Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

but we are praised or blamed for our virtues and vices. [4] Again, we are not angry or afraid from choice, but the virtues are certain modes of choice, or at all events involve choice. Moreover, we are said to be ‘moved’ by the emotions, whereas in respect of the virtues and vices we are not said to be ‘moved’ but to be ‘disposed’ in a certain way. [5]

And the same considerations also prove that the virtues and vices are not capacities; since we are not pronounced good or bad, praised or blamed, merely by reason of our capacity for emotion. Again, we possess certain capacities by nature, but we are not born good or bad by nature: of this however we spoke before. [6]

If then the virtues are neither emotions nor capacities, it remains that they are dispositions.

Thus we have stated what virtue is generically.6.

But it is not enough merely to define virtue generically as a disposition; we must also say what species of disposition it is. [2] It must then be premised that all excellence has a twofold effect on the thing to which it belongs: it not only renders the thing itself good, but it also causes it to perform its function well. For example, the effect of excellence in the eye is that the eye is good and functions well; since having good eyes means having good sight. Similarly excellence in a horse