Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: Key Concepts and Arguments

Posted on Sep 9, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Key Terms in Aristotle’s Ethics

Asceticism

Abstention from physical pleasures.

Metempsychosis

The process of the soul being reborn into another body after death (reincarnation).

Virtue (arete)

The excellence of a thing; fulfilling its purpose or function well.

Happiness (eudaimonia)

To flourish; to live a fulfilling and meaningful life.

Telos

Greek term for the purpose, end, or goal of something.

Key Arguments and Definitions in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

The Happiness Argument (NE I.1-5)

1. Every skill, investigation, action, and choice aims at some good.
2. If every skill, question, action, and choice aims at some good, then these things can be arranged into an order of means and ends.
3. If every skill, question, action, and choice can be arranged into an order of means and ends, then there is some ultimate intrinsically good goal for a human which is never of instrumental value but from which all instrumental values derive their worth.
4. “Happiness” (eudaimonia; flourishing or living well) is the word that human beings use to refer to the ultimate intrinsically good goal for a human which is never of instrumental value but from which all instrumental values derive their worth.
5. Therefore, there is an ultimate intrinsically good goal for a human which is never an instrumental value but from which all instrumental values derive their worth, and this is called “happiness.”

Argument in defense of premise 2:

1. If it’s not the case that “if every skill, question, action, and choice can be arranged into an order of means and ends, then there is some ultimate intrinsically good goal for a human which is never of instrumental value but from which all instrumental values derive their worth,” then there is not an ultimate intrinsically good goal for a human which is never of instrumental value but from which all instrumental values derive their worth.
2. But if there is not an ultimate intrinsically good goal for a human, then our desire is empty and vain.
3. If our desire is empty and vain, then life is absurd.
4. But life cannot be absurd.
5. Therefore, if every skill, question, action, and choice can be arranged into an order of means and ends, then there is some ultimate intrinsically good goal for a human which is never of instrumental value but from which all instrumental values derive their worth.

The Function Argument (NE I.7) and Corresponding Pleasure Argument

1st Principle (Definition of “function”):

If only an x and every x can do F, then F is the function of x.

2nd Principle (Definition of “good”):

x is good only if x performs F well.

1. Only humans and all humans are, by definition, rational.
2. Therefore, living a rational life is the function of the human being. {1, 1st Principle}
3. Therefore, the good human being is one that lives rationally excellently. {2, 2nd Principle}
4. Non-human animals experience mere pleasure.
5. Therefore, pleasure cannot be the function of a human being. {1, 1st Principle}
6. Therefore, pleasure cannot be the ultimate human good. {2, 2nd Principle}

Argument that no Moral Virtue is Natural (NE I.1)

1. No natural condition can be brought about by habit.
2. Moral virtue is acquired by habituation.
3. Therefore, moral virtue is not a natural condition.

Virtue Defined: The Genus or Kind of Thing It Is (NE II.5)

1. All conditions of the soul are either (i) emotions, (ii) capacities, or (iii) characteristics (states of character).
2. Virtues are conditions of the soul.
3. Therefore, virtue must be (i) emotions, (ii) capacities, or (iii) characteristics. {from 1, 2}
4. No emotions are praised or blamed.
5. Every vice and virtue is praised or blamed.
6. Therefore, virtue and vice are not emotions. {from 4, 5}
7. No capacity for feeling is good or bad.
8. Every vice and virtue is good or bad.
9. Therefore, virtue and vice are not a capacity for feeling. {from 7, 8}
10. Therefore, virtues are characteristics. {from 3, 6, 9}.

Aristotle’s Definition of Virtue

“We may conclude that virtue or excellence is a characteristic involving choice, and that it consists in observing the mean relative to us, a mean which is defined by a rational principle, such as a person of practical wisdom would use to determine it” (pg 43, 1107a).

Examples of Moral Virtues and the Doctrine of the Mean

Aristotle’s Argument against Socrates about Moral Weakness (NE VII.2)

1. If there is no such thing as moral weakness but only instances of ignorance, then a person who is morally weak in his actions would not ultimately know what he should do.
2. But the plain observation of the facts is that people who are morally weak in their actions do know what they should do.
3. Therefore, there is such a thing as moral weakness that is not merely an instance of ignorance.

Aristotle’s Argument for Why a Morally Weak Person Is Not Practically Wise (NE VII.10)

1. A person of practical wisdom is a person of good character.
2. A morally weak person is not a person of good character (he or she knows what’s right, but doesn’t have the kind of character that acts on it).
3. Therefore, a morally weak person is not a person of practical wisdom.

More Arguments against Pleasure as the Ultimate Good (NE X.2, X.5)

1. The ultimate human good does not have something added to it in order to make it more choiceworthy.
2. Pleasure has something added to it in order to make it more choiceworthy.
3. Therefore, pleasure is not the ultimate human good.
4. If every pleasure is choiceworthy, then the source of a pleasure cannot make it undesirable.
5. The source of a pleasure can make it undesirable.
6. Therefore, not every pleasure is choiceworthy.
7. If pleasure depends on the activity that produces it, then figuring out which pleasures are choiceworthy requires that we first figure out which activities are choiceworthy.
8. Pleasure depends on the activity that produces it.
9. Therefore, figuring out which pleasures are choiceworthy requires that we first figure out which activities are choiceworthy.
10. All activities that constitute the proper function of a human being are choiceworthy activities for a human being.
11. Rational activities constitute the proper function of the human being.
12. Therefore, rational activities are the choiceworthy activities for a human being.