ABSTRACT
In the first part of chapter 7 of the first Book of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle proposes two criteria for the specification of that good which he has been investigating since the first two introductory chapters of the work (i.e. to zetoumenon agathon, 1097al5). This is the 'end of action(s)' (telos ton praktôn, 1094al8-19) or 'the good and the best' (tagathon kai to aristón, 3.22) or 'the highest of all the goods achievable by action' (to pantôn akrotaton ton praktôn agathon, 1095al6-17). Aristotle's proposed criteria are that this good should be one that is 'unqualifiedly final' (alternatively, 'unqualifiedly an end', haplôs teleion, 1097a33), and that it should be 'self-sufficient' (autarkes, b8). He takes care to explain what he means by these criterial terms and to connect the criteria together (I will come back in sect. Ill to these explanations); and he concludes that this good is in fact eudaimonia (1097a34, b!5-16) - I leave this Greek word untranslated (for reasons I will explain later, beginning of sect. IV). In the remainder of the chapter Aristotle first gives an argument that eudaimonia itself is to be equated with exercise or activity of the soul that derives from and expresses the soul's excellence or virtue (psuchês energeia kaf arelen) - or perhaps it is activity deriving instead from the soul's 'best and most final virtue' (kata ten aristên kai teleiotateh) (1098al6-18). Then (a20ff.) he comments upon the limited informativeness of this equation, while nonetheless emphasizing its importance, since for him it provides the basic principle (arche, b3, 7) for the philosophical understanding of how human life should be organized and led.
