Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| [1249a] Fine things are praiseworthy, and shameful things are blameworthy. The virtues are responsible for fine things, and the vices for shameful things. Also praiseworthy are the causes of the virtues, and what accompanies the virtues, and what comes from them, and their works; and blameworthy are the opposites of these. If the soul is taken to have three parts, as in Plato, the virtue of the rational part [1249b] is practical wisdom; the virtue of the spirited part is gentleness and courage; the virtue of the appetitive part is temperance and self-control; and the virtue of the whole soul is justice, liberality, and greatness of soul. The vice of the rational part is folly; the vice of the spirited part is irascibility and cowardice; the vice of the appetitive part is self-indulgence and [1250a] lack of self-control; and the vice of the whole soul is injustice, illiberality, and smallness of soul. Practical wisdom is a virtue of the rational part, productive of the things that contribute to happiness. Gentleness is a virtue of the spirited part, by which people become hard to move to anger. Courage is a virtue of the spirited part, by which people are hard to terrify by fears concerning death. Temperance is a virtue of the appetitive part, by which people become without appetite for the enjoyment of base pleasures. Self-control is a virtue of the appetitive part, by which people restrain by reasoning an appetite that is rushing toward base pleasures. Justice is a virtue of the soul that distributes according to worth. Liberality is a virtue of the soul that spends readily on fine things. Greatness of soul is a virtue of the soul, by which one is able to bear
2| good fortune and bad fortune, and honor and dishonor. Folly is a vice of the rational part, a cause of living badly. Irascibility is a vice of the spirited part, by which people become easily moved to anger. Cowardice is a vice of the spirited part, by which people are terrified by fears, and especially those concerning death. Self-indulgence is a vice of the appetitive part, by which people choose base pleasures. About lack of self-control, nothing has been said here; but you can define it in this way: lack of self-control is a vice of the appetitive part, by which people are swept along by unreason, with appetite pushing them toward the enjoyment of base pleasures. Injustice is a vice of the soul, by which people become grasping for more than their worth. Illiberality is a vice of the soul, by which people reach for gain from every source. Smallness of soul is a vice of the soul, by which people are unable to bear good fortune and bad fortune, and honor and dishonor. It belongs to practical wisdom to deliberate; to judge good things and bad things and everything in life that is to be chosen and avoided; to use well all the goods one has; to deal with people rightly; to grasp the right occasions; to make shrewd use of both speech and action; and to have experience of everything useful. Memory, experience, and quickness of mind either each derive from practical wisdom, or accompany practical wisdom; or else some of them are, as it were, joint causes of practical wisdom, as experience and memory are, while others are, as it were, parts of it, as good deliberation and quickness of mind are. It belongs to gentleness to be able to bear accusations and slights in due measure, not to rush quickly toward retaliation, not to be easily moved to anger, to be unembittered in character and not contentious, and to have what is calm and settled in the soul. It belongs to courage to be hard to terrify by fears
3| concerning death, to be confident in the face of terrors, to be [1250b] bold in the face of dangers, to choose to die nobly rather than to be saved shamefully, and to be a cause of victory. It further belongs to courage to labor, to endure, and to choose to act with manly excellence. Courage is accompanied by boldness, high-spiritedness, confidence, and daring, and further by love of labor and endurance. It belongs to temperance not to marvel at the enjoyment of bodily pleasures, to be without appetite for the enjoyment of every shameful pleasure, to be wary even of license that is just, and to be stretched taut about one's life alike in small things and great. Temperance is accompanied by good order, propriety, a sense of shame, and caution. It belongs to self-control to be able to restrain by reasoning an appetite that is rushing toward base enjoyments and pleasures, to endure, and to be capable of bearing want and pain that are in accordance with nature. It belongs to justice to distribute according to worth, to preserve ancestral customs and established usages, to preserve the written laws, to speak the truth where it matters, and to keep agreements. The first of the forms of justice is toward the gods, then toward divine spirits, then toward one's country and parents, then toward the dead; among these is piety, which is either a part of justice or accompanies it. Justice is accompanied by holiness, truthfulness, good faith, and hatred of wickedness. It belongs to liberality
4| to be ready to spend money on praiseworthy things, and to be lavish where the expense goes toward what is needed; to be ready to help in a matter of property; and not to take from where one ought not. The liberal person is also clean in dress and in dwelling, and given to acquiring things that are elaborate and fine and afford pleasant pastime without practical profit, and to keeping animals that have some distinctive or remarkable quality. Liberality is accompanied by softness of character, tractability, kindness toward humanity, and being compassionate, fond of friends, hospitable, and a lover of the fine. It belongs to greatness of soul to bear well both good fortune and bad fortune, and honor and dishonor, and to marvel at neither luxury nor flattering attendance nor power nor victories in contests, but to have a certain depth and greatness of soul. The great-souled person is neither one who sets great store by life nor one who loves life. He is simple and noble in character, able to bear being wronged, and not vengeful. Greatness of soul is accompanied by simplicity and truthfulness. It belongs to folly to judge matters badly, to deliberate badly, to deal with people badly, to make bad use of the goods one has, and to hold false opinions [1251a] about what is fine and good for life. Folly is accompanied by inexperience, ignorance, lack of self-control, awkwardness, and forgetfulness. Irascibility has three forms: quick temper, bitterness, and sullen resentment. It belongs to the irascible person to be unable to bear even small slights or diminishments, to be punitive and vengeful, and to be easily moved to anger by any chance deed or word. Irascibility is accompanied by an irritable and changeable character, harsh speech, being pained at small things, and this same
5| ...to be affected quickly and over a brief occasion. It belongs to cowardice to be easily moved by chance fears, and especially by fears concerning death and bodily mutilation, and to suppose that it is better to save oneself by any means whatever than to die nobly. Softness, unmanliness, avoidance of exertion, and love of one's own life follow upon cowardice. There also underlies it a certain wariness and an unquarrelsome character. It belongs to self-indulgence to choose the enjoyment of pleasures that are harmful and shameful, and to suppose that those who live amid such pleasures are the happiest of all, and to be fond of laughter, fond of mockery, and fond of ribald jesting, and to be careless and slipshod in both word and deed. Disorder, shamelessness, unruliness, luxury, indolence, negligence, carelessness, and slackness follow upon self-indulgence. It belongs to lack of self-control to choose the enjoyment of pleasures even while reason forbids it, and, while supposing it better not to partake of them, to partake of them nonetheless, and to think that one ought to do both the fine things and the advantageous things, yet to abandon them on account of pleasures. Softness and regret follow upon lack of self-control, and most of the same things that follow upon self-indulgence as well. Injustice has three forms: impiety, greed, and insolence. Impiety is offense concerning the gods, and concerning spirits, or concerning the dead, and concerning parents and fatherland; greed concerns contracts, choosing an advantage contrary to what is deserved; insolence is that by which people procure pleasures for themselves by bringing others into disgrace — hence Evenus says of it: 'which, though it gains nothing, does wrong all the same'. It belongs to injustice to transgress ancestral customs and established usages, to disobey the laws and the rulers, and to
6| [1251b] lie, to swear falsely, and to transgress agreements and pledges. Slander, boastfulness, a pretended kindliness toward others, malice, and unscrupulous cunning follow upon injustice. Illiberality has three forms: sordid love of gain, stinginess, and niggardliness. Sordid love of gain is that by which people seek to profit from every source, and value the profit more than the shame it brings; stinginess is that by which people are unwilling to spend money even where it is needed; niggardliness is that by which people do spend, but little by little and poorly, and are harmed all the more by not laying out the expense at the right moment. It belongs to illiberality to value money above all else, and and to count nothing that produces profit a disgrace — a life that is hired, slavish, and squalid, estranged from love of honor and from liberality. Meanness, sullenness and pettiness of spirit, lowliness, lack of proportion, ignobility, and misanthropy follow upon illiberality. It belongs to pettiness of spirit to be unable to bear either honor or dishonor, either good fortune or bad fortune, but to be puffed up when honored, to be carried away by even a small stroke of good fortune, to be unable to bear even the slightest dishonor, to judge a mere failure to be a great disaster and misfortune, and to lament and chafe over everything. Further, the petty-spirited person is of such a kind as to call every slight an insolence and a dishonor, including things that happen through ignorance or forgetfulness. Meanness, complaint at one's lot, despondency, and lowliness follow upon pettiness of spirit. In general, it belongs to virtue to make the disposition of the soul excellent, employing calm and orderly motions that are in accord with one another in every part; that is why an excellent disposition of soul is also thought to be a model of a good constitution —
7| an excellent disposition. It belongs to virtue also to do good to those who deserve it, to love good people, and to be neither given to punishing nor to taking vengeance, but gracious, kindly, and forgiving. Kindness, fairness, gratitude, and good hope follow upon virtue. Further, there are such things as being fond of one's home, fond of one's friends, fond of one's comrades, fond of guests, fond of humanity, and fond of the fine — all of which belong to the things that are praised. The opposites of these belong to vice.