Aristotle set out in his Nicomachean Ethics to define the optimal means and the ends of human life. In doing this he posited a fourfold system of categorization in regards to the “causes”, which can be applied to understand any object, or phenomena. The first is the material cause, or what the object is made of, i.e. the matter that composes a phenomenon. The second is the efficient cause, or what conditions the phenomena to arises or what predeterminations cause the phenomena to come into being. The third is the formal cause, or the identity of the phenomena, what distinguishes it, what are its characteristics, what makes it recognizable, its form or shape as it exists in the current state which is under scrutiny. The fourth cause, and the most important for the task which Aristotle lays out in this book on ethics, is the final cause, or for what purpose the object exists for, what is the reason for its existence, towards what end is it used, or ought to be used.

If we take the phenomena as being Dasien, or a human being, we can apply this structure in order to determine that fourth cause, the one with practical implications, and for with which we can clarify meaning and a path in pursuit of that meaning, implying morality and a philosophy as a way of life. The material cause of a human is his flesh and bones, his cellular structure, his musculature, in short, those components which are the material components of an organism. The efficient cause is the parental gametes, the reproductive cells of his biological parents – of course the genealogy can be traced back further, but as the descriptive element of the initially preceding cause which formed the human, we point to the reproductive cells which constituted his initial formulation.  The formal cause is the shape or form of the human in which he is perceived, his bilateral, symmetrical appearance, the four limbs, the appearance of a human that we can recognize visually.

The fourth cause, the reason for which humans live, is less scientific and appears to be more subjectively determined. Many people claim to live for the sake of purposes which are far ranging, and many admit to not being able to determine what their “purpose” actually is. We can pose this question, and answer it from many different perspectives. From a biological standpoint, the cause of a human is to be the survival machine which propagates his genetic material into the future through surviving long enough to reproduce successfully in a way which preserves parts of his genome. From a religious standpoint, people can determine their purpose through sacred texts, spiritual insights, the worship and alignment with a higher power(s), and living in pursuance of the religiously formulated ideals. From an existentialist point of view, people’s purpose is to “create” or “discover” a consciously formulated meaning. Nihilists incorrectly assume that there “is no meaning, neither to be discovered or created”, that it merely doesn’t exist. While people may state various forms of meaning for which they are pursuing, the fact remains that people’s actions truly reveal their beliefs. Aristotle pointed to common pursuits which dominate humans lives, such as wealth, fame, and sensual pleasure. All in all, we can see an underlying factor to which all human life is striving for, Aristotle called it Eudemonia, which is commonly translated as “happiness”, but more accurately is akin to “wellbeing” or “human flourishing”. He claimed that for all the other factors for which people strive after, they do so for the sake of this flourishing. While his definition of happiness is quite different from our commonly intuited meaning that the word implies, I conceptualize the ends for which we strive as being the reduction of suffering, or unsatisfactoriness, and the increase in wellbeing, i.e. to have a more pleasant subjective experience.  All our aims and strivings in life are born from this unsatisfactory nature, as the Buddhist first Noble Truth states: “Life is unsatisfactoriness”. The biological imperative of desire and unsatisfactory nature to be a constant, drives us to pursue things towards their alleviation, for biologically beneficial reasons, so this isn’t necessarily a “bad” thing, it is actually a somewhat useful thing, in its essential foundation, yet it can be hijacked towards leading people to not so optimal activities and pursuits as the domain of knowledge and action, and the things that influence us, expands to include activities and mind altering substances, which are not conducive to the wellbeing, or happiness, which we all inherently seek. It here must be noted that Aristotle’s conceptualization of Eudemonia wasn’t short sighted, he didn’t merely mean the happiness or flourishing of instant gratification, or momentary peace, such as is afforded to us through Epicureanism in pursuit of temporary friendships or sensual pleasure, but rather that lasting and enduring resultant of activity which isn’t focused on the present, but afforded into the future, a life-long lasting flourishing and growth that we can take pride in, the resultant of volitional activity.  

The common drives of egotistical advancement, in areas such as wealth or fame, are pursued with an underlying desire for achieving happiness, so they are merely means to an end. The same can be said for philosophical systems such as existentialism, absurdism, religious or secular ideological structures. Thus, we have our end towards which humans are striving, that thing which is not pursued for the sake of another thing, but is the end for which all other pursuits are pursued for; happiness, flourishing, wellbeing, reduction of suffering. Now that we have a concrete end to human life, Aristotle poses what is the optimal path towards attaining a life that is in accordance with it. He claims that such a path must be self-sufficient, or relying on ourselves, as pursuits that are wholly out of our control, or in which we lay at the mercy of the external world; other people, material, or sensual inputs, are transient and unreliable, and altogether out of our control. This excludes from our search towards an optimal means to attaining happiness things such as reputation, wealth and sensual pleasure, for which most people commonly act under the guise as a means to the discovered end of Eudemonia, as they are liable to change due to external factors, and are not sufficiently pursued on an individual level in a way that is conclusively final in being the end and a mean simultaneously, and as being an exact derivative of our own creation. While these aims are pursued as a method to happiness, they are not pursued for their own sake, which is what Aristotle was explicitly looking for, that which can be pursued which in itself is desirable for the sake of itself.

Aristotle proposed that the concept of being virtuous, and in virtue itself, was the means and the ends towards which we will most optimally achieve Eudemonia. He developed the justification, and expounded the concept of virtue as being that means which is also an end in itself, which we ought to pursue as it is the optimal means of achieving Eudemonia, and in so claiming, the birth of the philosophical system of Morality known as Virtue Ethics is born. Aristotle claimed that we must not merely contemplate what it means to be virtuous, which we must surely due so that we can manifest it, but we must voluntarily embody the virtues in action, it must be an active exercise of voluntary manifestation of the virtues, not merely an understanding or rumination as to their content. As to what the virtues are, what they are constituted by, how we ought to display them, Aristotle had much to say, what it mostly boils down to, in my conceptualization, is the pursuit of manifesting the character traits that one has deemed to be “virtuous”, and from this action, one necessarily produces the most reliable form of Eudemonia, one that is depended not on any external source, but rather on the internal will and volition.

In my opinion, prudence, or wisdom, which is considered a virtue, is the all-encompassing source from which we determine what virtue takes precedence, as well as is used in determining when and how we should pursue Virtue Ethics itself. As to what this consists of, I mention in my essay “Wisdom Ethics”, in which I propose that the enterprise of Virtue Ethics necessarily falls under a broader categorization focused on the different utilities of selecting different moral frames of mind, and it is allocated as a sub category to a meta system of ethical consideration. Aristotle posits that virtue ethics is a type of morality that doesn’t weigh the outcome of moral actions, but rather focuses on the character traits which underlie the manifestation of action. He claimed, that through being a courageous, just, temperate, and wise person, and through the manifestation of these virtues and their development as character traits, one could naturally produce results which are of a morally “good” nature, and provide the moral agent with a life most readily consisting of a state of Eudemonia. The extent to which we are able to develop conceptual and experiential knowledge as to the virtues, determines the degree to which we can manifest them. The morally good he claimed stems from the manifestation of these virtues, in their implementation within the present moment, and he noted its potential application to any situation in life. Virtue Ethics provides a self-sufficient cause of happiness, and the degree to which our character and our actions are in alignment with the defined virtue determines the moral judgment of the person or action. He doesn’t consider the weight of the outcome of actions as that which is more pertinent, but rather, the action itself and its alignment with virtue takes precedence.

In defining the individual virtues Aristotle uses a method of the “Golden Mean”, in which the virtue is found in between two extremities, which is comparable to the Buddhist doctrine of the “Middle Path”. In between sensual overindulgence, and self mortification, we find discipline, we find the middle, optimal path. In Aristotle’s outlining, we find examples such as courage laying in between rashness and cowardice, generosity as the mean between stinginess and extravagance, and honesty in between secrecy and talkativeness. We can see how experiential knowledge, in the form of wisdom, plays a role in determining whether we hit the mark or not, as the virtues each respectively lie upon a spectrum in any given category, and the correct embodiment of the virtues in between the extremities, in an optimal manner, is determined by our ability to recognize it as such, which takes experience, introspection, and intelligent contemplation to determine. It is difficult to recognize when being honest is optimal, when we should rather be compassionate, how much should be revealed, when and to whom. This is where the general structure of Wisdom Ethics comes into play.

All in all, Aristotle’s system of determining being virtuous as the optimal mode of morality in which we should embody as a means to the end of happiness, is an interesting philosophical ideal, and is extremely useful in developing character traits which we should hope to embody. Is it the end all to morality, is it the best system to embody? I would say, as far as I can see, no, that other schools of ethics such as utilitarianism, and in general contemplating the effects of actions in contrast to solely the action themselves, is useful and important in a proper morality, as described in the essay “Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics, and Wisdom Ethics”. It is beneficial and useful to the individual to attempt to develop virtuous attributes through the voluntary use of them, but, it takes wisdom to know when this system is favorable to others, and when other systems may be more beneficial, both to the individual and his expanding circle of influence.