choiceCharacterEtcInAristotle

...we must next discuss choice; for it is thought to be most closely bound up with excellence and to discriminate characters better than actions do. (1111b5-6)

something called "choice" tells the difference between the "characters" of people better than "actions" do.

Actions are anything that is voluntary.

Both children and other animals share in voluntary action, but not in choice, and acts done on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary, but not as chosen. (1111b8-10)

So choice can only be done by adult humans: it must involve the rational capacity, for that is what children and animals lack.
And Aristotle's "choice" is not the same as our word "choice," for it does not include things done without deliberation.

it does not include impulsive actions
it does not include actions spurred by emotions that just happen to us

although we can tame such emotions to at least some degree and so we can be blamed for such actions

they are part of our character as a lack of well-developed character

it cannot be desire, emotion, appetite, anger, etc., for animals and children have those.

The incontinent human acts with appetite, but not with choice; while the continent human on the contrary acts with choice, but not with appetite. Again, appetite is contrary to choice, but not appetite to appetite. Again, appetite relates to the pleasant and the painful, choice neither to the painful nor to the pleasant.

So what you have an appetite for, or nonrational desire for, is different from what you choose.
appetites cannot oppose other appetites:

perhaps because although two nonrational desires may be mutually exclusive, they do not affect each other.

If you have a desire to stay dry and a desire to swim, you just want them both, whether or not they are incompatible.
only reason can tell you they are incompatible

Choice can directly oppose appetite in the sense of vetoing it.

but also, in the longer term, in the sense of steering appetite

What of the claim that choice does not relate to the painful or the pleasant?

on the face of it, it seems wrong
perhaps this is talking about the continent, not the incontinent

perhaps it is because:

we choose something we have an appetite for based solely on the pleasure

we avoid something to which we have an aversion [a negative appetite] based solely on the pain,

whereas choice may or may not take pleasure or pain into account and is certainly not controlled by it in the way that pleasure and pain are the deciding factors in our appetites.

as practical wisdom is to cleverness--not the same, but like it--so is natural excellence to excellence in the strict sense. For all men think that each type of character belongs to its possessors in some sense by nature; for from the very moment of birth we are just or fitted for self-control or brave or have the other moral qualities; but yet we seek something else as that which is good in the strict sense.... Just as in the part of us which forms opinions there are two types, cleverness and practical wisdom, so too in the moral part there are two types, natural excellence and excellence in the strict sense, and of these the latter involves practical wisdom. ... it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral excellence... the same person, it might be said, is not best equipped by nature for all the excellences, so that they will have already acquired one when they have not yet acquired another. This is possible in respect of the natural excellences, but not in respect of those in respect of which a person is called without qualification good; for with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, will be given all the excellences. And it is plain that, even if it were of no practical value, we should have needed it because it is the excellence of the part of us in question (the intellect); plain too that the choice will not be right without practical wisdom any more than without excellence; for the one determines the end and the other makes us do the things that lead to the end. (1144b1ff)

from this we conclude that there are two forms of moral character: "natural excellence " and "in the strict sense... (which) involves practical wisdom"

animals, children, and unreflective people may have "natural excellence,"
but excellence strictly speaking belongs only to those who have practical wisdom

practical wisdom is an all or nothing package: you can't have parts of the virtue it represents.

choice

reveals character
and simply is character
character is a disposition to choose
we develop it as we grow up

we shift from merely desiring things to desiring them because they are good or fine
from merely disliking things to disliking them because they are bad or base

human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with excellence, and if there is more than one excellence, in conformity with the best and most complete (1098a16-18)

A. acknowledges that there may be more than one excellence, more than one thing done for its own sake.
But assumes there will be differences amongst them such that one can be called most complete and best.
Note that he does not say that we therefore exclude the other ones

we may pursue the other excellences, if there are any, too
perhaps they will turn out to be related to the most complete and best one in such a way that it contributes to them.

Character versus intellect:

Some excellences have to do with character: with what choices we are disposed to make

Books II-V deal with character excellences

II1-III.6 deals in general
III.6-V.11 deals with specific excellences

Some have to do with intellect

Book VI deals with intellectual excellence

Interesting questions about the intellectual

What of intellectual passions, desires, etc.

curiosity, wonder, creativity, etc.

A says little about these

Why is there no doctrine of the mean for intellectual things?
why must the capacities of the intellectual virtues be suited for eternal objects and why must that part of the soul be eternal?
Why is intellectual wisdom more valuable than practical wisdom and the political, and yet they are the master skills?

Practical wisdom does not order intellectual wisdom about, rather it does things for the sake of wisdom, and so it is in charge, but intellectual wisdom is more valuable.
We strive to fulfill all of our daily needs, etc. and also to make as much space as possible in our lives for the activities of the intellect alone, contemplation and theoretical reasoning.

Achieving character excellences:

our desires can be a problem:

can be incompatible with reason and so get in the way

but it's not as if they have their own little practical wisdom department that can fight the general practical wisdom department

can also harken to reason
need to be habituated

Conditions for excellent actions: they are not fully excellence if they don't meet these conditions

agent must know what is excellent
must choose it for its own sake
must do so from a firm disposition that is not likely to change

Doctrine of the mean

quantitative: may be a neutral, non-evaluative basis for evaluative status
aspects: neutral, non-evaluative basis for evaluative status
How is the mean relative to us?

does that mean each individual has her own idiosyncratic virtue? Surely not.

but we each have individual mix of projects and 'natural excellence' and pleasure/pain settings

relative to us qua human
and yet, Aristotle says that we don't cure human, but this human
so are we stuck with situational relativism?

The action in any situation is said to be determined by the correct account orthos logos.

What role does the mean play in that?

a rough guide: it gives you an idea where the target is