Nicomachean Ethics

1. Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle

2. Nicomachean Ethics • Material Cause: substance • Effective Cause: effort, force • Formal Cause: proper design, balance • Final Cause: driving goal or purpose

3. Nicomachean Ethics • Hexis or Habit: Effective Cause • The Mean: Formal Cause • The Beautiful: Final Cause

4. Nicomachean Ethics • Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good, and hence it has be beautifully said that the good is that at which all things aim.

5. Nichomachean Ethics • And it would seem to belong to the most governing and the most masterful art, and politics appears to be of this sort.

6. Nicomachean Ethics • Since this capacity makes use of the rest of the kinds of knowledge and also lays down the law on what one ought to do and from what one ought to refrain.

7. Nichomachean Ethics • The complete is what is chosen for itself and never on the account of anything else. And happiness seems to be of this sort most of all, since since we choose this always on on account of itself.

8. Nicomachean Ethics • Eudemonia: Good: Spirit, living well. But what does it mean to live well?

9. Nicomachean Ethics • For living seems something shared even by plants, but something particularly human is being sought.

10. Nicomachean Ethics • And the work of human beings is being-at-work (energia) of the soul in accordance with reason, or not not without reason, while we say that the work of a certain sort of person is the same in kind as that of a serious person of that sort, as in the case of a harpist and a serious harpist, and this is simply because the superiority in excellence is attached to the work, since the work of the harpist is to play the harp and the work of the serious harpist is to play the harp well.

11. Nicomachean Ethics • If this is so and we set down that the work of a human being is a certain sort of life, while this life consists of being-at-work of the soul and actions that go along with reason, and it belongs of serious stature to do things well and beautifully, while each thing is accomplished as a result of the virtue appropriate to it

12. Nicomachean Ethics • If this is so the human good comes to be disclosed as being-at-work of the soul in accordance to virtue. But also, this must be in a complete life, for one swallow does not make a spring, nor one day, and in the same way one day or a short time does not make a person blessed or happy.

13. Nicomachean Ethics • My paraphrase: If the purpose of life is to live life well, the purpose of living together is also to live life well or completely, for it cannot be lived well in isolation. Thus the purpose of living together in a city or state is to more completely live life well (happiness). Thus the purpose of politics is to organize the city or state in such a way the living well is most possible-developing the virtues in each individual that make life-living well.

14. Nicomachean Ethics • All virtue is neither excess nor deficiency. Whether you look at food, or exercise, or medicine, it all must be given or performed in the right amount.

15. Nicomachean Ethics • Look at the virtue courage. A deficiency is cowardice—an excess is stupidity. But it depends on the situation. Jumping into rapids without a life jacket on a dare would be stupid, but doing so to save your child would be courageous. It is not moderation or doing things lukewarm, it is seeking the excellence in each virtue in balance with all others. Courage, prudence, etc.

16. Nicomachean Ethics

17. Nicomachean Ethics • Not all virtues or their corresponding vices have means: • Adultery is never virtuous in any amount (Aristotle).

18. Nicomachean Ethics • About the virtues in common, then, the general class to which they belong has been stated by us, that they are mean conditions, and that they are active conditions, and that on account of themselves the make one apt to do those things by which they come about, and that they are up to us and willing things, and they make one do things in the way that right reason would dictate.

19. Some of the Virtues • Justice • Magnanimity • Courage • Generosity • Intelligence • Friendship • Contemplation

20. Justice • Equality v. Equity • Friendship v. Justice