1

A Reading Selection from Aristotle, the Nicomachean Ethics

Book I [The Good for Man]

1 [All Activity Aims at Some Good]

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. …

2 [The Good for Man]

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. …

5 [Popular Notions of Happiness]

Let us resume our inquiry and state, in view of the fact that all knowledge and every
pursuit aims at some good…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 identifying 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
 2

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. …

7 [Definition of Happiness]

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 itself 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.

Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.

…[H]uman 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.
 3

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.

13 [Kinds of Virtue]

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. …

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 [Moral Virtue]

1 [How Moral Virtue is Acquired]

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 lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become
 4

just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
…

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. …

5 [Moral Virtue Is Character]

Next we must consider what virtue is. Since things that are found in the soul are of
three kinds—passions, faculties, states of character—virtue must be one of these. By
passions I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred,
longing, emulation, pity, and in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure
or pain; by faculties the things in virtue of which we are said to be capable of feeling
these, e.g., of becoming angry or being pained or feeling pity; by states of character
the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the
passions, e.g., with reference to anger we stand badly if we feel it violently or too
weakly, and well if we feel it moderately, and similarly with reference to the other
passions.

Now neither the virtues nor the vices are passions, because we are not called good or
bad on the ground of our passions, but are so called on the ground of our virtues and
our vices, and because we are neither praised nor blamed for our passions (for the man
who feels fear or anger is not praised, nor is the man who simply feels anger blamed,
but the man who feels it in a certain way), but for our virtues and our vices we are
praised or blamed.

Again, we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues are modes of choice or
involve choice. Further, in respect of the passions we are said to be moved, but in
 5

respect of the virtues and the vices we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a
particular way.

For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are neither called good nor bad,
nor praised nor blamed, for the simple capacity of feeling the passions; again, we have
the faculties of nature, but we are not made good or bad by nature; we have spoken of
this before. If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor faculties, all that remains is
that they should be states of character.

6 [Disposition to Choose the Mean]

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…will be made plain…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.… 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
judging 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
 6

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.

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 and 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.

7 [The Mean Illustrated]

 7

We must, however, not only make this general statement, but also apply it to the
individual facts. For among statements about conduct those which are general apply
more widely, but those which are particular are more genuine, since conduct has to do
with individual cases, and our statements must harmonize with the facts in these
cases. We may take these cases from our table. With regard to feelings of fear and
confidence courage is the mean, of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in
fearlessness has no name (many of the states have no name), while the man who
exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence
is a coward. With regard to pleasures and pains—not all of them, and not so much
with regard to the pains—the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence. Persons
deficient with regard to the pleasures are not often found; hence such persons also
have received no name. But let us call them "insensible."

With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality, the excess and the
defect prodigality and meanness. In these actions people exceed and fall short in
contrary ways; the prodigal exceeds in spending and falls short in taking, while the
mean man exceeds in taking and falls short in spending.… With regard to money
there are also other dispositions—a mean, magnificence (for the magnificent man
differs from the liberal man; the former deals with large sums, the latter with small
ones), and excess, tastelessness and vulgarity, and a deficiency… With regard to
honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride, the excess is known as a sort
of "empty vanity," and the deficiency is undue humility; and as we said liberality was
related to magnificence, differing from it by dealing with small sums, so there is a
state similarly related to proper pride, being concerned with small honours while that
is concerned with great. For it is possible to desire honour as one ought, and more
than one ought, and less, and the man who exceeds in his desires is called ambitious,
the man who falls short unambitious, while the intermediate person has no name. The
dispositions also are nameless, except that that of the ambitious man is called
ambition. Hence the people who are at the extremes lay claim to the middle place; and
we ourselves sometimes call the intermediate person ambitious and sometimes
unambitious, and sometimes praise the ambitious man and sometimes the
unambitious. …

With regard to anger also there is an excess, a deficiency, and a mean. Although they
can scarcely be said to have names, yet since we call the intermediate person good-
tempered let us call the mean good temper; of the persons at the extremes let the one
who exceeds be called irascible, and his vice irascibility, and the man who falls short
an inirascible sort of person, and the deficiency inirascibility.

Book X [Pleasure; Happiness]

 8

6 [Happiness Is Not Amusement]

Our discussion will be the more concise if we first sum up what we have said already.
We said, then, that it is not a disposition; for if it were it might belong to someone
who was asleep throughout his life, living the life of a plant, or, again, to someone
who was suffering the greatest misfortunes. If these implications are unacceptable,
and we must rather class happiness as an activity, as we have said before, and if some
activities are necessary, and desirable for the sake of something else, while others are
so in themselves, evidently happiness must be placed among those desirable in
themselves, not among those desirable for the sake of something else; for happiness
does not lack anything, but is self-sufficient. Now those activities are desirable in
themselves from which nothing is sought beyond the activity. And of this nature
virtuous actions are thought to be; for to do noble and good deeds is a thing desirable
for its own sake.

Pleasant amusements also are thought to be of this nature; we choose them not for the
sake of other things; for we are injured rather than benefited by them, since we are led
to neglect our bodies and our property. …Happiness, therefore, does not lie in
amusement; it would, indeed, be strange if the end were amusement, and one were to
take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself. For, in a word,
everything that we choose we choose for the sake of something else—except
happiness, which is an end. Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement
seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert
oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and
we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an
end; for it is taken for the sake of activity.

The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires exertion, and
does not consist in amusement. And we say that serious things are better than
laughable things and those connected with amusement, and that the activity of the
better of any two things—whether it be two elements of our being or two men—is the
more serious; but the activity of the better is ipso facto superior and more of the nature
of happiness. And any chance person—even a slave—can enjoy the bodily pleasures
no less than the best man; but no one assigns to a slave a share in happiness—unless
he assigns to him also a share in human life. For happiness does not lie in such
occupations, but, as we have said before, in virtuous activities.

7 [Happiness Is the Contemplative Life]

If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in

accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us. For
while a philosopher, as well as a just man or one possessing any other virtue, needs
 9

the necessaries of life, when they are sufficiently equipped with things of that sort the
just man needs people towards whom and with whom he shall act justly, and the
temperate man, the brave man, and each of the others is in the same case, but the
philosopher, even when by himself, can contemplate truth, and the better the wiser he
is; he can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers, but still he is the most self-
sufficient. And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for
nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we
gain more or less apart from the action.

…And what we said before will apply now; that which is proper to each thing is by
nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man, therefore, the life according to
reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man. This life
therefore is also the happiest.

8 [The Contemplative Life]

But in a secondary degree the life in accordance with the other kind of virtue is happy;
for the activities in accordance with this befit our human estate. Just and brave acts,
and other virtuous acts, we do in relation to each other, observing our respective
duties with regard to contracts and services and all manner of actions and with regard
to passions; and all of these seem to be typically human. Some of them seem even to
arise from the body, and virtue of character to be in many ways bound up with the
passions. Practical wisdom, too, is linked to virtue of character, and this to practical
wisdom, since the principles of practical wisdom are in accordance with the moral
virtues and rightness in morals is in accordance with practical wisdom. Being
connected with the passions also, the moral virtues must belong to our composite
nature; and the virtues of our composite nature are human, so, therefore, are the life
and the happiness which correspond to these. The excellence of the reason is a thing
apart, we must be content to say this much about it, for to describe it precisely is a
task greater than our purpose requires. It would seem, however, also to need external
equipment but little, or less than moral virtue does. Grant that both need the
necessaries, and do so equally, even if the statesman's work is the more concerned
with the body and things of that sort; for there will be little difference there; but in
what they need for the exercise of their activities there will be much difference. The
liberal man will need money for the doing of his liberal deeds, and the just man too
will need it for the returning of services (for wishes are hard to discern, and even
people who are not just pretend to wish to act justly); and the brave man will need
power if he is to accomplish any of the acts that correspond to his virtue, and the
temperate man will need opportunity; for how else is either he or any of the others to
be recognized? It is debated, too, whether the will or the deed is more essential to
virtue, which is assumed to involve both; it is surely clear that its perfection involves
both; but for deeds many things are needed, and more, the greater and nobler the
 10

deeds are. But the man who is contemplating the truth needs no such thing, at least
with a view to the exercise of his activity; indeed they are, one may say, even
hindrances, at all events to his contemplation; but in so far as he is a man and lives
with a number of people, he chooses to do virtuous acts; he will therefore need such
aids to living a human life.

But, being a man, one will also need external prosperity; for our nature is not self-
sufficient for the purpose of contemplation, but our body also must be healthy and
must have food and other attention. Still, we must not think that the man who is to be
happy will need many things or great things, merely because he cannot be supremely
happy without external goods; for self-sufficiency and action do not involve excess,
and we can do noble acts without ruling earth and sea; for even with moderate
advantages one can act virtuously (this is manifest enough; for private persons are
thought to do worthy acts no less than despots—indeed even more); and it is enough
that we should have so much as that; for the life of the man who is active in
accordance with virtue will be happy…

A reference chart: