greek · wisdom

Nicomachean Ethics

c. 350 BCE · Classical Greece (4th century BCE) · Athens, Greece (composed at the Lyceum)

Book I — The Good for Man

1Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit,

2is thought to aim at some good;

3and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

4If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake,

5and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else,

6clearly this must be the good and the chief good.

7Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be;

8for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else.

The Function of Man

9Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a platitude,

10and a clearer account of what it is is still desired.

11This might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of man.

12For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or any artist, and, in general,

13for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the "well" is thought to reside in the function,

14so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function.

15What can this be? Life seems to be common even to plants,

16but we are seeking what is peculiar to man.

17Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth.

18Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal.

19There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle.

20Human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue,

21and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.

22But we must add "in a complete life."

23For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day;

24and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Book II — Moral Virtue

25Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral,

26intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching

27(for which reason it requires experience and time),

28while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit.

29From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature;

30for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature.

31The virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts.

32For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

33Men become builders by building, and lyre-players by playing the lyre.

34So too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

The Doctrine of the Mean

35Excellence is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us,

36this being determined by reason, and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

37Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.

38Excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue:

39For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.

40With regard to feelings of fear and confidence, courage is the mean;

41of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name,

42and he who exceeds in confidence is rash;

43he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward.

44With regard to pleasures — though not with regard to all of them —

45the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence.

Book VI — Practical Wisdom

46Practical wisdom is a truth-attaining rational quality,

47concerned with action in relation to the things that are good and bad for man.

48Practical wisdom is not scientific knowledge, because that which is done is variable.

49For a young man, therefore, though he may become geometrician and mathematician,

50and wise in matters like these, is not thought to become practically wise.

51The cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with universals but with particulars,

52which become familiar from experience — but a young man has no experience,

53for it is length of time that gives experience.

Book VIII — Friendship

54There are three kinds of friendship: those based on utility,

55those based on pleasure, and those based on virtue.

56Friendships based on utility and pleasure dissolve when the utility or the pleasure disappears.

57But friendship based on virtue is lasting, for virtue is a lasting thing.

58Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue;

59for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves.

60Such friendships are, then, permanent.

61For each of them is by nature such as has been described, and gets from the other, in most respects, similar treatment.

62For friendship is a virtue, or involves virtue;

63and besides, it is most necessary with a view to living.

Book X — Contemplation

64If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue,

65it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue;

66and this will be that of the best thing in us.

67The activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the most pleasant of virtuous activities;

68at all events, the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness.

69And the self-sufficiency that is spoken of must belong most to the contemplative activity.

70The activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative;

71and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness.

72But such a life would be too high for man;

73for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him.

74So far as this divine element is superior to the composite nature of a man,

75so far is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue.

notes

The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's principal treatise on moral philosophy — arguably the most important single work of ethics in the Western tradition. It was probably compiled from Aristotle's lecture notes at the Lyceum by his son Nicomachus (hence the title), or edited for him. The work establishes the framework of eudaimonia ("flourishing" or "happiness") as the highest human good, defined as activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Aristotle distinguishes moral virtues (courage, temperance, generosity, magnanimity, etc.) — acquired by habituation — from intellectual virtues (wisdom, understanding, practical wisdom) — acquired by teaching. The doctrine of the mean is Aristotle's most famous ethical principle: virtue lies between two vices, excess and deficiency. Courage between rashness and cowardice; generosity between prodigality and stinginess. But the mean is "relative to us" — not a mathematical midpoint but the amount appropriate to the particular circumstances, as the practically wise person would judge. The account of friendship (Book VIII–IX) is one of the most subtle ancient treatments of the topic. The final book's meditation on contemplation as the highest happiness has been enormously influential on later Christian and Islamic philosophy — Aquinas, Averroes, and Maimonides all drew on it directly. Translation: W.D. Ross, "The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle," Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908. Public domain.

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