The primary way of being is substance. Aristotle states that substance is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject. The species in which the things primarily called substances are found are called secondary substances. Things that are not found in combination are either substances or quantity or qualification. Being itself is found in substance. Aristotle says that every substance seems to signify a certain "this":
As regards the primary substances, it is indisputably true that each of them signifies a certain "this"; for the thing revealed is individual and numerically one (6).
Secondary substances do not signify a "this" but instead signify a certain qualification. Substance, and so being, does not admit of a more or less but is a mean in itself. This is a statement of equality among men as among other substances endowed with being:
For example, if this substance is a man, it will not be more a man or less a man either than itself or than another man. For one man is not more a man than another, as one pale thing is more pale than another and one beautiful thing more beautiful than another (7).
The state of being is expressed through substance, and no man is more than any other man--all have being equally.
4. According to Aristotle, we have freedom of choice and are responsible for the choices we make. We are morally culpable even for unintended consequences. Acting unjustly is tantamount to wishing to act unjustly. The origin of action, says Aristotle, is choice, and the origin of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end:
That is why choice cannot exist either without thought and intellect or without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist without a combination of intellect and character (1798).
Choice is directed at some end, and this involves determining what that end should be and how it should be reached. We are responsible for the choices we make ...