V. -- Practical Philosophy.

55. Ethics. -- Practical philosophy subordinates knowledge to the guidance of conduct. Under the general name of Politics Aristotle includes the whole science of the order to be established in our acts. But he distinguishes Ethics from Politics properly so called.

Ethics has for its object the study of an individual's acts in their relation to his last end. The thesis that human activity tends towards a last end is merely an application of the law of finality (50). Now, man's end consists adequately in the harmonious exercise of all his faculties including those of sense, and formally in the expansion of his noblest faculties, namely, the intellectual. The actual possession of one's last end constitutes happiness; and as virtue is only the well-balanced exercise of an activity, man's end is sometimes called virtue, sometimes happiness.

Just as there is a theoretical reason and a practical one, so also is there a twofold series of virtues, the dianoetic (intellectual) virtues which are the noblest; and the moral virtues which are subordinate to the former, but no less essential to happiness. There are other elements in happiness, such as fortune and pleasure, but they are secondary. Aristotle's ethical system is a rational eudemonism.

The moral virtues form the proper object of Ethics; they are defined as dispositions of the will to follow the judgments of reason which tell us what is the proper mean to follow between the opposing tendencies of our nature. In his psychology Aristotle admits liberty, without, however, touching on the difficulties raised by this doctrine. Nor does he make any further enquiries on the subject in his Ethics. He simply makes a detailed study of several of the special moral virtues, chiefly of love (philia) and of friendship, the respective foundations of the family and of society.