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Virtue and Knowledge
Virtue and Knowledge
Virtue and Knowledge
the
most famous of the pre-Socratic philosophers. It is uncertain what remark Arist
otle
here refers to, and the fragment most frequently cited by commentators ("with th
umos
it is difficult to do battle I for whatever it craves is purchased at the price
of soul") appears to use thumos (translated in the text above by "spiritedness;' its usual m
eaning in
later Attic Greek) as an equivalent of, rather than in contrast to, craving or d
esire (see
Gauthier and Jolif). Aristotle cites this line also in the Politics (13I5a30-31)
and Eudemian Ethics (1223b23). BOOK 2, CHAPTER 4
matter of concern in both virtue and the political art is bound up with
pleasures and pains. For he who deals with these well will be good, but he
who does so badly will be bad.
Let it be said, then, that virtue concerns pleasures and pains; that it
both increases as a result of those actions from which it comes into be- 15
ing and is destroyed when these are performed in a different manner; and
that it becomes active in just those activities as a result of which it also
came into being.
CHAPTER FOUR
But someone might be perplexed as to what we mean when we say that
to become just, people must do just things or, to become moderate, do
moderate things. For if they do just and moderate things, they already are 20
just and moderate, just as if they do what concerns letters and music, they
are by that fact skilled [or artful] in letters and in music. Or is this not so
even in the case of the arts? For it is possible to do something skillful in
letters by chance or on the instructions of another. A person will actually
be skilled in letters, then, when he both does something skillful and does
it in a skillful way, and this is what accords with the art ofletters that re- 2
5
sides within the person himsel
Further, what pertains in the arts is not at all similar to what pertains
in the virtues. For the excellence in whatever comes into being through
the arts resides in the artifacts themselves. It is enough, then, for these
artifacts to be in a certain state. But whatever deeds arise in accord with
the virtues are not done justly or moderately if they are merely in a cer- 30
tain state, but only if he who does those deeds is in a certain state as well:
first, if he acts knowingly; second, if he acts by choosing and by choosing the actions in question for their own sake; and, third, if he acts while
being in a steady and unwavering state. But these criteria are irrelevant
when it comes to possessing the arts-except for the knowledge itself 110sb
involved. But when it comes to the virtues, knowledge has no, or little,
force, whereas the other two criteria amount to not a small part of but
rather the whole affair-criteria
11
that are in fact met as a result of our
doing just and moderate things many times. Matters of action are said to
11 The reading of the MSS (haper). Perhaps better is Bywater's slight emendati
on of
the text (eiper), adopted also by Burnet and Gauthier and Jolif, which might be
rendered as follows: "the whole affair, if in fact [the virtues] are gained as a re
sult of doing
just and moderate things many times:' 32] BOOK 2, CHAPTER 5
be just and moderate, then, when they are comparable in kind to what the
just or moderate person would do. And yet he who performs these actions
is not by that fact alone just and moderate, but only if he also acts as those