Nicomachean Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics is one of Aristotle's great works and discusses 
virtues. The ten books which comprise it are based on notes from his lectures 
at the Lyceum and were either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son, 
Nicomachus.

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle focuses on the importance of continually 
behaving virtuously and developing virtue rather than committing specific 
good actions. This can be opposed to Kantian ethics, in which the primary 
focus is on individual action. Nicomachean Ethics emphasizes the importance 
of context to ethical behavior – what might be right in one situation might 
be wrong in another. Aristotle believed that happiness is the end of life and 
that as long as a person is striving for goodness, good deeds will result from 
that struggle, making the person virtuous and therefore happy.

Important quotes

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. - 1094a (Book I, Ch. 1)

Three Ethical Treatises

We have three editions of Aristotle's ethical theory which survive today: the 
most popular Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics and the Magnus Moralia. 
Each of these books are in fact collections of Aristotle's lecture notes, each 
book possibly containing several different lecture courses which can be sparse 
and difficult to read. It is thought that the Eudemian Ethics represents 
Aristotle's early ethical theory, and the Nicomachean Ethics appears to build 
upon it's counterpart. Despite the fact the Eudemian Ethics been called 'less 
mature' by some critics (although it is important to note that in recent years, 
certain critics, such as Kenny (1978) have termed the Eudemian Ethics the more 
mature, and latter book), three books from this treatise (Books IV-VI) also 
appear in the Nicomachean Ethics as Books V-VII. There is some question as to 
whether Aristotle was in fact the author of the Magnus Moralia, however 
scholars such as J.L.Ackrill are in no question that the author is Aristotle.

Scholars assume that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics were either 
edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son and pupil Nicomachus, and his 
disciple Eudemus respectively. These must remain assumptions, however, since 
no information about the collections' names is contained in the works.

A fourth treatise which is often cited as the sequel to the Ethics is 
Aristotle's Politics. As Aristotle states in the Ethics that the good of the 
individual is subordinate to the good of the city-state, or 'polis', this is 
no surprise.

Character-centered ethics

Aristotle's ethics is often called teleological or goal-directed. According to 
Aristotle, every thing has a purpose or end. A knife, for example, has the 
purpose of cutting things. A good knife is good at cutting things, and 
therefore knives should be sharp. Similarly, people have a purpose. People 
should do things that help them fulfill that purpose or end: things that 
are for their good. People who do such things well and consistently are 
good people. Each action is not considered as an isolated act (as is often 
done in other ethical systems), but in relation to this end. This attitude 
toward ethics is also referred to as character-centered: each person's actions 
should make that person better and build a better character.

Of course, this brings up the important question of what a human's purpose 
actually is.

The essence and function of being human

Aristotle defined the function of a being human when he stated, “Now we take 
the human’s function to be a certain kind of life, and take this life to be 
the soul’s activity and actions that express reason. Hence the excellent 
man’s function is to do this finely and well. Each function is completed 
well when its completion expresses the proper virtue. Therefore the human 
good turns out to be the soul’s activity that expresses virtue.”- 1098a 
5-10 (Book I, Ch. 7) This does not imply that every human being should 
aspire to "be great", but rather each human life should express the truth 
of that internal soul's activity.

Only through man's ability to recognize and accept his own attributes and 
limitations can any one man excel. The measure of a man is not to be found 
according to the abilities useful to peers or a particular society/culture; 
rather, one could argue that a man can only be excellent when the internal 
activity is fully understood. Aristotle’s virtue cannot be achieved through 
habit; a person cannot just be virtuous for one day, for to be such would 
imply an internal contradiction between natural thoughts and the urge to 
conform one's natural pattern to one determined by others. People try to 
achieve happiness through three ways: pleasure, honor, and expression of 
reason. There is a fourth in money making, but it is brought about through 
necessity and not specifically for achieving happiness in itself; in order 
to be happy a person needs resources first. In order to be happy a person 
must find the mean between two extremes. A courageous person is the mean 
between the extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness.

The essence of a human being is man, while individual substances come and 
go. A man gets old but he is still in essence the same man. A man can become 
musical, but musical is not man. Individual substances come into the man, and 
leave the man, but the man is still a man before they come.

Arete: traditional Greek virtues

“Virtue (arete) then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the 
choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observance 
of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as 
the prudent man would determine it.” Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, II vi 
15, translated H. Rackham (1934: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle tries to address the traditional Greek 
virtues (Greek: ??et? arete) of his time, in large part accepting 
contemporary virtues and explaining them. It is important to recognize that 
these virtues are not always the same as modern or Christian virtues — 
Aristotle views pride or magnificence (rather than humility) as a virtue, 
for example. Aristotle divides the virtues into intellectual and moral 
virtues.

Intellectual virtues include reason, wisdom, judgment and prudence. Most of 
these would not be called virtues today, but they are important because that 
allow us to recognize the golden mean in a particular situation and then to 
behave according to it. Prudence or phronesis means behaving according to the 
golden mean generally, and is used to find the moral virtues, each of which 
are the golden mean between two imprudent behaviors or vices.

Moral virtues are more like what we would call virtues today.

The Golden Mean

In order to be happy a person must find the mean between two extremes. A 
courageous person is the mean between the extremes of cowardice and 
foolhardiness. A soldier who is a coward will not fight in a war even though 
they have more than enough resources to defeat the enemy quite easily, while 
the foolhardy soldier will fight in a war when they are very poorly equipped. 
Aristotle defined the mean when he stated, “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.

The excellent archer will find the mean between the two extremes when trying 
to hit the target, and he will not aim with force in excess like Machiavelli 
states to do in his book the, Prince, “Let him act like the clever archers 
who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing 
the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher
than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height,
but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to 
reach.” A follower of Aristotle will seek to find the mean in every action 
whether it deals with pleasure, honor, or expression of reason because they 
will understand that virtue is a mean. In order to seek the good they must
also use reason as a guide to seek the virtue/mean.

Explanation with examples from virtues of character

As stated in the inscription at the temple at the Oracle at Delphi, a person 
should do nothing to excess. The inscription should have also included the 
words, find the mean. Temperance is the virtue that is the mean in order to 
control emotions, courage is the mean when seeking honor, and wisdom is the 
mean when seeking knowledge.

A general must seek to find courage the mean between cowardice and 
foolhardiness, in order to gain honor. A person who seeks pleasure must 
find the mean between becoming a drunkard and not drinking at all. A person 
who seeks pleasure through eating must find the mean between being a glutton 
and being anorexic. A person who seeks pleasure through sex must find the 
mean between abstinence and nymphomania. A person who seek honor through 
knowledge must find the mean between ignorance and seeking knowledge to 
excess (Socrates did not listen to this). Plato stated that the mean between 
ignorance and wisdom was “right opinion.”