The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)
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The translator’s English as printed (F. H. Peters). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
This is shown by the fact that nowadays every 4 one in defining Adrtue would, after specifying its field, add that it is " a formed faculty or habit in accordance with right reason," " right " meaning " in accordance with prudence."
Thus it seems that every one has a sort of inkling that a formed habit or character of this kind (i.e. in accordance with prudence) is virtue.
Only a slight change is needed in this expression. 6 Virtue is not simply " a formed habit in accordance with right reason," but "a formed habit implying right reason." * But right reason in these matters is prudence.
So whereas Socrates held that the [moral] virtues were forms of reason (for he held that these were all modes of knowledge), we hold that the}^ imply reason.
It is evident, then, from what has been said that it 6 is impossible to be good in the full sense without prudence, or to be prudent without moral virtue. And in this way we can meet an objection which may be urged. " The virtues," it may be said, " are
* /i€T^ \6yov : the agent miist not only be guided by reason, but by his own reason, not another's.
13, 3-8.] THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. 207
found apart from each other ; a man who is strongly predisposed to one virtue has not an equal tendency towards all the others, so that he will have acquired this virtue while he still lacks that." We may answer that though this may be the case with the " natural ^ irtues," yet it cannot be the case with those virtues r which we call a man " good " without any qualifymg epithet. The presence of the single virtue of prudence implies the presence of all the moral virtues. And thus it is plain, in the first place, that, even n it did not help practice, we should yet need prudence as the virtue or excellence of a part of our nature ; and, in the second place, that purpose cannot be right without both prudence and moral virtue; for the latter makes us desire the end, while the former makes us adopt the right means to the end.
Nevertheless, prudence is not the mistress of wisdom and of the better part of our nature [the reason], any more than medicine is the mistress of health. Prudence does not employ wisdom in her service, but provides means for the attainment of wisdom — does not rule it, but rules in its interests. To assert the contrary would be like asserting that statesmanship rules the gods, because it issues orders about all public concerns [including the worship of the gods.]
BOOK VII.
CHAPTERS 1-10. CHARACTERS OTHER THAN VIRTUE
AND VICE.
ofconti- 1- At this point we will make a fresh start and i
'incontinence, saj that the Undesirable forms of moral character are heroic virtue ,1 • t • . . ,. i 1 ti and three m number, viz. vice, incontinence, brutality.
Of method. In the case of two of these it is plain what the statement of •> • • 1 • i-i -in opiiiions opposite is : Virtue is the name we give to the opposite continence, of vicc, and coutiueuce to the opposite of incontinence ; but for the opposite of the brutal character it would be most appropriate to take that excellence which is beyond us, the excellence of a hero or a god, — as Homer makes Priam say of Hector that he was surpassingly good —
" Nor seemed the child
Of any mortal man, bat of a god."
If, then, superlative excellence raises men into gods, 2 as the stories tell us, it is evident that the opposite of the brutal character would be some such superlative excellence. For just as neither virtue nor vice belongs to a brute, so does neither belong to a god; to the latter belongs something higher than virtue, to the former something specifically different from vice.
1, 1-6.] INCONTINENCE. 209
But as it is rare to find a godlike man (an epithet which the Spartans are wont to give to a man whom they admire exceedingly, calling him aaiog * avvp), so also is the brutal character rare among men. It occurs most frequently among the barbarians ; it is also produced sometimes by disease and organic injuries ; and, thirdly, we apply the name as a term of reproach to those who carry vice to a great pitch. f