(Previous: Eudemian Ethics I.8.)
Making a fresh start, after this we must speak about the following. All good things are either outside or inside personhood, and the most preferable are inside (as we have also noted in our popular writings): wisdom and excellence and enjoyment are all inside personhood, and everyone deems one or all of these to be our completion. Of the good things which are inside personhood some are traits or abilities, whereas others are activities and processes of change.
Let that be assumed, and also let it be assumed about excellence that it is the best condition or trait or ability of each thing which has a use or task. This is clear from bringing in witnesses and precedents (indeed we set this down about everything). For instance, there is an excellence of a cloak, for it has a task and a use, and the best trait of a cloak is its excellence. Likewise with a ship and a house and everything else, and also with personhood, for it too has a task.
Let us also assume that a better trait has a better task, that as the traits are related to each other so also are the tasks arising from it related, and that the completion of each is its task.
From these assumptions, plainly the task is better than the trait, for the completion, being complete, is best, since the completion is best and ultimate, all other things being for its sake.
Clearly, then, the task is better than the trait and the condition. But "task" is said in two ways. Of some traits and conditions there is a certain other task beyond their exercise, for instance the task of house-building is a house rather than the activity of building and the task of medicine is health rather than the activity of healing or curing. Of others the exercise is the task, for instance the task of sight is seeing and the task of mathematical understanding is giving attention. In cases where the exercise is the task, necessarily the exercise is better than the trait.
Having made these distinctions, let us say that a thing and its excellence have the same task but in different ways. For instance, the task of the shoemaker's craft and of the activity of shoemaking is a sandal, so that if there is an excellence to the shoemaker's craft and of an outstanding shoemaker, the task of this excellence is an outstanding sandal. And the same goes in other cases.
Furthermore, let the task of aliveness be to bring about living, and let the task of living be exercise and wakefulness (for sleep is a kind of inactivity and quietude). Therefore, since the task of aliveness and of its excellence must be one and the same, the task of its excellence must be an outstanding life. This, then, is the complete good, which as we saw is fulfillment. This is clear from our assumptions: that fulfillment is what's best, that things which complete us are inside personhood and are the best of the good things, and that what's inside personhood is either a trait or an activity. Since an activity is better than a condition and the best activity is that of the best trait, the activity of personhood's excellence is what's best. Fulfillment was also best, so fulfillment is the activity of good personhood. Since fulfillment was something complete, and life can be complete or incomplete, and thus also can excellence (it can be either whole or partial), and the activity of something incomplete is itself incomplete, therefore fulfillment would be the activity of a complete life directed by complete excellence.
As witness to the fact that the kind and definition of fulfillment are beautifully stated, there are views we all hold: that doing well and living well are the same as finding fulfillment, that each of these (both living and taking action) is an exercise and an activity (for a life of taking action is a life of use - a smith makes a bridle and a horse uses it), and that a person can't be fulfilled for a single day or as a child or at every season of life (thus Solon beautifully said to call no one fulfilled until their life was complete, since nothing incomplete is fulfilled, but only something whole).
Furthermore, praise is given to excellences because of deeds, and eulogies too are made about deeds. And it is the victors who receive the crown, not those who could have won but didn't. And someone's quality is discerned based on their deeds. Moreover, why is fulfillment not praised? Because other things are praised on account of fulfillment, either by leading up to it or by being a part of it. This is why congratulating, praising, and eulogizing are different things: eulogizing is speech about a particular deed, praising is about someone in general, and congratulating is about their being complete.
These considerations clear up an impasse that some people raise: that outstanding people are no better than worthless people for half the course of life, given that everyone is alike while sleeping. This is grounded in the fact that sleep is an inactivity of aliveness, not an activity. Thus also if there is another aspect of aliveness, such as the one having to do with mere subsistence, its excellence is not an aspect of the excellence of the whole person, just as with the excellence of the body. The subsistent aspect is more active duing sleep, whereas awareness and yearning are not brought to completion during sleep. Yet to the extent that these aspects of aliveness have some share in bringing about changes, even the impressions of outstanding people will be better, unless they are due to illness or injury.
After these matters we must turn our attention to personhood, for excellence is of personhood and doesn't just exist by-the-way. Since we are looking into human excellence, let us assume that there are two aspects of personhood that have a share in reason, although these do not share in reason in the same way: for one does so by giving orders and the other does so by being of a nature to heed and to follow. (If there is some other aspect of personhood that is unthinking in another way, let us pass that by.) It makes no difference if personhood is divisible or indivisible, because even so it has distinct capabilities including those we've mentioned, just as in a curve the convex is inseparable from the concave, and as a straight line may be white but the straight is not the white except by-the-way, rather than in its very being. And if there is some other aspect of aliveness, such as the aspect having to do with keeping alive, let us disregard that, for it is the aspects we've mention that are characteristic of human personhood. Thus the excellences of the aspects having to do with keeping alive and with growing are not human excellences. For if there is an aspect of a human being insofar as being human, present within it must be thinking as a ruling force, and taking action too. And what thinking rules is not thinking itself but yearning and feelings, so that personhood must have these aspects as well. And just as being in good shape comes together from the excellences of various aspects, so also does the excellence of personhood insofar as it is a completion.
There are two forms of excellence: that having to do with character and that having to do with thinking things through, for we praise not only those who are just but also those who are intelligent and sagacious. We assumed that what's praised are excellences and tasks, yet those are not active, although there exist activations of them. Since the excellences of thinking things through are suffused with reason, they belong to that aspect of personhood which has a share in reason, and this is the aspect of personhood which gives orders insofar as it has a share in reason; whereas the excellences of character belong to that aspect of personhood which is unthinking and naturally heeds the aspect that has a share in reason. (We do not say that character is a quality such as being sagacious or clever, but of being gentle or bold.)
After these matters, we must look into excellence of character: what it is, what sort of parts it has (which amounts to the same thing), and what brings it into being. As everyone does in other domains, we must search with some hold of that which we seek - always attempting, from what is said truly but unclearly, to grasp what is both true and clear. Right now our hold is like holding that health is the best condition of the body or that Coriscus is the swarthiest man in the marketplace: we don't know what each of these things is, but the hold conduces to the task of knowing them.
First let us assume that the best condition arises out of the best things, and that the finest actions flow from the excellence of each (for instance, the finest forms of exertion and nutrition put you in good shape, and from being in good shape flows the highest level of performance). Furthermore, every condition is generated and destroyed by the same things applied in certain ways, as health is from nutrition and exertion and climate. These things are clear from bringing in witnesses and precedents.
Excellence, then, is the sort of condition which arises out of the finest changes within personhood and which activates the finest deeds and feelings of personhood. From the same things excellence is in one way generated and in another way destroyed, and it is exercised in relation to the things from which it is developed and destroyed, and which arrange what's best. A sign of this is that both excellences and deficiencies are all about pleasures and pains - for (as in other cases) correction is a kind of healing that works through opposites.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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