Beauty and Morality in Aristotle
T.H. Irwin
In Miller, ed., Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: A Critical Guide
Cambridge, 2011

"When he tells us that the natural and the kalon are present in all animals (645a23-25), he does not refer to birds with beautiful feathers, and so on, but to teleological order (645a33-37).... Aristotle has the same order in mind when he speaks of the kalon as consisting in order, symmetry, definiteness, and greatness (Metaphysics 1078a31-b2; Poetics 1450b36; Politics 1326a33; Topics 116b21). He attributes the first three characteristics to the kalon in mathematical objects, and all four to the kalon in plays, cities, and organisms. Greatness is relative to the function of a goal-directed whole, natural or artificial. What is kalon in the construction of a tragedy or a city is fine, appropriate, and admirable, because it makes the tragedy or the city fit to perform its function well." (IRWIN-2011, pp. 242-243)

"The human good is the comprehensive end pursued by political science (1094b6-7), which aims at the good of a city because its achievement and preservation is greater and more complete than the good of an individual (1094b7-9); for though it is satisfactory to achieve and to preserve it for one individual, it is more kalon and more divine to achieve and to preserve it for a city or a nation (1094b9-10).... 'More divine' probably picks up 'greater,' since greater power is the mark of the gods. 'More kalon' probably picks up 'more complete'; we achieve the good more completely if we achieve it for a city, and its greater completeness consists in the common good of its citizens." (IRWIN-2011, pp. 243-244)

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