Thesis 1: Every art, inquiry, action, and choice aims at some good.
- Argument 1: “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”
- Argument 2: Different arts aim at different ends (medicine → health, shipbuilding → vessel, strategy → victory, economics → wealth).
- Argument 3: Some arts are subordinate to others; the master arts are preferred because the subordinate aims are pursued for their sake.
- Explanation: Human life is teleological—every practice aims at some perceived good, and higher sciences organize lower ones.
Thesis 2: There must be a final end, desired for its own sake, not for something else.
- Argument 1: If everything were chosen for something else, desire would be empty and infinite regress would follow.
- Argument 2: There must be a highest good that serves as the ultimate target, like an archer’s mark.
- Explanation: Human action must terminate in some ultimate purpose; otherwise our striving would be pointless.
Thesis 3: The highest end belongs to the master art—politics.
- Argument 1: Politics ordains which sciences are studied and how much, and uses the rest (strategy, economics, rhetoric).
- Argument 2: Politics legislates what we should do or avoid, so its end includes the ends of other sciences.
- Argument 3: The good of the state is more complete and “godlike” than that of an individual.
- Explanation: Since politics directs all human activities, the good it seeks must be the human good.
Thesis 4: The study of ethics requires only rough precision, not mathematical certainty.
- Argument 1: Fine and just actions vary greatly and are often conventional.
- Argument 2: Goods like wealth or courage can harm some people (wealth can ruin, courage can lead to death).
- Argument 3: “It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits.”
- Explanation: Ethics deals with variable human affairs, so we must be satisfied with approximate truths.
Thesis 5: Young people are not proper students of politics/ethics.
Argument 1: Ethics concerns the conduct of life and action, but the young lack the necessary experience of life to ground their judgments.
Argument 2: Politics requires judgment in various arts and sciences; “for he who is to be a competent judge must be well trained in the subject” — yet young people are not so educated, and therefore cannot judge well.
Argument 3: Youth are governed by passions, and so even if they possess some knowledge of the arts, “they will not profit by it, but will follow their passions.”
Argument 4: The deficiency arises not only from age but from character; anyone dominated by passion, regardless of years, is equally unfit for the study of moral or political science.
Explanation: Since politics is practical, aimed at action and judgment of human affairs, the young—lacking both rational maturity and discipline—cannot benefit from such a study. Their emotions distort judgment, and their inexperience prevents them from discerning the true ends of arts and actions.
Thesis 6: Happiness is the highest good, desired for its own sake.
- Argument 1: People generally agree happiness is the highest good, though they disagree what it is (pleasure, wealth, honor).
- Argument 2: Happiness is never chosen for the sake of something else, unlike pleasure, honor, or reason.
- Argument 3: Happiness is self-sufficient: “that which, when isolated, makes life desirable and lacking in nothing.”
- Explanation: Unlike other goods, happiness is complete, final, and self-contained.
Thesis 7: The function argument: the good of man is rational activity in accordance with virtue.
- Argument 1: The good of flute-players, sculptors, etc. lies in their function. Man too must have a function.
- Argument 2: Life of nutrition and perception is common to plants and animals; man’s peculiar function is rational activity.
- Argument 3: The good man performs his function well: “human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with excellence.”
- Argument 4: Must be “in a complete life”—one day or short time does not make a man happy.
- Explanation: Human happiness lies in rational activity according to virtue over a whole life.
Thesis 8: Happiness is activity, not just a state, and is pleasant in itself.
- Argument 1: Olympic victors are crowned not for being strong, but for competing. Similarly, happiness lies in activity.
- Argument 2: Excellent actions are naturally pleasant to virtuous people, unlike base pleasures that conflict.
- Argument 3: “Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing.”
- Explanation: Virtue in action brings intrinsic joy, unlike external pleasures which conflict or depend on others.
Thesis 9: Happiness also requires some external goods.
- Argument 1: Noble acts need instruments: friends, wealth, political power.
- Argument 2: Lack of things like good birth, children, or beauty diminishes blessedness.
- Explanation: Virtue is central, but external conditions support and enable happiness.
Thesis 10: Debate: is happiness due to learning, habituation, divine gift, or chance?
- Argument 1: If gods give anything, happiness must be divine since it’s best.
- Argument 2: But happiness may also result from excellence, learning, or training.
- Argument 3: “To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective arrangement.”
- Explanation: Happiness is best achieved through virtue and cultivation, not chance.
Thesis 11: A child cannot be happy; happiness requires complete excellence and a complete life.
- Argument 1: A boy lacks capacity for noble acts, owing to age.
- Argument 2: Life is full of changes—fortune can ruin even the prosperous (e.g., Priam).
- Explanation: True happiness requires maturity and stability across an entire lifetime.
Thesis 12: The dead may be affected in some small way by fortunes of descendants.
- Argument 1: It seems unfriendly to say the fortunes of loved ones do not matter at all.
- Argument 2: Yet such effects must be weak and negligible, not altering blessedness.
- Explanation: Ancestors’ happiness is not totally immune, but also not constantly shifting.
Thesis 13: Happiness is activity of soul in accordance with complete excellence.
- Argument 1: Political science aims to make citizens good; hence happiness is tied to virtue.
- Argument 2: By human excellence we mean that of the soul, not the body.
- Explanation: Happiness and moral cultivation are inseparable—virtue defines the happy life.
Thesis 14: Excellence is of two kinds: intellectual and moral.
- Argument 1: Intellectual virtue arises from teaching, requiring experience and time.
- Argument 2: Moral virtue arises from habit (ethos → ēthikē).
- Explanation: Virtues are not natural, but developed by learning and habituation.
Thesis 15: We become virtuous by practicing virtuous acts.
- Argument 1: “Men become builders by building … so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts.”
- Argument 2: Legislators aim to create good citizens by forming habits.
- Explanation: Moral education requires action and repetition, not theory.
Thesis 16: Virtues are destroyed by excess or deficiency, preserved by the mean.
- Argument 1: Too much or too little exercise destroys health; so too with virtues.
- Argument 2: Courage lies between cowardice and rashness; temperance between self-indulgence and insensibility.
- Explanation: Virtue lies in moderation—the “golden mean.”
Thesis 17: Pleasure and pain reveal moral character.
Aristotle says that pleasure and pain are central to virtue because they guide our choices. People often do wrong for the sake of pleasure or avoid the noble because of pain. Virtue means being trained to take pleasure in what is noble and to feel pain at what is shameful, so that our emotions agree with reason.
Thesis 18: To be virtuous requires more than doing right acts.
- Argument 1: The agent must know, choose acts for their own sake, and act from firm character.
- Argument 2: Just acts must be done as just men would do them.
- Explanation: Virtue is not mechanical action but proper motivation and stable disposition.
Thesis 19: Virtue is a mean between extremes of excess and deficiency.
- Argument 1: Example: courage is mean between rashness and cowardice.
- Argument 2: Excellence aims at the intermediate determined by reason.
- Argument 3: Some actions (murder, theft, adultery) are intrinsically wrong—no mean exists.
- Explanation: Virtue balances passions and actions, but certain acts are always vices.
Thesis 20: Examples of specific virtues and their extremes.
- Argument 1: Courage between rashness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency).
- Argument 2: Temperance between self-indulgence and insensibility.
- Argument 3: Liberality between prodigality and meanness.
- Argument 4: Proper pride between vanity and undue humility.
- Argument 5: Good temper between irascibility and inirascibility.
- Argument 6: Truthfulness between boastfulness and mock modesty.
- Argument 7: Wittiness between buffoonery and boorishness.
- Argument 8: Friendliness between obsequiousness/flattery and quarrelsomeness.
- Argument 9: Modesty between shamelessness and excessive bashfulness.
- Explanation: Aristotle maps virtues systematically as rational means between vices.
Thesis 21: Some vices are more opposed to virtue than others.
- Argument 1: Cowardice is more opposed to courage than rashness is.
- Argument 2: Self-indulgence is more opposed to temperance than insensibility is.
- Explanation: One extreme may be closer to the mean; we should avoid the more contrary side.
Thesis 22: Virtue is difficult and rare.
- Argument 1: Hitting the mean is hard, like finding the center of a circle.
- Argument 2: Anyone can get angry or spend money, but to do it rightly (at right time, right amount, right way) is difficult.
- Explanation: Moral virtue requires skillful judgment; this is why goodness is noble and rare.
What is virtue in Aristotle’s understanding?
Virtue (aretē) is “a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean … determined by reason and as the prudent man would determine it.” It is excellence in rational activity, achieved by habituation.
What is happiness (eudaimonia)?
Happiness is the chief good, “activity of soul in accordance with complete excellence in a complete life.” It is self-sufficient and chosen for itself.
