Eudemian Ethics

We have, then, previously spoken about each virtue in particular; and as we have distinguished their meaning separately, we must also describe in detail the virtue constituted from them, to which we now give the name of nobility.

Now it is manifest that one who is to obtain this appellation truly must possess the particular virtues; for it is impossible for it to be otherwise in the case of any other matter either—for instance, no one is healthy in his whole body but not in any part of it, but all the parts, or most of them and the most important, must necessarily be in the same condition as the whole.

Now being good and being noble are really different not only in their names but also in themselves. For all goods have Ends that are desirable in and for themselves.

Of these, all those are fine which are laudable as existing for their own sakes, for these are the Ends which are both the motives of laudable actions and laudable themselves—justice itself and its actions, and temperate actions, for temperance also is laudable; but health is not laudable, for its effect is not, nor is vigorous action laudable, for strength is not—these things are good but they are not laudable.

And similarly induction makes this clear in the other cases also. Therefore a man is good for whom the things good by nature are good. For the things men fight about and think the greatest, honor and wealth and bodily excellences and pieces of good fortune and powers, are good by nature but may possibly be harmful to some men owing to their characters. If a man is foolish or unjust or profligate he would gain no profit by employing them, any more than an invalid would benefit from using the diet of a man in good health, or a weakling and cripple from the equipment of a healthy man and of a sound one.

A man is noble because he possesses those good things that are fine for their own sake and because he is a doer of fine deeds even for their own sake; and the fine things are the virtues and the actions that arise from virtue.

But there is also a state of character that is the civic character, such as the Spartans have or others like them may have; and this character is of the following sort. There are those who think that one ought, it is true, to possess goodness, but for the sake of the things that are naturally good; hence though they are good men (for the things naturally good are good for them), yet they have not nobility, for it is not the case with them that they possess fine things for their own sake and that they purpose fine actions, and not only this, but also that things not fine by nature but good by nature are fine for them.

For things are fine when that for which men do them and choose them is fine. Therefore to the noble man the things good by nature are fine; for what is just is fine, and what is according to worth is just, and he is worthy of these things;

and what is befitting is fine, and these things befit him—wealth, birth, power. Hence for the noble man the same things are both advantageous and fine; but for the multitude these things do not coincide, for things absolutely good are not also good for them, whereas they are good for the good man; and to the noble man they are also fine, for he performs many fine actions because of them.

But he who thinks that one ought to possess the virtues for the sake of external goods does fine things only by accident.

Nobility then is perfect goodness.

We have also spoken about the nature of pleasure and the manner in which it is a good, and have said that things pleasant absolutely are also fine and that things good absolutely are also pleasant. Pleasure does not occur except in action;on this account the truly happy man will also live most pleasantly, and it is not without reason that people demand this.

But since a doctor has a certain standard by referring to which he judges the healthy body and the goods unhealthy, and in relation to which each thing up to a certain point ought to be done and is wholesome, but if less is done, or more, it ceases to be wholesome, so in regard to actions and choices of things good by nature but not laudable a virtuous man ought to have a certain standard both of character and of choice and avoidance; and also in regard to large and small amount of property and of good fortune.

Now in what preceded we stated the standard as reason directs; but this is as if in matters of diet one were to say as medical science and its principles direct, and this though true is not clear.

It is proper, therefore, here as in other matters to live with reference to the ruling factor, and to the state and the activity of the ruling factor, as for example slave must live with reference to the rule of master, and each person with reference to the rule appropriate to each.

And since man consists by nature of a ruling part and a subject part, and each would properly live with reference to the ruling principle within him (and this is twofold, for medical science is a ruling principle in one way and health is in another, and the former is a means to the latter), this is therefore the case in regard to the faculty of contemplation. For God is not a ruler in the sense of issuing commands, but is the End as a means to which wisdom gives commands (and the term End has two meanings, but these have been distinguished elsewhere); since clearly God is in need of nothing.

Therefore whatever mode of choosing and of acquiring things good by nature—whether goods of body or wealth or friends or the other goods—will best promote the contemplation of God, that is the best mode, and that standard is the finest;and any mode of choice and acquisition that either through deficiency or excess hinders us from serving and from contemplating God—that is a bad one.

This is how it is for the spirit, and this is the best spiritual standard—to be as far as possible unconscious of the irrational part of the spirit, as such.

Let this, then, be our statement of what is the standard of nobility and what is the aim of things absolutely good.