The Substance of Aristotle's Ethics
Edward Halper
In Sim, ed., The Crossroads of Norm and Nature. Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.

"[T]he various material parts are one because they act together. For example, flesh, bones, sinews, and so forth constitute a single human being because they function together - they act as one. This joint functioning is the actuality that defines the nature of the substance and, more importantly, *is* itself the substance: the substance is the functioning together of the parts." (HALPER, pp. 4-5) [PSA: If this is true of psuche, then (i) integration is the telos and (ii) sophia is not the only energeia.]

"The aim of a substance is just to be a substance; as Aristotle puts it in the Physics (II.7 198b2-4), a nature is its own end." (HALPER, p. 5)

"A human being is defined in terms of capacity for reason, a first actuality; happiness is the realization of this capacity, activity in accordance with reason (logos), a second actuality (NE I.7 1097b24-1098a8; cf. DA II.1 412a23-28). As long as the organs are so constituted that a person has the capacity to think, he is indeed a person; and a biological treatment focuses on the functioning of the organs that constitutes this capacity. In contrast, the realization of this capacity in action is our ultimate end; it falls under ethics. Though in other cases a first actuality is understood through its second actuality (Metaphysics II 1046b22-24, with b8-9), the human definition is different beause the capacity for reason is actualized by our choices and can be actualized in different ways. This is why there are distinct disciplines of ethics and human biology." (HALPER, p. 6)

"Just as our material parts are unified through an actuality, namely, the capacity to function together, so too our faculties - the Greek word for faculty is dunamis - are unified by another actuality, their actually functioning together. But our faculties need not function together: someone who chooses to indulge one at the expense of others undermines their joint functioning. It is only when the faculties do function together that they are functioning properly and we are living well, which is to say, happily. Insofar as it consists of a plurality of faculties united by their form or actuality, a happy life is a quasi-substantial entity. In contrast, the life of a person whose faculties do not function together lacks this substantial character. I contend that the happy life is the best life precisely because it is substantial. To function well is simply to use one's faculties in such a way that they constitute a substantial whole, and virtue lies in the faculties' being capable of such unified functioning. What we need to see is that the acts that are not consonant with virtue are those acts that undermine this substantial unity." (HALPER, pp. 7-8) [PSA: Since the self is an achievement, such a disordered soul is not really a self as a coherent entity; note also the sense of substantial as serious, i.e., spoudaios.]

"Aristotle regards the function of reason as the organizing principle in the soul: the parts of the soul function together when they function in accordance with it. In the soul reason plays the role of form, desires and appetites the role of matter." (HALPER, p. 8)

"[T]he virtuous person responds appropriately to circumstances, and to do this he must make a correct rational assessment of those circumstances. Virtue is not a habit of feeling or a habit of action. It is a habit of choice. It requires that the affections and the desires be trained to follow reason, whatever it may choose." (HALPER, p. 9) [PSA: Specifically, this habit is an indewlling trait that comes alive, as it were, in action: not merely kata logon, but meta logou.]

"It is reason that is uniquely human (I.7 1097b24-1098a8). To choose a mean properly, a person must exercise reason, and in so doing he engages in a fundamentally human activity. Because this activity defines our nature and because a nature is its own end (cf. Physics II.7 198b2-4), our rational activity is its own end. Thus, we exercise practical reason for no other purpose than to be human." (HALPER, p. 10)

"This analysis is supported by the reason Aristotle gives in the Eudemian Ethics for happiness requiring a complete life: 'nothing incomplete is happy because it is not whole' (EE II.1 1219b7-8). The presumption is that the various acts of a life could fit together into a whole; such a whole would be necessary if happiness is to be substantial." (HALPER, p. 12)

"[T]he more that we can act in accordance with virtue, and thus also with practical reason, the more our action is governed by a single principle and the more substantial our ethical life is. Like other instances of the genus of quality, happiness admits of degrees (cf. Categories 8 10b26-11a5), but this is not incompatible with the organizing role that it plays for human faculties and affections. The greater the degree to which it is present, the more these function together and the more substantial life is: human happiness is directly proportional to the substantiality of ethical life." (HALPER, pp. 12-13)

"[I]f happiness has a substantial integrity ... then it is not merely a collection but a unity." (HALPER, p. 13)

"[I]t is just such a substantiality that we require if we are to make something of ourselves. And if this something is to be human, the form that makes the substance what it is must be reason. Happiness is better than other manifestations of human activity because it alone is the fulfillment of the human substance. It organizes the faculties and activities that constitute human substance into a distinct but analogous unity." (HALPER, p. 14)

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