Aristotle's Ethics For Everyone

Aristotle's Ethics for Everyone
For Aristotle, there's really nothing mysterious about ethics. People do what they do because they want to be happy. If only they were a little wiser, they might actually get what they want--by doing what's right.
Empiricist Ethics
Aristotle was an empiricist. Unlike his teacher, Plato, he rejected the idea that philosophy should be based mainly on theoretical investigations. Instead, Aristotle argued that you should start by taking a good, hard look at the world and derive your theories from what you find.
Aristotle's primary assumption is that everything has a purpose, or telos. An excellent object is one that fully achieves its purpose. A knife's purpose is to cut, so an excellent knife is one that cuts well. A human being's purpose--the thing that separates us from other animals--is rationality. So an excellent person is one who is fully rational.
Applied Wisdom
Of course, Aristotle realized that we can't just sit around rationalizing all day. We have to use our heads to make real-world decisions, including ethical ones. Aristotle called this "practical wisdom": the capacity to react appropriately to changing circumstances.
People get better at practical wisdom as they gain life experience. Children, for example, often desire bad things until parents teach them what's good. Adults, on the other hand, ought to be able to judge for themselves. Of course, even adults sometimes want bad things, but practice makes perfect. Aristotle thought that by habitually doing good, you can align your desires with what wisdom says is right.
Have a Good God
So what's right? According to Aristotle, the most important human desire is for eudaimonia, a Greek term that literally means "having a good god." The term is usually translated as "happiness," but a better translation might be "success" or "fulfillment." Wanting eudaimonia makes perfect sense, Aristotle says--as long as you understand that it isn't some fleeting emotion. Rather, such "fulfillment" is a by-product of living your life right. It's the ultimate perk of virtuous living.
Every virtue, Aristotle argues, is a "golden mean" between deficiency and excess. Courage, for example, is a happy medium between cowardice and foolhardiness. People who can't find such "golden means" are neither virtuous nor truly happy. They can't reach eudaimonia. Only the virtuous can.
Politic Behavior
Aristotle also said that we humans are intrinsically political beings. Our lives take on moral purpose through our interactions with other people--our families, friends, and fellow citizens--and no truly virtuous act benefits an individual at the expense of the community. Rather, virtuous folks find fulfillment within societies they fashion together.
Since we develop practical wisdom and virtue through constant practice, society clearly plays a key role in moral education. But instruction alone is never enough. "With regard to virtue," Aristotle writes, "it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it."
--Mark Diller