Nicomachean Ethics

Book II
Sec. 1: Moral virtue, like the arts, is acquired
by repetition of the corresponding acts

• Habit is not just repetitive actions

• ‘Adopted by nature to receive moral virtue’
• One cannot acquire it if it is contrary to one’s nature
• By being habituated we acquire virtues
Factors to consider in determining what is
virtuous

• Rightness of the action

• Appropriateness of the circumstance
• Influence and control of emotions and
appetites
Virtue

• State of character
• Formation
• Upbringing
 Sec. 2: These acts cannot be prescribed
exactly, but must avoid excess and defect

• Acts cannot be prescribed exactly but must avoid excess and

defect.
• Examine nature of actions and determine how we ought to do
them
• Act in accordance with the correct reason
• Introduce golden mean –preserve virtue that excess and defect
destroys
Sec 3: Pleasure in doing virtuous acts is a
sign that the virtuous disposition has
been acquired: a variety of considerations
show the essential connection of moral
virtue with pleasure and pain
• Pleasure in doing virtuous acts is a sign that
the virtuous disposition has been acquired
• Right desiring
• “we must take as a sign of state of character
the pleasure or pain that supervenes upon
acts.”
• Punishment is a kind of cure
• Virtue as impassivity and tranquility
 Sec 4: An objection to the view that
one acquires virtues by doing virtuous
acts; and a reply: the conditions
needed to possess virtue and act from
it
• Difference between Arts and Virtues
• Even if done depends on the character if
done justly or temperately
Conditions of the Actor

• He must have knowledge

• Act is chosen
• Chosen for its own sake
• Action proceeds from the firm and
unchangeable character
 Requisites –possession of virtue
Depends on the doer of the action
Sec 5: The genus of moral virtue: it is a state
of character, not a passion, nor a capacity

• Genus of moral virtue: it is a state of character, not a passion,

nor a capacity.
• Soul – passions, capacity, states of character
• Appetites, feelings, pleasure, and pain
• Capability of feeling pain and other emotions
• Things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with
reference to passions
• Goodness/badness does not depend
on passions but rather on virtue/vice
• Feeling of emotion in a certain way
• Emotions are not actively chosen.
Virtues involve choices
• Passions make us move- influence
our choices
• Passions make us predisposed to a
certain action.
Sec 6: The differentia of moral virtue: it is a disposition to
choose the ‘intermediate’. Two kinds of intermediate
distinguished

• The differentia of moral virtue: it is a disposition to choose the

intermediate
• Two kinds of Intermediate:
• Golden mean – relative to the subject
• How do we determine the mean/middle/ virtue
Sec 7: The above proposition is illustrated by
reference to particular virtues

• Phronesis
• Conduct has to do
with individual cases
 Deficiency Virtue Excess
Coward Courage Fearlessness
Insensible Temperance Self- indulgent
Meanness Liberality Prodigality
Undue Humility Pride Empty vanity
Deficiency Mean Excess
Shameless Modest bashful
Spite Righteous envy
 Sec 8: The extremes are opposed to each
other and to the mean

• Characteristics of the extreme and mean states: practical

corollaries
• Mean opposed to all
• The mean is not really in the middle
• Rashness nearer to courage
• Temperance more contrary and distant to self-indulgence
Sec 9: The mean is hard to attain, and is
grasped by perception, not by reasoning

• Determining the middle

• Right person, extent, time, motive, way
• “Hence, he who aims at the intermediate must first
depart from what is the more contrary to it, as
Calypso advises– hold the ship out beyond that surf
and spray
• Do not dismiss pleasure
• Mean, a range, not a point