The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

There are three kinds of things that move us to choose, and three that move us to avoid them : on the one hand, the beautiful or noble, the advantageous, the pleasant ; on the other hand, the ugly or base, thep. 40 hurtful, the painful. Now, the good man is apt to go right, and the bad man to go wrong, about them all, but especially about pleasure : for pleasure is not only common to man with animals, but also accompanies all pursuit or choice ; since the noble, and the advantageous also, are pleasant in idea.

Again, the feeling of pleasure has been fostered in 8 us all from our infancy by our training, and has thus become so engrained in our life that it can scarce be washed out.* And, indeed, we all more or less make pleasure our test in judging of actions. For this 9 reason too, then, our whole inquiry must be concerned with these matters ; since to be pleased and pained in the right or the wrong way has great influence on our actions.

And lastly, as Heraclitus says, it is harder to fight 10 with pleasure than with wrath, and virtue, like art, is always more concerned with what is harder ; for the harder the task the better is success. For this reason also, then, both [moral] virtue or excellence and the science of the state must always be concerned with ^ pleasures and pains ; for he that behaves rightly with regard to them will be good, and he that behaves badly will be bad.

We will take it as established, then, that [moral] 11 excellence or virtue has to do with pleasures and pains ; and that the acts which produce it develop it, and also, when differently done, destroy it; and that it manifests itself in the same acts which produced it.

* Actions and the accompanying feelings of pleasure and pain have so grown together, that it is impossible to separate the former and judge them apart : cj. X. 4, 11.

3, 8-4, 4.] MORAL VIRTUE. tt

4. But here we may be asked what we mean hy Tkeant- <?Lvins that men can become lust and temperate only rirtuomt by doing what is just and temperate : sm-ely, it may d^^fnm be said, if their acts are just and temperate, i}iey produetttm. themselves are already just and temperate, as they are grammarians and musicians if they do what is grammatical and musical.

We may answer, I think, firstly, that this is not quite the case even with the arts. A man may do something grammatical [or write something correctly] by chance, or at the prompting of another person : he will not be grammatical till he not only does something grammatical, but also does it grammatically [or like a grammatical person], i.e. in virtue of his own knowledge of grammar.

But, secondly, the virtues are not in this point analogous to the arts. The products of art have their excellence in themselves, and so it is enough if when produced they are of a certain quality ; but in the case of the virtues, a man is not said to act justly or temperately [or like a just or temperate man] if what he does merely be of a cei'tain soil — he must also be in a certain state of mind when he does it ; i.e., first of all, he must know what he is doing ; secondly, he must choose it, and choose it for itself; and, thirdly, his act must be the expression of a formed and stable character. Now, of these conditions, only one, the knowledge, is necessary for the possession of any art ; but for the possession of the virtues knowledge is of little or no avail, while the other conditions that result fi'om repeatedly doing what is just and temperate are not a little important, but all-important.

p. 42

Virtue not an emotion, nor a faculty, but a trained faculty or habit;

The thing that is done, therefore, is called just or temperate when it is such as the just or temperate man would do ; but the man who does it is not just or temperate, unless he also does it in the spirit of the just or the temperate man.

It is right, then, to say that by doing what is just 5 a man becomes just, and temperate by doing what is temperate, while without doing thus he has no chance of ever becoming good.