MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES IN ARISTOTLE'S 
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS

MORAL VIRTUES:

1. Courage (III.6)

2. Moderation (III.10)

3. Liberality (IV.1) (the virtue with regard to financial expenditures)

4. Magnificence (IV.2) (counterpart to liberality on the grand scale)

5. Great-souledness (magnanimity) (IV.3) (The first "peak" virtue, the presence of which entails all the others).

6. The (nameless) virtue concerned with small honors (IV.4)

7. Gentleness (the virtue with respect to anger) (IV.5)

8. Friendliness (a friendly manner without affection, unlike friendship proper, the theme of Books 8-9) (IV.6)

9. Veracity (straightforwardness) of speech (not with regard to justice/ injustice - i.e., avoidance of lying for gain - but where no ulterior motive is involved) (IV.7)

10. Wit (IV.8)

11. Justice (Book V) (Note its double sense, as general/ complete virtue corresponding to law-abidingness and as a particular virtue equivalent to "fairness." In the former meaning, the second "peak" virtue, in a sense entailing all other virtues).

11a. A superior qualification or modification of particular justice: equity (V.10; translated by Irwin as "decency," its alternate meaning).

        (Note that justice and equity seem to entail a higher degree of intellectual virtue than most or all of the other moral virtues listed, perhaps signifying that justice serves as a sort of link or "in-between" quality lying between the moral and intellectual virtues.)

INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES:

(Note: Aristotle calls the first five capacities listed below  "states by which the soul grasps truth" [1139b15]). The remaining three capacities are apparently elements of prudence, being concerned, as prudence is, with the "particulars" which action must address [1143a28]. They are evidently added to the original list with a view to distinguishing prudence more precisely from other intellectual virtues.) 

1. Scientific knowledge (episteme) (VI.3). Studies things of which the origins "do not admit of being otherwise" (1139a6-7; 1139b20).

2. Art or craft (techne) (VI.4). Concerned with the production of things that "admit of being otherwise."

3. Prudence (phronesis) (VI.5, VI.8). The other branch of knowledge concerned with "what admits of being otherwise": regulates actions.

a. "Prudence" proper, concerned with individual's good (though that seems to presuppose politike as well: 1142a9-10).

b. Political science (politike), concerned with the good of a city; the same "state" as prudence, but its "essence" different (VI.8):

1) The "ruling" part of politike, = "legislative science." (However, consider the need for equity to correct law in particular cases [V.11, 1137b11 ff.]: is "legislative science" then simply sovereign?)

2) The part of politike concerned with action/ deliberation, = "statesmanship" in the usual sense, such as "we" attribute to men like Pericles (1140a8-10). (Whether practicing statesmen are simply the exemplars of politike depends, however, on the assumption that such people "are the only ones who are ... politically active" [1141b28]; what of Aristotle's own activity in the Ethics, said by him to be "a sort of political science" [I.2, 1094b11]?)

3) Politike also subdivided into deliberative and judicial as well as legislative parts (1141b32ff.).

c. The "economic" aspect of prudence (translated by Irwin as "household science") (1141b32).

4. Intellection (intuitive understanding; nous) (VI.6). The source of our grasp both of the first principles of knowledge, of which no demonstration is possible (e.g.: the principle of contradiction?), and of our knowledge of particular facts (e.g., "this is a horse"). (Note: Aristotle doesn't say that nous supplies us with first principles of action, thus leaving open the question of their source.)

5. Wisdom (sophia) (VI.7): scientific knowledge of "the most honorable things" combined with nous regarding "the truth about origins" (1141a17-19). (But is such knowledge available to us?) "Said" to be possessed by (nonpolitical, "pre-Socratic") philosophers like Thales and Anaxagoras who are called "wise but not prudent" (1141b4-8). (But are wisdom and prudence simply separable? Cf. VI.13, 1145a6ff., where prudence is said to serve wisdom or facilitate its attainment. And regarding Thales, cf. Politics I.11, 1259a5-21.)

6. Deliberation (VI.9): enables one to identify "what is expedient for promoting the end about which prudence is true supposition" (1142b32ff.).

7. Understanding (sunesis) (VI.10): concerned with the same objects as prudence, i.e., variable things concerning which we "might be puzzled about and might deliberate about."

8. Judgment (gnome) (VI.11): the characteristic of a good judge, one who discerns the equitable.