do, it follows that its end will comprehend the ends of the other sciences, and will therefore be the good of mankind. For even if the good of an individual is identical with the good of a state, yet the good of the state is evidently greater and more perfect to attain or to preserve. For though the good of an individual by himself is something worth working for, to ensure the good of a nation or a state is nobler and more divine.
These, then, are the ends at which our inquiry aims, since it is political science, in one sense of that term (I.i.87).
To put it another way, politics is the context for the philosophical structure and development of ethics, a point that takes up the whole of I.2. In fact, Aristotle says that ethics and the development of individual ethics must precede the development of the state. Thus, the context for private ethical action is decidedly public, although the point is made that ethics and the development of ethical man must precede the development of the state. Like a musician who must practice the harp (i.e., apply rational faculty to the enterprise of making harp music) in order to be a good harpist, one who would participate in the highest and best expression of the state must apply rational faculties to the enterprise of making a community. It is the function of Nicomachean Ethics to prepare the way for eventual admittance into the body politic as a full partner. By the time Book I ends, Aristotle has laid before the reader a rational case for looking at the content of virtue, from individual moral makeup and attitude through the notion of virtue as enacted in the human community, with a view toward identifying virtuous praxis with happiness.
Aristotle's discussion of happiness evolves toward a discussion of virtue. He observes that the masses, cultured classes, and philosophers all agree that "living well" = "to be happy." On the other hand, "as to what happiness is they do not agree, nor do the...