The Good for Man
Every action aims at some good — but what is the final good at which everything else aims? The answer is eudaimonia, and the argument for it is the function argument.
Summary
Book 1 opens with an observation that looks obvious but has immense consequences: every art, every branch of knowledge, every action and deliberate choice aims at some good. Some goods are sought for the sake of further goods, but this chain cannot go on forever. There must be a final good — the highest of all — and knowing what it is would carry great weight for the conduct of life. Aristotle locates this inquiry within political science, since the good of the community is greater and more complete than the good of the individual.
The candidates people actually offer — pleasure, wealth, honor — are surveyed and found insufficient. Pleasure is pursued even by brutes; honor depends on those who confer it rather than on the person of worth; wealth is merely instrumental. Plato's Form of the Good is rejected in Book 1's most famous aside: though it is better to be respectful of friends, the philosopher loves truth more, and there is no single Form of the good shared across all categories. The good for a pilot, a physician, and a human being are different things discovered by attending to each in its own nature.
To identify eudaimonia's content, Aristotle gives the function argument. Every thing has a characteristic activity: a knife cuts, an eye sees, a harpist plays. A human being's characteristic activity — what distinguishes us from plants and animals — is the activity of the rational part of the soul. The good for a human being is therefore the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are several virtues, in accordance with the best and most complete, over a complete life. The book ends by noting that external goods — some wealth, some health, some luck — are necessary conditions for eudaimonia, though not sufficient for it.
- Book 1Book 1 introduces the question and the method. All action aims at some good; the highest good is eudaimonia. The function argument...
- Book 2Book 2 introduces moral virtue as habit, distinguishes it from intellectual virtue, and gives the doctrine of the mean. Virtue is...
- Book 3Book 3 establishes the theory of voluntary action and moral responsibility, then applies it to the first two virtues: courage...
- Book 4Book 4 works through the moral virtues beyond courage and temperance: generosity, magnificence, magnanimity (the most contested)...
- Book 5Book 5 gives the treatise's full account of justice: general justice (complete virtue toward others) and particular justice...
- Book 6Book 6 introduces the intellectual virtues: scientific knowledge, technical skill, practical wisdom (phronesis), intuitive...
- Book 7Book 7 examines akrasia (weakness of will) — the phenomenon Socrates thought impossible. Aristotle argues it is real: the akratic...
- Book 8Book 8 distinguishes three kinds of friendship — utility, pleasure, and virtue — and argues that only the third is friendship in...
- Book 9Book 9 examines self-love, the dissolution of friendships, the question of how many genuine friends one can have, and the argument...
- Book 10Book 10 revisits pleasure — not a process but an activity, the unimpeded exercise of a faculty — and then answers the treatise's...