Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle [most read books of all time .txt] 📗

4 (“But whether we desire life⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

A line (or a generous emotion) is a “continuous quantity;” you can part it where you please: a rouleau of sovereigns is a “discrete quantity,” made up of definite parts, and primarily separable into them. ↩

μεσότης, the abstract name for the quality, is quite untranslatable. ↩

Or “cover more ground, but convey less truth than particular propositions,” if we read κοινότεροι with most manuscripts. ↩

In a twofold sense: my conduct cannot be virtuous except by exhibiting the particular virtues of justice, temperance, etc.; again, my conduct cannot be just except by being just in particular cases to particular persons. ↩

The Greek seems to imply that this is a generally accepted list, but Aristotle repeatedly has to coin names: cf. later on in this chapter (“Besides these, there are three kinds of moderation⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

I.e. which do not issue in act like those hitherto mentioned. ↩

Homer’s Odyssey, xii 101⁠–⁠110, and 219⁠–⁠220: Calypso should be Circe. ↩

Homer’s Iliad, iii 154⁠–⁠164. ↩

It must be remembered that “virtue” is synonymous with “praiseworthy habit;” I 13 (“Now, on this division of the faculties⁠ ⁠…”); II 9 (“So much then is plain⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

ἁπλῶς, “without qualification:” no one chooses loss of property simply, but loss of property with saving of life is what all sensible people would choose. ↩

Which shows that the acts are regarded as voluntary. ↩

οὐκ ἔστιν ἀναγκασθῆναι, “compulsion is impossible.” If the act was compulsory it was not my act, I cannot be blamed: there are some acts, says Aristotle, for which we could not forgive a man, for which, whatever the circumstances, we must blame him; therefore no circumstances can compel him, or compulsion is impossible. The argument is, in fact, “I ought not, therefore I can not (am able not to do it),”⁠—like Kant’s, “I ought, therefore I can.” But, if valid at all, it is valid universally, and the conclusion should be that the body only can be compelled, and not the will⁠—that a compulsory act is impossible. ↩

The same lost play is apparently quoted in V 9 (“I slew my mother⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

Reading οὕτω. ↩

Therefore, strictly speaking, a “compulsory act” is a contradiction in terms; the real question is, “What is an act? ↩

Therefore, since these are the motives of every act, all voluntary action involves pleasure. If we add “when successful,” this quite agrees with Aristotle’s theory of pleasure in Books VII and X. ↩

I.e. not merely “not-willed,” but done “unwillingly,” or “against the agent’s will.” Unfortunately our usage recognizes no such distinction between “not-voluntary” and “involuntary.” ↩

ἐν μεταμελείᾳ, literally “when the act involves change of mind.” This, under the circumstances, can only mean that the agent who willed the act, not seeing the true nature of it at the time, is sorry afterwards, when he comes to see what he has done. ↩

I.e. forms a wrong judgment; cf. ἡ μοχθηρία διαψεύδεσθαι ποιεῖ περὶ τὰς πρακτικὰς ἀρχάς, VI 12 (“… vice perverts us and causes us to err about the principles of action”): not that the vicious man does not know that such a course is condemned by society, but he does not assent to society’s rules⁠—adopts other maxims contrary to them. ↩

τὸ συμφέρον, what conduces to a given end, expedient. The meaning of the term varies with the end in view: here the end in view is the supreme end, happiness: τὸ συμφέρον, then, means here the rule of conduct to which, in a given case, the agent must conform in order to realize this end. cf. II 2. ↩

In a lost play of Euripides, believing her son to have been murdered, she is about to kill her son himself as the murderer. See J. A. Stewart Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. ↩

τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα usually is the intended result (and so ἕνεκα τίνος earlier in this chapter⁠—“that for the sake of which it is done”), but of course it is only the actual result that the agent can be ignorant of. ↩

Reason can modify action only by modifying feeling. Every action issues from a feeling or passion (πάθος), which feeling (and therefore the resultant action) is mine (the outcome of my character, and therefore imputable to me), whether it be modified by reason (deliberation, calculation) or no. ↩

Two appetites may pull two different, but not contrary ways (ἐναντιοῦται): that which not merely diverts but restrains me from satisfying an appetite must be desire of a different kind, e.g. desire to do what is right. Ἐπιθυμία is used loosely in chapter 1 for desire (ὄρεξις), here more strictly for appetite, a species of desire, purpose (προαίρεσις) being another species: cf. chapter 3 (“Since, then, a thing is said to be chosen or purposed⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

προαίρεσις, literally “choosing before.” Our “preference” exactly corresponds here, but unfortunately cannot always be employed. ↩

These are instances of “necessity;” a tree grows by “nature,” i.e. by its own natural powers. ↩

If we have to construct a geometrical figure, we first “suppose it done,” then analyze the imagined figure in order to see