Jasmine’s Reviews > Aristotle's Ethics > Status Update

There is no pleasure without activity enjoyed, and enjoyment is the mark of activity at peak performance. (Pleasure, p. 104)

Without wisdom, excellence of character would be like a man groping in the dark and not knowing where to go; without the desires of an excellent character, wisdom would have nothing to do. (The Excellences of Intelligence, p. 84).

Aristotle obviously feels a special contempt for self-indulgence. The self-indulgent man is not even excessive with regard to distinctively human activities, but in the satisfaction of appetites that we share with beasts. But Aristotle is not an ascetic; his temperate man will enjoy his food and other bodily pleasures so far as they are needful, fitting, and within his means. (p. 70)

The gratuitous violence of those who think it good sport to rough people up is what Aristotle has in mind as an example of bad character, and their ignorance consists in their thinking it a good idea; the violence of the man who knows it to be wrong but fails to control his temper is a different matter, though still a fault. (Chapter 4: Responsibility and Choice, p. 47)

Rational wish for the good must not be misunderstood as meaning something like desire for the morally right or the general welfare; basically, it means something like desire for what on the basis of rational calculation is seen to serve ones's best interest in the long run. (Action and it Motives, p. 40)

By saying that the mean is relative to us Aristotle is making it clear that he is not using any mathematical notion, such as those of an arithmetical or geometrical mean, but that the mean is determined by, is relative to, all the circumstances in which the choice of actions has to be made. (Excellence of Character, p.35)

By saying that the mean is relative to us Aristotle is making it clear that he is not using any mathematical notion, such as those of an arithmetical or geometrical mean, but that the mean is determined by, is relative to, all the circumstances in which the choice of actions in which the choice of actions has to be made. (Excellence of Character, p.35)

A study of excellence of character does not try to answer the question what is the best way to act or the question how we should make our choice of action; it is concerned only with the question what sort of character is needed if sound choices are to be made. (p.22)