Book 1
1.1 On The Chief End At Which All Things Aim
Aristotle begins his Ethics with some initial premises about the chief end at which all things aim:
“The good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”
Therefore, every art, inquiry, action, and choice, aims at some good. However, each thing has a different end to which it seeks, where some are activities while others are products of those activities.
However, for every art, action, or science, there are many smaller ends within them. Consider that the practice or knowledge of medicine is an end, but it seeks a broader end of health. And this applies with others:
The practice and knowledge of shipbuilding is for a vessel.
The practice and knowledge of strategy is for victory.
The practice and knowledge of economics is for wealth.
Yet there are some arts who posses only a singular ability.
Using an example above, we can see how bridle making plays a role in achieving victory, by looking at the following sequence:
Bridle-making and other singular activities equip horses.
Equipping horses and other singular arts are for horse riding.
Riding horses and other military actions are means to the end of strategy.
This resembles the structure in the poem, ‘for want of a nail.’
But for any action that is made up of many singular activities, the chief end is to be preferred, since the subordinate ones are only pursued for its purpose.
As Aristotle concludes,
“It makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities as in the case of the sciences”.
1.2 The Chief End of Humanity
In Book 1 section 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle removes some problems that arises in determining how we are to approach chief ends. If there exists, as from section 1, some chief end at which all things aim, then it is,
Sought for its own sake.
Not a means to another end.
For the first point, this means everything else is pursued for its sake too. And for the second, if this chief end was sought for another, this would become an infinite regress, making our pursuits meaningless and unsuccessful. Therefore,
The chief end of any pursuit will be its chief good.
Relevant to this inquiry, the aim is to find the chief good for human existence at which all our sciences and capacities are directed. To have knowledge of such a thing would be, as Aristotle says, a substantial influence on life, since we have a higher chance of reaching it because,
“Like archers who have a mark to aim at, shall we not be more likely to hit upon what is right?”
Aristotle says the Chief End of Humanity is Politics. He justifies his conclusion by writing,
It ordains which of the sciences can be studied in a city.
It ordains what each class of citizens can learn and to what extent.
It is the end at which the highest esteemed arts aim at, such as strategy, economics, and rhetoric.
As the chief science, it employs all the other sciences.
Its use of all the other sciences is to legislate what we are to do, and what we are to avoid.
When taking these into account, it is clear why Politics is the chief end for human life. However, Aristotle doesn’t stop with these. He gives one more important reason why politics is the chief end:
“Though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states.”
It is, as Aristotle further describes, greater and more complete to attain and preserve the good not just for one man, but for all men. And this is what the science of politics aims at.
As an addendum, the modern use of the word politics has a different connotation than the one above. Political Science or Politics in the Greek is Polike. From Polis – The City – it can be paraphrased as that which concerns the city. This implies the citizens comprising it, and how their actions are governed. But to have a better knowledge of its essence, a definition from an older dictionary writes,
“POL'ITICS, noun. The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals. Politics as a science or an art, is a subject of vast extent and importance.”
1.3.1 Aristotle’s Wise Inexactness
After stating that Politics is the Chief End of Humanity, we must examine closely what constitutes political science.
Now for everything we study or investigate, such as this subject, the same level of rigour is not desirable, sometimes harmful and foolish.
In saying that, Aristotle says that political science concerns noble actions and just actions, but there are many varieties within these two actions. What’s more, all these variations fluctuate. Therefore, the level of precision one can have with something of this nature is limited. Making matters worse, these types of actions are not just and noble by their nature but by the convention we give to them.
And since this investigation, as mentioned in the first sentences of the Nicomachean Ethics, involves looking at goods in general, these abstract goods too have this same nature. Aristotle mentions that a good can be bad when we consider some examples:
Wealthy people have been undone by their wealth.
Courageous people have been undone by their courage.
With all this being said about noble actions, just actions, and these broader goods, we must admit a level of uncertainty regarding how precise they are true in totality, i.e., how true they are, and how often they will be recommended or pursued, for all circumstances at any time and any place. This causes an inexactness:
The premises are inexact.
The conclusions will likewise be inexact.
The reader will need a level of discretion, understanding and appreciating this inexactness, judging the right estimate of these things and their probabilistic outcomes. Aristotle expands on what it means to use this discretion by giving two examples where the reader will:
Expect more than just probabilistic conclusions from a mathematician.
Not expect excessive rigour from someone who is speaking to a large crowd.
While Aristotle does not explain why, mathematicians aim at objective truth as much as they can; whereas rhetoricians aim for agreement by invoking the emotion and sentimentality of a crowd.
However, to do any of this successfully requires a sufficient level of education, both in theoretical study and life experience, to understand how to approach any subject matter with its expected uncertainty. To be capable of this is a critical use of reason in life, which Aristotle will continue to explain.
1.3.2 Political Wisdom
Continuing from Aristotle’s Wise Inexactness, he prefaces that men who have a good understanding of, and have had an excellent education on, a science or craft, will be good judges of matters concerning them. And more generally, a man who has a wide education is a better judge of a broad array of subjects.
And with that, Aristotle says that the young are not good students of political matters, for two reasons:
They don’t have enough experience in politics, which is to say, they lack the necessary accumulated actions of life for them to be sufficient judges of political science.
The study of political science starts with, and expands on, the very actions young people lack as mentioned, which becomes a problem for them if they want to be effective students.
Therefore, young people won’t gain much advantage and will waste unnecessary time studying this before their other requirements. Further supporting his own claim, Aristotle reminds us that,
The aim of studying politics is to acquire the knowledge for action, not for the knowledge itself.
As a note, ethical and political philosophy are what Aristotle considered practical philosophy, unlike natural philosophy which is more scientific (epistemic).
What’s more, Aristotle states that the young mostly pursue their passions or enthusiasms, whereas political actions – which are serious in nature – must be done out of reason, because of their implications. However, this is not to blame the young or their capacity to obtain political wisdom. Nor is it a matter of age or youthful character, but,
“On his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs.”
Young people then, like incontinent people, will not profit as much from the knowledge gained by studying politics. This knowledge only benefits those who can align their desire and their actions in accord with their reason – which again, on the previous subjects of exactness and the chief end of humanity, is an important preface for the subject of human ethics.
Book 5
5.1.1 What is Just and Unjust I
In book 5, section 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle begins by stating the fundamental essence of justice. In this case, just men are those who not only do what is just but wish for it too. It is not enough to be just but to want it. This is their state of character. By this we can derive the opposite as a corollary: unjust men act unjustly and never wish for it.
From this statement, and before looking directly at justice, Aristotle explains a principle about contraries. This will help distinguish between what is just and unjust, since what separates them is ambiguous and can be overlooked if not identified. This principle is two-fold:
The sciences [epistemic] and faculties relate to their opposites.
A state or condition does not relate to its opposite.
The end result of a state can only be done by its activities or described by its exhibitions, never by its contraries. Consider, as an example, the state of good health and the activity of walking. Being healthy can be the product of walking, or someone who walks healthily can be described as a healthy person.
Further expanding on these contraries of states, its opposite may not cause it or be found in it, but it can be identified by it. So, if someone is walking in a healthy manner, we know they are not bed ridden or physically disabled.
This works too for other activities or exhibitions of states. For example, if you had a statement that said, being strong correlates with strong muscles, you can state its opposite. First, we recognize the premise that someone has strong muscles, and that it reaches the conclusion that they are strong. Therefore, you can state that having weak muscles means you are not strong. And further, whatever activities gave them strong muscles, are the ones that made them strong in the first place.
See this diagram:
Strength Building (Activity) ⟺ Strong Muscles (Exhibition) ⟺ Strong Person (State).
You can start from the left or right for this general principle of contraries.
Recall, while looking at this diagram, that activities which weaken the muscles do not make a strong person, nor is a weak person made by strength building activities. And further back, this type of separation between opposites does not exist in the sciences and faculties. Aristotle does not detail the latter here because virtue and happiness concern states and activities.
All of this leads him to say,
“And it follows for the most part that if one contrary is ambiguous the other also will be ambiguous; e.g. that if ‘just’ is so, ‘unjust’ will be so too.”
This will be discussed in Pt. II.
5.1.2 What is Just and Unjust II
Carrying on from Pt. I, and after Aristotle makes a brief comment about the homonym nature of the words just and unjust, he looks at unjust men and says that they are described as:
Lawless
Grasping
Unfair
These three would imply that the just man is lawful, ungrasping, and fair. Again, this is because of the principle of contraries discussed in Pt. I.
The word grasping, as Irwin said, doesn’t translate well what Aristotle describes in the Greek. First, the word grasping is not in common use, so its synonymous with vices of wanting – greed, materialism, and envy. The Greek word is Pleonexia, which is,
A desire to have what rightly belongs to others.
A desire to have more than what one rightly deserves.
Irwin uses the word overreaching, but its essence is an insatiability that leads one to go so far as to deceive and harm others for their personal gain, which is clear why Aristotle considers it unjust.
However, Aristotle himself begins to explain what he means by the grasping man, saying that he is not focused on acquiring any good he can get his hands on, but the specific ones concerned with prosperity and adversity. Aristotle states an interesting generalization from this, regarding the greater good:
If goods of prosperity and adversity are looked at from the absolute, they are always good – since all things seek some good. But this is not always true for a particular person.
While a man may pray for absolute goodness in his individual life, it would be better that he prayed for everything to be absolutely good, so that all goods are absolutely good, which therefore means they will be good for him and he can choose the ones which are right for his circumstance.
However, even unjust men seek some good.
A grasping man wouldn’t pray for things to be bad at either the absolute or the particular, because it would affect him too. And even if he had to choose something bad, he would do exactly what just men do, i.e., choose the lesser evil.
The lesser evil has a sense of good in it, because everyone still aims for the good in selecting the least bad option. It is not their desire to choose bad things but the involuntary choice from a range of only bad things. Both just and unjust men seek a good and beneficial outcome. So while the excessive wanting of the grasping man is directed at the good, it is still in a grasping manner, which is why he is called a grasping man and thus unjust.
As for unfairness. Aristotle states that this requires little explanation because being unfair is either found in or common to being lawless or grasping.
5.1.3 Justice and Good Laws
After looking at what is just and unjust, using his principle of contraries, Aristotle correlates justice with the law, using the logic:
The art of legislating establishes lawful actions.
Lawful actions make up the law.
The just man’s actions are lawful, i.e., abiding by the law.
Lawful actions are just actions.
This means that all laws have a shared aim with justice, which therefore means their existence seeks the common advantage of everyone.
Now this advantage may be directed to all the citizens or to those in power or to some other group, but in so doing, the lawful acts established need to be just. For in being just, they produce and preserve happiness and all its components for the political community – which Aristotle claimed, in the preface of book 1, is the chief end of humanity.
The law too, having this association with justice, will then bid its citizens to act:
Bravely.
Temperately.
Equably.
And not only these three. Since the law aims for justice, it will have high regard for the other virtues too, condemning or forbidding wickedness and vice in the community.
When the legislation is made in the correct manner, as opposed to a hastily or corrupt one, it will achieve the excellence and flourishing of the community. Hence the law will be just.
5.1.4 The Most Complete Virtue
Following the deductions Aristotle made earlier in section 1 of book 5, namely that,
Lawful actions are just actions.
Laws made correctly are just laws.
Just laws have high regard for all virtues.
Just laws lead the community toward excellence and away from wickedness.
It is then concluded that lawful justice is complete virtue, but it does require some qualification, i.e., reference to the other virtues.
And since lawful justice is complete virtue, justice itself is thought to be the greatest of virtues. Aristotle quotes a proverb by Theognis:
“In justice is every virtue comprehended.”
Further arguing the point, is a profound statement from Aristotle regarding virtue overall:
“And [justice] is complete virtue in its fullest sense because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards another also; for many men can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to others.”
This then, without directly saying it, is the aim of virtue ethics – exercising virtue for the goodness of everyone – above all other ends. Again, this is in reference to the chief good of humanity being the excellence of the community, not of one person in it.
Aristotle quotes yet another, this time Bias who says, “rule will show the man”. Any ruler is, by his position, in relation to other men and members of his society, since it is they he rules and leads. And of all virtues, only justice is a good for both the virtuous man and the people receiving it, because the nature of justice is in relation to the goodness or advantage given to other people.
This therefore is why it is the greatest of all virtues and why lawful justice is the most complete virtue.
5.1.5 The Worst Type of Man
In finishing book 5 section 1, Aristotle describes the worst type of man, from the premise that:
Lawful justice is complete virtue. And it is complete because it is the exercise of virtue toward the good of the person exercising it and the one receiving it.
The worst man then is the one who exercises wickedness not only on his friends, but on himself. With this description, it is again worth mentioning that the chief end of humanity is politics and the excellence of the community.
As Aristotle mentioned in the opening sentences, all things aim for some good in the absolute. Thus the man who does not seek the good – even at the universal – is the worst type of man. He is contrary to the nature of all beings in the universe, and their predestined telos.
Therefore, in connecting this universal desire for good with complete virtue, Aristotle says that lawful injustice is complete vice. Since lawful justice is the whole of virtue, and can be called universal justice, then its opposite is likewise universal and as important to identify. Yet with this being said, Aristotle makes a needed comment describing the difference between virtue and justice:
“They are the same but their essence is not the same; what, as a relation to another, is justice is, as a certain kind of state without qualification, virtue.”
In other words, while being virtuous is not the same as being just, when virtue is compared with all the other virtues, it is regarded simply as complete virtue – containing all of them, all their goodness, and the chief end they seek. And as mentioned, virtue in this sense is interchangeable with complete virtue, which is lawful justice or universal justice. Therefore, virtue in this comparison is indistinguishable from justice.
But when justice is considered as a particular state without qualification, i.e. a particular state that undergoes no changes and has no doubt regarding what it is, then justice is a virtue.
Book 8
8.1.1 The Necessity of Friendship
Books 8 and 9 in the Nicomachean Ethics concern friendship, and Aristotle begins book 8 section 1 with a claim that friendship is either a kind of virtue or implies virtue, since it is necessary for living:
“For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”
On the last point, Aristotle says that men who are rich or in positions of power need friends most of all. Without friends, there would be no opportunity to receive the joys of the humane virtues like beneficence.
And while these wealthy or powerful individuals may show generosity to those who need it or in forms of public philanthropy, there is more pleasure and praise gained in supporting a friend.
Not stopping there, Aristotle reminds us that friends can help guard wealth in times of prosperity. For the more wealth or power one accumulates the more dangers they get exposed to, whether it’s a greater risk in losing it or being attacked for it.
On the contrary side, having friends is the best, and sometimes the only, protection in the twists and turns of fortune – where one goes from prosperity and happiness to poverty and despair.
Friends too, besides being amplifiers of character strengths, support our weaknesses and flaws, which applies at any age, since good friends:
Keep the youth away from error.
Aid the elderly with their needs.
And lastly, being with good friends stimulates noble actions. Together, good friends encourage each other, challenge each other, and provide the necessary faculties to achieve higher, more difficult, tasks.
So good friends are necessary because they give us:
The joys of beneficence.
The safeguard of wealth.
The refuge against misfortune.
The supports to our weaknesses.
The stimulation toward achieving great and noble actions.
8.1.2 Is Friendship Better than Justice?
To preface, recall that Aristotle embraces justice as the greatest of virtues.
Aristotle follows his preliminary statements in section 1 of book 8, on the necessity of friendship, by inquiring into what can be termed, positive mutuality.
This positiveness manifests in adoration and reciprocation to the other person and is predominant with those who possess mutually shared qualities. Therefore, friendship in the form of this mutuality is a comradery and companionship with individuals who are most like us.
There is a more frequent display of this, prior to friendship, and that is among parent and child. Where here, the parent loves their child, and the child returns that love. And this specific instance is extant throughout the animal kingdom.
However, besides this obvious case, positive mutuality exists within all species and races. And Aristotle states that this is especially strong for humanity – so much so that we praise those who love of our friends.
To extend on this, Aristotle mentions the following experience:
When we travel in an outward direction from our hometown, we recognize that the men who are far distant to us aren’t as different as we expected.
While they may vary in degree, such as geographic distance, gradations of skin colour, sounds in an accent, or minor changes in worldview, they rarely differ in kind [type]. For their nature is much like our own, and as a result, we begin to form a friendship with them.
Past first impressions and initial greetings, we slowly recognize this mutuality. While Aristotle provides no example, this would be evident in the enjoyment of certain pleasures such as good food. This is why, “breaking bread” is important in religious traditions, tightening the bonds of a mutually shared belief with a mutually shared love.
Yet these types of bonds are not as evident among animals, as with the previous example of kinship. Hence why Aristotle would claim that this mutuality is more prevalent in humanity.
But past individual relations, friendship in the political community holds a significant importance. Friendship binds city-states together, whereby its law makers will prefer to take it into consideration than justice. By doing this, law makers reduce animosity, while aiming for harmony and excellence. When everyone feels fellowship toward each other, law makers need only to expel those who wish to see the downfall of the community or the suffering of those within it.
But most of all, Aristotle writes,
“When men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well”
By prioritizing friendship among the community, justice becomes redundant. Aristotle says that friendship is the truest form of justice, i.e., the manifestation of its qualities in its ideal state among men.
Justice as a virtue then, is akin to and resembles friendship in that its essence has a friendly quality.
8.1.3 The Nobility of Friendship
In finishing section 1 of book 8, Aristotle discusses the nobility of friendship. To him, friendship is not only a necessary good for life but a noble one, since we,
“Praise [other people] who love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have many friends. And again, we think it is the same people that are good men and also friends.”
While the initial points regarding the necessity of friendship and its supersedence over justice are intuitively obvious, its nobility requires a more careful analysis.
Even with the fact that a good man can form friendships, has many friends, and loves them all, there are still disputes about the nature of friendship. And thus, in Aristotle’s standard fashion, he examines the existing first principles made by his predecessors.
Most of their conclusions argue either for or against the nature of friendship being between those who are like each other or those who are opposite. Aristotle implies that the answer is not easy to deduce by demonstration, bringing forth the judgements of prominent thinkers of whom we would not disregard.
Friendship between like-individuals:
“Like aims at like” – Empedocles
“Birds of a feather flock together” [Aesop]
Friendship between opposing individuals:
“Two of a trade never agree” [Hesiod]
“Parched earth loves the rain, and stately heaven when filled with rain loves to fall to earth” – Euripides
“It is what opposes that helps”, “From different tones comes the fairest tune.”, “All things are produced through strife.” – Heraclitus
Since these contentions on friendship exist, Aristotle says that we cannot move on with the inquiry without first understanding its nature, getting closer to some truth about its essence.
As such, we must look at relationships among the spectrum of good and bad characters, and the emotive feelings between any pair of them, i.e., good and good, bad and good, bad and bad.
This would mean looking at which two can be friends, whether their nature is wicked or virtuous, and if there are varying kinds of friendships or just one.
On the last question, Aristotle writes that those who claim there exists only one kind of friendship with variations in degree, are wrong. For different kinds can exist and likewise share in the quality of possessing different degrees. So varying degrees of one kind does not by its nature rule out the existence of other kinds.
8.2 What is Friendship?
Aristotle begins section 2 of book 8 by stating that to understand friendship and the different kinds that may exist, it is best to first look at the nature of what is loved and lovable, because,
Not everything is loved.
Only the lovable is loved.
The lovable, Aristotle says, is that which is good, pleasant, or useful. But. Whatever is good or pleasant generally becomes useful, by the nature of it being good and pleasant, thus the good and pleasant are lovable ends themselves. The next question to ask then, is,
“Do men love the good or what is good for them? These sometimes clash.”
And the same is true with what is pleasant. A few remarks, however, need to be made:
Each person loves what is good for them.
The good is lovable of itself, requiring no changes.
What is good for each man is lovable by him, including the good which only seems good.
Aristotle recognizes the existence of reciprocation here, where friendship involves being loved in return, and he demonstrates its opposite with inanimate objects. People may love them, even wishing good upon them, but the love of lifeless objects is not for the sake of the object, only for the good received by them.
For example, an airplane passenger does not have a mutual loving relationship with the plane and would be considered a fool to wish it well like they would a friend; but the good they do wish upon it is to have superior engineering and quality control, so they can get to their destination safely.
In contrast, the well-wishing to people is a type of goodwill for the sake of the person it’s given to. Yet even here, there are two kinds of this goodwill:
Recognised.
Unreocgnised.
The first can be reciprocated and Aristotle calls this friendship.
The second is not. We can wish well on others because we consider them good or useful to us, yet they may not know we exist. They can even do the same, wishing well on the people who wish them well, or wishing goodwill upon people who they’ve never met.
Extending on the prior example, the pilot is not friends with every passenger in every single one of his flights, but the passengers may wish goodwill upon him. And as for him, he may wish goodwill upon the passengers or himself be a passenger and wish goodwill on a pilot he’s never met.
But none of this is friendship. When goodwill is not recognized, it cannot be mutually shared.
Therefore, friendship is a goodwill between those who recognize it and share in the mutual feeling. It is a relationship of reciprocated well-wishing and giving of goods.