And now let us revert to the Good of which we are in search: what can
it be? for manifestly it is different in different actions and arts:
for it is different in the healing art and in the art military, and
similarly in the rest. What then is the Chief Good in each? Is it not
“that for the sake of which the other things are done?” and this in the
healing art is health, and in the art military victory, and in that of
house-building a house, and in any other thing something else; in
short, in every action and moral choice the End, because in all cases
men do everything else with a view to this. So that if there is some
one End of all things which are and may be done, this must be the Good
proposed by doing, or if more than one, then these.
Thus our discussion after some traversing about has come to the same
point which we reached before. And this we must try yet more to clear
up.
Now since the ends are plainly many, and of these we choose some with a
view to others (wealth, for instance, musical instruments, and, in
general, all instruments), it is clear that all are not final: but the
Chief Good is manifestly something final; and so, if there is some one
only which is final, this must be the object of our search: but if
several, then the most final of them will be it.
Now that which is an object of pursuit in itself we call more final
than that which is so with a view to something else; that again which
is never an object of choice with a view to something else than those
which are so both in themselves and with a view to this ulterior
object: and so by the term “absolutely final,” we denote that which is
an object of choice always in itself, and never with a view to any
other.
And of this nature Happiness is mostly thought to be, for this we
choose always for its own sake, and never with a view to anything
further: whereas honour, pleasure, intellect, in fact every excellence
we choose for their own sakes, it is true (because we would choose each
of these even if no result were to follow), but we choose them also
with a view to happiness, conceiving that through their instrumentality
we shall be happy: but no man chooses happiness with a view to them,
nor in fact with a view to any other thing whatsoever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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