book two starts by narrowing down the focus from virtue which is a very broad term especially when used by Socrates or Plato and means everything from wisdom to justice truth honor goodness Anyways Aristotle here wants to talk specifically about moral virtue Aristotle states that moral virtue is not something that's inherent in the nature of humans but rather that nature bestows us with certain capacities that are actualized by our habits Aristotle is taking the middle path on the question of nature versus nurture He's saying that nature bestows us with a certain range of possibilities and that nurture or life experiences then determine exactly where we fall in that range In this way somebody becomes just by performing just actions Brave by performing brave actions and so on and so forth Furthermore the virtues that are linked with these actions aren't acquired before or after somebody acts Rather the virtue is acquired during the action itself Now he's not saying that a single act of bravery makes someone a brave person What he means is that our habits determine our character and that it's therefore very important to keep an eye on one's habits Next Aristotle shifts gears to talk about how one should act in order to build good habits and out of good habits good character He notes once again that any answers we get from this are bound to be very general because we're working from general premises Also remember that Aristotle is assuming our agreement to first principles the fact that things like virtue justice bravery and the like are good while their opposites are bad Next Aristotle clarifies that just looking at a man's actions isn't really enough to tell you about his character After all no one calls a man brave if he only faces danger with great pain and reluctance In order to truly gauge somebody you have to look at the pleasure or pain that goes along with their actions Aristotle says that virtues are inherently tied to feelings and feelings are in turn tied to pleasure and pain Virtue then lies in responding to pleasure and pain in an appropriate way This also means that a man who flees from danger is not necessarily a coward provided that the danger he flees from is sufficient to provoke that response Next Aristotle sets a concrete definition of what virtue is He says that they are necessarily states of the soul meaning that they're either emotions capacities or dispositions Now emotions don't carry with them any moral judgment An angry man isn't considered bad so long as his anger is justified Capacities too don't deal in morals No man is said to be bad because he's capable of extreme anger Dispositions though can and do carry moral weight Someone with a disposition towards anger who becomes angry at the slightest provocation could and would be considered bad or at least his disposition would be considered bad This isn't enough detail though I mean obviously some dispositions are good and some dispositions are bad And how are we to delineate between them Aristotle's claim is that any kind of excellence both renders its subject good in and of itself and causes it to function well So then in relation to virtues an excellent disposition would be one that both makes someone good and causes him to per perform his function living well And how is one to accomplish this By aiming for the mean That is to say by aiming for a state in between excess and deficiency which we would call in this case vices For instance if someone is confronted with some kind of danger to have excessive fear or deficient bravery would be the mark of a coward a vice But conversely to ignore the danger entirely experiencing less fear than is appropriate or too much bravery would be the mark of a rash person Another vice Courage Aristotle says is found in feeling an appropriate amount of fear and bravery and that average place lies somewhere between rashness and cowardice Note that Aristotle isn't claiming here that courage lies directly in between cowardice and rashness but rather he's saying that it depends on the situation There really isn't any hard and fast rule but rather morality exists on a sliding scale so to speak And Aristotle doesn't apply this logic to every trait or disposition Things like malice shamelessness and jealousy are given as emotions that are by definition evil And he doesn't say this but I think it would be fair to assume that the same thing applies to other traits that are strictly defined as good like benevolence for instance Also on Aristotle's list of always bad things are certain actions like adultery theft and murder The specific reasons vary Some things are always bad because their very definitions imply excess or deficiency such as shamelessness Some because they require the breaking of contracts promises or laws such as murder theft and adultery In these cases there's simply no mean to observe the acts themselves carry immoral judgment So virtues exist in a mean state between two vices one of excess and one of deficiency Now Aristotle recognizes the diff the difficulty here in identifying a proper mean because like I said it isn't necessarily smack dab in the middle between the two vices So at the end of book two he gives three pieces of advice He says to stay away from the extreme that more opposes the mean For instance temperance is found between overindulgence and underindulgence But overindulgence is a more serious offense Hence we should steer away from it He says to recognize your own personal tendencies and steer away from those errors you most naturally drift towards So if you tend to be more cowardly than rash focus on avoiding cowardice And if you tend to be more rash than cowardly focus on avoiding rashness And finally he says to be wary of things that bring or take away pleasure Because when pleasure is on the line we don't tend to think straight and we have to try all the harder to remain in control