To be good is to perform virtuous activity and Aristotle wrote that the good is what we strive for in itself as the end of our actions. In Nicomachean Ethics there are two kinds of virtue: the moral virtue and the intellectual  virtue; moral being that which is learned from a parental figure and the latter being that which is learned from a teacher. Both virtues are the result of trained habits, this being the only way they are achieved and not as being innate attributes of a person. The mode of each action that is virtuous has an excess and a deficiency, thus to be good one must find the mean between the two.

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Moral Philosophy: Ethics from Socrates to Sex

I hated college philosophy class, but I love this book. There’s usually nothing like going back to the original sources for inspiration and enlightenment, and Western philosophy is no exception.

In the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle lays the foundation that would be built on by everybody from Immanuel Kant to Bertrand Russell. The book is full of gems like this: Aristotle explains how the virtue (the purpose) of a thing is its unique function (a “good dog” is one that excels at particularly doggish qualities like fidelity and protectiveness), and eventually concludes that the purpose of man is to exercise his unique function: rational thought. You don’t get that from Dr. Phil!

One of the classics–this is where Aristotle maps out his doctrine of the mean as well as how to live a life of virtue (aka arete!).