the development of ethics. This means private ethical ac tion has public implications. The point is made that individual ethical development, which aims at the "good" of happiness, which in turn is virtue, must precede the development of the state. Individual development involves rec ognizing virtue, not merely as an abstraction but as a consequence of ethical ac tion. Similarly, the practical shape of the social/political community is a consequence of individuals' actions.
As for happiness, it "is an activity of soul" in accor dance with perfect virtue" (Aristotle, 1980, p. 25; emphasis added). This activity is itself a consequence of human reason habitually applied to action. Happiness therefore derives from reasoned, learned behavior, in "very youth," when the most fun damental of habits are formed: "it makes a very great differ ence, or rather all the difference" (Aristotle, 1980, p. 29).
Because virtue does not simply "happen" or arise out of nature, it follows that training in the virtues does not guar antee virtuous behavior. It is possible to choose whether to be virtuous or not. For happiness, the highest good, or moral virtue, the means to the highest good, to be realized (= made real), action choices must be informed by the participation and active engagement of human rationality. For actions to be con sistent with moral virtue, the "agent" of the action "must be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character" (Aristotle, 1980, p. 34).
To arrive at knowledge, choice, and a firm character, the soul, where virtue lodges, must be habituated, educated, trained. If an individual's rational faculty is not trained, or to say it more precisely in line with to Aristotle if a soul has not learned the habits of the good, then it is difficult to se...