Aristotle, Politics, Book I, Part 2
When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough
to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence,
originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake
of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are
natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of
a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call
its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides,
the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is
the end and the best.
Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that
man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by
mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he
is like the
"tribeless, lawless, hearthless one, "whom Homer
denounces- the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he
may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.
Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious
animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain,
and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech.
And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and
is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception
of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and
no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and
inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is
a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of
just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who
have this sense makes a family and a state.
Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to
the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example,
if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except
in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed
the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by
their working and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when
they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they have the
same name. The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to
the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and
therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable
to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for
himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. A
social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded
the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is
the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the
worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped
at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which
he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he
is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of
lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration
of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the
principle of order in political society.
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS (350 BC)
by Aristotle
(translated by W. D. Ross)
BOOK I
Chapter 1
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 declared 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. 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, 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. 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.
Chapter 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, 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, 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; 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, 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. These, then, are the ends at which our inquiry aims,
since it is political science, in one sense of that term.
Chapter 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. 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, 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.
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. 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, 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.
These remarks about the student, the sort of treatment to be
expected, and the purpose of the inquiry, may be taken as our preface.
Chapter 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. 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, 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, they
admire those who proclaim some great ideal that is above their
comprehension. Now some 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. 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?' 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. 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 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
startingpoints.
. . . . .
Chapter 7
Let us again return to the good we are seeking, and ask what it
can be. It seems different in different actions and arts; it is
different in medicine, in strategy, and in the other arts likewise.
What then is the good of each? Surely that for whose sake everything
else is done. In medicine this is health, in strategy victory, in
architecture a house, in any other sphere something else, and in every
action and pursuit the end; for it is for the sake of this that all
men do whatever else they do. Therefore, if there is an end for all
that we do, this will be the good achievable by action, and if there
are more than one, these will be the goods achievable by action.
So the argument has by a different course reached the same point;
but we must try to state this even more clearly. Since there are
evidently more than one end, and we choose some of these (e.g. wealth,
flutes, and in general instruments) for the sake of something else,
clearly not all ends are final ends; but the chief good is evidently
something final. Therefore, if there is only one final end, this
will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the
most final of these will be what we are seeking. Now we call that
which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is
worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is
never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the
things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of
that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification
that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of
something else.
Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for
this we choose always for self and never for the sake of something
else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose
indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should
still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of
happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness,
on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in
general, for anything other than itself.
From the point of view of self-sufficiency the same result seems
to follow; for the final good is thought to be self-sufficient. Now by
self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by
himself, for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents,
children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens,
since man is born for citizenship. But some limit must be set to this;
for if we extend our requirement to ancestors and descendants and
friends' friends we are in for an infinite series. Let us examine this
question, however, on another occasion; the self-sufficient we now
define as that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in
nothing; and such we think happiness to be; and further we think it
most desirable of all things, without being counted as one good
thing among others- if it were so counted it would clearly be made
more desirable by the addition of even the least of goods; for that
which is added becomes an excess of goods, and of goods the greater
is always more desirable. Happiness, then, is something final and
self-sufficient, and is the end of action.
Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a
platitude, and a clearer account of what it is still desired. This
might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of
man. For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in
general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and
the 'well' is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to
be for man, if he has a function. Have the carpenter, then, and the
tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he born
without a function? Or as eye, hand, foot, and in general each of
the parts evidently has a function, may one lay it down that man
similarly has a function apart from all these? What then can this
be? Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is
peculiar to man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition
and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also
seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal.
There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational
principle; of this, one part has such a principle in the sense of
being obedient to one, the other in the sense of possessing one and
exercising thought. And, as 'life of the rational element' also has
two meanings, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what
we mean; for this seems to be the more proper sense of the term. Now
if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies
a rational principle, and if we say 'so-and-so-and 'a good
so-and-so' have a function which is the same in kind, e.g. a lyre, and
a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases,
eminence in respect of goodness being idded to the name of the
function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and
that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case,
and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and
this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational
principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble
performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is
performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is
the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance
with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with
the best and most complete.
But we must add 'in a complete life.' For one swallow does not
make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short
time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably
first sketch it roughly, and then later fill in the details. But it
would seem that any one is capable of carrying on and articulating
what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer
or partner in such a work; to which facts the advances of the arts are
due; for any one can add what is lacking. And we must also remember
what has been said before, and not look for precision in all things
alike, but in each class of things such precision as accords with
the subject-matter, and so much as is appropriate to the inquiry.
. . . . .
Chapter 8
We must consider it, however, in the light not only of our
conclusion and our premisses, but also of what is commonly said
about it; for with a true view all the data harmonize, but with a
false one the facts soon clash. Now goods have been divided into three
classes, and some are described as external, others as relating to
soul or to body; we call those that relate to soul most properly and
truly goods, and psychical actions and activities we class as relating
to soul. Therefore our account must be sound, at least according to
this view, which is an old one and agreed on by philosophers. It is
correct also in that we identify the end with certain actions and
activities; for thus it falls among goods of the soul and not among
external goods. Another belief which harmonizes with our account is
that the happy man lives well and does well; for we have practically
defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action. The
characteristics that are looked for in happiness seem also, all of
them, to belong to what we have defined happiness as being. For some
identify happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others
with a kind of philosophic wisdom, others with these, or one of these,
accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others
include also external prosperity. Now some of these views have been
held by many men and men of old, others by a few eminent persons;
and it is not probable that either of these should be entirely
mistaken, but rather that they should be right in at least some one
respect or even in most respects.
With those who identify happiness with virtue or some one virtue our
account is in harmony; for to virtue belongs virtuous activity. But it
makes, perhaps, no small difference whether we place the chief good in
possession or in use, in state of mind or in activity. For the state
of mind may exist without producing any good result, as in a man who
is asleep or in some other way quite inactive, but the activity
cannot; for one who has the activity will of necessity be acting,
and acting well. And as in the Olympic Games it is not the most
beautiful and the strongest that are crowned but those who compete
(for it is some of these that are victorious), so those who act win,
and rightly win, the noble and good things in life.
Their life is also in itself pleasant. For pleasure is a state of
soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is
pleasant; e.g. not only is a horse pleasant to the lover of horses,
and a spectacle to the lover of sights, but also in the same way
just acts are pleasant to the lover of justice and in general virtuous
acts to the lover of virtue. Now for most men their pleasures are in
conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant,
but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by
nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that these are
pleasant for such men as well as in their own nature. Their life,
therefore, has no further need of pleasure as a sort of adventitious
charm, but has its pleasure in itself. For, besides what we have said,
the man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good;
since no one would call a man just who did not enjoy acting justly,
nor any man liberal who did not enjoy liberal actions; and similarly
in all other cases. If this is so, virtuous actions must be in
themselves pleasant. But they are also good and noble, and have each
of these attributes in the highest degree, since the good man judges
well about these attributes; his judgement is such as we have
described. Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant
thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the
inscription at Delos:
Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;
But pleasantest is it to win what we love.
For all these properties belong to the best activities; and these,
or one- the best- of these, we identify with happiness.
Yet evidently, as we said, it needs the external goods as well;
for it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper
equipment. In many actions we use friends and riches and political
power as instruments; and there are some things the lack of which
takes the lustre from happiness, as good birth, goodly children,
beauty; for the man who is very ugly in appearance or ill-born or
solitary and childless is not very likely to be happy, and perhaps a
man would be still less likely if he had thoroughly bad children or
friends or had lost good children or friends by death. As we said,
then, happiness seems to need this sort of prosperity in addition; for
which reason some identify happiness with good fortune, though
others identify it with virtue.
Chapter 9
For this reason also the question is asked, whether happiness is
to be acquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of
training, or comes in virtue of some divine providence or again by
chance. Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is
reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely
god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this
question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry;
happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a
result of virtue and some process of learning or training, to be among
the most godlike things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue
seems to be the best thing in the world, and something godlike and
blessed.
It will also on this view be very generally shared; for all who
are not maimed as regards their potentiality for virtue may win it
by a certain kind of study and care. But if it is better to be happy
thus than by chance, it is reasonable that the facts should be so,
since everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature
as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art
or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all
causes. To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would
be a very defective arrangement.
The answer to the question we are asking is plain also from the
definition of happiness; for it has been said to be a virtuous
activity of soul, of a certain kind. Of the remaining goods, some must
necessarily pre-exist as conditions of happiness, and others are
naturally co-operative and useful as instruments. And this will be
found to agree with what we said at the outset; for we stated the
end of political science to be the best end, and political science
spends most of its pains on making the citizens to be of a certain
character, viz. good and capable of noble acts.
It is natural, then, that we call neither ox nor horse nor any other
of the animals happy; for none of them is capable of sharing in such
activity. For this reason also a boy is not happy; for he is not yet
capable of such acts, owing to his age; and boys who are called
happy are being congratulated by reason of the hopes we have for them.
For there is required, as we said, not only complete virtue but also a
complete life, since many changes occur in life, and all manner of
chances, and the most prosperous may fall into great misfortunes in
old age, as is told of Priam in the Trojan Cycle; and one who has
experienced such chances and has ended wretchedly no one calls happy.
Chapter 10
Must no one at all, then, be called happy while he lives; must we,
as Solon says, see the end? Even if we are to lay down this
doctrine, is it also the case that a man is happy when he is dead?
Or is not this quite absurd, especially for us who say that
happiness is an activity? . . .
. . . . .
The question we have now discussed confirms our definition. For no
function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities (these
are thought to be more durable even than knowledge of the sciences),
and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because
those who are happy spend their life most readily and most
continuously in these; for this seems to be the reason why we do not
forget them. The attribute in question, then, will belong to the happy
man, and he will be happy throughout his life; for always, or by
preference to everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action
and contemplation, and he will bear the chances of life most nobly and
altogether decorously, if he is 'truly good' and 'foursquare beyond
reproach'.
Now many events happen by chance, and events differing in
importance; small pieces of good fortune or of its opposite clearly do
not weigh down the scales of life one way or the other, but a
multitude of great events if they turn out well will make life happier
(for not only are they themselves such as to add beauty to life, but
the way a man deals with them may be noble and good), while if they
turn out ill they crush and maim happiness; for they both bring pain
with them and hinder many activities. Yet even in these nobility
shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great
misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility
and greatness of soul.
If activities are, as we said, what gives life its character, no
happy man can become miserable; for he will never do the acts that are
hateful and mean. For the man who is truly good and wise, we think,
bears all the chances life becomingly and always makes the best of
circumstances, as a good general makes the best military use of the
army at his command and a good shoemaker makes the best shoes out of
the hides that are given him; and so with all other craftsmen. And
if this is the case, the happy man can never become miserable;
though he will not reach blessedness, if he meet with fortunes like
those of Priam.
Nor, again, is he many-coloured and changeable; for neither will
he be moved from his happy state easily or by any ordinary
misadventures, but only by many great ones, nor, if he has had many
great misadventures, will he recover his happiness in a short time,
but if at all, only in a long and complete one in which he has
attained many splendid successes.
When then should we not say that he is happy who is active in
accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with
external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete
life? Or must we add 'and who is destined to live thus and die as
befits his life'? Certainly the future is obscure to us, while
happiness, we claim, is an end and something in every way final. If
so, we shall call happy those among living men in whom these
conditions are, and are to be, fulfilled- but happy men. So much for
these questions.
. . . . .
Chapter 13
Since happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect
virtue, we must consider the nature of virtue; for perhaps we shall
thus see better the nature of happiness. The true student of politics,
too, is thought to have studied virtue above all things; for he wishes
to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws. As an
example of this we have the lawgivers of the Cretans and the Spartans,
and any others of the kind that there may have been. And if this
inquiry belongs to political science, clearly the pursuit of it will
be in accordance with our original plan. But clearly the virtue we
must study is human virtue; for the good we were seeking was human
good and the happiness human happiness. By human virtue we mean not
that of the body but that of the soul; and happiness also we call an
activity of soul. But if this is so, clearly the student of politics
must know somehow the facts about soul, as the man who is to heal
the eyes or the body as a whole must know about the eyes or the
body; and all the more since politics is more prized and better than
medicine; but even among doctors the best educated spend much labour
on acquiring knowledge of the body. The student of politics, then,
must study the soul, and must study it with these objects in view, and
do so just to the extent which is sufficient for the questions we
are discussing; for further precision is perhaps something more
laborious than our purposes require.
Some things are said about it, adequately enough, even in the
discussions outside our school, and we must use these; e.g. that one
element in the soul is irrational and one has a rational principle.
Whether these are separated as the parts of the body or of anything
divisible are, or are distinct by definition but by nature
inseparable, like convex and concave in the circumference of a circle,
does not affect the present question.
Of the irrational element one division seems to be widely
distributed, and vegetative in its nature, I mean that which causes
nutrition and growth; for it is this kind of power of the soul that
one must assign to all nurslings and to embryos, and this same power
to fullgrown creatures; this is more reasonable than to assign some
different power to them. Now the excellence of this seems to be common
to all species and not specifically human; for this part or faculty
seems to function most in sleep, while goodness and badness are
least manifest in sleep (whence comes the saying that the happy are
not better off than the wretched for half their lives; and this
happens naturally enough, since sleep is an inactivity of the soul
in that respect in which it is called good or bad), unless perhaps
to a small extent some of the movements actually penetrate to the
soul, and in this respect the dreams of good men are better than those
of ordinary people. Enough of this subject, however; let us leave
the nutritive faculty alone, since it has by its nature no share in
human excellence.
There seems to be also another irrational element in the soul--one
which in a sense, however, shares in a rational principle. For we
praise the rational principle of the continent man and of the
incontinent, and the part of their soul that has such a principle,
since it urges them aright and towards the best objects; but there
is found in them also another element naturally opposed to the
rational principle, which fights against and resists that principle.
For exactly as paralysed limbs when we intend to move them to the
right turn on the contrary to the left, so is it with the soul; the
impulses of incontinent people move in contrary directions. But
while in the body we see that which moves astray, in the soul we do
not. No doubt, however, we must none the less suppose that in the soul
too there is something contrary to the rational principle, resisting
and opposing it. In what sense it is distinct from the other
elements does not concern us. Now even this seems to have a share in a
rational principle, as we said; at any rate in the continent man it
obeys the rational principle and presumably in the temperate and brave
man it is still more obedient; for in him it speaks, on all matters,
with the same voice as the rational principle.
Therefore the irrational element also appears to be two-fold. For
the vegetative element in no way shares in a rational principle, but
the appetitive and in general the desiring element in a sense shares
in it, in so far as it listens to and obeys it; this is the sense in
which we speak of 'taking account' of one's father or one's friends,
not that in which we speak of 'accounting for a mathematical property.
That the irrational element is in some sense persuaded by a rational
principle is indicated also by the giving of advice and by all reproof
and exhortation. And if this element also must be said to have a
rational principle, that which has a rational principle (as well as
that which has not) will be twofold, one subdivision having it in
the strict sense and in itself, and the other having a tendency to
obey as one does one's father.
Virtue too is distinguished into kinds in accordance with this
difference; for we say that some of the virtues are intellectual and
others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical
wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. For in
speaking about a man's character we do not say that he is wise or
has understanding but that he is good-tempered or temperate; yet we
praise the wise man also with respect to his state of mind; and of
states of mind we call those which merit praise virtues.
BOOK II
Chapter 1
Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral,
intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth
to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time),
while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its
name (ethike) is one that is formed by a slight variation from the
word ethos (habit). From this it is also plain that none of the
moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by
nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance the stone
which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move
upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten
thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor
can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to
behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature
do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive
them, and are made perfect by habit.
Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first
acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain
in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often
hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them
before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but
the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the
case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we
can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by
building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by
doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing
brave acts.
This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make
the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of
every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark,
and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.
Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every
virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it
is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are
produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of
all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building
well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no
need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at
their craft. This, then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing
the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become
just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of
danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become
brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of
anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others
self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in
the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states of
character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities
we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of
character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no
small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of
another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or
rather all the difference.
Chapter 2
Since, then, the present inquiry does not aim at theoretical
knowledge like the others (for we are inquiring not in order to know
what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our
inquiry would have been of no use), we must examine the nature of
actions, namely how we ought to do them; for these determine also
the nature of the states of character that are produced, as we have
said. Now, that we must act according to the right rule is a common
principle and must be assumed-it will be discussed later, i.e. both
what the right rule is, and how it is related to the other virtues.
But this must be agreed upon beforehand, that the whole account of
matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we
said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in
accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and
questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters
of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of
particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not
fall under any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each
case consider what is appropriate to the occasion, as happens also
in the art of medicine or of navigation.
But though our present account is of this nature we must give what
help we can. First, then, let us consider this, that it is the
nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we
see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain light on things
imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things); both
excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and
similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount
destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces
and increases and preserves it. So too is it, then, in the case of
temperance and courage and the other virtues. For the man who flies
from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against
anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but
goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who
indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes
self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do,
becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are
destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.
But not only are the sources and causes of their origination and
growth the same as those of their destruction, but also the sphere
of their actualization will be the same; for this is also true of
the things which are more evident to sense, e.g. of strength; it is
produced by taking much food and undergoing much exertion, and it is
the strong man that will be most able to do these things. So too is it
with the virtues; by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate,
and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from
them; and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being
habituated to despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground
against them we become brave, and it is when we have become so that we
shall be most able to stand our ground against them.
Chapter 3
We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain
that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures
and delights in this very fact is temperate, while the man who is
annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground
against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is
not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward. For
moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on
account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the
pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been
brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says,
so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought;
for this is the right education. . . .
Chapter 6
We must, however, not only describe virtue as a state of
character, but also say what sort of state it is. We may remark, then,
that every virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the
thing of which it is the excellence and makes the work of that thing
be done well; e.g. the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and
its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see
well. Similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in
itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at awaiting
the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the
virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man
good and which makes him do his own work well.
How this is to happen we have stated already, but it will be made
plain also by the following consideration of the specific nature of
virtue. In everything that is continuous and divisible it is
possible to take more, less, or an equal amount, and that either in
terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is an
intermediate between excess and defect. By the intermediate in the
object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes,
which is one and the same for all men; by the intermediate
relatively to us that which is neither too much nor too little- and
this is not one, nor the same for all. For instance, if ten is many
and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in terms of the object;
for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount; this is
intermediate according to arithmetical proportion. But the
intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten pounds are
too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does
not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is
perhaps too much for the person who is to take it, or too little- too
little for Milo, too much for the beginner in athletic exercises.
The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus a master of any art
avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses
this- the intermediate not in the object but relatively to us.
If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well- by looking
to the intermediate and judgling its works by this standard (so that
we often say of good works of art that it is not possible either to
take away or to add anything, implying that excess and defect
destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and
good artists, as we say, look to this in their work), and if, further,
virtue is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is,
then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate. I
mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions
and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the
intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite
and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both
too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel
them at the right times, with reference to the right objects,
towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way,
is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of
virtue. Similarly with regard to actions also there is excess, defect,
and the intermediate. Now virtue is concerned with passions and
actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and so is defect, while
the intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and being
praised and being successful are both characteristics of virtue.
Therefore virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at
what is intermediate.
Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the
class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and good to
that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way
(for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult- to miss
the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then,
excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue;
For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying
in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a
rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of
practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two
vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on
defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall
short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while
virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in
respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence
virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.
But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some
have names that already imply badness, e.g. spite, shamelessness,
envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft, murder; for all of
these and suchlike things imply by their names that they are
themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is
not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to them; one must
always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such
things depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the
right time, and in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to
go wrong. It would be equally absurd, then, to expect that in
unjust, cowardly, and voluptuous action there should be a mean, an
excess, and a deficiency; for at that rate there would be a mean of
excess and of deficiency, an excess of excess, and a deficiency of
deficiency. But as there is no excess and deficiency of temperance and
courage because what is intermediate is in a sense an extreme, so
too of the actions we have mentioned there is no mean nor any excess
and deficiency, but however they are done they are wrong; for in
general there is neither a mean of excess and deficiency, nor excess
and deficiency of a mean.
. . . . .