HAPPINESS AND THE HUMAN GOOD

After these prefatory remarks let us first start from what we have called the first unilluminating judgments, seeking to discover in an illuminating manner what happiness is. Now this is admitted to be the greatest and best of human goods—we say human, because there might perhaps be a happiness peculiar to some superior being (say, a god); for of the other animals, which are inferior in their nature to men, none share the epithet 'happy': no horse, bird, or fish is happy, nor anything the name of which does not imply some share of a divine element in its nature; rather, it is in virtue of some other sort of participation in good things that some have a better life and some a worse.

We must examine later whether this is so. At present we say that of goods some are matters of human action, some not; and this we say because some things—and therefore also some good things—do not change, yet these are perhaps as to their nature the best. Some things, again, are matters of action, but only to beings superior to us. Things are said to be matters action in two ways; for both that for the sake of which we act and the things we do for its sake are matters of action—for instance, we put among matters of action health and riches and also the acts done for the sake of them (namely, healthy practices and business affairs). So it is plain that we must regard happiness as the best of what are matters of human action.

We must then examine what is the chief good, and in how many ways we speak of it. The answer seems principally to be contained in three beliefs. For men say that goodness itself is the best of all things, goodness itself being that whose property is to be the primary good and the cause by its presence in other things of their being good. They say that both belong to the Idea of good (I mean by 'both', being the primary good and being the cause of other things' being good by its presence in them). For it is especially of this that the good is predicated truly (other things being good by participation in and likeness to this); and this is the primary good—for the destruction of that which is participated in involves also the destruction of that which participates in the Idea and is named from its participation. But this is the relation of the primary to the later, so that the Idea of good is goodness itself—for it is (they say) separable from what participates in it, like all other Ideas.

The consideration of this belief belongs necessarily to another inquiry and one more general; for arguments that are at once destructive and general belong to no other science. But if we must speak briefly about these matters, we say first that it is speaking generally and emptily to say that there is an Idea whether of good or of anything else—this has been considered in many ways both in our public and in our philosophical discussions. Next, however much there are Ideas and in particular an Idea of good, they are perhaps useless with a view to a good life and to action. For things are said to be good in as many ways as they are said to be. Being, as we have divided it in other works, indicates now quiddity, now quality, now quantity, now time, and again some of it consists in being changed and in changing; and the good is found in each of these modes: in substance as intelligence and god, in quality as justice, in quantity as appropriateness, in time as opportunity, while as examples of it in change, we have that which teaches and that which is being taught. As then being is not one in all the cases we have mentioned, so neither is goodness; nor is there one science either of being or of goodness.

Not even things named good in the same form are matters for a single science—for instance, opportunity or appropriateness. Rather, one science considers one kind of opportunity or appropriateness, and another another: for instance, opportunity and appropriateness in regard to food are studied by medicine and gymnastics, in military actions by generalship, and similarly with other sorts of action, so that it can hardly be the province of one science to consider goodness itself.

Further, in things having a prior and posterior, there is no common element apart from them and separable. For then there would be something prior to the first; for the common and separable element would be prior, because with its destruction the first would be destroyed as well: for instance, if the double is the first of the multiples, then the multiple which is predicable in common cannot be separable, for it would be prior to the double. If the common element turns out to be the Idea: for instance, if one made the common element separable. For if justice is good, and so also is courage, there is then, they say, goodness itself—for which they add 'itself' to the common definition. But what could this mean except that it is eternal and separable? Yet what is white for many days is no whiter than that which is white for a single day; so the good will not be more good by being eternal. Hence the common good is not identical with the Idea; for the common good belongs to all.

We should show the nature of goodness itself in the opposite way to that now used. For now from what is not agreed to possess the good they show to be good the things admitted to be good—for instance, from numbers they show that justice and health are goods, for they are arrangements and numbers, and it is supposed that goodness is a property of numbers and units because unity is goodness itself. But they ought, from what are admitted to be goods (for instance, health, strength, and temperance), to show that nobility is present even more in the changeless; for all these things are order and rest. If so, then the changeless is still more noble; for it has these attributes still more. And it is a bold way to demonstrate that unity is goodness itself on the grounds that numbers have desire; for they do not make it evident how they desire but speak in altogether too abstract a way. And how can one assume that there is desire where there is no life? One should think seriously about this and not suppose without reasons what it is not easy to be convinced of even with reasons. And to say that all existing things desire some one good is not true; for each seeks its own special good—the eye vision, the body health, and so on.

There are then these problems in the way of there being goodness itself. Further, it would be useless to political science, which, like all others, has its proper good—as, for instance, gymnastics has good bodily condition. And similarly, neither is the common good either goodness itself (for it might belong even to a small good) or a matter of action (for medicine does not consider how to procure an attribute that may be an attribute of anything, but how to procure health; and so each of the other crafts). But goodness is manifold, and one part of it is nobility, and part is a matter of action and part not. The sort of good that is a matter of action is an object aimed at, but the good in things unchanging is not like that.

It is evident, then, that neither the Idea of good nor the common good is the goodness itself that we are looking for; for the one is unchanging and not a matter of action, and the other, though changing, is not a matter of action either. But the object aimed at as end is best, and the cause of all that comes under it, and primary in relation to all goods. This then will be goodness itself: the end of matters of human action. And this is what comes under the craft that is authoritative over all others, which is politics and economics and wisdom. For these disciplines differ from the others by their being of this nature; whether they differ from one another must be stated later. And that the end is the cause of what comes under it, the method of teaching makes plain; for the teacher first defines the end and thence shows of each of the other things that it is good; for the end aimed at is the cause. For instance, since to be in health is such-and-such, such-and-such must needs be what is advantageous for it. The healthy is the moving cause of health and yet only of its existence: it is not the cause of health's being good. Further, no one shows that health is good (unless he is a sophist and no doctor but someone who produces sophistical arguments that are foreign to the subject), any more than he proves any other originating principle.

We must now consider, making a fresh start, in how many ways the good as the end of man and the best thing among matters of action, is the best of all, since it is best.

After this, then, let us make a new start and speak about what comes next. All goods are either outside or in the soul, and of these those in the soul are more desirable (this distinction we make in our public discussions). For wisdom, virtue, and pleasure are in the soul, and some or all of these seem to all to be the end. But internal to the soul some items are states or capacities, others activities and movements.

Let this then be supposed, and also that virtue is the best condition or state or capacity of all things that have a use or a task. This is plain from an induction; for in all cases we lay this down: for instance, a garment has a virtue, for it does something and is used, and the best state of the garment is its virtue; so too with a boat, a house, and the like. So too, therefore, with the soul—for it has a task. And let us suppose that the better the state, the better the task; and as the states are to one another, so let us suppose the corresponding tasks to be to one another. And the task of anything is its end. It is evident, therefore, from this that the task is better than the state; for the end is best, as being an end; for we supposed the best, the ultimate item, to be the end which everything else is for the sake of. That the task, then, is better than the state or condition is plain.

There are two ways in which we speak of tasks: in some cases, the task is something in addition to the use—for instance, in housebuilding it is the house and not just the act of building, and in medicine it is health and not just the curing and restoring to health; while the task of other things is the use—for instance, of vision it is seeing, and of mathematical science contemplation. Hence, necessarily, where the task is the use, the use is better than the state.

Having made these distinctions, we say that the task of a thing is the same as the task of its virtue, only not in the same way. For instance, the task both of the craft of cobbling and of the action of cobbling is a shoe: if, then, the craft of cobbling and the good cobbler have a virtue, their task is a good shoe. And similarly with other cases.

Further, let the task of the soul be to produce life, that is to say the exercise of life while awake—for slumber is a sort of idleness and rest. Therefore, since the task must be one and the same both for the soul and for its virtue, the task of the virtue of the soul will be a virtuous life. This, then, is the final good, which (as we saw) is happiness. And it is plain from our suppositions (namely, that happiness is the chief good, that ends and the best goods are in the soul, and that happiness itself is either a state or an activity), that since an activity is better than the corresponding state, and the best activity than the best state, and since virtue is the best state, the activity of the virtue of the soul is the chief good. But happiness, we saw, is the chief good. Therefore happiness is the activity of a good soul. But since happiness is something complete, and life is either complete or incomplete and so also virtue—total or partial—and the activity of what is incomplete is itself incomplete, happiness will be the activity of a complete life in accordance with complete virtue.

That we have rightly stated its genus and definition common opinions bear witness. For to do well and to live well are held to be identical with being happy, and each of these— living and doing—is a use or activity; for the life of action is one of use: the smith produces a bridle, the good horseman uses it.

It is also held that one cannot be happy for just a single day, or while a child, or for any single stage of life: that is why Solon's advice holds good, never to call a man happy when living, but only when his life is ended. For nothing incomplete is happy, not being whole.

Further, to virtue praise is given, because of its deeds; and to the deeds, encomia: we crown the winners, not those who have the capacity to win but do not win. Further, the character of a man is assessed by his deeds. Further, why is happiness not praised? Surely because other things are praised owing to this, either by their having reference to it or by their being parts of it. That is why felicitation, praise, and encomia differ; for encomia address the particular deed, praise the general character, and felicitation the end.

This makes plain the problem that is sometimes raised—why for half their lives are the good no better than the base? For all are alike when asleep. The cause is that sleep is an idleness, not an activity of the soul. That is why, even if there is some other part of the soul (for instance, the nutritive part), its virtue is not a part of entire virtue, any more than the virtue of the body is; for in sleep the nutritive part is more active, while the perceptual and the desiderative are incomplete in sleep. But as far as they do partake of some sort of movement, even the dreams of the virtuous are better than those of the bad, unless they are caused by disease or maiming.

VIRTUE

After this we must consider the soul. For virtue belongs to the soul and not coincidentally. But since we are investigating human virtue, let it be supposed that the parts of the soul partaking of reason are two, but that they partake not in the same way, but the one by its natural tendency to command, the other by its natural tendency to obey and listen. (If there is a part that is non-rational in some other way, let it be disregarded.) It makes no difference whether the soul is divisible or indivisible, so long as it has different capacities, namely those mentioned above, just as in a curve it is not possible to separate the concave from the convex, or, again, the straight from the white, although the straight is not white except coincidentally and is not the same in substance.

We also neglect any other part of the soul that there may be, for instance the vegetative. For the above-mentioned parts are peculiar to the human soul. (That is why the virtues of the nutritive part and that concerned with growth are not those of man.) For qua man he must have the power of calculating, of originating things, and of action. But calculation governs not calculation but desire and the emotions: he must then have these parts. And just as good condition of the body is compounded of the partial virtues, so also is the virtue of the soul, qua end.

Of virtue there are two species, the moral and the intellectual. For we praise not only the just but also the judicious and men of understanding. For we supposed that what is praiseworthy is either the virtue or what it does, and these are not activities but have activities. Since the intellectual virtues involve reason, they belong to that rational part of the soul which gives commands by its possession of reason, while the moral belong to the part which is irrational but by its nature obedient to the part possessing reason; for we describe the character of a man by saying not that he is a man of understanding or clever but that he is good-tempered or over-confident.

After this we must first consider moral virtue, its quiddity, its parts—for our inquiry has come round to this—and how it is produced. We must inquire as everyone does in other things: we inquire having something to start from, so that by way of true but unilluminating judgments, we always try to grasp what is true and illuminating.