Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
1,690 passages indexed from Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) — Page 31 of 34
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Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1437
[3] In the last chapter of the third book of this treatise it is said of the fool, that his desire of pleasure is not only insatiable, but indiscriminate in its objects, πανταχόθεν.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 866
This leads some to say that all the Virtues are merely intellectual Practical Wisdom, and Socrates was partly right in his enquiry and partly wrong: wrong in that he thought all the Virtues were merely intellectual Practical Wisdom, right in saying they were not independent of that faculty.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 134
Such then are the objects proposed by our treatise, which is of the nature of πολιτικὴ: and I conceive I shall have spoken on them satisfactorily, if they be made as distinctly clear as the nature of the subject-matter will admit: for exactness must not be looked for in all discussions alike, any more than in all works of handicraft. Now the notions of nobleness and justice, with the examination of which πολιτικὴ is concerned, admit of variation and error to such a degree, that they are supposed by some to exist conventionally only, and not in the nature of things: but then, again, the things which are allowed to be goods admit of a similar error, because harm comes to many from them: for before now some have perished through wealth, and others through valour.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 4
The principle of distribution of the subject-matter between the two works is far from obvious, and has been much debated. Not much can be gathered from their titles, which in any case were not given to them by their author. Nor do these titles suggest any very compact unity in the works to which they are applied: the plural forms, which survive so oddly in English (Ethic_s_, Politic_s_), were intended to indicate the treatment within a single work of a _group_ of connected questions.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 21
As was pointed out above, the proem (Book I., cc. i-iii.) is a prelude to the treatment of the whole subject covered by the _Ethics_ and the _Politics_ together. It sets forth the purpose of the enquiry, describes the spirit in which it is to be undertaken and what ought to be the expectation of the reader, and lastly states the necessary conditions of studying it with profit.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 537
So both classes, as wishing to make gain from improper sources, are given to base gain, and all such receivings are Stingy. And with good reason is Stinginess called the contrary of Liberality: both because it is a greater evil than Prodigality, and because men err rather in this direction than in that of the Prodigality which we have spoken of as properly and completely such.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 930
And for this reason we put into the same rank the man of Imperfect Self-Control, the man who has lost it entirely, the man who has it, and the man of Perfected Self-Mastery; but not any of those other characters, because the former have for their object-matter the same pleasures and pains: but though they have the same object-matter, they are not related to it in the same way, but two of them act upon moral choice, two without it.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 805
Then again Art admits of degrees of excellence, but Practical Wisdom does not:[20] and in Art he who goes wrong purposely is preferable to him who does so unwittingly,[21] but not so in respect of Practical Wisdom or the other Virtues. It plainly is then an Excellence of a certain kind, and not an Art.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 75
This is the consummate form of reason applied to conduct, but there are minor forms of it, less independent or original, but nevertheless of great value, such as the power to think out the proper cause of policy in novel circumstances or the power to see the proper line of treatment to follow in a court of law.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 617
Next, as life has its pauses and in them admits of pastime combined with Jocularity, it is thought that in this respect also there is a kind of fitting intercourse, and that rules may be prescribed as to the kind of things one should say and the manner of saying them; and in respect of hearing likewise (and there will be a difference between the saying and hearing such and such things). It is plain that in regard to these things also there will be an excess and defect and a mean.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 135
We must be content then, in speaking of such things and from such data, to set forth the truth roughly and in outline; in other words, since we are speaking of general matter and from general data, to draw also conclusions merely general. And in the same spirit should each person receive what we say: for the man of education will seek exactness so far in each subject as the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly much the same absurdity to put up with a mathematician who tries to persuade instead of proving, and to demand strict demonstrative reasoning of a Rhetorician.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 666
Now mathematicians call this kind of proportion geometrical: for in geometrical proportion the whole is to the whole as each part to each part. Furthermore this proportion is not continual, because the person and thing do not make up one term.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 346
A similar question arises with respect to cases of throwing goods overboard in a storm: abstractedly no man throws away his property willingly, but with a view to his own and his shipmates’ safety any one would who had any sense.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 94
It is to be found in the life of the onlooker, the disinterested spectator; or, to put it more distinctly, “in the life of the philosopher, the life of scientific and philosophic contemplation.” The highest and most satisfying form of life possible to man is “the contemplative life”; it is only in a secondary sense and for those incapable of their life, that the practical or moral ideal is the best.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 64
Neither passion nor ignorance of the right rule can extenuate responsibility. But there is a difference between acts done voluntarily and acts done of _set_ choice or purpose. The latter imply Deliberation. Deliberation involves thinking, thinking out means to ends: in deliberate acts the whole nature of the agent consents to and enters into the act, and in a peculiar sense they are his, they _are_ him in action, and the most significant evidence of what he is.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 734
First, whether the case is possible which Euripides has put, saying somewhat strangely,
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1528
Deliberation, for it has been already laid down that Deliberation has for its object-matter means to Ends supposed to be set before the mind, the next step is Deliberation, the next Decision, the last the definite extending of the mental hand towards the object thus selected, the two last constitute [Greek: proairesis] in its full meaning.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 47
The latter constitute “character,” each of them as a “moral virtue” (literally “a goodness of character”), and upon them primarily depends the realisation of happiness. This is the case at least for the great majority of men, and for all men their possession is an indispensable basis of the best, _i e_, the most desirable life. They form the chief or central subject-matter of the _Ethics_.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 758
What causes the difficulty is this; the Equitable is Just, but not the Just which is in accordance with written law, being in fact a correction of that kind of Just. And the account of this is, that every law is necessarily universal while there are some things which it is not possible to speak of rightly in any universal or general statement. Where then there is a necessity for general statement, while a general statement cannot apply rightly to all cases, the law takes the generality of cases, being fully aware of the error thus involved; and rightly too notwithstanding, because the fault is not in the law, or in the framer of the law, but is inherent in the nature of the thing, because the matter of all action is necessarily such.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 93
To this question Aristotle gives an answer which cannot but surprise us after what has preceded. True Happiness, great satisfaction, cannot be found by man in any form of “practical” life, no, not in the fullest and freest exercise possible of the “moral virtues,” not in the life of the citizen or of the great soldier or statesman. To seek it there is to court failure and disappointment.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1428
Now laws may be called the performances or tangible results of Political Science; how then can a man acquire from these the faculty of Legislation, or choose the best? we do not see men made physicians by compilations: and yet in these treatises men endeavour to give not only the cases but also how they may be cured, and the proper treatment in each case, dividing the various bodily habits. Well, these are thought to be useful to professional men, but to the unprofessional useless.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1403
Now he that works in accordance with, and pays observance to, Pure Intellect, and tends this, seems likely to be both in the best frame of mind and dearest to the Gods: because if, as is thought, any care is bestowed on human things by the Gods then it must be reasonable to think that they take pleasure in what is best and most akin to themselves (and this must be the Pure Intellect); and that they requite with kindness those who love and honour this most, as paying observance to what is dear to them, and as acting rightly and nobly. And it is quite obvious that the man of Science chiefly combines all these: he is therefore dearest to the Gods, and it is probable that he is at the same time most Happy.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1678
[9] Which one would be assuming he was, if one declined to recognise the obligation to requite the favour or kindness.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 916
And their saying what embodies Knowledge is no proof of their actually then exercising it, because they who are under the operation of these passions repeat demonstrations; or verses of Empedocles,[6] just as children, when first learning, string words together, but as yet know nothing of their meaning, because they must grow into it, and this is a process requiring time: so that we must suppose these men who fail in Self-Control to say these moral sayings just as actors do.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 31
To know it is not merely a matter of speculative interest, it is of the highest practical moment for only in the light of it can life be duly guided, and particularly only so can the state be properly organised and administered. This explains the stress laid throughout by Greek Moral Philosophy upon the necessity of knowledge as a condition of the best life.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1538
[18] For true Courage is required, i. Exact appreciation of danger. 2. A Proper motive for resisting fear. Each of the Spurious kinds will be found to fail in one or other, or both.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 217
And, by the way, the question which has been here discussed, testifies incidentally to the truth of our account of Happiness.[33] For to nothing does a stability of human results attach so much as it does to the workings in the way of virtue, since these are held to be more abiding even than the sciences: and of these last again[34] the most precious are the most abiding, because the blessed live in them most and most continuously, which seems to be the reason why they are not forgotten.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1356
As then the Workings are different so are their Pleasures; now Sight differs from Touch in purity, and Hearing and Smelling from Taste; therefore, in like manner, do their Pleasures; and again, Intellectual Pleasures from these Sensual, and the different kinds both of Intellectual and Sensual from one another.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 69
Hence “distributive justice” is concerned not with the large question of the distribution of political power and privileges among the constituent members or classes of the state but with the smaller questions of the distribution among those of casual gains and even with the division among private claimants of a common fund or inheritance, while “corrective justice” is concerned solely with the management of legal redress.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1662
[*] [Greek: hubpis] is introduced as the single instance from which this premiss is proved inductively. See the account of it in the Chapter of the Rhetoric referred to in the preceding note.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1154
In such cases one should, if able, make a return proportionate to the good received, and do so willingly, because one ought not to make a disinterested friend[9] of a man against his inclination: one should act, I say, as having made a mistake originally in receiving kindness from one from whom one ought not to have received it, he being not a friend nor doing the act disinterestedly; one should therefore discharge one’s self of the obligation as having received a kindness on specified terms: and if able a man would engage to repay the kindness, while if he were unable even the doer of it would not expect it of him: so that if he is able he ought to repay it.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 378
Wish again may be exercised on things in the accomplishment of which one’s self could have nothing to do, as the success of any particular actor or athlete; but no man chooses things of this nature, only such as he believes he may himself be instrumental in procuring.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1487
[7] Virtue consists in the due regulation of _all_ the parts of our nature our passions are a real part of that nature, and as such have their proper office, it is an error then to aim at their extirpation.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 794
Matter which may exist otherwise than it actually does in any given case (commonly called Contingent) is of two kinds, that which is the object of Making, and that which is the object of Doing; now Making and Doing are two different things (as we show in the exoteric treatise), and so that state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Do, is distinct from that also conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make: and for this reason they are not included one by the other, that is, Doing is not Making, nor Making Doing.[14] Now[15] as Architecture is an Art, and is the same as “a certain state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make,” and as there is no Art which is not such a state, nor any such state which is not an Art, Art, in its strict and proper sense, must be “a state of mind, conjoined with true Reason, apt to Make.”
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 884
And as, on the one hand, it is a rare thing for a man to be godlike (a term the Lacedæmonians are accustomed to use when they admire a man exceedingly; σεῖος ἀνὴρ they call him), so the brutish man is rare; the character is found most among barbarians, and some cases of it are caused by disease or maiming; also such men as exceed in vice all ordinary measures we therefore designate by this opprobrious term.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1410
For this reason the food, and manner of living generally, ought to be the subject of legal regulation, because things when become habitual will not be disagreeable.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1311
Again, they say the Chief Good is limited but Pleasure unlimited, in that it admits of degrees.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1573
[24] Murder is unjust by the law of nature, Smuggling by enactment. Therefore any act which can be referred to either of these heads is an unjust act, or, as Bishop Butler phrases it, an act _materially_ unjust. Thus much may be decided without reference to the agent. See the note on page 32, l. 16.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 785
Now the starting-point of moral action is Moral Choice, (I mean, what actually sets it in motion, not the final cause,)[7] and of Moral Choice, Appetition, and Reason directed to a certain result: and thus Moral Choice is neither independent of intellect, i. e. intellectual operation, nor of a certain moral state: for right or wrong action cannot be, independently of operation of the Intellect, and moral character.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 77
For such action and feeling as forms bad character, blinds the eye of the soul and corrupts the moral principle, and the place of practical wisdom is taken by that parody of itself which Aristotle calls “cleverness”—the “wisdom” of the unscrupulous man of the world. Thus true practical wisdom and true goodness of character are interdependent; neither is genuinely possible or “completely” present without the other.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 433
First, then, of Courage. Now that it is a mean state, in respect of fear and boldness, has been already said: further, the objects of our fears are obviously things fearful or, in a general way of statement, evils; which accounts for the common definition of fear, viz. “expectation of evil.”
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1303
And he thought his position was not less proved by the argument from the contrary: that is, since Pain was in itself an object of avoidance to all the contrary must be in like manner an object of choice.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 456
Those commanders who station staunch troops by doubtful ones,[19] or who beat their men if they flinch, or who draw their troops up in line with the trenches, or other similar obstacles, in their rear, do in effect the same as Hector, for they all use compulsion.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 46
(1) the former are excellences or developed powers of the reason as such—of that in us which sees and formulates laws, rules, regularities systems, and is content in the vision of them, while the latter involve a submission or obedience to such rules of something in us which is in itself capricious and irregular, but capable of regulation, viz our instincts and feelings, (2) the former are acquired by study and instruction, the latter by discipline.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1060
And they whose motive is pleasure are in like case: I mean, they have Friendship for men of easy pleasantry, not because they are of a given character but because they are pleasant to themselves. So then they whose motive to Friendship is utility love their friends for what is good to themselves; they whose motive is pleasure do so for what is pleasurable to themselves; that is to say, not in so far as the friend beloved _is_ but in so far as he is useful or pleasurable. These Friendships then are a matter of result: since the object is not beloved in that he is the man he is but in that he furnishes advantage or pleasure as the case may be.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1412
And therefore some men hold that while lawgivers should employ the sense of honour to exhort and guide men to Virtue, under the notion that they will then obey who have been well trained in habits; they should impose chastisement and penalties on those who disobey and are of less promising nature; and the incurable expel entirely: because the good man and he who lives under a sense of honour will be obedient to reason; and the baser sort, who grasp at pleasure, will be kept in check, like beasts of burthen by pain. Therefore also they say that the pains should be such as are most contrary to the pleasures which are liked.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 511
And again, it is they who give that are denominated Liberal, while they who forbear to receive are commended, not on the score of Liberality but of just dealing, while for receiving men are not, in fact, praised at all.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1677
[8] “For the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.”
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 286
And again, Capacities we have by nature, but we do not come to be good or bad by nature, as we have said before.
Nicomachean Ethics, passage 1688
“Knowledge is not our proper Happiness. Whoever will in the least attend to the thing will see that it is the gaining, not the having, of it, which is the entertainment of the mind.” The two statements may however be reconciled. Aristotle may be well understood only to mean, that the pursuit of knowledge will be the pleasanter, the freer it is from the minor hindrances which attend on _learning_.