Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| Virtue then being twofold, one of thought and the other of character, virtue of thought owes its origin and growth mostly to teaching—for this reason it requires experience and time—while virtue of character results from habit, and hence it has even acquired its name by a slight variation from "habit." From this it is also clear that none of the virtues of character comes to be in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can be habituated to be otherwise—for example a stone, which by nature is carried downward, could not be habituated to be carried upward, not even if one tried to habituate it by throwing it upward ten thousand times, nor could fire be habituated to move downward, nor can anything else that is naturally constituted in one way be habituated to be otherwise. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us, but we are by nature equipped to receive them, and we are brought to completion through habit. Again, in the case of all the things that come to us by nature, we acquire the capacities first and only later exhibit the activities—this is clear in the case of the senses: it was not from seeing often or hearing often that we acquired our senses, but the reverse—we had them and then used them, we did not come to have them by using them. But the virtues we acquire by first activating them, as is also the case with the other crafts: the things we must learn to do, we learn by doing them—for example, people become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; [1103b] and in the same way we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, courageous by doing courageous acts. What happens in cities also bears witness to this: for lawgivers make the citizens good by habituating them, and this is the wish of every lawgiver—
2| this is what it is, and those who do not do it well fail, and it is in this respect that a good constitution differs from a bad one. Again, every virtue is both generated and destroyed from the same things and through the same things, and craft likewise: for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players come to be. And builders and all the rest are analogous: for it is from building well that people will become good builders, and from building badly that they become bad ones. For if this were not so there would be no need of anyone to teach them, but everyone would be born good or bad. So it is too with the virtues: for by doing the things that come up in our dealings with other people, some of us become just and others unjust, and by doing the things that come up in fearful situations, and becoming habituated to feel fear or confidence, some of us become courageous and others cowardly. It is similar too with matters of appetite and anger: some people become temperate and gentle, others self-indulgent and irascible, the one group by conducting themselves in one way amid these things, the other group by conducting themselves in another way. And to put it in one phrase, states of character come to be from activities of a like kind. This is why we must give our activities a certain quality, since it is on the differences between them that the resulting states depend. It makes no small difference, then, whether one is habituated in this way or in that straight from childhood, but a very great difference—or rather all the difference. Since, then, the present inquiry is not undertaken for the sake of contemplation, as our other inquiries are (for we are not conducting our examination in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise there would be no benefit from it), it is necessary to consider the matter of
3| actions, how they are to be done—for these are what is decisive for the states that come to be of a certain quality, as we have said. Let this stand for now as a shared premise: that conduct must follow correct reasoning; what correct reasoning itself is, and how it relates to the other virtues, will be taken up later. [1104a] But this much should be agreed on in advance: that every account concerning matters of action ought to be stated in outline and not with precision, just as we said at the outset that accounts should be demanded only to the extent the subject matter allows; and matters of action and matters of advantage have nothing fixed about them, any more than matters of health do. And if the general account is of this sort, the account concerning particular cases has even less precision: for these fall under no craft and no set of precepts, but the agents themselves must always look to what is fitting to the occasion, just as is the case in medicine and in navigation. But although the present account is of this kind, we must try to be of some help. So first we must observe this: that such things are by nature destroyed by deficiency and by excess (for we must use the visible evidence to testify about what is not evident), as we see in the case of strength and of health: for both excessive and deficient exercise destroys strength, and likewise both more and less food and drink destroy health, while the proportionate amount both produces, increases, and preserves it. So it is too with temperance and courage and the other virtues. The person who avoids and fears everything, standing firm against nothing, becomes cowardly, while the person who fears nothing at all but goes to meet everything becomes rash; and likewise the person who enjoys every pleasure and abstains from none is self-indulgent, while the one who avoids every pleasure, as boorish people do, is a sort of
4| unfeeling person. Temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and deficiency, and preserved by the mean. But not only do the comings-to-be and growth and destruction of the virtues come from the same things and through the same things, but the activities too will be exercised in relation to the same things; for this is how it is also in the other more evident cases, for example strength: for strength comes from taking much nourishment and enduring much exertion, and it is the strong person who is best able to do these very things. So it is too with the virtues: it is from abstaining from pleasures that we become temperate, and once we have become temperate we are best able to abstain from them; [1104b] and likewise with courage: it is by becoming habituated to make light of frightening things and to stand firm against them that we become courageous, and once we have become courageous we shall be best able to stand firm against frightening things. And we must take as a sign of a person's states the pleasure or pain that follows upon what he does: the person who abstains from bodily pleasures and enjoys doing so is temperate, while the one who is vexed by it is self-indulgent; and the person who stands firm against terrors and enjoys it, or at least feels no pain, is courageous, while the one who feels pain is a coward. For moral virtue has to do with pleasures and pains: it is on account of pleasure that we do base things, and on account of pain that we abstain from fine things. This is why we must have been brought up in a certain way straight from childhood, as Plato says, so as to feel joy and pain at the right things; for this is correct education. Furthermore, since the virtues concern conduct and emotion, and pleasure or pain attends every emotion and every deed,
5| pleasure and pain, and virtue would for this reason be concerned with pleasures and pains. The corrective punishments that occur also indicate this: for they are a kind of cure, and cures naturally occur through opposites. Again, as we said earlier, every state of the soul is naturally related to, and concerned with, the things that naturally make it worse or better; and it is on account of pleasures and pains that people become bad, through pursuing and avoiding these — either the wrong pleasures and pains, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, or however many other such distinctions are drawn by the reasoned account. This is also why people define the virtues as a kind of freedom from feeling and a kind of stillness; but they do not define them well, because they speak of it without qualification, instead of saying "as one should" and "as one should not" and "when," and whatever other qualifications are added. We may take it as established, then, that virtue of this sort is the disposition that does the best actions with regard to pleasures and pains, and vice is the contrary. And it may also become clear to us from the following that virtue and vice are concerned with the same things. There being three objects of choice and three of avoidance — the fine, the advantageous, and the pleasant, and their three contraries, the shameful, the harmful, and the painful — the good person is correct with regard to all of these and the bad person errs, but most of all with regard to pleasure; for pleasure is common to the animals, and it accompanies everything that falls under choice: [1105a] for even the fine and the advantageous appear pleasant. Further, it has been bred into all of us from infancy; hence it is hard to rub off this affection, which is dyed into our life. And we also regulate our actions, some of us more and some less,
6| by pleasure and pain. For this reason, then, the whole undertaking must necessarily concern these things: for it is no small matter for one's actions whether one feels joy and pain well or badly. Further, it is harder to fight pleasure than to fight spirit, as Heraclitus says, and craft and virtue always arise in connection with what is harder, since the good is also better when found there. So for this reason too, the whole undertaking of both virtue and political science is concerned with pleasures and pains: for whoever handles these well will be good, and whoever handles them badly will be bad. Let it be said, then, that virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains, that it is increased by the very things from which it arises when they occur in one way, and destroyed when they occur in another, and that it is active with regard to the very things from which it arose. But someone might raise the difficulty of what we mean by saying that people must do just acts to become just, and temperate acts to become temperate: for if they do just and temperate acts, they are already just and temperate, just as, if they do grammatical and musical acts, they are grammarians and musicians. Or is this not even the case with the crafts? For it is possible to produce something grammatical by chance, or at another's prompting. A person will be a grammarian, then, only if he both produces something grammatical and produces it in the grammarian's own way: that is, in accordance with the grammatical knowledge in himself. Further, the case is not even similar for the crafts and for the virtues: for the products of the crafts have their goodness in themselves, so it is enough for them to be produced in a certain state; but the things done in accordance with the virtues are not done justly
7| or temperately merely because they themselves are in a certain state, but only if the agent also acts in a certain state — first, if he acts knowing what he does; second, if he acts by choice, and by choice of the acts for their own sake; and third, if he acts from a firm and unchangeable state. [1105b] Now for possessing the other crafts, these conditions are not counted in, except for the knowing itself; but for possessing the virtues, the knowing counts for little or nothing, while the other conditions count not for little but for everything, and these result from often doing just and temperate acts. Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are the sort of actions that a just or temperate person would do; but the just and temperate person is not the one who merely does these things, but the one who also does them in the way that just and temperate people do them. So it is well said that a person becomes just from doing just acts, and temperate from doing temperate acts; and from not doing these, no one would even have a chance of becoming good. But most people do not do these things; instead they take refuge in argument and think that they are practicing philosophy and that in this way they will become serious people — behaving like patients who listen attentively to their doctors but do none of what is prescribed. Just as those patients will not be in good bodily condition when treated in that way, so these people will not be in good condition of soul when philosophizing in that way. After this, we must consider what virtue is. Since, then, what occurs in the soul is of three kinds — affections, capacities, and states — virtue would be one of these. By affections I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred, longing, jealousy, pity, and in general whatever is accompanied by pleasure or pain; capacities, meanwhile, are the powers by which we are said to be able to undergo these affections — the powers, for example, by which we are capable
8| of becoming angry, or feeling pain, or feeling pity; and states are the condition, good or bad, we come to hold toward these affections — toward anger, say: excess or slackness leaves us badly off, the mean leaves us well off; and likewise for the rest. The virtues, then, are not affections, and neither are the vices: first, it is not our affections that earn us the name decent or worthless, but our virtues and vices; second, our affections bring us neither praise nor blame (nobody praises a man merely for feeling fear or for feeling anger, and nobody blames a man merely for being angry — only for being angry in a particular way), [1106a] whereas it is exactly for our virtues and vices that praise or blame falls on us. Further, anger and fear come over us without any choosing on our part, whereas the virtues are themselves a kind of choice, or at least never occur apart from choice. Beyond this: with our affections we are said to be stirred, but with our virtues and vices we are said not to be stirred but rather to stand disposed in some way. For these reasons, then, the virtues are not capacities either — being merely able to feel something makes nobody good or bad, and earns nobody praise or blame; and further, our capacities belong to us by nature, while becoming good or bad is not something nature gives us — a point already made earlier. If, then, the virtues are neither affections nor capacities, it remains that they are states. What virtue is, then, in respect of its genus, has been stated. But it is not enough to say only this much, that it is a state; we must also say what sort of state it is. It must be said, then, that every virtue, of whatever it is the virtue, both brings the thing itself into a good condition and renders its function good — for instance, the virtue of the eye makes both the eye good and its function good, for it is by the virtue of the eye that we see well. Likewise the virtue of the horse makes a horse
9| makes a horse good at running, at carrying its rider, and at standing firm against the enemy. If this holds in every case, then human virtue too would be the state of character from which a person becomes good and from which he will perform his own function well. How this comes about we have already said, but it will become clear again in this way too, if we examine what its nature is. In everything continuous and divisible it is possible to take a larger part, a smaller part, or an equal part, and these either in relation to the thing itself or in relation to us; and the equal is a kind of mean between excess and deficiency. By the mean of the thing I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes, which is one and the same for everyone; by the mean relative to us I mean that which neither exceeds nor falls short — and this is not one thing, nor the same for everyone. For example, if ten is a lot and two is a little, people take six as the mean in relation to the thing, since it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount; and this is a mean by arithmetical proportion. But the mean relative to us is not to be taken this way: [1106b] it is not the case that, if ten pounds of food is a lot for someone to eat and two pounds a little, the trainer will therefore prescribe six pounds — this amount too could turn out excessive or scant depending on who must consume it: scant for Milo, yet excessive for someone new to athletic training. The same holds for running and wrestling. In this way, then, every expert avoids excess and deficiency, and seeks and chooses the mean — not the mean of the thing, but the mean relative to us. If, then, every science performs its work well in this way, keeping its eye on the mean and bringing its products into line with it (which is why people are accustomed
10| to say of well-made works that nothing can be taken away from them or added to them, on the ground that excess and deficiency destroy their goodness while the mean preserves it, and skilled craftsmen, so we put it, keep this target in view as they produce their work) — then, since virtue, like nature itself, is more exact and superior to any craft, it too would take aim at the mean. I mean ethical virtue; for this is concerned with feelings and actions, and among these there is excess, deficiency, and the mean. For example, one can feel fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and in general pleasure and pain, both too much and too little, and neither is good; but to feel them when one ought, at the things one ought, toward the people one ought, for the reason one ought, and in the way one ought — this is the mean and the best condition, and this belongs to virtue. The same is true of actions: excess, deficiency, and a middle term occur there too. Virtue's subject matter is feelings and actions; within these, overshooting is a mistake and undershooting draws criticism, whereas striking the midpoint is commended and gets things right — and both of those, the commendation and the getting it right, are marks of virtue. Virtue, then, is a kind of mean, since it aims at the mean. Again, one can go wrong in many ways (for evil belongs to the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans pictured it, and good to the limited), but one can succeed in only one way (which is why the one is easy and the other difficult, since it is easy to miss the target but difficult to hit it); and it is for these reasons, then, that excess and deficiency belong to vice, and the mean to virtue:
11| for men are good in only one way, but bad in all sorts of ways. Virtue, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, [1107a] a mean defined by a rational principle, that is, as the person of practical wisdom would define it. It is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency; and a mean also in this respect, that the vices fall short of or exceed what is right in both feelings and actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean. Hence in respect of its substance and the account that states its essence, virtue is a mean; but in respect of what is best and what is good, it is an extreme. But not every action nor every feeling admits of a mean; for some are named in a way that already includes badness — for example spite, shamelessness, envy, and among actions, adultery, theft, murder. All of these and things like them are named because they themselves are bad, not because their excesses or deficiencies are. It is therefore never possible to be right about them, but always to be in error; doing well or badly in such matters does not depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and in the right way, but simply doing any of these things at all is to be in error. It would be like demanding that there be a mean, an excess, and a deficiency in committing injustice, playing the coward, and being self-indulgent as well; for at that rate there would be a mean of excess and deficiency, an excess of excess, and a deficiency of deficiency. But just as there is no excess or deficiency of temperance or courage, because their mean is in a sense an extreme, so too of those vices there is no mean, and no excess and deficiency, but however
12| they are done, it is an error; for in general there is neither a mean of excess and deficiency, nor an excess and deficiency of a mean. But this must not merely be stated in general terms — it must also fit the particular cases. For in accounts concerned with actions, general statements apply more widely, but particular statements are closer to the truth, since actions have to do with particulars, and our account must agree with these. We must take these particulars, then, from the following sketch. With regard to fear and confidence, courage is the mean; [1107b] of those who go to excess, the one who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many things have no name), the one who exceeds in confidence is rash, and the one who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward. With regard to pleasures and pains — not all of them, and less so with pains as well — the mean is temperance, and the excess is self-indulgence. People who are deficient with regard to pleasures scarcely occur at all; and so such people have not even been given a name — let us call them insensible. With regard to giving and taking money, the mean is generosity, and the excess and deficiency are wastefulness and stinginess. But in these vices people exceed and fall short in opposite ways: the wasteful person exceeds in giving away and falls short in taking, while the stingy person exceeds in taking and falls short in giving away. For now we are speaking in outline and summary, content with this much; later these matters will be defined more precisely. There are also other dispositions concerned with money: the mean is magnificence (for the magnificent person differs from the generous one, since the one is concerned with large sums, the other with small ones), the excess is tastelessness and vulgarity, and the deficiency
13| and stinginess. How these differ from the virtues concerning liberality will be stated later. Concerning honor and dishonor, the mean is greatness of soul, the excess is a kind of what is called vanity, and the deficiency is smallness of soul. And as we said liberality stands to magnificence, differing from it by being concerned with small things, so something stands in the same relation to greatness of soul, which is concerned with great honor, itself being concerned with small honor: for it is possible to desire honor as one should, and more than one should, and less; and the one who exceeds in his desires is called ambitious, the one who falls short is unambitious, and the one in the middle is nameless. The states too are nameless, except that of the ambitious man, ambition. Hence the extremes lay claim to the middle position: and we too sometimes call the middle person ambitious, sometimes unambitious, [1108a] and sometimes we praise the ambitious person, sometimes the unambitious one. For what reason we do this will be stated in what follows; for now let us speak of the remaining cases in the manner we have laid down. There is also excess, deficiency, and a mean concerning anger; and since these are practically nameless, let us call the middle person gentle and call the mean gentleness, naming it from the middle term; of the extremes, let the one who exceeds be irascible, and the vice irascibility, and let the one who falls short be a kind of unangry person, and the deficiency unangriness. There are also three other means, having some similarity to one another but differing from one another: for they all concern association in speech and actions, but they differ in that one concerns the truth in these, while the others concern what is pleasant; and of this, one part is in play, the other in everything pertaining to life. So we must speak about these too, so that
14| we may see more plainly that in every instance the middle course deserves praise, whereas neither extreme is praiseworthy or right, but blameworthy. Now most of these too are nameless, but as with the other instances, one should attempt to invent terms for these oneself, for clarity's sake and so they are easy to follow. Concerning truth, then, let the middle person be called a kind of truthful person, and the mean truthfulness; and let pretense that exaggerates be called boastfulness, and the one who has it a boaster; and let pretense that understates be called self-deprecation, and the one who has it self-deprecating. Concerning the pleasant, in play: let the middle person be called witty, and the disposition wit; let the excess be called buffoonery, and the one who has it a buffoon; let the one who falls short be a kind of boor, and the state boorishness. Concerning the remaining kind of pleasant, that in life: the one who is pleasant as he should be is a friend, and the mean is friendliness; the one who exceeds, if for no purpose, is obsequious, but if for his own advantage, a flatterer; and the one who falls short and is unpleasant in everything is a kind of quarrelsome and difficult person. There are also means in the passions and concerning the passions: for shame is not a virtue, yet the modest person too is praised. For here too one person is called the mean, another exceeds, as does the bashful person who is ashamed of everything; while the one who falls short, or is ashamed of nothing at all, is shameless, and the middle person is modest. [1108b] Righteous indignation is the mean between envy and malicious joy; both concern pain and pleasure at what happens to one's neighbors: for the indignant person feels pain at those who fare well undeservedly, while the envious person, exceeding this, feels pain at
15| everyone who fares well, and the malicious person falls so far short of feeling pain that he even rejoices. But there will be occasion to speak of these elsewhere too. Concerning justice, since it is not spoken of in a single sense, we shall, after distinguishing its two kinds, discuss each and say how each is a mean; and likewise concerning the virtues of reason. Now since there are three dispositions, two of them vices — one according to excess, the other according to deficiency — and one a virtue, the mean, all are in a sense opposed to all: for the extremes are contrary both to the mean and to one another, and the mean is contrary to the extremes. For just as the equal is greater relative to the lesser and less relative to the greater, so the middle states exceed the deficiencies and fall short of the excesses, both in the passions and in the actions. For the brave person appears rash in relation to the cowardly person, and cowardly in relation to the rash person; likewise the temperate person appears self-indulgent in relation to the insensible person, and insensible in relation to the self-indulgent person; and the liberal person appears prodigal in relation to the illiberal person, and illiberal in relation to the prodigal person. Hence each of the extreme people pushes the middle person toward the other extreme, and the coward calls the brave person rash, while the rash person calls him cowardly, and analogously in the other cases. Since these are thus opposed to one another, the greatest contrariety is that of the extremes to one another rather than to the mean: since these stand at a greater distance from each other than either does from the middle, much as the large is more distant from the small, and the small from the large, than either is from what is equal. Further, some extremes show a certain resemblance to the middle term — rashness resembles bravery, for instance, and recklessness with money resembles generosity; but between the extremes themselves the unlikeness is greatest. And since things furthest apart from one another are defined as opposites, so
16| the more widely separated things are, the more contrary they are. To the mean [1109a] in some cases the deficiency is more opposed, in others the excess: for example, in bravery it is not rashness, which is excess, but cowardice, which is deficiency, that is more opposed; while in temperance it is not insensibility, which is a lack, but self-indulgence, which is excess, that is more opposed. This happens for two reasons, one arising from the thing itself: because one extreme is nearer and more similar to the mean, we set up not this one but rather its opposite as the contrary; for instance, since rashness seems more similar to bravery and nearer to it, while cowardice seems more dissimilar, we set up cowardice rather as its contrary: for whatever stands further from the middle is taken to be its stronger opposite. That, then, is one cause, rooted in the matter itself; a second cause comes from us: whatever we ourselves are more naturally drawn toward tends to look like the stronger opposite of the mean. For instance, we are ourselves more naturally inclined toward pleasures, and so we are more easily carried away toward self-indulgence than toward orderly conduct. We call those things more contrary, then, toward which the tendency is greater; and for this reason self-indulgence, being an excess, is more contrary to temperance. That moral virtue is a mean, then, and in what way, and that it is a mean between two vices, one according to excess and the other according to deficiency, and that it is such because it aims at the mean in the passions and in the actions, has been sufficiently stated. Hence too it is a hard task to be excellent. In each
17| For it is hard work to hit the mean, just as finding the midpoint of a circle is not for everyone but only for the one who knows how. So too anyone can get angry - that is easy - and anyone can give away money and spend it; but to do this toward the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way - that is no longer for everyone, nor is it easy. That is exactly why doing it well is rare, praiseworthy, and fine. So one who aims at the mean must first draw away from the extreme that is more opposed to it, just as Calypso advises: "keep the ship clear of that smoke and surf." For of the two extremes, one is more in error than the other; since, then, hitting the mean exactly is difficult, one should, as they say, sail the second-best course and take the least of the evils - and this will best be done in the way we describe. [1109b] One must consider the errors to which one is oneself especially prone, since we are naturally inclined, different people to different faults; and this will become known from the pleasure and pain that arise in us. We must drag ourselves off toward the opposite extreme, for by pulling far away from error we will arrive at the mean, which is what people do who straighten warped timber. And in everything we must be most on guard against what is pleasant, and against pleasure itself, since we are not unbribed judges of it. So the attitude the elders of the people had toward Helen is the attitude we must have toward pleasure, and in every case we must repeat their saying: for by dismissing it in that way we will err less. Doing this, then, to sum it up, will most enable us to hit the mean. But this is perhaps difficult, and especially so in particular cases; for
18| it is not easy to define exactly how, toward whom, on what grounds, and for how long one ought to be angry. Indeed we ourselves sometimes praise those who fall short and call them gentle, and sometimes we call those who are harsh manly. But a person who departs a little from doing well is not blamed, whether toward the more or the less, but one who departs a great deal is, for such a person does not go unnoticed. Just how far, and by how much, a person becomes blameworthy is not easy to mark off by a formula - nor indeed can any other perceptible thing be so marked off; such things lie among particulars, and the judgment rests with perception. This much, then, is clear: that the middle state is in all cases the one to be praised, but that one must lean sometimes toward excess and sometimes toward deficiency, since in this way we will most easily hit the mean and what is good.