Nicomachean Ethics

The highest human good is happiness (eudaimonia), pursued for its own sake. It is defined as the activity of the soul in accordance with complete virtue throughout a full life. Achieving happiness requires a degree of external goods, such as friends, wealth, and good fortune, to enable noble actions and provide stability. Opinions on what constitutes happiness vary, from pleasure and honor to virtue itself, but it ultimately involves living and doing well.

Moral virtue is primarily developed through habit and practice, rather than being innate. It involves finding the mean or intermediate state between two extremes—excess and defect—in both passions and actions. To be truly virtuous, an action must be performed with knowledge, chosen for its own sake, and stem from a firm, unchangeable character. The pleasure or pain associated with an action indicates one's moral state.

Virtue and vice are concerned with voluntary actions, which are performed with the agent's moving principle and knowledge. Involuntary actions, resulting from compulsion or ignorance leading to pain and repentance, receive pardon. Choice is a deliberate desire, focusing on the means to an end after a process of deliberation. This implies that becoming virtuous or vicious is largely within our power, as we are responsible for our choices and character formation.

Courage is the mean concerning feelings of fear and confidence, primarily in facing noble death in battle for honor. It avoids the extremes of rashness and cowardice. Temperance is the mean concerning bodily pleasures and pains, especially those of touch and taste. It governs natural appetites, avoiding both excessive indulgence and unnatural insensibility. The self-indulgent individual chooses excess, unlike the merely incontinent.

Liberality is the mean concerning wealth in small-scale giving and taking, prioritizing giving. Magnificence involves tasteful, large-scale expenditures, particularly for public honor. Proper pride is the mean regarding honor, where a good man correctly deems himself worthy of great things. It is considered the "crown of the virtues," implying inherent goodness and a dignified, independent character.

Several social virtues constitute means in specific areas. Good temper is the mean regarding anger, feeling it rightly and appropriately. An unnamed virtue of friendliness is the mean in social interactions, aiming to give appropriate pleasure without being obsequious or churlish. Truthfulness is the mean in words and deeds concerning oneself, avoiding both boastfulness and mock modesty, valuing truth for its own sake.

Justice encompasses two main forms: universal justice (lawfulness), which is complete virtue in relation to others, and particular justice (fairness). Particular justice further divides into distributive justice (proportionate to merit in shared goods) and rectificatory justice (arithmetical, restoring equality in transactions). Equity serves as a correction to legal justice when the universal nature of law fails to address unique cases, demonstrating a higher form of justice.

The rational soul contains two parts: the scientific (for invariable truths) and the calculative (for variable truths). Five states attain truth: art, scientific knowledge, intuitive reason, practical wisdom, and philosophic wisdom. Practical wisdom (phronesis) enables good action in human affairs, discerning means to virtuous ends, and requires moral virtue. Philosophic wisdom (sophia) is the highest, focused on contemplating unchanging, divine objects.

This section examines continence (resisting desires) and incontinence (succumbing to them), which are distinct from virtue and vice. It delves into pleasure and pain, arguing against the notion that all pleasure is bad. True pleasures are unimpeded activities that complete perfect functioning. The pursuit of pleasure is natural, but one must distinguish between necessary bodily pleasures and the higher, virtuous ones. Incontinence regarding anger is considered less blameworthy than that concerning appetite.

Friendship is profoundly necessary for a good life, categorized into three types: based on utility, pleasure, or virtue. Perfect friendship, between good men, is the most enduring and desirable, as it values the friend for their own sake and promotes mutual moral improvement. Such friendships require time, intimacy, and a limited number of close companions. Relationships of kinship and civic association are also explored.

Perfect happiness is ultimately found in the contemplative life, an activity in accordance with philosophic wisdom. This activity of reason is the highest, most continuous, and most self-sufficient, requiring fewer external goods than practical virtues. While moral virtues provide a secondary form of happiness, the contemplative life, being divine and sought for its own sake, represents man’s most complete and blessed state.

Mere knowledge of virtue is insufficient; active acquisition and use are necessary. Most people are swayed by fear and passion, not arguments, necessitating guidance through laws and habituation. The state, through public care and good legislation, has the compulsive power to foster virtue effectively. Therefore, the study of constitutions and laws is essential to understanding how to organize society for the flourishing of its citizens.