33 happiness is most noble, best of all things, and pleasantest
- possible paths to happiness: nature, learning (knowledge), training, divine influence, fortune
34 every person has an overarching telos
35 mix of experience and reason is necessary to find good life
41 happiness = "best of what are matters of human action"
42 ANTI-PLATO: Idea of good cant direct action
44 Idea of good not "useful"
45 virtue = best state/task of object, person, etc.
- ex. garment
46 task/ergon = action, project, deed
- task > state (hexis): so its more about what you do than who you are
- ex. cobbler's virtue
47 def. happiness
- happ. is activity/use
49 excess vs. deficiency
- ex. food
51 golden mean
53 virute spectrums are abstract states corresponding to a variety of concrete manifestations
54 states/capacities are related to emotions, which are distinguished by pleasure and pain
57 only humans can act
58 virtue/vice only apply to voluntary acts
59 3 types of desire: will, passion, appetite
61 voluntary action is deliberative
- desire and reason both play a part in human action
62-3 pleasure and pain exist in both vice/virtue
65 def. of voluntary: all a man does without being ignorant, on his own initiative, and having the power not to do so (last is most interesting, and prob why A analyzes the problem of incontinence so much)
68 def. of choice
- choice "arises out of deliberative belief"
69 process of deliberation
70 argument connection virtue/vice to pleasure/pain (not directly, obviously; see p. 62)
- moral virtue = mean; vice = excess or deficiency
- "vice [...] is concerned with the same matters as virtue"
78 "virtue implies choice"
93 justice = complete virtue; because best man is not he who is only virtuous to himself but also to others
97 justice = proportion
98 justice = rectification
105 justice applies to the different and multiple, not the selfsame!
106 universal vs. particular
111 contrary to popular belief, acting just is NOT easy: "Men think that acting unjustly is in their power, and therefore that being just is easy. But it is not: to lie with one's neighbour's wife, to strike one's neighbour, to offer a bribe, is easy and in our power, but to do these things from a certain state of character is neither easy nor in our power."
- ex. easy to bribe, cheat, etc., but not as easy to be just
- being just requires specific knowledge of "how actions must be done and distributions effected" and is more than just knowing what is good (e.g. health)
- ex. specific causality of healthy objects
111-2 unjust (and just) acts require real effort, the kind that builds character: "to act unjustly consists not in doing these things, except coincidentally, but in doing them from a certain state of character, just as to practise medicine and to heal consists not in applying or not applying the knife, in using or not using drugs, but in doing so in a certain way."
113 no universals, only probability, when it comes to action
117 calculate = deliberate
- reason must be true and desire must be correct for choice to be virtuous
118 action (good and bad) requires both thought and character
- 5 kinds of knowing: craftsmanship, knowledge, wisdom (phronesis), understanding, intelligence
119 def. knowledge
- craft = producing; =/= action
120 phronesis = good deliberation
- concerns what can be otherwise
- production vs. action
121 "wisdom is a virtue not a craft"
123 good action = deliberation on universals and particulars
124 universals and particulars
- phronesis is same disposition as art of politics
- phronesis is like a political reason foucsed on the individual alone
- phronesis directs oneself; justice directs other
126 correctness in deliberation, NOT belief or knowledge
- not just WHAT, but HOW
127 judgement vs. wisdom/phronesis: both concern deliberative problems, but only wisdom issues commands for action (a key diff between ethics and morality!!)
128 sympathy is a "similar sense" of another and ground of equity
- in greek, "sense" is part of "sympathy" (as in, similar sense) cf. Schopenhauer
- universals reached from particulars
129 raw experience is just as much of a guide to universals as demonstration!
130 virtue is the aim; wisdom is the means
- goodness requires a state that involves both wisdom and virtue
131 "it is impossible to be wise without being good"
135 "the wise man is a man of action"
138 particulars, not universals, concern action
- incontinence is a misapplication of the universal to the particular
- knowledge takes time and becomes part of us
143 excess vices are either brutish or diseased
148 depravity/vice = disease; incontinence = epilepsy (i.e. momentary)
- virtue/vice encourge/destroy our PURPOSE respectively
152 habit is like nature, but not identical (both can be changed)
160 friendship is a kind of "private justice" wholly in our power
164 three types of friendship basis: utility, virtue, pleasantness
166 universal and personal good must align; politics forces this alignment for those who don't have it
167 "the task of every capacity is external; for it is in something different or in oneself *qua* different"
170 "all have some good in them" (e.g. singers)
174 good = simple, self-identical, static
178 only adults can be good/friends to themselves because they have the "power of choice", which children and animals lack
189 living = knowing
196 phronesis is not knowledge, but "another kind of cognition"
202 two kinds of good fortune: divine (consistent) and natural (inconsistent). both lack reason.
203 combo of all virtues = gentlemanliness
- the goods that all strive for (honor, riches, bodily virtues, power, good fortune) can be harmful to people without the right "states of character"
204 gentlemen deserve "riches, high birth, and power" in virtue of their noble character. these things are not noble for most people, who dont have the character to virtuously wield these goods
- "complete virtue" - deeds done for the sake of virtue itself
206 ultimate ethical goal: "to perceive the irrational part of the soul, as such, as little as possible"