Whenever a reasonable explanation comes to sight as to why a thing appears to be but is not true, this makes for greater trust in the truth.
aristotle's Nicomachean Ethicsby aristotle
The simply complete thing, then, is that which is always chosen for itself and never on account of something else.
Happiness above all seems to be of this character, for we always choose it on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet honor, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we choose on their own account — for even if nothing resulted from them, we would choose each of them — but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy.
Virtue, then, is twofold, intellectual and moral. Both the coming-into-being and increase of intellectual virtue result mostly from teaching — hence it requires experience and time — whereas moral virtue is the result of habit, and so it is that moral virtue got its name [ēthikē] by a slight alteration of the term habit [ethos].
Neither by nature, therefore, nor contrary to nature are the virtues present; they are instead present in us who are of such a nature as to receive them, and who are completed through habit.
When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they do need friendship in addition; and in the realm of the just things, the most just seems to be what involves friendship.
There appears to be a certain difference among the ends: some ends are activities, others are certain works apart from the activities themselves, and in those cases in which there are certain ends apart from the actions, the works are naturally better than the activities.
If, therefore, there is some end of our actions that we wish for on account of itself, the rest being things we wish for on account of this end, and if we do not choose all things on account of something else — for in this way the process will go on infinitely such that the longing involved is empty and pointless — clearly this would be the good, that is, the best.
The good of the individual by himself is certainly desirable enough, but that of a nation and of cities is nobler and more divine.
The noble things and the just things, which the political art examines, admit of much dispute and variability, such that they are held to exist by law alone and not by nature.
