Phronesis and the Virtues
Daniel C. Russell
In Polansky, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Cambridge, 2014

"[I]t seems likely that deliberating about 'things that are conducive to ends' includes thinking about not only means to an end but also the very *specification* of that end in more concrete terms. So the decision-making process, for Aristotle, would seem to involve these three parts: the indeterminate end from which deliberation begins, making the end determinate in the case at hand, and working out effective means to that determinate end." (RUSSELL-2014, p. 205) [PSA: "things that are conducive to ends" could also be translated as "things that are on the way to [pros] the goal" - see NE III.3 1112b11-12, b33-34, EE II.10 1226b9-12, EE 1227a5ff.]

"Aristotle thinks of phronesis as a family of skills that all aim in an intelligent, perceptive way at finding what it would be beneficial to do within the here-and-now. These are (the outlines of) just the deliberative skills one would need in order to make an indeterminate end more determinate in a genuinely beneficial way." (RUSSELL-2014, p. 206)

"[V]irtue in the strict sense must be reliable in doing what is appropriate.... [R]eliably doing what is appropriate requires, first of all, correctly apprehending what is appropriate through right reason (EN II.2 1103b31-34, VI.1 1138b18-25, b32-34), that is, phronesis (EN VI.13 1144b25-30)." (RUSSELL-2014, p. 210)

"For Aristotle to say that a person has a virtue is to say something deep about the person's character: that he has a certain kind of emotional life and that there are certain things that he desires (NE I.3), that he has certain ends (II.4 1105a31-32; VI.12 1144a7-8), that he deliberates and chooses in accordance with right reason (II.2 1103b31-34; VI.1 1138b18-25, b32-34), and that in all of this he is firm and reliable (II.4 1105a32-33)." (RUSSELL-2014, p. 212)

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