The Role of the Ergon Argument in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Deborah Achtenberg
In Anton and Preus, eds., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy IV: Aristotle's Ethics
SUNY Press, 1991

"How, then, is the ergon argument central to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? It is central because virtue is the completion relative to a thing's proper ergon, and completions of things different in kind are themselves different. That it is relative to proper ergon is stated in the remarks preceding the account of the intellectual virtues: 'the virtue of each thing is relative to its ergon, specifically, to its proper ergon (to ergon to oikeion)'. [fn2: EN VI.1 1139a16-17] If you want to find the virtue of a thing, then, look not to just any aspect of the thing, not just to any ergon of the thing, but to its proper, that is, its defining, ergon." (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 60)

Pointing to Physics VII.3 246a10ff, Achtenberg comments: "As coping or tiling [the roof] is to a house, we may thus suppose, so acquiring virtue is to a human being: a bringing to completion of something which has already come to be, and come to be of a certain kind, but which as yet has only come to be an incomplete member of that kind." (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 61)

"Simple potential is the capacity to act or be affected. Completed potential or hexis is the capacity to act or be affected well: 'again what are called capacities are capacities either of simply acting or being affected, or of acting and being affected well' (Metaphysics IX.1 1046a16). This is spelled out as follows: 'one kind is the capacity for being affected'; another kind is the disposition (hexis) to be unaffected by change for the worse or by destruction' (1046a11; 13).... Virtue puts what possesses it in a good condition with regard to what affects it: a condition of being unaffected by what destroys and affected by what produces it. Vice, on the other hand, puts what possesses it in a bad condition with regard to what affects it: a condition of being affected by what destroys it and unaffected by what produces it (Physics VII.3 246b8-9, 17-20)." (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 61)

"Aristotle discusses the human ergon, then, because to determine human virtue, and from there to determine the human good, it is necessary to consider the human ergon - specifically, the proper human ergon - and then see what it is that completes it: its first completion is virtue and the second is happiness." (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 62)

"Human beings ... live a rational life. Such a life is our ergon; it defines us. Like other animals, we are not defined by movement by nature towards our end, but by movement towards what we perceive as an end. However, we have 'more cognition' than other animals. [731a25] They simply have perception, while we have logos; they cognize only particulars, while we cognize universals and have universal judgment (katholou hupolepsis, Metaphysics I.1 981a6; EN VII.3 1147b4-5); they cognize the 'that' while we cognize the 'why' and the cause (Metaphysics I.1 981a27); they perceive present and past, while we perceive also the future (DA III.10 433b5); and they perceive pleasure while we perceive the good, the beautiful, and the just (DA III.10 433b5; Politics I.2 1253a9). Human beings, then, are defined not by perceptual intentionality, but by rational intentionality." (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 65)

"Aristotle discusses the human ergon ... not in order to exhort us to engage in activities which distinguish us from other animals, but to exhort us to complete or perfect our engagement in activities which we cannot help but engage in because we are, in fact, different from other animals.... [H]e argues thus: 'We are human. The human ergon or life is rational activity. Thus, the good life for us is one in which we engage in rational activity well. That is, it is one in which our inescapably rational activity is completed by its own proper virtue.'" (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 67) [PSA: as I would put it, it is not that human beings always act rationally in a Spock-like fashion or that such behavior is an ideal, but that naturalistically human life is completely suffused with thinking, i.e., the conceptual level of awareness.]

After quoting EN II.9 1109a24-29, Achtenberg states: "The difference between human and animal virtue is reflected, as well, in the distinction Aristotle makes between natural virtue and virtue in the strict sense. Some people are disposed at birth toward courage or moderation. These natural dispositions, however, are not virtues in the strict sense. They only become so, he states, if they are guided by mind (nous) or prudence (phronesis), or, more generally, by right logos (EN VI.13)." (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 69)

"All logos-based action aims at something believed to be good. Virtue brings the aim to completion...: 'the ergon is brought to completion in accordance with prudence and ethical virtue: for virtue makes the aim right, while prudence makes right the means' (EN VI.12 1144a6-9)." (ACHTENBERG-1991, p. 70)

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