Analysis Of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics

In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses virtues of character, the need for temperance, and the habituation of virtuous actions in order to be eudaimonic, or have a life of happiness non-conclusive of pleasures. Aristotle emphasizes that individuals can “be ruined by excess or deficiency” [] of these virtues of character, because if there is no balance amongst a person’s virtues, then this can lead to overindulgence or a lack-there-of virtue itself. In Book 2 of the Nichomachean Ethics, he examines the correlation of a person doing virtuous actions to being virtuous and good to which he concludes that virtuous actions are depended on a person’s pleasures, pains, temperance, and overall determines that virtues of character are developed

First, the action(s) must done at the right time and the person must “be in the right state” when the action is committed [1105a26-30]. Second, the action must be decided on for the action itself [1105a31-34]. Lastly, the person doing the action must consistently do the actions without deviation [1105a29-33]. I will illustrate the reasoning for Aristotle‘s three conditions, and then exemplify a virtuous action that reaches the requirements, and lastly an action that could be considered virtuous, but only shows the action was done “in the right state”

On the surface, someone with a lot of money giving to charity could be perceived as virtuous, but in many cases the person giving the money may not be doing it for the deed itself. Say if I decided to sell my philosophy textbook to one of my friends because they were planning on taking a class with the same textbook in the next term, I would be selling it for a lesser price based on that fact that it is secondhand, the textbook may have slight wear and tear, and because they are my friend. Although, I would see it as helping out my friend by selling them the textbook they need for a lower price, in reality I would have sold the textbook to someone else for a larger price if they had not asked me for the textbook. I know that I want to help my friend and this it is something I should to do, but in reality I am not selling my friend the textbook for the sake of her getting the textbook. Instead, I would be doing this action in order to rid me of the textbook and have some extra money to buy textbooks for myself. This demonstrates that I am not doing the action virtuously, because I am not selling the textbook to my friend for the action of selling the textbook to my friend, but for reason that are my own. Moreover, I would also fail to meet the third