Ethics | Page 4

of the whole universe, or at least dismisses it as irrelevant to his present enquiry. The
good towards which all human desires and practical activities are directed must be one
conformable to man's special nature and circumstances and attainable by his efforts.
There is in Aristotle's theory of human conduct no trace of Plato's "other worldliness", he
brings the moral ideal in Bacon's phrase down to "right earth"--and so closer to the facts
and problems of actual human living. Turning from criticism of others he states his own
positive view of Happiness, and, though he avowedly states it merely in outline his
account is pregnant with significance. Human Happiness lies in activity or energising,
and that in a way peculiar to man with his given nature and his given circumstances, it is
not theoretical, but practical: it is the activity not of reason but still of a being who
possesses reason and applies it, and it presupposes in that being the development, and not
merely the natural possession, of certain relevant powers and capacities. The last is the
prime condition of successful living and therefore of satisfaction, but Aristotle does not
ignore other conditions, such as length of life, wealth and good luck, the absence or
diminution of which render happiness not impossible, but difficult of attainment.
It is interesting to compare this account of Happiness with Mill's in Utilitarianism. Mill's
is much the less consistent: at times he distinguishes and at times he identifies, happiness,
pleasure, contentment, and satisfaction. He wavers between belief in its general
attainability and an absence of hopefulness. He mixes up in an arbitrary way such
ingredients as "not expecting more from life than it is capable of bestowing," "mental
cultivation," "improved laws," etc., and in fact leaves the whole conception vague,

blurred, and uncertain. Aristotle draws the outline with a firmer hand and presents a more
definite ideal. He allows for the influence on happiness of conditions only partly, if at all,
within the control of man, but he clearly makes the man positive determinant of man's
happiness he in himself, and more particularly in what he makes directly of his own
nature, and so indirectly of his circumstances. "'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus"
But once more this does not involve an artificial or abstract isolation of the individual
moral agent from his relation to other persons or things from his context in society and
nature, nor ignore the relative dependence of his life upon a favourable environment.
The main factor which determines success or failure in human life is the acquisition of
certain powers, for Happiness is just the exercise or putting forth of these in actual living,
everything else is secondary and subordinate. These powers arise from the due
development of certain natural aptitudes which belong (in various degrees) to human
nature as such and therefore to all normal human beings. In their developed form they are
known as virtues (the Greek means simply "goodnesses," "perfections," "excellences," or
"fitnesses"), some of them are physical, but others are psychical, and among the latter
some, and these distinctively or peculiarly human, are "rational," i e, presuppose the
possession and exercise of mind or intelligence. These last fall into two groups, which
Aristotle distinguishes as Goodnesses of Intellect and Goodnesses of Character. They
have in common that they all excite in us admiration and praise of their possessors, and
that they are not natural endowments, but acquired characteristics But they differ in
important ways. (1) the former are excellences or developed powers of the reason as
such--of that in us which sees and formulates laws, rules, regularities systems, and is
content in the vision of them, while the latter involve a submission or obedience to such
rules of something in us which is in itself capricious and irregular, but capable of
regulation, viz our instincts and feelings, (2) the former are acquired by study and
instruction, the latter by discipline. The latter constitute "character," each of them as a
"moral virtue" (literally "a goodness of character"), and upon them primarily depends the
realisation of happiness. This is the case at least for the great majority of men, and for all
men their possession is an indispensable basis of the best, i e, the most desirable life.
They form the chief or central subject-matter of the Ethics.
Perhaps the truest way of conceiving Aristotle's meaning here is to regard a moral virtue
as a form of obedience to a maxim or rule of conduct accepted by the agent as valid for a
class of recurrent situations in human life. Such obedience requires knowledge of the rule
and acceptance of it as the rule of the agent's own actions, but not necessarily knowledge
of its ground or of its systematic connexion with other similarly