This conversation between Charles Kesler and Michael Knowles, inspired not only the following notes, but also the sharing of them for any who might find interest or enjoyment in them, or who may want a summary of the book themselves.
Their discussion was comprehensive enough to warrant a synthesis of its central ideas, as well as some supplementary contributions on my part regarding the concepts that were covered. Thus it is not a transcript, but an honest presentation of the primary points brought forward by Kesler and Knowles, with the more general aim of summarizing the Nicomachean Ethics. While brief, these notes are distinct from my own extensive research and notes on the book, which may be published in the future.
What is the Purpose of Life?
Happiness. A happy life is the highest end we should aim for.
Yet happiness is not a state of being but an activity; and one that is not the experiencing of pleasure alone, although it is connected with pleasure. Happiness is found in morality, because being moral is the closest thing to being happy. For at most times, the most happy person is the moral one, since happiness is an activity by a certain state of character. If you are not moral, you cannot be consistently happy.
Happiness, however, does need external support. Though one needn’t possess the quality of being rich or having excessive riches, it helps to be moderately or modestly wealthy. And other such supports include good fortune, health, and friends. These let you live a complete and full life, as Aristotle writes, “For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.”
The Support of Friends
If a happy man is self-sufficient, why does he need friends?
Man is social: a political animal. Thus, to be happy means more than surviving on one’s own sufficiency and reserves. Happiness means to share your life and your goods. It means living among friends, family, a good city, and a good political community run well by a governing body that knows human nature.
Friends are constituents to the happy life, not options in it, for a life that has good friends is the one more choiceworthy, blessed, and even envied by those without them. As a political animal, having friends means enjoying the good fortune brought by them, which in turn brings the good fortune required for a happy life.
On Being Moral
If being a moral person takes me to the happy life, what then does it mean to be moral? What must one do?
Morality is not only a limitation, where one controls their actions so as to follow certain doctrines of avoidance, for instance “Thou shall not …”. Instead happiness, built from moral conduct, is a fulfillment: using all our faculties in a moral way.
This involves practicing all the virtues, like courage, moderation, generosity, justice, but it takes effort, because for Aristotle in the discussion of attaining human excellence by moral virtue, it is attained by habit. We are habituated, since we don’t habituate ourselves, by the authority of parents, teachers, and political rulers, to be helped along. By committing good actions, we become good; by doing just acts, we become just.
From this principle of habit, human excellence is available to all who aim for it. Therefore, rather than being born in a certain condition, the one who strives for it can hope to elevate themselves above unhappiness and vulgar pleasures or vicious activity.
Habit and Virtue
Since morality arises from habit, if one’s conduct and soul are in contradiction, then the principle that their actions do not reflect their true inner character, is false. For if one declares they are good by their nature, while practicing certain activities that are not good, then their nature is not good, and they cannot be deemed moral. Morality is not only the habit of moral actions, but the intention to be moral and obtain pleasure from moral conduct.
Thus, there can be four types of those who are virtuous. First is the non-virtuous person, i.e., the one who seeks pleasure from vicious deeds with no remorse, enjoying them as ends for himself. Then there is the incontinent person, who understands the benefit of doing good but still engages in bad actions, whether they make an effort or not. Third is the continent person, who knows he must do good but only through much effort will he be capable of avoiding bad actions. And last is the virtuous person, who does good, and takes pleasure from it.
This then, is where pleasure falls among virtue and happiness, i.e., when the desire to do good, and the voluntary choice of doing it, brings pleasure. To act involuntarily, by means of being commanded from another, or to act in a way that requires strenuous discipline and discomfort, are not the actions of the virtuous, because again, there is no sincerity of intention.
The virtuous person, for instance, will engage in fairness from the pleasure of being fair. It is not from fear of not being fair, or pain from it, or a compulsion to be fair from another person, but instead, it is the absence of desiring unfairness. This is because being fair to others is a source of joy in itself. And this can be from pride in acting fairly, pleasure from holding oneself to the standard of being fair, and the like, which have all developed from habit. Even in loss, fairness and acting well brings pleasure.
Exercising Virtue
On the subject of the virtues, how should they be exercised?
It cannot be extreme but moderated – falling within a mean. This mean is one of three components of moral virtue, with habituation and choice being the other two. And since choice must be voluntary, moral virtue is attainable for most individuals, where one can decide if they are going to act virtuously or viciously. For the mean, however, it concerns virtue in its excess, defect, and the fact that the mean itself is the virtue. Therefore, the virtue as the mean sits between the former two, which are its corresponding vices at their respective extremes of too much and too little.
Courage, for instance, in excess of the spirit of bravery would become the vice of rashness or audacity; courage in its deficit would be cowardice. But this, and the other virtues, are exercised to different degrees according to the situation. In the account of ethics by Aristotle, there exists no rules or formulas, nor a categorical imperative, but the fact that virtuous action depends on its circumstance.
If, for example, we consider the circumstance of war fighting, then the solider may be bravest when facing the enemy and dying bravely. Yet the solider, under altered conditions, might be bravest when surrendering. For if the soldier was a leader of men, stationed in an indefensible position and facing enemy attack, it would be vicious to waste the lives of the men and himself. Braver, it would be, to face the disapprobation of his nation, thus being the most moral choice. Likewise, with generosity. The act of moral giving depends on the circumstance, since it is possible to give wrongly, whether to the wrong person, for the wrong reason, or in the wrong way.
Therefore, virtue requires the instruction of experience in order to know its proper use in the right circumstance. Being courageous or generous, or any other virtuous activity, needs to be tried many times in many sets of situations, to understand the mean sufficient in those situations. By this instruction, one comes to better possess morality, and thus thinks and acts more morally. And we can consider this a form of prudence, or practical judgement. This means that practical wisdom and intellectual virtue are required for morality too. However, one does not need to know the science of wisdom or study philosophy, but they must continue their practice of discernment to make improvement in their virtue.
Aristotle’s Wise Inexactness
Since the moral life is concerned more with practicality than science, it has some degree of uncertainty in its virtues. When inspecting a right angle, for instance, a geometrician’s precision is more than that of the carpenter’s, where the former is aiming for exact understanding as the end, but the latter aims at general understanding as a means. For that matter, if the carpenter sought the same precision of the mathematician but for a different end, i.e. his end of carpentry, then it would be harmful, rather than merely impractical.
Consider that all of life in this world is inexact. Thus, the moral life has an inexactness in its choices, relying more on practical wisdom for action, because the right choice cannot be reasoned mathematically, scientifically, or deductively for all circumstances. That is why instruction by inductive experience is required for understanding the right mean, i.e., virtue in the right circumstance. It is this principle of distinguishing the right action for the right circumstance that Leo Strauss terms, the wise inexactness of Aristotle.
Friendship and Contemporary Issues
In his account of ethics, Aristotle treats friendship with substantial value; but from the experiences of the modern reader, friendship does not have a similar importance. This is made more clear with sociological research demonstrating an increase in societal isolation, alienation, broken marriages, and even the inability to describe what a friend is. And while most experience this, it is predominant among men. Therefore, this treatment and its significance can come as a surprise.
Nevertheless, Aristotle identifies three types of friendship, with most people only being aware of the first two. The first is of utility, where a friend is of some use, such as business associates or those who provide some enjoyable good. The second is of pleasure, where the relationship brings a pleasing sensation like entertainment. And last is the friend based on virtue. The highest, steadiest, most constant and satisfying friendship is the one of virtue – between or among good people.
Those who are friends because of their good nature share qualities of goodness, not good objects for utility or good sensations for pleasure, which brings a feeling of connection as if with a part of themselves. Friends of this kind too do not need justice, since friendships of this type have a companionship beyond respect and obligation to love and joy. This, in turn, should not only be the aim of individuals but the political community. Because, if goodness is not the common aim, with perhaps an excess of individuality, then differing values of justice leads to animosity. Such animosity will be prevalent in all relationships, from friends to family, destabilizing the political community.
Yet, since most friendships in modern society are either for pleasure, like a fun activity, or utility, such as economical gain, and with the aforementioned increase in animosity, one might ask, has true friendship of goodness diminished or perished? Is the relationship between good men impossible, since bad men can’t be friends, and since the agreement of what is good, or the existence of goodness, is in doubt?
It is more likely that the cause of such a diminishment is not a disagreement of the good, but instead something more mundane, namely, that to build friendship takes time. With time comes trust, since it increases understanding and affinity between friends. But if the individuals in a society are not connected to a location, or their time is too much spent in occupation, then their friendships will either be broken or be of utility, respectively. Any aim to repair the former by digital means is insufficient because friendship requires physical and regular interaction. And, as mentioned, if a society, whether its conventions or infrastructure, contribute to or cause these problems, then time cannot be directed to friendship building, since by the nature of the society, the making of friends is almost impossible.
Eudaimonia
Now, regarding a broader principle of the Ethics, is the term Eudaimonia. The modern translation being happiness. But since ‘eu’ means ‘good’ or ‘well’, and ‘daimon’ means ‘dispenser’ or ‘deity’, referring to a guardian spirit, it can be interpreted as a ‘good demon’. But it can likewise be considered the dispenser of goodness, here considered a divine with a blessed character of good fortune and good favour. This goodness is regarded as the highest good, since it provides the bodily and external goods in addition to the goods of the soul. These are important for happiness, for if one did not have a good body, good fortune or good wealth, nor had a good soul or a good mind, they will not have a good life, or have any goodness in their life.
This is in contrast with other schools of thought that claim the state of happiness is a state of mind. The famous Stoic paradox, where the body of the philosopher is under torture or pain is nevertheless happy in his experience, is false under the condition that the state of the mind, body, and external goods of health, freedom from pain, friends, etc., are contributors to happiness. In the dispensation of goodness, the external factors beyond only the mind, and the blessedness one receives from them, cannot be neglected.
Aristotle’s Practicality
With Eudaimonia being the highest good, Aristotle’s ethics does not reflect abstinence or asceticism detached from the needs and experiences of the world, but still one of moderation. It is more realistic, in better achieving moral excellence, to have money than none, or to not overly contemplate at the disregard of exercise or eating well, whether nutritious foods or one’s that bring delight.
Consider, again, the virtue of generosity. It comes in two forms: liberality and magnificence. The latter concerns magnificent amounts of resources, where the generosity of the wealthy can supply beautifully adorned buildings which impress the community while doing good for it. The former concerns most cases in normal life, such as being financially generous with friends and family in ordinary or special occasions. This common-sense utility of generosity is in disagreement with the Christian preeminence of the Widow’s Mite, since it aims at supplying the most good to the community because men are political animals.
The Contemplative Life
The Ethics is mostly concerned with the deeper nature of Man, using the practicalities of theory for an active political end, but finishes on the principle that the best life is the contemplative one. Why is this the case?
Unlike Plato, Aristotle separates moral excellence from intellectual excellence, allowing for each to flourish and exceed on their own. As such, he preserves indignation, where the practice of good can be distinguished from the knowing of it. That is, a man can be held responsible for something he does not know but should, which needn’t be philosophical but is necessary, such as what is just, fair, or moderate; upholding an integrity of character that is to be preserved in the moral life.
Therefore, in parallel, intellectual activity sustains a similar integrity, namely, the investigation or study of matters not subject to human variation such as the natural sciences. The principles of these theoretical sciences are not changeable, as with action in human endeavours. The state of one’s happiness or moral condition can change as days pass because morality is a practical science aiming at action and the choices made. Whereas the position of the stars or laws of nature are not changeable by human choice. Intellectual activity aims to understand them, contemplating them. This makes contemplative virtue sovereign and unchangeable by humans in its realm, while moral virtue is in the power of the individual to affect their actions by choice.
The contemplative life is closer to that of the way of God, than mere human activities whether moral or mundane. Humans concern themselves with both the universal, like unchanging laws of nature, and with particulars, like the actions of character. Whereas God is ‘other-worldly’, concerning himself with the universal of all things in all places in all ways, only condescending to enter this world. Therefore, man has both the bestial and divine within him, and so should practice more in the activity and life that brings him closer to the divine, since it is above the bestial. In this case, the divine life is the contemplative one. That is why it is the best.