Aristotle/Chapter 5

by Alexander Grant

CHAPTER V.

Aristotle’s ‘Ethics.’

Aristotle’s treatise on Morals has come down to us entitled ‘Nicomachean Ethics.’ This label was probably affixed to the work on account of Nicomachus, the son of Aristotle, having had some subordinate connection with it, either as scribe or editor; and in order to distinguish it in the Peripatetic library from the ‘Eudemian Ethics,’ which is a sort of paraphrase of Aristotle’s treatise by his disciple Eudemus,—and from the ‘Great Ethics’ which is a restatement of the same matter by some later Peripatetic hand. Among the Works of Aristotle there is also included a little tract ‘On Virtues and Vices.’ This is a mere paper, such as the Peripatetic school used to produce, noting characteristics of some of the Aristotelian good qualities and their opposites, and with no pretensions to be considered genuine.

After going through, under the guidance of Aristotle, the theory of the reasonings by which knowledge is obtained, and the theory of the statement by which knowledge may be best set forth, we now enter, in the ‘Nicomachean Ethics,’ upon some of the matter of knowledge—namely, Aristotle’s theory of human life. But what strikes us on reading the early chapters of this treatise is that, when he began to write it, Aristotle had no clear conception of the existence of Moral Philosophy as a separate science. The question which he proposes is, What is the end, or supreme good, aimed at by human action? He adds that the science which will have to settle this will be a branch of Politics—that is, of State-philosophy;—for the chief good of the State and of the individual are identical, only the one is on a grander scale than the other. In this exordium we may notice two especially Greek features: first, the cardinal question proposed for the philosophy of human life is not, What is the duty of man? but, What is the chief good for man? Secondly, the individual is so far subordinated to and identified with the State, that the summum bonum for the latter includes that of the former. In Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ (VII. iii. 8), the chief good for a State is portrayed as consisting in the development and play of speculative thought, all fit conditions thereto having been provided. The idea is—a Greek city, with a slave population doing the hard work, wherein the citizens for the most part can live as gentlemen, and a large proportion of them may devote their lives to intellectual pursuits. Aristotle thought that the highest aim for a State was to turn out philosophers, and that the highest aim for an individual was to be a philosopher. Thus there is a seeming identity of aims; yet still in writing his ‘Ethics’ Aristotle confines himself to inquiring after “the good” for the individual. As he goes on, it dawns upon him more and more (see ‘Eth.’ v. 5-11), that “the man” has an independent status distinct from that of “the citizen,” and that in his capacity of human being each citizen has needs, aims, and virtues of his own, irrespective of the State. Thus by composing this work he established the separation of Ethics from Politics,—these two sciences having been previously mixed up together by Socrates and Plato, who were the great founders of both.

What constitutes the chief good for an individual, or in other words, happiness? Aristotle is somewhat abstract and metaphysical in arguing upon this question. He says, happiness must be an end in itself, and not a means to anything else; it must lie within the proper sphere or function of man,—that function being a rational and moral life; it must be, not a merely dormant state, but a state of conscious vitality; and lastly, it must be in accordance with the law of excellence proper to the function of man. Thus we arrive at the general idea that the highest happiness consists in the harmonious exercise of man’s highest powers; and the treatise ends by declaring particularly that the speculative reason is man’s highest endowment, and that the truest happiness consists in philosophic thought.

“This,” he exclaims (‘Eth.’ X. vii. 7), “would be perfect human happiness, if prolonged through a life of full duration. Such a life, however, would be superhuman; for it is not as being man that one will live thus, but by virtue of a certain divine element subsisting within us. Just as this element far excels our composite nature, so does its operation excel action according to the moral virtues. Reason in comparison with man is something divine, and so is the life of Reason divine in comparison with the routine of man’s life. One must not, however, obey those who bid us ‘think humbly as being mortal men,’ nay rather we should indulge immortal longings, and strive to live up to that divine particle within us, which, though it be small in proportionate bulk, yet in power and dignity far surpasses all the other parts of our nature, and which is indeed each man’s proper self. By living in accordance with it our true individuality will be developed. And such a life cannot fail to be happy above all other kinds of life.”

This, then, is the “mark” which Aristotle sets before men to “shoot at” (‘Eth.’ I. ii. 2)—namely, the attainment of a state in which one should live above the world, occupied with philosophic thought. It is an ideal picture, to which, however, approximations may doubtless be made. To attain it completely would be, according to Aristotle, to attain the life of the blessed existences, such as the sun and the fixed stars, and of God Himself, whose essence is Reason, and His life “a thinking upon thought” (‘Met.’ XI. ix. 4). This, he admits, is impossible for us; but yet, he says, we should aim at it. “Secondary to this,” he says, “in point of happiness, is the life of moral virtue.” And here we must notice the peculiar way in which the idea of “virtue” is introduced into the ‘Ethics.’ Instead of at once recognising the law of moral obligation as the deepest thing in man, Aristotle, as we have seen above, introduces the idea of virtue and morality in a dry logical way, saying that the chief good for man must consist in the realisation of his powers “according to their own proper law of excellence.” Having in this colourless and neutral way brought in the term “excellence” or virtue, Aristotle divides it, in relation to man, into moral and intellectual. Of the former he proceeded immediately to treat at length; of the latter he promised to give an account, but only an imperfect realisation of that promise, furnished by the “Eudemian” paraphrase, has come down to us.

Both by the way in which it is introduced, and the terms in which it is finally dismissed (‘Eth.’ X. viii. 1), the moral nature of man is made to hold a subsidiary place in Aristotle’s ‘Ethics.’ Yet still we find that almost all the treatise is taken up with discussions directly or indirectly concerning the practical and moral nature. And thus Aristotle, groping his way in a science which had as yet no distinct landmarks, contributed much towards the subsequent deeper conception of ethical questions. One service which he performed was to distinguish will from reason. Socrates and Plato had been content to describe virtue as knowledge, or an enlightened state of the reason; but Aristotle, like Kant in modern times, defined it as a state of the will. Secondly, he analysed the formation of this state, and explained it by his doctrine of “habits.” By observing the various arts—as, for instance, harp-playing, and the like—he saw that “practice makes perfect;” and concluded that as by playing the harp a man became a harp-player, so by doing just things a man would become just, by doing brave things he would become brave; and, in short, that actions have a tendency to reproduce themselves, and thus to produce habits or states of the will. All this is trite enough now, but it was formulated for the first time by Aristotle.

In laying down his famous doctrine that it is the characteristic of virtue to preserve “the mean,” Aristotle was not entirely original. In this, as in many other cases, he only fixed into scientific form a conception which had been previously floating in the mind of Greece. Hesiod, the Seven Sages, the unknown authors of ‘Maxims,’ the Gnomic poets, Pindar, and the Tragedians, had all preached the doctrine of moderation—a doctrine most congenial to the natural good taste of the Hellenic people, who instinctively despised excess in any form as unintellectual and barbarous. What had hitherto been a universal popular dictum, Plato raised into philosophy, by pointing out (‘Philebus,’ p. 23-27) that in all things the law of “limit” is the cause of good, while th e unlimited, the unregulated, the chaotic—is evil. Thus, in the human body, the unlimited is the tendency to extremes, to disorder, to disease; but the introduction of the limit produces a balance of the constitution and good health. In sounds you have the infinite degrees of deep and high, quick and slow; but the limit gives rise to modulation and harmony, and all that is delightful in music. In climate and temperature, where the limit has been introduced, excessive heats and violent storms subside, and the mild and genial seasons in their order follow. In the human mind “the goddess of the limit” checks into submission the wild and wanton passions, and gives rise to all that is good. Thus, in contemplating all things, whether physical or moral, there was present to the mind of Plato the same train of associations,—the same ideas of measure, proportion, balance, harmony, moderation, and the like. Elsewhere (‘Republic,’ p. 400) he dwells especially on the common characteristics of art and morality, pointing out that measure and symmetry are the causes of excellence in both alike. Aristotle took over these thoroughly Greek ideas from Plato, and adapted them to his own purpose. He slightly changed the mode of expression: instead of “moderation” he introduced a mathematical term, “the mean” (for instance, 4 is the mean between 2 and 6); he used this term as the chief feature in a regular formal definition of moral virtue; and he drew out a table of the virtues showing that each of them was a mean between two extremes. Thus the virtue Courage lies between the vice Cowardice, which is fearing too much, and the vice Rashness, which is fearing too little. And virtue generally is a balance between too much and too little. It is produced by the introduction of the law of the mean into the passions, which in themselves are unlimited. But what is this “mean”—this juste milieu—and how is it ascertained? Aristotle tells us that it is not merely the mid-point between two external quantities, but it is the mid-point relatively to the moral agent. What is too much for one man—say, of danger, expense, indulgence, or self-valuation—may be by no means too much for another man. The moral mean is thus a fluctuating quantity, dependent on considerations of the person and the moment. To hit upon it exactly requires a fine tact, for “virtue is more nice and delicate than the finest of the fine arts” (‘Eth.’ II. vi. 9). This tact, or sense of moral beauty, we have by nature (‘Politics,’ I. ii. 12); but it only exists in perfection, after cultivation by experience, in the mind of the wise man, and to him in all cases must be the ultimate appeal.

Objection has been raised in modem times to the theory of Aristotle, on the ground that it makes only a quantitative difference between virtue and vice. A little more or a little less does not seem to us to constitute the whole difference which subsists between “right” and “wrong.” But we must remember that the Greeks did not speak of actions as “right” or “wrong,” but as “beautiful” and “ugly.” From this point of view each action was looked upon as a work of art; and as in art and literature, so in morals, the great aim was to avoid the “too much” and the “too little,” and thus to attain perfection. This idea of beauty and grace in action pervaded the Hellenic life, and good taste seemed to stand in the place of conscience. To attain “the beautiful” is considered by Aristotle, if inferior to the joys of philosophy, still as a source of very high gratification; and he describes the brave man (‘Eth.’ III. ix. 4) as consciously meeting death in a good cause, and consciously sacrificing a happy life, full of objects which he holds dear, because by so doing he attains “the beautiful.” If we ask, however, what constituted the beauty of this act? Aristotle’s doctrine can only tell us that the brave man dared and feared neither too much nor too little, but in the proper degree and manner, considering the circumstances of the moment. These formulæ, however, do not appear to explain what we should consider the moral beauty of the act in question. We should rather point to the self-sacrifice of the act; the spectacle of an individual preferring to his own life the good of others, the defence of his country, the maintenance of some noble cause—as what was beautiful and touching. “The mean” may serve as a general expression for the law of artistic beauty, but it seems not deep enough to express what we prize most in human action.

Aristotle’s table of the virtues does not, of course, comprise the Christian qualities of humility, charity, chastity, self-devotion, and the like. It even falls short of the summary of human excellence given by Plato in his enumeration of the five cardinal virtues (‘Protag.,’ p. 349)—courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, and holiness. Aristotle separates ethics from religion, and thus leaves out all consideration of “holiness,” or man’s conduct in relation to God. “Wisdom” and “Justice” he reserves to be made the subject of separate discussions: the one as being an excellence of the intellect, and not a “mean state” of the passions; the other as being dependent on, and mixed up with, all the institutions of the State. The table, then, thus restricted, contains the names of nine or ten good qualities, such as would adorn the character of a perfect Grecian gentleman. They are Courage; Temperance; Liberality; Magnificence (liberality on a larger scale); Magnanimity, or Great-souledness; Self-respect (the same on a smaller scale); Mildness; Wit; Truthfulness of manner; and Friendliness. And the pairs of extremes which respectively environ each of these "mean states" are specified, in some cases names being invented for them. The most moral of the virtues here named, from a modem point of view, is Courage, on account of the self-sacrifice, the endurance of danger, pain, and death, which it implies. Temperance is far from being represented by Aristotle as an utter self-abnegation; he says (III. xi. 8) that the temperate man, with due regard to his health, and to the means at his disposal, and acting under the law of the beautiful, will preserve a balance in regard to the pleasures of sense. Aristotle loves the virtues of Liberality and Magnificence (the latter meaning tasteful outlay on great objects) on account of their brilliancy. He undervalues the virtue of saving, and erroneously considers that parsimony does more harm than spendthrift waste. He describes Magnanimity by drawing a fancy portrait of the "Great-souled man." Such a man has all the Aristotelian virtues; he is great and superior to other men, and has a corresponding loftiness of soul. He will not compete for the common objects of ambition; he will only attempt great and important matters, and otherwise will seem inactive; he will be open in friendship and hatred, really straight-forward and deeply truthful, but reserved and ironical in manner to common people. He will live for his friend alone, will wonder at nothing, will bear no malice, will be no gossip, will not be anxious about trifles, will care more to possess that which is beautiful than that which is profitable. His movements are slow, his voice is deep, and his diction is stately.

The four last virtues in the table are qualities to adorn the external man in society, and as such seem more worthy of a place in Lord Chesterfield’s Letters than in a treatise of Moral Philosophy. To be mild without being spiritless; to be friendly without servility; to have a simple manner without either assumption or mock-humility; and to be witty without buffoonery,—these achievements constitute the minor excellences with which Aristotle concludes his list. He was proceeding to show that the law of the mean is exemplified in the instinctive feelings of modesty and virtuous indignation—when, through some unknown cause, his MS broke off (‘Eth.’ IV. ix. 8) in the middle of a sentence.

What should have followed here was, first, a dissertation on the nature of Justice; and, secondly, an account of the Intellectual excellences. And it was very important that this part of the work should be adequately executed. Under the head of Justice fell to be considered (‘Eth.’ IV. vii. 7) the relation of the individual to truth of word and deed. And an adequate account of Justice and of Wisdom might have redeemed Aristotle’s previous account of moral virtue from that superficial appearance which it must be said to present. But unfortunately we do not appear to possess at first hand Aristotle's execution of this part of his task. What happened may perhaps have been this: when Aristotle arrived at this point, he put aside the subject of Justice, to be treated after he had written his ‘Politics’ and had cleared his views on the foundations of Justice in the State. At the same time he put aside the subject of the Intellectual excellences, perhaps till he should have written his ‘Metaphysics.’ It must be remembered that he kept many parts of his Encyclopædia in course of construction at once, and he would drop one part and take up another, as suited his train of thought. In the present case he did not entirely abandon his ‘Ethics,’ but went on to write the three last books, merely leaving the centre part to be filled in subsequently. Doubtless the matter for that centre part was expounded to and discussed in the Peripatetic school, but Aristotle probably never himself expressed it in literary form. When, however, Eudemus came to write his paraphrase of the ‘Ethics,’ he was enabled to fill in the gap which still existed in them by supplying a portion, the matter of which partly came from school notes and partly from Aristotle’s other writings, while the language was that of Eudemus himself, continuous with the rest of the paraphrase. Afterwards Nicomachus, or some other editor, took this supplementary piece from the ‘Eudemian Ethics’ and stuck it in as Books V., VI., VII. of the ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle.

The theory of Justice which has thus come down to us as Aristotle’s, is indistinctly stated in Book V. It seems to be borrowed a good deal from the, ‘Politics;’ it expounds the principles of Justice which exist in the State, and merely defines Justice in the individual as the will to conform to these principles. Thus really no contribution to ethical science is made. It is shown how Justice is manifested (1) in distributions by the State, (2) in correcting wrongs done between man and man, (3) in the ordinary course of commerce. Some first steps in political economy, being remarks on the nature of money, on value, and on price, given in chap, v., are perhaps the most interesting points in this book.

Book VI. appears to be to some extent borrowed from Aristotle’s ‘Organon’ and treatise ‘On the Soul.’ It is confusedly written, and two questions seem to be mixed up in it: (1) What is the Moral Standard? (2) What are the Intellectual excellences? The former question receives no definite answer; with regard to the latter we are informed that there are two distinct and supremely good modes of the intellect—“Wisdom,” which is the culmination of the philosophic reason, and “Thought,” which is the perfection of the practical reason. This latter quality forms the main subject of the book. It is described as being developed in combination with the development of the moral will. It is an ideal attribute, and we are told that “he who has ‘Thought’ possesses all the virtues” (‘Eth.’ VI. xiii. 6). The distinction here indicated between the practical and philosophic reason was undoubtedly a contribution to psychology first made by Aristotle. It was an improvement upon the views of Plato, and a step towards those of Kant.

Book VII. supplies, in the words of Eudemus, a valuable complement to Aristotle’s moral system. It discusses the intermediate states between virtue and vice, and especially analyses the state called “incontinence,” or “weakness,” as exhibited in the process of yielding to temptation. By aid of the forms of the syllogism it is shown how, while having good principles in our mind, we may fail under temptation to act upon them. On the other hand, the idea is introduced of an ideally vicious man, who has no conscience or remorse, but all his mind is in harmony with the dictates of vice; a conception with which we may compare the character drawn by Shelley in his portrait of Count Cenci. The whole of this book is marked by a phraseology different from and later than that of the genuine parts of the ‘Ethics.’ It deals much in physiological considerations, and it winds up with a modified paraphrase of Aristotle’s treatise on Pleasure, given in Book X.

Books VIII. and IX. treat of Friendship, which “is either a virtue, or is closely connected with virtue;” and no part of the whole treatise is more pleasing or admirable. The idea of friendship has probably always found a place among civilised nations, but it obtained peculiar prominence among the Greeks, partly owing to the subordinate position assigned to women, and the consequent rarity of sympathetic marriages. Among the Dorians, from early times, there had subsisted a custom by which each warrior had attached to him, as his squire, a boy whom he was expected to inspire with becoming thoughts. The one member in this pair was called “the inbreather,” the other “the listener.” Out of this custom sentimental relationships arose, which Plato approving wrote his famous descriptions of those pure and passionate attachments between persons of the same sex, known as “Platonic love.” With this sentimentality Aristotle did not sympathise, but yet there is no coldness in his picture of friendship. He asserts enthusiastically the glow of the heart which is caused by contemplating the actions of a virtuous friend (IX. ix. 5), and declares that without this element in life no one can be called truly happy. Lord Bacon’s splendid essay ‘Of Friendship’ may be compared with these pages; but Bacon’s account of the advantages of a friend is on a lower level and less philosophical than that given by Aristotle, who goes to the root of the matter in saying that what a friend really does for you is, by the joint operation of sympathy and contrast, of quasi identity and yet diversity—to intensify the sense of your personal existence, and to give you that vividness of vitality on which happiness depends (IX. ix. 7). In this proposition the two books culminate, but they are full of lucid distinctions, and also of high morality. Friendship (as has been seen above, p. 87) is represented by Aristotle as an utterly disinterested feeling, often calling for great self-sacrifice. Sometimes, he says, the good man may be called upon to die for his friends (IX. viii. 9); and as a delicate form of disinterestedness he inquires whether in some cases one ought not to give up to one’s friend, instead of seizing for one’s self, the opportunity of doing noble actions.

Almost the only matter of any importance in the ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle which we have not already summarised is his disquisition on Pleasure in Book X. There was a good deal of abstract questioning in the time of Aristotle as to whether Pleasure could be “the chief good,” or whether it could be considered a good at all. The Platonists were disposed to be hard upon Pleasure. But all this turned a good deal upon the prior question, “What Pleasure is?” Aristotle showed that an erroneous definition had been taken up by the Platonic school, who considered pleasure to be a sense of restoration,—a sense of our powers, after exhaustion, being brought up to their normal state. Kant has given a very similar definition, saying that “pleasure is the sense of that which promotes life, pain of that which hinders it.” Aristotle says that this is wrong; that it applies only to eating and drinking, and such things, and that Pleasure is not “the sense of what promotes life,” but the sense of life itself; the sense of the vital powers, the sense that any faculty whatsoever has met its proper object. Pleasure, then, according to the Platonists, was the accompaniment of an imperfect condition, like recovery after illness. According to Aristotle it was, except in the case of certain spurious pleasures, the play and action of that which is healthy in us. From this point of view it is obvious that Pleasure must in itself be a good, and that when it consists in the exercise of the highest faculties (see above, p. 102) it becomes identical with the highest happiness. Lest it be thought that this exaltation of Pleasure might have dangerous results from a moral point of view, we will mention one safeguard which accompanies the Aristotelian doctrine. He tells us that for anything to be “good” in life, it must be an end-in-itself: that is,—something desirable for its own sake, and not as a mere means to something else; something thoroughly worthy, in which the mind can rest satisfied. Thus all mere amusements are excluded from being good, because they are not ends-in-themselves. And this maxim may be deduced from Aristotle: “Act as far as possible so that at any moment you may be able to say to yourself, ‘What I am now doing is an end-in-itself.’”