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Character Improvement 
Nicomachean Ethics
by Aristotle
350 BC
translated by W. D. Ross
Book 6, Chapter 1
Since we have previously said that one ought to
choose that which is intermediate, not the excess nor the defect, and that the
intermediate is determined by the dictates of the right rule, let us discuss the
nature of these dictates. In all the states of character we have mentioned, as
in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man who has the rule looks,
and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly, and there is a standard which
determines the mean states which we say are intermediate between excess and
defect, being in accordance with the right rule. But such a statement, though
true, is by no means clear; for not only here but in all other pursuits which
are objects of knowledge it is indeed true to say that we must not exert
ourselves nor relax our efforts too much nor too little, but to an intermediate
extent and as the right rule dictates; but if a man had only this knowledge he
would be none the wiser, e.g. we should not know what sort of medicines to apply
to our body if some one were to say 'all those which the medical art prescribes,
and which agree with the practice of one who possesses the art'. Hence it is
necessary with regard to the states of the soul also not only that this true
statement should be made, but also that it should be determined what is the
right rule and what is the standard that fixes it.
We divided the virtues of the soul and a said that some are virtues of
character and others of intellect. Now we have discussed in detail the moral
virtues; with regard to the others let us express our view as follows, beginning
with some remarks about the soul. We said before that there are two parts of the
soul -- that which grasps a rule or rational principle, and the irrational; let
us now draw a similar distinction within the part which grasps a rational
principle. And let it be assumed that there are two parts which grasp a rational
principle -- one by which we contemplate the kind of things whose originative
causes are invariable, and one by which we contemplate variable things; for
where objects differ in kind the part of the soul answering to each of the two
is different in kind, since it is in virtue of a certain likeness and kinship
with their objects that they have the knowledge they have. Let one of these
parts be called the scientific and the other the calculative; for to deliberate
and to calculate are the same thing, but no one deliberates about the
invariable. Therefore the calculative is one part of the faculty which grasps a
rational principle. We must, then, learn what is the best state of each of these
two parts; for this is the virtue of each.
Book 6, Chapter 2
The virtue of a thing is relative to its proper work. Now there are three
things in the soul which control action and truth -- sensation, reason, desire.
Of these sensation originates no action; this is plain from the fact that
the lower animals have sensation but no share in action.
What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance are in
desire; so that since moral virtue is a state of character concerned with
choice, and choice is deliberate desire, therefore both the reasoning must be
true and the desire right, if the choice is to be good, and the latter must
pursue just what the former asserts. Now this kind of intellect and of truth is
practical; of the intellect which is contemplative, not practical nor
productive, the good and the bad state are truth and falsity respectively (for
this is the work of everything intellectual); while of the part which is
practical and intellectual the good state is truth in agreement with right
desire.
The origin of action -- its efficient, not its final cause -- is choice, and
that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end. This is why choice
cannot exist either without reason and intellect or without a moral state; for
good action and its opposite cannot exist without a combination of intellect and
character. Intellect itself, however, moves nothing, but only the intellect
which aims at an end and is practical; for this rules the productive intellect,
as well, since every one who makes makes for an end, and that which is made is
not an end in the unqualified sense (but only an end in a particular relation,
and the end of a particular operation) -- only that which is done is that; for
good action is an end, and desire aims at this. Hence choice is either
desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire, and such an origin of action is a
man. (It is to be noted that nothing that is past is an object of choice, e.g.
no one chooses to have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates about the past, but
about what is future and capable of being otherwise, while what is past is not
capable of not having taken place; hence Agathon is right in saying
For this alone is lacking even to God, To make undone things that have
once been done.
The work of both the intellectual parts, then, is truth. Therefore the
states that are most strictly those in respect of which each of these parts will
reach truth are the virtues of the two parts.
Book 6, Chapter 3
Let us begin, then, from the beginning, and discuss these states once more.
Let it be assumed that the states by virtue of which the soul possesses truth by
way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e. art, scientific knowledge,
practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, intuitive reason; we do not include
judgement and opinion because in these we may be mistaken.
Now what scientific knowledge is, if we are to speak exactly and not follow
mere similarities, is plain from what follows. We all suppose that what we know
is not even capable of being otherwise; of things capable of being otherwise we
do not know, when they have passed outside our observation, whether they exist
or not. Therefore the object of scientific knowledge is of necessity. Therefore
it is eternal; for things that are of necessity in the unqualified sense are all
eternal; and things that are eternal are ungenerated and imperishable. Again,
every science is thought to be capable of being taught, and its object of being
learned. And all teaching starts from what is already known, as we maintain in
the Analytics also; for it proceeds sometimes through induction and sometimes by
syllogism. Now induction is the starting-point which knowledge even of the
universal presupposes, while syllogism proceeds from universals. There are
therefore starting-points from which syllogism proceeds, which are not reached
by syllogism; it is therefore by induction that they are acquired. Scientific
knowledge is, then, a state of capacity to demonstrate, and has the other
limiting characteristics which we specify in the Analytics, for it is when a man
believes in a certain way and the starting-points are known to him that he has
scientific knowledge, since if they are not better known to him than the
conclusion, he will have his knowledge only incidentally.
Let this, then, be taken as our account of scientific knowledge.
Book 6, Chapter 4
In the variable are included both things made and things done; making and
acting are different (for their nature we treat even the discussions outside our
school as reliable); so that the reasoned state of capacity to act is different
from the reasoned state of capacity to make. Hence too they are not included one
in the other; for neither is acting making nor is making acting. Now since
architecture is an art and is essentially a reasoned state of capacity to make,
and there is neither any art that is not such a state nor any such state that is
not an art, art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true
course of reasoning. All art is concerned with coming into being, i.e. with
contriving and considering how something may come into being which is capable of
either being or not being, and whose origin is in the maker and not in the thing
made; for art is concerned neither with things that are, or come into being, by
necessity, nor with things that do so in accordance with nature (since these
have their origin in themselves). Making and acting being different, art must be
a matter of making, not of acting. And in a sense chance and art are concerned
with the same objects; as Agathon says, 'art loves chance and chance loves art'.
Art, then, as has been is a state concerned with making, involving a true course
of reasoning, and lack of art on the contrary is a state concerned with making,
involving a false course of reasoning; both are concerned with the variable.
Book 6, Chapter 5
Regarding practical wisdom we shall get at the truth by considering who are
the persons we credit with it. Now it is thought to be the mark of a man of
practical wisdom to be able to deliberate well about what is good and expedient
for himself, not in some particular respect, e.g. about what sorts of thing
conduce to health or to strength, but about what sorts of thing conduce to the
good life in general. This is shown by the fact that we credit men with
practical wisdom in some particular respect when they have calculated well with
a view to some good end which is one of those that are not the object of any
art. It follows that in the general sense also the man who is capable of
deliberating has practical wisdom. Now no one deliberates about things that are
invariable, nor about things that it is impossible for him to do. Therefore,
since scientific knowledge involves demonstration, but there is no demonstration
of things whose first principles are variable (for all such things might
actually be otherwise), and since it is impossible to deliberate about things
that are of necessity, practical wisdom cannot be scientific knowledge nor art;
not science because that which can be done is capable of being otherwise, not
art because action and making are different kinds of thing. The remaining
alternative, then, is that it is a true and reasoned state of capacity to act
with regard to the things that are good or bad for man. For while making has an
end other than itself, action cannot; for good action itself is its end. It is
for this reason that we think Pericles and men like him have practical wisdom,
viz. because they can see what is good for themselves and what is good for men
in general; we consider that those can do this who are good at managing
households or states. (This is why we call temperance (sophrosune) by this name;
we imply that it preserves one's practical wisdom (sozousa tan phronsin). Now
what it preserves is a judgement of the kind we have described. For it is not
any and every judgement that pleasant and painful objects destroy and pervert,
e.g. the judgement that the triangle has or has not its angles equal to two
right angles, but only judgements about what is to be done. For the originating
causes of the things that are done consist in the end at which they are aimed;
but the man who has been ruined by pleasure or pain forthwith fails to see any
such originating cause -- to see that for the sake of this or because of this he
ought to choose and do whatever he chooses and does; for vice is destructive of
the originating cause of action.) Practical wisdom, then, must be a reasoned and
true state of capacity to act with regard to human goods. But further, while
there is such a thing as excellence in art, there is no such thing as excellence
in practical wisdom; and in art he who errs willingly is preferable, but in
practical wisdom, as in the virtues, he is the reverse. Plainly, then, practical
wisdom is a virtue and not an art. There being two parts of the soul that can
follow a course of reasoning, it must be the virtue of one of the two, i.e. of
that part which forms opinions; for opinion is about the variable and so is
practical wisdom. But yet it is not only a reasoned state; this is shown by the
fact that a state of that sort may forgotten but practical wisdom cannot.
Book 6, Chapter 6
Scientific knowledge is judgement about things that are universal and
necessary, and the conclusions of demonstration, and all scientific knowledge,
follow from first principles (for scientific knowledge involves apprehension of
a rational ground). This being so, the first principle from which what is
scientifically known follows cannot be an object of scientific knowledge, of
art, or of practical wisdom; for that which can be scientifically known can be
demonstrated, and art and practical wisdom deal with things that are variable.
Nor are these first principles the objects of philosophic wisdom, for it is a
mark of the philosopher to have demonstration about some things. If, then, the
states of mind by which we have truth and are never deceived about things
invariable or even variable are scientific knowlededge, practical wisdom,
philosophic wisdom, and intuitive reason, and it cannot be any of the three
(i.e. practical wisdom, scientific knowledge, or philosophic wisdom), the
remaining alternative is that it is intuitive reason that grasps the first
principles.
Book 6, Chapter 7
Wisdom (1) in the arts we ascribe to their most finished exponents, e.g. to
Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a maker of portrait-statues, and here
we mean nothing by wisdom except excellence in art; but (2) we think that some
people are wise in general, not in some particular field or in any other limited
respect, as Homer says in the Margites,
Him did the gods make neither a digger nor yet a ploughman
Nor wise in
anything else.
Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of
knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what follows from the
first principles, but must also possess truth about the first principles.
Therefore wisdom must be intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge --
scientific knowledge of the highest objects which has received as it were its
proper completion.
Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think that the
art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since man is not
the best thing in the world. Now if what is healthy or good is different for men
and for fishes, but what is white or straight is always the same, any one would
say that what is wise is the same but what is practically wise is different; for
it is to that which observes well the various matters concerning itself that one
ascribes practical wisdom, and it is to this that one will entrust such matters.
This is why we say that some even of the lower animals have practical wisdom,
viz. those which are found to have a power of foresight with regard to their own
life. It is evident also that philosophic wisdom and the art of politics cannot
be the same; for if the state of mind concerned with a man's own interests is to
be called philosophic wisdom, there will be many philosophic wisdoms; there will
not be one concerned with the good of all animals (any more than there is one
art of medicine for all existing things), but a different philosophic wisdom
about the good of each species.
But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this makes no
difference; for there are other things much more divine in their nature even
than man, e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of which the heavens are framed.
From what has been said it is plain, then, that philosophic wisdom is scientific
knowledge, combined with intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by
nature. This is why we say Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have
philosophic but not practical wisdom, when we see them ignorant of what is to
their own advantage, and why we say that they know things that are remarkable,
admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless; viz. because it is not human
goods that they seek.
Practical wisdom on the other hand is concerned with things human and things
about which it is possible to deliberate; for we say this is above all the work
of the man of practical wisdom, to deliberate well, but no one deliberates about
things invariable, nor about things which have not an end, and that a good that
can be brought about by action. The man who is without qualification good at
deliberating is the man who is capable of aiming in accordance with calculation
at the best for man of things attainable by action. Nor is practical wisdom
concerned with universals only -- it must also recognize the particulars; for it
is practical, and practice is concerned with particulars. This is why some who
do not know, and especially those who have experience, are more practical than
others who know; for if a man knew that light meats are digestible and
wholesome, but did not know which sorts of meat are light, he would not produce
health, but the man who knows that chicken is wholesome is more likely to
produce health.
Now practical wisdom is concerned with action; therefore one should have
both forms of it, or the latter in preference to the former. But of practical as
of philosophic wisdom there must be a controlling kind.
Book 6, Chapter 8
Political wisdom and practical wisdom are the same state of mind, but their
essence is not the same. Of the wisdom concerned with the city, the practical
wisdom which plays a controlling part is legislative wisdom, while that which is
related to this as particulars to their universal is known by the general name
'political wisdom'; this has to do with action and deliberation, for a decree is
a thing to be carried out in the form of an individual act. This is why the
exponents of this art are alone said to 'take part in politics'; for these alone
'do things' as manual labourers 'do things'.
Practical wisdom also is identified especially with that form of it which is
concerned with a man himself -- with the individual; and this is known by the
general name 'practical wisdom'; of the other kinds one is called household
management, another legislation, the third politics, and of the latter one part
is called deliberative and the other judicial. Now knowing what is good for
oneself will be one kind of knowledge, but it is very different from the other
kinds; and the man who knows and concerns himself with his own interests is
thought to have practical wisdom, while politicians are thought to be
busybodies; hence the word of Euripides,
But how could I be wise, who might at ease,
Numbered among the army's
multitude,
Have had an equal share?
For those who aim too high and
do too much.
Those who think thus seek their own good, and consider that one ought to do
so. From this opinion, then, has come the view that such men have practical
wisdom; yet perhaps one's own good cannot exist without household management,
nor without a form of government. Further, how one should order one's own
affairs is not clear and needs inquiry.
What has been said is confirmed by the fact that while young men become
geometricians and mathematicians and wise in matters like these, it is thought
that a young man of practical wisdom cannot be found. The cause is that such
wisdom is concerned not only with universals but with particulars, which become
familiar from experience, but a young man has no experience, for it is length of
time that gives experience; indeed one might ask this question too, why a boy
may become a mathematician, but not a philosopher or a physicist. It is because
the objects of mathematics exist by abstraction, while the first principles of
these other subjects come from experience, and because young men have no
conviction about the latter but merely use the proper language, while the
essence of mathematical objects is plain enough to them?
Further, error in deliberation may be either about the universal or about
the particular; we may fall to know either that all water that weighs heavy is
bad, or that this particular water weighs heavy.
That practical wisdom is not scientific knowledge is evident; for it is, as
has been said, concerned with the ultimate particular fact, since the thing to
be done is of this nature. It is opposed, then, to intuitive reason; for
intuitive reason is of the limiting premisses, for which no reason can be given,
while practical wisdom is concerned with the ultimate particular, which is the
object not of scientific knowledge but of perception -- not the perception of
qualities peculiar to one sense but a perception akin to that by which we
perceive that the particular figure before us is a triangle; for in that
direction as well as in that of the major premiss there will be a limit. But
this is rather perception than practical wisdom, though it is another kind of
perception than that of the qualities peculiar to each sense.
Book 6, Chapter 9
There is a difference between inquiry and deliberation; for deliberation is
inquiry into a particular kind of thing. We must grasp the nature of excellence
in deliberation as well whether it is a form of scientific knowledge, or
opinion, or skill in conjecture, or some other kind of thing. Scientific
knowledge it is not; for men do not inquire about the things they know about,
but good deliberation is a kind of deliberation, and he who deliberates inquires
and calculates. Nor is it skill in conjecture; for this both involves no
reasoning and is something that is quick in its operation, while men deliberate
a long time, and they say that one should carry out quickly the conclusions of
one's deliberation, but should deliberate slowly. Again, readiness of mind is
different from excellence in deliberation; it is a sort of skill in conjecture.
Nor again is excellence in deliberation opinion of any sort. But since the man
who deliberates badly makes a mistake, while he who deliberates well does so
correctly, excellence in deliberation is clearly a kind of correctness, but
neither of knowledge nor of opinion; for there is no such thing as correctness
of knowledge (since there is no such thing as error of knowledge), and
correctness of opinion is truth; and at the same time everything that is an
object of opinion is already determined. But again excellence in deliberation
involves reasoning. The remaining alternative, then, is that it is correctness
of thinking; for this is not yet assertion, since, while even opinion is not
inquiry but has reached the stage of assertion, the man who is deliberating,
whether he does so well or ill, is searching for something and calculating.
But excellence in deliberation is a certain correctness of deliberation;
hence we must first inquire what deliberation is and what it is about. And,
there being more than one kind of correctness, plainly excellence in
deliberation is not any and every kind; for (1) the incontinent man and the bad
man, if he is clever, will reach as a result of his calculation what he sets
before himself, so that he will have deliberated correctly, but he will have got
for himself a great evil. Now to have deliberated well is thought to be a good
thing; for it is this kind of correctness of deliberation that is excellence in
deliberation, viz. that which tends to attain what is good. But (2) it is
possible to attain even good by a false syllogism, and to attain what one ought
to do but not by the right means, the middle term being false; so that this too
is not yet excellence in deliberation this state in virtue of which one attains
what one ought but not by the right means. Again (3) it is possible to attain it
by long deliberation while another man attains it quickly. Therefore in the
former case we have not yet got excellence in deliberation, which is rightness
with regard to the expedient -- rightness in respect both of the end, the
manner, and the time. (4) Further it is possible to have deliberated well either
in the unqualified sense or with reference to a particular end. Excellence in
deliberation in the unqualified sense, then, is that which succeeds with
reference to what is the end in the unqualified sense, and excellence in
deliberation in a particular sense is that which succeeds relatively to a
particular end. If, then, it is characteristic of men of practical wisdom to
have deliberated well, excellence in deliberation will be correctness with
regard to what conduces to the end of which practical wisdom is the true
apprehension.
Book 6, Chapter 10
Understanding, also, and goodness of understanding, in virtue of which men
are said to be men of understanding or of good understanding, are neither
entirely the same as opinion or scientific knowledge (for at that rate all men
would have been men of understanding), nor are they one of the particular
sciences, such as medicine, the science of things connected with health, or
geometry, the science of spatial magnitudes. For understanding is neither about
things that are always and are unchangeable, nor about any and every one of the
things that come into being, but about things which may become subjects of
questioning and deliberation. Hence it is about the same objects as practical
wisdom; but understanding and practical wisdom are not the same. For practical
wisdom issues commands, since its end is what ought to be done or not to be
done; but understanding only judges. (Understanding is identical with goodness
of understanding, men of understanding with men of good understanding.) Now
understanding is neither the having nor the acquiring of practical wisdom; but
as learning is called understanding when it means the exercise of the faculty of
knowledge, so 'understanding' is applicable to the exercise of the faculty of
opinion for the purpose of judging of what some one else says about matters with
which practical wisdom is concerned -- and of judging soundly; for 'well' and
'soundly' are the same thing. And from this has come the use of the name
'understanding' in virtue of which men are said to be 'of good understanding',
viz. from the application of the word to the grasping of scientific truth; for
we often call such grasping understanding.
Book 6, Chapter 11
What is called judgement, in virtue of which men are said to 'be sympathetic
judges' and to 'have judgement', is the right discrimination of the equitable.
This is shown by the fact that we say the equitable man is above all others a
man of sympathetic judgement, and identify equity with sympathetic judgement
about certain facts. And sympathetic judgement is judgement which discriminates
what is equitable and does so correctly; and correct judgement is that which
judges what is true.
Now all the states we have considered converge, as might be expected, to the
same point; for when we speak of judgement and understanding and practical
wisdom and intuitive reason we credit the same people with possessing judgement
and having reached years of reason and with having practical wisdom and
understanding. For all these faculties deal with ultimates, i.e. with
particulars; and being a man of understanding and of good or sympathetic
judgement consists in being able judge about the things with which practical
wisdom is concerned; for the equities are common to all good men in relation to
other men. Now all things which have to be done are included among particulars
or ultimates; for not only must the man of practical wisdom know particular
facts, but understanding and judgement are also concerned with things to be
done, and these are ultimates. And intuitive reason is concerned with the
ultimates in both directions; for both the first terms and the last are objects
of intuitive reason and not of argument, and the intuitive reason which is
presupposed by demonstrations grasps the unchangeable and first terms, while the
intuitive reason involved in practical reasonings grasps the last and variable
fact, i.e. the minor premiss. For these variable facts are the starting-points
for the apprehension of the end, since the universals are reached from the
particulars; of these therefore we must have perception, and this perception is
intuitive reason.
This is why these states are thought to be natural endowments -- why, while
no one is thought to be a philosopher by nature, people are thought to have by
nature judgement, understanding, and intuitive reason. This is shown by the fact
that we think our powers correspond to our time of life, and that a particular
age brings with it intuitive reason and judgement; this implies that nature is
the cause. (Hence intuitive reason is both beginning and end; for demonstrations
are from these and about these.) Therefore we ought to attend to the
undemonstrated sayings and opinions of experienced and older people or of people
of practical wisdom not less than to demonstrations; for because experience has
given them an eye they see aright.
We have stated, then, what practical and philosophic wisdom are, and with
what each of them is concerned, and we have said that each is the virtue of a
different part of the soul.
Book 6, Chapter 12
Difficulties might be raised as to the utility of these qualities of mind.
For (1) philosophic wisdom will contemplate none of the things that will make a
man happy (for it is not concerned with any coming into being), and though
practical wisdom has this merit, for what purpose do we need it? Practical
wisdom is the quality of mind concerned with things just and noble and good for
man, but these are the things which it is the mark of a good man to do, and we
are none the more able to act for knowing them if the virtues are states of
character, just as we are none the better able to act for knowing the things
that are healthy and sound, in the sense not of producing but of issuing from
the state of health; for we are none the more able to act for having the art of
medicine or of gymnastics. But (2) if we are to say that a man should have
practical wisdom not for the sake of knowing moral truths but for the sake of
becoming good, practical wisdom will be of no use to those who are good; again
it is of no use to those who have not virtue; for it will make no difference
whether they have practical wisdom themselves or obey others who have it, and it
would be enough for us to do what we do in the case of health; though we wish to
become healthy, yet we do not learn the art of medicine. (3) Besides this, it
would be thought strange if practical wisdom, being inferior to philosophic
wisdom, is to be put in authority over it, as seems to be implied by the fact
that the art which produces anything rules and issues commands about that thing.
These, then, are the questions we must discuss; so far we have only stated
the difficulties.
(1) Now first let us say that in themselves these states must be worthy of
choice because they are the virtues of the two parts of the soul respectively,
even if neither of them produce anything.
(2) Secondly, they do produce something, not as the art of medicine produces
health, however, but as health produces health; so does philosophic wisdom
produce happiness; for, being a part of virtue entire, by being possessed and by
actualizing itself it makes a man happy.
(3) Again, the work of man is achieved only in accordance with practical
wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim at the right mark,
and practical wisdom makes us take the right means. (Of the fourth part of the
soul -- the nutritive -- there is no such virtue; for there is nothing which it
is in its power to do or not to do.)
(4) With regard to our being none the more able to do because of our
practical wisdom what is noble and just, let us begin a little further back,
starting with the following principle. As we say that some people who do just
acts are not necessarily just, i.e. those who do the acts ordained by the laws
either unwillingly or owing to ignorance or for some other reason and not for
the sake of the acts themselves (though, to be sure, they do what they should
and all the things that the good man ought), so is it, it seems, that in order
to be good one must be in a certain state when one does the several acts, i.e.
one must do them as a result of choice and for the sake of the acts themselves.
Now virtue makes the choice right, but the question of the things which should
naturally be done to carry out our choice belongs not to virtue but to another
faculty. We must devote our attention to these matters and give a clearer
statement about them. There is a faculty which is called cleverness; and this is
such as to be able to do the things that tend towards the mark we have set
before ourselves, and to hit it. Now if the mark be noble, the cleverness is
laudable, but if the mark be bad, the cleverness is mere smartness; hence we
call even men of practical wisdom clever or smart. Practical wisdom is not the
faculty, but it does not exist without this faculty. And this eye of the soul
acquires its formed state not without the aid of virtue, as has been said and is
plain; for the syllogisms which deal with acts to be done are things which
involve a starting-point, viz. 'since the end, i.e. what is best, is of such and
such a nature', whatever it may be (let it for the sake of argument be what we
please); and this is not evident except to the good man; for wickedness perverts
us and causes us to be deceived about the starting-points of action. Therefore
it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good.
Book 6, Chapter 13
We must therefore consider virtue also once more; for virtue too is
similarly related; as practical wisdom is to cleverness -- not the same, but
like it -- so is natural virtue to virtue in the strict sense. For all men think
that each type of character belongs to its possessors in some sense by nature;
for from the very moment of birth we are just or fitted for selfcontrol or brave
or have the other moral qualities; but yet we seek something else as that which
is good in the strict sense -- we seek for the presence of such qualities in
another way. For both children and brutes have the natural dispositions to these
qualities, but without reason these are evidently hurtful. Only we seem to see
this much, that, while one may be led astray by them, as a strong body which
moves without sight may stumble badly because of its lack of sight, still, if a
man once acquires reason, that makes a difference in action; and his state,
while still like what it was, will then be virtue in the strict sense.
Therefore, as in the part of us which forms opinions there are two types,
cleverness and practical wisdom, so too in the moral part there are two types,
natural virtue and virtue in the strict sense, and of these the latter involves
practical wisdom. This is why some say that all the virtues are forms of
practical wisdom, and why Socrates in one respect was on the right track while
in another he went astray; in thinking that all the virtues were forms of
practical wisdom he was wrong, but in saying they implied practical wisdom he
was right. This is confirmed by the fact that even now all men, when they define
virtue, after naming the state of character and its objects add 'that (state)
which is in accordance with the right rule'; now the right rule is that which is
in accordance with practical wisdom. All men, then, seem somehow to divine that
this kind of state is virtue, viz. that which is in accordance with practical
wisdom. But we must go a little further. For it is not merely the state in
accordance with the right rule, but the state that implies the presence of the
right rule, that is virtue; and practical wisdom is a right rule about such
matters. Socrates, then, thought the virtues were rules or rational principles
(for he thought they were, all of them, forms of scientific knowledge), while we
think they involve a rational principle.
It is clear, then, from what has been said, that it is not possible to be
good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without
moral virtue. But in this way we may also refute the dialectical argument
whereby it might be contended that the virtues exist in separation from each
other; the same man, it might be said, is not best equipped by nature for all
the virtues, so that he will have already acquired one when he has not yet
acquired another. This is possible in respect of the natural virtues, but not in
respect of those in respect of which a man is called without qualification good;
for with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, will be given all
the virtues. And it is plain that, even if it were of no practical value, we
should have needed it because it is the virtue of the part of us in question;
plain too that the choice will not be right without practical wisdom any more
than without virtue; for the one deter, mines the end and the other makes us do
the things that lead to the end.
But again it is not supreme over philosophic wisdom, i.e. over the superior
part of us, any more than the art of medicine is over health; for it does not
use it but provides for its coming into being; it issues orders, then, for its
sake, but not to it. Further, to maintain its supremacy would be like saying
that the art of politics rules the gods because it issues orders about all the
affairs of the state.
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