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

But as good deliberation is a kind of correctness 4 in deliberation, we rnust first inquire what deliberation means, and what its field is.*

Now, there are various kinds of correctness, and it

* This, however, is not done here, perhaps because it has been already done at length in III. 3.

9, 3-7.] TiiE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES, 197 is plain that not every kind of correctness in deliberation is good deliberation ; for the incontinent man or the vicious man may duly an*ive, by a process of calculation, at that which he started to find,* so that he will have deliberated correctly, though what he gains is a great evil But to have deliberated well is thought to be a good thing ; for it is only a particular kind of correctness in deliberation that is called good deliberation — that, namely, which arrives at what is good.

But, further, what is good may be arrived at by a false svllogism ; I mean that a rig^ht conclusion as to what is to be done may be arrived at in a wrong way or upon wrong grounds — the middle term being wrong ; f so that what leads to a right conclusion as to what should be done is not good deliberation, unless the grounds also be right.

A further difierence is that one may arrive at the right conclusion slowly, another rapidly. So we must add yet another condition to the above, and say that good deliberation means coming to a right conclusion as to what is expedient or ought to be done, and coming to it in the right manner and at the right time. Again, we speak of deliberating well simply, and of deliberating well with a view to a particular kind of end. So good deliberation simply [or without any qualifying epithet] is that which leads to right conclusions as to the means to the end simply ;

* The means to bis bad end.

t e.g. this act should be done simply because it is jnst ; I may decide to do it for reputation, or for pleasure's sake, or thinking it to be an act of generosity.

gence.

198 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OP ARISTOTLE. [Bk. VI.

a particular kind of good deliberation is that which leads to right conclusions as to the means to a particular kind of end. And so, when we say that prudent men must deliberate well, good deliberation in this case will be correctness in judging what is expedient to a particular end, of which prudence has a true conception. ofinteiii- 10. The faculty which we call avvmic, intelligence l

(along with its opposite aavviaia, unintelligence), in respect of which we call men intelligent (and unintelligent), is not the same as science generally, nor as opinion (for then all men would be intelligent), nor is it identical with any particular science, such as medicine, which deals with matters of health, and geometry, which deals with magnitudes ; for intelligence has not to do with what is eternal and unchangeable, nor has it to do with events of every kind, but only with those that one may doubt and deliberate about. And so it has to do with the same matters as prudence ; but they are not identical : prudence issues orders, for its scope is that which is 2 to be done or not to be done ; while intelligence discerns merely (intelligence being equivalent to sound intelligence, and an intelligent man to a man of sound intelligence).

Intelligence, in fact, is equivalent neither to the 3 possession nor to the acquisition of prudence ; but just as the learner in science is said to show intelligence when he makes use of the scientific knowledge which he hears from his teacher, so in the domain of prudence a man is said to show intelligence when he makes use of the opinions which he hears from10, 1-11, 2.] THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. 199 others in judging, and judging fitly — for soundly [when vre speak of sound intelligence] means fitly.