A considerable part of the Ethics is occupied with the discussion of friendship, including all relations that involve affection. Perfect
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friendship is only possible between the good, and it is impossible to be friends with many people. One should not be friends with a person of higher station than one’s own, unless he is also of higher virtue, which will justify the respect shown to him. We have seen that, in unequal relations, such as those of man and wife or father or son, the superior should be the more loved. It is impossible to be friends with God, because He cannot love us. Aristotle discusses whether a man can be a friend to himself, and decides that this is only possible if he is a good man; wicked men, he asserts, often hate themselves. The good man should love himself, but nobly (1169a). Friends are a comfort in misfortune, but one should not make them unhappy by seeking their sympathy, as is done by women and womanish men (1171b). It is not only in misfortune that friends are desirable, for the happy man needs friends with whom to share his happiness. «No one would choose the whole world on condition of being alone, since man is a political creature and one whose nature is to live with others» (1169b). All that is said about friendship is sensible, but there is not a word that rises above common sense.
Aristotle again shows his good sense in the discussion of pleasure, which Plato had regarded somewhat ascetically. Pleasure, as Aristotle uses the word, is distinct from happiness, though there can be no happiness without pleasure. There are, he says, three views of pleasure: (1) that it is never good; (2) that some pleasure is good, but most is bad; (3) that pleasure is good, but not the best. He rejects the first of these on the ground that pain is certainly bad, and therefore pleasure must be good. He says, very justly, that it is nonsense to say a man can be happy on the rack: some degree of external good fortune is necessary for happiness. He also disposes of the view that all pleasures are bodily; all things have something divine, and therefore some capacity for higher pleasures. Good men have pleasure unless they are unfortunate, and God always enjoys a single and simple pleasure. (1152-4).
There is another discussion of pleasure, in a later part of the book, which is not wholly consistent with the above. Here it is argued that there are bad pleasures, which, however, are not pleasures to good people (1173b); that perhaps differ in kind (1b); and that pleasures are good or bad according as they are connected with good or bad activities (1175b). There are things that are valued more
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than pleasure; no one would be content to go through life with a child’s intellect, even if it were pleasant to do so. Each animal has its proper pleasure, and the proper pleasure of man is connected with reason.
This leads on to the only doctrine in the book which is not mere common sense. Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative. Contemplation is preferable to war or politics or any other practical career, because it allows leisure, and leisure is essential to happiness. Practical virtue brings only a secondary kind of happiness; the supreme happiness is in the exercise of reason, for reason, more than anything else, is man. Man cannot be wholly contemplative, but in so far as he is so he shares in the divine life. «The activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative.» Of all human beings, the philosopher is the most godlike in his activity, and therefore the happiest and best:
He who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e. reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy ( 1179a).
This passage is virtually the peroration of the Ethics; the few paragraphs that follow are concerned with the transition to politics. Let us now try to decide what we are to think of the merits and demerits of the Ethics. Unlike many other subjects treated by Greek philosophers, ethics has not made any definite advances, in the sense of ascertained discoveries; nothing in ethics is known in a scientific sense. There is therefore no reason why an ancient treatise on it should be in any respect inferior to a modern one. When Aristotle talks about astronomy, we can say definitely that he is wrong; but when he talks about ethics we cannot say, in the same sense, either that he is wrong or that he is right. Broadly speaking, there are three
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questions that we can ask about the ethics of Aristotle, or of any other philosopher: (1) Is it internally self-consistent? (2) Is it consistent with the remainder of the author’s views? (3) Does it give answers to ethical problems that are consonant to our own ethical feelings? If the answer to either the first or second question is in the negative, the philosopher in question has been guilty of some intellectual error. But if the answer to the third question is in the negative, we have no right to say that he is mistaken; we have only the right to say that we do not like him.
Let us examine these three questions in turn, as regards the ethical theory set forth in the Nicomachean Ethics.
(1) On the whole, the book is self-consistent, except in a few not very important respects. The doctrine that the good is happiness, and that happiness consists in successful activity, is well worked out. The doctrine that every virtue is a mean between two extremes, though very ingeniously developed, is less successful, since it does not apply to intellectual contemplation, which, we are told, is the best of all activities. It can, however, be maintained that the doctrine of the mean is only intended to apply to the practical virtues, not to those of the intellect. Perhaps, to take another point, the position of the legislator is somewhat ambiguous. He is to cause children and young people to acquire the habit of performing good actions, which will, in the end, lead them to find pleasure in virtue, and to act virtuously without the need of legal compulsion. It is obvious that the legislator might equally well cause the young to acquire bad habits; if this is to be avoided, he must have all the wisdom of a Platonic guardian; and if it is not avoided, the argument that a virtuous life is pleasant will fail. This problem, however, belongs perhaps more to politics than to ethics.
(2) Aristotle’s ethics is, at all points, consistent with his metaphysics. Indeed, his metaphysical theories are themselves the expression of an ethical optimism. He believes in the scientific importance of final causes, and this implies the belief that purpose governs the course of development in the universe. He thinks that changes are, in the main, such as embody an increase of organization or «form,» and at bottom virtuous actions are those that favour this tendency. It is true that a great deal of his practical ethics is not particularly philosophical, but merely the result of observation of human affairs;
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but this part of his doctrine, though it may be independent of his metaphysics, is not inconsistent with it.
(3) When we come to compare Aristotle’s ethical tastes with our own, we find, in the first place, as already noted, an acceptance of inequality which is repugnant to much modern sentiment. Not only is there no objection to slavery, or to the superiority of husbands and fathers over wives and children, but it is held that what is best is essentially only for the few—proud men and philosophers. Most men, it would seem to follow, are mainly means for the production of a few rulers and sages. Kant maintained that every human being is an end in himself, and this may be taken as an expression of the view introduced by Christianity. There is, however, a logical difficulty in Kant’s view, since it gives no means of reaching a decision when two men’s interests clash. If each is an end in himself, how
