Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book II (excerpt)

Notes and questions:

1. In chapter 1, Aristotle asserts that we do not acquire virtues either by nature or contrary to nature, but rather are fitted by nature to acquire them, and that we acquire them by habituation. What does he mean by this, and on what grounds does he make this claim?
   
2. In what respect does Aristotle claim that virtues are analogous to such attributes as health and strength (ch. 2)?
3. In chapter 4, Aristotle addresses a problem raised by his account of how virtues are acquired. He has said (in ch. 1) that we acquire virtues by habituation. This would mean that we become, e.g., just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, and so on for the other virtues. The problem is that this seems to require that we already possess the virtues in question; for it would seem that we cannot act justly or temperately without already possessing justice or temperance, and so on for the other virtues; and this would entail that we cannot acquire any virtues at all. How does Aristotle solve this problem? How does he distinguish between acting justly and being just, or more generally between acting in accordance with a virtue and possessing the virtue?
   
4. In chapter 5, Aristotle argues that virtues are neither passions nor faculties but states of character. What reasons does he give for this claim?
   
5. In chapter 6, Aristotle claims that a virtue is a state of character that aims at what is intermediate between excess and defect (par. 21). What does he mean by this? What does he mean by distinguishing between what is intermediate in an object and what is intermediate relative to us (par. 20)? In which sense is a virtue an intermediate state?
   
6. In chapter 7, Aristotle explains how the threefold distinction among excess, defect, and mean or intermediate state can be applied to various matters in order to determine the various virtues. He refers (par. 25) to a table which has not survived, but I have included in my notes to the text a table based on what he says in this chapter. You should understand how the table works. Later books of the Ethics discuss these virtues in greater detail than Aristotle does here.
   
7. Why, according to Aristotle, is virtue difficult to attain (ch. 9)?