The Good Man and the Good for Man in Aristotle's Ethics
Kathleen V. Wilkes
In Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle's Ethics
University of California Press, 1980

"The psuche, being a form, defines the creature whose psuche it is.... Hence if the psuche-form of man is complex, comprising rational and nonrational capacities, the ergon of man should be correspondingly complex and should include the nonrational functions of digestion, movement, and sensation, as well as rational activity. A more varied, conjunctive ergon in the NE would therefore be more in keeping with the outline of the psuche delineated in the De Anima." (WILKES, p. 344)

"[T]he best man is the man who exercises his rational capacities to their fullest extent *to gain for himself the best life possible*. He arranges and patterns his entire way of life upon the basis of his deliberative reasoning about what short-term and long-term goals and interests will bring him most eudaimonia, taking into account his social, material, and intellectual endowments and limitations." (WILKES, p. 354)

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