Aristotle's Ethics

Because the true human life is only possible in the city state as a citizen, Aristotle considers that ethics is a branch of politics, for the former is the investigation of the characters for the human happiness that is only possible in the way of the city state. Therefore, it is necessary to understand Aristotle's insights into ethical questions from this perspective. Despite the special nature of ethical inquires, Aristotle at the out set of the Ethics describes the good of the state as "greater and more perfect" than that of the individual, and the latter as merely something with which we may have to put up if we cannot attain the former.
Aristotle begins his Nicomachean Ethics with the following words which reveals his basic assumption about the nature of human decisions and activities;

"Every art and every inquiry, every action and choice, seems to aim at some good;
whence the good has rightly been defined as that which all things aim."

Aristotle's ethics is here again definitely naturalistic (i.e., determined by the nature of the human and in accordance with nature) and teleological (i.e., the morality is not determined by the motive but by the aim and the good that the aim would actualize though our action. Morality depends upon how much the will and the action will bring about certain goods.)
For Aristotle, morality consists in doing certain actions, not because we see them to be right in themselves, but because we see them to be such that they will bring us nearer to the "good for the human." This teleological position is not consistent with Aristotle's own distinction between action or conduct which is valuable in itself and the production of the goods which derives values from the (instrumental) work of the action.
The end at which a particular action aims may be merely instrumental, so each action must have an ultimate end which is valuable in itself, and Aristotle infers that the ultimate end of all actions must be the same. The science which investigates this end is supposed to be political science, it is harder to determine what this ultimate end is.
In this inquiry, our approach is not deductive (unlike logic and mathematics) but inductive. Ethics reasons not from but to the first principles. We must start with what is familiar to us and work back from them to the underlying reasons; and "to give the necessary knowledge of the facts a good upbringing is necessary."
Aristotle accepts from the view of "the many" that the ultimate end of human life is happiness ( = well-being of the soul chapt. 7). The corresponding adjective of originally meant "watched over by a good genius or spirit," but its general usage is a good fortune with a special reference to material prosperity. Therefore, the English translation "happiness" which means a state of feeling, "differing from pleasure only by its suggestion of permanence, depth, and serenity," according to David Ross.
Just as today, the notion of happiness as the ultimate end of our life varies depending upon people's opinions. Aristotle examines and proceeds from the notion of happiness with more generality and more popularity to the highest and most uniquely human intrinsic happiness. Some say that it is pleasure. Others will identify it with wealth. Others, honor. We even may change our opinion at a different time of our life. Some ill people may say that it is health.
Pleasure is rather the end for slaves than freemen, while honor cannot be the end f life, for it depends on the giver and is not really our own decision. Honor seems to e aimed at assuring us of our virtue; so maybe moral virtue is the end of life. But Aristotle denies it by saying that moral virtue may be in inactivity and misery. Aristotle insists that is a kind of activity, which in itself is not a pleasure, although it naturally accompanies "pleasures," and further excludes misery.
If happiness is an activity peculiar to the human, it is neither the activity of growth or reproduction, nor of sensation, since these are shared by other beings below the human.
The activity uniquely human is, according to Aristotle, the activity of reason or that in accordance with reason. This is indeed an activity of virtue, which does not limit itself to moral virtues, but also intellectual ones. The happiness as the ultimate end of morality does not consist in virtue as such, but rather in activity according to virtue or in virtuous activity. Moreover, Aristotle contends, happiness must manifest itself over an entire life rather than merely a brief period.
Aristotle does not exclude for example pleasure, wealth or honor, etc. generally considered as happiness from the happiness, as they often by nature accompany his stipulated happiness as the activity of virtue.
This Aristotle goes on to consider,
1) the general nature of good character and good action, then

2) the leading moral virtues, the virtues of that part of man which can follow the plan laid down by reason, then

3) the virtue of intellect. At the end of Nichomachean Ethics he examines the ideal life, or the ideal of life of activity accordance with virtue, which life will bed the truly happy life for the human.

Aristotle observes that all of us possess the good character by nature in the form of potency, but it has to be fully developed to a actuality by practice, just as we swim better by swimming for example. So what we have to do is to do virtuous acts and develop a habit of doing so without any thematic consciousness. In stead of telling a child not to tell a lie, it is of cardinal importance to practice telling truth all the time. Thus, by creating disposition by repeated practice as an education, we are able to do a good act which flows from this good disposition.
What virtue is and how virtue is related to vice is the next question Aristotle deals with. According to Aristotle, it is a common characteristic of all good actions that they have a certain order or proportion, and virtue (= !«) is a means (= «) between two extremes ( = !), the extremes being vices, one being a vice through excess, the other being a vice through defect. It is through excess or defect that it is in regard to either an action or feeling.
Aristotle says that in regard to the feeling of confidence the excess of this feeling constitutes rashness--a least when the feeling issues in action, and it is with human actions that ethics are concerned--while the defect is cowardice. Thus, there is a mean between rashness on the one and cowardice on the other hand; this means is courage and is the virtue in respect to he feeling of confidence.
Another example Aristotle tells us is that if we take the action of giving of money, excess in regard to this action is prodigality--and this is a vice--while defect in regard to this action is illiberality. The virtue liberality is the means between the two vices. Thus, Aristotle defines the virtue as

"a disposition to choose, consisting essentially in a mean relatively to us determined by a rule, i.e., the rule by which a practically wise man would determine it."

Virtue, then, is a disposition to choose according to a rule, namely, the rule by which a truly virtuous man possessed of moral insight would choose. Being reaffirming our common sense wisdom, Aristotle considers the possession of the competent excellence in the human to see what is the right thing to do in the given circumstances, as essential to the truly virtuous man, and he attaches more value to the moral judgments of the enlightened conscience than to any a priori and merely theoretical conclusion.
It is often pointed out, however, that Aristotle's treatment of the virtues betrays the fact that he was under the influence of the predominantly aesthetic attitude of the Greek towards human conduct, a fact that appears in a clear light in his treatment of the "great-souled" man.
Now, the precondition of moral action is Freedom, since it is only for voluntary actions that a man incurs responsibility and ascribes moral worth. This has been the assumption of moral and legal philosophy. If one is physically forced to act or due to an ignorance, that person cannot be morally responsible for his act.
For example, Aristotle tells us, fear may lesson the voluntary character of an action, but an action such a throwing the cargo overboard in a storm, though not a sane person wold not do in ordinary circumstances, is yet voluntary.
As to the action due to ignorance, Aristotle distinguish the act in ignorance and the act from or through ignorance. The former is the case of an action by the influence of alcohol or temporary insanity due to outrage. The latter is on the contrary the case in which an action is said to be done involuntarily if it is subsequently regretted by the agent. This raises some dispute.
Against Socratic thesis (= knowledge is a power) that no one does act wrongly against knowledge, Aristotle professedly rejects and yet actually follows Socrates in principle and entertains the view that the human who does a wrong act does not know at the moment of action that the act is wrong. And he would not allow the possibility in which a person may do deliberately what knows to be wrong,a nd moreover, what he knows to be wrong at the moment that the does it. It may due to the lack of concept of duty that Aristotle never considers the proper meaning of right action.
From today's point of view, Aristotle lacks, just like Plato, the notion of will in the contemporary sense. In his way of saying the same, Aristotle uses the word !! (preferential choice) which is to be discerned from either desire by itself or reason by itself, when he says of choice as "reasonable desire" or "desireful reason." In fact Aristotle states that the !! has to do not with ends, but with means.
Aristotle's analysis of the moral process is as follows:
1) The agent desires an end,

2) The agent deliberates, seeing that B is the means to A, C the means to B, and so on, until

3) he perceives that some particular means near to the end or remote from it, as the case may be, is something that the can do here and now.

4) The agent chooses this means that presents itself to him a practicable hic et nunc, and
5) he does the at in question.

Thus, a person might desires happiness (in fact, he always does, according to Aristotle). Then he sees that health is a means to happiness, and that exercise is a means to health, and so on.
Thus, he perceives that to go for a walk is something that he can do here and now. He chooses this act and that he can does it, i.e., takes the walk. This analysis may be a very good statement of the way in which we fix on actions in view of an end; the difficulty is to allow for nay real moral obligation or conflict take place in Aristotle's system, at least if considered in itself.
Further, from the doctrine that virtuous activity is voluntary and in accordance with choice, it seems to follow that virtue and vice are in our power, and that Socrates' doctrine could not hold to be true.
It is important to note that Aristotle's treatment of the moral virtues is often enlightening and reveals his common-sense moderation and clear judgment. It is also very practical to instill certain moral virtues.
In Book V of his Ethics, Aristotle treats of justice. Under Justice he treats 1) what is lawful, 2) what is fair and equal. The first justice is universal and equivalent to obedience to law, but since Aristotle envisages the law of the city state--ideally, at least--as extending over the whole of lie and enforcing virtuous actions in the sense of materially virtuous actions, universal justice is more or less coterminous with virtue, looked at in its social aspect.
The "particular justice" is divided into 1) distributive justice, whereby the state divides goods among its citizens according to geometrical proportions, i.e., according to merit, and 2) remedial justice. This latter is subdivided into two types, a) that dealing with voluntary transactions (civil law), and b) that dealing with involuntary transactions (criminal law). Remedial justice proceeds according to arithmetical proportion. Further to these two divisions of particular justice, Aristotle adds commercial or commutative justice.
According to Aristotle, justice is a mean between acting unjustly and being unjustly treated. However, this is hardly acceptable as a practical notion. This seems to be Aristotle's attempt to bring justice in line of other virtues.
Aristotle draws an interesting distinction between various types of action that are materially unjust, pointing out that to do action which results in damage to another, when the damage was neither foreseen nor intended--and still more if the damage would not ordinarily result from that action--is very different form doing an action which would naturally result in damage to another, particularly if that damage was foreseen and intended.
Discussing intellectual virtues Aristotle divides them according to the two rational faculties, 1) the scientific faculty « «, by which we contemplate objects that are necessary and admit of o contingency, and 2) the calculative faculty--t
« «, or faculty of opinion, which is concerned with objects that are contingent. The former as a intellectual virtue is related to knowledge or science (= epistémé), "the disposition by virtue of which we demonstrate," and which as regard to proof, and vous or intuitive reason, whereby we grasp a universal truth after experience of a certain number of particular instances and then see this truth or principle to be self-evident.
The union of nous and epistémé is theoretical wisdom or sophia, and it deals with the highest objects, including the objects of metaphysics and those of mathematics and natural sciences.
The contemplation of these objects belongs to the ideal life for the human, that is supposed to constitute the highest kind of happiness allowed to the mortal human.

"Wisdom or philosophy may be defined as the combination of intuitive reason and science, or as scientific knowledge of the most precious things, with the crown of perfection, so to speak, upon it."

According to Aristotle, knowledge is dignified by its object and it would be absurd to call political science the highest type of knowledge, unless the humans were the highest of all beings that Aristotle did not believe.

"There are other things in the universe of a nature far more divine than his, as, for example, the starry heavens of which the universe is built. From all of which it is clear that wisdom is a combination of science and the speculative reason, directed to the noblest objects in creation."

The virtues of to logistikon (the calculative faculty) are techné (arts), "the disposition by which we make things by the aid of a true rule."
Practical wisdom or ! (sometimes translated into prudence), "the true disposition towards action, by the aid of a rule, with regard to things good or bad for men." Hé phronésis is subdivided according to the objects with which it is concerned:
1) As concerned with the individual's good, it is ! in the narrow sense
(= prudence).
2) As concerned with the family, with household management, it is called economics (hé oikonomia).
3) As concerned with the city state, it is called political science i the wider sense. This latter, politics in a wide sense, is again subdivided into
3-1) the architectonic or legislative faculty, politics in the narrower sense, and
3-2) the subordinate or administrative faculty. The last again subdivides into
3-2-1) Deliberative and
3-2-2) Judicial.
Despite these divisions, it is the same virtue that is called practical wisdom in connection with the individual and politics in connection with the good of the state.
According to Aristotle, practical wisdom is concerned with the practical syllogism, e.g. A is the end, B is the means, therefore B should be done.
However, Aristotle recognizes that some people may have a knowledge of the right action to do from their experience of life, although they have not got a clear idea of the general principles. thus, it is more important to know the conclusion alone rather than the major premiss.
Concerning Socratic view that all virtue is a form of prudence, Aristotle holds that Socrates was partly right and partly wrong.

"He (Socrates) was wrong in holding that all virtue is a form of prudence, but right in holding that no virtue can exist without prudence."

Socrates holds that all the virtues were forms of reason (as being forms of knowledge), but Aristotle declares that the truth is rather that they are all reasonable.

"Virtue is not only the right and reasonable attitude, but the attitude which leads to right and reasonable choice, and right and reasonable choice in these matter is what we mean by prudence."

Therefore, prudence is necessary for the truly virtuous man, 1) as being "the excellence of an essential part of our nature," and 2) inasmuch as "there can be no right choice without both prudence and virtue, seeing that the latter secures the choice of the right end, and the former the choice of the right means to its attainment." However, prudence or phronésis is to be distinguished from cleverness or deinotés. While cleverness is, according to Aristotle, the faculty by which a human is enabled to find the right means to any particular end,
prudence presupposes moral virtue. Thus, as rephrased, prudence is cleverness as dealing with the means that lead to the attainment of the true end of the human, what is best for the human, because moral virtue allows us to choose the right end.
Aristotle further maintains that prudence, as a reasonable disposition, is necessary in order to have a moral virtue in the full sense, although it is possible to have "natural" virtues in isolation (e.g. courage without gentleness). "Given the single virtue of prudence, all the virtues necessarily follow from it."
In Euidemian Ethics, Aristotle states that for Socrates all the virtues were forms of knowledge, so that to know what justice is, for example, and to be just would come simultaneously, just as we are geometers from the moment we have learned geometry, but it is necessary to distinguish between theoretical science and practical science, and in our practical science.

"We do not wish to know what bravery is but to be brave, nor what justice is but to be just."

In Magna Moralia, Aristotle observes,

"any one who knows the essence of justice is not forthwith just."

In Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle sees the parallel between those who think they will perform good by mere theoretical knowledge and the patients who listen attentively and comprehend what the doctor says, but does not carry out his orders.
Aristotle considers that pleasure as such is the lowest good in certain sense. Many people of low birth mistakes that pleasure alone is good that they desire, but, as we have seen the higher goods than pleasure in the above, pleasure cannot be the good, because pleasure is the natural accompaniment of an unimpeded activity (a essential characteristic of happiness), and it is this activity that everyone should aim at, not the accompanying pleasure. Further, Aristotle believes that sometimes we should even choose certain activity although it is not accompanied by pleasure. Aristotle yet acknowledges that pleasure is something positive, and it s effect is perfect the exercise of a faculty. Pleasure differs specifically according to the character of the activities to which they are attached, and the good man must be our standard as to what is truly pleasant and unpleasant to desire.
In Book VIII and IX Aristotle discusses friendship. He sees friendship is motivated basically by egoism (one loves himself). First, he distinguishes two meanings of "self-loving", 1) desire for themselves, namely some people seek as much as possible of self money, honor or pleasure of the body, while 2) desire of one's own excellence, namely good men, are anxious to excel in virtue and noble actions. The former is to blame, while the latter is not.
Thus, Aristotle says that the self love cannot be construed solely as egoistic narcism, but on the contrary that a person's relations t his friend are the same as his relations to himself, since the friend is his second self. Take for example,

"Men wish well to their fiends for their sake."

"Friendship consists in loving rather than in being loved."

Aristotle divides friendship into three groups;

1) friendships of utility, in which men do not love their friends for what hey are in themselves, but only for the advantage which they receive from them. This type of friendship is on the lowest level, although it is necessary for men, because men are not self-sufficient.

2) Friendship of pleasure. They are founded o the natural delight that men take in the society of their fellow-men, and are characteristic of the young, for "young people live by feeling, and have a main eye to their own pleasure and to the present moment."

Both friendships of utility and pleasure are unstable and do not last long at all.

3) Friendships of the good. This type of friendship is perfect friendship and endures as long as both retain their character--"and virtue is a lasting thing."

"If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue, and his will be that of the best thing in us."

By so declaring, Aristotle concludes that the faculty the exercise of which constitutes perfect and highest happiness is the contemplative faculty, the faculty of intellectual or philosophical activity. Thus linked to philosophical pursuit of intellect (nous), the highest happiness resides in the activity of nous (to theoorésai). He bases his conclusion on the following contentions,
1) reason is the highest faculty of the humanity
2) reason's activity lasts longest, longer than any physical or bodily activities

3) Pleasure is one of the element of happiness and philosophical contemplation is accompanied by pleasure

4) Philosophers are more self sufficient than any other.
5) Philosophy or philosophical contemplation is pursued for its own sake

6) Happiness implies leisure. "Practical virtues find the field of their exercise in war or politics, which cannot be said to be leisurely employments, least of all war."

This is the happiness that the human of high birth and of well educated not only should pursue but also pursue in reality.