The Nicomachean Ethics is a classic. Aristotle tackles the problems of ethics with coherence, elegance, and loads of sprezzatura. Here's a distillation of some important ideas:
1. Ethics is to the good as metaphysics is to being.
2. The good is determined by the end.
3. The end for humans is to become rational beings.
4. Happiness lies in realizing the end; it is what you desire for its own sake.
5. What determines happiness is not choice: We may choose what makes us miserable.
6. Happiness is becoming who we are, realizing the seed within the self, fulfilling teleology. The end of the child is to develop into an adult. The end of the flute player is playing the flute excellently.
7. Happiness is the result of practiced excellence; it lies in the performance of certain actions.
8. Happiness is success. Only the man who lives well can be a candidate for happiness: one cannot be happy in a state of destitution.
9. Happiness is the activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue.
10. Virtue is what allows us to achieve happiness.
11. Virtue is being good at being human: It is doing what an excellent human being does.
12. Virtue is taking pleasure in doing virtuous acts.
13. Virtue is a habit, not a state of being; it is an acquired skill, even an acquired taste.
14. Virtue is as much contingent upon practice as lute-playing is.
15. Virtue cannot exist without the proper instruments.
16. Virtue is not a peak, an extreme, but a mean, a proportioning, a disposition fashioned by action.
17. Virtue is feeling the right thing at the right time with the right people in the right circumstances and in the right proportion.
Aquinas always referred to Aristotle as 'The Philosopher' as a mark of respect (just as he referred to Averroes as 'The Commentator').
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