nicomaki and ethics is Aristotle's most famous work on ethics it consists of 10 books which were actually originally 10 different Scrolls and we'll be going over the first two of them here now Aristotle intends this work to be more than just a theoretical discussion of Ethics he's looking to make a practical guide such that someone could actually implement the ideas presented in the text and hopefully live a better life because of it to that end the first thing that Aristotle sets in stone is the level of specificity he's going to demand of a discussion on ethics he says that since the premises we're working with here are vague and fairly uncertain broad generalities are acceptable as conclusions and in fact broad generalities are really all we can expect to get as conclusions Aristotle starts off with a very simple goal he seeks to find the highest possible good and to this end he States that the ultimate goal of most men in their lives is to achieve happiness now Aristotle recognizes that no one has exactly the same definition of Happiness so he generalizes and he lays out the three most common ones as he thinks at least the first is happiness defined as pleasure the life of enjoyment the second defining happiness as honor and virtue which is known as the life of politics and the third Aristotle calls the life of contemplation the life of enjoyment Aristotle quickly discards as worthless by reason simply of vulgarity now if this isn't enough justification for you Aristotle goes into more detail later on in this book The Life of Politics on the other hand seems at first glance to be worthy of Merit but it too doesn't hold up Aristotle's reasoning is that possessing virtue and honor don't necessarily make one happy nor do they necessarily have any impact on someone's life the life of contemplation is Aristotle's Prime Choice and he goes more into detail about that in one of the later books now at this point we need to pause for a second and clarify something because Aristotle is making a few pretty big assumptions here and if you aren't aware of them then it's going to seem like he's skipping several very important steps Aristotle is assuming that anybody reading this already understands what he calls first principles now what he means by this is that he isn't planning on establishing the basic tenants of moral knowledge here but rather that he expects the reader to already have this information whether through previous study or just simple life experience remember Aristotle's goal here is practicality so he doesn't want to spend too much time establishing really basic principles like why happiness is in itself good now here Aristotle sets aside the discussion about different types of lives and moves on to clarify just what it is that makes something good good to Aristotle can mean two different things things that are good for their own sake or things that are good as the means to achieving something else that's good bearing this in mind the ideal good should be the thing or group of things which is the end to all other means that is to say the good that all other goods are are done in order to achieve also by that logic Goods that are means to an end are subordinate to Goods that are good in and of themselves and something that is good in and of itself while not serving as the means to a greater good would be the ultimate good and what is this greatest good Aristotle proposes happiness it makes sense if you think about it happiness is desirable for its and you can't use happiness to achieve any other Goods and at the same time you can boil down the motivations of everything you do as either for happiness or for the sake of something that will make you happy so if happiness is this ideal good that we're looking for then to live well is to live for the sake of happiness but how does one go about it Aristotle suggests that living well is synonymous with excellence in everything that you do and excellence in regard to morality would be to live virtuously now Aristotle isn't necessarily suggesting that someone should I don't know give away all their possessions and spend their lives helping the poor on the contrary he Advocates that wealth political influence friends and material possessions are all very desirable especially in that the execution of many virtuous and Noble actions requires these kinds of things as tools it's easier for someone with money power and influence to do good than it is for somebody without in book two Aristotle goes into more detail about virtue itself and what a virtuous life looks like in practice