Handout: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapters 8-13; Book II, Chapters 1-4

January 29, 2024

Prof. Kautzer

Chapter 8 (happiness as action)

Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of good: (1) those associated with things external to us; (2)
those associated with our soul (which includes reason); and (3) those associated with our body.
Those associated with the soul, he says, are “most authoritative and especially good” (15). He
thus endorses the following claim: “certain actions and activities are the end, for in this way the
end belongs among the goods related to soul, not among the external ones” (15).

This, says Aristotle is consistent with (or “harmonizes with”) the understanding of happiness
presented so far, i.e. “an activity of soul in accord with virtue” (13). Here Aristotle describes it as
“a certain kind of living well and good action” (15).

Action is essential to understanding Aristotle’s concept of happiness. Living well and good
action are both activities, not states of being or characteristics of a person. They are doings or
praxis. When our actions concern what is good or noble, we are happy: “the life [of those who
love what is noble] has no need of additional pleasure, like a sort of added charm, but possesses
pleasure in itself” (16).

“Happiness, therefore, is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing” (16)

But what does ugliness have to do with any of this? How can one “disfigure their blessedness”
(17)?

Aristotle says that we require “equipment” or “instruments” as means to achieve the good and
there are certain conditions that prevent us from acquiring those means and in turn from living
well (17). The “instruments” in question are, for example, friends, wealth, and political power.
These are examples of the “external goods” Aristotle previously distinguished from the goods
related to the soul and body.

If you are born into a wealthy family, are attractive, have good children and friends, for example,
you have the means or instruments to be live well, although it is not guaranteed. If you lack these
means, because you’re born into a poor family, are unattractive, childless, and solitary, you
cannot really be happy. Even worse, if you have shitty children, bad friends, or had friends but
they’re dead now, well, then, you’re really in trouble!

Chapter 9 (happiness through learning and other people)

At the end of Chapter 8, Aristotle notes that happiness’s dependency on external goods has made
some think that happiness is merely good fortune – a lottery of sorts. He begins this chapter with

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a similar thought, but mentions the alternative: if it isn’t good fortune, is happiness “something
that can be gained through learning or habituation or through some other practice” (17)?

It is. Happiness, as “a certain sort of activity of soul in accord with virtue” (18), is achieved
through “a certain learning or practice” (17). It is available to anyone who has not “been
rendered defective in point of virtue” (17), i.e. who have the good fortune of having access to the
instruments needed.

Toward the end of the chapter, Aristotle raises the role of “coworkers” as other kinds of goods
that are necessary to be happy. By this, Aristotle means that our virtuous activities require the
cooperation and activity of others. Our success in living well depends not just on the existence of
others, but in our having the right kind of neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens. This depends
on the art of politics, which Aristotle discussed at the beginning. The “political art,” he says,
“exercises a very great care to make the citizens of a specific sort—namely, good and apt to do
the noble things” (18).

Chapter 13 (the soul’s parts)

Aristotle begins to explain his understanding of the “soul,” which generally has two parts, the
rational and nonrational, and each of these can be subdivided into two parts:
One part, he says, concerns “nutrition and growth” (23) and is thus shared with other living
things, i.e. is “not distinctive of a human being” (24). Aristotle likes to talk about sleep and here
he basically argues that for half our lives, the virtuous and the wretched among us are equal,
because we’re basically reduced to our “nutritive part” (24) of the soul during sleep and this part
“does not naturally share in human virtue” (24).

Another part of the nonrational soul is “contrary to reason” yet somehow shares in it. This is
Aristotle’s way of saying that it is susceptible to control by reason or it responds to reason: “the
nonrational part is twofold, for the vegetative part has nothing in common with reason; but that
part characterized by desire, and by longing in general, shares somehow in reason inasmuch as it
heeds it and is apt to be obedient to its commands” (24).

The rational part of the soul can also be thought of as twofold: “what possesses it in the
authoritative sense and in itself, on the one hand, and, on the other, what has it in the sense of
being apt to listen as one does to one’s father” (25). This distinction tracks the division of
virtues:

Intellectual: wisdom, comprehension, and prudence

Moral: liberality and moderation

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BOOK TWO, CHAPTERS 1-4

Chapter One

There are two kinds of virtue (26):

(1) Intellectual: It is taught for the most part – requires experience and time

(2) Moral: It results from habit, not nature, and relates to our character. In practice and in
etymology, moral (ethike) is only slightly different from habit (ethos).

Aristotle’s focus in this book is clearly on moral virtue. He returns to the topic of intellectual
virtue in Book VI, which we are not reading. Concerning moral virtues, he writes that they are
“present in us who are of such a nature as to receive them” and “completed through habit” (26).
By which he means, the virtue only emerges through action and is then cultivated through
repetition, thus becoming a characteristic for us, i.e., part of our character. In other words, we
come to have virtues “by engaging in the activities first” (26). We learn them by doing them and
“characteristics come into being as a result of the activities akin to them” (27). By
“characteristics, Aristotle is referring to qualities of our character, i.e., acting virtuously
cultivates our character to be virtuous. More on this in Chapter IV.

But this isn’t just left up to the individual to choose what to do. Aristotle is not thinking that each
of us should question “Should I habituate the virtue of liberality today?” We should be thinking
about Aristotle’s notion of virtue in a more comprehensive sociological and historical way: In
what social and institutional contexts can an individual over time cultivate a virtue such that it
becomes habitual? Aristotle says that it will make a big difference if this process begins “straight
from childhood” (27). This is also why he raises the art of politics again:

“So too, then, by doing just things we become just; moderate things, moderate; and
courageous things, courageous. What happens in the cities too bears witness to this,
for by habituating citizens, lawgivers make them good, and this is the wish of every
lawgiver; all who do not do this well are in error, and it is in this respect that a good
regime [politeia] differs from a base regime” (27).

We can screw this up, so we need to be thoughtful about how we design our institutions, laws,
systems of education, and so forth.

Chapter Two

Aristotle tells us to keep our eye on the prize. We’re not looking to merely catalog virtues or
understand their origin and nature. We are doing this, of course, but it’s not the only thing we’re
doing and it’s not the ultimate goal. Right action is the goal. What actions must we take “so that
we may become good” (27)?

There is no exact answer about how to become good, he reminds us: “every argument concerned
with what ought to be done is bound to be stated in outline only and not precisely” (28). This

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also applies to finding the mean of virtue, which exists between the deficiency and excess of
actions and feelings. Thus, for Aristotle we learn how to be virtuous by acting in a certain way
(i.e., in a way similar to those who have already acquired the characteristic), but we can also
identify the place of virtue, roughly speaking, within a spectrum of actions and emotions, i.e., at
the mean.

In my notes to Chapter VII, I’ve included a table of the various virtues/means, coupled with their
deficiencies and excesses, but in this chapter, Aristotle mentions moderation and courage.
Courage is the mean between cowardice and recklessness (or rashness on the chart). So too with
moderation (or temperance on the chart), which is the mean between licentiousness and
insensibility. “Moderation and courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency, but they are
preserved by the mean” (28-29). More about this in Chapter VII.

Chapter Three

After situating virtue in the context of a spectrum of possible dispositions and responses,
Aristotle now situates it in the context of pain and pleasure, because they accompany every
action.

“For moral virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains: it is on account of the
pleasure involved that we do base things, and it is on account of the pain that we
abstain from noble ones. Thus one must be brought up in a certain way straight
from childhood, as Plato asserts, so as to enjoy as well as to be pained by what one
ought, for this is correct education” (29).

At times, Aristotle almost sounds like a classical utilitarian, as when he writes

“We also take pleasure and pain as the rule of our actions, some of us to a greater
degree, some to a lesser. It is on account of this, then, that one’s entire concern
necessarily pertains to pleasure and pain, for taking delight and feeling pain make
no small contribution to our actions being well or badly done” (30).

Consider this famous statement by Jeremy Bentham from his influential version of utilitarian
ethics (An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1832)): “Nature has placed
mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone
to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” Despite the
importance they both give to pain and pleasure, Aristotle’s virtue ethics would recoil at the
conclusion Bentham drew. Bentham thought the ethical goal was to maximize pleasure, whereas
Aristotle sought to maximize virtue by avoiding the temptation toward pleasure (in excess).
Pleasure seduces us away from the mean. Pain repels from doing what is necessary to achieve
the mean. We therefore need to cultivate a certain tolerance for difficult or painful things, or,
perhaps better said, to find pleasure in them.

“Virtue, therefore, has been posited as being such as to produce the best [actions]
in relation to pleasures and pains, and vice as being the contrary” (30).

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Punishment is also a form of education. Remember Socrates’ response to Glaucon in the excerpt
we read from Plato’s Republic. Whereas Glaucon viewed punishment as coercive and
destructive, Socrates justifies it as educative and productive: “Whereas if a man is caught and
punished,” says Socrates, “his beastlike part is taken in and tamed, his tame part is free, and his
whole soul acquires justice and temperance and knowledge.” Punishments, says Aristotle, “are a
sort of curative treatment, and curative treatments naturally take place through contraries” (29).

Objects of Choice Objects of Avoidance

The Noble The Shameful

The Advantageous The Harmful
The Pleasant The Painful

Wisdom: “art and virtue always arise in connection with that which is more difficult: the doing
of something well is better when it is more difficult” (30)

Chapter Four

Aristotle was right about the following: “But someone might be perplexed as to what we mean
when we say that to become just, people must do just things or, to become moderate, do
moderate things. For if they do just and moderate things, they already are just and moderate”
(31).

We have to make a distinction here, says Aristotle. Two different people can act similarly and
it’s possible that only one of them is virtuous. How can that be? It’s not just the action (e.g.
donating money) that is relevant, but also the actor doing the action. What does the actor need to
do or be in order for their actions to reflect virtue? Aristotle lists three conditions, although the
first he says is almost irrelevant:

1. They must act knowingly (least important/relevant)

2. The act must be chosen for its own sake
3. The actor must act “while being in a steady and unwavering state”; We could think of this
as a condition of self-control in which we are mindful and deliberate in our actions

The first condition is mostly irrelevant because the goal is to habituate our moral virtues; to make
them part of our character.

“Matters of action are said to be just and moderate, then, when they are comparable
in kind to what the just or moderate person would do. And yet he who performs
these actions is not by that fact alone just and moderate, but only if he also acts as
those who are just and moderate act.
It is well said, then, that as a result of doing just things, the just person comes
into being and as a result of doing moderate things, the moderate person; without
performing these actions, nobody would become good” (31-32).