Notes

Nicomachean Ethics - Books 1 and 2

Book 1
-Every "action" has an "end" that is pursued and considered good. For example, the art of medicine's end would be health. However, some ends are subordinate to others - that is, they are done for the sake of another. For example, money is not in itself good but is subordinate to other pleasures. There must be a universal end that is in itself good and not done for any other sake. This end is "happiness". However, knowing a universal end does not help us understand what must be done to achieve it. Political science is considered the greatest art because it directly pursues the happiness of its people.
-Although happiness is agreed to be the greatest end, what it consists of varies between three different kinds of people. Firstly, there are those who believe gratification leads to happiness, and live a life similar to animals grazing grass. Second, there are those who believe virtue leads to happiness, and enter political science to help the overall state. Thirdly, there are those who enter a specific study. Aristotle has yet to talk about this life.
-The human function is reasoning - although humans have a life of growth and nutrition (like plants) and a life of senses and observations (like animals), they have the ability to think rationally. What characterizes an individual human life is its activity. Thus, the human function is the activity of the soul that is in accord with reason. Every function is completed well if it is done in accordance with virtue. Thus, the function of the human soul is also done well if it is in accordance with complete virtue. Humanity also needs a certain extent of external goods (friends, wealth) and an amount of cultivation or learning to achieve happiness.
-Thus, in order to further understand happiness, we must understand virtue. Virtue can be in two forms. Virtue of Thought (wisdom, prudence), and Virtue of Character (temperance, courage).

Book 2
-Virtue of Thought takes teaching and experience, Virtue of Character is formed by habit.
-One can attain virtue in the same way they would attain any other skill. They would perform actions of that art with the intent of growing in skill, and they would perform it rightly. Performing it poorly will make you worse at the art. For example, playing the harp poorly will make you a poor harp player. Performing acts of temperance rightly will make you a temperate man. You must also have the intent of virtue, and practice virtuous action with a firm and unchanging stance.
-There are three conditions of the soul, and virtue must be one of them. Firstly, there are "passions", which are essentially emotions (anger, envy, pity) which are states of soul accompanied by pleasure or pain. Second, there are "capacities", which are states where one is capable of feeling a passion (capacity for anger). Thirdly, there are "characteristics", which are states of the soul that determine when and under what circumstances one feels an emotion (tendency to become angry).
-Virtue cannot be a passion. We are praised for virtue or vice for feeling emotions in a certain way. Virtue cannot be a capacity, because we are not praised for having the capacity of emotion - everyone has the capacity for emotion. Thus, virtue must be a characteristic - we are praised for having certain emotions under certain circumstances in certain ways.
-Virtue is a characteristic that incurs someone "to be in a good state and perform their functions well."
-Most arts and sciences are performed poorly by excess and deficiency. It is the intermediate between excess and deficiency that virtue aims at. For example, virtue aims at courage (not fearing pain to do what one believes is reasonable), and the deficiency is cowardice, the excess is rash fearlessness. Some actions, like murder, do not have an intermediate and are in themselves unvirtuous.
-Identifying and attaining these intermediates is difficult, and there is no precise procedure, only guidelines that must be kept in mind with the intent of attaining the intermediates.