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i) Every rational activity aims at some end or good. One end, like an activity, may be subordinate to another. ii) The science that studies the supreme good for man is politics. iii) Politics is not an exact science. The student should have some general knowledge and experience of life. iv) The end is no doubt happiness, but views of happiness differ. Learners must start from beliefs that are accepted or at least familiar. v) The three types of life. Neither pleasure nor public honour seems to be an adequate end; the contemplative life will be considered later. vi) There cannot be a universal good such as Plato held to be the culmination of his Theory of Forms. vii) What is the Good for man? It must be an ultimate end or object of human life: something that is in itself completely satisfying. Happiness fits this desciption. But what is happiness? If we consider what the function of man is, we find that happiness is a virtuous activity of the coul. This sketch can be elaborated later, but great precision is not to be expected. viii) Our view of happiness is supported by popular beliefs. ix) How is happiness acquired? x) Is it only when his life is completed that a man can rightly be called happy? xi) Are the dead affected by the fortunes of those who survived them? xii) Is happiness to be praised as a means or valued as an end? xiii) To understand what moral goodness is we must study the soul of man. The several faculties of the soul distinguished. i) Moral virtues, like crafts, are acquired by practice and habituation. ii) In a practical science so much depends upon particular circumstances that only general rules can be given. A cardinal rule: right conduct is incompatible with excess or deficiency in feelings and actions. Our virtues are exercised in the same kinds of action that gave rise to them. iii) The pleasure or pain that actions cause the agent may serve as an index of moral progress, since good conduct consists in a proper attitude towards pleasure and pain. iv) Acts that are incidentally virtuous distinguished from those that are done knowingly, of choice, and from a virtuous disposition. v) In order to define virtue we must decide to what class or genus it belongs. It is not a feeling or a faculty, but a disposition. vi) But what is its differentia? Any excellence enables its possessor to function well; therefore this is true of human excellence, i.e. virtue. This is confirmed by the doctrine of the Mean, a provisional definition of virtue. But the rule of choosing the mean cannot be applied to some actions and feelings, which are essentially evil. vii) The doctrine of the mean applied to particular virtues. viii) The mean is often nearer to one extreme than to the other, or seems nearer because of our natural tendencies. ix) Here lies the summing up of the foregoing dicussion, together with three pratical rules for good conduct. i) Actions are voluntary, involuntary or non-voluntary. ii) Moral conduct implies choice, but what is choice? It must be distinguished from desire, temper, wish and opinion. iii) If choice involves Deliberation, what is the sphere of the latter? Deliberation is about means, not ends. Definition of choice... iv) The object of wish is in one sense good, in another the apparent good. v) Actions that we initiate ourselves, whether they are good or bad, are voluntary. This is borne out by the common use of rewards and punishments. Responsiblity for the results of bad moral states is crucial. A bad moral state, once formed, is not easily amended. Even physical defects, if voluntarily incurred, are culpable. It may be objected that moral discernment is a gift of nature and cannot be acquired otherwise. Even so, virtue will be no more voluntary than vice. Now to discuss the virtues one by one. vi) Courage: the right attitude towards feeling of fear and confidence; what we ought and ought not to fear. vii) Degrees of fear and fearfulness; excessive fearlessness, rashness and cowardice are discussed. viii) Five dispositions resemble courage: 1) civic courage; 2) experience of risk; 3) spirit or mettle; 4) sanguiness or optimism; 5)ignorance. ix) Courage is with relation to pleasure and pain. x) Temperance or self-control, and the pleasures with which it is concerned: pleasures are either psychical or physical. The grossest pleasures are those of taste and, above all, touch. xi) Desires or appetites; self-indulgence and insensibility... xii) Licentiousness is more voluntary than cowardice. Licentious people are like spoilt children. i) Liberality: the right attitude towards money. Prodigality has certain merits and is far better than liberality. The dangers of prodigality is discussed. Illiberality or meanness is a much more serious state. ii) Magnificence or munificence is a special kind of liberality. It is a sort of artistry. It requires some wealth, although the appropriate outlay depends upon circumstances. Vulgarity and pettiness... iii) Magnanimity: a proper estimation of one's own worth in relation to the highest honours. Magnanimity is in relation to other external goods. A portrait of the magnanimous man is detailed. Pusillanimity and vanity... iv) Attitudes towards honour on a smaller scale: ambition, unambitiousness and the nameless mean... v) The right disposition towards anger is something like patience; the excess is irascibility; the deficiency has no real name. Grades of irascibility are discussed. The right disposition is hard to define precisely. vi) The social virtue of amiability, and the corresponding vices... vii) Social qualities concerned with truth and falsehood are discussed. The sincere or truthful man; the boaster or exaggerator; irony or self-depreciation... viii) Conversation qualities: wit, buffoonery and boorishness... ix) Modesty is not a virtue; it is good only as a curb for youthful indiscretion. i) What do we mean by justice and injustice? Unjust means either lawless or unfair; therefore just means either lawful or fair (equitable). Justice in the former sense is complete virtue; this is universal justice. ii) We are now concerned with particular justice and injustice. This is either distributive or rectificatory. iii) Distributive justice employs geometrical proportion. iv) Rectificatory justice remedies an inequitable division between two parties by means of a sort of arithmetical progression. v) Although justice cannot be equated with simple reciprocity, proportional reciprocation is the basis of all fair exchange. Proportional requital implies somestandard for the valuation of unequal services. This standard is really demand, which is conveniently represented by money. Such are particular justice and injustice, the latter being a single vice exhibiting both excess and deficiency. vi) A note on injustice in the wider sense of wrongdoing is drawn. Political justice: its conditions... Domestic justice is similar, but distinct. vii) Political justice may be based upon natural or upon civil law. Distinctions between certain cognate terms... viii) Voluntary and involuntary acts: the importance of intention. Grades of misconduct; acts done under provocation; and a note on importance... ix) Is it possible to suffer injustice willingly? Is it the distributor or the recipient that is guilty of injustice in unfair distribution? To be just is not easy, because just conduct presupposes a virtuous moral state. Particular justice is exercised between parties of normal human probity. x) A digression on equity, correcting the deficiencies of legal justice. xi) Return to the question: can a man treat himself unjustly? It is worse to commit than to suffer injustice. How justice and injustice towards oneself are possible...
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