NICOMACHEAN ETHICS: ARISTOTLE

BOOK 1: THE HUMAN GOOD ■ superficial bc it depends on

● All human activities aim at some good; some those who bestow honor
goods subordinate to others ■ Only pursue honor for
○ It is the nature of products to be better reassurance.
than activities ■ Thus, virtue is better.
○ Highest ends (ends in themselves) ○ Wealth
■ things we desire and pursue ■ merely useful for sake of
for their own sake something else
○ Subordinate ends ● Is there even a Form of Good?
■ Mere means to higher ends ○ Doctrine: no priority or posteriority
● Politics ○ Good has many senses of being (what
○ science of human good because it is good could be moderate, or useful)
decides which sciences should be ○ Many sciences fall under good
studied in a state ○ Plato’s Theory of Forms
○ securing highest ends for human life / ■ Some goods pursued for
overall human good themselves in a single form;
● Nature of the Politics others: preserve prior
○ not precise, since what is best for one ■ Thus, there are goods that are
person may not be best for another pursued even when isolated
○ noble/just actions are subject to from others
variety/fluctuation ○ Concern ourselves not with concept but
○ Some: act for the end is aimed not at with how to be good
mere knowledge, but action ● CHIEF GOOD -> final and self-sufficient
○ Subject of ethics is complicated ○ Happiness -> for the sake of itself
■ Needs maturity of judgement ○ Pleasure, honor, virtue, reason are
and familiarity with wide range chosen bc they will make us happy
of facts ○ The “real” definition of what happiness
○ Educated men: a good judge in general should be -> the characteristic, unique
■ act with reason + knowledge function of man
bring great benefits to us as ● The “unique” good for man
judges ○ Not unique: Life of nutrition/growth and
○ Thus: good may only be rough outline. perception of our surrounding
○ Ethical inquiry results =/= exact ○ Unique: RATIONALITY being obedient
sciences to reason and exercising it in thought
■ But the results are helpful in ○ Anyone is capable of carrying on and
guiding to a more adequate articulating what is well outlines
understanding to live life at ○ Therefore: SUPREME GOOD -> Activity
best of the rational soul related to virtue
● HUMAN GOOD (happiness = virtuous, rational, active)
○ General: happiness (highest all goods) ○ Happiness is the best, noblest, and
and living well most pleasant in the world.
■ Achievable by action ● A “good” man
○ Multiple views of happiness ○ One who fulfills purpose for which
○ Plato: “Are we on the way to or from the human beings exist (ability to reason)
first principles?” ○ exercise your ability to reason.
■ begin with things evident to us ○ For critics, other unique characteristics
(i.e: facts as a good starting of men: Sociableness, aesthetic, sense
point) of duty, moral obligation
● MISTAKEN SOURCE OF HAPPINESS: ○ However for aristotle, these can’t
○ Pleasure function properly w/o reason (mere
■ Love the life of enjoyment “activities” controlled by rationality)
■ Three kinds of life: ● 3 KINDS OF GOOD
● Life of Pleasure ○ External, relating to soul or body, or
● Political Life action and activity
● Contemplative life ○ Virtue, which we identify with
○ Honor happiness, is in line with this for the
■ Superior refinement people-> state of mind may exist without
honor (end of the political life) producing any good result
○ For actions:
 ■ No rejoice in noble action = ○ They always enhance welfare of the
not good entire soul
■ Virtuous actions = pleasant,
good, noble BOOK 2: MORAL VIRTUE
● Need for external goods ● How we acquire moral virtue
○ impossible to do noble acts without the ○ Intellectual virtues: by instruction
right resources ○ Moral virtues: by habit and constant
○ lacking men = not likely to be happy practice although we are born with it
○ Happiness associated -> fortune/virtue ■ Behave right way, train
● Is happiness acquired by learning or habituation? ■ Learn by practice, not thinking
Is it sent by god or by chance? ○ Not arise by nature
○ Happiness -> not god-sent; result of ○ Possibilities for both good and evil up to
virtue, learning, training individual to determine that
■ virtuous activity of a soul ○ States of character: arise like activities
● Should no man be called happy while he lives? ○ Initially really hard and done by duty but
○ Happy only until death eventually will be easier and done by
■ Paradox bc when do not wish habit (requires little effort)
to call living men happy ● Good character
■ Examined only when we ○ Good set of habits
consider his life as a whole ○ Not until this has been formed can
○ Happy man -> throughout his life someone be rightfully called good
■ contemplate what is excellent ○ While habits are formed, making
■ Bear chances of a noble life progress towards good life but not fully
○ Activities determine character of life arrived until it becomes nature
■ Happy man = not miserable, ● No prescribed actions but never be excess/defect
always do good acts ○ act in accordance with correct reason
● Do the fortunes of the living affect the dead? ○ Agents: decide appropriate actions
○ have some effect in the dead ○ mean between extremes of deficiency
○ Can not make the happy not happy or and excess
produce any other kind of change ■ Scared: coward
● Virtue = praiseworthy // happiness =above praise ■ Fears nothing: rash.
○ Happiness = not a mere potentiality ■ All pleasure: self-indulgent
○ For Eudoxus, there was the supremacy ■ Shun pleasure: insensible
of pleasure ● Pleasure being virtuous= acquired disposition
● Kinds of virtue (Division of the soul and virtue) ○ Appropriate attitude towards pleasures
○ Happiness - activity of the soul with and pains
perfect virtue ○ They are the reason why we do bad
○ Intellectual virtue vs. Moral virtue ■ abstain -> because of pain
(related to elements of the soul) ● VIRTUE AND VICE
■ Intellectual: rational element ○ 3 choice: noble, advantageous, pleasant
like understanding, acquisition ○ 3 avoidance: base, injurious, painful
of wisdom, appreciation of ○ harder to fight against pleasure than
beauty, etc; it controls our anger, but again, art + virtue concerned
impulses with the harder
■ Moral: irrational elements like ● Does one acquire virtues by doing virtuous acts?
bringing the appetites ○ Not always. Acts must be done justly or
(vegetative aspect- nutrition temperately
and growth with little ○ Person: have knowledge, choose acts
connection to virtue) and for their own sake (based reason)
physical desires under the ■ From established firm +
control of reason (appetitive unchangeable character.
aspect - for impulses) ○ By doing just acts = produce just man
● “Animal appetites” are not bad. ○ Temperate acts = temperate man
○ part of human nature ● CRITERIA: RIGHT WAY VS. ACCIDENT
○ Bad when get out of control -> excess/ ○ know they are behaving in the right way
deficiency -> become harmful to soul ○ choose to behave right way for the sake
○ Guided by “golden mean” -> positive of being virtuous
○ Virtuous person w/ greater rationality = ○ behavior = fixed, virtuous disposition.
control his or her impulses. ● MORAL VIRTUE
● Intellectual virtue are never in excess ○ state of character, not passion/capacity
○ virtues have choices (unlike anger)
 ○ A disposition, not a feeling/faculty, to ○ Pleasures differ in kind (from noble
behave in a right way sources vs base sources)
○ True moral virtue -> disposition to ○ Other things to be kin w/o pleasure (eg.
choose the intermediate (equidistant) seeing, remembering)
○ Excess and defect = failures ○ Not all pleasures are desirable
○ Virtue brings excellence = done well ○ Criticism:
● INTERMEDIATES ■ Pleasure is not a movement
○ Fear and confidence -> mean is courage from incomplete to complete;
○ Pleasure and pain -> temperance we can’t be pleased quickly.
○ giving and taking money -> liberality ■ Complete pleasure is
(defect: prodigality) hard/slow to attain
○ honor and dishonor -> proper pride ● No one is continuously pleased
(excess: empty vanity, deficiency: undue ○ incapable of continuous activity
humility) ○ delight us when new, but not much later
○ Passions -> righteous indignation is a ● Pleasure differ with the activities
mean between envy and spite ○ Pleasure accompanies & perfects
● Characteristics: EXTREME & MEAN activities, making it essential to life
○ Extremes -> opposed to other & mean ○ Bound with activity completed
○ Vices -> excess and deficiency ■ intensify activities altho
○ Virtue -> the mean hindered by pleasures from
○ Intermediate: some extremes = likeness, other sources
two extremes = greatest unlikeness ○ Pleasure do not completely differ, but
○ Mean is hard to attain, grasped by may vary in large extents
perception, not reasoning ○ Enjoyed by a good person for the right
○ Drag ourselves away from extremes reasons are good
○ Ok to deviate little from goodness ● HAPPINESS AS A GOOD ACTIVITY
■ extent is not easy to ○ Highest goal in life: happiness as an
determine by reasoning, activity that serves as an end in itself
depends on facts + perception ○ not a state, desirable for its own sake
● PRACTICAL RULES OF CONDUCT ○ does not lie in amusement.
○ Avoid extreme farther from the mean ○ For a good man: valuable and pleasant -
○ notice susceptible errors, avoid them > must be desirable activities
○ Avoid pleasure bc it impedes judgment ○ For Anacharsis: amuse yourself in order
that one may exert yourself, because
BOOK 10: PLEASURE HAPPINESS simple amusement is a type of
● Pleasure relaxation. Relaxation is however not an
○ intimately connected with human nature end, but a means (not an ultimate end)
○ Greatest bearing on virtue of character = ● CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE IS HAPPIEST
enjoy and hate things we ought ○ philosophic wisdom -> pleasantest of
○ Pleasure -> not a movement virtuous activities
■ Some completed by long last ○ activity of our highest rational faculties
○ Best activity: best-conditioned organ ○ offers pleasures for purity & endurance
■ Not as permanent sate, but ○ superior in worth because it aims at no
with immanence as an end end beyond itself. It is the end
○ No activity = no pleasure ○ Philosopher contemplate truth best.
● Pleasure as the supreme/chief good ■ Most self-sufficient
○ Eudoxus: all things (rational/irrational) ○ Normal man: also can but needs others.
aim for it, move towards it ○ Reason -> Divine
○ Makes other good things more desirable ■ Life according to it is divine
○ Pain -> an object of choice, aversion to ○ Practical wisdom -> virtue of character.
all things; opposite of pleasure ○ Will and deed -> essential to virtue
○ Plato: life more desirable with wisdom ○ Contemplation is valuable
○ Thus pleasure is not the ultimate ■ activity of god
○ Criticisms: ○ External prosperity needed to nurture
■ Evil = pain /= pleasure = good ○ Anaxagoras: happy man need not be a
■ Commended for Eudoxus rich man or a despot; just contemplate
character than arguments ● TO ATTAIN END: WE NEED LEGISLATION
● Pleasure as wholly bad ○ to remold people bc we naturally pursue
○ Pleasure = indeterminate bc of degrees our own pleasures, hardly have idea of
○ Judgment based on pleasures -> cannot noble and truly pleasant.
state cause of happiness
 ○ Living according to passion -> close-
minded
○ Made good by: nature, habits, teaching
■ Thus, they must be fixed by
law to not be painful when
made customary.
● Practice and habituation also need laws
○ Good man:
■ well trained and habituated,
■ have occupations
■ neither willingly/ unwillingly
does bad actions
■ follows reason and right order
○ Individual education
■ advantageous over communal
■ Only for those w/ general
knowledge of what is good for
everyone
■ Parental supervision:
preferable to laws
● Thus, to be a master: be universal.
○ To do so, he needs laws.
○ Must be capable of legislating.
■ Inexperienced -> ok with
failure, incompetence. Many
things are valueless