The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

desires? 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. 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. It is time that such a life is not distinctively human, but it is the privilege of man to partake in it, and such participation, at however rare intervals and for however short a period, is the highest Happiness which human life can offer. All other activities have value only because and in so far as they render _this_ life possible. But it must not be forgotten that Aristotle conceives of this life as one of intense activity or energising: it is just this which gives it its supremacy. In spite of the almost religious fervour with which he speaks of it (“the most orthodox of his disciples” paraphrases his meaning by describing its content as “the service and vision of God”), it is clear that he identified it with the life of the philosopher, as he understood it, a life of ceaseless intellectual activity in which at least at times all the distractions and disturbances inseparable from practical life seemed to disappear and become as nothing. This ideal was partly an inheritance from the more ardent idealism of his master Plato, but partly it was the expression of personal experience. The nobility of this ideal cannot be questioned; the conception of the end of man or a life lived for truth—of a life blissfully absorbed in the vision of truth—is a lofty and inspiring one. But we cannot resist certain criticisms upon its presentation by Aristotle: (1) the relation of it to the lower ideal of practice is left somewhat obscure; (2) it is described in such a way as renders its realisation possible only to a gifted few, and under exceptional circumstances; (3) it seems in various ways, as regards its content, to be unnecessarily and unjustifiably limited. But it must be borne in mind that this is a first endeavour to determine its principle, and that similar failures have attended the attempts to describe the “religious” or the “spiritual” ideals of life, which have continually been suggested by the apparently inherent limitations of the “practical” or “moral” life, which is the subject of Moral Philosophy. The Moral Ideal to those who have most deeply reflected on it leads to the thought of an Ideal beyond and above it, which alone gives it meaning, but which seems to escape from definite conception by man. The richness and variety of this Ideal ceaselessly invite, but as ceaselessly defy, our attempts to imprison it in a definite formula or portray it in detailed imagination. Yet the thought of it is and remains inexpungable from our minds. This conception of the best life is not forgotten in the _Politics_ The end of life in the state is itself well-living and well-doing—a life which helps to produce the best life The great agency in the production of such life is the State operating through Law, which is Reason backed by Force. For its greatest efficiency there is required the development of a science of legislation. The main drift of what he says here is that the most desirable thing would be that the best reason of the community should be embodied in its laws. But so far as that is not possible, it still is true that anyone who would make himself and others better must become a miniature legislator—must study the general principles of law, morality, and education. The conception of πολιτικὴ with which he opened the _Ethics_ would serve as a guide to a father educating his children as well as to the legislator legislating for the state. Finding in his predecessors no developed doctrine on this subject, Aristotle proposes himself to undertake the construction of it, and sketches in advance the programme of the _Politics_ in the concluding sentence of the _Ethics_ His ultimate object is to answer the questions, What is the best form of Polity, how should each be constituted, and what laws and customs should it adopt and employ? Not till this answer is given will “the philosophy of human affairs” be complete. On looking back it will be seen that the discussion of the central topic of the nature and formation of character has expanded into a Philosophy of Human Conduct, merging at its beginning and end into metaphysics The result is a Moral Philosophy set against a background of Political Theory and general Philosophy. The most characteristic features of this Moral Philosophy are due to the fact of its essentially teleological view of human life and action: (1) Every human activity, but especially every human practical activity, is directed towards a simple End discoverable by reflection, and this End is conceived of as the object of universal human desire, as something to be enjoyed, not as something which ought to be done or enacted. Anstotle’s Moral Philosophy is not hedonistic but it is eudæmomstic, the end is the enjoyment of Happiness, not the fulfilment of Duty. (2) Every human practical activity derives its value from its efficiency as a means to that end, it is good or bad, right or wrong, as it conduces or fails to conduce to Happiness Thus his Moral Philosophy is essentially utilitarian or prudential Right action presupposes Thought or Thinking, partly on the development of a clearer and distincter conception of the end of desire, partly as the deduction from that of rules which state the normally effective conditions of its realisation. The thinking involved in right conduct is calculation—calculation of means to an end fixed by nature and foreknowable Action itself is at its best just the realisation of a scheme preconceived and thought out beforehand, commending itself by its inherent attractiveness or promise of enjoyment. This view has the great advantage of exhibiting morality as essentially reasonable, but the accompanying disadvantage of lowering it into a somewhat prosaic and unideal Prudentialism, nor is it saved from this by the tacking on to it, by a sort of after-thought, of the second and higher Ideal—an addition which ruins the coherence of the account without really transmuting its substance The source of our dissatisfaction with the whole theory lies deeper than in its tendency to identify the end with the maximum of enjoyment or satisfaction, or to regard the goodness or badness of acts and feelings as lying solely in their efficacy to produce such a result It arises from the application to morality of the distinction of means and end For this distinction, for all its plausibility and usefulness in ordinary thought and speech, cannot finally be maintained In morality—and this is vital to its character—everything is both means and end, and so neither in distinction or separation, and all thinking about it which presupposes the finality of this distinction wanders into misconception and error. The thinking which really matters in conduct is not a thinking which imaginatively forecasts ideals which promise to fulfil desire, or calculates means to their attainment—that is sometimes useful, sometimes harmful, and always subordinate, but thinking which reveals to the agent the situation in which he is to act, both, that is, the universal situation on which as man he always and everywhere stands, and the ever-varying and ever-novel situation in which he as this individual, here and now, finds himself. In such knowledge of given or historic fact lie the natural determinants of his conduct, in such knowledge alone lies the condition of his freedom and his good. But this does not mean that Moral Philosophy has not still much to learn from Aristotle’s _Ethics_. The work still remains one of the best introductions to a study of its important subject-matter, it spreads before us a view of the relevant facts, it reduces them to manageable compass and order, it raises some of the central problems, and makes acute and valuable suggestions towards their solution. Above all, it perpetually incites to renewed and independent reflection upon them. J. A. SMITH The following is a list of the works of Aristotle:— First edition of works (with omission of Rhetorica, Poetica, and second book of Economica), 5 vols by Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1495 8, re impression supervised by Erasmus and with certain corrections by Grynaeus (including Rhetorica and Poetica), 1531, 1539, revised 1550, later editions were followed by that of Immanuel Bekker and Brandis (Greek and Latin), 5 vols. The 5th vol contains the Index by Bomtz, 1831-70, Didot edition (Greek and Latin), 5 vols 1848 74 ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Edited by T Taylor, with Porphyry’s Introduction, 9 vols, 1812, under editorship of J A Smith and W D Ross, II vols, 1908-31, Loeb editions Ethica, Rhetorica, Poetica, Physica, Politica, Metaphysica, 1926-33 Later editions of separate works _De Anima_ Torstrik, 1862, Trendelenburg, 2nd edition, 1877, with English translation, L Wallace, 1882, Biehl, 1884, 1896, with English, R D Hicks, 1907 _Ethica_ J S Brewer (Nicomachean), 1836, W E Jelf, 1856, J F T Rogers, 1865, A Grant, 1857 8, 1866, 1874, 1885, E Moore, 1871, 1878, 4th edition, 1890, Ramsauer (Nicomachean), 1878, Susemihl, 1878, 1880, revised by O Apelt, 1903, A Grant, 1885, I Bywater (Nicomachean), 1890, J Burnet, 1900 _Historia Animalium_ Schneider, 1812, Aubert and Wimmer, 1860; Dittmeyer, 1907 _Metaphysica_ Schwegler, 1848, W Christ, 1899 _Organon_ Waitz, 1844 6 _Poetica_ Vahlen, 1867, 1874, with Notes by E Moore, 1875, with English translation by E R Wharton, 1883, 1885, Uberweg, 1870, 1875, with German translation, Susemihl, 1874, Schmidt, 1875, Christ, 1878, I Bywater, 1898, T G Tucker, 1899 _De Republica Athenientium_ Text and facsimile of Papyrus, F G Kenyon, 1891, 3rd edition, 1892, Kaibel and Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, 1891, 3rd edition, 1898, Van Herwerden and Leeuwen (from Kenyon’s text), 1891, Blass, 1892, 1895, 1898, 1903, J E Sandys, 1893 _Politica_ Susemihl, 1872, with German, 1878, 3rd edition, 1882, Susemihl and Hicks, 1894, etc, O Immisch, 1909 _Physica_ C Prantl, 1879 _Rhetorica_ Stahr, 1862, Sprengel (with Latin text), 1867, Cope and Sandys, 1877, Roemer, 1885, 1898 ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ONE OR MORE WORKS De Anima (with Parva Naturalia), by W A Hammond, 1902 Ethica Of Morals to Nicomachus, by E Pargiter, 1745, with Politica by J Gillies, 1797, 1804, 1813, with Rhetorica and Poetica, by T Taylor, 1818, and later editions Nicomachean Ethics, 1819, mainly from text of Bekker by D P Chase, 1847, revised 1861, and later editions, with an introductory essay by G H Lewes (Camelot Classics) 1890, re-edited by J M Mitchell (New Universal Library), 1906, 1910, by R W Browne (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848, etc, by R Williams, 1869, 1876, by W M Hatch and others (with translation of paraphrase attributed to Andronicus of Rhodes), edited by E Hatch, 1879 by F H Peters, 1881, J E C Welldon, 1892, J Gillies (Lubbock’s Hundred Books) 1893 Historia Animalium, by R Creswell (Bonn’s Classical Library) 1848, with Treatise on Physiognomy, by T Taylor, 1809 Metaphysica, by T Taylor, 1801, by J H M Mahon (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848 Organon, with Porphyry’s Introduction, by O F Owen (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848 Posterior Analytics, E Poste, 1850, E S Bourchier, 1901, On Fallacies, E Poste, 1866 Parva Naturaha (Greek and English), by G R T Ross, 1906, with De Anima, by W A Hammond, 1902 Youth and Old Age, Life and Death and Respiration, W Ogle 1897 Poetica, with Notes from the French of D Acier, 1705, by H J Pye, 1788, 1792, T Twining, 1789, 1812, with Preface and Notes by H Hamilton, 1851, Treatise on Rhetorica and Poetica, by T Hobbes (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1850, by Wharton, 1883 (see Greek version), S H Butcher, 1895, 1898, 3rd edition, 1902, E S Bourchier, 1907, by Ingram Bywater, 1909 De Partibus Animalium, W Ogle, 1882 De Republica Athenientium, by E Poste, 1891, F G Kenyon, 1891, T J Dymes, 1891 De Virtutibus et Vitus, by W Bridgman, 1804 Politica, from the French of Regius, 1598, by W Ellis, 1776, 1778, 1888 (Morley’s Universal Library), 1893 (Lubbock’s Hundred Books) by E Walford (with Æconomics, and Life by Dr Gillies), (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848, J E. C. Welldon, 1883, B Jowett, 1885, with Introduction and Index by