For example, a shoe is used to wear, and is used for exchange; both are uses of the shoe. He who gives a shoe in exchange for money or food to him who wants one, does indeed use the shoe as a shoe, but this is not its proper or primary purpose, for a shoe is not made to be an object of barter. The same may be said of all possessions, for the art of exchange extends to all of them, and it arises at first from what is natural, from the circumstance that some have too little, others too much.22
The moral difficulty comes when we enter into the business of trade, where exchange is undertaken solely for financial reward. Yet this is precisely how a lot of business is conducted in the modern capitalist economy. Since there are no built-in limits to how much accumulation can result from trade (as distinct from the sort of exchange mentioned above, where natural wants impose constraints), Aristotle claims that involvement in trade leads us to harbor an illusion of unlimited accumulation of wealth. Rather than working cooperatively, assisting others in realizing their human capabilities, the enterprise of trade pits us in competition with each other. Consequently, we start to see other people as mere opportunities for amassing more and more profit. As Aristotle puts it, “There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honourable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another.”23 Compounding this moral problem, for Aristotle, is the practice of money trading over time. In other words, extending loans—with interest. The proper end for money lies in facilitating exchanges of goods, not in concocting yet more money. Thus, as Aristotle says:
The most hated sort [of wealth-getting], and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.24
But how realistic is it to abide by a stricture against lending money with interest in today's economy? After all, how would firms ever obtain the financial backing to get off the ground? Plus, we'd have to gut our savings to buy big-ticket items like cars, houses, and appliances. However, for Aristotle, there is a different priority at stake in commercial life: it falls on virtue to oversee the quest for wealth. Because it is the highest good, virtue is not to be sacrificed to pursue affluence. The true moral objective in life is lurking within the quest for the summum bonum driving the most virtuous elite. In other words, true happiness is not found in the preoccupation with creature comforts so characteristic of the masses.
To grasp how Aristotle reaches this conclusion, bear in mind that he considers happiness an activity. His notion of happiness does not exactly match our modern understanding. For Aristotle, a person is not happy if they are not performing well, regardless of what they are doing. To say something is performing well, for Aristotle, is to say that it is fulfilling its function or role. The function of a violin is to produce musical sounds. We would say that a violin that satisfies that function well is an excellent violin. Similarly, we all have some notion of what is means for a person to be an outstanding business executive, or a fine chef, or a superb musical conductor. And yet it will not suffice to just turn to conventional social roles to ascertain the broader meaning of satisfying a role or function with excellence. After all, ethics concerns what it is that leads human beings to be happy. Ethics is not about the narrow question of what renders this or that person happy. Thus, reasons Aristotle, we need to arrive at some understanding of the function or role of humans as such:
Since happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect virtue, we must consider the nature of virtue; for perhaps we shall thus see better the nature of happiness. The true student of politics, too, is thought to have studied virtue above all things; for he wishes to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws…. And if this inquiry belongs to political science, clearly the pursuit of it will be in accordance with our original plan. But clearly the virtue we must study is human virtue; for the good we were seeking was human good and the happiness human happiness. By human virtue we mean not that of the body but that of the soul; and happiness also we call an activity of soul. 25
In the same way that we might best allocate tasks amongst people according to their differences, the function of humans should be picked out according to what distinguishes humans from all other beings. Humans share something in common with animals and plants alike: they are inclined toward nutrition and growth. And just like animals, humans are directed by appetite and able to perceive objects around them. What sets human beings apart, says Aristotle, is this: our souls possess a rational principle. This equips us to comprehend universal concepts, decide among different courses of action, and discipline our appetites.
There are two parts of the soul—that which grasps a rule or rational principle, and the irrational; let us now draw a similar distinction within the part which grasps a rational principle. And let it be assumed that there are two parts which grasp a rational principle—one by which we contemplate the kind of things whose originative causes are invariable, and one by which we contemplate variable things; for where objects differ in kind the part of the soul answering to each of the two is different in kind, since it is in virtue of a certain likeness and kinship with their objects that they have the knowledge they have. Let one of these parts be called the scientific and the other the calculative; for to deliberate and to calculate are the same thing, but no one deliberates about the invariable. Therefore the calculative is one part of the faculty which grasps a rational principle.26
Since the distinctly human function is found in the use of cognitive capabilities, Aristotle concludes that virtue consists of reason being used with excellence.
Now if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle, and if we say ‘a so-and-so’ and ‘a good so-and-so’ have a function which is the same in kind, e.g., a lyre-player and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of goodness being added to the name of the function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case, [and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case,] human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.27
Yet virtue does not, by itself, ensure happiness. In contrast to Stoic philosophers, who maintained that having virtue alone is pretty much enough, Aristotle believes that virtue is rightly accompanied by other goods apart from the mind.
It is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment. In many actions we use friends and riches and political power as instruments; and there are some things the lack of which takes the luster from happiness, as good birth, goodly children, beauty; for the man who is very ugly in appearance or ill-born or solitary and childless is not very likely to be happy, and perhaps a man would be still less likely if he had thoroughly bad children or friends or had lost good children or friends by death. As we said, then, happiness seems to need this sort of prosperity in addition; for which reason some identify happiness with good fortune, though others identify it with virtue.28
Having monetary resources is needed before one can even think about undertaking some virtuous actions, among them generosity. Conversely, being short on financial resources ushers in temptation to defraud and steal.
Virtue and pleasure are linked insofar as the ethical individual