Ch 25

The Virtuous Life

Aristotle
Introduction to Ethics 118
Professor Douglas Olena
 Aim at the Good
245 “Every science and every investigation, and
likewise every practical pursuit and undertaking,
appears to aim at some good: and consequently the
good has been well defined as the object at which
all things aim.”
What is the supreme good?
Under which theoretical or practical science does it
fall?
246 “The good of man must be the subject pursued
by politics.”
 Political Science
246 “The present investigation therefore, as
directed to these objects, may be termed Political
Science.”
Aristotle thinks that every science admits to a
certain accuracy. Political Science is not physics and
cannot be expected to be as accurate as physics.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to expect that
degree of precision in each department which the
nature of the subject allows.”
 Political Science
246 “A young man is not a competent student of
political science, because he has had no practical
experience of the affairs of life, which supply the
premises and form the subjects of political theory.”
“Moreover, as he is liable to be guided by his
emotions it will be a waste of time for him to
attend lectures on Ethics.”
“He will get no profit from them, inasmuch as the
real object of ethical instruction is not to impart
knowledge but to influence conduct.”
What is the Good?

246 Mankind from all walks of life agree that the

highest good is happiness.
How happiness is defined differs between the
philosopher and the ordinary person.
 Training

247 “In order to be a competent student in

questions of right and justice and of political
matters in general, the student must have been
trained in good habits of conduct; for one has to
start from facts; and if these be sufficiently clear
there will be no need for reasons in addition.”
 What is Happiness?

247 Happiness consists in pleasure, or

The life of active citizenship, or
The life of contemplation.
 Pleasure

What is right or wrong with pleasure as a definition

of happiness?
For: It is available to all people, though the varieties
of it are not endless, they are very large and satisfy
a variety of tastes.
Against: It requires no skill or advancement or
intelligence, it rewards its users with nothing or
worse, a bad habit or illness, Habitual users lose the
facility for all higher forms of happiness.
 Active Citizenship

Remember Aristotle is saying that ethics is properly

a part of the study of Political Science.
247 Often the aim of a life of active citizenship is
not happiness directly but honor. Honor is
superficial “because honour seems to depend more
on the people who render it than on the person
who receives it, whereas we dimly feel that good
must be something inherent in oneself and
inalienable.”
“Goodness is more valuable than honour.”
 Money-Making

247 “The life of money-making is a cramped way of

living, and clearly wealth is not the good we are in
search of, as it is only valuable as a means to
something else.”
 The Nature of Good

248 “What is the precise nature of the practicable

good which we are investigating?”
“It appears to be one thing in one occupation or
profession and another in another.”
“What definition of the term ‘good’ applies to all of
them?”
If there is some thing or things that is (are) the aim
of all practical activities, that thing or those things
constitute the practical good.
 The Nature of Good

248 Nothing that is a means to some other end is

the end we are looking for.
The aim must be something which is desired as an
end in itself.
“Now this description appears to apply in the
highest degree to happiness, since we always desire
happiness for its own sake and never on account of
something else.”
 The Nature of Good
248 “Thus it appears that happiness is something
final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end
of all practical activities whatever.”
What is “the precise nature of happiness?”
To ask that question one must ask the question
“What is the function of man irrespective of his
animal nature and similarities with the rest of living
things?”
249 “There remains therefore what may be
designated the practical life of the rational faculty.”
 The Nature of Good

249 “ ‘Rational’ life has two meanings:

It denotes the mere possession of reason,
It denotes the active exercise of reason.”
“It follows that the good of man consists in the
active exercise of the faculties in conformity with
excellence or virtue, or if there are several virtues,
in conformity with the best and most perfect
among them.”
 The Nature of Good

249 “Moreover, happiness requires an entire

lifetime.”
No single moment of happiness makes a happy man.
This particular study is imprecise, and there may be
no explanation as to why a thing is so.
 The Nature of Good

249 “We must endeavor to arrive at each first

principle by the method appropriate to its
particular nature.”
“Also extreme care must be taken to define the
first principles correctly.”
 The Nature of Good

250 Aristotle classifies the goods in three groups:

external goods
goods of the body
goods of the mind
The goods of the mind are the most important and
of the highest degree.
 The Nature of Good

250 “Our definition of happiness identifies it with

goods of the mind.”
“Out theory… is in agreement with the popular
phrase describing the happy man as a man who
‘lives well’ or ‘does well’, since our formula virtually
defines happiness as a form of good living and good
conduct.”
 The Nature of Good

250 “Our formula agrees with the view that

identifies happiness with excellence, or with some
particular virtue, inasmuch as activity conforming
with excellence presupposes excellence in the
agent.”
“Similarly it is people who act rightly that win
distinction and credit in life.”
“Moreover the life of active virtue is intrinsically
pleasant.”
 The Nature of Good

250 “Consequently happiness is at once the best

and the noblest and the pleasantest thing there is,
and these qualities do not exist in separate
compartments.”
251 “Happiness seems to require prosperity of this
kind in addition.”
“Some… identify happiness with good fortune.”
 The Nature of Good

251 “Now if there is any other thing that comes to

men as a gift of providence, it is reasonable to hold
that happiness is given us by the gods.”
 Limits of Happiness

251 “A child cannot be happy in the proper sense,

as he is not old enough to engage in conduct of this
nature.”
“For happiness, as we said, complete excellence is
requisite; and also a life prolonged to its full limit,
 Happiness Defined

252 “Happiness then we define as the active

exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect
goodness or virtue.”
“It will therefore be necessary to investigate the
nature of virtue, as to do so will contribute to our
understanding the nature of happiness.”
 What is Virtue?

252 “The investigation of the nature of virtue is a

duty of statesmanship.”
253 The virtue to be examined is human virtue.
It has to do with the goodness of the mind.
Happiness is an activity of the mind.
It is necessary for the statesman and the student of
politics to study psychology.
 Book 1, Chapter 2

253 “Virtue, then falls into two divisions, intellectual

excellence and goodness of character.”
“A good intellect is chiefly produced and fostered
by education, and consequently requires experience
and time,”
“But moral goodness is formed mainly by training in
habit.”
 Virtues

253 “None of the moral virtues are implanted in us

by nature.”
“We acquire the virtues by first acting virtuously,
just as in the case of the arts and crafts: we learn
these by actually doing the things that we shall have
to do when we have learnt them”
“Similarly by acting justly we become just, by acting
temperately we become self-controlled, and by
acting bravely we become courageous.”
 Virtues

254 “It is by encountering danger and forming a

habit of being frightened or else of keeping up our
courage that some of us become brave men and
others, cowards; and the same is the case in regard
to indulging the appetites and giving way to anger.”
“We are not pursuing [the present investigation] in
order to learn what virtue is but in order to
become virtuous; otherwise it would be of no
value.”
 Virtues

254 “The rules of conduct that it lays down are only

of general validity, and their application must vary
with the circumstances of the particular occasion,
and be modified by the discretion of the agent.”
 The Golden Mean

Read first full paragraph in right column of 254.

 The Golden Mean

254 “The medium quantity in its relation to us is

the amount that is not excessive and not deficient,
and this is not the same for everybody.”
255 “The implication is that excess and deficiency
impair excellence, and a middle quantity secures it.”
“Virtue is a sort of middle state, in the sense that it
aims at the middle.”
 The Golden Mean

255 “Though it is possible to go wrong in many

ways… it is only possible to go right in one way.”
“This is why to go wrong is easy but to go right
difficult; it is easy to miss the target but difficult to
hit it.”
 The Golden Mean

255 “But not every action or emotion admits of a

middle state: the very names of some of them
suggest wickedness – for instance spite,
shamelessness, envy, and among actions, adultery,
theft, murder; all of these and similar emotions and
actions are blamed as being wicked intrinsically and
not merely when practised to excess or
insufficiently.”
 The Middle State 256,
257
Emotion
Deficiency Golden Mean Excess
or Action
boldness cowardice courage rashness

fear foolhardiness courage cowardice

giving or getting
meanness liberality extravagance
money
honor and
lack of spirit pride conceit
dishonor
anger passive, timid good-tempered irascible

sincerity mock-modesty frankness boastful

pleasantness surly agreeable obsequious

 The Golden Mean

Much of what we judge to be excess or deficiency

is based on our own perspective.
If I am prone to overindulgence, then staying closer
to abstinence which would be an deficiency to a
temperate person would be a golden mean to me.
What is permitted to one person is not necessarily
permitted to another.
 Moral Goodness
258 “Moral goodness is a middle state.”
The extremes are vice.
Rule 1. We must steer farthest away from the extreme that
is a greater mistake.
Rule 2. We must notice which errors we ourselves are
prone to and avoid with a passion the mistakes we are
most naturally inclined to.
Rule 3. We must keep a very close watch on pleasant things
and pleasant feelings. “When mistress pleasure is on her
trial, we the jury have been tampered with.”
 Moral Goodness

258 “A small departure from the right amount,

either in the direction of excess or deficiency, is not
censured, though a wider divergence is bound to be
noticed.”
There is no formula for this latitude.
 The Conclusion

258 “This much then is clear, that the middle course

in everything is commendable, but that we should
diverge sometimes towards excess and sometimes
toward deficiency, as that is the easiest way of
hitting the middle course, which is the right one.”