Nicomachean Ethics - Book VII. Impediments To Virtue

Book VII. Impediments To Virtue

This Book is the last of three books which are identical in both the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics. It is Book VI in the latter. It extends discussions which were discussed especially at the end of Book II, with the discussion of the vice akolasia and the virtue of sophrosune.

Aristotle names three things that humans should avoid, that have to do with one's character:-

• Evils or vices (kakia), the opposites of virtues. These have been discussed already in Book II, because like vices themselves they are stable dispositions (hexeis), "knowingly and deliberately chosen" (Sachs p. 119).
• Incontinence (akrasia), the opposite of self-restraint. Unlike true vices, these are weaknesses where someone passively follows an urge rather than a deliberate choice.
• Being beast-like, or brutish (thêoriotês), the opposite of something more than human, something heroic or god-like such as Homer attributes to Hector. (Aristotle notes that these terms beast-like and god-like are strictly speaking only for humans, because real beasts or gods would not have virtue or vice.)

Because vice (a bad equivalent to virtue) has already been discussed in Books II-V, in Book VII then, first akrasia, and then bestiality are discussed.