Aristotle (2024) Nicomachean Ethics 1.2

Aristotle (2024). Nicomachean Ethics. Second Edition. Translated With Introduction and Notes By C. D. C. Reeve Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company

 

1.2 Ethics is a sort of politics

If, then, there is some end of things doable in action^[각주:1] that we wish for because of itself, and the others because of it, and we do not choose every thing because of something else (for if that is the case, it will go on without limit, so that the desire will be empty [desire will never be satisfied] and pointless)^[각주:2], it is clear that this would be the good—that is, the best good.^[각주:3] Therefore, regarding our life(bios)^[각주:4] as well, will knowing^[각주:5] the good have great influence and—like archers with a target^[각주:6]—would we be better able to hit what one should? If so, one must try to grasp in outline(tupos)^[각주:7], at least, what the good is and to which of the sciences or capacities it properly belongs.^[각주:8]

It would seem to be the one with the most control(kurios)^[각주:9], and the most architectonic one. And politics(Politikê)^[각주:10] appears to be such; for it is the one that prescribes which of the sciences need to exist in cities(Polis)^[각주:11] and which ones each group in cities must learn and up to what point. And we see that even the capacities that are most honored are under it—for example, generalship, household management, and rhetoric.^[각주:12] And since it uses the other practical sciences, and further, legislates about what must be done and what avoided, its end would encompass(periechein)^[각주:13] those of the others, so that it would be the human good.^{[각주:14][각주:15]}

For even if the good is the same for an individual and for a city^[각주:16], that of a city is evidently a greater and, at any rate, a more complete good to acquire and preserve; for while it must content us to acquire and preserve this for an individual alone, it is nobler and more divine to do so for nations and cities.13 Our methodical inquiry, then, aims at the good of these things— for it is a sort of politics.^[각주:17]

1. Verbals ending in -ton—of which prakton is an example— sometimes have (1) the meaning of a perfect passive participle (“done in action”) and sometimes (2) express possibility (“doable in action”). A decree (psêphisma) seems to be prakton in sense (2), since it is a prescription specific enough to be acted on without further need for deliberation (1141b23–28). What it specifies is thus a possibility (a type of action) that many different particular (token) actions might actualize. Particular objects of perception that are prakton (1143a32–33, b4–5) seem to be so in sense (1) [본문으로]
2. Like their English counterparts, kenos and mataios are somewhat vague. The primary meaning of kenos is “being like an empty cup or vessel.” In Plato, as elsewhere, it is thus readily applied to desires: “hunger, thirst, and the like are some sort of emptiness related to the state of the body” (Rep. 585a–b). Presumably, then, a kenos desire is one that, as (always) empty, cannot be satisfied. This does not mean that a desire cannot be kenos, but when it is, a question naturally arises about the rationality of acting on it. It is this fact that lays the ground for mataios, the primary connotation of which is “foolish or without reason” or “pointless.” Thus, it is mataios for a young person to study a practical science like ethics or politics, since he tends to follow his feelings, not what he will learn by studying it (1095a5). [본문으로]
3. “Since the for-the-sake-of-which is an end, and the sort of end that is not for the sake of other things, but rather other things are for its sake, it follows that if there is to be a last thing of this sort, the series will not be with out a limit, but if there is no such thing, there will be no for-the-sake-of-which” (Met. 994b9–12). [본문으로]
4. Two Greek words correspond to the English word “life”: bios, used here, and zôê, used extensively in 1.7 and usually translated as “living.” Zôê refers to the sorts of life processes and activities studied by biologists, zoologists, and so on, such as growth, reproduction, perception, and understanding. Bios refers to the sort of life a natural historian or biographer might investigate—the life of the otter, the (especially, agentive) life of Pericles—and so to a span of time throughout which someone possesses zôê at least as a capacity (1102b5–7). Hence, in the conclusion of the function argument, we are reminded that a certain zôê will not be happiness for a human being unless it occurs “in a complete bios” (1098a18–20). [본문으로]
5. Although there may be little difference between gnôsis and epistêmê (verb, epistasthai), epistêmê is usually applied only to demonstrative sciences, crafts, or other bodies of systematic knowledge, so that epistêmê is specifically scientific knowledge. Gnôsis is weaker and is used for perceptual knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance—something familiar is gnôrimos. If X knows that p, it follows that p is true and that X is justified in believing it. Similar entailments hold in the cases of epistasthai and eidenai but may not hold in that of gignôskein. [본문으로]
6. The notion of a skopos, which belongs primarily to archery, is used metaphorically to refer to an end, particularly one pursued in deliberate action (EE 1214b6–9, 1227a5–7, Pol. 1331b6–8, Rh. 1362a15–20). [본문으로]
7. Sometimes when Aristotle gives an outline (tupos), it means that a fuller account may be forthcoming, so that the outline is merely provisional (1107b14–16). When things in a given area hold for the most part, however, it seems that the truth about them must be stated in outline (1104a1–5). In this case, having to out line seems to be a function of the subject matter, so that it is because we are dis cussing things that hold for the most part in ethics and politics that these sciences involve outlining. Far from being a correctable flaw in such sciences, this seems to be an indication of their intellectual probity. [본문으로]
8. “Anyone capable of living in accord with his own deliberate choice should posit some target for living nobly, whether honor, reputa tion, wealth, or education, looking toward which he will do all his actions (on the supposition that not ordering life in relation to some end is a sign of a great fool ishness). Above all, then, he must first determine within himself, neither impetu ously nor carelessly, in which things of ours living well consists, and without which ones it is not possible for this to belong to human beings” (EE 1214b6–14). [본문으로]
9. Control is fundamentally executive power or authority or the power to compel, so that a general has control (kurios) over his army (NE 1116a29–b2) and a politician has control over a city and its inhabitants. Since what has control in a sphere determines or partly determines what happens within it, it is one of the most estimable or important elements in the sphere, so that what is less estimable than something cannot or should not control it (1143b33–35, 1145a6–7). When Aristotle contrasts natural virtue of character with the kurios variety (1144b1–32), the control exerted by the latter seems to be teleological: the natural variety is a sort of virtue because it is an early stage in the development of mature virtue (compare Met. 1050a21–23). Hence kuria aretê is “full virtue” or virtue in the full or strict sense of the term. Ta kuria are the words that are in prevalent use among listeners: “By ‘prevalent (kurion)’ I mean [a name or word] a given group would use, and by exotic one that others would. So it is evident that the same name can be both prevalent and exotic, although not for the same groups” (Po. 1457b3–5). Kuriôs and haplôs (“unconditionally”) are often used interchangeably (Cat. 14b24), as are kuriôs and kath’ hauta (“intrinsically”) (5b8). [본문으로]
10. Politikê is the practical science needed to rule a city well (1099b29–32, 1102a18–25, 1103b3–6, 1141b23–33, 1152b1–3, 1180b23–1181b23). Someone who knows politikê is a true politikos—a true politician or true statesman. [본문으로]
11. A polis is a unique political organization, something like a city and something like a state. Unlike a typical modern city, a polis enjoyed the political sovereignty characteristic of a modern state: it could possess its own army and navy, enter into alliances, make war, and so on. Unlike a typical modern state, however, it was a politically, religiously, and culturally unified community, and of quite small scale. The territory of a polis included a single (typically) walled town (astu) with a citadel and a marketplace, which, as the political and governmental center, is itself often referred to as the polis. But a polis also included the surrounding agricultural land, and the citizens lived both there and inside the town proper [본문으로]
12. Rhetoric is the “capacity to get a theoretical grasp on what is possibly persuasive in each case” (Rh. 1355b25–26) [본문으로]
13. The primary connotation of periechein, which is a compound of the preposition peri (“around”) and the verb echein (“have,” “possess”), is that of containing by surrounding. So if that were its meaning here, the human good would have to contain all the other goods subordinate to it. Yet generalship’s end—victory—does not seem to contain either trained horses or their bridles, any more than health, which is medicine’s end and a certain bodily condition, contains medical instruments, medical treatment, or drugs. Just as “contain” can also mean “circumscribe” or “limit,” however, so too can periechein. The idea would then be that the end of politics limits or circumscribes the ends of all the relevant sciences, including those of the other practical sciences and actions. By looking to its own end, politics sets limits as to which sciences should be in cities, which groups should practice them and to what degree, and what actions should be done and what avoided. Why a limiting end of this sort would have to be the best or human good remains unclear. Other people’s rights, for example, may set absolute limits to our pursuit of happiness and so be limiting ends. But it is not obvious that respecting the rights of others is the best good. In addition, whatever imposes the limit should itself be an end that all other ends further, so that this end is a better good than the other ones. This end, in other words, would have to be the common end of all of them—an idea implicit in the use of periechein at 1129b10–11. [본문으로]
14. (1) “Since in every science and craft the end is a good, and the greatest and best good is the end of the one that has the most control of all, this is the capacity of politics” (Pol. 1282b14–18). (2) “First, then, we must see that every science and capacity has some end, and it a good thing. For no science or capacity exists for the sake of something bad. If, then, the end of all capacities is something good, it is clear that that of the best one would be best. But surely politics is the best capacity, so that its end would be the best good. It is about [the] good, therefore, that it seems we must speak; and not about the unconditionally good, but about the good for us” (†MM 1182a32–b3). [본문으로]
15. Human: An anthrôpos is a human being of either sex. The adjective anthrôpi nos, used here, often seems to mean something like “merely human” (1177b32). Anthrôpikos (also “human”) sometimes has similar connotations (1178a10). Indeed, anthrôpos itself is sometimes used to refer to the whole human animal, sometimes to the human element in human beings by contrast with the divine one (their understanding) (1177b27–28), and sometimes to that divine element, since it is what makes human beings distinctively human (1176a25–29). [본문으로]
16. “It is evident that the same life is necessarily best both for each human being and for cities and human beings collectively” (Pol. 1325b30–32). [본문으로]
17. Specifically, it is “the part of politics concerned with ethics” (Rh. 1359b10–11), so that NE, as a contribution to virtue and to politics (1105a11–12), is included in what Aristotle refers to as “those philosophical accounts in which ethical matters were determined” (Pol. 1282b20) and as “our ethical accounts” (1332a22). [본문으로]