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ARISTOTLE'S MORALS AND POLITICS 117
fatal also* to any theory of ethics. For, applied to ethics,
it issues in a circular position. What, we wish to know,
is a good character? Aristotle's answer is that it is one
which is formed by good actions. What is a good action?
It is one that is willed by a good character.
Aristotle's account of the will in its bearing upon the
formation of character is not the only instance of a circular
argument in his writings on moral philosphy. The reader
of the Ethics cannot, indeed, avoid being struck by the
frequency with which Aristotle's arguments lead to conclusions
whose validity must be assumed, if the premises
of the argument are to be accepted. I give three examples:
(a) Human beings, he points out, possess a faculty which
we should to-day call temper. Temper may assume the
form of a righteous indignation against wrong-doing,
or a wilful impatience of restraint. Now righteous in-
dignation, Aristotle affirms, is good, but wilful impatience
is bad. How, then, do we distinguish the one from the
other? Aristotle's answer apparently is that righteous
conduct that
indignation is that which we feel against
is bad. What, then, is conduct that is bad? It is that
for which the good man will feel righteous indignation.
(b) If I am in good moral health, Aristotle says, I shall
know what is the rightful application of the doctrine of
the mean in any given case; for example, how much or
little anger it is right to feel on a particular occasion.
How, then, am I to recognize the state of being in good
moral health? Answer; it is a state which expresses itself
. how
in an habitually correct application of the doctrine of the
mean.
(c) What is the definition of a good citizen? He is one
who willingly and contentedly obeys the laws of the
good State. What, then, is a good State? One which
evokes the willing co-operation of the good citizen. How
does a man come to recognize that the h*ws of the good
State are good, and such as he may justifiably support;
how, in other words, does he become a good citizen?
Answer; he becomes a good citizen as the result of training