Hence a man is no less virtuous while asleep or on other...

Hence a man is no less virtuous while asleep or on other occasions when he is not exercising his virtues. More than this, however, a man can be virtuous and wretched and such a man is certainly not εὐδαίμων. Aristotle at this point challenges not merely the Kantians and the puritans to come, but also the Platonists.

Plato in both the Gorgias and the Republic looked back to Socrates and asserted that “it is better to suffer tortures on the rack than to have a soul burdened with the guilt of doing evil.” Aristotle does not confront this position directly: he merely emphasizes that it is better still both to be free from having done evil and to be free from being tortured on the rack. The fact that, strictly speaking, what Aristotle says and what Plato says are not inconsistent could be misleading.

The point is that if we begin by asking for an account of goodness which is compatible with the…