Nicomachean Ethics

​One might be perplexed about them as to what they are useful for. For wisdom will contemplate nothing from which a human being will be happy (for it is of no coming-to-be), whereas practical wisdom has this, but for what sake does one need it? If indeed practical wisdom is that which is about just, fine, and good things for a human being, and these are what it is for a good man to do, but we are no more capable of doing them by knowing them, if indeed the virtues are states, just as is the case with healthy things or those conducive to good condition—all those that are so called not by producing but by being from the state; for we are no more capable of doing them by having medicine and gymnastics. And if we must say one is practically wise not for the sake of these but for the sake of becoming so, it would be of no use to those who are already excellent; and further, not even to those who do not possess it; for it will make no difference whether they have it themselves or obey others who have it, and it would be sufficient for us, just as is the case with health; for though we wish to be healthy, we nevertheless do not learn medicine. Besides these, it would seem strange if, being inferior to wisdom, it is to be superior to it; for that which produces rules and prescribes about each thing. Concerning these, then, we must speak; for now we have only raised perplexities about them. First, then, let us say that they are necessarily choice-worthy in themselves, being as they are virtues, each of each of the two parts of the soul, even if neither of them produces anything. Secondly, they do indeed produce something, not as medicine produces health, but as health produces health, so wisdom produces happiness; for being a part of whole virtue, by being possessed and by active exercise it makes a person happy. Furthermore, the human function is completed in accordance with practical wisdom and moral virtue; for virtue makes the end correct, and practical wisdom makes the things toward this correct. But of the fourth part of the soul, the nutritive, there is no such virtue; for it is not in its power to do or not to do anything. Regarding the point that we are no more capable of doing fine and just things because of practical wisdom, we must begin a little further back, taking this as our starting point. For just as we say that some who do just things are not yet just, such as those who do what is ordained by the laws either unwillingly or through ignorance or for some other reason and not for the sake of the things themselves (although they do what they ought and all that the excellent man should do), so, it seems, there is a way of doing each thing while being in a certain state so as to be good—I mean, for instance, through decision and for the sake of the very things done. Now, virtue makes the decision correct, but all that is naturally done for the sake of that decision is not the province of virtue, but of another faculty. We must speak more clearly about them after pausing to consider. There is indeed a faculty which people call cleverness; and this is of such a kind as to be able to do those things that tend toward the proposed end and to attain it. If, then, the end is fine, the faculty is praiseworthy, but if it is base, it is unscrupulousness; hence we say that both practically wise people and unscrupulous people are clever. And practical wisdom is not that faculty, but it is not without this faculty. And the state comes to be in this eye of the soul, not without virtue, as has been said and is clear. For syllogisms of action have a starting point, “since the end and the best is such-and-such, whatever it may be” (let it be, for the sake of argument, any chance thing); but this does not appear except to the good man; for wickedness distorts and makes one deceived about the practical starting points. So it is manifest that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good.