Nicomachian Ethics
I have here a brief outline of this work, but mostly some questions and comments that occurred to me while reading it.
Book I
Chapter 1 An action is a choice to obtain the good which is the ends of the action. A good can be a product.
Chapter 2 He clarifies that politics is the science of determining what people should and should not do, and that good for a city is more important than a good for an individual.
Chapter 3 Aristotle has faith in the average person: "Each person judges well what he knows, and is a good judge of this." Except young people who have not had time to learn right from wrong.
Chapter 4 What should you want as a good from your actions? Money, fame, possessions are all indirect goods design to get you to the primary good: happiness. Happiness is the only thing that is its own reward.
Chapter 5 There are three kinds of life to live: (1) the life of pleasure, (2) the life of politics, and (3) the life of contemplation. Pleasure is simplistic. Men of action like the honor of politics. But philosophers, you know, like contemplation the best of all.
Chapter 6 Is there a universal for good which all good things get their goodness from? Aristotle thinks not.
Chapter 7 the chief good is complete in itself, and self-sufficient: happiness.
Chapter 8 - three classes of good: external goods, goods of the sour, and goods of the body. "Happiness is living well and acting well." the masses are not pleasant by nature, but noble people are pleasant by nature. Some identify happiness with god fortune, others with virtue.
Chapter 9 Politics produces the chief good. Animals and children can't be happy.
Chapter 10 Good and bad events can happen by chance, but if happiness if the result of actions, then one can always act and remain happy.
Chapter 11 The happiness of people alive makes no significant difference on the dead.
Chapter 12 Happiness is no something to be praised.
Chapter 13 States worthy of praise are called virtues.
This book clarifies that ethics is the subject of "right-acting". We want to act in a way that is the best possible. Every action, is valued according to the good it produces, also called its ends.
One question I will be asking though the entire work is how to resolve the question of selfishness: "better for me" or "better for others." Aristotle oddly sidesteps this question.
There are also too kinds of "good" to consider. One the technical proficiency, such as "I am really good at murdering people." The other is good in the sense of increasing well being: "Murder is not good." Thus you could be really good at doing something bad, or really bad at doing things that are good.
Yet Aristotle claims that we act for the purpose of getting the good that the action produces, and the ends of the actions are fixed to the action, and not the context that the action is performed in. The good of the action does not mean that the action IS good, but that the action produces a good, and that is the point of the action. The goods of a headshrinker is a bunch of shrunken heads; whether or not one should shrink heads seems to be a side issue.
He seems to be assuming that people have all the best intentions at heart and will pick actions that produce good goods. That people will naturally want to do things that are beneficial for themselves and others.
Aristotle is not simply saying to do whatever you want. Obviously a thief may get caught and executed, and that is not a good lifestyle by any measure. He makes a strong case that getting along with people is likely to bring the most happiness to an individual. Helping your neighbor is likely to make you happier in the long run. But he does not outline any rules for getting along. He never says "don't murder your neighbor." That is, he never directly defines what is a good act, and what is a bad act. He assumes that individuals know this.
Instead he says you should act in a way that brings about the ends that you would like to receive. It sounds very selfish to me.
Nevertheless, Aristotle ends by concluding that virtues are the key thing to aim for. Of course, that is circular since the definition of a virtue is something we praise in people.
Book II
Chapter 1 Two kinds of virtue: intellect and character. Intellect from teaching and experience. Character arises from habituation.
Book V
Justice an Injustice. Greed. Lawlessness. Justice is a virtue for the good of another.
Health and Unhealth