most prevalent or that seem to be arguable.
Let us not fail to notice, however, that there is a difference between arguments from and those to the first principles. (30) For Plato, too, was right in raising this question and asking, as he used to do, ‘are we on the way from or to the first principles?’3 There is a difference, as there is in a race-course between the course from the judges to the turning-point and the way back. [1095b] For, while we must begin with what is known, things are objects of knowledge in two senses—some to us, some without qualification. Presumably, then, we must begin with things known to us. Hence any one who is to listen intelligently to lectures about what is noble and just and, (5) generally, about the subjects of political science must have been brought up in good habits. For the fact is the starting-point, and if this is sufficiently plain to him, he will not at the start need the reason as well; and the man who has been well brought up has or can easily get starting-points. And as for him who neither has nor can get them, let him hear the words of Hesiod:
Far best is he who knows all things himself;
Good, (10) he that hearkens when men counsel right;
But he who neither knows, nor lays to heart
Another’s wisdom, is a useless wight.
5 Let us, however, resume our discussion from the point at which we digressed. To judge from the lives that men lead, most men, (15) and men of the most vulgar type, seem (not without some ground) to identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent types of life—that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life. Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, (20) preferring a life suitable to beasts, but they get some ground for their view from the fact that many of those in high places share the tastes of Sardanapallus. A consideration of the prominent types of life shows that people of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is, roughly speaking, the end of the political life. But it seems too superficial to be what we are looking for, since it is thought to depend on those who bestow honour rather than on him who receives it, (25) but the good we divine to be something proper to a man and not easily taken from him. Further, men seem to pursue honour in order that they may be assured of their goodness; at least it is by men of practical wisdom that they seek to be honoured, and among those who know them, and on the ground of their virtue; clearly, then, according to them, at any rate, (30) virtue is b
etter. And perhaps one might even suppose this to be, rather than honour, the end of the political life. But even this appears somewhat incomplete; for possession of virtue seems actually compatible with being asleep, or with lifelong inactivity, and, further, with the greatest sufferings and misfortunes; but a man who was living so no one would call happy, unless he were maintaining a thesis at all costs. [1096a] But enough of this; for the subject has been sufficiently treated even in the current discussions. Third comes the contemplative life, which we shall consider later.4
The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, (5) and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else. And so one might rather take the aforenamed objects to be ends; for they are loved for themselves. But it is evident that not even these are ends; yet many arguments have been thrown away in support of them. Let us leave this subject, then. (10)
6 We had perhaps better consider the universal good and discuss thoroughly what is meant by it, although such an inquiry is made an uphill one by the fact that the Forms have been introduced by friends of our own. Yet it would perhaps be thought to be better, indeed to be our duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers or lovers of wisdom; for, (15) while both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.
The men who introduced this doctrine did not posit Ideas of classes within which they recognized priority and posteriority (which is the reason why they did not maintain the existence of an Idea embracing all numbers); but the term ‘good’ is used both in the category of substance and in that of quality and in that of relation, (20) and that which is per se, i. e. substance, is prior in nature to the relative (for the latter is like an offshoot and accident of being); so that there could not be a common Idea set over all these goods. Further, since ‘good’ has as many senses as ‘being’ (for it is predicated both in the category of substance, as of God and of reason, and in quality, i. e. of the virtues, (25) and in quantity, i. e. of that which is moderate, and in relation, i. e. of the useful, and in time, i. e. of the right opportunity, and in place, i. e. of the right locality and the like), clearly it cannot be something universally present in all cases and single; for then it could not have been predicated in all the categories but in one only. Further, since of the things answering to one Idea there is one science, (30) there would have been one science of all the goods; but as it is there are many sciences even of the things that fall under one category, e. g. of opportunity, for opportunity in war is studied by strategics and in disease by medicine, and the moderate in food is studied by medicine and in exercise by the science of gymnastics. And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by ‘a thing itself’, if (as is the case) in ‘man himself’ and in a particular man the account of man is one and the same. (35) For in so far as they are man, they will in no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will ‘good itself’ and particular goods, in so far as they are good. [1096b] But again it will not be good any the more for being eternal, since that which lasts long is no whiter than that which perishes in a day. (5) The Pythagoreans seem to give a more plausible account of the good, when they place the one in the column of goods; and it is they that Speusippus seems to have followed.
The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) Page 130