substance, there is equally broad disagreement over whether this is particular form, the form belonging to a single individual, or species form, the form common to all individuals in the species. There is also lively discussion concerning the relation of the Metaphysics doctrine of primary substance to the earlier doctrine of the Categories. Although a few scholars see an outright contradiction here, most take the divergence as evidence of the development of Aristotle’s views on substance. Finally, the role of the central books in the Metaphysics as a whole continues to be debated. Some see them as an entirely selfcontained analysis of form, others as preparatory to Book XII’s discussion of non-sensible form and the role of the unmoved mover as the final cause of motion. Practical philosophy. Two of Aristotle’s most heralded works, the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, are treatises in practical philosophy. Their aim is effective action in matters of conduct. So they deal with what is up to us and can be otherwise because in this domain lie choice and action. The practical nature of ethics lies mainly in the development of a certain kind of agent. The Nicomachean Ethics was written, Aristotle reminds us, ‘not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good.’ One becomes good by becoming a good chooser and doer. This is not simply a matter of choosing and doing right actions but of choosing or doing them in the right way. Aristotle assumes that, for the most part, agents know what ought to be done (the evil or vicious person is an exception). The akratic or morally weak agent desires to do other than what he knows ought to be done and acts on this desire against his better judgment. The enkratic or morally strong person shares the akratic agent’s desire but acts in accordance with his better judgment. In neither kind of choice are desire and judgment in harmony. In the virtuous, on the other hand, desire and judgment agree. So their choices and actions will be free of the conflict and pain that inevitably accompany those of the akratic and enkratic agent. This is because the part of their soul that governs choice and action is so disposed that desire and right judgment coincide. Acquiring a stable disposition (hexis) of this sort amounts to acquiring moral virtue (ethike arete). The disposition is concerned with choices as would be determined by the person of practical wisdom (phronesis); these will be actions lying between extreme alternatives. They will lie in a mean – popularly called the ‘golden mean’ – relative to the talents and stores of the agent. Choosing in this way is not easily done. It involves, for instance, feeling anger or extending generosity at the right time, toward the right people, in the right way, and for the right reasons. Intellectual virtues, such as excellence at mathematics, can be acquired by teaching, but moral virtue cannot. I may know what ought to be done and even perform virtuous acts without being able to act virtuously. Nonetheless, because moral virtue is a disposition concerning choice, deliberate performance of virtuous acts can, ultimately, instill a disposition to choose them in harmony and with pleasure and, hence, to act virtuously.
Aristotle rejected Plato’s transcendental Form of the Good as irrelevant to the affairs of persons and, in general, had little sympathy with the notion of an absolute good. The goal of choice and action is the human good, namely, living well. This, however, is not simply a matter of possessing the requisite practical disposition. Practical wisdom, which is necessary for living well, involves skill at calculating the best means to achieve one’s ends and this is an intellectual virtue. But the ends that are presupposed by deliberation are established by moral virtue. The end of all action, the good for man, is happiness (eudaimonia). Most things, such as wealth, are valued only as a means to a worthy end. Honor, pleasure, reason, and individual virtues, such as courage and generosity, are deemed worthy in their own right but they can also be sought for the sake of eudaimonia. Eudaimonia alone can be sought only for its own sake. Eudaimonia is not a static state of the soul but a kind of activity (energeia) of the soul – something like human flourishing. The happy person’s life will be selfsufficient and complete in the highest measure. The good for man, then, is activity in accordance with virtue or the highest virtue, should there be one. Here ‘virtue’ means something like excellence and applies to much besides man. The excellence of an ax lies in its cutting, that of a horse in its equestrian qualities. In short, a thing’s excellence is a matter of how well it performs its characteristic functions or, we might say, how well it realizes its nature.
The natural functions of persons reside in the exercise of their natural cognitive faculties, most importantly, the faculty of reason. So human happiness consists in activity in accordance with reason. However, persons can exercise reason in practical or in purely theoretical matters. The first suggests that happiness consists in the practical life of moral virtue, the second that it consists in the life of theoretical activity. Most of the Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to the moral virtues but the final book appears to favor theoretical activity (theoria) as the highest and most choiceworthy end. It is man’s closest approach to divine activity. Much recent scholarship is devoted to the relation between these two conceptions of the good, particularly, to whether they are of equal value and whether they exclude or include one another. Ethics and politics are closely connected. Aristotle conceives of the state as a natural entity arising among persons to serve a natural function. This is not merely, e.g., provision for the common defense or promotion of trade. Rather, the state of the Politics also has eudaimonia as its goal, namely, fostering the complete and selfsufficient lives of its citizens. Aristotle produced a complex taxonomy of constitutions but reduced them, in effect, to three kinds: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Which best serves the natural end of a state was, to some extent, a relative matter for Aristotle. Although he appears to have favored democracy, in some circumstances monarchy might be appropriate. The standard ordering of Aristotle’s works ends with the Rhetoric and the Poetics. The Rhetoric’s extensive discussion of oratory or the art of persuasion locates it between politics and literary theory. The relatively short Poetics is devoted chiefly to the analysis of tragedy. It has had an enormous historical influence on aesthetic theory in general as well as on the writing of drama. See also AQUINAS , ESSENTIALISM , META- PHYSICS , PLATO , PRACTICAL REASONING , SOCRATES , SYLLOGISM , VIRTUE ETHIC. M.V.W.