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Book II Chapter 7

Intrinsic and Productive Goods

Again, some goods are choiceworthy only for their own sake, such as pleasure and freedom from disturbance; some are only productive, such as wealth; and some are ⟨both⟩ productive and choiceworthy for their own sake, such as virtue, friends, and health.⁶²⁷

Homonymy and the Categories

Goods are also divided in many other ways, because they do not constitute one genus but are spoken of according to the ten categories. For “good” is expressed homonymously: all such things have only a name in common, while the account corresponding to that name differs.⁶²⁸

Ethical Virtue and the Parts of the Soul

With these distinctions now made, we must examine more precisely what is said about ethical virtue.⁶²⁹ For they suppose that it arises in the nonrational part of the soul, since, for the present inquiry, they have assumed that the soul has two parts, one possessing reason and the other nonrational.⁶³⁰

Virtues of the Rational and Nonrational Parts

In the rational part arise nobility and goodness, practical wisdom, quickness of wit, wisdom, ease of learning, memory, and similar qualities.⁶³¹ In the nonrational part arise self-control, justice, courage, and the other virtues called ethical.⁶³²

Deficiency Excess and Due Measure

These virtues, they say, are destroyed by deficiency and excess. To demonstrate this they use the evidence of the senses, wishing to provide assurance drawn from visible things ⟨concerning⟩ things that are not visible.⁶³³ For example, strength is destroyed both by too much exercise and by too little. The same holds for drink and food: too much or too little destroys health, whereas due measure in these things preserves both strength and health. So it is similarly with self-control, courage, and the other virtues.⁶³⁴

Courage and Fear

For someone whose nature is such that he does not fear even a thunderbolt is mad rather than courageous. Conversely, someone who fears everything, even a shadow, is ignoble and cowardly. The person who fears neither everything nor nothing is, by common agreement, courageous.⁶³⁵

The Growth and Destruction of Virtue

These things, then, both increase and destroy virtue: measured fears increase courage, while greater or lesser fears destroy it. Similarly with the other virtues: the excesses and deficiencies associated with them destroy them, while due measures increase them.⁶³⁶

Pleasure and Pain

Virtue is marked out not only by these things but also by pleasure and pain. For pleasure leads us to do base things, and pain to refrain from noble things. Neither virtue nor vice can be acquired without pain and pleasure. Virtue, therefore, concerns pleasures and pains.⁶³⁷

Passions Capacities and States

To explain these matters clearly, they thought it necessary to include in the account what occurs in the soul. They say that these things are present in human souls: passions, capacities, and states. Passions are anger, fear, hatred, longing, emulation, pity, and similar things, which pleasure and pain accompany.⁶³⁸ ⟨And⟩ capacities are those by which we are said to be susceptible to these things—for example, those by which we become angry, afraid, or emulous, or experience any such passion. States are those by which we stand in a certain way toward these things, and from which their activity comes about well or badly.⁶³⁹

Irascibility Slackness and Gentleness

Hence, if someone became angry so readily as to do so at everything and in every way, he would appear to possess the state of irascibility. If, on the other hand, he became angry not at all and at nothing whatsoever, he would possess the state of slackness. Both are blameworthy; the praiseworthy state is gentleness, by which we become angry when, how, and with whom we should.⁶⁴⁰ Virtues, therefore, are states on the basis of which activities involving the passions come to be praised.⁶⁴¹

The Mean Relative to Us

Since virtue belongs to the sphere of action, and every action admits of consideration along a continuum, every continuum, as with magnitudes, has some excess, deficiency, and mean. These exist either in relation to one another or in relation to us.⁶⁴² In all these matters, then, the mean relative to us is best, for this accords with what knowledge and reason prescribe.⁶⁴³

627.The supplied καί before ποιητικά is represented by bracketed “both.” Ἀοχλησία is freedom from disturbance or trouble, following Wachsmuth’s printed correction of ὀχλησία, disturbance. The three classes differ by their relation to choice for their own sake and to production of further goods. Wealth is productive only in this division; its earlier inclusion among goods choiceworthy for themselves remains visible at II.7.19.4.

628.Ὁμωνυμία is homonymy: sharing a name while the corresponding account, λόγος, differs. The passage explicitly invokes ten categories without listing them. It also denies that all goods constitute one genus, whereas the initial threefold classification used the expression genus of goods. These formulations are preserved without importing a solution to their relation. This completes source section II.7.19. Section 20 begins on printed p. 137, line 13 for its bracketed heading, and line 14 for the main discussion of ethical virtue.

629.The bracketed summary heading reads “On ethical virtue: that the virtues are means.” The Greek moves from singular ethical virtue to plural μεσότητες, means; its wording is retained rather than silently corrected. As with the preceding summary headings, it is translated here. The numbered subdivisions and their short descriptive labels are added for bilingual layout; source section 20 is continuous.

630.Πρὸς τὴν παροῦσαν θεωρίαν expressly limits the twofold division to the present inquiry. Ἄλογον means nonrational here, without itself implying viciousness. The grammatical construction shifts between the soul and its parts; the English expresses the division naturally while preserving its qualification.

631.Καλοκἀγαθία, nobility and goodness, remains in this list. Wachsmuth observes that its placement among intellectual qualities is inexact, but declines to alter the text. All six named qualities are retained. Φρόνησις and σοφία remain practical wisdom and wisdom respectively; εὐμάθεια concerns facility in learning.

632.Σωφροσύνη is rendered self-control, consistently with the preceding Peripatetic account. It concerns well-ordered desires, as the examples below explain. It should be distinguished from ἐγκράτεια, the ability to restrain desires despite their opposition, discussed in II.7.15. The classification concerns the part of the soul in which ethical virtue operates.

633.The supplied ὑπέρ remains bracketed as concerning. Φανερά and ἀφανῆ contrast what is manifest with what is not manifest: the sensible examples are offered as evidence for the ethical claim. The argument proceeds by analogy rather than identifying virtue with a bodily condition.

634.The exercise clause expressly includes both excess and deficiency, and the diet clause repeats the alternatives. Σύμμετρα means things in due measure or proportion. The comparison is with the preservation of strength and health, before the account turns to the development and destruction of virtue itself.

635.The two extremes concern what a person fears. The Greek says a shadow, without adding his own. Neither everything nor nothing preserves the double contrast: courage is not the complete absence of fear. The thunderbolt example and the appeal to common agreement remain distinct parts of the argument.

636.The same field of experience can develop or undermine a virtue according to its measure. The source retains both greater and lesser fears. Μετριότητες, due measures, corresponds to the preceding measured fears and anticipates the fuller account of means; it does not recommend an identical amount of every feeling for everyone.

637.Λαβεῖν is rendered acquired; it can also mean grasped or apprehended. The compressed sentence associates both virtue and vice with pleasure and pain. The concluding claim concerns virtue’s field, not an assertion that every pleasure is base or every pain noble. Wachsmuth compares Magna Moralia I.6, 1185b33–38, and Nicomachean Ethics II.2, 1104b8–11.

638.Πάθη names feelings or passions without here defining them as irrational excesses, as the earlier Stoic account did. All six examples are retained. Ζῆλος is emulation or rivalry in this list; its mention does not by itself classify it as virtuous or vicious. Pleasure and pain accompany the passions.

639.The supplied δέ is bracketed as And. Δυνάμεις here are capacities for experiencing passions, distinct from the resources called powers in II.7.19. Ἕξεις are relatively settled states or dispositions. The threefold division distinguishes a feeling, the capacity to feel it, and the state governing how it is expressed.

640.Ῥᾳθυμία is slackness or lack of due responsiveness in this contrast, rather than the calmness elsewhere praised. Πρᾳότης, gentleness, allows appropriate anger. The source specifies three conditions: when, how, and with whom. They are preserved without importing a longer list from a parallel text.

641.The final sentence makes states the basis of praiseworthy activity involving passions. Wachsmuth records a suggested rewriting to say that the activities are completed in a praiseworthy way, but does not adopt it. The English follows the printed claim that they are praised.

642.Συνέχεια concerns continuity, here allowing degrees and intermediate positions, rather than merely the duration of an action. The comparison is with magnitudes. The wording πρὸς ἄλληλα, in relation to one another, is retained; it is not replaced with a different formulation from Aristotle.

643.The mean relative to us is constrained by ἐπιστήμη and λόγος, knowledge and reason. It is not simply whatever an individual happens to prefer. The next parenthesis distinguishes qualitative correctness from a numerical midpoint.