Ethics

[Sidenote:1144b] We must inquire again also about Virtue:  for it may be divided into Natural Virtue and Matured, which two bear to each other a relation similar to that which Practical Wisdom bears to Cleverness, one not of identity but resemblance.  I speak of Natural Virtue, because men hold that each of the moral dispositions attach to us all somehow by nature:  we have dispositions towards justice, self-mastery and courage, for instance, immediately from our birth:  but still we seek Goodness in its highest sense as something distinct from these, and that these dispositions should attach to us in a somewhat different fashion.  Children and brutes have these natural states, but then they are plainly hurtful unless combined with an intellectual element:  at least thus much is matter of actual experience and observation, that as a strong body destitute of sight must, if set in motion, fall violently because it has not sight, so it is also in the case we are considering:  but if it can get the intellectual element it then excels in acting.  Just so the Natural State of Virtue, being like this strong body, will then be Virtue in the highest sense when it too is combined with the intellectual element.

So that, as in the case of the Opinionative faculty, there are two forms, Cleverness and Practical Wisdom; so also in the case of the Moral there are two, Natural Virtue and Matured; and of these the latter cannot be formed without Practical Wisdom.

This leads some to say that all the Virtues are merely intellectual Practical Wisdom, and Socrates was partly right in his inquiry and partly wrong:  wrong in that he thought all the Virtues were merely intellectual Practical Wisdom, right in saying they were not independent of that faculty.

A proof of which is that now all, in defining Virtue, add on the “state” [mentioning also to what standard it has reference, namely that] “which is accordant with Right Reason:”  now “right” means in accordance with Practical Wisdom.  So then all seem to have an instinctive notion that that state which is in accordance with Practical Wisdom is Virtue; however, we must make a slight change in their statement, because that state is Virtue, not merely which is in accordance with but which implies the possession of Right Reason; which, upon such matters, is Practical Wisdom.  The difference between us and Socrates is this:  he thought the Virtues were reasoning processes (i.e. that they were all instances of Knowledge in its strict sense), but we say they imply the possession of Reason.

From what has been said then it is clear that one cannot be, strictly speaking, good without Practical Wisdom nor Practically-Wise without moral goodness.

And by the distinction between Natural and Matured Virtue one can meet the reasoning by which it might be argued “that the Virtues are separable because the same man is not by nature most inclined to all at once so that he will have acquired this one before he has that other:”  we would reply that this is possible with respect to the Natural Virtues but not with respect to those in right of which a man is denominated simply good:  because they will all belong to him together with the one faculty of Practical Wisdom. [Sidenote:1145a]

It is plain too that even had it not been apt to act we should have needed it, because it is the Excellence of a part of the Soul; and that the moral choice cannot be right independently of Practical Wisdom and Moral Goodness; because this gives the right End, that causes the doing these things which conduce to the End.

Then again, it is not Master of Science (i.e. of the superior part of the Soul), just as neither is the healing art Master of health; for it does not make use of it, but looks how it may come to be:  so it commands for the sake of it but does not command it.

The objection is, in fact, about as valid as if a man should say [Greek:  politikae] governs the gods because it gives orders about all things in the communty.