The Ethics of Aristotle

Aristotle, 384 BC-322 BC
Produced by Ted Garvin, David Widger, and the DP Team.

BOOK I
VII
Chief Good = Happiness
X
Happy is the man who works in perfect virtue and is furnished with sufficient external goods.
XII
Encomia: Happiness belongs to the class of things precious and final.
XIII
Excellence of a man's soul, in regard to Happiness.
The Soul consists of the Irrational and the Rational.
Rational part contains Reason.
Irrational: desire or appetion.
Ecellence of man divided to two classes: Intellectual and Moral.

BOOK II
I
II
Right Reason
Self Mastery and Courage and other Virtues:
  Spoiled by the excess and defect, but by mean state are preserved.
VII
Mean state needed, not excess or defect:
_ In respect of fears and confidence or boldness.
_ In respect of pleasures and pains.
_ In respect of giving and taking wealth.
_ In respect of wealth
_ In respect of honour and dishonour.
_ In respect of anger.
_ In respect to relaxation and amusement.
_ In respect to all things which occur in daily life.
_ In respect of truth.

IX
The main state is in all things praiseworthy.
We must sometimes deflect toward excess and sometimes toward defect = the easiest method of hitting on the mean.

BOOK III
I
Voluntary and involuntary actions
II
Acting because of ignorance and acting with ignorance.
Moral Choice is plainly voluntary.
Lust and anger.
Wish, opinion: vs Moral Choice.
III
Deliberation respecting practical matters within our own power.
Vice is in our power, so too is forbearing.
Courage and the Brave man.
VII
Courage is a main state in respect of objects inspiring boldness or fear.
VIII
Courage of Citizenship
Courage of Experience and Skill
Courage of Animal Spirit
Courage of the Sanguine and Hopeful
Courage of Ignorance
IX
Boldness and Fear in Courage.
X
Perfected Self-Mastery and bodily Pleasures.
XI
Lusts or desires.
The man of Perfected Self -Mastery.
XII
Cowardice as a confirmed habit seem to be voluntary.
BOOK IV
I
Liberality in giving and receiving weath.
Mean state vs Prodigality and Stinginess.
II
Magnificence vs Meanness or Vulgar Profusion.
III
Great-mindedness vs Vain or Small-minded.
Honour then and dishonour is especially th object-matter of the Great-minded man.
V
Meekness vs Anger or Angerlessness.
Choleric and Cross-grained = versions of Anger.
VI
Friendship vs Cross and Contentious or Over-Complaisant.
VII
Truthful vs Exaggerator or Reserved.
Braggarts vs Reserved.
VIII
Jocularity vs Buffoons and Vulgar or Clownish and Stern.
Tact and Easy Pleasantry.
IX
Shame is more a feeling rather than a moral state (more for youth).
BOOK V
I
Just vs Unjust men. Follow laws or not.
Justice often thought of to be the best of the Virtues.
II
More than one kind of Justice; the lawful and the equal. (Virtue)
The Unjust = the unlawful and the unequal. (Vice)
III
The Just and the Unjust:  Proportions.
IV
Corrective: gain and loss of the good, decisions of a judge.
Just and judges are both of the mean.
V
Reciprocation and voluntariness and involuntariness of actions.
Money is a medium to measure all things, a representative of Demand. (Greek = nomisma)
VI
VIII
Voluntary and involuntary actions.
Misadventure or a Mistake?
IX
It is a characteristic of the equitable man to take less than his due.
Just and Equitable are identical - Equitable better of the two.
XI
Can a man deal unjustly by himself? Suicide is harmful to the community.  Usually the answer is no.

Book VI
The mean is according to the dictates of Right Reason.
II
Intellect and Will are connected.
IV
Making and Doing are two different things.
Art involves Making. Art is a state of mind, apt to Make, conjoined with true Reason.
V
Practical Wisdom: must be a state if mind true, conjoined with Reason, and apt to Do.
VI
Intuition.
VIII
Science, the most accurate of all Knowledge.
Scientific stays the same, the Practically Wise varies.
Science is the union of Knowledge and Intuition.
IX
Good Cousel is a Rightness of deliberation of such nature as is apt to attain good.
X
Judiciousness consists in employing the Opinionative faculty in judging things which come within the province of Practical Wisdom.
XI
Practical Intuition and Practicallywise.
XII
Science makes Happiness.
Cleverness.
A man can not be a Practically-Wise without being a good man.
XIII
Natural Virtue and Matured Virtue.
APPENDIX
On [Greek: epistaemae]

Book VII
I
Vice, Imperfect Self-Control, and Brutishness.
Virtue, Self-Control, and Superhuman.
II
III
IV
Self-Control and Endurance
Imperfect Self-Control and Softness
V
Brutish and Morbid Imperfection of Self-Control.
VI
Imperfect Self-Control in respect to Anger or Lust.
VIII
X
Practical Wisdom and Imperfect Self-Control not in the same man.
XII
Pleasure and Pain.
Is Pleasure not good or the Chief Good?
No Pleasure is the work of any Art.
The man of Perfected Self-Master avoids Pleasures.
Children and brutes pursue Pleasure.
XIII
Bodily Pleasures good?
XIV
Why are Bodily Pains bad?
Bodily Pleasure drives out Pain.

Book VIII
I
Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities.
Where people are in Friendship Justice is not required.
Common sayings: "Like will be like," "Birds of a feather."
II
Friendship = Kindliness between persons who reciprocate it.
III
Motives of Friendships:
-  Utility
-  Pleasure
-  Hospitality
IV
Secondary Friendships
V
Friendship of companionship.
VII
Friendship of unequals:
- father and son
- ruler and ruled
- husband and wife
etc.
VII
IX
The goods of friends are common.
Justice increases with the degree of Friendship.
X
Political Constitutions, 3 kinds of Friendship:
- Kingship, Aristocracy, Timocracy (from weath), Monarchy.
  (Despotism is corrupt, pursuing for its own good)
- Oligarchy
- Democracy
In Domestic life:
Father and Sons = Kingship
Husband and Wife = Aristocracy or Oligarchy
Brothers = Timocracy
Families with no head = Democracy
XI
In Despotism little or no Friendship or Justice.
XII
All Friendship is based on Communion and Hospitality.
The Friendship of Kindred is of many kinds.
XIII
XIV
In unequal Friendships Quarrels arise and then Friendships may break up.

BOOK IX
I
A Friendship comes to be broken up because the motives to it cease to exist.
With specified award a friend should be content.
II
Questions regarding obligations to help others.
III
Questions regarding dissolving Friendships.
IV
Changing characteristics of a man later in life.
V
Kindly Feelings resembling Friendship.
VI
Unity of Sentiment is connected with Friendship.
VII
Benefactors related to Friendship.
VIII
Is it right to love one's self best or someone else?
IX
Will the Happy man want Friends or not?
The Happy man does need Friends.
X
Limits on the number of Friends.
XI
Are Friends most needed in Prosperity or Adversity?

BOOK X
I
Pleasure.
II
Is Pleasure the Chief Good?
III
Pleasures differ in kind.
Pleasure is not th Chief Good nor is every kind of it Choiceworthy.
IV
Pleasure is not a Movement.
VI
Happiness has no lack of anything but is self-sufficient.
VII
Excellence and self-sufficiency.
VIII
Pure Intellect is separate and distinct.
Moral Happiness
IX
How one may acquire the faculty of Legislation.

NOTES by interpreters:
Collections of Laws and Constitutions.
The Science of Society
Moral Philosophy
Ehtics Proper
The detail of Civil Government

Reading complete on 5/28/2011
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