In the year 86 before the common era, the Roman general Sulla seized Athens and carried off a library that had been hidden in a cellar for over a century and a half. This collection contained the original manuscripts of Aristotle, including the Nicomachean Ethics, which had been preserved by the heirs of Neleus of Scepsis to prevent their seizure by the Kingdom of Pergamon. The texts had suffered significant damage during their long concealment, with many pages degraded and unreadable. When the library was finally recovered, it was purchased by Apellicon of Teos, who attempted to restore the damaged texts using his best guesses to fill in the gaps. This chaotic recovery process meant that the version of the Nicomachean Ethics that eventually reached Rome and was organized by Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century before the common era was already a reconstruction. The oldest surviving manuscript, the Codex Laurentianus LXXXI.11, dates only to the 10th century, meaning that for nearly a thousand years, the text existed in a state of uncertainty and reconstruction. The very existence of the work we study today is the result of a desperate struggle to preserve knowledge against the ravages of time and political turmoil.
The Science of Flourishing
Aristotle begins his inquiry by asserting that all human actions aim at some good, but that there is one highest good which is the end of all things. He calls this ultimate goal eudaimonia, a term often translated as happiness but more accurately understood as flourishing or living well. Unlike Plato, who sought a theoretical Form of the Good, Aristotle argues that ethics must be practical and grounded in the reality of human life. He proposes that the function of a human being is to engage in activity of the soul in accordance with reason, and that true flourishing is achieved when a person performs this function excellently over a complete lifetime. This definition requires that happiness is not a fleeting emotion but a stable state of being that is measured over a lifetime, as one swallow does not make a spring. Aristotle insists that external goods such as family, friends, and wealth are necessary for this flourishing, as a person lacking these may find it difficult to be happy. The highest good is not merely a condition of being virtuous but an active way of virtuously being at work, much like an Olympic athlete who is crowned not for being the strongest but for competing and winning.The Golden Mean of Character
Moral virtue, according to Aristotle, is found at a mean between deficiency and excess, a concept known as the golden mean. This virtue is not a theoretical knowledge but a habit developed through practice and experience. For example, courage is the mean between the deficiency of cowardice and the excess of rashness, while temperance is the mean between insensibility and profligacy. Aristotle argues that we become just by doing just acts and temperate by doing temperate acts, as the virtues are acquired through the repetition of actions that shape our character. A virtuous person feels pleasure when performing noble actions, and their practice of virtues coincides with their pleasure. The study of virtue requires an understanding of pleasure and pain, as these feelings influence our choices. Aristotle distinguishes between intellectual virtues, which require teaching and experience, and moral virtues, which come about as a consequence of adopting good habits. The soul contains feelings, faculties, and acquired habits, and virtues are habits that are chosen and praiseworthy. The goal is to make a human that functions well as a human, focusing on the making of a good human in a static sense and on making a human that functions well as a human.