Every action aims at some good.
Aristotle opens by observing that arts, inquiries, and choices each pursue some end, and that there must be a chief good which is sought for its own sake and for the sake of which all else is pursued.
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Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle argues that the human good is happiness, reached by exercising virtue, and that virtue is a settled habit aiming at the mean between excess and defect.
Mind Map
Map of the book's core ideas
Core Message
What the book is really saying
The chief good is happiness.
Among the ends men name, happiness alone is final and self-sufficient. Aristotle identifies it with living well, which he ties to the proper work of a human being rather than to pleasure, wealth, or honour.
Virtue grows from habit.
Moral excellence is not given by nature. We are furnished with a capacity for it and are perfected through custom: by doing just and brave actions we come to be just and brave.
Virtue is a mean.
Each moral virtue is a settled state aiming at the mean between excess and defect, the middle point determined by reason as the person of practical wisdom would determine it.
Summary
The essence in plain English
The Nicomachean Ethics begins from the observation that every art, inquiry, action, and choice aims at some good. Because we do not pursue every end for the sake of something further, Aristotle reasons that there must be a chief good which is desired for its own sake, and that knowing it would give direction to a whole life.
On the name of this good there is general agreement: people call it happiness, and equate it with living well and doing well. On its nature there is dispute. Aristotle sets aside pleasure, wealth, and honour as the chief good, since each is either shared with animals, merely a means, or dependent on the opinion of others rather than secure as one's own.
To say what happiness is, Aristotle asks after the work proper to a human being. Mere life and sensation are shared with plants and animals; what is peculiar to man is a life of the rational part of the soul. The human good is therefore an activity of the soul in accordance with excellence, carried out over a complete life rather than in a single moment.
Excellence is divided into intellectual and moral. Moral virtue does not arise in us by nature, for nature gives only the capacity; it is formed by custom. We become just by doing just actions and brave by doing brave ones, so that the habits we acquire from early training make a decisive difference to the kind of people we become.
Moral virtue, Aristotle concludes, is a settled disposition lying in a mean between excess and defect, the middle point relative to us and determined by reason as a person of practical wisdom would fix it. The treatise is practical in aim: its purpose is not merely to know what virtue is, but to help its student become good.
Key Concepts
The ideas to keep
Happiness as the Chief Good
Happiness is the final and self-sufficient end that all action seeks, identified with living and doing well.
Why it matters
It gives the inquiry its target and orders every lesser good beneath it.
The Work of Man
The human good is found in the activity proper to a human being: a working of the soul in accordance with reason.
Why it matters
It turns happiness from a vague feeling into excellent activity over a complete life.
Virtue as a Mean
Each moral virtue is a settled state aiming at the mean between excess and defect, determined by reason.
Why it matters
It explains how virtue is judged and why both too much and too little go wrong.
Mental Models
Reusable ways to think
The Final End
Trace each goal to what it serves until you reach what is wanted for its own sake.
How it helps
It separates true ends from mere means and clarifies what a life is aiming at.
Habituation
Character is built by repeated action; we become what we repeatedly do.
How it helps
It makes virtue a matter of practice and early training rather than mere knowledge.
Aiming at the Mean
Look for the middle point between excess and defect, fixed by reason and relative to the situation.
How it helps
It gives a practical test for right feeling and action in particular cases.
Selected Quotes
Short passages from the source
So then Happiness is manifestly something final and self-sufficient, being the end of all things which are and may be done.
by doing just actions we come to be just; by doing the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in self-mastery; and by doing brave actions brave.
Virtue then is in a sense a mean state, since it certainly has an aptitude for aiming at the mean.
Source
Text used for this page
Source text: Project Gutenberg edition of The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle.
HTML text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8438/pg8438-images.html
Project Gutenberg states that this ebook is for use at no cost with almost no restrictions in the United States and most other parts of the world, subject to local law.
Composed c. 340 BCE; Project Gutenberg does not list a translator for this edition.