Aristotle Reading Guide

Definition of virtue:

“Virtue then is a settled disposition of mind determining the choice of actions…consisting essentially in the observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it.” (Ethics II, vi, 1107a – p. 95).

Proper function of the soul:

“we declare that the function of man is a certain form of life and define that form of life as the exercise of the soul’s faculties and activities in association with a rational principle, and say that the function of a good man is to perform these actions well and rightly, and if a function is well performed… with its own proper excellence…” (Ethics I, vii – p. 33)

Four causes of ethics:

1. Efficient cause: habituation.

“moral or ethical virtue is the product of habit…” (Ethics II, I – p. 71)

“The virtues are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive them and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit.” (Ethics II, I – p. 71)

2. Formal cause: the forms actions take between excess and defect.

“…moral qualities are so constituted as to be destroyed by excess and by deficiency…” (Ethics II, ii - p. 77)

“Thus Temperance and Courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency and preserved by the observance of the mean.” (Ethics II, ii - p. 77)

3. Material cause: the pleasure and pain that ensues on acts; negotiating between excess and defect

“An index of our dispositions is afforded by the pleasure of pain that accompanies our actions.” (Ethics II, iii p. 79)

“In fact, pleasures and pains are the things with which moral virtue is concerned”. (Ethics II, iii p. 79)

4. Final cause: deliberate ethical choice for its own sake from firm character.

“…acts done in conformity with the virtues are not done justly or temperately if they themselves are of a certain sort, but only if the agent (the person, the actor) is in a certain state of mind when he does them: first he must choose with knowledge; secondly he must deliberately choose the act, and choose it for its own sake; and thirdly the act must spring from  a fixed and permanent disposition of character.” (Ethics II, 1v –p. 85)