Aristotle opens by claiming that every action and endeavor pursues some form of goodness as its ultimate end.

Aristotle proposes that happiness and good are equivalent, rejecting wealth and fame as meaningful substitutes for true happiness.

Aristotle identifies three paths to happiness — through pleasure, politics, and learning — and elevates the life of study above the others.

Aristotle defines happiness as the complete and final end, the only goal humans pursue entirely for its own sake.

Aristotle introduces two categories of virtue — virtue of thought and virtue of character — as the pathways toward happiness.

Aristotle establishes that each virtue is a mean between two opposing vices, with bravery lying between cowardice and fearlessness.

Aristotle argues that virtue requires deliberation and conscious choice, and that a wish, belief, or spirit alone cannot constitute true virtue.

Aristotle proposes that a person can avoid wrongdoing through inaction but cannot achieve happiness without actively facing difficult choices.

Aristotle examines justice as the only virtue that actively helps others outside oneself achieve good and happiness.

Aristotle introduces virtues of thought, arguing they bring humans closer to the divine and surpass virtues of character in worth.

Aristotle identifies three conditions humans should avoid — vice, incontinence, and bestiality — marking a shift in focus toward the nature of vice.

Aristotle declares friendship the most necessary virtue of life, essential to all people regardless of wealth or social standing.

Aristotle presents three types of friendship — founded on love, utility, and pleasure — with only the love-based type being complete.

Aristotle disputes the argument that a person who achieves the highest good no longer needs friendships to live well.

Aristotle concludes that study and contemplation are the supreme virtues, representing the most divine activity available to human beings.

The first pool traces the central spine of Nicomachean Ethics, from Aristotle's opening claim that all action pursues goodness to his final conclusion that contemplation is the supreme human activity. Aristotle establishes happiness as the complete and final good, rejects wealth and fame as substitutes, and introduces virtue as the only pathway to achieving it. He argues that virtue requires deliberate choice rather than chance, and that inaction alone can never produce true happiness. Moving through justice, virtues of thought, and vice, the pool tracks Aristotle's progression from character-based virtues toward the higher realm of intellectual virtue. Friendship emerges as a necessary companion to happiness, with only love-based, equal friendships genuinely contributing to the good life. The pool ends with Aristotle's conclusion that study and contemplation are the most divine and fulfilling of all human activities.

Aristotle's core arguments from happiness to supreme virtue

Aristotle asserts that the good of society takes precedence over the good of the individual, linking ethics to political science.

Aristotle argues that humans are not naturally virtuous and can develop virtue only through intentional practice and deliberate habit.

Aristotle examines three human conditions — feelings, capacities, and states — and determines through elimination that virtue must be a state.

Aristotle uses the example of a horse to illustrate that virtues allow any being to function at its fullest capacity.

Aristotle explores temperance as the virtue governing bodily pleasure, positioned between the extremes of intemperance and total denial of pleasure.

Aristotle examines generosity as the virtue between wastefulness and ungenerosity, noting that pain signals when a person drifts toward vice.

Aristotle describes magnificence as a virtue dependent on generosity, representing the commitment to doing something great for the benefit of society.

Aristotle presents magnanimity as the virtue of a person who acts with openness and avoids flattery, doing right without seeking approval.

Aristotle argues that justice is reciprocal and uses money as an example of the fair exchange that sustains a just society.

Aristotle divides reason into scientific and calculating parts, arguing that each side constitutes a virtue demonstrated through its function and outcomes.

Aristotle explores prudence as the state of carefully thinking through decisions and considering how they will affect both oneself and others.

Aristotle presents two types of pleasure relevant to incontinence — choice-worthy pleasures such as honor and necessary pleasures such as food.

Aristotle argues that communities are built upon friendships and could not exist without them, connecting friendship directly to political life.

Aristotle argues that pure self-love focused on doing what is right and virtuous is praiseworthy, not a shameful act.

Aristotle argues that pleasure is more an activity than a state of being, intrinsically linked to humanity's love of life.

The second pool covers the supporting arguments and specific explorations that enrich Aristotle's ethical framework across all ten books. Beginning with the priority of social good over individual good, the pool moves through Aristotle's definitions of virtue as a state, his use of the horse analogy, and the examination of virtues like temperance, generosity, magnificence, and magnanimity. Aristotle's treatment of justice as a reciprocal exchange and his structural analysis of reason reveal the depth of his analytical approach. The pool also traces his identification of two types of pleasure relevant to incontinence, the role of friendship in building political communities, and the rehabilitation of virtuous self-love as something praiseworthy. It closes with Aristotle's argument that pleasure is best understood as an activity intrinsically tied to the human love of life itself.

The supporting arguments behind Aristotle's ethical framework

Aristotle rejects the idea that happiness is easily won, arguing it requires complexity, suffering, and hard-won experience to achieve.

Aristotle reveals that pleasure and pain both play roles in pursuing virtue, serving as a compass that guides humans toward right action.

Aristotle reveals that deliberation is always concerned with the means to an end, not with the end itself, which is already set.

Aristotle distinguishes true bravery — which demands full awareness of risk — from the false bravery of one ignorant of danger.

Aristotle introduces calmness as a virtue governing anger, arguing that the calm person directs anger rightly rather than suppressing it entirely.

Aristotle determines that shame is not a virtue but functions like one, acting as a check that discourages harmful behavior.

Aristotle poses the puzzle that a person can suffer injustice even when no individual has committed a deliberately unjust action.

Aristotle concludes that the intention behind an action determines whether it is just or unjust, so injustice can occur without a bad person.

Aristotle argues that virtues of thought are superior to virtues of character, distinguishing humans from animals and drawing them toward divinity.

Aristotle rejects his predecessors' claim that wrong actions result only from ignorance, establishing incontinence as a distinct condition of its own.

Aristotle distinguishes the incontinent person, who knows excess is wrong but pursues it anyway, from the intemperate person who believes excess is good.

Aristotle argues that complete friendships require equality and that hierarchical power between parties makes genuine friendship impossible to sustain.

Aristotle argues that when a once-virtuous friend turns bad, one has an obligation to try to restore that friend before ending the relationship.

Aristotle introduces goodwill as the foundational condition from which complete, love-based friendship begins, distinguishing it from both love and mere utility.

Aristotle closes the work by summarizing his findings and inviting the reader to continue engaging in discussion and the pursuit of knowledge.

The third pool captures the pivotal revelations and argumentative turning points that define the shape of Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle surprises by insisting that happiness demands difficulty and experience rather than ease, and reveals that pleasure and pain function as a compass guiding humans toward right action. He makes sharp distinctions between true and false bravery, between just acts and unjust intentions, and between degrees of vice in the soul. His break from his predecessors — rejecting the idea that wrongdoing stems only from ignorance — marks a major intellectual turning point, as does his nuanced separation of incontinence from intemperance. The pool tracks how friendship deepens from a matter of equality and obligation to a foundation of goodwill. It closes with Aristotle's open invitation for readers to continue the philosophical conversation he has begun.